How Twilight's Kingdom Killed the Show (Master Post) · 12:06pm Jul 23rd, 2017
A compilation post for the full, 5-part review series. You can also find the full script for the entire series here.
How Twilight's Kingdom Killed the Show is the clickbaity title of a video series I made over the past few months before I began working on my next original novel. It's an emotional, personal, and a little bit cringeworthy look at the whole show from my perspective, totalling just about 4 hours across 5 parts. Over the course of the review, I take a close look at everything that made the show great and how everything went wrong.
It's no secret that I don't like the show any more. I still care, however, and this show will always have a special place in my heart. This is not like an "OH EM GEE, I'M LEEVIN TEH FANDUM!!" drama-post-thing; it's a legitimate review and analysis. My goal also wasn't to convince anyone that the show sucks, nor am I here to tell anyone that they should not enjoy what they enjoy. My aim was to provide an alternate point of view and give an explanation for why I (and so many others) fell out of love with the show.
In the review, I look at the entire show, from the very start to the very end, from a creative perspective. I try to analyse why certain things are in the show, what their purpose was from a storytelling standpoint, and how it all evolved over the seasons. I actually spend about half of the total runtime saying good things, explaining why the show was good, before inevitably getting to the bad part. So even if you disagree with me, and think that the show is better now than ever, you might still find the series interesting purely for how I disassemble the show's storytelling.
In short, I'm not here to endlessly nitpick silly plotholes; I'm here to point out how the overall, broad themes and messages of the show evolved, and why I think it all went in a bad direction.
You can find all 5 parts of the review here, along with their scripts.
Part 1: The Death of Alicorns, or: The Magic Circle
A look at the invention of the Alicorns from a creative perspective. What were the Alicorns designed to be? What was their purpose as characters in the show's story? What made them so important to have in the show at all? How did it all change? (39 minutes. Click here to read the script.)
Part 2: The Death of Twilight Sparkle, or: The Pinkie and the Brain
And in-depth look at Twilight Sparkle's character, using Pinkie Pie as a contrasting example. What are Twilight's most important character traits? If we strip her down to her very core, what remains? How did her ascension into an Alicorn change the way the writers interpreted her character? (36 minutes. Click here to read the script.)
Part 3: The Death of Whimsy, or: The Awesomeification of MLP
This video looks at the central themes of the show and how the world of Equestria was presented. What was the showrunners' core design philosophy when inventing Equestria? What made this zany world of pastel horses so appealing to so many people, adults included? What were the most important lessons and morals taught to children? How did these messages and themes evolve in later seasons? (48 minutes. Click here to read the script.)
Part 4: The Death of Villains, or: How Queen Chrysalis Ruined Everything
An analysis of the show's villains, both major and minor, across the years. What makes an MLP villain work? Why are Discord and Chrysalis so well beloved by the fandom while King Sombra and Tirek aren't? How can a villain completely alter the direction of the show just by being so well beloved by the fandom, and what does it all mean for the rest of the series going forward? What are the merits of redeeming villains vs. flat-out "defeating" them? (29 minutes. Click here to read the script.)
Part 5: How Twilight's Kingdom Killed the Show
A review of the episode Twilight's Kingdom, and an examination of how this episode became such a great example of so many problems already present within the series. How can an episode offer so much yet so little at the same time? Why was Twilight's Kingdom, the show's single most viewed episode, followed by the greatest drop in interest the show has ever seen? Where is the series now, and where is it headed? How did four years of storytelling somehow culminate in every character becoming less interesting than they were before? How is the fandom doing, after all these years? And most importantly, why does no-one remember the lyrics of "Let the Rainbow Remind You"? (102 minutes. Click here to read the script. Not you, Celestia!)
So, you ever clean up that desk?
Woohoo! Now to marathon it!
*one marathon later*
Woohoo! That was depressing.
