Pencils Toilet 1&2 (spollers, spollers) · 10:33pm Nov 23rd, 2013
So I was gonna liveblog the episode on fimfic like I used to do with seasons 2 and 3, but I decided at the last second not to. I'm glad I did, because I wouldn't have had much to say. So here's a Skype conversation I just had instead.
[4:47:56 PM] Kuma: Best episodes of the season so far
[4:48:00 PM] Present Perfect: no doubt
[4:48:25 PM] Kuma: I thought it was fucking brilliant
[4:49:09 PM] Kuma: It's so good that none of /pony/'s criticism overlaps
[4:49:32 PM] Present Perfect: I didn't think it was amazing, really
[4:49:34 PM] Present Perfect: like, third-best opener
[4:49:40 PM] Kuma: Really?
[4:49:48 PM] Present Perfect: it's not as flawed as crystal kingdom but didn't have as much going on as the first two
[4:50:25 PM] Present Perfect: like
[4:50:33 PM] Present Perfect: it had that same emptiness as lots of season 3
[4:50:43 PM] Present Perfect: where it feels like an episode and a half had to be stretched to two
[4:50:56 PM] Present Perfect: versus, say, MMC, which was at least an episode and a half condensed into one
[4:52:25 PM] Kuma: Really?
[4:52:38 PM] Kuma: After the first episode ended, I was worried that they might have rushed it
[4:52:48 PM] Present Perfect: nah, not enough was going on
[4:52:51 PM] Present Perfect: scenes were taking too long
[4:53:09 PM] Present Perfect: and don't get me started on "We will go into le forest/okay I will leave/oh now I must go back again"
[4:53:41 PM] Present Perfect: I don't hate it at all, it's pretty good and I really appreciate all the backstory (I could taste a thousand fanons crying out their last, final breaths), but it was just kind of okay
[4:53:53 PM] Present Perfect: I think this will be season 3 redux
[4:54:00 PM] Present Perfect: HOPEFULLY without the really low points
[4:54:07 PM] Present Perfect: but Polsky's still on, right? :|
[4:54:31 PM] Present Perfect: granted, we also seem to be getting into some kind of story arc and I am VERY excited about this
[4:54:43 PM] Present Perfect: mostly just that it's arc, not so much what's actually goingg on
[4:55:20 PM] Kuma looks up what episode Polsky's written
[4:55:28 PM] Kuma: Do you -want- him to be still on, or...?
[4:55:37 PM] Sethisto: wow
[4:55:39 PM] Sethisto: all this fanart
[4:55:42 PM] Sethisto: is porn
[4:55:43 PM] Present Perfect: no, he's ass
[4:55:50 PM] Sethisto: like literally there is so little non pornographic art fromt his episode
[4:55:57 PM] Sethisto: every vine on the planet is invading every pony hole on the planet
[4:55:58 PM] Present Perfect: seth it was all tentacle rape
[4:55:59 PM] Present Perfect: all of it
[4:56:02 PM] Present Perfect: the whole episode was porn
[4:56:56 PM] Present Perfect: and let's not forget "oh, we need DeLancie in this one, too"
[4:58:28 PM] Kuma: Still think the pacing was more or less on-target
[4:58:34 PM] Present Perfect: it was so slow though
[4:58:46 PM] midnight shadow: it could have done with a third part, and a bit of tweaking in the first part
[4:59:01 PM] Present Perfect: the first part was definitely slower
[4:59:38 PM] midnight shadow: it was
[4:59:54 PM] midnight shadow: and the second part was all hurryupwehavetogogetthethingfromtheplacetodothething
[5:00:15 PM] Present Perfect: I liked the backstory though, even if they spent a little too much time with it
[5:00:30 PM] Present Perfect: it was "drink the macguffin juice or we literally have no episode"
[5:00:38 PM] Amacita: ^
[5:00:45 PM] Present Perfect: "and again"
[5:00:47 PM] Present Perfect: "and again"
[5:00:51 PM] Present Perfect: "and one more time"
[5:00:53 PM] Kuma: Macguffin juice coulda been done better
[5:00:59 PM] Present Perfect: it was so dumb
[5:01:09 PM] Present Perfect: I'd rather she had visions of the past while going through the everfree
[5:01:12 PM] Present Perfect: or like, all of them
[5:01:23 PM] Present Perfect: though that would break the new Twilight Is Only Character rule
[5:01:40 PM] Present Perfect: also she still has her wings and i'm slightly mad
[5:01:48 PM] Present Perfect: also wtf was the lesson of this episode or are we not doing those anymore
[5:01:56 PM] Present Perfect: also they had to learn about friendship again
[5:02:07 PM] Present Perfect: also aj was REALLY FOCUSED on the elements
[5:02:33 PM] Present Perfect: it's like goddammit, I tell authors all the time not to have the characters define themselves by the elements
[5:02:40 PM] Present Perfect: show, stop making me look like a tool
[5:02:51 PM] Present Perfect: I don't think I'm going to be satisfied by anything this season :B
And I probably won't. I don't think anyone can lead this show like Lauren Faust. She set the bar high and the team have yet to reach it for more than one episode at a time. Hopefully, with more episodes this time around, that will mean more chances to score big (and yes, more chances to fail hard, but I'm trying to be optimistic).
