Help! My Heart is Full of Pony! - What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been · 8:39am Apr 6th, 2017
Recently, somepony asked for a recap of Seasons 4-6, so that they wouldn't be lost when Season 7 premieres two weeks from now. ( Just the basics, not every detail). I decided to accept the challenge.
Below is my crazy recap. Writing It made me realize just how wild a ride this show has been - how far the characters have come - how insane it sounds when you rattle it off all at once.
It's been well over four years since Twilight Sparkle got her wings. At this point, she's been a princess longer than she hasn't. I am, of course tempted to get analytical as I write this - to talk about how the season that a person first discovers really impacts their perspective on the show - but that's not what this post is about. I'm tempted to wax philosophical – to pick at themes that tickle my soul, and evaluate: the long character arcs; the long evolution of the shows' message, (from discovering friendship, to spreading the word of friendship, and all the different forms of altruism in between) - but I've already written about most of that in other posts.
Instead, I'm just going to get sentimental.
As someone who cares deeply about the show, and the universe, I, like many others, sometimes linger on details that don't quite sit right with me. I try not to be negative, or to pick too many nits, but when you're actively in the middle of a season, and trying to guess its future course, there's rather a lot to obsess about. Not every episode is going to be perfect, (or even every direction the show chooses to go in). It's easy to get hung up on that.
The act of summarizing the major occurrences of a 78 episode arc, however, really put things in perspective for me. It made me realize how insane this show is, and how much I love it, even after all these years.
So here goes the summary. Let me know how I did!
* * *
The Elements of Harmony have taken a few different forms, the most recent of which, being a Cutie Map, which sends the Mane Six on missions to spread the ideals of friendship across the land. It basically functions like a pager.
The map is in a castle where Twilight now resides, (still in Ponyville). The old tree library exploded in a fight with an ancient demon from G1. Her new digs were magically bestowed unto her after the Elements took on this new form. So now she is the Princess of Friendship. You heard that right. The Princess of Friendship.
She has a pupil of her own, who is a reformed villainess - a powerful unicorn named Starlight Glimmer, who had created an egalitarian dystopian cult in the boonies of Equestria. Glim had a change of heart, and now she's a super powerful dork who takes friendship lessons from Twilight.
Shining Armor and Cadence had an alicorn baby named Princess Flurry Heart, (who is being tutored / babysat by Starlight Glimmer's recently re-united childhood friend, Sunburst - also a dork - a very likable dork).
What else?
-Dash is a Wonderbolt.
-Daring Do is real.
-Spike is revered as a folk hero in the Crystal Empire.
-The Cutie Mark Crusaders got their cute marks (in helping other ponies solve their cutie mark problems).
-Rarity has boutiques all over the place.
-And Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon finally got over themselves.
We've seen Manehattan, Las Pegasus, the Dragonlands, Griffonstone, and Yak-Yakistan.
The changelings recently revolted against Queen Chrysalis when they learned that love can be reciprocated. They're pastel rainbow-colored now. Of course. Why wouldn't they be?
And that's pretty much where the show left off.
* * *
Wow. What a long, strange trip it's been. And Celestia still hasn't gotten her own episode.
-Sprocket
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Seeing that in such a condensed way is mindblowing. My heart is moved and I'm almost crying here.
Before season 3 even started, I'd read a good number of fanfics around here. A fair number of them had Twilight get wings, and over half of those gave her a different name when she did get wings (I recall Eos showing up as her new Princess name more than once.) Not one of them back then, that I recall reading, thought she'd be tagged as the Princess of Friendship.
Most of the little factoids listed after "What else?" were brought up in fanfics as well back then, and a few at least mentioned Tirek, but no one saw anypony like Glimmer coming along. (Not counting parody-type blatant mary sue fanfics.)
My, how far we've come. And I'm not sure how I feel about that.
You forgot Maud!
How dare you! I no longer thing we can work together.