It's gratifying in a way to hear someone I respect coming to many of the same conclusions that I did, as well as a boatload of others that I never considered. I was never quite able to put my finger on why seasons 4 and 5, even at their best, were so much less magical and memorable than the early episodes... but dammit, you're right. It was one thing when Twilight grew up and the show wasn't about little ponies anymore, but then it started taking itself so darn seriously. And it's a huge relief to finally find someone who agrees with me about Amending Fences. I felt awful watching that episode.
Hey, I never did release this thing, did I? Well, you've shown me yours; this was mine. Perhaps it'll be good for a laugh.
Thanks for posting the scripts. I was quite interested by your blog about Magical Mystery Cure oh so long ago, but I refrained from these ones because I much prefer reading your points that hearing them. Hoping to get through them over the next few days.
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Brevity was never the goal with these.
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Mummy says cleaning up the desk is worth 10 Good Boy points, so I reserve it for when I want extra chicken tendies.
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Okay, so I didn't read the whole thing, only the premiere, and that was hilarious. You really should publish this in some form, somewhere.
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Let me know how you like them. I'd still recommend watching the videos eventually, when you have the time, though.
Welp, first of all I want to say that the editing for your videos was pretty great. I generally only looked at specific moments that seemed interesting to watch in the script, but I was consistently impressed. Secondly, the pacing was very solid. There were many times where I would read/listen to a point you make, think about a rebuttal, then have you address that rebuttal immediately after, so kudos to you.
Some thoughts:
-I wholeheartedly agree when you say that the show lost something when the alicorns lost their divinity. Enough to consider it the destruction of the Magic Circle? Probably not, in my case. Regardless, it's an interesting point and I have no complaints about it.
-I can't say I'm especially convinced about the metaphor of alicorns = adults and little ponies = children. I think it's a thoughtful and unique argument, but I have my doubts as to how intentional it was and how effective it is.
-Cadance is indeed pretty boring/useless as a show character and I see how her existence fumbles the idea of alicorns, but this seems rather loosely related to Twilight's Kingdom.
-Twilight as a cynic is a really intriguing idea and well backed up. Again though, it sort of feels more like headcanon than an intentional decision by the writers
-I'm unconvinced about your portrayal of Pinkie Pie as a parody and foil to Twilight. Nor do I agree that she's only gotten worse over the seasons - in my opinion it varies episode to episode as it pretty much always has.
-You did a really great job of highlighting how different unicorn Twilight is from alicorn Twilight. Definitely a highlight of the analysis.
-The "self-improvement as a theme" part feels a bit dubious. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it, but there are plenty of episodes in which that is not true: Applebuck Season, Lesson Zero, (maybe) Putting Your Hoof Down, and those are straight from the first two seasons.
-Your decision to tackle Amending Fences, widely considered one of the better episodes of season 5, does wonders for your argument
-The Before/After part is okay. I'm not certain that all of it is true, nor am I certain that all of it is bad. There are so many later season episodes in which nothing controversial happens and there isn't really a correlation between "awesome"/tame stuff and good episode/bad episode. Whether it's cute or funny still or not, I haven't decided upon a firm conclusion.
-You talk about Rarity's disillusionment when it comes to stereotypical girl things, then immediately transition it to a point about princesshood, but that's hardly a convincing shutdown of "you shouldn't want to be a princess." Rarity's actions are in response to meeting Blueblood, who is an absolute brute. If Blueblood was more like Prince Charming, would the message stay the same? Almost certainly not. When you comment about the show shutting down common fantasies for little girls, this scene is rather poor evidence. If that was something the writers wanted to emphasize, I imagine Celestia's life would be a far better tool than Rarity's. It really doesn't seem more than a one-off reference.
-This sort of leads me to the impression that you put Faust and Renzetti on a pedestal and possibly give them more credit than they deserve. Keep in mind that Faust was very much in favor of the adventurous side of MLP compared to the slice-of-life stereotypical cute and girly side. In a sense you could consider stuff like the fierce yet still cutesy manticore as the beginnings of a subversion of that side she hated about little girls shows. You can't really say that Faust wouldn't have "awesomeified" MLP given sufficient time. I mean, maybe I'm wrong and you can. You've certainly done more research than I.
