Sunset Shimmer’s homesickness · 11:52pm Dec 1st, 2016
After viewing the deleted-scene clips from Friendship Games (which I hadn’t done before) and pondering the dialog, I wonder if, in addition to stealing the spotlight from Sci-Twi, there’s another reason Sunset’s plot thread was removed: It isn’t simply that she’s homesick—though I believe she probably is, underneath—it’s that she’s restless as well.
Despite the rampant anachronisms, the show staff and writers still pay at least lip service to the idea Equestria’s technology and culture are supposed to be roughly equivalent to the late nineteenth century. As Mark Twain’s stories illustrate, this was an era when one-room schoolhouses and the apprenticeship system hadn’t faded away quite yet in favor of the modern many-year formal educational system; teens still were “junior adults” who had to make their way in the world earlier in life than we’re used to today. Sunset is accustomed to this more adult status, enhanced by her role as Celestia’s personal student.
By comparison, a modern high-schooler’s life is regimented and constrained, with more of a “senior child” status. Sunset’s emotional response to this dissonance is completely understandable and plausible, but it doesn’t paint her friends’, or the likely target audience’s, situation in a very positive light. Hence it’s glossed over through the use of the journal, getting her to roughly the same destination.
Ah well. If nothing else, there’s a gold mine of worldbuilding and demonstration of intent and attitude on the part of the writers toward various aspects of the portal and the characters’ views of it. We learn that:
1. The portal is explicitly confirmed as permanently open.
2. The portal adds or removes clothing as appropriate, and alters the nature of baggage (viz. Twilight’s panniers becoming a bookbag), but alters nothing else—Princess Twi is stuck with bits and can’t pay with local currency.
3. Speaking of the bits, they are shown exclusively as coins, consistent with the main series, while Sunset pays the tab with paper bills.
4. The idea of Sunset popping through the portal to visit Princess Twi, a common trope here on Fimfiction, at least was considered by the writers.
