Ouch... right in the headcanons...

I... I think I'll live... but Crisis is officially departing from canon as of this episode. My gryphons (not griffons) are not going to be rewritten just to fit this whole Griffonstone thing. Sorry. Or "you're welcome," as the case may be.

Anyway, this is my favorite episode so far. At least for this season, it's really hard to compare new episodes with old ones, at least for me. So I'm going to do what I do best and ramble. Fair warning to you.

First off: has anyone else noticed that no one ever uses the word "money" in this show? It's always "bits." No nicknames, no easier way of expressing it, it's always the plural of the unit itself. Today's episode hammered that in. Anyone catch Twilight's use of "bits" to describe the ancient griffons' treasure? It's like it's synonymous with "gold" and "money" at the same time. I've never heard any other franchise use a word like this. It's unique.

I'm super excited to see where this season goes. We've seen a lot of Cutie Mark lessons in the premiere and the prodigious CMC episodes, but there's also the theme of teaching others about friendship, which I've got to say is really cool. We saw a town with a completely different idea of friendship and a Cutie Mark gimmick to illustrate it, but now we go even more basic and have a town completely without friendship. They could have made this a random pony town, maybe with some evil scheme behind it like in the premiere (though I guess that would be dumb, since they already did that), but they took our old friend Gilda instead, and finally fleshed out her background and people, which is AWESOME.

Ohmygoshshe'ssoadorable! Best griffon is best character.

I'm usually the kind of guy who has to have odd references pointed out to him (with some noticeable exceptions), but am I the only one who thinks this guy:

is very reminiscent of these guys?
And I'm sure they themselves are a reference, but I don't really know to what.

But OH MY GOSH. What a history!

This guy's monster design :manlysquee:. Don't you just love it that at the same time Amy Keating Rogers crushes our souls and our headcanons by showing us Griffonstone, she also teases us with this mysterious monster from their history? No explanation, guy just shows up and ruins everyone's lives. Twilight and her monstrous history book both assure us there are plenty of untold but interesting stories about Griffons, and what we've been shown is really only a stepping stone. Anyone want to take a bet on how soon a story about the last Griffon king and the monster Arimaspi (you're welcome for the spelling) hits the featured box? I'm really tempted to write it myself, actually, but I'm already withers-deep in the OC Slamjam and my own epic adventure story. Still, no need to complain about our worldbuilding options being limited. We have as much to go on with Griffon history as Pony history, and look at all the stuff people twist that into!

Some things I learned from today's episode:

1) Equestria is officially the name of the world, since Twilight said the Griffon kingdom is part of it.

2) (Reinforced Idea) What the freak is wrong with ponies and their isolationist lack of general knowledge about the outside world? Every time we see a new race on the show it's like no one's ever heard of them before. Now Twilight's read an entire history book about Griffons that has no record of the past few hundred years. Not only that, she has no way of knowing what Griffonstone is like these days, which means no pony has been there since before the Idol was lost, and no griffon has said anything about it to the rest of the world. What the freak kind of world is that?? These are the Princesses of Equestria, and we've just established that the Griffon Kingdom should fall under their domain. So why do they know literally nothing about it? Canon confuses me so.

3) Don't mess with Pinkie's hair.

I really need to start making videos.

Comments

[Phoenix Heart 27]

Very well thought out points. 7/10s for the post.