DANNYJ REVIEWS: MLP SEASON 7 PART 1 · 12:03pm Mar 4th, 2018
So, hey, I've got another of these things...
I don't normally do episode review blogs. My thoughts on new episodes aren't always positive, and I've never liked just complaining about things, but it's not as if I hide my opinions. In other people's episode reaction/breakdown blogs, I'm often quite candid about what I thought of the episode. And even here in my own blogs, I've made extremely negative reviews of things like the EG Holiday Special. I even wrote a fixfic of all things for Revenge of Everfree, because I thought it was just that bad. But those are low-hanging fruit. Not exactly controversial.
The show, on the other hand, is. Ever since season three, there's been a pretty sharp divide between those who like the state of the show, and those who don't. Myself, I was always rather live and let live about things. Twilicorn and other marketing inserts like the Friendship Castle never bothered me, I gave Equestria Girls a fair shake, and even though some good writers left, my favourite season of the show actually turned out to be the fifth. So honestly, it was always something of a downer to me how negative some people were about the show, and not just right after season three, but later as well. Even during my favourite season, personal friends of mine and certain people I followed were very vocal in their opinions that the show was going downhill, and some of them outright quit the fandom in an explosion of loud, ranting drama.
I think what prevented me from going into episode reviewing was that I didn't want to be like that whenever it came to the few episodes I did dislike. There were enough critical voices in the fandom already, enough negative sentiment, that I didn't feel any need to add to it. What was a bad episode to me might be somebody else's favourite, and I always tried to respect that and restrain myself when expressing any negative sentiments. The only times I went for the jugular were with things like the EG Holiday Special or The Mysterious Mare Do Well, because those stories were so overwhelmingly terrible that almost nobody even defends them.
In many ways, that still hasn't changed. Personally, I think A Royal Problem was awful, but just minutes ago as I type this, I saw someone else call it the best episode ever, and they're entitled to think that. Who am I, really, to tear their favourite episode apart? Sure, my opinions are just my own, and that shouldn't affect your enjoyment of an episode, but for a lot of people, it does. And even if it doesn't, it's still not nice to see someone hating something that you enjoy. I never wanted to be that guy for somebody else, and I still don't.
So what's different now, that I started writing this review series? Well, to be blunt, it's that I reached a breaking point with season seven, and couldn't ignore my problems with it anymore. At first, I told myself that I had just grown more cynical, like many of the others I'd seen grow tired with the show, and so I was relatively reserved with my opinions. I'd grumble in comment sections around the site or in private chats with friends that I didn't like this episode or that one, but that was it. Over time, however, I came to realise that it wasn't me that had changed, but the show. Season seven really wasn't up to the standards of the rest of the show, and I can point to several examples of such, and reasons for why that is.
This noticeable drop in quality isn't something I can ignore. When I spent over ten thousand words ripping apart the EG Holiday Special, it wasn't just because it was an acceptable target and everyone already hated it. It was also because it was a genuinely bad story that I had a bad time with, and writing that review helped me to articulate my thoughts and do something constructive with them. With season seven, I feel much the same. I believe that it was significantly worse than any previous season of the show, with several episodes that I thought were at least as bad as the EG Holiday Special.
And I can't let that slide. No matter how much I don't want to be that guy for people who like season seven, a bad story shouldn't get a pass just because it has fans. Season seven is just as deserving of a harsh take-down as anything else I reviewed, and I would've already given it long ago if it weren't for my hang-ups about this. I need to start being upfront, and call out these mistakes for what they are. So even if I don't like being negative, and even if this might lose me a few followers, here's my critical breakdown of season seven of MLP: FiM.
Now, be forewarned. When I don't like something (and there's a lot I didn't like here), I tend to get kind of rant-y and swear a lot. I've tried to channel that for comedy here so that it's at least entertaining for you guys, instead of just pages of DannyJ being angry, but if you don't like that as a reviewing style, then I'm sorry, but you're gonna have a bad time. Likewise, if you're one of the people who liked season seven (and I mean as a whole, not just for its few good episodes), and you don't particularly want to read me ripping it a new one for tens of thousands of words, then this probably won't be for you. I'll try to be as fair as possible, and make an effort to explain myself and back up my points. But ultimately, I'm still going to be ripping it a new one, and I hope you're okay with that.
And finally, please remember that even when I'm making factual statements, they're still going to be filtered through my own subjective view. I have biases and personal gripes and hang-ups just like any other human being, so don't take my opinion for anything other than what it is – my opinion.
With all that out of the way, let's begin. Brace yourselves, my dudes, because this is fucking long.
Time to make peace with my demons.
Introduction:
Season seven begins where season six left off, and for that reason, we're going to have to talk a little about season six first, since I never reviewed that either.
Just paragraphs above, I remarked that my favourite season of FiM was the fifth. In many ways, season six was just more of the things I liked from five. There was more strength of continuity between episodes than there were in earlier seasons. More high concepts and worldbuilding were attempted, bringing us episodes like Gauntlet of Fire and Dungeons and Discords. And the story and character writing were pretty decent, such as with Zephyr Breeze from Flutter Brutter, who was a flawed character in an almost uncomfortably realistic way.
But, season six also had some noticeable slips in quality from five, in my opinion. Newbie Dash had Rainbow achieve her lifelong goal with none of the fanfare or sense of accomplishment that accompanied the Crusaders gaining their cutie marks or Twilight becoming a princess. On Your Marks presented the CMC after their own triumphant achievement, and showed a general lack of any idea of what to do with them now, just like how season four didn't capitalise on Princess Twilight in any particularly meaningful way. Episodes like Cart Before the Ponies showed a willingness to bend characterisation in service to the plot, and Stranger Than Fan Fiction was the first time the show got meta in a confrontational way, rather than a silly, fan-pandering way.
And of course, there were the dual introductions of the reformed Starlight Glimmer and Thorax. I'm going to leave aside discussion of Thorax for the minute, but Starlight is important to talk about, because her redemption arc pervaded the previous season, and ultimately culminated in the first episode of season seven.
Now, Starlight is frequently compared to Sunset Shimmer, but there are a few key differences that set them apart. I could spend a few paragraphs analysing the two of them and contrasting their characters, but for our purposes, the important distinction to make is that Starlight remained a flawed character even after her supposed redemption, whereas reformed Sunset is basically perfect. And this, in theory, should work out great for Starlight's arc, because flaws in a character make them more multi-faceted and interesting. Discord is often a massive prick, but that's part of the reason why I love him so much. But the issue with that is that the show itself by the end of season six pretended that Starlight's most glaring flaws either weren't there, or weren't as serious and troubling as they actually were.
We all know it's true.
For example, Starlight in Every Little Thing She Does had no ethical problems with using mind control on the mane five just so that she wouldn't have to do so much work on friendship lessons. Which isn't so out of line with the rest of the show, because ponies in general are much more tolerant of mind control than we are in real life. But for a character who supposedly feels so much guilt over being a villain, when her villainy revolved around brainwashing and trampling over the free will of others, seeing her do this just made her seem like she didn't really learn her lesson at all. It didn't help that at the end of the episode, when she was apologising for her actions, she still showed a lack of awareness of what exactly she'd done wrong.
Add to this the fact that she was consistently shown as going out of her way to avoid friendship lessons and associating with Twilight's friends, when those were part of her parole program, and it results in her remorse feeling disingenuous. Starlight in season six didn't feel like a character on the path to redemption. She actually came off as kind of a sociopath at times.
Again, all this could be fine if these were intentional character flaws, and the show and maybe other characters had acknowledged that Glimmer at this point was kind of a shitty person that they still needed to do a lot of work on. But instead, Where and Back Again (and later Celestial Advice) insisted that she'd already redeemed herself. That she'd seen the light, learned her lessons, and grown as a person. I didn't see that in her, and I think plenty of others didn't see it either, considering how divided the fandom was on Starlight during and after season six, and still are to some extent.
All the praise she received in these episodes feels unwarranted, and all her flaws seemed like they were being glossed over, because the finale was written as if Starlight had actually had a full season's worth of development and learning, rather than a paltry handful of episodes that mostly cast her in a bad light. It doesn't help that the plot of the season six finale revolved around Starlight and her own band of friends saving the day, while the beloved characters that we've been following for years fail offscreen due to plot contrivance. The narrative bent around Starlight to expense of everything else, and for that reason, I don't think it was unwarranted to call Starlight a Poochie or a Mary Sue.
This is where we were with the show when season seven began. I will say upfront, from the very beginning, I went in expecting to have a bad time. This was the least excited I had ever been for a new season of MLP. So, starting on a low note...
Episode 1 - Celestial Advice:
Being as concerned as I already was by the contrivances in Where and Back Again just so that Starlight could take the spotlight, I didn't think Celestial Advice was a good start to the season. Indeed, my concerns felt all the more justified. In the same show where the mane six's medal ceremony for defeating Discord was a thirty second scene tacked onto the end of the two-parter, Starlight Glimmer had a whole episode to congratulate her for helping to defeat Chrysalis, a feat that was mostly Thorax's doing. And while it is true that she received equal acknowledgement in the ceremony as Thorax, Discord, and Trixie, it's also true that the spotlight is very firmly on her throughout the episode, even when she isn't actually physically present.
One could make the argument that an episode like this is necessary, as a lot of crazy stuff happened in Where and Back Again that naturally has to be acknowledged and followed up on, Starlight's character arc among them. And I agree with this. Certainly, it's a hell of a lot better than how previous season premiers handled preceding events. The changeling invasion and the Tirek incident in particular weren't acknowledged at all after they happened, with their follow-up episodes instead immediately diving into new, unrelated adventures. However, as an episode about exploring the fallout from Where and Back Again, this still fails, because of its monomaniacal focus on Starlight to the expense of everything else. Most notably, the changelings, the ones who actually went through a major shake-up that altered their entire lives, are almost completely ignored.
I'm not imagining this, guys. The favouritism is really fucking blatant.
And speaking of major life changes, the lack of any for Starlight is another problem given the amount of focus she gets. The episode tries to characterise itself as being about Glimmer's graduation day, but she doesn't actually advance in any way.
Twilight spends this episode simulating various different hypothetical scenarios for ways she could send Starlight away to continue her learning. I admit that some of the ideas on display here are pretty fun, but there was an element of frustration to the whole thing. This episode is an acknowledgement that, regardless of what the audience might think of Starlight, her character arc of learning friendship is considered to have come to an endpoint, and she no longer has a reason to bum around Twilight's castle. The different scenarios presented plenty of ways she could've moved on to do something more interesting elsewhere, but it was all just a tease before the status quo was re-established at the end. I don't like Starlight much, but I was actually intrigued by the possibility of her hanging around with Ember for the season, and even though I knew it was coming, her decision to stay at the end disappointed me.
I suppose I should also take time to talk about the titular "Celestial advice" itself, because despite all the focus on Starlight, Twilight is the actual protagonist here. She has her own conflict, being sad that Starlight has to leave, and Celestia relates to her about how she felt when it was Twilight who was leaving her back in the pilot episode. And this was another interesting thing the episode did, because it was the first time we got anything resembling a Celestia episode. It was brief, but the character insight into Celestia was definitely appreciated...
...If not for the other major issue of the episode, which was inconsistency. Specifically, the inconsistency of Celestia's flashback, showing the mane five as all being friends with each other prior to Twilight's arrival in Ponyville.
I hope you like reaction images of people being disgusted or angry, because I have a lot of them.
It may not seem like such a glaring flaw at first glance, as this was the case for their human counterparts in Equestria Girls, but it very much cannot be the case for these characters. Many early season one episodes were built around the mane six getting to know each other, and certain pairs had downright hostile relationships before those episodes. Applejack and Rarity in particular had some serious animosity until they reconciled their differences during the sleepover, and Rainbow Dash outright avoided Pinkie Pie and found her annoying until they bonded over their pranking spree in Griffon the Brush-Off. This flashback simply does not make sense with past continuity.
And this begins a thread that runs throughout season seven. In a lot of episodes from hereon out, narrative consistency and strong continuity is frequently discarded for no obvious gain. It happens in quite a flew places, but it's most especially pronounced in this show's approach to flashbacks, to the point that one has to write off most flashbacks in season seven as being imagined by unreliable narrators for them to make any kind of sense. I don't understand why this season so abruptly dropped any attempt at internal consistency, but it's one of the things that irked me most throughout later episodes, and it certainly did here.
But really, in the end, the most damning thing I can say about Celestial Advice is that when taken together, it's much less than the sum of its parts. Looking back on it now, with the benefit of a season's worth of hindsight, it really doesn't feel like there's any point to its existence. Starlight had chances to interact with Thorax and Ember in later episodes, so the simulations haven't got much value as "what ifs." We got a real Celestia episode later, so the novelty of Celestia playing a major role didn't last long. Starlight didn't end up leaving, and the status quo didn't change, so spending the whole episode focusing on this idea that it might change was a huge waste of time. And it didn't set up anything for later or tie into the season finale at all.
As far as I can tell, Celestial Advice only exists to suck Glimmer off some more. And I am not okay with that.
Episode 2 - All Bottled Up:
Another thing worth noting about the premier of season seven is that, for the first time in the series, they didn't open with a two-parter, but instead with a pair of pretty much unrelated episodes. Yes, they're both about Starlight and are chronologically close to one another, but the two episodes otherwise have nothing to do with each other. I found this an interesting change of pace for a season premier, and had it been handled differently, I probably would've really appreciated it.
However, following one Starlight episode with another Starlight episode wasn't a good idea. Counting the end of season six, this was her third episode in a row, and all of them so far had lionised Starlight to the expense of the world and characters around her, while brushing over her flaws. This episode didn't quite do that, fortunately. It was just a basic slice-of-life about Starlight's relationship with Trixie, and it was fine for that. However, only two episodes in, I was already feeling as if the season was oversaturated with this character, and seeing her resort to magical solutions to emotional problems yet again, even after Every Little Thing She Does, didn't make me like her any better. I feel like this episode would've been better spaced somewhere midway between Celestial Advice and Royal Problem, but I'll get to that later.
All that said, I still haven't really touched much on the episode itself, and there, I do have a few things to praise. Most especially (and surprisingly, for me), Trixie.
Here's where I make my first really controversial statement of this review series: I didn't like Trixie in season six. It's hard to quantify exactly what my problem was, because it's one of those gut feelings that I'm not sure come from anything exactly rational. Maybe it was the way she spoke, maybe it was the fact that she and Twilight were still antagonistic towards each other despite how they parted ways in Magic Duel, maybe it was something else, but her whole portrayal just felt subtly "off" to me.
And that was just in her first appearance of the season. Her second one in Where and Back Again didn't endear her to me either, although I think that's at least partially because of the circumstances she was in; she spent that episode chumming around with other characters I didn't like (i.e. Starlight and Thorax), while constantly shit-talking the only one I did (Discord).
But like I said, All Bottled Up kind of turned that around. Whatever was different, exactly, about her portrayal, I had clearly gotten used to it by this point, and her antics were actually pretty amusing in this episode and future ones. Like the teacup thing. Or how she kept annoying Starlight. And gosh, but was this episode shippy. "The Starlight I love," huh? Yeah, I think we all know what they meant by that.
Or, in pony-speak, "BEST FRIENDS."
So yes, getting me to like Trixie again was a big point in this episode's favour. Unfortunately, I can't outright call it a good episode, because even discounting my issues with Starlight, one thing really dragged it down for me, and that was the B-plot with the mane six.
Yeah, I know, it sounds like a paradox.
"You hate Starlight for stealing the spotlight from your waifus, but the mane six were the worst part of the episode? You alright, bro? You taken your meds today?"
Well, yes, I have, thank you for asking. But more importantly, my issue with the mane six in this episode is that they were completely superfluous, and did nothing but distract from the core story. The B-plot about the escape the room activity in Manehattan served no real purpose. There was no conflict, no lesson, no character development, nothing even particularly memorable about it. In fact, in my first ten revisions of this review, I completely forgot that it was in the episode, and kept racking my brain trying remember what it was I disliked so much. It's just there, taking up screentime and breaking apart the Starlight and Trixie segments.
It largely seems as if this B-plot only exists to facilitate the song, because the song is rather clumsily inserted and strangely irrelevant to everything going on. It's sort of plopped in, like the mane six story in general, with an awkward mid-song cut to Starlight and Trixie for a scene that lasts about ten seconds, and lazy recycled animation for the choruses that makes it look like a last-minute rush job. The lyrics aren't even specific to the immediate situation, or thematically appropriate to the broader episode. It's like Daniel Ingram wrote and produced the song first as some generic friendship anthem for an Equestria Girls credit sequence or a YouTube short, and then this episode was hastily rewritten so that they could fit it into the season somewhere. Probably because the season has so few other songs.
And the worst part is that "Best Friends Until the End of Time" is still probably the best song of the season.
Still, even with that fault, I can't say that All Bottled Up was a bad episode. I may not have liked Starlight, and the B-plot may have been superfluous, but the episode was fine otherwise. For what it was, I found it perfectly serviceable.
It was definitely better than the next Starlight episode.
Episode 3 - A Flurry of Emotions:
So here we come to the first and only Flurry Heart episode of the season, and this one's pretty uncomplicated. I didn't have any major complaints about this one when it first aired, and I still don't, really. It's a nice, simple slice-of-life story about Twilight bonding with her new baby niece while said niece causes chaos. Not a story I was expecting to like, but I rather did.
Don't tell anybody I liked the Flurry Heart episode, though.
That said, this episode did raise some questions for me. Such as, what is the exact purpose of Flurry Heart, either as a character or as a plot device? I guess she lends characterisation opportunity to other characters, like her parents. Cadance, in particular, very much embraced the mom role. But it's the wings I wonder about.
I don't think they made a fifth alicorn princess just so that they do more episodes like Baby Cakes, especially since the Cake twins themselves don't seem to be aging at all. Yet, aside from the obvious explanation of marketing a new toy, there doesn't seem to be much reason for Flurry to be an alicorn. At least, not if the show wants to ignore Journal of the Two Sisters and say that alicorns are all normally made rather than born.
Celestia in The Crystalling said some vague shit about Flurry possibly serving some important purpose one day, because her birth was unusual and portentous, but episodes like this make me think that there isn't really much of any kind of plan for her. Which, I guess I can't really be that upset over, because it's not like there are many things of significance you can do with a literal baby (except nearly destroy the Crystal Empire, apparently). But it does seem really odd that they would specifically draw attention to how special and unique Flurry is, and then do absolutely nothing with it.
I guess that's why some fans don't like her. Me, I don't mind all that much. Like I said, this was a decent enough episode, and if this is all Flurry's good for, then I guess more Flurry episodes wouldn't be the worst thing. Twilight was pretty adorable trying to be a good aunt, if nothing else.
Episode 4 - Rock Solid Friendship:
So here's another bout of heresy for you. I didn't like Maud last season either.
What? I didn't. What do you expect me to do about it?
By which I mean, I didn't like her in Gift of the Maud Pie, because that was her only appearance in season six to the best of my recollection. And Gift of the Maud Pie was... hrmmm... well... kinda boring, to be honest. I'm not sure it's any one particular factor that killed that episode for me, but mostly I guess it was because it just reused a bunch of elements I'd seen before. And for whatever reason, I didn't find Maud funny in that episode, even though I usually do. That worried me. I thought that Maud's comedic potential had just ran dry as her main joke got old, and that Maud episodes were just going to be like that from now on.
This episode at least relieved me of that concern. I found Maud consistently entertaining in Rock Solid Friendship, especially when she seemed to be deliberately enabling Starlight's villainy, and we can't tell if she was joking or not. I was very happy to find myself enjoying Maud's antics again.
