Season Premiere Thoughts

I know the premiere was last week, but... it's been a busy week.

I was considering just not watching it. I have my reasons for feeling a bit of exhaustion with the show and wishing they'd move on to the next gen already, though I guess since they've only just started to really tap into printed media, it might be a while yet. But, ultimately, I gave it a look.

The first episode didn't really impress me. The thing about Starlight is, there are a lot of little individual things that I think could make me like her, but it's never going to happen because the writers are too busy trying to convince me that I should already like her. Her redemption is a lot like Twilight's ascension, really; it's something that was easy to predict far in advance, but when it happened, it was handled so poorly that the whole thing felt cheap and unsatisfying. But by the time season 4 was over, I was okay with Twilight's ascension. She's an alicorn now, it was the next step, so what? I'm still not sold on Starlight's redemption partly because they can't go a single episode without someone reciting her entire life story, like if you just hear it one more time maybe you'll decide you actually really like it. (And partly because the last episode before the season 6 finale was about her casually brainwashing everyone again and getting off with a single apology, but, well, there we are.)

So that's what I was focused on during the first episode. Then came the second, and oh, what a treat. Trixie was gloriously stupid. The episode kind of both confirmed and debunked the popular interpretation of Trixie that I hate so much, as a helpless, near-magicless weakling, and it did so by giving a peek into magic mechanics. Trixie, it turns out, has plenty of potential; high-level spells are not at all beyond her ability, but magic involves being focused, and Trixie is too... well, too Trixie to do that. She doesn't concentrate because she thinks it should come to her naturally. That effectively means that if you want to portray Trixie as weak, all you have to do is play up that aspect of her personality (and I feel the episode exaggerated it slightly to that end, which is fine with me), and if you want her to be strong, you just have to give her a bit more determination to concentrate. I personally lean toward the latter, and I think AUs in which she's portrayed with more power, including my own, are typically consistent with scenarios in which she has more reason to concentrate on her magic—so it looks like everybody wins this one.

That alone has made me start thinking more about updating my stories. I really do need to. As I said, I've been busy, but look for more from me as soon as I have the time.