Review: S07E10: "Royal Problems" · 12:54pm May 23rd, 2017
Bruh... Fucking DAYBREAKER. You wanted the evil, nightmare Celestia? Well here it is, And she ain't fucking around! You will all burn!
So, This episode, even aside from the awesomeness that is Daybreaker, is probably one of my favorites of the season so far. In fact, this may be my favorite Starlight episode to date.
Off the bat, the very first pre-intro scene got me into things with Twilight being gob-smacked that Starlight was being deployed on a friendship mission. Also, a great return to obsessively neurotic-Twilight! My favorite version of Twilight!
Then smash-cut to Canterlot, and passive-aggressive Luna pouts in public, she's so adorable (Luna best Princess!).
Starlight in this, in just how she acted actually drew me in for once. She usually came off as really awkward to me, but here she's really the only one who acts normal.
Toy ballerina Twilight is a gem! Whoever thought of using that, while in neurotic Twilight mode was a genius. And she actually looked a lot better with her mane in a bun.
Watching the episode a second time, I'm still laughing out loud at dead-tired Luna, who takes a bite out of a pineapple side, and eats the peel instead of the banana. The way that Celestia makes a breakfast for her sister though is really sweet. And then we see Luna putting up fresh flowers in the castle halls, the little homemaker! There's a reason why she's so many bronies' "waifu" (I fell dirty just using the term) and featuring her doing something so feminine as beautifying the house with flowers will only magnify it!
Pineapple and peaches on pancakes?..... That actually sounds really good. But it has to be fresh pineapple, canned pineapple in the syrup is garbage by comparison.
When Starlight confronts them about feeling unappreciated, the ensuing argument actually makes a lot of sense. When tension comes to the surface of a matter, it can often make the parties hostile, not only because they're manifesting their own frustration, but when confronted by the complaints of the other, it will automatically put them into a defensive posture, which is itself a frustrating act to justify things they might otherwise find trivial or even admit were mistakes.
Alright, up until now, I had kept thinking: "Yo, Starlight, you need to just put that bitch in a box!" So when she finally threw Toy-Twilight in the drawer, it was rewarding.
Smiling Luna attempts to cut the ribbon. Fails at cutting ribbon. Smiling Luna says "fuck it" and just stomps it down. I love it.
An extra kick I get out of this, is that somepony as introverted as Luna is forced to step so far outside her comfort zone. I get the feeling that the reason why her smile is so fake, is because she's having to compensate for the desire to teleport back to the castle and be left the hell alone for the rest of the day. You can tell she's just super uncomfortable having to go around and deal with ponies all day, not that she hates them, but that she's not used to having to deal with them SO MUCH.
Hey, did anyone else notice that the school Luna was posing in front of, was the same school that Twilight went to when she tried to reconnect with her old friends?
Jeez, I've let a smile drop before, but it never whiplashed into a scowl!
The following scene at the table with starlight makes me think that Luna tries too hard to please everypony. Left to her own devices she puts up flowers in the hall, and does stuff overnight at her own pace. But now she has to deal with people while she's awake, ans she just feels so much more pressure to play the part.
Next is Celestia, and going into things she thinks this is going to be a cake-walk. For her, possibly with actual cake!
This part strikes me as someone who is used to being busy all the time, finding themselves with nothing to do. With many people this can lead to depression, and anxiety about dealing with others. Celestia enjoys dealing with ponies, and being a part of the group. Now that she's alone, she talks to herself out of habit of having somepony there to listen.
So when she goes into the dreamscape, she seems to go in not with the intention of doing her duty as the overseer of the unconscious, but as a means to find ponies to talk to and make herself feel more comfortable.
Love the bubbles of other ponies dreams, like Cadence bopping to her daughter being a DJ! Discord and Smooze having a pillow fight (WHAT! LOL)
Dr. Hooves is afraid of being in the Royal Maze for some reason.... must be a Dr. Who reference or something.
And Derpy is the... princess of... muffins? I don't know, but it was adorable.
"Good call Celestia!" Yeah, don't pat yourself on the back yet girl, you still got some dreamscaping to do! And I don't know about you, but traipsing around in the subconscious of ponies just screams to me: MINE FIELD.