And speaking of Starlight, she had a pretty major non-starring role in this episode. While nominally about Pinkie and Maud, the episode also shifted focus to Maud and Starlight at several points. I'm of mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, we'd only had a single episode's break since the last time Starlight took the spotlight, so again, this did nothing to help the feeling of Starlight oversaturation. But on the other hand, she didn't do anything egregious in the episode, and her making appearances in non-Starlight episodes is an important step for her development.
Part of the major problem with Starlight's character in season six was that she never felt like she was learning friendship because she didn't regularly interact with the rest of the cast. She was a Schrodinger's pony, both existing and not, usually only showing up onscreen if the episode was actually about her. This was a good first step towards fixing that, especially since it gave her another friend besides Trixie. I just wish it could've been done without breaking perspective from Pinkie, since she is the episode's protagonist.
Of course, my real criticism of the episode has nothing to do with Starlight. It's actually all about retcons, continuity, and worldbuilding, because this episode was really strange on those fronts in several ways. This huge underground paradise cave near Ponyville that nobody ever knew about came out of nowhere. Maud's insertion into the backstory of Ourtown raised a lot of questions in its implications, which I don't expect will ever be answered. Ghastly Gorge is suddenly far enough away from Ponyville to warrant a train ride, when it was never portrayed that way before. All of this feels really jarring, and I'm not sure what to make of most of it.
Though, in fairness, this episode is nothing compared to what comes later.
It sets a precedent, as well, just like the unreliable flashback in Celestial Advice. Season five, and even six to a lesser extent, may have cared about establishing continuity, and keeping a consistent timeline, and making sure all the world details were straight. Season seven does not. Season seven does what it wants to in the moment, and I think it's definitely weaker for it.
Episode 5 - Fluttershy Leans In:
When this episode first came out, I called it the first one of the season that I unreservedly enjoyed. Looking back... my opinion is less charitable.
I think I was overly generous to it because it was the first episode of the season to actually focus entirely on a member of the mane six and their own personal struggles. We'd just come off of a run of four episodes prominently featuring either Starlight Glimmer or Flurry Heart. The latter I have no real interest in, and the former I actively disliked. So even if I liked any of the previous four episodes, or thought they were good, I didn't necessarily have a great time with them.
This one, I did. And I think it's clear to see why. It was a major step for Fluttershy's character, which has been slowly developing over the course of the show, and it finally gave us something to show for all her growth. Her animal sanctuary established for her an ambition which she fulfilled, allowing her make progress in the same way that Rarity and Rainbow Dash have been doing for a while. And the way she stood up to the ponies ruining her vision showed how much she'd learned and applied all her lessons. I'd always been aware that Fluttershy was gradually coming out of her shell and learning to be a more balanced person, but this was the first time it really came through. It was the first time it had tangible results, aside from maybe Flutter Brutter.
Now, all that aside, this episode had questionable moments too, which I don't think I gave enough thought to the first time around. For example, Fluttershy's relationship with the vet. The fact that she takes animals to a vet at all, and doesn't serve Ponyville in that capacity herself, raises all manner of questions. For seven seasons, it's always been unclear what Fluttershy's actual job is, and until now, everyone's sort of just been assuming that taking care of animals is her job in some capacity. I mean, why not, right? She has a cutie mark in animal care, and she's good at it. She's given animals medical attention plenty of times. But if Ponyville has an actual, official vet that Fluttershy sometimes defers to, then what the hell has she been doing for all this time? Is taking care of all those animals really just a hobby?
Derpibooru tagged this as a troll image, but honestly, after this episode, I think OP might have a point...
The behaviour of the professionals doesn't really make sense either when you get right down to it. They disobey some very explicit instructions. Surely this would get them fired no matter who their employer was? And the construction pony in particular doesn't do his work in any kind of realistic way. Like, you can't just reuse blueprints on any random ground. That's not how it works. You have to measure terrain and lay the right foundation and stuff. I'm not an expert or anything, but this guy is, yet he's clearly doing it wrong.
Another thing which I should've taken as an early warning sign was an appearance by a non-sapient deer in the vet's. You should probably know by now that in the comics, the deer have a small kingdom in the Everfree, and a king to go with it. Said king has continued to make appearances in comics published after season seven, and the show and comics are trying to tie together more closely these days, so this is a detail that you'd expect to be kept straight. And yet it's not.
Now, the show and comics disagree on things all the time, so this isn't a huge deal. It's certainly not any worse than how wildly different the two versions of the Changeling Kingdom are. You can work around the contradiction with headcanon if you really want to keep the deer kingdom. But the fact that headcanon is necessary, or else that other stories just have to be declared non-canon, is a sign that nobody in charge actually cares about keeping these things straight, despite their stated intent. And it only gets worse from here.
Episode 6 - Forever Filly:
At the point where this episode came along, I was still trying to like the new season. "It got off to a bad start," I told myself, "but it's really starting to pick up now." Forever Filly, just like All Bottled Up, is not a bad episode by most measures, and I happily took it. But even at the time, I was aware that it wasn't the kind of quality episode that would stick in my mind and really stand out as a season favourite. It's kind of on the same tier as, say... Appleloosa's Most Wanted. Do you remember that one? It was the one with Troubleshoes. I think Braeburn was also in it? That episode was okay, wasn't it?
Well, Forever Filly occupies the same sort of spot for me. I remember most of the major story beats, from Rarity's overdramatics in the opening, to Sweetie's uncomfortableness, to that weird dog who behaved nothing like a dog and somehow outgrew one of his games (which, speaking of, if I have one thing to really criticise about the episode, it's that). What I don't remember is any of the jokes, or the dialogue, or anything that I would normally expect to remember about an episode I liked. It's sort of a blur to me.
Pictured: DannyJ watching Forever Filly.
Maybe this says more about me and my opinions than it does about the episode. I don't think that "DannyJ can't remember it very well" is a particularly scathing criticism. Maybe I'm not giving it enough credit, and I'm making it sound worse than it actually is. But the honest truth is, when I look back on the episode with hindsight, I can't really remember what I liked about it, and I can't help but wonder if maybe it was just a mediocre episode that I had another skewed first impression of.
...Seriously, what kind of dog outgrows playing with its owner? Did the writer of this episode never own a dog?
Episode 7 - Parental Glideance:
So, the Dash's parents episode. This was an episode that I was actively looking forward to, because Rainbow Dash by this point in the series was the only one left whose family we really knew nothing about. We didn't even know if that rainbow-haired stallion sometimes seen with Dash was a father, brother, uncle, or something else. After this episode... well, jury's still out on that guy in particular, although we can at least rule out father.
But Dash's parents were a very welcome addition to the show. I liked them a lot, not least of all because the kind of people they are retroactively explains a lot about why Dash is the way she is. I thought it was a little unrealistic that they didn't follow any Wonderbolt-related news at all, but I'm willing to overlook that just this once, since the premise of the episode hinges on it. Either way, very entertaining characters, and they gave me pretty much exactly what I wanted from the episode.
So, I liked this one, right? It was good?
Well, yes. With a big, pulsing asterisk.
Here, lemme put this on first... There we go.
Parental Glideance was so close to being great, but I have to detract from its score because it does the Celestial Advice thing. You know the thing, because I talked about it before. That flashback sequence was full of contradictions.
What contradictions? Well, the competitors in Dash's early races, mostly. This flashback would have us believe that as a foal, Rainbow Dash regularly competed in races against not just Ponyville familiars like Derpy and Thunderlane, but also all of the main Wonderbolts, plus Lightning Dust. And she eventually defeated them all in one of these races. But we've seen her meeting Lightning Dust and the other Wonderbolts for the first time as adults, and nobody ever remembered or referenced these events, so what the hell?
And that's not even considering the problem of the age differences. Spitfire was already the Captain of the Wonderbolts by the time Dash competed in the Best Young Fliers for the first time, so obviously she has to be older than her. Yet in this flashback, they look the same age.
Yes, I'm aware that this is nitpicking. I'm aware that this is a few brief frames in a twenty-two minute episode that I'm really over-analysing, and thinking about way more than I was ever meant to. But you should still see what I mean when I talk about season seven no longer caring about keeping a consistent continuity. As I've said before, I'm kind of obsessive about these things, and I like when a fictional universe is cohesive and makes sense. Things like this break that cohesion for me, because these are very basic mistakes with huge narrative consequences, which could've easily been fixed, if only someone actually working on the show had put some thought into it.
Look, my neuroses are my own, and it's fine if you think I'm just being overdramatic about this point. Like I said when I began this blog, this is all just my opinion anyway. But I think that this flashback sequence severely drags down an otherwise pretty good episode, and I really, really wish that the people who actually make this show had cared about the quality of their creation enough to keep these details straight. This was just sloppy, and that disappoints me.
Episode 8 - Hard to Say Anything:
Onto the Big Mac episode, and Jesus Christ, the cringe is real.
That fucking song sequence, man.
It's about this point that any hopes I had for the season being good came to an abrupt, crashing halt. Not because this episode was poorly written, exactly, but because I was noticing this trend that even the episodes I liked had flaws I couldn't ignore, and the episodes that I disliked I really disliked. And the one thing that both the good and bad episodes had in common was that they were always bad at continuity.
This episode's mandatory bad continuity was in Big Mac's relationships. Explicit reference is made to the love poison incident way back in season two, so I'm assuming the writer of this episode was familiar with what went down there, but what this episode ignores is literally everything that's happened since then.
Despite the events of Hearts and Hooves Day, Big Mac and Cheerilee have had hints of something going on over the intervening seasons. It's never been explicitly touched on, but Cheerilee was swooning over Big Mac when he was doing the Pony-Tones thing in Filli Vanilli, and they've been seen together a few times since, which for this show and fandom might as well make them married. There's even a picture of the two together on the CMC's clubhouse wall in another episode of this very season. I'm not a major shipper or anything, and I'm not particularly upset that Big Mac ended up with Sugar Belle instead of Cheerilee, but this just didn't feel like a natural move after how long the show has been alluding to this.
Although, yes, CheeriMac is OTP, and HOW FUCKING DARE YOU AKJGNALUKGJNSKDGN.
Really, though, that's far from the episode's biggest problem, which I've already mentioned. It's just so cringeworthy. It's the cringiest thing I've ever seen in this show.
Dash making an ass of herself in front of her lifelong heroes for several minutes straight in Newbie Dash was one thing. Spike trying to sing an anthem he doesn't know the lyrics to in front of a silent, crowded stadium was another. This beats both of them by a mile. It conclusively proves that it's impossible to die of secondhand embarrassment, because I would've been among the first fatalities if it weren't. Celestia only knows how Big Mac didn't immediately kill himself after that song.
Okay, so I'm making a big deal of this. What exactly did the episode do wrong? Well... I have to admit, not much in objective terms. I mean, we could've done without Pony Bieber, but that's not really a major writing complaint. Really, this is a matter of taste. What people find cringy is one of those really subjective things. In this case, I just found Big Mac's repeated failures to be painful in their awkwardness. And his failures were huge. Not just the song, but also trying to kiss Sugar Belle while she was asleep. What the hell was up with that? That was just so creepy and weird for a show that's normally so incredibly tame. It sorta made my skin crawl, watching it.
Again, I don't think this is necessarily bad writing... I mean, like I said, that's really subjective. I know people who liked this episode, so clearly not everyone had the adverse reaction I did. And I suppose author intent matters when judging these things. I don't think the writer of this episode wanted for me to watch it with both hands covering my eyes, but hey, if they did, then this episode is a major success. I certainly didn't have a good time with it, though, and I'm probably never going to watch it again after this.
Episode 9 - Honest Apple:
So after the Big Mac cringe-a-thon, the show really threw us a curveball, by airing what I can only describe as a lost episode from season two.
Rare video recording of DannyJ.
What I mean by that is that it's an episode with a really obvious moral, and one which it really feels like these characters should've already learned by now. Applejack learns that there's such a thing as being too honest... seven seasons into this show. I mean, there's nothing inherently wrong with this lesson, or having Applejack learn it. It's just the timing that baffles me. They should've either done this early on or not at all.
But since they did do it here, how was the episode we got? Well... okay. It was okay. I liked seeing Rarity using her fame to help others, and I liked how Rarity-associated characters like Photo Finish and Hoity Toity made a return. Seeing an Applejack and Rarity conflict again after all this time was also kind of a novelty, and I liked how both of them were at fault, Applejack for being too honest, and Rarity for making a poor choice of judge for her fashion showcase.
This episode was also better about continuity than most of the rest of the season. Referencing Coco and Coloratura were clear attempts at putting in definite chronology markers, which is appreciated, since the chronology of this show is usually really weird and floaty. And I don't recall much in the way of major contradictions, which is more than I can say for a lot of season seven episodes.
It was almost enough to start getting me to reconsider my general pessimism about the show, except that immediately after, we were hit with...
Episode 10 - A Royal Problem:
...Yeah.
Okay, so, I'm sure I don't need to tell any of you how highly anticipated this episode was. People have been clamouring for a Celestia episode forever, and I don't think any of us ever thought it would take this long to happen. Even Big Mac got to be the protagonist of an episode before Celestia did.
Seriously. Seven fucking seasons.
However, right away, we run into the issue that it's not really a Celestia episode. Not entirely. It's not even a Celestia and Luna episode, which would've also been fine. It's a Celestia and Luna and Starlight episode.
Now, Starlight merely being in an episode, or even being the protagonist of an episode, doesn't automatically ruin it. But it's kind of a slap in the face here, because this was the first time we got an episode with a real major focus on Celestia, and not only did she have to share it with her sister, but also with a third character. After seven seasons of hoping for a Celestia episode, we finally got it, and she's still not even a full half of the episode's focus. That's not even mentioning that Celestia already got sidelined by Starlight once before, in an episode named after her, and that was the only other occasion the show ever gave Celestia any degree of attention. You can see why I might find this somewhat irksome.
I will say, however, I don't think Starlight herself is the problem of the episode. Maybe I'm slightly more annoyed than I would be if Twilight had done the same thing, but the diluted focus is an issue on its own, regardless of who the third protagonist is, and it mostly goes away in the second half of the episode anyway. There are a few small moments with Starlight that I found irritating, like how she gets away with using magic on the princesses without their consent, or how she's called for a map mission despite not even being an Element of Harmony (and a solo one at that), but these are pretty minor points on the whole. Hell, the map mission complaint doesn't even really hold up in retrospect, because Spike did the exact same thing later in the season. Like I said, I don't think Starlight is the real problem here.
So, what is the real problem? Well, there are two, as I see it. An issue of characterisation, and an issue of continuity. I'll start with the well-trodden ground first, since it's easier to explain.
Daily reminder that internal consistency is a thing that other shows have.
The continuity in this one is bad. Like, really bad. But not bad in an immediately obvious way, at least if you only ever watch the show. Aside from the image above, showing a discrepancy between this episode and Twilight's Kingdom, most of the episode's continuity failures relate to the IDW comics.
I can almost hear the groans now. Nobody cares about the IDW comics, and a lot of people don't even consider them canon. Yeah, that's all fair enough. I get it. The comics these days are generally quite terrible, and I often wish they weren't canon either. But, here's the problem: they are. Or at least, Hasbro wants to say they are.
To elaborate, it's always been the party line that the show and comics are all supposed to be one big, consistent universe, but it's never really been treated as such. The show writers might throw the occasional bone to the expanded universe, such as referencing the GM Berrow books, or bringing in Ogres and Oubliettes (originally from the comic arc Neigh Anything, for those who don't know), but for the most part, the comics are just ignored. As you might imagine, this attitude has always frustrated me, because it basically achieves the opposite of a cohesive, internally consistent universe, but it's something I've made my peace with. I can't reasonably expect everyone who writes for this show to be as massive a nerd as I am, and for fanfic purposes, there's not many contradictions that I can't write around if need be.
What annoys me rather more is when the show uses the comics as a free idea bin. Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? was a pretty good episode on the whole, but I couldn't fully enjoy it because I had already seen it before, back when it was called Nightmare Rarity. And that was bad enough, but then we have this episode, which has the gall to contradict almost every other Royal Sisters story in the expanded universe while ripping them off.
I'm not joking, either. The Luna issue of the micro-series was about Luna taking on Celestia's royal duties for the day and learning how hard her sister actually has it, obviously not something that would've been necessary in this episode had that actually happened. Reflections, same deal, had Luna taking on Celestia's duties temporarily. Friends Forever #38, the final issue of that series (and one which was extremely recent at the time of this episode's release), was all about Celestia and Luna having a conflict with each other. And that issue not only characterised their relationship very differently (and more sensibly, as I'll get to later), but also clearly and unambiguously stated that Celestia took on Luna's dream-walking duties in her thousand years of absence, which A Royal Problem makes clear isn't true. The Nightmare Moon issue of FIENDship is Magic even shows Celestia having some dream-battles.
Now, okay, not all of these comic stories are that great, but some of them are. Luna's micro-series entry in particular was a classic. Even people who don't generally like or acknowledge the comics sometimes use Luna's pet possum Tiberius from that story. And more importantly, these were some of the only stories we had about the Royal Sisters for years before this episode came along and threw them out the window, and in my opinion, they were better stories than A Royal Problem. I never read the Star Wars expanded universe, but this episode made me understand how fans of it must have felt when Disney threw it all out to make way for the new movies. It feels like a waste, and it's disheartening. To you readers, even if, like most of the fandom, you don't particularly like or care about the IDW comics, I hope you can at least understand why I would take particular issue with this episode because of this.
This one panel alone is better than the whole of A Royal Problem IMO.
I'll have more to say about the comics and their relationship and continuity with the show later on, but for now, I want to finish off this episode's review by talking about its other major flaw, and perhaps its most critical one: the characterisation.
Simply put, the real royal problem is the Royal Sisters themselves. Their relationship doesn't ring true, and their characterisation feels wrong. And let me tell you, it feels so weird to say that about an episode of the show. Celestia and Luna's relationship has only rarely been portrayed directly, since they've had so little screentime alone together, but just from everything we know about their personalities and history, you can extrapolate a lot. There have been so many fanworks about the two of them, with plenty of different takes, but the one thing that almost every interpretation agrees on is that their past falling out is something that both sisters deeply regret, and which they're eager to never repeat, because that thousand years of separation was painful for the both of them.
So now, canon has given us an episode in which Celestia and Luna still fight over petty things, don't appreciate one another, don't talk honestly with each other, avoid their problems, and just in general don't seem to have learned anything. The episode even directly implies that they're on the path to repeating history, and that something like Nightmare Moon might have happened again if not for Starlight's map mission. It's actually quite astounding how bad their relationship still is after everything they've both been through.
This is not an acceptable way to characterise these two. I can understand Fluttershy occasionally backsliding and having to re-learn a lesson, but not Celestia and Luna. Luna's jealousy of her sister and Celestia's inattentiveness were the biggest mistakes either of them ever made, with consequences that deeply affected them both for a longer time than most beings are even alive for. The fact that they didn't learn their lessons the first time is nothing short of ludicrous, and it's even worse for Celestia, because she also had the Tantabus as a wake-up call.
Their relationship is actually so broken in this episode, I'd dare say that it forever changed my views of both these characters for the worse.
Luna was so wracked with guilt over her actions as Nightmare Moon that she tortured herself with a dream demon for years, yet as soon as she stopped, it looks like she went right back to quietly resenting her sister and bottling up her deep emotional problems. Clearly, she feels bad about the whole eternal night business, and I doubt she wants to miss another thousand years, but she doesn't give the impression of being eager to repair or maintain her relationship with her sister at all.
As for Celestia, her inattentiveness has consistently caused Luna untold amounts of physical and emotional suffering. First she missed the jealousy and resentment that led to Nightmare Moon. Then she missed Luna's guilt problems, which led to the Tantabus. In this episode, she once again failed to recognise or understand her sister's feelings, and went straight to fighting with her when they finally came out in the open. That's three times now Celestia has failed her sister, and there'll probably be a fourth, because she comes off like she just doesn't care that much. If a thousand years of separation followed by the Tantabus didn't teach Celestia anything, then I have serious doubts that the events of this episode did anything to make it sink in.