And how about that story arc setup, eh? Macguffin hunt! :D Not that it's a great plot, but like I said, I'm just happy they're doing this. Even if it's resolved in episode three (which, you'll recall, is about the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters), that's fine by me. :) Granted, I do hope it doesn't take 26 episodes for them to find six fucking things. :|
So, dat backstory. EUH is no longer canon (or won't be once it's done), but I'm not putting an AU tag on it because I had a plan for this contingency. :V Did anyone notice the Elements each sister used? Luna had Loyalty, Honesty and Laughter (there goes my headcanon), which gave Celestia Generosity, Kindness and Magic. (I would have switched Laughter and Magic, so that's actually not so bad.) I'm down with the Tree of Harmony and I like the way it looks. I definitely like the backstory for the Everfree Forest, such as we got. I really loved Twilight maring the fuck up to take charge of the search (such as she did), though I do wish they'd explored her princesshood in a little more depth (not like that, get your mind out of the gutter).
I think what I didn't like so much about these were the lack of distinct character moments. It was focused too much on our One and Only Main Character Sparkle. I do hope that "Frosting means yes" takes off as a meme; that was definitely memorable. There were a couple of shipping moments too, but nothing major, and a lot of the humor felt really forced.
Oh, and how about that new intro? I missed it the first time, and just caught the picture the second time, but oh man, that was nice. :D But again, it's the little things making me happy rather than the big things. :B Oh well. In hindsight, the season openers have never been my favorites, so hopefully that means this one's no different. Here's to season 4.
I'm still laughing about McCarthy's claim at the end of S3 that the start of S4 would shut us all up about Twilicorn.
If that was her idea of shutting us up, man, I understand the flaws in her writing better than I thought.
Oh, did you notice she got co-producer credit with Jayson now, as well as story editor and 'written by'? I hate to seem like I'm singling someone out, but every time the show goes downhill, one set of fingerprints is all over it...
I think the lack of the rest of the Mane Six being actually there in any real capacity was one of the weakest things about this opener. I liked it overall. I liked it a lot, but if they had been removed, it wouldn't have affected anything except that Twilight would have had to carry all the elements there by herself. I guess they had to activate them or whatever, but they basically did a bunch of nothing in both the episodes.
Man, you wring all the optimism out of it, don't you? Lemme put my thoughts this way: If presentperfect were reviewing these episodes in fanfic form, I think he would stick a giant "not recommended" at the bottom. As it stands, all I can really praise is the animation. All the elements of a good story were there, but somewhere between the writers and the animators, enough got cut to make it 'meh'.
But I've always thought the show was hit or miss. Fanfics are best poniporn. :v
Out of curiosity, since I logged into Fimfic with 21 notes, almost all of which were S4 blogs, here's what Fimfiction is saying about this episode:
I'm not mad at all
I couldn't watch it
actually really fucking good
I find myself uncomfortable watching it
That was AMAZE
I don't have the Hub anymore
it was fucking incredible
(DGD Davidson is gonna be disappointed :V)
That was pretty good
THAT WAS AMAZING!
It was good, man
I liked it.
