A Storytelling Analysis of The Cutie Re-Mark: Story Tangents · 10:46am Dec 14th, 2015

The season five finale was great fun! It also had some interesting storytelling techniques we can learn from both in how intriguing they were, as well as some shortcomings it had. Obviously:

Season Five Finale Spoilers

But it’s been two weeks since it aired as of writing this so hopefully you’re caught up.

The Cutie Re-Mark featured what I’d like to call Story Tangents: when a storyline has a segment or scene that doesn’t immediately relate to the story being told. For example, each segment where Twilight returns back to a dystopian future in the finale. They didn’t directly relate to the story being told, but they were interesting tangents to the story.

The finale’s storyline focuses on Starlight: her quest for vengeance, what motivated her to do it all, and her eventual reformation at the end. The finale also featured three lengthy segments of Twilight in a dystopian future with the scenario: what if the mane six had never come together? What if villain X had won? None of those segments directly related to Starlight, but were instead more like their own mini stories within themselves. At least with an alternate universe tag attached to it.

I will say that each of those segments were hugely engrossing story tangents. I loved them. No doubt many fanfictions will continue their storylines.

But a critique I’ve heard about the finale is that Starlight’s reformation towards the end came off as weak. That it felt too rushed to convey the weight of her struggle. I would agree with this, but looking into why and what could be done about it is something we can learn about telling a story that involves so many enrapturing story tangents as the finale did. So put on your Twist emotes and set x to 0, it’s time to delve.

Firstly, allow me to summarize the plot:
1. Twilight gives a presentation about Cutie Marks and how her friends came together.
2. Starlight goes into the past to prevent her friends coming together and Twilight follows her there.
3. While x<3
Twilight is sent to an alternate dystopian present day.
Twilight goes back into the past and confronts Starlight.
x++
(What I mean is repeat three times for the three major segments.)
4. Twilight takes Starlight into the dystopian present day with her.
5. We learn Starlight’s backstory and her motivation.
6. Twilight offers Starlight her friendship.
7. Starlight apologizes and is accepted as a friend. Cue song.

Another way to summarize the plot:

Core Story:
Starlight’s vengeance and her subsequent redemption.
Story Tangents:
Sombra’s War
Chrysalis’ Takeover
Nightmare Moon’s Kingdom

Most critiques I see are about the end of the core story (Starlight’s redemption) feeling rushed. What I’m interested in looking at is what could be done to strengthen Starlight’s redemption without lessening the time given to those fascinating story tangents.

The issue I see with the special is that the story tangents don’t relate to the core story. A good story tangent takes a different path that seems unrelated, but comes back around to reveal something we did not know about the path we were traveling. Each time Twilight goes back to the future after the first time, she doesn’t learn anything new. All she learns from those journeys is that the future becomes a mess if she doesn’t prevent Starlight from changing the past, and a neat butterfly effect analogy from Zecora. Those three major tangents are roughly fifteen minutes of the special and not much develops from them. At least, nothing much that develops Starlight. With a lack of development through the special, most of Starlight’s character is revealed 4/5ths of the way through it. In revealing the event that lead her to do what she did all at the end was not enough time to convey the depth of her character. And because it was revealed all at once, it didn’t give Twilight (and by extension us) time to consider and empathize with what we learned about her as a character.

What I’m curious about is how Starlight could have been developed through those story tangents; how those segments could be told in such a way as to strengthen the core story while being interesting in their own right. Another episode that had many story tangents (referenced in this special) was The Cutie Mark Chronicles. It had six backstories with an overarching story all in 22-minutes! Its core story was about the CMC trying to find out how others (the mane six) got their cutie marks in the hopes they could figure out how to get their own. The story goes into how each of the mane six got their cutie marks which doesn’t directly answer the question the CMC seek (how to get their cutie marks) but does relate to their interest in figuring out how.

The story tangents in The Cutie Re-Mark special are much more extreme, but while there could be various ways to develop Starlight through them, I’d like to present a possible direction the episode could have taken:

What if Twilight had met Starlight in those alternate futures?