Overwhelmingly, the impression I got from A Royal Problem is that Celestia and Luna just don't like each other that much. I don't think they even would've been friends if they weren't related. And that's the last thing I ever thought I'd be saying about these two, but that's what it seems like to me with the way they're written here. This characterisation is in no way complementary to who Celestia and Luna are supposed to be. Until now, the show has had us believing that they are two loving sisters trying to mend the rift that their history tore between them. In this episode, Starlight Glimmer cares more about their relationship than either of them do.
Pretend the guy on the left is a pair of alicorns.
Pretty much the only thing I liked about this episode was Daybreaker, but I don't think anyone will be surprised by that. I've always been a fan of flashy high concepts. It's why I loved Twilight's Kingdom so much, with its over the top DBZ-style battle between Twilight and Tirek, and everyone and their mother agrees that Daybreaker was the hypest shit ever. It was also an interesting exploration of Celestia's character, too. In fact, when this episode first came out, I thought that Daybreaker was so cool that she almost redeemed the episode for me entirely by herself.
Of course, she doesn't really. For me, Daybreaker is merely the only good thing in an episode otherwise completely devoid of anything worth praising. Between the diluted focus, the infantile and senseless characterisation of the Royal Sisters, and the episode's attitude towards secondary canon, this was one of those episodes that just got worse and worse the more I actually thought about it. If any of you out there seriously think that this was the best episode ever, then... well, more power to you, but I simply cannot agree.
Episode 11 - Not Asking for Trouble:
So, moving on from one of my least favourite episodes, we get to one of my... ones that I forgot about.
When I first started planning this review series, and I looked back over the list of episodes, it took me a while to remember what this one even was. This is a really generic episode with a really generic title, even less memorable to me than the unrealistic dog episode. But remember it I did, eventually, because I searched back for my comments on it and recalled that it was about the yaks.
Yakyakistan is one of those elements of nu-MLP that I'm of mixed feelings about. I know that Party Pooped in season five had some mixed reactions, but I for one loved it. There are not many episodes of this show that I would describe as "hilarious," but that was one of them for me. The yaks' gimmick of smashing everything in sight at the drop of a hat was one that I could see getting old quickly, but for that one episode, it was perfect, just one of many jokes in a roiling stew of comedy. And Yakyakistan itself promised to be interesting, an isolated, misunderstood tribe of northern mountain-dwellers with a faux-warrior culture, who took themselves seriously but who were actually extremely silly. They were kind of a joke, but I appreciated them at first.
Then, however, we get to their later appearances, when the writers start trying to characterise the yaks and their culture as an actual part of the world rather than just a joke. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. In fact, the show needed to explore their culture at some point. But what they actually did with them in this episode was just kinda dumb and nonsensical.
After building up Yakyakistan all this time as a nation in its own right, one which could have conceivably gone to war with Equestria, it turns out to be a tiny village with a population of like ten yaks. And to boot, they're not even ten intelligent yaks. They're a culture which dwells in a snowy, mountainous region which doesn't know how avalanches work, and has no way of dealing with them. They don't even know how to survive in their own native environment. Which would be bad enough already, but then we also see that this is a problem that six ponies can deal with alone in a single night. It's just pathetic. The yaks are the most embarrassingly inept characters on the show, and it's not even funny like it was in their first appearance, because these things aren't played for laughs. Nobody comments on how unexpectedly small Yakyakistan is, and there's no joke about how bewildering it is that the yaks have no plans for how to deal with an avalanche. This is just how they are, and it's treated as a normal thing for them.
I guess the yaks were always joke characters, so it's not like this is a huge betrayal or anything. I'm not mad about this episode at all. I just don't really understand the intent behind any of this. The initial joke of the yaks being violent, smash-happy barbarians who are also obsessive perfectionists had plenty of comedic potential by itself. It's no more one-note than Maud's main gimmick is. So making their whole kingdom a tiny village of pathetic losers just seems pointless. It makes them unbelievable, kind of achieving the opposite of what the episode should have done, and for what, really? Just to make the pony master race look better by comparison?
It is the pink pony's burden to spread the light of civilization and friendship to the lesser races.
All I'm saying is, this isn't good world-building. This episode had a few okay moments, but the show could've easily told this story without sacrificing verisimilitude.
Episode 12 - Discordant Harmony:
Alright, so... Discord episode.
I like Discord. Shocking, I know, but he's one of my favourite characters on the show, and I always look forward to any episode featuring him. It's a lot of little things that make me like him, not least of all his voice actor, but I'm also fond of him for his uniqueness and the things his existence implies about the wider history and cosmology of this universe, which otherwise goes unexplored for the most part. It's why his backstory is such a central element of the world in my own fanfics. And his personality also helps, because on top of being hilarious, Discord is also very morally ambiguous, and that is interesting to me.
DWK of Totally Legit Recap fame doesn't like Discord, in his own words because Discord is "reformed, but not redeemed." He stopped being a villain, but he's still a dick who likes being a dick, and goes out of his way to stir up shit, whereas characters like Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer are earnestly trying to be better people, which I guess made them more likeable to him.
What a fucking douchebag.
Now, DWK is welcome to his opinion, but for me, the fact that Discord is such an unapologetic cunt most of the time is part of his appeal. In a show that started out relatively sugary and only got more saccharine over time, to the point that even minor antagonists like Diamond Tiara and Gilda get redemptions, Discord is interesting for being the only character who's been an ally and a protagonist in his own right without really being a good person. He embraces friendship, but he doesn't understand it. He has friends he cares for, but he's also selfish and egomaniacal. He has regrets and pathos and character development, but he also still enjoys antagonising Twilight, because conflict is in his nature. Discord is the only truly grey character in a world of black and white, and that, to me, is fascinating.
But Discordant Harmony is kind of a turnaround from your typical Discord episode. DWK certainly felt differently about it in his recap, viewing it as the first time Discord ever made an earnest effort to better himself and be a good guy. I... am not sure that it is, if only because an earnest effort from Discord looks a lot different than it does from anyone else. I mean, if we can count Starlight Glimmer mind-controlling the mane six so she can skip her homework as being the actions of a character who's earnestly trying but is just bad at it, then I think we can give Discord a pass too. But his efforts are certainly more visible here than in any other episode, as he is actively changing his behaviour on the basis of making others feel more comfortable.
...I don't like it.
Not the episode. I liked the episode well enough. In fact, I'd dare say I liked it more than most other season seven episodes. I just don't like how Discord is characterised in it. I don't object to it as strongly as I did the Royal Sisters' portrayal a few episodes back, but it still doesn't really feel true to who he is. Discord is the Spirit of Chaos, a being defined by the fact that he's weird and proud of it. It's what makes him unique, and being unique, in turn, is core to his character. Maybe I'm spoiled by the deep and multi-layered portrayals of Discord from some of my favourite fanfics and they're colouring my perception, but Discord caring that much about the opinions of random ponies and forcing himself to act normal to appease others, even Fluttershy, doesn't sound right to me. It feels like a misstep.
Granted, though, this is just my interpretation of him. One could also make a reasonable argument that this is a natural development for Discord's character as he learns friendship, that he'd start caring more about the opinions of others, and start trying to change himself within reasonable bounds. And I can understand that, which is why I don't hold this characterisation against the episode too much. I don't agree with it, but it's not exactly out of left field. Honestly, I'm far more bothered by the fact that Fluttershy was able to predict Discord's exact jokes, because making Discord predictable seems like a far greater sin than anything else here.
At the end of the day, though, it's still a Discord episode. Discord is still weird and interesting and full of internal conflict, and he still has plenty of fun visual gags and jokes, and I've always liked his relationship with Fluttershy, and GOSH BUT WAS THIS EPISODE SHIPPY.
BEST. FRIENDS.
So on the whole, it was a high point of the season for me. Hell, I liked it more than What About Discord? I just hope it doesn't represent the future of his character. Saccharine touchy-feely Discord who worries about what others think of him is okay for a one-off episode like this, and it's only natural that Discord has to grow as a person eventually, but I'm not ready to say goodbye to the old Discord yet. I really like him in antagonistic roles and showing the occasional darker streak, like when he was going to throw Tree Hugger into an alternate dimension out of jealousy, or that brief flash of murderous fury he had in Where and Back Again when he learned that Fluttershy had been kidnapped. Like I said, Discord is a character that I appreciate at least in part because of his moral greyness. I just hope that this episode isn't a sign of further whitewashing to come.
Episode 13 - The Perfect Pear:
So, now we reach the season's midpoint, and aside from A Royal Problem, this was the big one that got everyone talking. Applejack's parents are one of those long-avoided topics that the show has danced around forever, just like Scootaloo's possible disability (at least until it was addressed in season four), so the anticipation around this one was palpable.
And while I can't speak for the rest of the fandom, let me just say that I had no idea that this episode was going to be as good as it was. Seriously, in an otherwise fairly mediocre season, The Perfect Pear was far and away the best episode. Even amongst the episodes I liked, nothing else this season even came close to it.
The Perfect Pear in a nutshell.
If you've seen it yourself, you already know why, so I don't think I need to go in-depth to sing its praises like I do to justify my criticisms. But the long and short of it is, this is an episode with actual emotional resonance and depth, one which treats its characters seriously, cares about its story-telling, and uses every tool at its disposal to deliver the best possible experience it can.
In only twenty-two minutes, this story introduced four brand new characters and gave them all distinct and likeable personalities. William Shatner as Grand Pear was a wonderfully understated performance, the childhoods and romance of Bright Mac and Pear Butter were touching and sweet, and Burnt Oak, though more just there as part of the framing device, was also a nice secondary character. He and Mrs. Cake, and their histories with the Apple parents, were interesting additions to the mythology of the show, and helped to really sell the relationship and importance of these two characters who we've never met before now. And the fact that both the Apple parents are all but outright stated to be dead lends the whole episode a bittersweet, nostalgic, and even tragic feeling.
I'm gonna be real with you. Despite the amount of time I spend obsessing about this show, it's never been the biggest thing in the world for me. It inspires me creatively, and I've enjoyed a lot of things to come out of this fandom, but I don't think of the show or comics as high art. They're just decent stories that I like, no different than superhero movies. But very, very occasionally, an episode like this will actually affect me on an emotional level, and it's these kinds of episodes that make me see the full potential of what this show can really be.
A shame, then, that it comes in the middle of a season so bad that I was surprised they remembered to put Luna's face on the moon in the flashbacks.
Personally, I'm very much in the camp that's been making displeased noises ever since season two. That aside, I completely agree that this season sank to new lows like no season before. A while back I'd been catching up on the show, including parts of season six and then immediately season seven - and the difference is very noticeable.
One thing I found particularly weird is that most of episodes in the first half of this season share the same basic plot. Some character(s) is being annoying, gets confronted in some way, the annoyance gets addressed to some extet. Actual stories, details and subplots are sufficiently different, but still, the moment you notice it, it's impossible to ignore that theme being repeated episode after episode.
Also agree on Discordant Harmony and especially The Perfect Pear being highlights of an otherwise thoroughly disappointing season.
4810459
I hadn't noticed that particular trend, but now that you've pointed it out, it does seem to be rather prevalent. Curious, that. May be a result of the production process, since according to Larson, the writers don't actually come up with the concepts for their own episodes, but rather are handed their concept from a pool of collectively generated ideas. If the writer's room weren't on their A-game when they were coming up with these ideas and tossing them into the hat, it may explain these broad similarities.
4810551
Sorry for ruining your impression of this season even further, lol.
Agreed that this particular feature of the season is primarily the failure of the general process, rather than any individual. With that in mind, and taking into account the burden of writing the movie - the burden which I believe to had been considerable, even though the result appears less than stellar - it's not unreasonable to hope for the return to the level of seasons four to six. While my own enthusiasm for them doesn't measure to that of yours, I'll happily concede that that would be a welcome improvement over what we've just witnessed, or season three.
I don't watch the show anymore unless an episode really catches my eye. Royal Problems was one that did cause celestia is my favorite fake pony princess character. And yeah, it was fucking bad. Thankfully we have the comics which are what I mostly look to for my pony fix. The sisters were really petty and immature for the ancient rulers of an entire kingdom. Then again, the show is for kids, so while I want more out of it, I can't really get too angry over it. Besides, the comics make up for it (usually). What shocks me more is the fact that you've written a fucking novel analyzing the latest season of a children's show on a fanfiction site and that I'm going to read all of it and analyze your analysis. I can't really pin down where my life went wrong, but boy did it.
Anyway, sorry I haven't been around much, I've kind of fallen out of the fandom and the show. I still read a lot, but I mostly lurk without speaking up. I finally got around to reading Vanhelsing, which is fucking great so don't stop.
4810709
I hope you're right, though considering that (spoilers for those who haven't followed the leaks) the franchise is set to reboot again for G5 after season 9, I expect that the staff will be just as distracted for this coming season as they were with the last one. But hey, who knows? Maybe it'll be better. I doubt the show will ever be as good as it was (by either of our measures), but anything's got to be better than what they've been doing recently.
4810891
Fuck, man, you've been following me for how many years now? With all the shit you've already seen, this shouldn't even give you pause.
Thanks. Good to see you still around.
4811095
ah! That's completely slipped my mind. I think I might've blocked that memory (a lot of practice ignoring the existence of Equestria Girls). All things considered, I'm with you here.
Yep, absolutely, yep. The season finale of Season 4 was the real place Twilight should have ascended, as that was the hardest test she ever had to endure: surrender the alicorn power and allow Tirek to rule, or have her friends and Discord destroyed. (Now, of course we know if Tirek was a REAL evil guy, he'd have taken the powers, then squashed them all like bugs while laughing at Twilight for actually believing a liar would keep his word... it'd be like Dark Helmet and Lone Star in that one scene from "Space Balls".)
But, kids' show and all. He'd have just said something like, "I'll let you all live, but you'll be my slaves" or something like that, and she'd have to agree to that as part of the conditions.
Her being given the other 3 alicorn powers would have caused her to quasi-ascend... and then when she gives up that power for her friends' lives, THEN the Tree and the keys and all that grant her FULL ascension, demonstrating that the Magic of Friendship is more than simply magical power and her being the Element of Magic had a deeper meaning that simply raw ability... and of course blast Tirek with Harmony Beams. That would make for a much better resolution than Rainbow Power, after all... something so lame the show pretends it never happened.
Exactly. Four alicorns were easily defeated without any explanation by changeling drones they should have been on the watch for since they already knew from Thorax that Chrysalis was still out there, AND we'd already seen the Mane 6 blasting and beating up drones by the dozens.., never mind that only Chrysalis could have stood up to Celestia and that was after weeks of sucking on Shining (ok, that sounded dirty..) and pushing herself to her max. Everyone who buys the Season 6 finale needs to rewatch part 2 of "Canterlot Wedding". Chrysalis herself was shocked she was powerful enough to overcome Celestia, and even that story only worked because it kept Luna out of the picture without explanation. Had Luna been present, Chrysalis would have LOST. INSTANTLY. There's no way in hell she could have fended off attacks from two alicorns simultaneously. And yet the Season 6 finale now expects us to believe drones could take all 4 of them, and we even saw that Luna was aware of it... can't she turn to starry mist? How could they possibly capture her when LUNA IS A SHAPESHIFTER HERSELF with forms even MORE useful for evasion!
Discordant Harmony worked for me. Discord has been learning about friendships all this time... they're something he's NEVER HAD BEFORE. And remember, that feeling of a bond was so powerful to him, it made him attempt reformation even when he had to chance to achieve an instant and seemingly permanent victory in "Keep Calm and Flutter On". That he took it to this level to please Fluttershy is a perfectly consistent development of his increasingly strong affection for Fluttershy... if anything, Fluttercord is one of the few ships that actually fits what the characters are growing toward perfectly.
Add to that the notion of Discord being a TRUE Aspect Entity: he really does embody chaos, and thus acting completely contrary to this core caveat of his very existence causes him to lose power and fade away. This is quite similar to a number of mythologies regarding such creatures, and also bears similarity to some Japanese myths of minor gods that lose power and disappear if they are not worshipped regularly. It makes much more sense than him becoming 'Accord', in fact, which requires a complete inversion of his nature and the nature of his powers. I was stunned whoever wrote it seemed to understand how to treat an Aspect Entity sensibly.
Discord must be chaotic. It's not merely WHO he is, it's an integral part of his magical structure itself. But, chaos is neither good nor evil. And that's what Discord needed to learn, he could be chaotic, but do good with it or at the very least be a neutral force. And Fluttershy herself learned that she liked him for who he was and would be deeply hurt to lose him... what we saw was the foundation of a REAL RELATIONSHIP in which two people understand and accept each other on a deeper level, that the quirks of the other become dear to them.
And "Perfect Pear"... I am at a loss to understand how they can make such a perfect episode where they seem to grasp every aspect of personality, characterization, pacing, plotting, and continuity... only to F it up in every possible way in so many other episodes. Perhaps this was the only episode the writers weren't high while writing? I dunno. It just stands out so starkly and shines so brightly, it's as if the spirit of one of the great television writers of old touched their minds for a brief moment just to show us what could have been in more skilled hands.
4843722
I don't think I've ever met anyone who actually liked the Accord arc or thought it was a good idea. The concept could've been done well, but... well, Ted Anderson.
You had me laughing at that line.
I know that the MLP staff has a poor grasp of continuity (come on: Silver Quill shouts it from the rooftops when that actually get it right!), but I had no idea that they botched it up this bad. Then again, I've never tried to watch an MLP episode more than once, so only egregious examples stand out to me (e.g.: It was established in SEASON ONE that Fluttershy knows something of fashion, and she was that incompetent when Rarity asked her to mind the boutique in Manehattan?).
4847255
Season eight is continuing a proud tradition there.
Well, since I threw in my two cents on the Season Eight blog entries, might as well throw two more here. Here's some metaphorical, opinionated money for ya!
Yeah, to put it politely; I was a long way from being a fan of Starlight's abrupt and frankly unearned switch from "compelling ideological villain" via "petty revenge powerhouse" to "Badly Reformed Antagonist Number Umpteen", but I'd at least be more tolerant of it if the deck wasn't so blatantly stacked in her favour, often at the expense of long-time favourites like the Main Six.
By the time the character shilling, magical screw-ups, blatant privilege, and seriously unethical behaviour had been toned down enough for me to even tolerate having her around, we were at "The Parent Map". Even "Road to Friendship", which was largely fine on that front, still had her one petty moment against Trixie (which at least wasn't a magical screw-up or a bit of life endangerment, so that's something).
That said, I surprisingly found "Celestial Advice" mostly OK, even enjoyable. Though I say this as someone who best remembers the imagine spots with the changelings and the dragons, both of which involved giving Starlight a bad ending, so... take that as you will.
"Fluttershy Leans In" is seriously weird to me too. When I first watched it, I enjoyed it and especially liked Fluttershy's idea of creating a wildlife sanctuary. Abrupt as it was next to Rarity's and Rainbow Dash's ambitions, it still felt right for her character. But I think this was a case where an episode premise just caught my mind hard and left little impact for little else, because the episode feels more and more clunky on rewatches.
For instance, much as I like Doctor Fauna, her sudden elevation from one-ep Season Two cameo to Fluttershy's best bud co-star is whiplash-inducing. Fluttershy's motivation for the sanctuary really does drag into the light the question of what the hell her role is in the natural world, something which at least could be glossed over here and there before as a background issue, instead of being front and centre.
And even back then, I was thinking "Man, if we just got rid of the middle bit with the anti-expertise storyline and went right back to the shelter project, this would be much sweeter". When I found out what the inspiration was for the "Leans In" part, I had serious misgivings about the plot's purpose.