-Are changelings and Chrysalis really so menacing as you make them out to be? I feel that there is a certain sillyness and even cuteness to their design and I know of a decent amount of people who feel/felt similarly even when A Canterlot Wedding was a fresh episode.
-You are, however, absolutely correct that Tirek and especially Sombra made for rather uninteresting villains. It's a bit strange to me that you would lop Starlight Glimmer in when you say that each villain must be bigger and badder than the last, but the situation is a bit unique since she was a character we actually saw more than one episode of.
-You talk about redeeming villains, and "as they become more and more one-dimensional and cartoonishly evil, they start getting redeemed at a frankly alarming rate, with little buildup or sense", but our main redeemed villains are: Discord (not cartoonishly evil), Trixie (had plenty of buildup), and Starlight (you're sort of right? Not sure if she's what you mean by cartoonishly evil). Notably, Sombra, Tirek and Chrysalis are emphatically not redeemed.
-Good points about how fight scenes have changed. The ACW one is indeed quite memorable, and I'm willing to agree that it's because of the emphasis on characters/jokes/gags over the actual fighting.
-Saying "it wasn't friendship, it was the Elements of Harmony" sort of bothers me, because it's a bit like saying (bear with me I'm terrible at analogies) "people don't kill people, weapons kill people", which is absolutely true, but sort of misses the point. I'm not comfortable with it, is what I'm saying.
-5.1/2 are sort of a repeat of Part 1, but they're pretty good
-5.3/4 are excellent and really hammer in what has changed
-5.5 continues Part 4. Good but somewhat covered already.
-5.6 is amazing and probably the highlight of the whole series for me. It does a stand up job of summing up the various parts of your argument and makes the whole thing startlingly (perhaps distressingly) convincing. No complaints
-5.7: The numbers certainly don't lie, but I am curious how other similar slice-of-life style shows fare over the course of 5+ seasons. It could be quite natural that a show like FiM's numbers drop as time passes by. If Twilight's Kingdom was the best episode ever, would it have reversed the downward trend? I'm not so convinced.
-I'm relatively sure it's just because Let the Rainbow Remind You is a bad song that it's so forgettable. Friends Are Always There For You is far more memorable, despite being a season later. Plus the fact that with stuff like musical episodes, there are so many songs that individual ones simply don't have as much staying power as they did in the earlier seasons.
Overall an awesome dissection of the show that is very thoughtful and quite entertaining. Most of my dissenting opinions aren't even that the things you're saying are blatantly untrue, but that I haven't thought about it enough to say I feel one way or the other. It's absolutely a lot to think about and I think you've made some excellent points.
Ponies, kids -- not even once!
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Looking back, one of the biggest mistakes I made in this whole thing is making it sound like I think all the world building stuff was intentional. I don't actually think that Faust and Renzetti planned this all out ahead of time (Twilight Snarkle, Alicorn stuff, EoH, princesses, self improvement, etc.). But I do think that they somehow knew to do it all like this, instinctively, since they know what makes for a good story. Even if I'm completely wrong, though, and none of it was intentional, I can still invoke the death of the author and claim that this interpretation is still valid. Thing is, if this is what I got from the show, I'm 100% certain that many others got this from it as well, even if they didn't consciously realise (but their brain did).
Whether by sheer luck or genius planning, they created something extraordinary. And when they got replaced, whoever took the reins either failed to recapture that magic, or never tried to begin with. And that, in the end, is what caused the show's demise, I think.
About Blueblood. It's true, had Rarity met a nice prince, her opinion of royalty would have been different. But I argue that there is a reason that the showrunners made her meet a jerk prince. They had a message to deliver -- "You shouldn't want to be a princess!" -- and they delivered it with the subtlety of a falling anvil... or a glass slipper being shattered. Celestia being disillusioned with her position as a princess (I'm thinking of how uncomfortable she looked in "A Bird in the Hoof") or the host of the Gala was a little subtler way to implying the same thing. That's my take, anyway.
