On Individualism, Exceptionalism, and Historical Contingency: Thoughts on the Season Five Finale

Here are some thoughts on the Season Five finale that I wrote while watching, including my immediate reactions as the episode was ongoing and a summary of my reaction to the episode as a whole.

Spoilers below the break:

* The opening suggests an overall theme of perfectionism. This would have been really interesting theme to explore through Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer, especially given the time travel motif. I'm thinking a pony version of the Star Trek TNG episode, Tapestry, which is about realizing that the mistakes in ones past play a big role in shaping who you will eventually become.

* Ok, so Starlight has traveled into the past to prevent the sonic rainboom. A good measure of writers' ambitions will be the extent to which they avoid simply restoring the status quo. An excellent episode would have had Twilight help her friends rediscover their talents in the absence of the sonic rainboom, yet keep the world in a state where the rainboom never happened. What if this were to change Starlight Glimmer's past to prevent her downfall? I'm somewhat uncomfortable with the suggestion that the fate of Equestria relied on the magic of the sonic rainboom bringing six specific mares together in the right place and the right time.

* So without the rainboom, Sombra takes over Equestria. The war against Sombra seems like a ponified version of The Man in the High Castle, a novel which explores the alternative universe where the Nazis won World War II. I am looking forward to the Sombra in the Crystal Castle AU fiction that this episode is sure to inspire.

* Starlight Glimmer helping Fluttershy to avoid being bullied was a nice touch. She's essentially taken friendship and used it as a weapon against Twilight. Despite this scene, I've been pretty disappointed in Starlight Glimmer's portrayal as a standard evil villain seeking revenge. I much preferred when she was driven primarily by ideology. The season premiere contained within it an underlying conflict between two different belief systems. Here, Starlight is reduced to another Tirek-like villain without much substance behind her actions.

* Zecora as a rebel leader is awesome. This is another AU that I'd like to see explored in fanfiction. Zecora's speech expresses the concept of historical contingency, which is an important concept in evolutionary biology. The scene with her placing her hoof in the river was a really nice illustration of the concept.

* The other AU's were fun to see glimpses of, but I kind of agree with Starlight Glimmer. Without Twilight Sparkle and her friends, is Equestria really so doomed? In the other AU's someone obviously stepped up to stop at least one of the other major villains. Who were those poinies and how did they succeed? The episode relies way too much on the concept of destiny for me. I guess the visions of the future help further the themes of exceptionalism and individualism to combat Starlight Glimmer's own worldview. To Starlight Glimmer and those who think like her, individuals aren't exceptional, so it's inconceivable that one individual (or one group of friends) could change the course of history. The fact that the fate of Equestria relies on the connected fates of just six ponies counters the idea that ponies shouldn't try to be special.

* Starlight Glimmer's past gives her a relateable rationale for being who she is. Essentially, her mistake was thinking that success takes friends away. Despite her similarities to Moondancer's backstory in Amending Fences, this is something that the writers have yet to address with regard to the Mane Six. They've shown hints that some of the ponies' ambitions will eventually take them away from Ponyville, but they've not yet addressed how these events will affect their friendship (e.g. Rarity having to spend more time in Canterlot for her boutique or Rainbow Dash having to spend time touring with the Wonderbolts).

* The story essentially turns on two decisions. First, Twilight realizes that her struggle with Starlight is futile and can go on forever, and all it does is lead to a future that becomes more and more bleak. Her decision to stop fighting Starlight and instead try to come to some understanding is nice. Instead to forcing her to stop, Twilight instead tries to understand Starlight and convince her to give up. But the story also turns on on Starlight's own decision to give up her quest for revenge, and unfortunately that's the part for which we have less context to understand how she came to that decision. Her reformation comes a bit too quickly, and unfortunately, visual media are not conducive to giving us a glimpse inside of Starlight's head to let us know how she comes to her decision. There's an interesting story here that unfortunately could not fit inside of the episode.

* Yay for Starlight reconciling with Sugar Belle et al. in her old town. It will be interesting to see how Starlight's role evolves in season six.

---

Overall Thoughts:
Overall, this was a good episode. Given some of the ideas that came across my head as I was watching, there were a number of other fascinating ways the writers could have taken the episode, but the path the writers chose worked well for the message they wanted to send. Friendships can change the world. That's a good message, and one that inherently counters the ideas Starlight promoted the season premiere. Exceptionalism is not a lie, and individuals can have a huge effect on the world around them. If you strive at working on your talents and surround yourself with a supportive group of friends, you can change the world.

At the same time, the idea that the future relies so heavily on the interconnected fates of the Mane Six rankles with me. It hews too closely to the Panglossian fallacy that we live in "the best of all possible worlds," and assumes that maintaining the status quo is what we should strive for. In evolutionary biology, we think about what might happen if we were to "replay the tape of life." Would life evolve in the same way, or would the the present look very different? Many studies support the idea that replaying the tape of life would result in a number of unpredictable changes, but these changes would not necessarily all be bad. There are many roads that lead to Rome and not all alternative paths will lead you off of a cliff. Could Twilight and Starlight have changed the past in some way to positively impact the future?

Similarly, even if Twilight Sparkle and her friends had not been around to stop Nightmare Moon and the other villains, I believe that some other ponies would have stepped up to meet these challenges and save the day. Whereas the writers focus solely on the exceptionalism of the Mane Six, I would have looked to the resolution of the season premier—with Sugar Belle, Party Favor, Night Glider, and Double Diamond stepping up to save the day—and argued for the exceptionalism of the rest of ponykind to overcome these challenges in their absence.