It's one of those cases where removing a conflict and having a story just be sweet fluff would have been a massive improvement.
I have a different complaint for "Parental Glideance" to you, though I don't like the continuity-snagging flashback details either (Rainbow and Lightning is inexcusable on its own). Admittedly, I outright love the first half, when Scootaloo and Rainbow's parents just collide in the biggest mashup of fannish squealing that ever warmed a heart. It's seriously endearing to watch.
Given that, and what we learn about Scootaloo's lack of support later in this episode, it's even understandable where she's coming from when she defends the two parents. Rainbow Dash has a different opinion. Fine. This could be an eye-opening bit of character conflict with some nuance and good-will on both sides, right?
What I seriously don't like is the second half's blatant bias in Scootaloo's favour. Like, Rainbow has some genuine grievances with her parents. Plus their behaviour could even make sense of some of her own inferiority-superiority complex and constantly seeking validation from crowds (who at least are likely to be more reliable barometers for how successful she is than "cheer anything" parents).
Basically, Rainbow Dash is screwed-up, and the episode gives a major explanation why she's screwed-up... and she's the one who has to apologize? She's the one who has the guilty epiphany? And just her? I don't recall her setting off fireworks or cheering a towel hang-up, for God's sake. This episode went from heart-warming to fist-clenching with just one scene, and it's amazing how much I wish it didn't, because there is so much potential here.
It's like "The Washouts" all over again, except the nuance-destruction happens in the middle of an episode rather than in the last two or three minutes.
(Also, minor continuity muck-up: how does Scootaloo know and have a photograph of Lightning Dust here, in her scrapbook, and even know enough of her story to tell Rainbow's parents what happened, when she then seems completely surprised by both details when Rainbow and Lightning reunite in "The Washouts"?)
On a minor point, I must give due credit to your review of "Hard to Say Anything" and "A Royal Problem" for contributing to my skipping both. There were bad signs all over the place anyway (Chris's review of the latter alone convinced me it was overhyped), and the premises alone were deterrents (a crackship and another round of Starlight messing things up? Ha ha ha no bloody chance), but this set it in stone.
I'd honestly reread this analysis multiple times - learning something about handling a story from it - than consider even watching those eps once. It would be a much better way to spend my leisure time (e.g. learning important principles in how to write Celestia and Luna's relationship convincingly). I don't even care about the frankly baffling Daybreaker hype; "evil Celestia" was such an obvious concept that it was old hat in the fandom well before she came along. So thank you for warning me ahead of time.
Ha, "what I can only describe as a lost episode from season two" is probably why I love "Honest Apple" so much. I think the moral does work in context; it's specifically what Rarity seeks her out to do, and has to persuade her to do, in a situation where AJ's self-aware about being out of her depth and then surprises herself by finding it so easy. Yeah, she goes a little obnoxious here and there, but usually for a stated reason.
Either way, it scored for me: this is a rare highlight for Season Seven.
Speaking of highlights: "Discordant Harmony", yes, now we're talking!
Although again I must differ from you; Discord taking his reform more seriously was something I was expecting (and wanting) for a long time, even as someone whose opinion of, say, "Princess Twilight Sparkle" amounts to "Well, Discord was a snarky hoot. Can we just cut out everything else and leave him in it?"
Jerkass Discord has his place - inevitably, he must exist in some form - and there's no way I wouldn't complain if he was softened beyond credibility for a Chaos Spirit. But frankly I've usually felt the show was making underwhelming use of what should be a killer premise as far as he's concerned (sadistic, power-hungry chaos spirit slowly learns the subtleties of friendship from kind, modest animal-tamer... let's treat him like a grumpy curmudgeon who needs to play Dungeons and Dragons more!).
Besides, I'd have been happier if this version took over from here, instead of whatever the hell he was doing in "A Matter of Principals".
But to end on a high note, the moral and the slight worldbuilding (Discord vanishing if he's not "himself") actually added just enough intrigue for me to feel this was a substantial outing, and we got more John de Lancie, so what's not to like?
And lastly... "The Perfect Pear" is perfect. I got nothin'.
5252604
I didn't even notice that. Good catch. And good points about the episode otherwise, as well.
Yeah. Discordant Harmony seemed a bit much for me at the time, but I'd take it in a heartbeat over what seasons eight and nine did to Discord.
5252669
Ha, what a weird role reversal this is! For me, reading your blog posts on these two seasons has largely been an exercise in repeating the words, "Oh my gosh, he's right. How in the heck did I miss that!?"
It's weird looking back at a lot of these episodes now and realizing how many of them I barely even remembered. I'm usually pretty good at recalling every episode of any show I watch, but it took me a few seconds to remember some of these. It really shows how dull this season was, which I think was why I always listed Season 6 higher in off-the-cuff rankings. For all its flaws, Season 6 at least felt like a natural continuation from Season 5, whereas Season 7 felt like a bunch of weird ideas thrown together without really considering how they would fit. While I may defend a few of these episodes (I still like "A Royal Problem" despite the clear swiping it did from the comics, and I found some of the cringe in "Hard to Say Anything" funny), I agree that in hindsight there were a lot of signs of what would go wrong in the last two seasons through this one.
5253033
This is funny to me, because at the time, season seven was the low point of the series for me, and I was just complaining about it because I considered it a bad season in its own right; I never even considered the possibility that seasons eight and nine would be worse.
5253096
I'd honestly have to rewatch these three seasons again to figure out how to rank them. I suspect Season 8 would still be the worst in my mind, though.
5253157
I think season eight's flaws are a lot more glaring and obvious, to be sure. I remember disliking season nine more, but I'm not sure whether that's because season nine actually did more wrong, or just a matter of personal taste. I'll have to determine that in the course of the season nine review.
What I can say for sure is that even though I hated seasons seven and eight as a whole, they still had a number of really good episodes here and there, like Perfect Pear for season seven, or The Parent Map in eight. Not so much in season nine, at least in my opinion. There were plenty of tolerable episodes, but I don't think there was even a single one that I actually considered good. Even the popular ones like Sparkle's Seven and Frenemies I was kind of bleh about.
5253163
That's a good point. I remember liking more episodes in Season 9 than Season 8, but that may just because it was more recent and my Season 8 hate was at its absolute peak going into the final season. Mediocre episodes in 2019 might have looked godlike compared to what was going on in 2018. I should probably go back and look at 9 with more experienced eyes before I cosign Season 8 to the garbage bin.
5253170
Let's not be too hasty now; season eight definitely belongs in the garbage bin. What we are determining is merely whether it occupies the bottom or not.
5253170
In my immediate memory I remember disliking season 9 more, but when I went back for a review someone wanted to do with me, I realized I liked more individual episodes in season 9 than individual episodes in season 8. The problem, then, was that I disliked the season 'arc' in 9 more than I disliked that in 8, at least on first viewing. I thought the S8 arc had a lot of unrealized potential, and that 9 would follow up on it. It did not.
I also disliked more episodes in 9 than 8, though. Much of 8 I just found forgetable, just like much of 7. Several episodes of Season 9 actively offended me, but only like 2 stories in each of 7 and 8 did (counting the 2-part finales as one story).
And for my bit of blasphemy, I wasn't fond of Perfect Pair. While there are other reasons, the main one is that I thought being unable to SAY her parents were dead was a disservice to children with dead parents: Yeah, here's someone you can sympathize with... but also you must never acknowledge their actual status. Acceptance is part of grieving, the hardest part, and it's something the show was, due to censorship rules, never allowed to really show. It tried with that Tank episode, but that just came off flat because hibernation is not dying.
5304889
For my own bit of blasphemy, I'm one of those people who prefers straight-up bad episodes rather than mediocre, "forgettable" episodes. The former are at least memorable (if not for the best reasons) and can inspire interesting discussion about what went wrong; heck, "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well" has at least spawned a few interesting fics. Whereas a season largely filled with "meh" episodes comes off as so bland and uninteresting that one really can't say or do anything much beyond admitting it existed. A lot of the latter day seasons fell into that category for me, and any evaluation on their quality comes down to which ones I could recall the most.
5305032
Did not mind Mysterious Mare Do Well. It was a bit much, sure, but one wouldn't logically expect any emotional scarring. It wasn't like 28 Pranks Later where the 'teaching a lesson' legit scarred the pony. (That's one of those "fun to mock" ones I suppose). Would have liked to have seen a follow-up on MMDW but you know, can't have everything.
I know what you mean, anyway. From my list, you can mock 'Growing up is hard to do,' at least, but what do you say about something like "Marks for Effort"? The latter I had forgotten even existed until I looked up the S8 episode list just now.
I know it's been years, but what the heck, I'm bored anyway.
Plus you make some interesting points about cannon.
Rainbow Dash really got the short end of the stick in terms of writing.
Most importantly, they had everything come easy to her. There are no struggles which Rainbow Dash has to overcome which are worth celebrating (outside of her interpersonal failings).
So instead of praising her successes, we are left focused on her moral failings.
In fairness, they do capitalize on them eventually. They just aren't particularly suited to those roles, because the writers weren't writing said roles with their characters in mind.
They kind of did this too with Discord where he's continually let off the hook for causing trouble. This despite the fact he's a nearly all powerful being who could destroy reality for being unchecked.
I'm not a fan of Starlight Glimmer (outside of trying to analyze her), but it makes sense people were kind of numb to deranged antics at this point.
Also Discord. I don't think he has a single real friend until Season 7 outside of Fluttershy.
I'd always seen it as more her making herself useful than actually becoming a good person. Still I acknowledge that her villagers asking for her help "just like that" was cringe.
Sadly this was already a feature of the show proper although arguably in reduced quality (and mostly pertaining to characterization).
Yeah I remember one scene from that sequence. And that it lead into a musical montage. And that's about it.
I actually had no idea where it came from before reading this, not going to lie.
I didn't even read The Journal of The Sisters, and even I felt that line was completely superfluous.
Why would it even matter? All it does it to make Twilight's ascension feel less special by comparison, which makes no sense as she's the main character and Flurry Heart is years away from taking her place.
It feels like it was fodder for another one of the rumored spinoffs that was supposed to happen but never did, and now it's just sitting there, a unnecessary rule to the cannon.
That or someone really hated Laura Faust. Or they needed a excuse to bypass some copyright law or other and contradicting cannon was the best thing they could think of.
Flurry Heart is pretty cute, I'll give her that.
There's a lot of questions about Starlight Glimmer that go painfully unanswered. Which is ironic given that the show kept pushing her as the replacement protagonist.
Yeah that kind of breaks the episode a little.
Also I forget. Is this the one with the quarry ells? Because that didn't make sense either, given the Gorge's appearance in the episode where Rainbow Dash gets her pet.
I feel like they eventually show up in a Maud Episode.
It did not hesitate to hit characters with the Stupid Stick though. Like no one thinking of keeping a eye out for Starlight Glimmer because:
It did throw Fluttershy's character into question. I suppose she could have be looking for a helping hoof or second opinion, but it still feels weird.
One would think.
It also feels very random. Like why would you make a nature preserve look like a office building? The cages I understand, but everything else feels really weird and off-putting for the sake of it. It's also kind of a black mark on the others that this is who they referred Fluttershy to.
I've heard people say that the episode isn't very in character for Rarity. Not sure if I agree or not, but it might explain why it was so unmemorable.
Another problem is the division between dialogue and action. A lot of the action takes place during musical montages without lines, and a lot of the dialogue happens when the characters are all standing around, so a big chunk of the episode winds up being exposition and theories while nothing of note is going on.
Maybe it was supposed to be a metaphor for a old dog that can't play anymore, but the episode's transition and resolution leaves much to be desired on that front.
Essentially they do some of the exact same things, but bigger, which doesn't really carry the old age message I suspect the writers were trying to convey.
I'm getting there yeah.
I tend to obsess about different continuity problems, but I defiantly see why this rubs you the wrong way.
Yeah it's a strange jump for sure. And it kind of goes out of it's way here to force it.
I never did finish watching that thing. I just skipped to the ending.
Ah yes. Failure Cringe. Never really did like failure cringe.
I can relate so much to this.
It won't be the last or worst time a moral was introduced painfully late either.
I love Rarity in this one. Especially how she uses Starwberry Sunrise in a bout of Psychological Warfare against Applejack. I feel like they always have to dumb down Rarity to make her rivalry with Applejack work and while there's a bit of that here as you point out:
It's not nearly as obnoxious as it usually is. I like that Rarity manages to score some points in the end, which almost never happens in the other episodes she costars in with Applejack.
I mean that nonsense went back to the 2008 show at least, but I get where you're going here.
I do. It kind of stinks when writers take other ideas and adopt them more poorly than those who have gone before.
The problem with this episode I think steams from "Slice Of Life".
Slice Of Life was really terrible in how it characterized the royal sisters. I mean they're bickering over who bought a wedding present, for a couple they're most likely never going to see again. It's agonizing to watch, and even more so because they sound so petty, even in comparison to this episode.
So yes, there is (terrible, awful) precedent for this kind of thing, even if the episode itself plays up it's importance way too much.
Case in Point.
And yes they do reconcile, but those words of reconciliation are brought on by the intervention of a stranger (just like here frankly).
Probably not. Or maybe being related is what drives them to hate each other so much. Who knows?
Me too!
I wouldn't go as far as to call her a "exploration" but she's defiantly good fodder for some fantasy psychological analyses.
I hear that.
In fairness they pulled this trick with "Our Town" where it's initially shown to be a somewhat bustling city with families and children, and then everyone but the adults disappear for the rest of the episode. So it probably is bigger and the writers were just to lazy too to fill in the character modules.
To be fair it is implied that the whole thing is a test for Pinkie Pie to see if she understands Yak culture.
Which is pretty dumb, but no dumber than sending your neurotic student to deal with a fear weaponizing lord of dark magic as a test of "responsibility", while lives hang in the balance.
I will point out that DT only got her redemption later in this season. So that hadn't really come to fruition yet.
Also plenty of antagonistic characters still exist (the most noteworthy example being Flim and Flam). So it's less that the show is saccharine and more that it refuses to expand or capitalize on it's antagonists in a interesting way.
The main difference is that she's not trying in that episode, which is called out pretty succinctly in Twilight's outrage once she finds out what Starlight has done. Had Twilight's friends not taken pity on her, she would have had to have cleaned the entire castle by herself. And even with their help, she was clearly expected to do a decent chunk of the work.
Factor in the fact that this is more effort than Captain McSnappy has done in his entire life, and it's still hard to say that Starlight's efforts to reform herself aren't greater than Discord's.
All of that said, I do agree that Discord's characterization becomes a muddled mess here. Seriously, he's spent his entire run avoiding Pinkie Pie's efforts to get closer to him, and now he's just having a casual conversation with her? Asking her for advice on how to appeal to Fluttershy? When's the last time those two even hung out together for a extended period of time?
And him vanishing for being "normal" doesn't explain why he's such a bastard for all of his other episodes.
It was clearly a effort to make the character more sympathetic and likable than he actually was. As much as I enjoyed it personally, it's a really terrible setup. It's cute enough as a standalone, but I don't buy it as part of a effective well thought out continuity. At least no one's character got destroyed though... this episode.
I think this episode is mostly carried by the fact that it's Applebloom in the staring role. Applebloom was still pretty interesting even then as a character.
Having her reprise her role as the curious filly works well with the narrative, and serves as a valuable contrast to her stubborn siblings. Oak is a great secondary character and a interesting bit of lore on where Ponyvile got their wood from. I wish they had done some more of these Slice of Life episodes exploring the town like this in earlier seasons.
I do feel bad for the Apple family and wonder for their sakes what might have been. That being said I wasn't really surprised by the "reveal" as it was being hinted at pretty strongly long before this.
5699843
There were a lot of missed opportunities on those fronts, and how well they handled character progress varied wildly depending on the season. Twilight in seasons five and six and the Crusaders in some later episodes actually felt like they were properly growing into their new roles after some rocky starts, but then character regression hit everybody hard in the final seasons. I talked about this in more depth in the season nine review, but Twilight taking over the kingdom or the Crusaders running their own summer camp no longer makes sense by the final seasons, because by then they're all characterised as being far too juvenile for such responsibilities.
Handling of Discord's character is another thing that varied by season. I'll go to bat for mid-series Discord, who had one of my favourite character arcs in the show. The characters and the writers used to be fully aware that Discord was an asshole, and the best episodes usually ended with him learning a lesson and becoming just a tiny bit better for it. True, the characters never actually punished him in any meaningful way, but that doesn't mean he didn't face negative consequences for his actions. Tatzlwurm flu comes to mind. Being trapped in Tirek's bubble as well. But like many other things, late-series MLP handled Discord really badly, and instead of getting better, by season eight, he was getting noticeably worse, while facing no pushback for it anymore.
Comparatively, I think that Starlight barely faced any pushback from day one.
Technically his O&O group with Big Macintosh and Spike formed in season six.
I've never really researched the subject myself, but my best guess is that Flurry was a marketing mandate or toy idea inclusion, since this show was, after all, a giant toy commercial.
I'm really disappointed that the show completely dropped Ourtown as a story element after a while, because it's by far the most interesting thing about Starlight.
Yeah, they show up in Ghastly Gorge in both episodes.
Oh, definitely not.
Mike actually mentioned on Impossible Numbers' blog that Forever Filly was notably messed up for having too short a script for the amount of screentime it was allotted, resulting in the animators having to pad it out, and killing the pacing in the progress. It explains a lot in retrospect.
"I've FINALLY learned that it's okay to count on your friends for help!"
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the Simple Ways approach to writing these two either.
Basically, yeah. I actually made this exact point in the season nine review (though, I think it worked in Slice of Life in a way that it definitely does not in season seven and beyond).
...Fair.
Nope. Crusaders of the Lost Mark was season five.
And then Diamond Tiara hardly ever appeared again, funnily enough...
Yeah. I should note that Starlight "earnestly trying but being bad at it" is not my genuine position on her character, either in that episode or in general. I was quoting DWK because I disagree with him that Starlight was trying to better herself and Discord wasn't.
My honest take is that I think that Discord was an asshole for pretty much the entire run of the show, but I also think that he made major strides as a character from where he started, at least until his character derailment in seasons eight and nine. He's the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, the literal cosmic antithesis of the Elements of Harmony and all that they stand for, and he still gives this friendship thing a shot. He's really bad at it, but considering that he's (again) the magical embodiment of chaos itself, spent thousands of years as a villain, and was alone for that entire time, I don't blame him for that. Discord is an asshole, but it makes sense for him to be, and he's still far less of one in seasons six and seven than he was in four and five. Again, shame the final seasons fucked this up.
Starlight, on the other hand, I think is a better person by default, because she never intentionally ruined lives and destroyed civilizations. But I also think that she didn't progress nearly as much as a character, because yeah, I don't think she was ever really trying that hard. She was a little better than when she started, but a lot of the personality flaws she showed in season six were still there by season nine.
Amen.
5699905
I'll give you that.
But in Twilight's case (even before that) she was shown to be really unsure at governing.
She's great at teaching (until "Top Bolt"), but as an actual legal or military ruler? The show didn't bother to touch on that at all. Apart from a couple of scenes which never amounted to anything in the episodes they appeared in.
And every time she's leading as a princess, she's just making the most basic of decisions, it's in the most unsure, tentative, way I've ever seen.
Maybe in a few years they could've pulled it off, but the show didn't have that amount of time left, even before the movie came out.
As for the CMC, I always had mixed feeling about their status. On the one hand, it's an interesting idea that they would grow up to specialize in Cutie Marks. On the other hand, we have several problems with this setup.
First off Cutie Marks are no longer magical symbols which identify what you're good at.
They've become a plot device that gives their recipients near prodigy abilities. This started way back with episodes like "Cutie Pox". They double down on this with Starlight Glimmer and her debut in "The Cuite Map".