Very quickly she's in Starlight's dream, because we have to keep her involved in the plot. She tells Celestia of the fear that if she and Luna do not mend their quarrel, then a darker side of Luna might come back out.
Lo and behold her fear is made manifest and Nightmare Moon rips her way into the dream!
We might think that this is the big confrontation, but no! Not only is Luna's sinister self on set, but so also is the malevolent and combustible version of Celestia!
DAYBREAKER!
I was honestly surprised that we got to see Celestia's super-evil version. I'd think they'd save that for like, a series finale or something.
Like Nightmare Moon, Daybreaker is the part of Celestia that wants to abandon all inhibition and restraint, and exercise her immense power for pleasure. Celestia knows that she's the most powerful pony alive, and that she could do virtually anything she wanted to.
Daybreaker is delightfully demented and charismatic. She could be the greatest villain in the entire MLP lore, if she wanted to.
Oh, and did I mention that she could BREATH FIRE? and use her SOLAR FLARE ATTACK?
WHEN WILL HER AWESOMENESS END!
In truth however, A sun tyrant like Daybreaker would be magnitudes worse than Nightmare Moon. Imagine the hottest day of your life, and imagine that it NEVER ENDS. 24 hours, 7 days a week of burning, oppressive sun. The landscape would be scorched and turned into an alien wasteland, bodies of water would evaporate, extinction level population drops, plants wither and turn to dust.
In any case, the ensuing battle between Daybreaker and Nightmare is one of the greatest fanservice moments this show will ever see.
Though she gets defeated by the force of Celestia's will, I absolutely hope we get to see her again someday. In a more tangible form, of course.
The whole things ends with the sisters understanding one another. Shocker, I know. But at least this had a lot more to it than the comic issue, where Celestia had the day off, and Luna took charge of the day schedule.
And obsessively-neurotic Twilight pops up at the end, just to bring Spike's toothbrush to Starlight, and get the scoop on how things went. Twilight absconds with a not-to-pleased protege, Luna has one final bit about a few loose ends Celestia will have to deal with, and fade to black.
So, a few gripes about this episode:
CELESTIA: In case you forgot, while Luna was banished to the moon for a thousand years, Celestia was still on earth doing things. This means that Celestia has had a thousand more years of maturing, gaining knowledge, and refining her wisdom, which must be considerable.
So, her portrayal in this episode stuck me as just being in-congruent with the established canon. She seems too... petty... at times for somepony who's been alive for more than a thousand years. Whereas Luna's character was arguably in suspended development for the duration of her exile, we can understand when she is awkward, immature, and frustrated. Celestia simply does not have that excuse, not if the show-runners want things to make sense!
And by the way, Celestia should know damn well how easy it is to raise the moon. SHE DID IT FOR A THOUSAND YEARS!!!
ALICORNS GET TIRED Alright, these are the two most powerful ponies on the planet, they're demigods. I do not like that they exhibit such weariness on a regular basis, as if they were normal ponies. They are not.
STARLIGHT WHAMMIED ALICORNS Since I care about continuity ans making a world work by reasonable rules, I was not a fan of how starlight was able to put the magical whammy on two Alicorns, and they couldn't do anything about it. When Starlight was all: "Doing the spell!", Celestia should have been like: "Undoing the spell!"
If the idea is that magic is personal, and that the castor has the strongest influence of a spell used, then I can kinda see that, but I'm not sure that's an established thing.
The most powerful unicorn prior to Starlight Glimmer, was arguably King Sombra, possibly Starswirl, depending on if his knowledge of magic equated to his ability to wield it. So while I can appreciate Starlight being an exceptionally strong unicorn, It grinds my gears when there's no consistency to things. Like, why can a single unicorn, however powerful, not be undone by two Alicorns?
Anyway, I thought the episode was fantastic 9 out of 10, best Starlight episode yet, Daybreaker was awesome, Luna is best princess, Twilight needs some Ritalin.
I have to say this is my personal favorite episode of the entire series, honestly. Though i do have a few things to say about those points:
1: Yes, but this is her sister we're talking about. No matter how 'mature' she is, squabbles between siblings will happen even over the smallest of issues. Hay, I even had an argument with my beloved little sister over the fact that she takes off the edges of her poptarts. Went on for ten minutes.
