Season 5 Finale · 3:54am Nov 29th, 2015
Okay, this might get a bit ranty, so bear with me.
I wanted to like this episode. I knew going into it that it was going to be about time travel. I was psyched. My three favorite story hooks are:
1) Time travel
2) Alternate dimensions
3) "What is real?", the nature of reality vs unreality, the truth of perception, dreams vs waking, etc.
So going into this, I was excited. But they fucked it up so bad. The base concept is sound. Hell, it's great. "Starlight Glimmer decides to go back in time to prevent the rainboom that gave the Mane 6 their cutie marks and destined to bring them together." And then Twilight is in a time loop, trying over and over to change events to fix things. Very Hard Reset. Hell, near the end of part 1, Spike even says, "Well, that didn't work." I squee'd. And actually, with the enemy also time looping, countering her moves, it's like Hard Reset 2 (which, dear god, while it's good, I have a hard time grasping what's going on a lot of the time. I feel like I need about a half dozen advanced degrees to get that story.)
The problem was the execution. I found myself constantly asking "What? Why did THAT happen? Why would THIS be?" I normally try to abide by the MST3K Mantra: "Repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show. I should really just relax.'" When stuff starts to not make sense, I try to turn my brain off and just enjoy. But this was just too much. Nothing made any sense. They go back, and Starlight zaps Dash, so the rainboom never happens and none of the Mane 6 get their marks or eventually become friends and meet their destinies. So obviously they never would have come together to stop the rise of King Sombra. When the Crystal Empire returns, he resumes control, conquers half of Equestria, and the country has to fight him in an act of total war. Awesome so far.
But then it all falls apart. This bit of alternate history is really cool, but then Twilight goes back to stop Starlight from changing the past and fails. Instead of zapping Dash, Starlight convinces the bullies to be nice to Fluttershy and Dash is weirded out when Twi tries to get her to perform the rainboom. Very little is changed, and the major result is the same: The Rainboom never happens. Outside of these four kids, nothing is different. Dash is or isn't frozen for a minute, the bullies are still mean or decide to be nice, and Fluttershy does or doesn't see the ground. And when Twilight comes back to the present, instead of a Sombra war, Chrysalis now controls Equestria after having conquered it at the Royal Wedding. Why? Then when Twi goes back and tries again, again very little changes (Dash and the bullies watch her fight) and the result is Nightmare Moon's eternal night. Then a Tirek present, a Discord present, a Flim-Flam industrial present (I'd love to see how that came about), and finally a baren wasteland present (again, I'm curious what brought this about).
But WHY? HOW did these alternate histories happen? Yes yes, the Butterfly Effect. I'm willing to entertain the possibility that some minor change could have a major effect down the line. For example, if the Buffalo Bills hadn't missed some pass in 1970's, the Kardashians wouldn't be famous today. But we're talking about extremely minor changes to 4 people resulting in giant world altering events. Like, maybe the bullies being nicer, they were nicer to someone else down the line, which in turn made someone be somewhere at the right place at the right time to effect something major. I don't know. I just mean that it COULD theoretically be possible. But they're pushing the limits. For example, Dash not wanting to race Twilight versus Dash watching Twilight fight. What actual difference is there to Dash? Basically none. And the other four of the Mane 6 aren't effected at all. Why would this be the difference between Chrysalis and Nightmare Moon taking over?
In a Tirek, Sombra, Chrysalis, Discord, or Flim-Flam (which by the way, is still hilarious to me. You have the 5 greatest villians the show has seen, and they stick Flim and Flam right up there with them) present, Nightmare Moon was defeated. All of these alternate histories have that in common. They can only exist because Nightmare Moon never caused eternal night. That was the earliest possible apocalypse, and for any of the other presents to have happened as they did requires the NMM one to be averted. So who did it? Not the Mane 6. Who did it? And why were they unable to avert the subsequent disasters? What SHOULD have happened was every time Twilight went back to the present, it was eternal night because that was the first apocalypse and its unlikely that the tiny differences in Twilight's attempts would alter the timelines that severely as to alter the outcome of these major events. The Tirek one requires that ALL of the previous ones were averted. Someone stopped NMM, Discord, Chrysalis, AND Sombra. But they couldn't stop Tirek? Possible, but HOW do the minor changes to the pegasus race that day in Cloudsdale change that? Causality works because you can trace a sequence of events one to another. You can't just throw crap around at random, say "timey wimey" and expect it to make sense and be taken seriously. This is the sloppiest kind of time travel story.
