I'm Gonna Kiss Meghan McCarthy · 4:34pm May 10th, 2014
Could we tie things into Diary of a Pliant Tyrant more wonderfully than this new episode?! I don't think we could!
Below are my thoughts for part one. I haven't seen the rest yet, if they've shown it. I'm not sure if they are showing both parts today.
Spoilers Ahead
So I was a little irritated by how Discord didn't seemed to have interacted with the ponies at all in the season opener. He even couldn't remember Fluttershy's name, though with Discord, he could have just been trying to get under Fluttershy's skin. But in it seemed logical to me by the end of Keep Calm and Flutter On that they would really need to be on top of being his friend. Discord is selfish and egotistical. He's not the kind of guy you can have an easy friendship with. You're going to have to do ten times the work for him that you expect to get in return. At least, in the beginning. Once that friendship is formed, I see Discord as working very hard to maintain it, but it has to be fully formed. In the time since that episode, the ponies have done almost nothing to do that.
Except Fluttershy, as we saw here. And no, Three's A Crowd does not count. They could not have made it more clear in the episode how little they wanted to have to do with him. Yes, the conclusion was him dancing around because they actually did something for him, but I think Discord is smarter than that. He knows they are tasked with making him their friend. That's not the same thing as wanting to be his friend. Only Fluttershy wants that.
In Diary of a Pliant Tyrant, I tried to show that this was a continuing struggle for Discord. He doesn't understand this world or its values, and he's so vain that every little thing feels like a slight to him. He's a more malevolent Zaphod Beeblebrox. He expects to be the center of things. The universe is meant to revolve around him.
So how can he be sidelined? How can he be just someone who they call up whenever there is an errand to be run? Is Discord a lapdog? These ponies will barely give him the time of day, but expect so much in return.
This will not work with Discord, and I was thrilled to see that it didn't. It would have been nice to see The New Villain Whose Name I Can't Remember But Has Something To Do With Tyrant chip away at his flimsy friendship a little bit at a time, but McCarthy has never been one for slow pacing. She's got big ideas and she just sort of throws them out there.
Now, it could be that Discord is laying a trap for the new villain here. Maybe he's got a plan and he's loyal to Fluttershy. I'll by that, too, since they gave me the line about meeting for tea. I don't think it is as strong, but they did leave me with a logical out. However, I'd prefer to see them convince Discord that the path of friendship is the best one. I want to see them change. The problem with this relationship isn't on Discord's end. It's on their end. Discord has actually come amazingly far for who he is. The ponies have barely changed at all.
As for the new villain, I like intelligent schemers. This guy seemed alright in my book. We didn't really get to see a whole lot of him, but he left me curious for more. The obvious conflict is that Discord is not a spotlight sharing kind of a guy, and I'm guessing New Villain probably isn't either.
This episode moves along a little more quickly than I'd like, but it's not horrible. I wanted more of the Discord/New Guy discussion, but maybe we will get more of that in the second part.
The other important thing here is that they are exploring the same thing I've been wondering since the beginning of this season: Why the hell is Twilight a princess in the first place? I mean, she rules over a library. Her princess-ness is next to useless. I was caught off guard that it was actually a plot point they were purposefully building toward, so kudos to the writing team. I didn't give them enough credit and I'm happy to be proven wrong. I'd just thought it was sloppy writing. I'm over the moon that it was addressed.
We did get back to the other five sort of standing around for no reason again, but at least they were all there to deal with the keys.
So we are left with a cliffhanger. I had thought that they were all just going to ask Twilight to make the sacrifice herself. That would have been delicious. The crazy amount of drama that would have set up would be amazing, but it looks like they are all in it together. Still, that's pretty interesting, and it does leave Twilight with the possible thread of thinking that they just needed one more alicorn to throw on the fire. With Twilight being the Element of Magic, I'm assuming that she will try and make this sacrifice herself, thus earning her key at the expense of her magic. Non-unicorn Twilight would be very interesting to me. What happens if Twilight is just a pegasus?
I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen, but it makes an interesting 'what if."
End Spoilers
So all in all, I really enjoyed the first part of this episode. We've been left with lot of tantalizing loose ends that I have some confidence will be tied up by the end of this. The writers have impressed me with a lot of what happened here, even if I think it has moved a little too quickly. It's not Magical Mystery Cure level rapidity. This is acceptable. I'm eagerly looking forward to part two.
Note: I generally dislike linking my stories to blog posts, but I'm going to do it this time. I think Diary of a Pliant Tyrant ties in with this enough to warrant it.
I'm kind of surprised that Discord didn't break as many laws of physics as he normally would have. Like, did you see any checkerborad grass anywhere in this episode? Or pink skies? Or hailing gummi bears?
I suppose they focused more effort into Twilight and Butt Trumpet's Dragon Ball Z fight.
The villain's name is Tirek. He's apparently from Generation 1, from what I hear.
Seeing as you haven't seen the second part of this episode yet, I'm not going to spoil it. I'll just say that you might be surprised about what happens. And I, for one, loved it.
Oh, and yes, they did show both parts today. I caught the live stream, and did not regret it.
2095997
Tirek and Scorpan are both from G1. I'm pleased with their portrayals overall, though brothers is an interesting reworking. Then again, Spike might be a bit confused if they went with Scorpan's original origin.
I'll agree with this. Despite everything we've heard about the finale, nothing really gave me any cause to worry at all, aside from hearing that Discord would betray the ponies. That was the one thing I was worried would be screwed up. And when all was said and done, I think it was handled excellently and in a way that made sense for him.
And having actually seen the second part, I'll say that the finale as a whole definitely had a few flaws, but it was damn good overall. It's definitely in the top three for the big "event" episodes.
2095951 Well, since Discord pretty much forgot how to be himself in that whole finale, I'm not all that surprised.
2095997
Sadly, I did not love it. Or even like it...
2096254 I do think it's cool that they are bringing back things from the other generations. Well, we can leave that human girl out of the mix. I don't want to see her.
2096470 I'm sorry to say that I'm not a fan of that finale at all. I think Magical Mystery Cure was worse, but only just. While I liked the first half, the second… I just hated it.