There's also a argument to be made that they forecast a ponies personality, as we see in "Pinkie Pride" and other episodes.
Which technically makes the CMC's borderline therapists, something you see pretty early on in how they handle their clients.
Furthermore, because their pioneering this stuff on the spot, they don't really have any oversight or conventional framework to draw from in regard to stories.
The problem is that you've essentially elevated three children to take on the role of therapists. Which is kind of a problem if you want the CMCs to remain normal children as opposed to child prodigies.
It's a premise that would be difficult enough for a competent writer to pull off believably, and these people were not that.
Incidentally the reason I had a problem with Twilight being crowned Princess Of Friendship is because I knew they were going to shoehorn her into a similar role, even though it didn't fit her.
And sure, enough that's exactly what happened.
I mean, midseason Discord was tolerable, because mid-season Discord was honest at least to the audience. Because we got to see how he thought and felt, we understood where he was coming from.
And because he wasn't usually deliberately trolling anyone, there's a sense you could trust him to be authentic.
That being said, you still have stinkers "Like What About Discord" which show that yes, Discord is still completely dishonest and yes, he really would jeopardize his friendships just to revel in someone else's misery.
The problem is that his season three and four appearances don't give that impression.
Discord debuted as a liar, exploiting weakness, buttering up Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, and he did it so sincerely you'd almost believe him. And then he screwed them over by manipulating them into perpetual states of misery and so on and so forth.
Then we get season 3, where he lies to Fluttershy for a good portion of the episode and gets forgiven anyway. And following that, he never makes an effort with the Main Six.
We don't even see him interact much with Fluttershy until Twilight's Kingdom, which is a real problem, because once you get past all the standard tricks used to control people's emotions over the course of an animation, it feels strangely lacking.
Why is Discord so fed up with Friendship when he's honestly not making an effort to encourage it anyway? Why should I feel bad for Discord when he's only ever done the bare minimum to stay in Fluttershy's good graces?
If we had episodes like "Make New Friends But Keep Discord" early on, then I might still feel bad for Discord in "Twilight's Kingdom" even with how terrible he turned out.
As it is, I just kind of roll my eyes and go "meh", because I've been trained not to expect anything more from him.
Compare that to Starlight Glimmer, who's completely wrapped up in her own inadequacies and failures, but who nerveless doesn't play those kinds of games for seasons of the show.
And that I think is why Starlight Glimmer sort of works for me, whereas Discord no longer does.
Starlight is clearly trying to sort out her own interpersonal issues (when she's not trying to outright avoid them). Discord literally makes a game out of his for two seasons, because he can't even be bothered to try.
That's why after I got over "A Matter Of Principals" I was disappointed, but not terribly surprised by how he ended up worse off than he started.
Quite frankly, I half imagined a future Discord starting a coup against the sisters, so I wasn't moved by the Season 9 twist in the slightest. It fit where the character was going under Nichole.
Looking back, I'm not even convinced there ever was a plan for Discord's reformation.
I think he was a marketing ploy to get trekkies on board. What really annoys me is how easily it worked.
True, but it reflects badly on characterization and setting when there's no real negative repercussions from the people who are supposed to be reigning him in and protecting other ponies from his actions.
Does Celestia care that he threatened Tree Huggers life, even though she wanted him reformed and thus put her and Fluttershy in that position? Apparently not. She found it funny.
Is anyone bothered by the fact that a weapon of his damaged Equestria and nearly brought ruin to it? No? The fact that he poisoned Rarity and Applejack? They'll be fine next episode.
That's the problem with Discord. He's very presence whitewashes atrocities that wouldn't be accepted by any other villain and makes those enabling him to seem weaker and callous by comparison.
Remember when Applejack making ponies sick (even accidently, because she was tired) warranted a full intervention? Because Three's A Crowd sure doesn't.
True, but you didn't need to make Alicorns "not being born" a thing to shill Flurry Heart toys. People would have bought her on the basis that she's cute.
It's definitely the richest for Glimmer stories.
Although I do wonder how they would have gone about that reconciliation arc. I think they knew diving into it would cause a host of controversy, and rather than take it head on, they pulled a Glimmer and ran right out of there.
Starlight Glimmer in general is an interesting character (from a psychological perspective) that never quite gets explored and winds up sitting on the shelf.
That worked for Twilight Sparkle but expecting lighting to strike twice was a big ask from the studio. We don't even see any of her old classmates, even though she lived in a small town and presumably someone knew her.
Her dad being a cringy infantilizing embarrassment? Good for a few jokes and a very half hazard moral about communication, and then neither spoken of again.
I mean seriously, how might growing up with Firelight stunt your growth? We have to imagine it, because the show never elaborates on their relationship past that one episode.
And that's the problem with Starlight Glimmer.
There's a lot of bad concepts to be sure, but a lot of them could work, but get glossed over or shoved aside in order to make way for jokes or other filler. Or simply because the writers didn't want to have an honest conversation about their characters.
Including "May The Best Pet Win"? Man, that episode really did fly over my head.
I was thinking of the episode where Rarity and Dash get into a fight* but yeah that line is cringe too (I just tuned it out when I first saw it, it was that dumb).
*Seriously Rainbow Dash has been unhappily modeling for Rarity how long? They could have at least gone with that, maybe even thrown in a joke appearance by Smolder dressing up and trying to hide it but noooo.
It's something that's always bothered me. I'd say it's been a factor as far back as "Look Before You Sleep".
There's nothing in Rarity's character to hint she'd use a dress to deliberately embarrass someone, but that's essentially what she does in that episode, and it's so cringe in retrospect.
Where's the Rarity that takes pride in her work? That wants to be seen as a serious artist? Apparently, all it takes is some insults and bam! Sadistic girly girl.
I mean it's briefer and that's about it.
It's certainly no less cringe to watch, especially given the low stakes their fighting over.
At least "Royal Problem" establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt that Luna's job is awful. That's still more backstory and character development than what most of Luna's Episodes gave us.
Imagine working alone for thousands of years with hardly any normal interaction. The time you're at your most alert and cognizant is when everyone else is asleep. Oh, and you can't die. It's just you, stuck in this situation forever. And if you walk out, you're abandoning all the people who rely on you to get a good night's sleep. No wonder Luna went crazy.
It's certainly more than "Slice Of Life" gave us, which was basically more or less a nothing burger of throw away ideas the writers had no intention of following up on.
And no, I haven't read the comics, so I freely admit they might be better in that respect.
Well It's official, I hate chronology.
Because MLP refused to deal with grey antagonists.
Even relatively honest businessmen who opposed the main six were retroactively turned into Conmen by the writers. Flim and Flam, Iron Will, even Lighting Dust went from criminally negligent to downright disturbing.
Ironically many antagonists who were written to be terrible people never made a call back as being blatantly terrible people (Suri, Gilda, Gladmane). I think only a few terrible people hung around and almost all of them were just rude, not active criminals.
So, it was clear that either the audience or the writers had an affinity for these antagonists who did things that weren't entirely villainous. And yet subsequent writers came in and mucked them up anyway.
And then they didn't want to do anything with the villains they already had anyway. It's ironic that I got into this show to see how Laura Faust would redeem her villains, and the show dedicated almost no time to it.
I wouldn't even go that far. I would say that she never did it on the same scale as Discord. I don't count the time travel episode.
Because if she's truly creating those apocalypses in another timeline, she's also creating everyone in them by proxy.
So, she's as much responsible for those people existing as she is for their circumstances. And the whole thing becomes a big discussion as to whose really responsible for the apocalypse, Starlight for creating the circumstances, or the villains for actually screwing everything up.
So yeah, Starlight sucks as a moral agency, but she doesn't have the same reach that Discord does.
And if she attacked or violated casual bystanders, there's an off chance the Main Six could be bothered to do something about it if they found out about it. I don't get that sense with Discord. He literally made a plant that wrecked Ponyvile and he got community service.
"My how threating." - Discord laughing at the main six since 2013.
5699954
Just for the record, if there's any part of your comment I don't respond to, it's safe to assume I generally agree.
I think they could've managed it in the time we had if they'd committed to it. Season five already had her doing political stuff like that princess summit and diplomatic meeting with the yaks, albeit seeming unsure of herself. Imagine if we'd continually had one or two episodes like that per season, with Twilight learning some aspect of leadership, either as the central episode's lesson or as a background element, showing her getting more confident with it every time. Imagine if instead of covering Celestia for a day and discovering the concept of delegation mid-season nine, when she was supposed to already be on the throne, we'd had that episode in season five or six, and season nine opened with a Twilight who was already fully capable of replacing Celestia, even if she didn't realise it yet.
The groundwork was there if they'd committed to the path, but it seems more like the various creative leads were just making it up as they went along, so instead we dropped that thread for three whole seasons to focus on pointless diversions like the School of Friendship.
I wasn't a fan of What About Discord? either, for a variety of reasons.
I'll agree that the lack of showing more of Discord and Fluttershy's relationship in season four was a problem, but I think the fact that he doesn't really try with the mane six at first is an important part of that development.
He eventually changes his mind in Keep Calm and Flutter On because Fluttershy makes it clear that she's sincere about offering him friendship, even if he wasn't taking it seriously until then. But the rest of the mane six in that episode gave no indication that they felt the same as her. Even in season four, most of them were still suspicious of him, and still really gung-ho about threatening to turn him into stone, even Pinkie. Three's a Crowd showed that Twilight would go to great lengths to appease him if he annoyed her enough, but until she saved him from Tirek when she didn't have to (and when he clearly didn't deserve it), I don't think Discord had any real reason to believe that the rest of the mane six were doing any more than just tolerating him. Which they basically were, in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, because he wasn't really giving them a chance either until that point. But by season five, he was getting along with the rest of them, more or less.
Yet another point I made in the season nine review, funnily enough. Season nine Discord is indefensible, and as a fan of the character, I absolutely hate what the later seasons did with him. It makes it very difficult to defend Discord's character arc in general, but I draw that line and maintain that mid-series Discord had a good character arc, because if I didn't draw a line between the middle and late series, then the late series would tarnish every character the same way.
There definitely was not under Faust, but in seasons three and four, there most definitely was. Five and six is a little more freeform, and seven even moreso, but there was still noticeable linear progress, so it was mostly fine.
Season nine Discord was also planned. Uhhh... it wasn't a good plan?
I agree, Discord needed a firmer hand to keep him under control, and him still getting away with this kind of shit even by the very end of the series was infuriating.
Though, devil's advocate, it's hard to really punish an all-powerful being without resorting to the nuclear option. The mane six did frequently threaten Discord with turning him back to stone early on, but it clearly never deterred him, and was not helping him to actually get better and learn friendship. And most lesser punishments kind of fall flat, because nobody can make Discord do something he doesn't want to. You imply later that community service is not good enough for the plundervines, but if not that, then what? Because short of the Elements, the only real punishments you can even give Discord are those he consents to.
So instead they content themselves with karmic punishments like the tatzlwurm flu, or what they can convince him to do, or say no harm no foul if he clearly learns his lesson by the end, like they do with other minor villains. Maybe if Tree Hugger had been willing to press charges they might've done something, but she wasn't, so they didn't.
Incidentally, this is another complaint that could've maybe been solved by more Fluttershy interactions. Her clear disapproval and the potential risk of their friendship is a consequence that Discord actually would care about, and it probably should've been used more.
In many ways, yeah, though I think it's hard to say that such actions aren't in Rarity's character when those were some of the first episodes establishing her character. And, even if it was inelegantly written, this was a recurring element in their relationship, so it's not like the show was ever inconsistent about this.
Well, yes, but in Slice of Life it's one single, isolated argument for a one-off joke, and they forgive each other minutes after. Luna doesn't almost go back to being Nightmare Moon over it as a main plot point.
Oh boy, you don't know the half of it.
5699962
Well that's my problem. They don't commit to it, and the episode with the Yaks is a great example. Yeah, Twilight meets with the Yaks, but who actually solves their problem?
Pinkie Pie.
Now, I'm glad Pinkie Pie got engagement as a character. If I had creative control of MLP starting early on, she would have gotten more focus. Not only is she a pretty popular brand character judging by the merch, but there's a lot to unpack there.
The problem is that we already know Pinkie Pie can solve rather intense social situations once she's made aware of them.
"A Friend In Deed" and "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" shows that as long as she understands a situation, she can help fairly easily. And she's cracked way tougher nuts then Prince Rutherford.
It's her awareness that needs work, not her diplomacy.
And while it's great that Twilight's figured out delegation, what happens when Pinkie Pie is no longer around to manage her diplomacy for her? It was clear (even back then) that the writers had little to no interest in taking Twilight's government duties very seriously.
Well the problem is we do see their relationship at times. And it varies from noncommittal fun to borderline manipulation.
He basically shows no real lasting regard for their relationship at any point over their first seasons together.
In "Three's A Crowd" he goes behind her back specifically to take advantage of her absence to hurt her friends. And he expresses no regret when his actions backfire, forcing her to take care of him.
Then we get "Princess Twilight Sparkle" when he conceals valuable information from the Main Six and lets her shoulder all their frustrations and hostility towards him.
Even though he could easily clear up what's going on and has a semi legitimate excuse for why he hasn't done anything wrong this time.
I mean Pinkie Pie did call the gravy boat "cute" before Discord used the dishes to attack everyone.
Yeah, this is the big problem with Pinkie Pie.
On the one hand, she's clearly enamored with Discord throughout the "Return of Harmony", much more than Fluttershy was (to the point where Pinkie actively advocated for letting him run wild).
Discord ignores this obvious weakness to brainwash her into being miserable and push her away (incidentally the only time she's actually mad at Discord in that episode is when she's under his control).
Then she and Fluttershy essentially flip personalities in "Keep Calm And Flutter On". Fluttershy wants to make friends no matter the cost, and Pinkie Pie is off being offended on behalf of all the animals Discord is messing with.
Then "Three's A Crowd" comes along and Pinkie Pie actively wants to serve as Discord's caretaker. Discord wants nothing to do with her. By the end, even when the truth does come out, Pinkie's perfectly happy to be hanging out near him (even though he did poison Rarity and Applejack).
And then she's suspicious and angry towards him in "Princess Twilight Sparkle". She has every right to be, but it's inconsistent with what came before.
This is why I maintain there was no real plan for Discord's reformation. They kept mucking up what should have been relatively simple characterization in an attempt to keep Fluttershy and Discord together, and then actively forgot about said characterization choices in his very next episode.
He's still pretty standoffish and cruel to Twilight, considering she saved his life. I do enjoy mid-season Discord, because it feels like he's making an effort, but we should've gotten that sooner with Fluttershy if no one else.
Fair enough. I think Discord is interesting as a concept, and there are defiantly moments when I thought he could've been great. The mid-season era being one of them.
But I didn't like his earlier episodes the same way most of the fans did.
This is because A: his debut was not the intriguing drama I thought it would be, based on Laura Faust's promises of a character "based off Q" and B: I related to Pinkie Pie's abuse and Fluttershy's passivity a little too well.
So, the way he interacts with people, especially Fluttershy, always rubs me the wrong way, because she's essentially coerced into this relationship.
It's either be Discord's "friend", watched him be turned to stoned, or let her world be destroyed. Fluttershy doesn't really have any good choices here, and it always ticks me off that Celestia put her in that position.
Throw in the awful characterization of Pinkie Pie bouncing back and forth like a pinball, and Fluttershy losing all her favorite interests whenever he's around so she can be a better "friend", and he winds up being my least favorite character.
At least when the Main Six wind up interacting with Fluttershy, she doesn't have to completely change her character to make it believable that they are her friends.
On that note I do realize that "Discordant Harmony" was made to address these criticisms, but it's too rare of an occurrence to feel believable or sustainable.
Yeah, it's cute, but we should've had episodes of these two hanging out seasons ago.
What it boils down to is, what does a boisterous, outgoing, and unpredictable ex animal abuser, have in common with a passive, nervous, animal lover? They both like tea. Woopie.
No argument there.
Again, no argument there.
The problem is that they do have the elements, and various spells can clearly be channeled through the elements to have an effect.
Summoning spells, reformation spells, they would clearly affect him, so there are ways to deal with them. They are just never utilized, because Fluttershy lacks the will to actually punish him.
Except we see that even outside of the elements, there are ways to take away Discord's magic temporarily and force him to live as a mortal, but no one ever thinks of it.
It's not even because of their promise (wording in "Princess Twilight Sparkle" implies the writers were no longer holding Fluttershy to it).
It's certainly not because Celestia wants to "use his magic for good instead of evil." That plot point disappears after "Twilight's Kingdom" and never comes back.
It's just because Fluttershy is too lenient to actually do anything severe to Discord unless she sees the need is dire (which being Fluttershy, she doesn't always see where that line is).
Maybe, but it set a real bad precedent to have grown mares arguing like a bunch of fillies.
It also makes it clear that the writers weren't going to be focused on writing more calm nuanced conflicts, which is why "Honest Apple" was such a rare treat for me personally.
I wish we had gotten more regular thoughtful discussion then pointless sniping. Even more imaginative insults would have drastically improved the script.
(I still love when Rarity gets snarky. Her voice actress and character are perfect at doing it, while seeming posh and sophisticated all at the same time, and it always makes me smile.)
Their relationship sure, but no one else in the Main Cast gets her to react this drastically the way that Applejack does.
Case in point "Suited For Success" which is all about criticism and sees Rarity bear complaints from her friends like a champ and do her best to appease them. It baffles me because here Applejack is still criticizing everything Rarity's is doing, and yet she's not enraged over it like in other episodes.
That's kind of even more insulting to me to be honest. As far as I can recall, this is their first time really interacting on screen as sisters.
And it's used as a redundant fight gag in a series that was already full of them, and in an episode that already had one.
Worse, its competition is a badly written fight gag* which still manages to get more emphasis than either of the Royal Sisters in this episode, despite them being essential characters that people wanted to see more of since forever.
By contrast "Royal Problem" did two essential things right: It gave us insight into the lives of both Luna and Celestia, thus explaining why they are the way they are in the episode.**
And it ultimately has them repair their relationship under their own volition. Yeah, Starlight sets those events in motion (and I can see why you hate that).
But at the end of the day, it's still Celestia and Luna making the decision to come together. It shows that Luna and Celestia are not the kind of ponies to endanger others on a whim anymore, and those fears and worries the episode brings up are in fact groundless.
Which is a far better resolution than a small-town politician speaking about the importance of Friendship, and they suddenly remembered that they love each other. Like they didn't know "Friendship is Magic" already, when it's the motto of several characters.
There's an argument it shows that Twilight hasn't grown as much as she should have, but that's a separate issue and Twilight's characterization was always really half hazard at best.
Twilight starts up knowing nothing about friendship, gives Pinkie Pie advice about not obsessing over Gilda, and then forgets that to obsess over her homework to the point where she brainwashes the entire town.
Badgering someone over well-meaning concern for her lifelong idol and mentor is far from the most neurotic thing she's ever done, and probably the least contrary or destructive to her character in the end.
It's only really an issue at all because Starlight Glimmer is a highly impressionable mare who looks up to Twilight like a mother figure.
Like I said "Slice of Life's" sister segment is short and, on that basis, I can see why you prefer it. But at least we get reasoning for the actions in "A Royal Problem", something that feels painfully lacking in "Slice Of Life".
*Seriously if you link me to the blog where "Slice Of Life" takes place. I will happily rip it a new one. This chat has only served to remind me about everything wrong with it.
**Bear in mind Luna and Celestia are only meeting up at times when they've just woke up or about to go to sleep.
So even without the pressures of a full workload (which is apparently seven days a week) whenever they meet up, they're both exhausted. Seriously, no wonder they're so grumpy around each other.
Which kind of makes the final that much more stupid, because if two mares could barely handle that workload together, what does it say that they dumped that burden onto one?