There's a couple other points I dislike as well. For example, what was Starlight doing in between clashes? Why does the time gate keep sucking Twilight and Spike back up, but not Starlight? Twilight keeps coming back to the present, but Starlight doesn't. This is evidenced by the fact that when Twi does bring Star with her, Star is surprised to see vast changes. That means she didn't see any of the other possible presents. But we also know that every time Twi travels back, Star is brought back to the same point. She tells us that herself. And each time they clash, they learn what the other is going to do and how to react. For example, Star traps Twilight in crystal immediately upon arrival. The next time, Twi knows to dodge. The next time, Twi dodges and uses the same spell, trapping Star in crystal. The next time, Star knows to dodge, does so, and Twi accideentally traps Dash. So it's not just Twi traveling back to the same point and dealing with the same iteration of Star over and over. They're both progressively later versions of each mare. That's obvious about Twi, since we're following her, but Star is as well. So where is she going and doing between each snap back to just before the race? She obviously isn't going to the present. Is she just hanging around Cloudsdale, watching the kids for a few minutes until getting popped backward an hour or so to clash with Twi again? What's the deal?
I'm glad that seeing the apocalyptic present that results from a lack of Element Bearers actually convinces Starlight to consider not continuing her plot. The reason she did it was to prevent the Mane 6 from ruining her tenure at her village. But she can see that any apocalyptic future results in her village being destroyed anyway, rendering her efforts more than counterproductive. So at least she's reasonable. Somewhat. But that leads me to my next problem. Upon learning this, she shows us the traumatic event that made her hate cutie marks. It's stupid and she's irrational, yes, but it was traumatic for her and made her who she is, so I can't fault that. But if this was the event that ruined her most, WHY NOT CHANGE THIS? The two worst events in her life were her friend getting his mark and leaving, and the Mane 6 ousting her. The latter only happened because of the former. And the former seems to be the worse event anyway. In OurTown, she had peasants she commanded, but didn't truly care about. She wasn't upset about losing them as ponies as much as losing her power. But worse than that was losing the friend that she DID care about. If she had the power to change events, why not change THAT? Stop the books from falling over. Then her friend doesnt catch them and get his mark. Easy peasy with no apocalyptic side effects. Also, as a side note, I thought it was going to be the rainboom that knocked over the books. Her stopping the rainboom would have had the effect of ruining the lives of the Mane 6, but primarily would have kept her friend from leaving and ruining her childhood. It would have tied to the two events together and made infinitely more sense. Wouldn't that have been so much better?
A couple more points. 1) How was Starlight so strong? She bested Twilight. Twi admits that she couldn't beat her and had to talk her down. Twi is an alicorn. How is Star stronger than her? 2) On a related note to 1: How did Starlight make the time travel spell work? Starlight may have more raw power than Twi (which I still find unbelievable), but Twi is the better student. She's smarter, more knowledgable, and more clever. She couldn't get the time spell to work like that. Celestia, with her thousands of years of experience couldn't do that. Starswirl, the most brilliant unicorn of all time, who created the spell, could only get to to go back a week and for a minute. How did Starlight get it to work like she did? She may be strong, but she's not particularly brilliant. So how did she do it? This leads me to my last problem. "Was she really..."
