Remarks on Season 4

Again, for those who aren't aware: the following was written during the viewing, and usually pausing the videos. It was also written without prior knowledge of Season 5, some spoilers notwithstanding.

Enjoy!

---

I’m not going to do an episode-by-episode talk on this one, simply for the sake of saving time.

Edit: at the time of writing, I'd missed a few days in my schedule, and come to the realisation that stopping and writing down thoughts really slowed down the viewing process.

Suffice to say the show is a very different beast now. This Season is to My Little Pony what Beast Hunters was to Transformers: Prime, basically. Not bad in and of itself, mind you, just different.

The only thing that honestly bugs me about this Season as a whole, and the series to boot, is the lack of consistency. Celestia rewrites history all the time, events that ponies shouldn’t know about are treated like everyone knows, Luna’s history is now on the Wonderbolts entry exam. It was a headscratcher before, but it gets really noticeable now.

As for Twilicorn, I never minded that part of Magical Mystery Cure, it’s everything that came before it. I just think cutie marks are poorly defined. We never get an explanation of where they come from, how or why they really appear, and what they even do. Same with spells doing anything possible with no regards to mechanics behind it or even reasoning.

So the smart thing to do would be to divert attention away from that lack of knowledge, or play it up for laughs, not make it the stakes of a larger plot, like they did in Season 3.

I can only hope that whatever season 5 does for cutie marks is better, more interesting, and more consistent within the established lore. Worst case scenario: time travel is used and it all devolves into Charmed with horses. But that’s an absolute worst case, and I’m told the Season is good by people I trust, so *squee*

Edit: turns out it didn't devolve into Charmed with horses. It was Charmed and Naruto with horses.

Oh, and I did catch that apparently there’s some of equalising magic that rewrites cutie marks in Season 5. Not that I needed the spoiler: they practically announce that the next villain will be attacking diversity in the last song of the season. I do hope they didn’t muck that up even more. I’ll see it when I get to it. And if they did, hey, that’ll make four more episodes I can’t bear to watch, tops. Not that bad for a show with this running.

Anyways, on to the actual viewing, I’ll write down whatever comes to mind, but I’m not pausing like I did before. And I’ll try not to write anything on Season 5, since I didn’t catch what other people thought of it in the first place, there’s nothing to respond to.

Gods, I’d forgotten about the slash and burn writing in this, too. That’s annoying.

There had better not be any time travel in Season 5, you hear? This show can barely keep consistency with only the present to keep in mind.

I know I sound like an MRA at times, but usually I don’t care that much about the portrayal of colts or stallions, not to the point that I’d want it changed. I just find it odd to see so many stallions buried alive in Daring Don’t, not to mention the sheer amount of male villains. Blame YouTube for making me wonder what pony boys are being taught in school.

And for peat’s sake, cut the Wilhelm Scream already. It’s funny in big movies, it’s funny in moderation, but it’s way overused in this show. Especially these past two Seasons.

I feel like I’m getting more and more frustrated the closer I get to the new eps. Maybe it’s just the anticipation. Few more days to go.

...okay, one thing on an individual episode. One thing. Flight to the Finish. No, not the handicap vs late bloomer angle, I’ll let canon decide on that, but I have my own preferences. It’s something else. When the girls reprise their song in Scootaloo’s room, they start out in singular. “Who’s the toughest little pony in town? Got the moves, got the mojo…”

And Scootaloo remembers “We’re a trio…”

They refer to her, singular, as the toughest little pony in town. She then turns it back into all of them.

Don’t think I noticed that change first time around. Glad I did now, considering how the ep shows Scoot’s character.

Ugh, I’m gonna end up having to redo this season, aren’t I? Okay, minor remark on ‘Bats!’

Correct me if I4m wrong, but I was under the impression apple seeds don’t actually matter that much when it comes to farming apples. Most apple trees are grafted; they don’t have their own trunks. The fruits would be smaller if they did, the trunks taller and the fruit harder to harvest. There’s selection going on on two ends. And setting up a sanctuary? Here’s a thought: why don’t we fight rat plagues with cheese in cordoned-off areas? Because that just allows them to breed and spread beyond those areas.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a character who’s objectively in the wrong and needs to learn a lesson. I just find it strangely amusing that said character learns nothing and gets her way in the end, despite logic and reason. Kinda reminds me of El Tigre and its shady morals. But that show played it for laughs, still. If you’ve never seen that show, by the way, do so at your earliest convenience. I’m told it has a movie in the same universe, called Book of Life.

The ‘bigger and better apple trees’ thing? Fluttershy, you’re in Equestria. Not the Pokémon world. Those are bats, not Snorlax.

Pinkie is indeed related to the Apples, and she may have gotten some of her magic from or in that family. See Goldie Delicious doing that stack trick with her books when she pulls one from the bottom? Same thing Pinkie did in the opener.

We do see one pegasus Crystal pony in Three’s a Crowd, but you can’t tell from appearance whether he’s a born Crystal or Crystalised one.

Ah, there’s a little something to note in Inspiration Manifestation. No, not the fact that there’s colts present, I do get why the genders can be a bit skewed in places (I might cover my thoughts on that later, if the trends continue in Season 5), but the book Spike finds. The star on the cover has eight prongs. Symbol of chaos, anyone?

Aaand then they wreck it with a ‘say the spell aloud’ thingie. Earth pony writing about magic again.