FiM's direction in Season Two · 1:25am May 14th, 2012
So, I was just reading Around the Bend, which is basically a vehicle for Chatoyance to explore how some episodes and events in season two seemed to break the world setting and characters that had been established in season one. That story led me to discover her blog entries on this subject, which I wish I'd seen earlier. I've just been reviewing those blog entries, and I agree with most of what I find in them.
Season two has indeed annoyed me several times by breaking my views of the setting and characters (mostly the setting, though). For example: The hydro dam.... I could sort of explain away. That is 1880s technology, so it's not entirely anachronistic. Besides, it might be broadcasting thaumic energy to magical devices all over ponyville, who can say? The 1950s educational film? It was funny and worked very well to set up the story, but it definitely didn't belong in their world.
The Looney Tunes influence? erm... I got some laughs out of those gags, but ultimately Chatoyance is right -- they shouldn't break the FiM world for a laugh. I'm a fan of both the new Looney Tunes Show and the new Thundercats show -- but if FiM is going anywhere, I'd rather see it evolve in the Thundercats direction. More epic, less slapstick, please! (Incidentally, even though I enjoy Thundercats very much, I feel no urge to write fanfics about them.)
I guess I'm more tolerant than Chatoyance, because most of these issues only nagged at me a little, right up until the season finale. That's the one that really ground my gears. It was Cadence showing up as an alicorn, with no explanation and the implication that some number of unknown alicorns (at least one, possibly many more) have been wandering around for the last two years without us ever seeing a hint of them. This was clearly ordered by Hasbro's toy department.
Well, Hasbro pays the bills. They can do things like that. However, they don't pay my bills, and I don't have to swallow it. I guess this takes us back to where it all started with The End of the Creator-Driven Era in TV Animation. Now we know the answer, and it's not good.
The one big area where I differ from Chatoyance is her characterization of Equestria as Heaven (heaven with manticores, really?) and Celestia and Luna as literal goddesses. I've never viewed them that way, and I'd prefer not to. I think making them literally divine actually diminishes them as characters. To me, an eternal manifestation of the divine that happens to bear a superficial resemblance to mere mortal ponies is not particularly interesting. As mortals (albeit ageless ones) they're much easier to relate to, and both their accomplishments and their weaknesses are more meaningful.
Chatoyance seems to care a great deal about Celestia controlling the sun and moon. I thought it seemed obvious starting from episode one that Equestria's sun and moon are nothing like ours. Pony Universe just isn't put together like Human Universe. I feel like Chatoyance is trying to force a modern scientific view of cosmology onto a setting that is deliberately naive or disingenuous toward such views. I figure their sun and moon are relatively small objects controlled by a pre-existing enchantment over the land -- and the Hearth Warming story dovetailed nicely into that theory, since it told of the unicorns controlling them in earlier times.
Likewise, I wasn't bothered too much when Queen Chrysalis struck down Celestia. Celestia is a great leader with centuries of experience and wisdom: extraordinarily knowledgeable of all things arcane, beautiful, compassionate, devoted to her people and beloved by them. That doesn't mean she's always going to win at a brawl or the magical equivalent of arm wrestling. This once again dovetailed nicely with my view of how FiM World works.
But Cadence? Erm. No. In any story I write from here on out, if she appears or is referred to at all, she's going to be a unicorn with NO WINGS. Problem solved, Q.E.D.
I'm actually surprised that I didn't mind much Cadance being a alicorn. Sure, it's annoying that they offer no explanaition what so ever, but I'm sure we can come up with some. After all, I'm yet to read a story that explains Celestia/Luna being alicorn to begin with. (Aside from my own, but I'm sure they exist somewhere)
Cadance is of the same bloodline as Celestia/Luna, so with some DNA twist, it could make sense.
The dam isn't such a problem, I didn't remember any indication that it was an electric one. Dam can be built simply to hold or direct water.
What did pissed me off in Season Two was the out of character ponies. I think the only one that stayed stable was Spike. Lot of people enjoyed Lesson Zero... I did not. It troubled me and confused me more than made me laugh. It was as if Twilight had numerous major mental illness that were all showing up at once. Same thing with Putting your Hoof Down.
Mare-Do-Well, in my opinion, was fitting for Rainbow's bragging character, but again it was emplified to derision. And yes, they did messed up Ponyville topology to find life threatening situations, with a bit more work, they could have done it without messing it up. But the crane wasn't that much out of place, after all, the Flim Flam brothers had some kind of powered vehicule and nobody shouted about that.
But all ponies, I hated them in the Season 2 finale when they shut down Twilight when she claimed Cadance was evil. Sure, her speech was a bit messy, but how could they not listen to her even a little, after all what they lived? Celestia was a pure bitch and didn't even apologize. (Hell, I even wrote a story about that crap) New pony out of nowhere, trust new pony over your friends.
The problem I see, it is as if the writer truly did episodes without any links to the others. As if the ponies never learned anything previously.
114678
OK, those are some good observations. I should mention that I came into FiM partway through season two, so I didn't have time to absorb and internalize season one first. So... Maybe that's why some of the characterization issues didn't strike me as hard.
As I recall, the dam did have some sort of structure that outwardly looked like a power station, so it wasn't just a flood-control dam.