I also didn't care for the ending. I DID like the bookend nature of it. We started the season in OurTown and ended there. That's pretty cool. Good little bit of storytelling there. But I feel like this wasn't the best possible ending. Just like the entire rest of the episode was good potential with cool possibilites ruined by poor choices, so did the ending have cool possibilites and they chose a poor one. Bookend, cool. But overall it felt just kind like a boring, standard issue redemption. They took her back to OurTown to apologize and make up with the residents. Okay, whatever. The song was kind of dull. Eh. But what if... Starlight is a mage of unrivaled power and potential, even to a princess. She created a spell that even the great Starswirl couldn't. So she's obviously a good spellcrafter after all. She knocked that baby out in no time at all. What if Starlight IS Starswirl? Yes, he's portrayed as a stallion with a beard. But Saint Nicholas is portrayed as a fat, white man with a long white beard and a red coat who drives a flying sled around the world in one night. Really, the dude was Turkish. Popular portrayal of a figure can be drastically different than the actual historical figure. Maybe Starswirl was really a mare from the future. Their names both start with "Star", after all. Starswirl worked on a spell that mixed up cutie marks, and we know Starlight's good at that. And then her knowledge of the spells he put down in the past are a bootstrap paradox. I love that. I know that's probably a little much for a kids' show, but try to tell me that isn't an awesome idea. I'd love to read that story. In fact.... Hrm. While I don't have an idea how to execute this right now, I'd love to write this. If someone else wants to, go ahead and I'll read the shit out of it.
There's a couple points I'm not even going to examine, like, why DID she never see her friend again? He got his mark, the adults carried him off and they never saw him again. What the hell happened? Did they immediately stick him on a train the Celestia's School or something? What's the deal? I'd like to know what happened there, but I can write it off. Like another one: why the table was still there. That's silly and unrealistic, but at least they gave a "Harmony. Whatever. Shut up, it's magic." I can accept that. Like how Twilight herself is unaffected by the changes. Spike's still there, hatched, and she's still an alicorn. I guess multiverse theory of time travel? Sure, okay, I can accept that. But it's their casual disregard of causality that they try to pass off as sensible that makes me unable to really enjoy this episode.
Don't get me wrong, there are some things I liked. I love seeing time travel anywhere, even if it's as mismanaged as this. I loved seeing the alternate histories, despite them not making sense. Really, that was the best part of the episode, and some of the best stuff they've ever had in the show. It also gave reason to cameo some of the old villains. I was enthralled. In particular, the Sombra present was amazing. I didn't think they'd be willing to show the country in a total war scenario on a kids' show. And then Maud and Pinkie were the badass sisters. And Dash was all Fallout Equestria with her John Locke scar (the hallmark of any alternate future badass), metal wing and her StableTec uniform. (I've never actually read FOA or played any of the Fallout games, but I appreciate the asctetic.) It's just a shame that those glances sideways in history were a brought about through, while I don't to insult the writers by saying it's bad writing, I'll say they were brought through complete bullshittery. What else did I like? Hmmm, oh yeah. I like the continuation of the last few episodes of Twilight going back to her character's roots of being a neurotic nerd. Since becoming a princess, she'd lost some of that adorkable charm and become more, I don't know, perfect princess-y. I like that she's gone back to being more herself recently. Hrm, what else was there? I've pretty much addressed everything there was to addess. The whole episode was just the intro, the time shenanigans, and then the ending.
TL;DR So yeah, in summation. A great concept ruined by bad execution.
EDIT: Another thing that was pointed out to me later. Starlight, if not "finished" Starswirl's time travel spell, at least altered it enough to create completely new magic. What happened the last time somepony used one of Starswirl's spells to create new magic, huh? Huh? Shouldn't Starlight be an alicorn now?
I found the episode okay..
i liked all the alternate worlds and Starlight Glimmer's redemption but I do find her back story needed more development.
Overall the Season Finale was perfect to me because for once there is no Elements of Harmony or Rainbow Power to defeat the villian but actual newfound friendship for redemption.
Also,
1) Twilight has been an alicorn for a year only. She's not that good with her new magic with her be good only when getting overpowered by three alicorns combined. The time spell probably drained her since Starlight made it so that she gets teleported by the spell when Twilight cast it.
2) Starlight was more focus on revenge than bringing back a friend. Revenge can blind peoples sometimes. So it's a poor revenge plan on Starlights part.