I absolutely LOVED this premiere
I was so satisfied
I was over-the-moon happy
probably my favorite series opener
It was okay
So trending towards good/amazing, it seems! For the record, the best moment for me was the death of the New Lunar Republic. :D Also did anyone notice how a year has finally passed since season one? :V
1533770
Nah, I'd give this a Vague probably. Also at least two people have more negative view than me, one of which I have apparently not yet seen >.>
I kind of felt there was a friendship lesson here. It just wasn't a 'Dear Princess Celestia' format because Twilight is no longer her student. But Applejack was talking about how they all have this special bond because of the elements and because of their past and Twilight said how their bond was because of friendship and how they feel about each other. I felt that was the lesson, that friendship isn't about the past or some connecting object/thing, but about feelings and whatever. I may be off base though.
1533804
PP. It's probably the best opener, because the others kinda all sucked :V. Check what I compare it to.
>also wtf was the lesson of this episode or are we not doing those anymore
They haven't done those since s2.
The overarching story arc is going to annoy me. Especially if every episode has to fit into the arc. That completely changes the show. I liked the ep, but I didn't S1-like it.
Basically, we authors here on FimFiction have spent years learning all about pacing, show verses tell, and how-to-make-exposition-not-boring, and the script writers just threw it out and took the lazy route. That's literally what happened here, so PP is is (regrettably, of course) almost entirely correct in his appraisal.
That said, aside from storytelling, they did a full-on backstory show and didn't to anything dumb. Frankly, I'm surprised; I can't say I had any faith in them to pull that off. Also, of course, the fact that most of my take on the cannon backstory was closer than it had any right to be is just wonderful. Two-parter down and Shades of Grey still stands, story-wise. Win.
-M
The YouTube vid does not have the openers so I will have to wait to see it...
Otherwise I more or less agree with your analysis but in general don't understand why you consider most of these things negatives. All the things you complain abaout I think made the episode better. You might be approaching things from too much of a literary, ficcer, troper, fandom perspective. I watch every episode as if in a bubble, with no fics, no fandom, no literary investment. Just as a guy watching a cartoon he likes. I would daresay that this difference in perspective is why you hold S1 in high esteem.
My issues were more along the lines of the moments that scream "KIDS' SHOW" and a lot of glossed over character and plot subtext making everything a bit shallow. I also think the writers have been playing too much Okami.
1534419
Well, it is a Megan McCarthy two-parter, which means that it has major structural problems; the lady cannot write anything more than 22 minutes long. Equestria Girls is the worst thing she's ever done because it is the LONGEST thing she's ever done, while all three of her two-parters are blah.
The problem is that she has no concept of plot and pacing on these sorts of episodes; I'm not sure if the adventure aspect also throws her for a loop, but each of the episodes has had fairly large issues.
All three had fairly empty first episodes, and the actual plot not starting until the second half of the episode. PTS is actually the worst in this regard, as the actual plot of the episode doesn't start until 7 minutes into the second part, meaning she had less than 14 minutes to resolve the ENTIRE PLOT.
The really, really stupid thing though is that the episode had three major things to hit on:
1) How Twilight being a princess affected her friendships.
2) What the elements of harmony mean to her friends and Equestria.
3) Is Discord actually a good guy now?
3 is pretty well answered with "no"; he is clearly the bad guy, though why he gives away that he was behind the seeds... that just makes no sense.
1 and 2, however, are utterly failed at, because in the last 14 minutes she fails to address either properly. The breakup-and-come-back-together bit (which was done with like, 10 minutes left in the episode) made no sense at all, was horribly out of character, and was reversed within 70 seconds. What the heck was the point of it? Nothing, that's what. It was supposed to address the issue and UTTERLY FAILED. To actually properly address the issue, what SHOULD have been done is them leaving Twilight in Ponyville to begin with, and have Twilight or Applejack or Discord suggest it outside of the forest, rather than the extremely stupid in-episode justification. Is it reasonable? Yes. Is it reasonable once she's already in the middle of the forest to send her back by herself? Heck no. The whole thing is contrived, and doesn't have enough space to actually breathe.
The other problem is that the elements of harmony are barely even dealt with at all; "Oh we need to stick them back in the tree" "No" "Yes" "Okay." Seriously? That's the best you could do? There was no time left at that point... but, well, that's because of the garbage that was stuck in there.