> After all, I'm yet to read a story that explains Celestia/Luna being alicorn to begin with.
Thanks for reminding me... I have one in progress that I should really be working on today. Hint: It involves timey-wimey stuff. And amnimorphic spells. And Pinkie Pie.
I try and keep a level head with this kind of thing and generally think that it's the prerogative of the team to be able to retcon at will. I will admit some of the MWW episodes irked me.
The dam I didn't mind, since even season 01 has shown random electronics. The cliff... not so much. If it was shown again in some other show, even in the background, I would then most likely be fine with it... it's just retconned in, fair play. Problem is, it is nowhere to be seen after that one superhero moment. The dam shows up again a few times (admittedly, only in MWW episodes) and I can route around that in headcanon.
Personally, I like Cadence. I always thought that there were alicorns for all kinds of things, and this really gives a hint that there is. Plus, it's not exactly like we were given much (any) information about the periods where Cadence was placed beforehand, so it's not even a retcon, just a bit of a sudden "Oh by the way, this happened way back when".
114678
>But all ponies, I hated them in the Season 2 finale when they shut down Twilight when she claimed Cadance was evil. Sure, her speech was a bit messy, but how could they not listen to her even a little, after all what they lived? Celestia was a pure bitch and didn't even apologize.
Now I think you have a point, but I am going to make some quotes now. I want you to imagine that you are both a magical pone and a guest at the wedding and then all of a sudden the groom's sister (who is supposed to be best man) barges in and yells this:
"I'm not going to stand next to her, and neither should you! You have to listen to me!" (at this point she physically throws her friends away from her) "I've got something to say. She's evil! She's been horrible to my friends, she's obviously done something to her bridesmaids, and if that wasn't enough, she cast a spell on my brother that made his eyes go all [funny]!"
And then the groom himself comes up with reasonable explanations for everything she just accused the bride of doing.
Honestly, I don't care how strong friends you are, if that happens you would get pissed off with that girl. And you forget that this is basically a repeat of what the friends tried to talk to her about calmly the previous night (she refused to listen to their point of view and left the table IIRC), except with the added drama of a public scene.
And as for Celestia, all she said was "You have a lot to think about." You wouldn't apologise to a child when you tell it off for throwing a loud tantrum in the street, would you? Why would Celestia apologise to Twilight?
115112 I meant after she was proven right about the wrong Cadance. Nobody apologized to Twilight for being rude.
Like I said, she didn't approche the situation the right way, but then again, none of her friends took her seriously when she spoke about it around a drink.
Of all the pony present, she was the one who knew Cadance the most, having her as a foalsitter. (Aside maybe Celestia)
And well... her histeric showoff was also something that put me off. Instead of cornering the false Cadance with evidence, she just ramble a lot of non-sense.
115120
Well, they don't have a lot of show time for stuff like that. But since they are all friends again afterwards I think it's fair to say that the apology happened, or if there was none at all then Twilight was prudent enough to realise they were sorry and "no words needed" them.
"None of her friends took her seriously" is a bit of an over-exaggeration there, because what you mean is that "None of her friends agreed with her", and Twilight basically responded to this by badmouthing Cadence and temper-tantruming away after giving the impression to absolutely everypony involved in the wedding that she was supremely jealous of Cadence to an unreasonable sounding degree.
For that last part, you have to consider the following two: 1) She had no evidence anyway beyond tall tales and 2) She already failed to convince them once and I can only assume she is trying to be extra convincing with her dubious "evidence" to try and force ChangelingCadence into admitting it (You can tell she thinks she's done it when she gives that malicious smile before the Cadence starts weeping).
She is generally incapable of admitting when she is wrong (something her friends are painfully aware of, Lesson Zero springing to the fore of my mind) so really I'm not shocked they all reacted negatively. To them, it looked like a jealous Twilight went on a last-ditch rampage to get rid of the bride by using wild accusations to try and get people to turn against her. Do you not think that would have been a selfish thing for her to have been doing? It's the most simple explanation, so it's the ones the ponies assumed was the truth.
Necro-reply. Please consider it a compliment.
(1) I'm glad you have no probs with the diarchs not being true gods. I don't have to copy/paste my reply in Chatoyance's blog post.
(2) Anachronistic technology... Do you know when the Hoover Dam was started? 1931. Golden Gate Bridge? 1933. So what? Well, a few pictures from 1910, let's say...
greeknewsonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/immigrants-boston-1910.jpg
shorpy.com/files/images/Holland_Am_2A.preview.jpg
guildofscientifictroubadours.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/1910-10-18-_Wellman_Airship_America.jpg
See, Equestria was never meant to be "medieval". All the way from season 1 it was meant to be a world that had 1900-1930 tech level, but skipped the Industrial Revolution. And tbh, that makes the world more interesting by a factor of 100. The last thing we need is yet another fantasy world of Medieval Stasis.
(3) Alicorn Cadence... I don't think I need to defend her, with years of hindsight behind us. She may have been introduced in a wedding eps, but now she's a queen in her own right - with the marriage wholly irrelevant to that development. We've seen more of her now than her husband.
We got new, more egregious things to complain about nowadays. Fugly crystal tree castle playset anyone?