Assuming Starlight stayed in the past or had gone to back to the future at a time before Twilight did, what would Starlight be like in each of those dystopian outcomes? Maybe towards the end of Twilight’s forays into each future, she saw or met a Starlight who had lived through those alternate timelines. Indulge a person who gets a little too into theorizing a moment:

Sombra’s War: Twilight bumps into Starlight who remains ignorant that what is happening is worse than if Twilight and her friends had come together. She still holds onto her anger and is unwilling to relent that she is doing the right thing. Given that Twilight learns that the future becomes a mess during this segment, not much needs to be developed about Starlight yet.

Chrysalis’ Takeover: Twilight sees a Starlight who is mostly silent with the rebellion . She realizes this isn’t right, but can’t bring herself to accepting she may have been wrong. She speaks to Twilight mostly through disgruntled glares save for perhaps one or two outbursts: “At least now you know what it’s like to have your friends taken away!” What she bursts out is referencing what happened to her and Sunburst. Maybe we hear her blurt out the name Sunburst out of context, making us wonder who that is before we get any answers. Not knowing all the answers, but having hints towards them, keeps Starlight relevant in our minds.

Nightmare Moon’s Kingdom: This time, Twilight runs into a remorseful Starlight. One who is saddened and cannot hide herself from the mistake she had made. Upon seeing Twilight, Starlight beseeches her to return to the past to convince herself of her wrongdoings. She reveals how she didn’t know this would happen and never wanted things to turn out this way, and begs Twilight to convince her in the past not to prevent her friendships. She may otherwise feel quite hopeless in this segment, showing the hurt she feels behind the anger she normally displays.

I get that I’m imposing more than I ought to here. I’m not asking the story go this route, but rather this type of direction: to include Starlight into the stories tangents to develop her character, so we could learn more about her character from a different perspective, and drive the impact the core story strived to deliver. Each encounter Twilight has with Starlight could teach Twilight something new about her and why she is the way she is. Twilight then has to figure out how to convince in-the-past Starlight of what in-the-alternate-timelines Starlight has seen. Which she eventually does quite literally by taking past Starlight into the future to see what her alternate-selves had seen. She could then run through similar emotions she displayed in the three major story tangents towards eventually revealing the full story behind her motivation as she did in the special. Overall, it may be a bit more on the darker side for an episode that… actually was pretty dark to begin with honestly. But it could also help relate the story’s side tangents to the core story, so that both could relate to each other more, allowing each have a stronger impact as a whole. Something about making the whole greater than the sum of its tangential parts.

In summary, I think the core story would come off stronger had Starlight appeared within the tangents the story took. But to add those moments would mean taking something else out, and I’ll admit I wouldn’t know where to start with that.

Did I enjoy the special as it is? Absolutely. As I said, those story tangents were quite engrossing. And, though a bit rushed, I did like Starlight’s reformation. The season premier made it seem like she experienced some heartache in the past that we didn’t get the details of. I appreciate how we got those details and how Starlight’s past explains why she created a town where everypony was equal: to ensure nopony would experience what happened to her. She was never against friendship, she said they were all friends in Her Town, and I want to reemphasize how she said true friendship. She was hurt from the friendship she thought she knew. There was good intentions behind what she desired. Sadly, good intentions can be used to justify the wrongdoings we commit. She did what she thought was best because she didn’t want anypony else to experience her hurt. That’s a deep character.

Though I did want to see how the CMC would have reacted if Starlight took their cutie marks . Maybe a fanfic could be written about that… (besides the fact that there are probably hundreds that already exist.)

Regardless, I like how she, as a villain, was broken when a friendship was taken away from her, and that her healing would come from a new friendship being established. Though there were some weaknesses within those story tangents in relating to the core story, I’m happy with how things panned out.

Welcome aboard the USS Friend-Ship, Starlight. Glad to have you onboard.