Dragon Quest 2: Dragon Questier. · 10:53pm Apr 16th, 2016
Back in February, I got my mother hooked on ponies.
I started by showing her some of my favorite episodes, and when it turned out she liked it and wanted more, I ran through a list of selected episodes I thought were most important for purposes of story or characterization, from seasons one to five. Since then, every once in a while she comes over to see more, and we run through the next batch of the remaining episodes she hasn't yet seen, in order.
By strange coincidence, she was here earlier today and next on the list was Dragon Quest, an episode I hadn't watched in years. So by pure chance I was as prepared as could be for this week's episode, an episode I knew nothing about ahead of time.
Spoilers below the cut.
Boy is there a lot going on in this one O_O In sort of order:
Luna speaks! But is it just me or does she sound very different than usual?
Rarity, you teleported away from the dragon costume last time. You mean you actually went back to retrieve it afterwards? Are you unable to let go of a creation, or were you just that proud of that? Or were you hoping someday to use it again? 
Rarity in a rock costume. Admit it Rarity: you should never have let Tom leave your life.
I predict that Ember is not going to be shipped with anyone, especially Rainbow Dash.
Confirmation of dragons that make not-Smaug from Dragonshy look small. And he can magically command the entire dragon race to follow him. Am I the only one who thinks that when he does the "Be sad!" bit, they're not pretending but are actually magically compelled to feel what he wants?
So let's see. Celestia and Luna know about the Dragonlord, even if they don't know much else about the Dragonlands. All the other dragons who want to be Dragonlord have plans to brutalize Equestria. Assuming those threats can be taken seriously at all, that suggests that the current Dragonlord has made a conscious decision not to have his underlings brutalize Equestria. Clearly the old Dragonlord has had dealings with the Princesses, and walked away with the clear impression that it would not be wise to cross them.
On that note: a Princess of Equestria is meddling in the political succession of a rival nation, to ensure that a less threatening candidate takes the throne. Because friendship.
Better be careful, Spike. Teaching dragons to work together might result in them conquering all of Equestria.
Seriously though, Ember's character design is stunning. And the bipedal, detailed design makes it feel like she comes from another show entirely. In fact, (this is something that struck me during The Hooffields and McColts) the animators and character designers have gotten so much better over the years that all the characters who were introduced in season 1 are beginning to look plain and flat compared to new background characters.
Nevermind that the other dragons don't do handshakes. Why would Spike do a handshake? The only place he could have seen it was in Equestria Girls, where he was a dog. Why would you use a greeting from another dimension on a dragon?
Here's the thing: this is a story all about politics, about manipulation and diplomacy. These dragons are all defined not by their strength but by their cunning. This is dragon electoral politics: try to persuade others to help you even when you all know you're going to betray each other sooner or later. Even the guys who claim it's about being the biggest and the strongest know it isn't: that's just a way of weeding out the people too dumb to grok the rules. You declare that victory goes to the best, while doing everything possible to shift the playing field behind the scenes.
Ember is the daughter of the Dragonlord. Don't tell me he didn't want her to win. He doesn't want a Garble on the throne. He was clearly giving her a hard time so the other dragons wouldn't think she can't stand on her own. He's probably taught her everything he knows.
Garble might not be a genius, but he has a certain cunning. He's letting Spike and Ember go ahead of him, leading the way and tripping all the traps. Then, at the end, he'll swoop in and take the prize. But Ember is more cunning still: she loudly dismisses Spike, probably knowing that Garble is following and watching, she moves ahead to find the prize on her own, but then rather than grab it she waits there for Garble to make his move so that she can intervene and let Spike take the scepter.
Why does she do that? Arguably Ember does not really want to be the Dragonlord, or at least thinks that Spike would be a better choice.
What is at stake here is the future course of dragon society: whether it will be driven by Garble's self-centered cunning, or something more open to diplomacy. The old Dragonlord has been keeping a careful balance between the two, but he has decided that his time is running out. And, rather than wait until he dies and a civil war breaks out over who will be the next Dragonlord, he's decided to retire and try to place his favored candidate on the throne: the one who will lead dragonkind to peaceful coexistence with Equestria's other races. But then Spike shows up, a dragon raised by ponies, and Ember realizes he would do it better than her.
But in the end Spike trusts her with the scepter, so she trusts his choice of her.
Simply put this was a brilliant episode from start to finish. Easily the best episode so far this season, and also the best Spike episode ever. Clearly they got sick of people lamenting that Spike episodes always suck, and pulled out all the stops to make this one awesome. It's a nice juicy adventure on the surface, and allows people to dig in more deeply into what it says about the world.
What did you think? Let me know in the comments.
-Daedalus Aegle, who has been working on a story about Pony Machiavelli for the past month so he may just be a bit more heavily on my mind right now.
Huh. Hadn't considered it this deeply. I'm not sure how much was intentionally there, but there was definitely more there than lay on the surface.
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There have been far too many one-dimensional unsympathetic non-pony races already. If given the slightest chance to view another Equestrian culture with even a hint of nuance and complexity, I will drag out every last ounce of it I can get
I am convinced of it!
Exactly! Celestia has to know more than she's letting on.
I really enjoyed the episode for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it played right into my world-building for TTE.
I've read some negative comments about Twilight being useless, but imagining her doing a mental countdown several times before saving/helping Spike, and then finding it unnecessary, works perfectly.
I loved the looks everypony gave Twi at the beginning.
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What bugs me is the whole 'dragons don't do friendship' thing. If that's the case, then what the hell was going on in Dragon Quest if not a series of fraternity style pre-friendship hazing activities? Also, Dromoka would say otherwise.
So im not the only one who noticed? Embers design is so out of place. it looks nice but it bothers me because it doesin't "Fit" i guess it's one way to make a character stand out ?
My guess is that it's the only nice greeting he's seen from a biped, and he's trying to use it to foster friendship.
Barmy political theory: every dragon dreams of becoming éminence grise; it is all a matter of ensuring your choice of charismatic strongdragon takes the throne...
Might be my favorite episode of Season 6, assuming something else doesn't knock it into second place.
~Crystalline Electrostatic~
2:19_4/17/2016
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Well, one thing is that Ember is clearly wrong, or at least isn't telling the truth. Dragons do indeed do friendship... but their social structure demands that they don't acknowledge this truth, because the Good Dragon is strong and solitary, commanding respect through individual power rather than through coalition-building.
But on the other hand, the gang in Dragon Quest were arguably engaging more in low-level politics than in friendship. They were testing each other's strength, gauging the competition, and jockeying for respect. Back then, as here, Spike blundered into a fairly complex social game without having any idea what he was doing, and got swept up in the competition. A competition where he, a pony transplant, had a completely different understanding of the social rules, and a lot more to prove.
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That works. But even without that, that's a strange objection to make
there are all kinds of reasons for her not to interfere, both political and personal. It would be dangerous for them to reveal their presence. It would potentially anger the Dragonlord and invite retaliation against Equestria if an Alicorn interfered with the challenge. And it would bug Spike to have an overprotective big sister who refuses to stay out of his Big Dragon Business.
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Yeah, all of that seems obvious to me, but subtlety doesn't seem to work for some people.
What I really like is that Spike is 3/3 on being involved in such meddling. He meddles directly and purposefully with the dragons, was key in cementing an Equestrian princess' position on the throne of the Crystal Empire, and groomed Chrysalis' replacement.