Season 5 Finale Discussion *Spoilers* · 6:26pm Nov 28th, 2015
... Also apparently blog post # 100 for me... Eh.
So howdy howdy everyone. Derply here; still riding a depression and still career-less... yaaaayyy... But let's not talk about sappy stuff for now, k? Let's instead talk about dat finale!!
... Dat sappy sappy finale...
Okay, so let me admit the positive stuff first; this finale was fun! Really really fun! Spoiler talk starts now buds.
The multiple timelines were really cool! Seeing old villains actually WINNING was even cooler! Seeing a Flim Flam created Bad Future tickled my quite pink ^_^ And Starlight? Starlight was a GREAT crazy villai-
Wait? She wasn't crazy? She was just misunderstood? She just needed a friend because one time her fillyhood coltfriend left her and didn't write back?
Er.
Um...
...
... O-okay I guess... Well as long as you don't try to force a rede-
AAAAAAAnnnnnnnndddd she gets Redeemed and becomes friends with everypony.
...
... I... I don't even.
Starlight's redemption was SUCH a whiplash that I'm STILL recovering from it. I honestly don't know what to say about it; good, bad... idk! I'm just so neutral about it.
What I'm NOT neutral over is how my vision of the finale, and the actual finale, are so freaking different. I'm not one of those people who complain when things don't match my expectations; not at all! I LIKE to be surprised, that's why I've always looked forward to these season finales! Ever since season 2 they have not disappointed me... that said though, I ask you a single question...
What was the point of season 5?
Like... seriously? Beyond the premier, and maybe the Discord episode where time travel was discussed... what was the point of season 5? Why did the Crusaders NEED to get their cutie marks this season? They didn't play a role in the finale. Why did the Map send everypony across Equestria? Outside of the premiere it didn't play a part in the finale either outside of bringing Twilight in contact with Starlight. Gilda, Coco, Hooffields and McColts; NONE of these characters were important to the finale, yet they were part of the overall arc! I know I shouldn't be this critical about it but, well, it LOOKED like the whole season was leading up to this moment!
The series wide callbacks!
The return of old characters!
The completion of the Crusader's quest!
DOCTOR HOOVES' MENTION OF A TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE FROM WHEN HE WAS A COLT!! YEAH, FORGOT ABOUT THAT LITTLE TIBIT, DIDN'T YA?! WELL I SURE DIDN'T!!! I was FOR, FREAKING, SURE that he was going to play a part in the TIME TRAVEL finale! At the very least a blink-and-you'll-miss background joke!!
It's because of this that I'm forced to ask myself just... what?
What was the point of season 5?
...
... What was the point of THE FRIENDSHIP CASTLE?!?!?!
YEAH! My questioning/rant leads all up to THIS. What, is, the, point of it?! What is the point of the Map?!
What even is the Map?!?!
I thought for sure that this question was going to be answered today! I thought it was all leading up to a reveal of some sort, even if said reveal was a simple "It senses Disharmony in the land and tries to correct it," or something. Heck, I even had a head cannon as to what the Map is; an admittedly batshit INSANE one, true, but a head cannon nonetheless. I even thought it had merits based off the commercial for this episode that played for us last week! You want to hear what it is? Okay, brace yourself. The Map...
... is Spike.
Like I said, batshit insane. I do have my reasons though, like...
Why does Spike have a seat, yet hasn't been summoned yet?
Why does Spike have a seat, yet isn't an element of harmony?
Why does Spike have a seat, yet didn't help unlock the season 4 chest?
WHY DOES SPIKE HAVE A SEAT AT ALL??
My thoughts were simple; he has to play a role in all this SOMEHOW... and it was when thinking this that the commercial featuring him and Twilight traveling through time together just so happened to come on.
"Spike IS the Map... BECAUSE HE GETS TRAPPED BACK IN TIME NEXT WEEK! It makes PERFECT sense! He gets stuck back in time, probably due to a heroic sacrifice during the Starswirl the Bearded bit (because we ALL can see THAT coming) and then somehow merges with the Tree of Harmony! From there he wakes up thousands of years later and leads his friends around Equestria so that they can meet Starlight and bring the events of the episode about in the first place! It's so clever and rewarding and it MUST be what happens!!"
