Musings on the Season 8 Teaser · 1:34am Sep 14th, 2017
Spoilers, man.
Going to pass on the hype train here... I find myself annoyed and I can't really identify why. I often complain that season premiers/finales follow the same stale formula of hastily-introduced villains and artificial stakes, and this breaks that mold. Chrysalis is immensely threatening even without an army, and has been a recurring villain for the last five seasons (three of which she was on vacation for, but whatever). She can be a credible danger in any number of ways, and here we actually see her scheme unfold instead of by the way literally everyone's captured. This can shape up to be a good, tense pair of episodes, and I'm just not looking forward to it beyond "Oh, cool, new season."
Maybe it's just because Chrysalis as a long-term villain bothers me. Shapeshifters are so intensely creepy and threatening that her new role as Team Rocket Blasting off Again is jarring. "Oh, look, Chrysalis failed to destroy everything we love and is running for the hills. What a silly pony, when will she learn?" Our little ponies living under the shadow of a threat that large is kind of disconcerting, particularly when said threat takes a highly personal interest in their demise. I just can't reconcile with her being a recurring baddie, but I feel I'll have to because I don't expect they'll reform the last villain standing.
Maybe I'm just going too far in filling the blanks myself. I see this 2-parter stretching out before me in mind's eye: Mane 6 get beaten, and Starlight saves the day in the ongoing, failing struggle to make her less of a Twilight/Spike fill-in. Maybe there'll be one or two differences from Where and Back Again. Whatever.
And yes I'm engaging in the sin of negative prophesying from effing 80 seconds of teaser, but... like I said, this just rubs me the wrong way. Time will tell. I can't say the show has never broken its mold, so maybe it'll wow me again.
...You know what I'm hoping? I'm hoping this setup leads to Chrysalis' semi-redemption. She's the over-the-hill villain who lost all power and mental acuity to be genuinely threatening and is about the bombard the heroes with increasingly eccentric and idiotic schemes. The hairs get used in some failed ritual she read on the back of a cereal box. She sets up a free candy trap, captures Pinkie, and is promptly chased off by the rest. She summons a demon, can't control it, and Glimmy rescues her. She becomes kind of a Trixie style Proantagonist, alternating between being a pest and grudgingly cooperating as she - I don't know - gets captured by pirates with Rarity, or tracks down a baby's parents with AJ. That would be fun.
Until she moves to Canterlot to make sweet, sweet Chryslestia luvvin.
(And what's up with Chrysalis ignoring Glim Glam? You know, the pony who beat her once, compared to Twilight's zero?)
(And wizard prodigy Twilight doesn't realize hair can be used for magic shit, or that it's a little suspicious the photographer pricked everyone's mane?)
My guess is that her plot is going to be similar to part 1 of Canterlot Wedding- alienate Starlight from her friends by winning their favor but intentionally leaving Starlight out or being mean. Maybe the hairs help her make less crappy disguises, or maybe without an army of shapshifters she is reduced to voodoo of some sort. I wonder it Zecora will be called on to help (And become the second "earth pony" in Starlight's mane 6).
Also, if that fake photographer's name isn't "Shutterbug" I will be shocked.
I agree. I think that bringing Chrysalis back outside of the S5 Alt-Reality context was an unwise decision—perhaps in part because I feel they're hindering their abilities to world-build properly in doing so. I'd like to see some villains from Equestria's past come back. Give us some G1 reimaginings, or if you're going to bring back old villains, present them in a new context. If you're really so out of villains that Chrysalis has become our series regular, then it's time to do something different with them. Show us the first Sombra battle from Celestia and Luna's perspective. Show us more of what Discord's Equestria looked like.
What i'd really like is something we will never in a thousand years get—a season of complete one-off stories featuring characters/situations exclusive to one or two episodes. I seriously think that's the only way the show can keep making unique-seeming episodes at this point.
I believe that's what one calls blanking. In many circles, it's one of the more damning social insults one can use, as it shows the world that you consider this person beneath your notice or not worth your attention. Also, it's a lot easier to pass off as 'she just wants to be a good photographer for the princess' instead of trying to come up with an excuse to cuss out Starlight.
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Sure, but I guess my point is that if she's gathering the hairs to use a magic macguffin to defeat the Mane 6 (who never beat her), skipping Starlight seems like one heck of a plot-convenient oversight.