I wrote a blog entry about the episode and what went wrong, and how to fix it.
The irony is that fixing it wouldn't have even been all that hard; the basic idea was sound, they just needed to cut the garbage from the first half, get all the flashbacks in by the halfway point, then spent the second half properly. The idea behind the episode was fine, and the flashbacks worked just fine because they didn't have to be part of the greater story.
But like the changeling fight in ACW, the highlight of the episode - the flashbacks - are really mostly a shaggy dog story, as the only part that matters is the tree of harmony. The castle destruction sequence would have been reasonable had it ever been noted that the tree of harmony was underneath the castle in the flashbacks... but it wasn't.
1534019
As I just read in this journal, the implication is "They don't need to rely on these anymore because their friendship is the true focus", however much you want to take that as a statement from the writers or not. Has given me a much better perspective.
1534274
I'm hoping the arc will be six, maybe seven episodes, potentially over the course of twice as many episodes. The next episode is almost 100% guaranteed to be part of it. Or they could condense it down to four, three or even two. I mean, season 1 had the Gala arc, and it was three episodes and handled very delicately.
Of course Faust was there and she can do no fucking wrong.I've wanted an arc for a while, and I think they've given themselves leave to both do an arc and still have plenty of room for non-arc episodes this season. (Honest to god, if it takes all season to find six fucking keys, I will not be happy. That's why I quit watching Inu Yasha early on.)1534419
This goes a long way to me not hating the episodes.
1534492
Guilty. Blame season 3 and/or the Long Summer of No Pony. I can't remember what it's like to come at this show with fresh eyes anymore; everything is analyzed and nitpicked from the get-go, which doesn't leave a whole lot of room for enjoyment. Of course, every now and then you'll get someone pointing out something you missed, like how Twilight's freakout scene establishes that she's still the same old Twilight despite having just barked royal orders at a pair of guards. I mean, that's pretty great right there, but as I was watching, it irritated me. That's why I always try to rewatch the episodes the week after they air, and I'll definitely do a season wrap-up and reevaluation post next year, don't you worry.
1534503
I like this post.
1534492
Well. I still watch S1 regularly. I try to do full series rewatches, but every time i get midway through s2 i lose interest.
Anyway, I am capable of ignoring fanon to watch episodes, but I still have the concepts of who each character is that I did glean from the show, and sometimes they shit all over that (MWD). Anyway, I really dislike the moments of super-kiddy stuff too.
1535022
True! But! And this is **SUPER IMPORTANT** you could watch ANY ONE of those three episodes and not have seen the others, and they are still good. Both in the fun department and the solitary story department. The show had soft canon. There was no bullshit like Trixie returning or Q coming back. I liked the self contained episodes. As I've said before, MLP does slice of life very well. It doesn't do action/adventure so well.
1534419
It tots violates my canon: I always had Pinkie down as more into spreadable chocolate than frosting. But if you mix cream WITH chocolate and add some sugar, you get frosting. So I guess I assume she just started making puddles on the floor over chocolate frosting? HEADCANON RESTOED
1535293
Personally I feel like the main draw of the show for me when I started was also the main focus of the show, both in terms of plot and objective (selling toys) which was the characters.
Which is why I love fics. They tell stories I enjoy with the characters I love.
But midway through S2 I guess they felt that their characterization work was pretty thorough (the only new character development since then has been for the CMC) Everyone loved the characters and bought their toys, so it was time to play around with some storytelling to keep the show fresh and utilize those characters.
Of course this is where things got messy, especially for the FiMFiction demographic. Because "THEY TOOK OUR JOBS!" and, well... honestly aren't as good at it as we are.
But that is because we write (and by we I mean you) for adults and young adults. They write for small children so their storytelling will never be truly as good as ours.
I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I'm just not cut out to be a critic. We can all agree that there's a pretty clear divide between concept and execution, right? It seems to me that the execution is mostly what people are taking issue with, and usually that's not something I notice on my own. If I really like the concept, I tend to ignore a lot of shortcomings and technical issues with the story.