Nevermind the fact that Celestia did all that work herself for a thousand years. Is it just a case where Luna's job just went away when she left?
These are the questions that a lore junkie like myself asks. And yet still not as confusing as "Slice Of Life"
5700134
Sad but true. Though, I'd argue that another character being the actual protagonist doesn't prevent other characters from also benefitting from the lesson. Remember when season one had to stick to Twilight writing a letter every episode, even if she was barely involved in events at all?
Yeah, Discord is bad at friendship. He wants all of the benefits like the care and attention with none of the drawbacks like having to consider the feelings of others. This is another thing that changes over time.
Of all the mane six, Pinkie was always the one who appreciated Discord the most for his chaos, and was probably the most likely after Fluttershy to give him a chance, and I'm with you that the writers should've done more with that. But missing an opportunity and wanting to focus more on Discord's relationship with Twilight doesn't mean that his arc wasn't planned. It just means that they were under a constraint to tie it to the main season four arc, and that that constraint left no room for Pinkie.
I mean, I disagree with some of your character interpretations, but your perspective is completely understandable on this, so I'm not gonna argue it.
Precisely my problem with the episode. Well, that and how stark a contrast it is from the usual.
Putting aside that the series was often extremely indecisive on whether or not they still have easy access to the Elements after season four, the problem with this is that it's still invoking the nuclear option. Last time Twilight went to get a reformation spell that would work on him, Discord somehow knew in advance and ate her books. He sees it as a hostile action, and he'll take countermeasures if he's aware of it. Trying to cast spells on Discord without his consent just seems like a good way to put him in fight or flight mode, which is probably a bad thing when we're talking about such a powerful and dangerous being.
I also would not regard stripping him of his magic as a lesser punishment. Losing magic is generally seen as a pretty big deal in this universe, and it's mostly something that villains do. Plus, again, I could never see Discord going along with it willingly, so we're essentially escalating back to actively fighting him here.
Not that I disagree with it conceptually as a punishment. Discord absolutely should've had his magic taken, if not after Tirek then definitely after the fuckery he pulled in season nine. Could've made for a good Deja Q episode, at least.
No argument there. Maybe if we hadn't had these kinds of episodes in season one, the characters wouldn't have backslid so hard in the late series. But I think it's just an artefact of how the show was conceived. The characters are physically adults and live adult lives, but Lauren Faust originally wanted them to be more relatable to the target audience personality-wise, so they show a lot of this kind of immaturity, especially early on.
I guess character dynamics are unique to the individuals sometimes?
Well, I disagree with this on two fronts. Firstly, that it's not of their own volition. Deciding to make up at the wedding was their own volition, whether they needed a speech to remind them or not, and it's a minor enough argument that I could easily see them working it out without any prompting. In Royal Problem, it was the map's volition, acting through Starlight. It was an intervention. You don't pull an intervention on someone if you think they've got the problem handled, which they absolutely didn't, because they were at breaking point in that episode.
And secondly, as said, I don't believe that they did repair their relationship, because by the next time we see them together, nothing has changed, exactly as I predicted in this review.
I never exactly reviewed the episode. It came up in passing as a point of comparison, the way it did in our discussion just now, and I basically made all the same points. If you're planning to go through these reviews in order, then you'll get your chance to quibble in due time. I'll probably quibble back, because I actually quite liked Slice of Life, but I do enjoy these long comments.
5700180
There is a story credit for a Teddy Antonio on "Keep Calm And Flutter On."
If you go to the link I specified underneath, you will find that Teddy Antonio was not a regular member of the writing staff: He was a fifteen-year-old brony.
They based the episode for Discord's reformation of off a fan idea.
Oh and Nichole Dubic, who wrote Season 8 and arguably the worst of Season 9, went to bat for it. Hooray.Now ignoring that everyone has ideas and bla bla bla, this feels like a fan work.
Reformation spells: Where do they come from? Why are they here?
Can anyone be brainwashed into being a good little pony and if so, why aren't they used on everyone? A Equestira with no crime? Why wouldn't ponies want that? If it's because their deemed immoral, then why is the place Celestia sent Twilight to live full of them?
Plus, why does Twilight give up using them after only one setback? She's pursued much more illogical courses of action for far longer. And she must know she's on the right track if Discord is actually nervous about them working.
Does no one else possess reformation spells? Why is that?
Then we get into Fluttershy, and boy is she out of character here. The girl sequestered herself from society because of bullies picking on her when she was a teenager, and now she actively chooses to live with one?
Unless she's worried about disappointing Celestia, this makes little to no sense for her character to be making decisions like this so soon in her development.
Plus she's unfazed by Discord mutating animals in this episode, even though it is a big part of her character as a whole and was shown to be her biggest concern the last time he got free. So which is it? Does she care about animal mutation or not?
Well Pinkie does because... Why? Pinkie Pie was all but in love with him last time and didn't even notice the animals he changed (except to be angry towards them when they ate her food). So what's different? Well, the script needed something different. That's lazy writing.
It's one thing to rush or stagnate development. It's another to swap different characteristics between two entirely opposite individuals because you need to justify your writing decisions. The writing decisions of a 15-year-old fan. This is the problem.
There are issues in "Keep Calm And Flutter On" that depend entirely on fans ignoring them, because the writers didn't think them through.
Episodes like this are where continuity start to break down. If you can't be bothered to keep your main characters straight, what does that say for the rest of your production?
No worse than letting him run free and be a danger to the community, which is essentially what they've been doing.
Seriously, even if he's getting better, he still views endangering people as a perfectly valid way to handle communication. He's still doing it even mid-season.
He's not going to be any less harmful in a few years when only Twilight is around to reign him in, unless it is the death of his friends that sobers him up (something which we've seen very little evidence for so far).
And love him or hate him, The Elements sentenced him to stone twice. They didn't do that to any other character in the franchise. Maybe they had a good reason for casting that spell on him. Certainly, the show hasn't done much to disprove the fact he's an active menace, even during those episodes he is in fact "trying".
It's funny that you bring up "Q" because even laying aside the fact that I find him a far more interesting and nuanced villain, Q actually had an arc, which sees him grow from the sadistic puppet of the collective, to a semi-independent and responsible being, making his way in the universe the best way he knows how.
It might not have been a very loved character arc, but it's there and it justifies Picard's kindness towards him.
The closest thing we get to that is "Break Up Break Down" where he helps Spike and Big Mac of his own volition to get to their game faster, and even that we can't enjoy for long, because "A Matter Of Principals" make it pretty clear where Nichole Dubuc was going to take the character as a show runner.
But again, it's totally random. Like Rainbow Dash unhappily modeling for Rarity in numerous episodes, only to decide seasons latter that she's a bore.
Or Rarity and Applejack fighting over the best way to shape trees (something Rarity has no interest in outside of this episode) but when it comes to criticism of her life's work in "Suited For Success" she just takes it on the chin with no complaints, despite doing a fairly difficult and complex project for her friends for free.
Rarity's disdain for Applejack is entirely in service to the plot, not for the reasons of any good characterization.
Even the lore building for this episode disappears entirely after this, with no pony doing this kind of work ever again, showing that even the writers didn't think much of it. Rainbow Dash's weather mare career got more consideration. And that was barely a non-starter outside of a few episodes.
But it doesn't, so it's still a hypothetical.
I'm not opposed to a hypothetical, but a lot of things in "A Royal Problem" are by their nature hypothetical, so I feel obliged to point it out.
Probably. But what's the breaking point? Luna turning into Nightmare Moon? We see by her concern over Starlight that wasn't going to happen.
Celestia turning into Daybreaker and wrecking stuff? Possibly, but the episode only tentatively hints at that as the problem.
Daybreaker herself almost feels like a satire mockery of the idea, which is ironic given that Celestia has multiple traits which seem to fit a turn towards her bestial half. *
Luna quitting? Well maybe. She's been doing this for who knows how long, and it's clearly driving her nuts. What happens to the dream realm then? Probably nothing good.
Possibly something that has dire long-term implications for the ponies who are relying on Luna for peaceful slumber.
Which still wouldn't make Luna a bad pony. Frankly, Luna needs a change, quite possibly apprentices to help handle the massive workload she is tasked to do.
But the map isn't concerned with long term solutions. It replaced Gladmane with Flim and Flam who go on to be a thorn in the Main Six's side for several seasons on.
It wouldn't prioritize Luna's mental health over the mental health of all the other ponies in Equestria.
I assume you're talking about "Sparkle's Seven" or "Dusk Until Dawn" since I can't remember any other episodes of note characterizing their relationship together.
To that, I say that some people truly have a love hate relationship.
They try to get along, they might even like each other at times, but there's always those unspoken issues on which they'll never agree and will go out of their way to bury the way they feel about it, less it destroys the relationship.
You can even see this in the show in Sweetie Belle's jealousy of her sister, or Applejack and Rarity's feuds. Not everyone has a happy relationship.
Now you might not like this characterization of the sisters, and it's not my favorite dynamic either.
But "Slice Of Life" started this problem. There were multiple ways to solve the missing present issue. Have a royal guard get it. Have one of the sisters go get it themselves. Send it by mail. Deliver it latter, and make it look like it was their plan all along to catch up with the married couple some weeks after the wedding.
Being visited by someone as revered as Celestia and Luna is practically a gift in itself, and Cranky and Matilda wouldn't have invited them to the wedding if they weren't fond of them in some respects. I can't imagine someone as busy as them being pompous enough to invite themselves, and I don't see Twilight putting them up to it.
Unless "Slice Of Life" was characterizing them as doofuses instead, (which I'd totally buy given Gen 4's track record), this spat can't possibly be about the wedding present, because it's far too mundane and inconsequential of an issue.
This frustration has been building for a while. And that's the characterization that "Slice Of Life" gives us. That's what we have to look forward to. Where characterization is based entirely off of comedy as opposed to what actually makes sense. Woopie.
*Even leaving aside the premier, which is pretty sketchy** Celestia has shown to have no remorse or worry about endangering lives, to either prove a point or serve as entertainment.
Rainbow Dash knocks over several columns of heavy stone and it's only by sheer luck that they don't hit anyone. Celestia is thrilled and calls it a living up of the Grand Galloping Gala, even though ponies could have been hurt or killed.
This is repeated during "Make New Friend But Keep Discord" in which she invites Discord (a known aggressor) to the Gala "to liven it up" and expresses glee when he not only trashes the place but threatens one of the guests right in front of her.
And then of course, gambling with the fate of an entire city state, and the lives of several of her greatest assets, and her most faithful student in "The Crystal Empire".
**if you accept the premise that confinement in the moon leaves a silhouette, regardless of which royal sister is imprisoned in it (as shown in the Cutie Re-Mark) then Celestia can't possibly be trapped in the moon for the premier. So where is she while her sister is running roughshod over everyone?
5700235
Yes, but a story credit is all it is, and only for one episode, at that. As far as I can tell, Teddy Antonio's involvement begins and ends with coming up with the idea. Dave Polsky is the one who wrote the script. Meghan McCarthy wrote all of Discord's season four episodes. Thiessen, Wootton, and Miller were the directors. And McCarthy again was the story editor and showrunner. It's not like they just let the kid do whatever the hell he wanted with their characters and then had to improvise, Rise of Skywalker style. He pitched an idea, the people in charge liked it, and it gave them ideas of their own for the following season, so they went ahead with it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Keep Calm and Flutter On was a well-written episode. I'm just saying that there was a clear throughline to all of Discord's episodes from Keep Calm to Twilight's Kingdom, showing that they had a plan and that they stuck to it. Discord still being a callous dick in the earlier episodes sets up his betrayal and true reformation later. Celestia wanting to use his magic sets him up to be sent after Tirek. Bringing back the Elements to threaten him with sets up the reveal of the Tree of Harmony lore and the Elements being taken away, and that in turn sets up the Rainbow Power and Twilight's new castle. Even Discord getting sick in Three's a Crowd sets up that he's capable of losing his magic and being left vulnerable, making it plausible for him to lose to Tirek.
Season four's main story is actually very well-planned. I would even argue the best-planned of any season. Contrast it with Discord's two focus episodes in season five, which were both self-contained stories that contributed nothing to the season arc, and never built to anything more. It's night and day in comparison, isn't it?
Could you please clarify for me what Dubuc has to do with Keep Calm? She started on the show with the season seven finale, so I'm fairly certain she had nothing to do with it. I mean, she's mentioned on that page you linked, but not in any context related to the episode.
I could give you my headcanon answers to these, but I won't, since you're making a criticism of the episode, not asking me my take on a lore question. Suffice to say, I agree with your points.
Well, it might be worse, if they don't succeed right away. Discord being nominally on their side, even if he's still a dick, means bystanders occasionally incur his wrath. Discord being their enemy means he's actively on the attack with zero regard for collateral damage whatsoever. At best, he'd flee and take out his frustrations on random people, like in Matter of Principals. At worst, it's the end of pony civilization. All things considered, it's probably best not to fight Discord if you don't have to, and as much of a dick as he is throughout the series, I can't think of any time after Return of Harmony where fighting him with magic would've turned out better than just talking things out.
Closest in what sense? If you mean closest to being a responsible being, or closest to fully developing as a character as far as Q did, I'd actually say that Discordant Harmony was the peak of that. Break Up Break Down was a decent episode IMO, but it was nothing we hadn't already seen from Discord by then. It wasn't really a further step.
Actually, if we want to compare his character development to Q's, and to Deja Q in particular, then Where and Back Again is the episode to look at, because it's an episode wherein Discord is past his villain days, is left without his powers, and willingly sacrifices himself to help save his friends.
Unrelated to your point, but this actually does come back in a minor, tangential way. In the episode you're talking about, Rarity uses a spell to fuse a broken branch back onto a tree. Three seasons later, in Rarity Takes Manehattan, she fuses wood together with magic yet again, this time to fix some guy's broken wagon wheel during the "Generosity" song sequence. So Rarity's wood spell is technically a recurring character element!
This has nothing to do with anything, by the way. I just wanted to share fun Rarity trivia.
...Come to think of it, Rarity was also in charge of making the bird nests in Winter Wrap-Up too.
Twilight sure seems convinced that it's a possibility, and Celestia seems afraid that Daybreaker represents something actually within her, so the episode at least left me with the impression that their relationship was dire and that the consequences could be terrible.
I'm also considering it from the map's angle. Because if the map's goal was to keep Luna from quitting dreamwalking (which is an admittedly interesting interpretation that I never considered before), then it ultimately failed at this when she retired anyway in season nine. And if its goal was instead just to get the Royal Sisters to stop bickering like children and to start getting along again purely for their own benefit, then it failed at this by season nine too. But on the other hand, if the map's motivation was that it hates unnecessary sequels, and the mission actually was to prevent Nightmare Moon 2: Moon Harder from coming to pass, then we could actually say that its mission succeeded.
I like to imagine that the map's plan was simply to delay the total disintegration of their relationship until after they had retired, just so that both princesses had the option of finally going their separate ways when it happened, instead of being stuck together stewing in resentment until one of them tried to get rid of the other.
Well, yes, that's precisely it. The joke is that the sisters are being silly about a mundane and inconsequential thing. The whole episode is a joke, like it or not. It's not meant to be a serious indication that the Royal Sisters have a deeply troubled relationship, otherwise it wouldn't have ended with them smiling and holding hooves; it's meant to be a one and done, and ignored afterwards, just like everything else in that episode was.
This is a valid interpretation of her character, though I think it's an uncharitable one. Celestia hates the Gala and enjoyed seeing it trashed both times, yes, but I think it's worth noting that both times she only expressed joy after the fact, when the chaos was over and nobody had actually been hurt. I think it's fair to say that she might've taken things a bit more seriously if someone had been crushed under a column.
Having said all that, I'm just defending early to mid-series Celestia here, like I was doing for Discord earlier. And just like Discord, if we take the later seasons into account, then yeah, I'm much less inclined to be charitable.
5700297
The problem remains that it doesn't make sense character wise for anyone involved. Do I think there was a special emphasis on Discord? Perhaps, but it only serves to highlight how awkward the situation is.
Why is Celesita comfortable to rest on her laurels and put Discord with Fluttershy, even though she knows she's a pushover who doesn't ask for much? Shouldn't she be looking for ways to make use of him? The whole point of freeing him from stone in the first place?
Why isn't anyone allowing him to stretch his chaos powers in weird non-sadistic ways? Why aren't Fluttershy's friends doing anything about him causing trouble and deliberately hiding behind her?
Frankly Discord is a stagnate character in these seasons. He learns nothing, his actions provoke no real pushback, and he accomplishes no narrative purpose until "Twilight's Kingdom". All of his episodes until that point are basically filler.
That's Discord's purpose throughout Seasons 3 and 4, to be a flashy comedic antagonist for the Main Six, with no real character development or logical thread forward.
They acknowledge Fluttershy's defense of his character, and that's about it. It's clear they didn't have any idea the direction they wanted to take the character until "Twilight's Kingdom" came along, which marked the first notable shift in his personality.
The other problem is that "Keep Calm And Flutter On" portrayed him as being sincerely worried about losing Fluttershy's friendship and being willing to compromise and do the right thing to maintain it.
Latter season 3 and 4 episodes don't even tease this as a motivation until we get to "Twilight's Kingdom". It's as if the ending of "Keep Calm And Flutter On" didn't happen at all until that episode.
Yeah, I misread that. It's confusing when they put the two together.
That's the problem. He's already doing that under the current system. It's no longer enough to keep doing what they're doing.
Not if you have the proper weapons. The Elements were implied to only have failed because they found new bearers, not because they lost old ones.
Theoretically, they could lock up Discord for millennium as long as no one else uses the elements, and that's assuming they can't terminate him while he's in stone. That's not even countering all the other ways to take his magic without resorting to that.
The reality is that unless Discord can learn to behave himself, ponies in general really are better off without him. Rather than address that fact, or give him a productive outlet, Equestria kept putting him in the time out corner with Fluttershy.
That's not going to work forever, especially once she kicks the bucket.
I mean in the sense of interacting normally and productively in a community that occasionally requires something of him, without it being a request from the one person he's monolithically obsessed with.
He's still obsessed with Fluttershy there, and we both agreed that he was out of character in that episode.
Still focused on Fluttershy. The great thing about Q's arc is that by its natural end in "Voyager" he no longer needed someone looking over his shoulder to do the right thing.
Breakup Beatdown is very similar in that regard. Discord helps Big Mac entirely unprompted in that episode.
"To Where And Back Again" makes pretty clear he's only going on the mission for Fluttershy.
All things being equal, I'm not convinced Celestia wouldn't turn into Daybreaker.
It's just that Twilight has been established as an unreliable narrator when it comes to the royal sisters, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here.
"Lesson Zero" and "A Bird In The Hoof" are pretty convicting implications that Twilight doesn't understand her mentor at all.
Well, I was spit balling when I said that, but for the sake of argument, maybe it's less a matter of the job and more the timing. Equestria was ravaged in the last few years by Discord and Tirek specifically.
Various lines and scenes give the impression that in their rampages, they hit multiple towns. In Discord's case (given his powers) perhaps the entirety of Equestira. That's a lot of people reeling from trauma.
In comparison, later villains had schemes that targeted the capital, or would have only drastically affected lives over time.
So maybe it's less a question of them needing Luna in the position of a dream walker overall, and more needing her specifically at that point in time, lest ponies be overwhelmed by trauma.
Kind of clashes with what the writers were saying about it being a love letter to fans. It was clearly meant evoke serious appreciation by the fan community. Thus, regarding it as a serious entry in the show is not inconsistent.
The problem was MLP had a real issue with letting jokes be jokes.
Like how Spike catches the Crystal Heart because he has hands, and he becomes the empire's saver, and the issue with Thorax is resolved because they were listening to Spike (a literal child), and oh boy did the writers milk that to death.