About the show's ratings dropping. Long-running shows tend to have a peak and then a slow decline, with a "core" viewerbase eventually forming a baseline. In MLP's case, there is an almost constant growth up to Twilight's Kingdom, followed by a startlingly sudden and massive drop in S5. That's what makes it such an interesting case. It's like, people like this show, still like it, still like it, BOOM, hate hate hate. After S5, there's a continuous trickling away of viewers that still hasn't ended. If there is a core audience, it's got to be absolutely tiny.
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Good points. I didn't mean to imply that your interpretation was invalid, just that you made it seem more intentional than it probably is.
While I'm still not especially happy with your princess argument, I do understand where you're coming from. Your point about the show's ratings makes sense. The sudden drop after the S4 finale is indeed rather suspicious, I mostly meant in my comment that the trickle that's happening now is probably to be expected.
Watched them all like I said I would. Many valid points, some of which I agree with.
Probably the biggest one I agree with is how Twilight has gotten rather stale and boring in her role as princess. Though, to be truthful, I had my fill of her around the end of Season 2. I wasn't sure where her character arc was headed anymore. Season 3 made that clear, and Season 4 had my hopes up that things would get shaken up. Buuuuuuut, she remained rather boring. Season 5 got my hopes up again that she and the rest of the cast where headed towards more leadership roles, and for the most part that happened. So I was happy there.
Season 6 and now 7 appear to be how the new guard (Starlight Glimmer) will inherit Twilight's legacy of learning friendship. Once again, got my hopes up.
So the show runners kinda granted my wish in that they are slowing passing the torch from the original cast to the newcomers. I think their paths have finally reached their ends. I think that's a good way to end their stories. The upcoming movie will probably be the final journey.
Though really, my biggest reason for continuing watching the show is Trixie. IMMA FANBOI AND PROUD OF IT!
I think the largest difference between us is that I haven't gotten so cynical about how the show has developed. Disappointed in some ways, yes, but I still have my hopes keeping me going. Though to be fair, I haven't been watching with the same zealotry as in previous years, only really watching the episodes that catch my interest. So yeah, my love of the show has gotten tepid. Still sticking with it, though.
So to sum up, nice work. It gave me things to ponder. Perhaps my ponderings will creep into my writing, who knows.
Finally finished watching these. You managed something quite weird at the end, I must say. Since I'd already been getting the Plinkett references, it seemed like you were laboring the joke a little too long... but then you did it for so long by the time you were squeezing moisturiser(?) into your coffee it became funny again.
As to your actual content, I agree with the basic points about how the show did and should have functioned, and where the creators lost their vision. I think the slice-of-life format for cartoons probably will always lend itself to degradation, especially if kept on life-support by executives. I think the most painful thing for me now is seeing an actual supermarket appearing in season 7. A supermarket. Where HRH Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, Element of Magic and Saviour of Equestria goes shopping. And then later where Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, who can create or at least summon, including but not limited to, entire alternate dimensions, goes shopping. A supermarket, in a small, quaint, fantasy-medieval-esque village where characters pride themselves on home-grown apples and cider, establishing their own unique fashion lines, and making baked goods with individual love and care as pertaining to their respective special talents, as opposed to buying them in the sanitised, industrialised, factory-made generic products sold in a supermarket. There was even a whole singing duo of villains that were all about taking the soul out of rustic Ponyville and commercialising the cider making process. Twilight's Kingdom may have killed the show, but that supermarket is a fleck of spit on its grave.
I was going to talk about the episode 'Princess Spike' as well but it makes me too overwhelmingly furious, and I know I'd derail myself if I started talking about it.
So, thanks for taking the effort to articulate what I think are the major problems the show encountered, and identifying exactly where it started going wrong.
This is a pretty interesting analysis, however, I believe that the show still has some of the things that made the early episodes great, and Twilight definitely feels like the same character to me.
This analysis has never been more true than today. A follower of mine posted this blog to my blog lamenting the absolute horror that was the season 8 episode School Daze as a way to cap off the points I made in my blog. I mentioned Saffron Marsala as being the harbinger of doom for this franchise despite her being likable because of the serious face political narrative which would inevitably follow, but I didn't dig deeply enough. You found the exact moment MLP died and however tardy my thanks may be, you deserve kudos for pointing out when friendship (lower case) became Friendship (the religion of MLP).