The concept I was satisfied with here was that, contrary to the most hyperbolic corners of the fandom, Twilight isn't going to radically become another pony and abandon her friends for her new royal position, etc, is probably a result of reduced expectations. (I can sort of see the point about Twilight hogging the spotlight in multi-part episodes, now that I think about it, but they're still a small percentage of content for now.) Ever since I first heard the leak about Twilicorn, I've let opinions like the blog above get to me and have come to expect the worst, then feel elation when it doesn't come, then get brought down to earth and start the cycle all over again. Other ideas I liked included Discord teaching a lesson in the trolliest way he could; the conflict stemming from a toy that Discord left lying around, only for it to pop up when he didn't need it anymore (an idea I've thought of before); and having Twilight faced with the "friends or leadership" choice and prioritizing her friends (though I also wish more time was spent on that).
I admit that I am a bit disappointed that Discord neglected Fluttershy in this episode, and I'm honestly a bit confused as to what his motivation is at this point. (People have already made meta-commentary that this ambiguity is consistent with Discord's chaotic nature, and I don't know what to say to that, aside from UUUUUUGGGGGH.) Discord forgetting Fluttershy's name (or maybe he was just kidding about that, who knows) and which pony he's supposed to have a burgeoning friendship with doesn't really mesh with his shame at having disappointed her in the other episode, which in turn reminds me of the discrepancy between Canterlot Wedding and Lesson Zero. I do have some sort of idea as to what Discord's mindset is, but it's an educated guess and unlike Twilicorn, I still haven't been sufficiently assured that him being around won't break the show somehow.
So yeah, once again I'm cooling down on this, but I don't regret watching it at all and I'm still going to say that this was better than Crystal Empire, Canterlot Wedding, and Equestria Girls. Sorry if this is a bit rushed, but I had to get all of these thoughts down because I could already feel the details of the episode blurring together in my head.
1534503
I couldn't help but notice that Discord only admitted that after he heard that the only thing that could punish him in any real way was unavailable. I'm guessing he wanted to tease Twilight again, but it is just a guess.
Your blog post that you linked was one of the most in-depth articles I've ever seen, and I'm envious of how you think and how well you can articulate and organize your thoughts. I hope I can hear more of that from you in the future.
1535322
Sadly, I think you're right.
1534503
>The irony is that fixing it wouldn't have even been all that hard
That's the infuriating thing about almost all of S3. Just a tad more love and effort and it would have been amazing. Nothing shows this more than Wonder Bolt Academy. I WANT to love it, but the shitty pacing and writing makes it hard to. It's one of the few episodes where I need my headcanon (e.g. Pinkie Dash) to actually enjoy the show.
1535771
Well, fixing the plot and pacing problems in TPS is fairly easy by comparison to some things, though one of the major problems (the lack of "golden moments") is much harder to rectify - but an episode without any golden moments, but which is competently executed (The Mare In the Moon) is, at least, decent.
Wonderbolts Academy was an okay episode for me; I put it as a middle of the road episode, much like Mare in the Moon, but it is another episode which is really lacking in golden moments as well. There is no moment in that episode which is really quotable or even particularly memorable, but none of it was actually bad, and the animators managed to keep us (well, me at least) interested. I never felt like the episode was losing me, and it was interesting enough that I didn't get bored watching it.
Adding the extra spark that makes something wonderful is a lot harder, but making something which is at least competently plotted and paced isn't that hard, and here, we can actually see fairly easy ways that they could have fixed the episode that don't even require extra scenes - heck, which potentially allows them to drop scenes.
Fixing something like TCE is, ironically, harder than fixing TPS, because while TCE may have been kind of boring, it didn't have any really glaring flaws - the problem with it is just that it is empty, which means that it needed more of those "golden moments", which are the hardest thing to construct. "I made it work" is wonderful, and the jousting and the tower visions were solid, but there is a lot, particularly in the first half of the episode, which is eminently forgettable; it is hard to believe that the first half of TCE has so little actually happen in it. But TCE doesn't have anything in it which is especially rushed; TCE just is too long for the amount of interesting content it has. TPS has the right amount of content, but still manages to mess it up by spending too much time on nothing and too little time on what actually matters.