Spike given command of Canterlot by a Princess who should know better for one thing. (Princess Spike)
Or how about "Cutie Pox" which wound up establishing through visual gags that Cutie Marks make ponies into prodigies, an important point, not just for Starlight's episodes, but for the careers of the CMC's?
How about Pinkie Pie going from a pony whose use of gadgets and gizmos got her labeled as "so random" being turned into a reality defying gimmick who could give Discord a run for his money?
The writers of MLP just couldn't stop reusing ideas and adopting them as cannon, even jokes that broke or otherwise altered the tone of the show.
I'll admit that EQG was slightly better at this, presumably because less content made for more quality control. But the main show just refused to stop doing it.
Just being practical.
That's going to be small comfort to the unfortunate ponies who get crushed though.
5700306
You make some good criticisms of the overall writing, but some of this I just can't agree with, and in the end, I think you and I just took very different things away from Discord's season three/four arc on a personal level. I don't think either of us is ever going to fully convince the other about Discord, so I'm just going to call this one a difference of opinion and move on.
Well, that's in effect what I said. That they'd need to be sure they'd win against Discord if they're gonna turn on him. Because the consequences are pretty dire if they turn on him and then lose. Problem being that after he's been running free a while and had a chance to get to know them, defeating him becomes even more difficult than last time, because now he knows what doesn't work, and he has more options than before. Fluttershy especially is now a big obvious emotional wedge he can drive into any plan to stop him. And the availability of the Elements and the status of the Tree is another thing he can now potentially exploit.
Granted, this goes both ways, as they also have more options against Discord than before, but in any post-reformation conflict with Discord, who wins is going to come down to who has the element of surprise and who has the better plan, and that's not a thing I'd want to bet civilization on.
Arguable. And really depends what we mean by "behave himself." If we're talking about a Tirek/Legion of Doom situation, then yes, I agree. I personally think that Discord really crossed a line in season nine, and that he's proven way too big a liability by that point to be allowed to go on as he has. But during the course of the rest of the series? Like I said, I don't think there's any single moment where the risks of cooperating with Discord outweigh the risks of potentially going to war with him.
And that's entirely disregarding the benefits of keeping Discord around. Where and Back Again, for instance, may have turned out a lot worse without Discord's help. If the mane six had pushed to try and punish him after the Tree Hugger incident, and he'd either run away or they defeated him, then where would that leave them when Chrysalis kidnaps everyone? Would Team Starlight have still saved the day without Discord? Maybe, but I'm gonna say probably not. He's not nearly as good as a safety net in the series as he could be (where was he in the movie, again?) but he's still a good ally to have when he actually remembers to help.
In that case, yes, Break Up Break Down is a better example, though I'd say Discordant Harmony still qualifies. He's not actively helping anyone but Fluttershy in that episode, but he interacts cordially with the random shopkeepers and other citizens, even the ones who were insulting him. It might not seem like much, but for a being whose entire purpose in life is to embody chaos, to the point that he'll literally die if he doesn't, being polite and playing by the rules is going out of his way for others.
Maybe so, but I don't see the problem with that. Caring more about friends than other people is normal, and regardless of who he did it for, the fact remains that Discord sacrificed himself to save somebody else. It's a heroic act, and it's one that the Discord of season two would have never even considered.
That's fair.
Possibly!
I don't regard these two things as being incompatible, but maybe that's just another difference of opinion.
Yeah, I can agree with that.
Perhaps so, but if they do, that'd be on the mane six, not Celestia. All she did in either case was invite some guests who she thought would liven things up and piss off a bunch of stuffy rich people. It's not like she was planning for potentially fatal accidents to occur, or for Fluttershy to accidentally offend Discord's delicate snowflake sensibilities that day.
5700356
I mean that might be concerning if Discord was smart or adaptable. Out of all the other villains though, he alters his plans the least, and he is surprisingly unimaginative when push comes to shove.
It wasn't until Celestia practically mandated it in "Keep Calm And Flutter On" that he saw the advantage of being "friends" with one of the Main Six, even though Pinkie Pie was an obvious mark for that sort of pitch, and he basically never tries to ask Fluttershy for any sort of leeway, even though he's clearly bored out of his skull.
Discord is not the kind to take initiative unless it's a question of throwing the first punch, and I can almost understand that given the power he wields. It doesn't change the fact that literally just about every villain save Starlight and Suri is better at strategy than him.
For further examples look at "The Return Of Harmony". If he was this master supreme tactician, who can warp the few magical artifact that can hurt him from Canterlot to Ponyvile, why not just scatter the Main Six across the globe?
He's got the power, and even with the teleportation acumen of a Alicorn, it would take literally years to find them all. Why doesn't he do it?
As near as I can figure, because he's a sadist who views the suffering of six strangers he's never met, to be more worthwhile than a sound tactical advantage.
That's not even counting how he relays on his magic to turn Fluttershy and the Main Six, even though they have plenty of weakness that he could exploit if he wanted to.
Discord is really bad at preparing for the unexpected, largely because he is so insulated from it.
Anything he wants to happen will happen, and as a result he doesn't have to think ahead, or give any real consideration to his efforts, because they all go exactly the way he wants.
That's equally as true for most of his "reformation" as it is for his stint in villainy.
If she cares, which is the problem with that strategy.
It's one thing for her to be standoffish and unwilling or unable to find him outlets to make him happy when they were "acquaintances", but they've been "friends" for what seems to be several years now, and she's never asked for or shown interest in his hobbies, or what would make him happy.
She'll indulge him when a need is obvious, but she's hardly one to take initiative when it's a matter of making time for him.
The closest she's gotten to dispersing helpful advice to him is suggesting that he join Spike and Big Mac for "guys night" in "Dungeons And Discords" and it's never clear if she does that for his mental health, or if she just doesn't want a repeat of all the other times she left him alone by himself.
I like Fluttershy, I relate to her a lot, but there is no way she knows what she's doing, and there are times I wonder if she even cares about certain things.
Which makes sense, as a big part of her character is being burned by other people, and there's a lot to be burned by when it comes to Discord's character.
Not deliberately endangering lives for personal gain would be a great start. I'm not saying he can't screw up accidently (Twilight and Starlight do that practically every season).
But to actively allow him to menace citizens of Equestria sets a bad example.
I can think of no better advertisement for felons and thugs than watching Celestia's apathy towards Discord. You throw in the fact that petty criminals were flowing out of the woodwork in the mid seasons, and there's definitely a sense of a nation in decline, and that's before the events of Seasons 8 and 9.
I mean Zecora was probably still free. You can say that no one could out do Discord in terms of being annoying, but Trixie is a close second.
"To Where And Back Again" relays a lot on off screen plot contrivances anyway.
If Twilight knows that there exists a potion in the multiverse made by Zecora which can reveal changelings, why didn't she have Zecora researching it? They had a test subject, and they knew the Changelings were out there.
Why didn't they have the Thorax lead the Royal Guard to the hive in order to prevent a second invasion? How do common Changelings take out the Alicorn Princesses? None of that episode makes sense if you think about it.
The problem is that it feels out of character for him. It doesn't happen before or after that episode, and it completely undermines previous interactions with Pinkie Pie, again with no explanation.
The problem is that she's the only person we'd know he'd do it for at this point. This is a problem for a still immature Discord who hasn't made any other friend and who doesn't seem to care about anyone else. He's nice to her sure, that doesn't mean he'll care about anyone else after she's gone.
How so? Intent matters too. Dash clearly doesn't mean to cause the chaos she does at the end, even if I don't approve of her actions beforehand. Celestia clearly wanted some kind of chaos to happen when she invited the Main Six.
She endangered people, and it's been clearly demonstrated that not everyone who comes to the Grand Galloping Gala is stuffy and rich. Treehugger certainly isn't.
And those that are may very well have their good qualities, like Fancy Pants or Rarity. We hardly know any of these ponies.
We only know a few jerks like Jet Set, Upper Crust, and Blueblood. We have so little real information on who's there or why, and the show only makes it clear that Celestia finds the Gala distasteful, not that it actually is.
Twilight spent all her time trying to have face time with the host, Rarity was hanging around Blueblood all night, Rainbow Dash was trying to get noticed by celebrities, and Applejack was trying to sell food at an already catered event.
Pinkie Pie just tried hijacking the festivities because she's Pinkie. Fluttershy's night had nothing to do with the other ponies.
So, the only reason we know the Grand Galloping Gala is awful is because Celestia told us so, and she's hardly unbiased, having potentially lived through the thing for one thousand years.
Maybe, or maybe not. She certainly doesn't mind the fallout though. She was practically giddy in the aftermath.
5700446
I'm really not sure what you mean by this. I can't recall any time where Discord ever tried the same plan twice. It's rare for him to even use the same spell twice.
Okay. But why would he try to stop the Elements of Harmony that way when he already had a plan to stop them which was working?
Because inconveniencing the mane six and delaying his defeat for a few years was not the goal. Discord would never be safe until the Elements of Harmony were totally neutralised. His goal both times he faced them was to render the Elements totally inoperable. The first time he did this, he went after the Tree directly. But that apparently didn't work, so this time he was magically corrupting the bearers instead. Both are good plans, and both are ones that could have conceivably succeeded in a relatively quick timeframe if all went well. They're perfectly sound strategies that just happened to not work.
I think this impression just comes from how little the show actually focuses on their relationship. She seems plenty concerned with his wellbeing when they actually spend time together in Discordant Harmony, and I think it's safe to assume that they have an okay to decent relationship in the time they spend together offscreen. Would've been nice to see more of that, but que sera sera.
It definitely does, but again, Discord as an enemy is capable of ending Equestrian civilization. Making him an enemy should be something to avoid in anything but an absolute emergency, because once we've fired that bullet, it's not going back in the gun. What Discord did to, for example, Tree Hugger, was bad, but is it worth potentially destroying your country over? Especially since, in the actual episode, the whole incident was resolved peacefully in the end anyway?
I get the desire to see Discord face consequences, but he's just too powerful to treat the same as any other individual in a practical sense. A certain degree of realpolitik has to take over when dealing with him. It's the same reason they had to turn him to stone and stick him in a statue garden instead of arresting him and putting him on trial.
Yes she is, but they already had Trixie in that episode, and they still barely made it to the end even with both of them.
Believe me, I'm well aware. It used to be my least favourite finale until Shadow Play came along. And then School Raze. And then The Ending of the End...
It does, but you already know my take on the episode. And regardless of how in character it is, it happened, so it's a data point we're forced to consider. At least if we're discussing canon.
A problem when comparing him to Q? I don't know. Can we really say for sure that Q in Deja Q would've still made that sacrifice if Picard and a small handful of others he personally liked weren't on that ship? Q might have had more people he cared for at this point, but he still didn't have many. Both Where and Back Again and Deja Q are still kind of relatively in the middle of both characters' journeys (granted, in Discord's case, a journey he never actually completed, since he got Dubuc'd).
Also, Dungeons and Discords took place before Where and Back Again, so technically Discord did have other friends he'd go out of his way for by this point, even if he hadn't actually done it yet.
Yes, but there's a difference between wanting chaos and wanting people to nearly die. Celestia's only confirmed intention was to disrupt the party. She was happy in the aftermath because she disrupted the party. She was not visibly happy when people were in present danger. Perspective changes with hindsight.
5700446
By the way, unrelated to our discussion, could you please tell me something? Did you initially forget to reply to my comment, and then edit in the comment reply number afterwards? Because I only got one notification for a comment on my blog, not a second one for a comment reply like I usually do. I've long suspected that editing in comment replies after first posting the comment doesn't actually a send a notification to the other person, but I've never been able to confirm it until now, and it would be good to know.
5700531
We see that his bizzarro world in Celestia and Luna's time is borderline identical to his world in Twilight's time, and that it doesn't change in the timeline he takes over. (Princess Twilight Sparkle) (The Cutie Re-Mark)
That would already show a startling lack of imagination on his part if that was all.
He utilizes similar plots multiple times, isolating Twilight through her basic insecurities. ("The Return Of Harmony", "What About Discord")
Using other creatures as proxies. "Princess Twilight Sparkle" "Make New Friends But Keep Discord" "A Matter of Principles" "Best Gift Ever"
He worked with Tirek twice. "Twilight's Kingdom" "The Ending Of The End"
Threatening and menacing ponies as a form of emotional blackmail. "Make New Friends But Keep Discord", "Dungeons And Discords", "A Matter Of Principals".
How many times has that worked? Once.
Twice he's pulled this scheme, and twice he's scuttled away embarrassed, having not gotten the concessions he wanted, but hey third times the charm. Although even that didn't technically work out in the end.
Because it was based on magic that he either didn't understand or wasn't particularly skilled at, given that Twilight was able to break it with a single spell and some good memories, whereas before she couldn't make a dent in his changes.
So throw the elements into space or kill the bearers. It took Celestia how many years to make preparations for the bearers to challenge Nightmare Moon? He's neutralized nothing with this plan.
Technically he created a catalyst to go after the Tree, and it failed because it was too weak, which doesn't make much sense. The Sisters clearly don't know how to channel the power of harmony without the elements, and he had no problem stealing them in the present.
Does wearing the elements confer some invulnerability to Discord's magic? Why else wouldn't he pit his full strength against the sisters?
Was he just expecting to be locked up for a thousand years and wanted the tree out of the way for the next time he fought Equestria?
Which makes it all the weirder that she was appointed his specific caretaker. I mean they weren't doing much with Fluttershy anyway. Why wouldn't you focus on the relationship between her and Discord? They share several episodes together.
It took all of one season to see Rarity support Fluttershy and vice versa. (Green Isn't Your Color) Why wasn't showing that a concern for Discord and Fluttershy?
"Discordant Harmony" comes four seasons after he reforms.
"Green Isn't Your Color" established Rarity and Fluttershy's relationship in the first season we see them together, when Rarity risks disgrace to root for Fluttershy, despite Fluttershy utterly embarrassing herself moments before.
I shouldn't have to assume a relationship where the writers have not believably demonstrated that any existed.
Especially when they demonstrated far more with less pivotal character dynamics in at least half the time.
Why should I buy into this dynamic if it took the writers seasons to write one believable episode of these two together?
It might have been more forgivable if these were side characters, but Fluttershy is ostensibly one of the main cast and Discord got as nearly many episodes focused on him as Spike.
Well first off if he's truly an "ally" it shouldn't come to that, because he should be a reliable contributor to Equestrian Society.
Put him in charge of a fun fair, or if he really is just a sadist, put him on warden duty. The prisoners would shape right up.
If you can't trust him with anything, then he's not really an ally, and it's only a matter of time before he goes back to villainy in order to get some kind of attention, even if it's bad.
What happens when he does it to Twilight? Or Celestia or Luna? This is Fluttershy's friend he's jealous of, is he going to threaten the lives of everyone who distracts her from him?
What about when he does this to important diplomatic figures? He already threatened the Student Six. Do you think if any of the neighboring countries declares war over a dead child Discord will be any help? He certainly wasn't in the movie.
When "The Ending Of The End" came along, he ran back home and hide behind Fluttershy's skirt from Cozy Glow. Not even the Royal Guard hid from Cozy Glow.
There's a difference between being realistic and ignoring a problem and hoping it goes away. The latter doesn't work and never has.
And all things being equal, realpolitik would have dictated they smash him.
I'm pretty sure I mentioned Zecora already. And some of her concoctions might have worked inside the hive.
Well Yes. But this conversation clearly isn't concerned with bad world building in general.
I was comparing Discord to Q's arc in "Voyager" specifically. I haven't watched "Enterprise" nearly as much, although I am aware of his actions in his first two episodes where we see him working on behalf of the Continuum.
We didn't know that at the time though. The ending of the episode can be read entirely as self-serving. "Break Up Breakdown" is entirely self-serving too, but at least there he's useful without being prompted.
That's the problem. Her perspective is that it's entirely okay to skirt the line between life and death as long as no one actually gets hurt. And she gets away with it because she's Celestia.
If it really is only a problem to endanger someone if you actually kill them, why does everyone hate on Lighting Dust? Because she's still putting people in danger, but no one actually died, so that makes it okay right?
She's says something to virtually the same effect in Wonderbolts Academy.
5700532
Pretty much yeah. People always complain when I forget, so I try to make a effort whenever possible.
5700542
I always interpreted that to just be Discord picking up where he left off. He certainly shows enough imagination when it comes to other spells, and his personal home dimension is nothing like the landscape of his Equestria.
I think a lot of these examples are very superficial in their similarities. Attacking the same general emotional weak point in two entirely different contexts (trying to break her completely because she was his enemy vs. temporarily pissing her off for his own amusement). Working with the same individual more than once, one time on a whim to support Tirek's plan, and the other time manipulating him from the shadows as one of many game pieces in a grander scheme. And threatening and menacing ponies I wouldn't even regard as plans. Those were just tantrums more than anything.
I don't think there's any example of mind magic in the entire series (aside from Sombra's in season nine) which couldn't be broken by outside interference. In Twilight's case, letters from Celestia were interference enough, but a lot of the others seemed resistant to snapping out of it through any means other than force. Rainbow Dash especially put up a hell of a fight. So I see no reason to believe that Discord is any less skilled or confident with his mind magic than with anything else he does. If anything, I think it speaks more to Twilight's personal strength.
So no, I don't believe he should've abandoned his own plan midway through to try winning through friendship, which if anything he'd understand even less.
Discord's not a killer, and we have no reason to believe that just hiding the Elements better would work. If all that Discord needed to do to save himself was steal the Elements, then it doesn't matter whether he threw them into space or kept them in his pocket, because he already won as soon as he took them from the vault. He could just simply not give them the Elements back. His entire plan serves no purpose but to sabotage himself if that alone was a win condition for him.
Now, you have a negative enough view of Discord already, so maybe you do believe he's that much of an idiot, and if so, then fine. We can leave it at that. But I personally find it much more likely that he just knows something the audience doesn't. I mean, Nightmare Moon destroyed the Elements, and that still wasn't enough to save her, so I don't think it's that simple. I don't think physical distance actually prevents the mane six from using the Elements, even if they aren't aware of that yet in Return of Harmony. Maybe they have some hidden power to summon them back. Or hell, maybe they don't even actually need the shiny jewellery at all. They certainly didn't in season four, or in season nine. If that's the case, then anything Discord does to the Elements is irrelevant. He has to take out the bearers, or else he loses.
Personally, I think he was expecting to be locked up for a day or two before the Plundervines killed the Tree and the spell broke, but he overestimated the effectiveness of his magic, just like when he lost to the mane six.
Alternatively, it's entirely possible that he genuinely didn't know how big a threat the Elements were to him yet, and was only concerned with the Tree itself. Season seven establishes that the Tree was young at the time of this flashback, so this had to have been the first time the Elements were ever used.
Beats me.
Don't have to argue with me. I'm with you on this.
And it doesn't come to that in the course of the series, but that's not the point I was making. I'm not arguing about what Discord should've done better, but about how the others should've responded to him. And my stance is that how they responded to him in the series was better than the alternative of trying to punish him over (comparatively) minor incidents and potentially making things worse.
Well, they can cross that bridge if they ever come to it. Obviously the punishment should be more serious if the crime is, but threatening Tree Hugger or making Applejack and Rarity sick isn't worth firing your one silver bullet over.
I agree, but I don't think that they did ignore the problem. When Discord was in the middle of the act, Twilight and friends tried to stop him by force but failed, and Fluttershy talked him down and made him apologise. He realised that he was in the wrong, Tree Hugger forgave him, and the issue ends there. They take a light touch with him, but it's what he responds to, and it resolves the situation to everybody's satisfaction. If you were Celestia or one of the mane six at that Gala, what specifically would you have done differently that would have improved that situation?
Probably, but ponies are not generally the capital punishment types. If they were, there'd probably be a lot less thousand-year-old villains returning.