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The only thing I can say is to try to remember the show the way it was, not how it ended up. Remember what made it good. Cherish that. No need to get angry over its evolution; it's just Hasbro milking their cash cow, which we can hardly blame them for. Once you understand that the current show has close to nothing to do with the original -- not just Faust and Renzetti, but basically the entire writing team has jumped ship years ago -- you'll have a much easier time accepting the current situation.
What I'm trying to say is, don't let the natural downward spiral of a show that keeps going for too long spoil the memories of when it was good.
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Good advice. It's also worth noting we can, and do, still go on creating things as a fandom that doesn't rely on the shoddily-written canon we've been given. By this point I've read and internalized your entire text dump on the youtube videos you've done. You're good at what you do, but I do think you define bronydom too broadly. The methods you used at coming to your conclusions are solid, but this is what happens to all fandoms and the absolute psychotic zeal with which the normie defends the indefensible is a clearly defined phenomena which afflicts literally all internet communities. The open-minded leave and the "true believers" stay behind to beat down any wrongthink.
To me the community is the awesome people I've met and write with I otherwise would not have. How many people in any group really impact our lives directly? Friendship is people you know, not the rando who wants to cut your balls off for dissing Pinkie Pie. He's the guys you hang with nearly everyday. That will live on for a good long time and this show doesn't affect that.
As for the porn... don't sweat it so much. That's just the internet bro. Thanks for the reply.
Well.... That was interesting. I sometimes read things that suddenly change the way I feel about something, and it changes everything else connected to it. This is one of them.
I don't really have the ability to see things not directly pointed out. Once you explained, it feels plausable as to the reason my interest in the actual show has waned.
The show, I only continued watching because it made me cry during the pilot episode. As in, tears came out of my eyes. I have no idea why, but it happened. This was after someone at school publicly advertised his interest in the show.
It took me many tries to even give it a chance, and I don't know why I liked it, not really.
I watched the show constantly until a little past the start of season 2. At that point, I saw everything published (except for some episodes I skipped because reasons).
Got into fimfiction, brony music, etc. Endes up followong crossovers into a dozen other fandoms, which I could have cared less about. Like Marvel/DC, Warhammer 40k (I don't even), Halo, Worm, and a bunch of others that I at least looked into. Never bought the real games/books/whatever, but they became somewhat interesting.
I kept up until a few episodes into season 3. I think I lost the spark around Magic Duel. It just stopped being fun, I guess.
It probably didn't help that many fanfictions pointed out things in the show that didn't seem right.
I have been trying to get through season 4, but it is pretty much impossible. Its just painfully bad most of the time
I still read fanfics. Whether or not they follow the original vision, or the more 'awesomified' new stuff varies. What matters is that I still can, or very rare occations, recover that original feeling from so long ago.
Also I'm kinda amused that I can't find humans sexually attractive anymore.
Back in the middle of season 2, things were awesome everywhere. Now, its only fan content that really exists for me, and that good stories still get released or updated that keeps me in the fandom. I don't even get the sams spark from episodes or some stories that used to work for me.
So, the fandom is dying for me, but still holding on for now.
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I can only say what I usually say: the most important thing is to never force yourself to like the show (or anything, really). If you're struggling, stop, take a deep breath, and ask yourself: do I really want this? Act accordingly, whatever your answer is. Don't descend into existential despair over something like My Little Pony. Be honest with yourself, always. Keep it funny.
Great video series. Agreed on many points, less certain about a few other, the usual.
Back to the show, I've come to see the last two seasons (and the movie) as significantly worse than everything that came before in terms of writing. I was fairly critical of the post-Faust seasons in general, but season 7 took the series much further in the bad direction, and it shows no signs of recovery.
I'm curious whether and how much, roughly speaking, your take on these latest seasons would align with this view, in case you've seen them (and if not, I'd honestly recommend just staying away from them).