Fixing something like ACW would be massively harder and require a major overhaul of the episode. TPS's problem is time allocation and, to some extent, scene ordering (the split-up bit was bad, but had it come earlier, it could have worked just fine and actually had some real impact); ACW, on the other hand, suffers from the problem of needing to characterize Cadance and Shining Armor as well as make the battle against the changelings relevant, but the battle involves the mane six which, quite frankly, have no real role in the episode apart from Twilight. To actually make the audience care about Cadance (which is absolutely vital as she is the hero of the episode, or at least one of the two heroes) would require major reworking of the episode to give her more screen time, and most likely that would involve having to get rid of the mane six, but if you get rid of the mane six you get rid of the changeling fight, one of the best parts of the episode... the whole story has a lot of issues, but because it is all interlinked, fiddling with them could easily mess up other things which are important to keep.
1535460
There's nothing wrong with enjoying an episode for what it is. That being said, it is worth remembering we haven't had pony for a while, so everything is likely to taste that much sweeter, so don't get too disappointed if it isn't quite as good on the second run through.
As far as teasing Twilight - he definitely did want to tease her. The issue is that, really, from the standpoint of the plot, it doesn't really matter all that much and it makes the conclusion a fair bit longer. I just don't think it really needed to be in the episode. It could have lead to interesting speculation (someone would have inevitably noticed those black things he was eating were very strange, and someone might have figured it out) and they could have used it as a little tweak to Twilight's nose at some later point or as an additional cause for suspicion in some other later episode. In the context of the actual episode itself, it didn't really matter where the vines came from, and the Tree of Harmony itself was explained as holding back the growth of things around it in Celestia's flashback - that was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the vines. Explaining everything isn't actually a good thing; what is important is to hit on the things that really matter. I'm happy to handwave away things like day and night happening at the same time - it doesn't really make sense, but whatever, it is a cool visual and it works to show that things are wrong in the world.
The time would have been better spent on fixing some of the pacing issues with the second half, or adding in funny bits, or heck, even giving Pinkie Pie a scene somewhere in there.
As far as doom and gloom goes - I pay it little heed. The show hasn't really gotten better or worse over time, and in my eyes each season has been about the same average quality level as the last. The whole princess panic thing was, as you saw, quite silly - they aren't going to fundamentally change the show just because Twilight is a princess, though it is an important bit of character development. Honestly, I'm glad that they're WILLING to shake things up and keep them from getting stale - it means that Rainbow Dash actually becoming a Wonderbolt in the course of the show is a real possibility, and that characters like Rarity can experience real success.
I'm looking forward to the 22 minute episodes, which have historically been the strongest bits of the show anyway.
Admittedly, I am really hoping that McCarthy doesn't have a two-parter finale - she did fine with her 22 minute episodes (indeed, her 22 minute episodes are among the better ones in the show, up there with Larson's high average) and I would like to see more of that from her in the future, rather than these attempts at adventure which don't really work as well as they should.
I was happy to hear you appreciated my blog entry, though. I do enjoy doing analysis like that.
1535460
The show is very good at concepts, minus a few stinkers like Spike at Your Service, but execution has always been all over the board, and that's generally why people react so strongly to episodes they dislike. "This could have been SO GOOD but they fucked it up!"
I was very pleased with this. I think it's what McCarthy was talking about after S3. I guess it also means Twilicorn isn't going away.
There's a big difference between Twilight as POV character, like in S1, and Twilight as the only character who is important. It didn't bother me as much in A Canterlot Wedding (because they all got overshadowed by Cadence), but that's a good example of where it began.
Don't tell anyone this is my favorite part of these episodes. <.< I'm still sore that they're holding onto Discord as a recurring character and don't want to admit to liking his role here.
But seriously, Discord using his "taunt ponies and get in their heads" routine to actually impart good advice? That's amazing.
1536018
Bingo.
I'll posit that it would have worked better if they'd warned her out of going into the Everfree in the first place, before they went in. Something could have attacked them in Ponyville, at the forest's edge, and prompted the same reaction.
Also your analysis of ACW ohmygodimnotalone
I would posit, however, that the show is getting worse over time. Season 3's best episode, Sleepless in Ponyville, while completely sound in storytelling and characterization, still lacks those "golden moments" you speak of, which bad episodes, even Spike at Your Service, had. If the best they can do is "good enough", that's not good.