... Needless to say I may have overshot the mark just a tad 
Enough ranting though; this finale was still fun regardless of the ending or importance. It's probably tied with Season 3 as my least favorite finale, but I still like it and 3's just fine so it's not that big a deal to me. Enough about me though; how did YOU guys feel about it? Fun? Boring? Awesome? Lame? Does it make you want to be creative? I've got a few ideas buzzing around in my brain right now! Is it the same for you too?
Enjoy the rest of your weekends now!
-Derply
I liked it; Starlight Glimmer's past leading up to her future was a little crazy. I mean, making her strive for equality just because her friend got his cutie mark? I think Starlight just took her sweet time going through that stage every kid goes through when something like this happens; they think the whole world's collapsed in on them. Little Starlight definitely was cute, just sayin'.
Ah the joys of magic. Even small emotional hiccups can ripple out until they form world ending tidal waves... and be just as quickly remedied, apparently.
If nothing else, those small glimpses at alternate Equestria's will be inspiring fanfics well beyond season 6.
Hell, the whole of season five seams to be a loose collection of fanfic fuel. For better or for worse.
You thought the ending would have some Spike thing, too?
I thought they were gonna play up multiple timelines and Spike was going to wind up staying in a separate one. They "fix" the problem of not knowing where to go with Spike by writing him out in a way that is either tragic or heroic. (either he's forced to stay, or chooses to do the friendship helping thing with someone who needs it more... Starlight Glimmer. I mean... don't get me wrong I actually thought it wasn't going to happen but...)
I liked Starlight's accusations that Twilight, in claiming her friendship is important enough to prevent the end of Equestria, was an egomaniac. Interesting that in most of the universes most of the troubles were solved, you know? Someone was up to task for most of them every time, just one always slipped through the cracks. Actually lends credence to the idea that it was that destabilizing Twilight's friendship had an effect on magic as a whole. Because someone would be a hero every time, but without Equestrian harmony magic in tiptop shape... eventually someone failed.
But you know what is official? Twilight redeeming foils and collecting them as students.
Pretty much agree with you here especially with all the plot-holes in this episode alone. If it was that easy to redeem Starlight then she sure as hell would have noticed how miserable everyone was without their marks and how terrible the town was... Which didn't change at all since she left... Really?
Also kind of BS how she can somehow change Starswirl's closed loop time travel spell to actually change things, as well as knew more about the map that nobody knows a thing about than the ones using it. And with all that time travel they didn't even put a blue box anywhere in the episode.
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Coming up next on Season 6 of MLP; FIM! Dusknight Mirror, who is basically pony Hitler, gets added to Twilight's ever growing collection of expys! Gotta Catch 'Em All!
In my opinion it was all of that stuff, worldbuilding. Also given how they revealed Glimmer at the intro, and then ignored her towards the end. They used the plot device map to do sidequests and stuff, mostly to explore. We went to the Griffin land's we'd never seen, had all new interactions for the most part. It was fleshing out more that we didn't know, or didn't know we wanted to know!
At least that is my romaticized/optimistic view of the goal of this season.
I thought given the tree of harmony gave the seed/box to then in the Tirek finale and sprouted a tree, that the castle is basically a tree of harmony itself, except in hollow-house form.
And then the map, while mysteriously there and for what purposes we don't quite know, is clearly also a product of the tree of harmony, related to the elements of harmony.
So while we don't have a SPECIFIC answer, we know what it does (detects friendship problems/disharmony) and it goes along with it's origins (the tree/elements of harmony).
Also, into the more headcanon territory, I think spike is counted as a "plus one" to Twilight. He's a part of the element of Magic, and part of them, vis a vis Twilight. She got her cutie mark through hatching him (I mean the Rainboom triggered her to get her cutie mark AND hatch spike, etc). Her magic and her wielding the element of Magic later stemmed from him hatching. He is an important milestone and apparently one of her first actually large feats of magic. He's bound to her not just in a familial sense that we get, but also inexplicably bonded through her magic that had hatched him. So maybe allowances are to be made, and he's sort of considered Twilight/Element of Magic's extra appendage to the tree/elements of harmony.
Though THAT one is a bit more of wild and pure speculation that my previous two things.
Maybe map thing is an arc for multiple seasons. Just like Equestria Games... er, bad example.