Well, I kinda felt that show peaked in quality in season 5, although it was a "gut feeling" --- it's not like I had some sort of well though out argumentation for it. Also I was quite wary about being biased about that: I've started watching the show between seasons 4 and 5 and as so had different experience with seasons 1--4 (I've marathoned them) and 5--later --- there's obvious dependent variable here.
Your videos were super insightful. Now I wonder how the heck could I miss all the changes in first four seasons?
May I ask why videos are unlisted on youtube? They're seriously very good!
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Nah, honestly they're kind of cringy. Probably should've focused more on the analysis and less forced "humour" and (badly) ripping off Mr Plinkett.
Also, I've been harassed because of these videos before. Making them unlisted has helped pre-empt that somewhat.
A friend told me about your videos. But now I can't see them and now I am sad.
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Ah, I had to take them down for personal reasons. The scripts are still available, linked in the blog here. Maybe one day I'll re-do the videos, and better (and hopefully shorter) than they were.
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Well, that sucks. Hope things are OK. This makes me glad I downloaded copies. Guess I'm not linking to these anymore after all.
I have to agree with this point, because I noticed a lot of the season finales and the movie deal with some bad guy trying to take over everything.
My reaction throughout this whole thing:
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In other words, people called you out on your bullshit. You couldn't deal with that, so rather than discuss it with your detractors with an open mind like any sane person would, you instead privated the videos and hid in your shell whenever criticism came about.
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I debated what to do with this post. Ignoring it would probably be wiser, but you'd take that as a bit proving your point, right? Look, here's the rub: if you took the time to talk to me in good faith, you might find I'm an altogether agreeable person. Yeah, I know, crazy!
An anecdote: there was this one time when one of my friends told me that some guy was serially posting insulting things about me behind my back on several platforms (we knew it was the same guy because of the same username/user icon) and it was just a lot of terrible, vile, ad-hominem stuff. And of course I felt bad about that -- I'm only human, after all -- and ignored it for a while, but it... just... kept... going. You know?
And after a while I messaged the person on a platform and I was like, hey, look, if you have a problem with me, let's discuss it because what you're doing is beyond ridiculous. Interestingly, the person was immediately apologetic. I suppose it was the first time he realised I'm a person behind the screen, and not some ambiguous dark force hell bent on destroying his favourite children's cartoon. I'll confess I haven't been keeping up with the guy since, but I think the abuse stopped after that, in that particular case.
I can tell from the way you're posting that you're either very young, or at least not very mature, but I should like to point out that these videos are three years old. In that three years, without going into detail, I've made radical changes to my life, both professionally and personally, and I'm proud to say I've become more successful than I ever imagined I might be when I was younger -- and, believe it or not, all of it entirely unconnected to this little girls' show. I've still a long way to go, of course, always room for improvement, things to do, things to learn -- but I'm working on it. That is to say, what I've been doing is the opposite of "hiding in my shell." I've never been farther out of my comfort zone. It just so happens to have nothing to do with MLP.
Meanwhile, while writing this I noticed you've actually left another comment on here, like, a half year ago, that you also seem to have immediately deleted for some reason, so I don't know what it said. But you've apparently been coming back to this post... why? To call what I wrote "bullshit" while offering no arguments to back up that assessment and to attack me personally for wanting nothing to do with comments exactly like yours? Surely you'll agree that it's not unreasonable to want to avoid such.
What I'm trying to say is, I've been plenty busy, and the last thing I needed was internet assholes calling me some thin-skinned moron for disliking My Little Pony. I mean come on, just say that out loud. It's ridiculous.
I have little hope that you'll care about what I wrote here, and I know you might just write it off as a victory, like "hey, I posted a 2-line shitpost and got an effortpost in return, success, JawJoe owned!" but please understand that this post isn't aimed at just you. It's for anyone else who might still wander into the post after all these years.
Have a good day.
Private? Awww...
I have a bit of admission to make: when reading 5000375 I didn't say it, sure, but privately thought that it's a bit of overreaction. Looking below... I really sorry for thinking so
oh man they're private? i was hoping that i would watch all of them while in zoom class lol