1536128
I'd like to be able to pull it off like that, but I don't know how to do it all that well, as I implied. I've recently been trying to do write-ups of TV show episodes (for Community, and hopefully later Arrested Development and Doctor Who). Previously I've done chapter-by-chapter write-ups of a couple of books and pony fanfiction. My hope is that if I keep doing it from time to time I'll just learn to notice things.
Part of me wonders whether some of the issues/conflicts surrounding Twilight and her friends struggling with her new position as princess seemed somewhat underwhelming in this episode because we've spent nine months reading fanfics about these issues. Even if the show focused an entire two parter on this issue, I don't know if it could addess the issue as in depth as a novel-length fanfiction. In other words, is fanfiction ruining our enjoyment of the show?
After thinking way to hard about the issue, I've decided that the episode tells us that sometimes, in creating the solutions to our problems, we sow the seeds of our future destruction (probably not what the writers were going for, but if you squint hard enough... maybe).
1536242
Twilight has been the protagonist since the first episode of the first season, and she has always been the focus of all the two-parters. A lot of people forgot this, probably because of the way that Mare in the Moon and The Return of Harmony are arranged, but ultimately, if you actually look at agency in the plot, Twilight's friends have basically been her sidekicks in those episodes since the very beginning. Several of the "trials" in Mare in the Moon were stretches to begin with, and MA Larson managed to give all the mane six considerable screen time in The Return of Harmony even though, at the heart of the story, it was Twilight who solved the whole situation, pretty much on her own.
PTS actually gave the rest of the mane six more agency than they've had in such episodes historically; Applejack basically ended up leading the rest of the team for a while, and they rescued Twilight from the plants in a way that actually was reasonable (even if Twilight yet again forgot that she can teleport - that girl needs like, a panic checklist. Step one: teleport away. That gives me an idea for a story, actually...).
She does have the most focus episodes of anyone... but that's not terribly surprising, given she is the main character (as opposed to a main character).
Honestly, I don't know if they even needed to be attacked to bring up the issue; I think it actually would have been more effective if they had had the argument, gone into the woods, gotten attacked and overcome it, then go all the way to the Tree of Harmony and them trying to get the vines off, and cutting back to Twilight in town and her deciding to go after them because she wasn't actually acting as a leader in town would have worked a lot better, as it would have given more separation time and more time for it to really sink in. Cuts back to the rest of the main cast getting battered away by the vines/giving up and realizing that they need Twilight and should never have sent her back, cue Spike stumbling down the stairs and telling them that Twilight was getting attacked. Gives more time for the separation to sink in and also makes her (and their) choice and realization feel more meaningful.
I have a ranked order document which lists my personal ratings on rewatch of... well, every episode in the series, both in a 1-5 scale (where 1 is the worst and 5 is the best for the series) as well as rank order (so my absolute favorite is at the top of the list, and my absolute least favorite on the bottom).
The best episode of season 3 was Magical Mystery Cure, a fun musical episode that had every one of the mane six get some screentime, lots of nice songs, some fun little lines/visual humor, and suchlike. I felt like the episode had some really good time in it, and while the episode does have too long of a conclusion (most of the scene in Canterlot could have been cut; Celestia had already said everything that needed to be said), the episode is otherwise extremely solid and very tightly packed and cut. I've probably watched it more than any other episode in the series, with the possible exception of my other favorite episode, Suited for Success.
Not that Sleepless in Ponyville was a bad episode by any means; it was not (I put it at a 4/5, so above average). But I generally found season 3 to be pretty enjoyable, and only put three episodes down into the 1s from it, of which one (SAYS) was actively bad, while TCE was just bland and forgettable (seriously, it still amazes me how long part 1 of that episode is; every time I see it, I am shocked that there is so much time spent on so little). The rest all rated 3s or above, which puts the season average at... 3. Which is pretty much exactly what the other season averages were, which indicates that there isn't really a huge amount of cluminess.