It's because of how much Celestia cares for Luna and her familiarity with her that she acts with less inhibition. I think any sibling can attest to that. Not to mention, even though she has been around for a thousand years, she's only known her sister for about 20 or so years. Luna and Celestia weren't ruling for that long, if we take the Journal of the Two Sisters and the fact that most of the threats are around 1000 years old. {Would make sense with what we've been given.} So it's not out of character. More of her own frustration with not being able to really connect with her sister even after all this time. (And may have suffered a bit from rose tinted glasses from remembering her sister.}
2: Gods in mythology get tired all the time and often slept. As well, they are Lunar and Solar gods, I think they'd get tired as their shift comes around, especially Luna as she seems extremely beat from handling the dreams of what amount to thousands upon thousands of ponies.
3: Starlight activated the spell too quickly and without warning before either of the two sisters could react as well, they now had magic unfamiliar with themselves so they couldn't properly do anything about it. As well, the spell wasn't 'overpowering'. It was simply siphoning energy between the two as Starlight used herself as a conduit for it. It's not about power, just manipulation.
In all honesty, I always find Starlight the most engaging of the cast and she was the best choice to bring to this episode to make it work.
DayBreaker was awesome, proof that solidifies why i call Ghidorah "Evil Kaiju Celestia".
Though personally i like to call her Fallen Star or Solaris Regina.
4544094
1) I see your point, but I just don't find they're depiction of how Celestia handled things consistent with someone who's been maturing and learning for over a thousand years. I understand that it would be incredibly hard for them to actually portray that version of Celestia. Plus, since they want a version of her they can actually use to have an episode like "Royal Problems", they have to make her, like they did. I get why they do it, my issue is that it's defies consistency.
Fun fact: I've had plenty of big arguments with one of my best friends, including what the definition of a "pile" was, and what constitutes a Lie.
2) I'm fine with Demigods getting tired, but we're talking like, one day. I've done that, and I'm not an immortal, magical creature.
3) Like I said, I could by the "only the caster can reverse the spell" device, but if that's not present, it's really hard for me to buy that the most magically powerful demi-god-pony in the world cannot undo a spell from even an exceptionally adept unicorn.
I do agree, Starlight was in a unique position to make this episode work. And if they continue to feature her like this going forward, I'll definitely become a fan of her.
Anyway, thanks for commenting, I appreciate your response.
4544931 Nothing for me?
But then again, i haven't gone in-depth with my words, been thinking of writing a blog about the parallels between KG and Celly.
4544987 Aw, don't take it too hard, I always re-read a few times whatever comments are left on my stuff.
I actually like the name "Daybreaker" alot, since I don't think it's the same mechanism as the Nightmare, I get why it wasn't like "Nightmare Star" or something.
4545002 Still thinking about writing that blog, just need some time and research to support my analysis.
4544931 You're welcome and I do try to be civil about disagreements. However,
1: While Celestia is mature, she has routinely shown that she isn't a 'no nonsense' sort of being. LIke when she purposefully invited others that would ruin the Gala for her own amusement. Twice. Celestia does hold this mature aspect to her to the general public but while she is incredibly wise, she is also bored of it all. The same routine over and over and over for so long has left her bored of it and as well, with her sister now taking charge of some of the responsibilities, she finally has a chance to at least kick back a little.
This should also be noted that mlp takes inspiration from a lot of pagan mythologies, more importantly the Greek ones. While many of their gods were thousands of years old, they tended to act... immature at times as well. While Celestia is not nearly as bad as some of them, the show has given us reasons and scenes that have been highlighted before in the show.
2: Well Celestia got tired from basically working herself through the dreamrealm and Luna could very well be tired from all the foreign stress as well as handling the sun itself which would put a strain on her since it's much larger and more difficult to move.
3: Well there are two reasons for why they couldn't undo it after the fact. The magic they possess is not of their own at the moment so they would not know how to properly use it to reverse the spell itself. As well, Starlight herself called it temporary for only 24 hours so neither sister really came to see a problem with it especially since they had a small rivalry with the issue so they more or less rolled with it.
And yes, these themes Starlight had here are ones that did and have played for her storyline so far, which is going strong. {Which is why all of Starlight's episodes are so far in my top 25 favorite episodes.}
Well that's just my two cents on the matter.