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It's possible the plan is to somehow isolate Starlight. The thing about revenge plans is that they are never simple, they are always complicated and drawn out.
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But the hairs are inevitably to be used to somehow control or nerf the Mane 6, rendering any such division redundant.
Not that I'm saying you're wrong, mind, just that I'm not getting the "willfully dividing Starlight" vibes. Chrysalis didn't seem to deliberately undercut or insult her, she just seemed annoyed at her presence and complied with the picture just to GTFO. If Starlight factored into the plan, I guess I would've expected some more overt undercutting and less obvious annoyance with her presence.
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Another possibility is evil clones which would be fun.
I'm mainly wondering when that became a thing in Equestria in the first place.
I mean, the show clearly runs on a lighter magic system than, say, Avatar, but still.
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Mainly her plan is to straight up kill her instead of whatever she's doing to the others? It's thin, but one can dream...
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Counter-argument: Starlight's victory over Chrysalis was entirely based on her motivating Thorax to shiny it up. Assuming Starlight popped up so little in infiltration information that no changelings were assigned to deal with her, it's possible that Starlight's magical prowess is an unknown factor.
Contrast the Mane Six, each of whom wields some form of easily documentable power: Rainbow Dash has super-speed, Pinkie Pie is a grab-bag of tactical chaos magic, Twilight Sparkle is an alicorn, and Fluttershy is a bear-wrestler and also has the Stare, while Applejack and Rarity have the most extensive connections in Equestria (Apple family and the entire fashion industry respectively). All are useful to clone/flawlessly imitate/geas, but all Starlight's done in Chrysalis's eyes is be Twilight's perpetually-in-shadow apprentice who relied on friendship even in a moment where she had the most power.
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Genderbent evil clones.
....FFfffffuck yeah. Suddenly I'm interested again.
(Although the changeling queen turning to cloning is so weirdly pathetic I kind of endorse that potential plot. Like she has to use highly impractical and dangerous black magic to make it work, but does it anyway because she's hopelessly nostalgic for infiltration).
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I think it would have been better if the show had reformed Chrysalis and left Starlight as a reoccurring antagonist. Starlight is so much like Twilight that, even with the reformed villain gimmick, she feels redundant. Meanwhile, Chrysalis is so evil that feels a little generic. If their positions were reversed we'd get to see a bad girl interacting with the decidedly nicer Mane Six, and a kind villain with a good reason to be evil that we sympathies with.
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If her plan is clones, I'm going to refer to her as Starscream from now until the end of time.
Because since her debut, her plans have been as watertight as her legs.
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Sure, but God I hope not. The dullest, most obvious route here is "nerf mane 6, ignore Glimmy, Glimmy saves day," which just brings us to a rehash of Where and Back. Much as we complain the writers are running out of ideas, I earnestly hope they're not so far done as to give us that.
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Yet she always comes pretty close to victory, she usually only loses because she lets her guard down after thinking she's won.
4667868 Her plan worked in ACW because the plot demanded it. The saddest thing this fandom has done aside from that Twilicorn nonsense was bitch about the magic of love saving the ponies from that—namely because the same group raved about the fires of friendship saving the founders in the original story.
Her second go around was monumentally better until she started gloating about how she wanted it all for herself in front of her changelings. Great way to get them to go "hang on, let's listen to the one talking about individuality."
So, she has amazing plot armor right up until it comes time for her to lose.
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Yeah, but... Actually, really they worked. Conquer Equestia 1 failed because macguffin power of love, Conquer Equestria 2 because she hadn't counted on Starlight (and Thorax). Runaway victories that had unforeseen complications. If 3 bombs for the exact same reason... I dunno. I'm not sure what it'll be sadder for: the ability to take her seriously as a villain, or the ability to trust the writers to come up with new ideas.
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I mean, there's also the fact that being able to assume direct control of a supersonic missile and an alicorn at whim gives Chrysalis a pretty easy way to just punch Starlight with an overpowered fist and lock her up without risking that the new avatar of friendship manages to shake off mind control by kissing Trixie.
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You joke but many would be happy if Chrysalis lost that way XD.
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It would certainly be the most interesting way to rehash the way Chrysalis lost in A Canterlot Wedding.
Maybe, maybe for once
Maybe
Chrysalis wins
And Celestia & Luna save the day
That would be awesome