3) Twilight already explained that the Tree of Harmony kept the table to ensure Twilight can go back due to the imbalance in harmony or time in this case.
4) All those random universes can be considered like that since Starlight was probably still trapped in the past causing more mayham but each attack on Starlight may have change her approach on how to cause more trouble. That's why she didn't follow Twilight to the future.
To each thier own I guess. Hope this doesn't ruin the show for you.
Already gave mah two cents in the usual place. Just wanted to leave a stamp here. Don't worry, Otto. All your points are valid. Only, a child (intended demographic) would call you crazy & stupid for overthinking things
3576754 Ruin the show? Lord no. I still love the show. It would take quite a but more over a prolonged period of time to ruin the show. Also, on the point of Twilight only being an Alicorn a year, that was something else I forgot to mention. It's definitely been less than a year since Twilight became an alicorn. It's been at least one year since she came to Ponyville, since we've had two Nightmare Nights and Hearthswarmings. But we're led to believe it's less than two years. But then Nightmare Moon says, "My sister has been sealed in the moon for years." So how long IS it?
3577049 I'm assuming 5 years. Each season being one year. It's just that they only show two of the Nightmare Nights and Hearths warming for all the years
Also, glad to hear you still like the show. Which epsiode was your favorite for season 5?
3577501 Like you have to ask. Griffonstone of course! Mah catbird waifu gets her redemption!
And I have to contest your five year chronology. At the end of the season 4 premier, they're holding the Summer Sun Celebration, and Celestia says it's the first one she's can celebrate with her sister being back. That means the first three seasons, plus the first two episodes of season 4 all took place in exactly one year. Also, Rainbow Dash gets Tank in season 2. In season 5, she learns he has to hibernate for the winter. That means that, assuming May the Best Pet Win took place in early spring after the first winter we see in the season 1 and 2 episodes like Winter Wrapup and Hearth's Warming Eve, it would be maximum of maybe 9 months until Tanks for the Memories, when Dash witnesses Tank hibernate for the first time.
That makes the chronology something like this.
Year 1000, Summer Solstice: Series starts.
Year 1000, Winter : Hearth's Warming Eve
Year 1001, Spring : Winter Wrapup
Year 1001, Spring : May the Best Pet Win
Year 1001, Spring : Most of season 2 and 3 episodes. where Dash has Tank, but before Twillight has ascended
Year 1001, Spring : Twilight ascends to Alicornhood
Year 1001, Summer Solstice : Plunder Seed/Tree of Harmony incident
Year 1001, Summer : Most of Season 4 and at least early 5, where Twilight has ascended
Year 1001, Fall : Scare Master
Year 1001, Fall : Tanks For the Memories. Fall Wrapup where Dash first learns Tank will hibernate.
Year 1001, Winter : Hearthbreakers
The rest of season 5 episodes could pretty much occur sometime in Year 1001 after Twilight's ascension or in Year 1002, after winter is wrapped up. The problem with placing episodes is that they're not in any sort of chronological order (for example, this year, the Nightmare Night episode aired on Halloween... a week after the Hearthswarming episode.) and unless an episode explicitly deals with a specific time of year, it's just general nice spring/summer weather. (which off the top of my head, I believe is pretty much just the two Hearthswarming eps, the two Nightmare Night eps, Winter Wrapup and Tanks for the memories, which deal with winter, and Fall Weather Friends.)
So in summary, the entire show has taken place in about a year and a half to two years.
3577617 Oh Cool. You know there is this youtube video by RLYOSHI where he puts all the epsiode of season 1 in the correct cronological order. It's awesome.
Good Luck with Reactions Are Magic. It's was that show epsiode reaction to Pinkie Apple Pie that sold me to watching Mlp.
3577714 Really? Oh wow, that's kind of cool. What power I wield! I should probably get back into doing that.
3578616 Good Luck
Damned nice breakdown of the time-travel problems, Otto. Yeah... that's another thing that was badly thought-out about this boondoggle of a finale.