Were there fewer golden moments in season 3? I dunno. There was less of the really amazing dialogue we saw sometimes, like the scene outside Rarity's door in Suited for Success, or some of the conversations in Over a Barrel... but honestly the really amazing dialogue isn't actually all that common in the show to begin with, and in a half season, there are half as many opportunities for it. Conversely, I felt like Bad Seed, Raise This barn, Morning In Ponyville, What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me, and A True, True Friend were very enjoyable, whereas if you go back to season 1, a much longer season, you've got the Evil Enchantress beat poetry, Art of the Dress, the Hush Now Lullabye, Winter Wrap-Up, Pinkie Pie's Singing Telegram, and At The Gala as the really high tier songs... which is the same number, in twice as many episodes. Is that a bad thing? No, it just means the seasons were strong in different areas, I think. Season 1's Cutie Mark Crusaders were the weakest part of the show, whereas now, I look forward to them getting episodes.
1536270
Honestly, I found that the biggest thing that helps me on analysis is having studied the underlying theories and kind of drawn connections between various media.
1536308
I don't think so. The reality is that a novel-length fanfiction is utterly different from a 22 minute episode of a TV show, and really, I think the punchiest things are shorter rather than longer - saying in 22 minutes what someone else takes you four hours to read is a big difference. Comparing, say, Suited for Success or Magical Mystery Cure or Party of One to fanfics is not really healthy, because they're not the same thing, nor are they meant to be.
1536326
I keep trying to find more places to learn those theories from, but it seems the best I can do is to get lucky and find analytical blogs or internet commentators. I'm sure there are actual books on the subject, but I haven't read much of any of them.
1536326
If you ask me, MMC was a good/great episode and a meh/bad episode smashed together into 22 minutes' worth of wtf.
Raritya and AJ said Darling and Sugarcube more often than normal as well. That justifies fanfics where they say that constantly right?
> Luna had Loyalty, Honesty and Laughter (there goes my headcanon)
Incoming nerd rage:
Granted, Magic = Friendship and Celestia is supposed to be the series
Mary Sueexemplar of that virtue, but think of the benefits of Luna as Magic.One, it sets up a sort of Morningstar scenario, where the chosen one becomes the one to fall the farthest, and that has a lot of powerful thematic implications they threw away.
Two, Luna is clearly (both thematically and with canon behavior in her appearances so far) very much more an introverted Twilight-style figure, and drawing those parallels stronger not only offers an embarrassing amount of plot and a reason to connect Twilight with a second mentor, but also just makes sense with the shy, ignored one having all the time to study.
Three, Trollestia is so clearly Laughter it's embarrassing, and that allows them to swap just two elements and the rest are already reasonable.
1539836
Yeah, Trollestia = Laughter is pretty much the entire basis for that idea. She's kind and generous as well, and honesty at the very least fits Luna (rather than an "okay, and she gets the other three"). Placing Magic is really up to the viewer but OH WELL NOT NO MORE I GUESS
1540077
> honesty at the very least fits Luna
Is this "Element of Honesty" Honesty or "Applejack, most loyal and dependable of ponies" Honesty?
Because, while I do not disagree with Luna being Honesty (my own independently derived headcanon matches yours), if I only had to assign her a single Element (and Friendship had to go to Celestia to appease the corporate overseers), it would be Loyalty. That's because fate loves irony, and casting down her Element to become Nightmare Moon after enduring generations of neglect in her sister's shadow is just so thematically appropriate on so many levels. I'm curious to hear what it is we've seen about her that got your brain running to Honesty first!
1540360
She's got the same blunt forthrightness as Rainbow Dash in your recent journal. At least, I felt that from Luna Eclipsed; Sleepless maybe muddles the issue.
Of course, what would be great is if Celestia was Honesty and Luna was Kindness. She's the one who goes into nightmares to try and ease the suffering of the dreamers, after all. Celestia seems to be a beacon of kindness, but she's the one who used to be the hard-assed, cold-eyed ruler who would do what it took to get the job done. It was only after banishing her sister, the true font of kindness in Equestria, that she realized what was missing in her life and cultivated a careful facade over the intervening millennium.
But yeah, Luna's definitely Loyalty over Generosity at least.
1542113
Interesting take. When I finally get around to posting my Haylander stories, I have Luna as Magic and Celestia as Kindness (with four other historical OCs to round out the original set), though the idea that C. had to develop it to become the ruler we know also has a lot of promise.
1545440
I literally just came up with that as I was writing it. I think it's got a lot of potential for a lengthy character development piece.