Does Starlight even know Zecora in season six? The only time they ever even appear onscreen together in the series is in the opening titles. And Trixie I think only ever saw her once in passing at the end of Magic Duel. Ironically, the only one on Team Starlight who might actually know Zecora well enough to consider her is... Discord.
Right. We may have a miscommunication, then. I mentioned Deja Q in passing, and then you compared Discord in Break Up Break Down to Q in Voyager. After that, I went back to talking about Deja Q and brought up the comparison to Where and Back Again, just to make the point that they're similar episodes, and that the two characters were at a similar point in their arcs in them. That's when you brought up him only caring for Fluttershy and called it a problem, which I took to mean a problem with my comparison (i.e. comparing Discord in Where and Back Again disfavourably to Q in Deja Q). If this was not your point, and you were just making a general statement about Discord's motivations without regard to the comparison, then I apologise for misunderstanding.
I think the key difference in this case is that Lightning Dust knew that people could be hurt if she broke safety protocol, but she did it anyway, whereas Celestia had no reasonable way of knowing that letting the mane six come to the Gala could potentially get someone killed, and would probably have made different choices if she could have foreseen that that was a risk. Next time we see Lightning Dust after Wonderbolt Academy, she's still endangering others, even more deliberately this time. Next time we see Celestia host the Gala after Best Night Ever, there are no near fatal accidents because of the mane six, and the only danger comes from a similarly unpredictable source – Discord recently developing an intense personal vendetta against another guest.
Excellent, thank you. That confirms it, then. Replying in an edit doesn't send a notification. So next time I forget, I'll delete and repost my comment instead.
5700588
The problem is that he never shows any signs of wanting to move on. He doesn't try and change up his ideal ascetic at all. It'd be one thing if he was just some random reality warper, but for a guy who's supposed to be chaos, he's usually painfully predictable.
That's the problem. Discord doesn't have nearly as many plans as he has tantrums.
And even those plans he does come up with tend to be laughably bad, poorly executed, or so obvious that just about anyone could come up with or see through them.
Seriously, how many successful plans does Discord have to his name that he didn't screw up?
At least twice he openly admitted to causing wrongdoing because he wanted the satisfaction of gloating. "Princess Twilight Sparkle." "What About Discord?"
It's not a question of being like Equestira. It's a question of being like everything else he creates. I get it, Discord likes checkerboards, and causing food to rain from the sky.
Is he going to try anything else, or just keep dressing up as pop culture references? Painfully obvious pop culture references to boot. Seriously, is there one non-mainstream movie or walkthrough this guy has seen?
To quote Stargate: "If you're going to rip something off, you might want to make it a little more obscure." You can see the "Alice in Wonderland" and the "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatball" vibes in about two seconds if you bother looking for it.
Seriously the way he's obsessed with "Alice in Wonderland" is painfully obvious. Hedge Mazes, Checkboard Floors, the blue tea suit he wears? I'm surprised we didn't get Fluttershy in a blue dress and white pinafore to be honest.
Depends on what you mean by outside interference.
Twilight had to be moved out of range of Sombra's door to return to normal. Chrysalis's mind control needed an infusion of love from "The Princess of Love".
Twilight's "Want It Need It Spell" needed a counter spell from Celestia. We still don't know what it took to break Starlight's mind control.
Influence by dark magic required complete disengagement at best, and complex cures at worst.
And all Discord's spells need is a rush of memories? He's on the low end of the totem pole in this regard.
Not really? She kind of just sat there and seized up.
Which to be fair, there's realistically little to no way to fight true mind control. That's kind of the point of it. But Dash doesn't last much longer than say Fluttershy. Which is the problem.
Twilight frees herself from the spell, and the way she did it means she was at risk from slipping from Discord's control if she sat down to dinner with her family or Celestia.
Unless he thought she was going to wander into the desert to die, there's way too many things that can go wrong with this approach.
That's the point. It's a flex. It's all about proving that he can win with or without the Elements and rubbing it in Twilight's face to demoralize her.
But that's a really bad plan, because there's multiple ways it could fail, and Discord didn't account for any of them. He even ignored Spike, even though he should know the guy is a walking message conduit. Anyone could send her a message through him and snap her out of it.
He either didn't understand hopeless magic at all, or he didn't understand Twilight Sparkle, and there were much easier marks he could have gone after.
Pinkie Pie basically said they should run let him run amok.
All he had to do was keep stroking her ego, feed her some gifts, and pretend that he wanted to learn friendship. He knows how to do this. He was already buttering her up and entertaining her while they were talking in the throne room.
Even if Pinkie Pie was just using Discord to satisfy her hunger, unless she agreed to stone him, there's nothing they could have done to him, because other methods hadn't been designed to contain him yet.
As it is, the only reason he didn't spend the rest of the show as a lawn ornament is because Celestia inexplicably decided to reform him.
He set wild animals onto ponies and developed a weapon which would have crippled Equestria's farms and weather systems, causing them to starve. (A Matter Of Principals, Princess Twilight Sparkle)
Just because he doesn't go around randomly offing ponies in the public view, doesn't mean he'd care anything about their deaths.
And given his abilities to alter memories and reality, if he really put in the effort, he could disappear any number of ponies and Equestria would never notice it.
And so we're back to throwing them to far corners of Equestria. You can break them mentally if you want, but why keep them around? It's a disaster just waiting to happen.
Twilight does know, and she is Starlight's tutor.
I suppose she could have just not mentioned anything about Zecora to Starlight, but considering the role Zecora played in freeing Ponyvile and stopping Trixie, it would be weird if she never came up.
Not impossible for season six, given that the show had seemed to forget all about her, but still weird.
What I know about Q's reformation specifically comes from "Voyager".
I know of Q in "Enterprise" back when he was working for the Continuum, and I liked him as a character and antagonist there, but I didn't follow his relationship with Picard nearly as much.
Specifically, I was comparing Q overall as a character, to Discord as a character.
That's why I brought up it "not being a very loved character arc". I readily acknowledge that "Voyager" is despised by a lot of conventional Trekkies.
How? The balloon came out of nowhere, and we see no sign of any marked traffic lanes for civilians. Balloons are implied to be a rarity in Equestria as it is.
Even Rainbow Dash contributed to the tornado, probably because she didn't see it as that big of a deal around other Pegasi.
It is literally only her friends showing up at that specific moment which turns her against Lighting Dust after the fact, even though Lighting couldn't possibly have predicted that happening when she made it, because even Rainbow Dash didn't know about her friends' plan to visit her via balloon.
Lighting Dust herself is shown to have lost control and been blown off course, which gives us a pretty plausible reason as to why she wasn't present for the rescue.
Except she finds the whole affair exciting and invites Discord next time for an encore.
I mean, she does say that she would have done the trick herself if Scootaloo had bailed.
The implication being that she's not asking Scootaloo to do anything that she wouldn't do herself.
Now do I approve of her actions in that episode? Not at all.
But the implied motivation is still her being unable to tell the line between what's dangerous and what isn't, even if the emphasis of the episode casts her in a negative light.
She invites an emotionally unstable person who has a history of terrorism, to an event she believes is objectively awful. She knew exactly what she was doing and her excitement at the end of the episode proves it.
5700669
Hi. Not ghosting you. Life stuff just came up past couple days. I'll give you a proper reply sometime soon-ish.
Just wanted to let you know.
5701179
No problem. Take your time.
5700669
Hey again. Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. Lot of stuff hit me at once. I might still be slower to reply for a little while, but I dealt with the worst of it. Thanks for understanding.
I don't think having a theme or personal preferences is the same as being uncreative or predictable, personally. As you say, Equestria in the PTS flashback and Return of Harmony were the same, but other than that, he's usually putting a different spin on things every time. Discord's Equestria and Discord's home dimension have thematic similarities, yes, because they're created by the same person. But they look and feel distinct enough to me aesthetically. Maybe it doesn't feel as chaotic or creative as true randomness would be, but Discord has never been truly random, try as he might. He's a thinking being with motives, biases, and favourites like everyone else, and that's fine by me.
Of course, when it gets to Discordant Harmony's level where even the characters can predict exactly what he's going to say or do before he even does it, then I have a problem.
Well, as I said, I think his Return of Harmony plan was pretty sound, and only defeated by an unforeseen outside factor, specifically due to his character weakness of not understanding friendship (i.e. the same reason all villains on this show fail).
His Keep Calm plan to manipulate Fluttershy into not using the Elements against him pretty much worked. He just kinda gave up on that one afterwards because his priorities changed.
Princess Twilight Sparkle wasn't a plan. It's something he caused in the past randomly coming back, and he was mostly just sitting back and watching.
Three's a Crowd's "plan" was to annoy Twilight and test her to see how far she'd go to keep him appeased. That technically succeeded.
Betraying Equestria for Tirek, the Tree Hugger incident, and the O&O incident again weren't plans. They were spur of the moment decisions.
It's been a long time since I last watched What About Discord? but according to the wiki summary his plan there was to teach Twilight a lesson, which it sounds like he did? I do remember this one backfiring on him, though, so I'll give you this one.
And Where and Back Again and everything afterwards I'm not gonna argue, because I regard Discord as being out of character in the vast majority of episodes from this point, but I'll fully admit that his season nine plan in particular was incredibly dumb.
Specifically, that every instance I remember required a second person to break the mind magic's influence. In the examples you list, that would be Spike, Cadance, Celestia, and probably Twilight. In the example of Discord's magic, that's still true. Twilight needed Celestia's prompting to break out of it, and the others needed Twilight.
This is true. However, I don't regard this as a reflection on Discord's skill with mind magic. Mind control with dark magic certainly appears more effective, but that may just be because that's what dark magic does. As the show has established many times, Discord's chaos magic is entirely unique to him and operates by its own rules. We genuinely cannot say for sure in this case whether the problem is with the craftsman or his tools, especially since most things created by Discord's magic seem to be temporary anyway.
They had to chase her down in a balloon and tie her down with multiple ropes. That's the "force" I was talking about. Regardless of how long Discord's magic held out against Twilight's, there was no way they were ever getting through to her with words like Celestia got through to Twilight.
I will note that when Twilight was discorded, she actually was planning to pack up and leave, and said herself that she didn't know where yet.
Okay. So we do indeed fundamentally disagree on how we interpret Discord's character and motivations, then. I have already outlined what I believe to be a more reasonable explanation for Discord's actions in the episode and the questions they raise, but if you prefer to see Discord this way, then I don't think I can convince you. I shall not argue this particular point any further.
I really don't think indulging Pinkie's vices and banking on her mercy is a great long term plan. If Discord intended to continue destroying Equestrian society and tormenting random people for fun, conscience would get the better of her eventually. It was always only ever a matter of time before Pinkie fully turned against him.
Animals which he controlled and could banish again at any time, and a weapon which would have destroyed farms in a world where Discord literally made food rain from the sky. We have no reason to believe that Discord has ever caused deaths.
Keeping the other five around was important to break Twilight. And then once Twilight was broken, as mentioned above, she was going to leave on her own. Once she's out of the picture, they are separated, and what happens to the other five no longer matters at that point.
Yes, I think she probably mentioned Zecora in passing at least once, but if Starlight never actually met her, then she'd be a bad choice to approach after discovering the changelings. How would Starlight verify her identity? Zecora herself is the only source of changeling-detection we know of. Even other changelings can't detect disguised changelings, as we see by Thorax fooling Chrysalis later on. And this is again assuming that Twilight would've gone into enough detail about Zecora for Starlight to know that she'd be especially useful for this specific situation.
Ah. Well, Q's reformation was actually an ongoing thread between the two shows. Voyager completed the arc, but Next Generation began it. Q was more often an antagonist there, as you say, but he mellowed significantly after Deja Q, and most of his appearances from that point until the finale were very Discord-like, in that he considered himself Picard's friend and was trying to teach him lessons and stuff, but still enjoyed fucking with him at the same time. Good example is Qpid, the episode where he turned Picard and the Enterprise crew into the cast of Robin Hood as part of some convoluted ploy to help Picard get together with a girl he liked.
It was basically the midpoint of his arc, a transition between villain Q and Voyager Q, and most of my favourite Q episodes were from this period.
So I hear. I never watched any of Voyager other than the Q episodes, so I couldn't weigh in on that. Even Next Generation I've only watched sporadically whenever people have recommended specific episodes to me. Not seen any of the original series or Enterprise. Tried getting into DS9 but didn't get far, and Discovery and the movies never interested me, but I did see the first season of Star Trek: Picard. It was... certainly a thing that existed.
She didn't know that random civilians could be hurt, but she knew that Dash could've been, and pressured her into it anyway. The rules existed to keep everyone safe, which she was forewarned of, and by flouting those rules, she caused an accident, even if not the accident they were expecting. Either way, it's something that wouldn't have happened if not for her attitude towards danger, and that attitude hasn't changed by the next time we see her.
You can find chaos exciting and still not want to endanger others. If Celestia hypothetically somehow had full foreknowledge of everything that the mane six were going to do and all the ways it could've potentially hurt somebody, and she still wanted them to ruin the Gala the exact same way, then she could've simply moved the dangerous columns and still had her fun with everything else. That something dangerous happened at the Gala as an unpredictable and indirect consequence of her choice of guests is not an indictment of her. That she enjoyed a series of overall amusing events despite some of those events being dangerous is also not an indictment.
Stock-car racing is dangerous too, but there's nothing wrong with liking it. We just put in all the safety measures we can for everything we can reasonably foresee going wrong, and we (hopefully) have fun watching the results. And if there's a spectacular crash but nobody is seriously injured or killed in it, then that doesn't ruin the race for most people.
I disagree, because I don't think Celestia could've reasonably predicted that Discord would be in that foul a mood.
For one thing, Fluttershy was going to be in attendance as well, and she's usually a calming influence on him when she's around (and she was, at the end, just not earlier). For another, Discord has no reason to get pissed off about the Gala like Celestia does. Celestia dislikes the Gala because it's stuffy and formal and she has to play her part for it. Discord isn't expected to play any part, and is free to be himself, even if he makes a scene and offends all the other guests. Under normal circumstances, Discord would probably be having a great time at the Gala, which I believe is what Celestia wanted. It's not her fault she invited him on the one week he was having a tiff with his handler.
5701938
Similar themes, similar manipulations to avoid direct confrontation, same sadistic motivations, same gloating, same exact manner of snarking for every single appearance.
It all adds up to a guy who has settled for doing the same things over and over, and who's not even trying to change it up, because it's the bare minimum of what works for him.
Plus if he can break the fourth wall as "Keep Calm And Flutter On" and "Princess Twilight Sparkle" implies, then we have no reason to believe he isn't simply lifting his ideas from our dimension, which does speak to a lack of creativity.
On its own, it probably wouldn't bother me all that much, but with all the other issues I have with him, it just feels boring and obnoxiously meta. At the very least, they could have tried for something less obvious or leaned into the bizarreness factor more.
It's a indicator of her character. She likes danger and doesn't care who gets swept up in it.
Technically main villains fail because they don't understand how Harmony magic works. It's not the same thing.
If you're saying that Twilight breaking out of her fugue state was the result of Harmony magic, then it still wouldn't discount the fact that there were additional precautions he could have taken.
Actually you can see at the end in his reaction to Cadence's speech that his plan was to ruin her and Twilight's day together, which didn't happen. Cadence says it was a wonderful day and talks Twilight into viewing it the same way.
Incidentally, he gives the game away by gloating this time too and revealing that he wasn't sick, even though he could have kept up the pretense.
He calls Twilight's jealousy a "happy accident" and reveals under the pretense of a hypothetical that he befriended the Ponyvile five to intentionally mislead the group into accidentally excluding her, in order to generate that jealousy.
The episode ends with them using their own inside joke to exclude him as a response. We only get to see him happy when Twilight throws him a bone. We don't see the rest of the cast interacting like this again until "Dungeons and Discords" implying that their newfound relationship with Discord was strained as a result of this deception.
Except what broke Twilight out of her fugue state were the letters she wrote to Celestia about her friends. The only magic involved was her remembering what she herself had written about them.
What if she had kept a journal or a photograph? Would that have been enough to snap her out of it?
The library is untouched, so Discord clearly didn't think of it. Which is the problem, the guy leaves way too many loopholes in his plans as a matter of course, even before the latter seasons.
He didn't even know the Tatzlwurm was a thing in "Three's A Crowd" which is ultimately why he got sick, even though he clearly had scouted the area for the flower.
Outside of the Blue Flu (which as an illness might have had a limited lifespan anyway), I can't think of a single creation of Discord's that wasn't reversed by him or the Elements.
That being said, why would you rely on Chaos magic as a fundamental part of your plan if it was only ever going to be temporary?
Why wouldn't you use natural barriers as well, like scattering your enemies across the earth to name one example?
Because you know if these girls ever broke free, they would have tried tracking down Twilight anyway. Why not make it as difficult as you possibly can?
I was talking about Rainbow's original resistance against Discord's magic.
Although this kind of demonstrates how distancing the elements physically worked best out of all the things that Discord tried.
Perhaps not. The fact remains that Twilight was swayed by words though, and Discord failing to account for that makes no sense, unless he had underestimated her.
He should've known better after what he had to do to force Fluttershy to obey.
And yet again Discord's best plain was to isolate Twilight and make sure she couldn't be found, something he could have done much more effectively had he banished Spike and the Elements after he was done with them.
As opposed to Fluttershy?
Besides, had Celestia picked Pinkie Pie to reform Discord (something Celestia would have had greater incentive to do had Discord shown genuine favor towards Pinkie) Discord would have been able to get away with much more.
Yes, he would have had to play nice and put in the effort to meet with ponies, but is there any real chance that Pinkie Pie wouldn't have championed his chaos as a good thing and gone to bat for him? Plus, Pinkie Pie is the best advertisement weirdness can buy.
it would have beat sitting in his chaos dimension waiting for the next tea time with Fluttershy.
To that I say, name one time Discord has banished something potentially dangerous on his own recognizance, with no prodding by his friends. One.
Except it wasn't raining food during the events of Princess Twilight Sparkle, and he still allowed the Plundervines to ravage Equestria anyway. Throw in his visible disappointment upon its defeat, and I'm not convinced he wouldn't mind ponies starving to be rid of the Elements or the Tree of Harmony.
Because this is the kind of show where almost no one ever dies, not because he possesses any quality which keeps him from being a murderer. Realistically several people should have died that don't over the course of the series.
Rainbow Dash blowing up a building and dumping several tons of frozen water on Ponyvile in Tanks For The Memories. Or Secret Of My Excess where Spike's rampage manages to avoid crushing anyone. The only reason DragonShy doesn't end in tragedy is because of a trait of Fluttershy's that comes entirely out of nowhere.
They're five pony components of the most powerful magic weapon in Equestria. They absolutely do matter.
And if he was really just hyper focused on Twilight, why didn't he keep an eye on her or bother dealing with her assistant?
As opposed to Thorax? Thorax who only popped up a season ago? Thorax who could have easily been placed in the Crystal Empire as a double agent? Thorax who the Changelings knew intimately and could thus easily impersonate?
Thorax who has a very fishy story about being sent by Sunburst, despite the fact Sunburst should have been a high value target for the Changelings, given he has intimate contact with the Royal Family, and would be the first to notice if they were acting off?
If Chrysalis was really playing games far in advance enough to anticipate the threat level of a zebra who lives in the woods and brews potions all day, then why wouldn't she have targeted Sunburst already?
For that matter, luring a group of the only skeptical ponies in sight to the hive, where their magic is rendered useless and inoperable? The whole thing just screams trap.
And Dash knew the risks and went along with it anyway, because she saw it as an acceptable risk. And given the recovery of everyone else involved in the accident, it might have been by Wonderbolt standards.
What Rules? There were no rules. The camp is run entirely on Spitfire's say so, and she loved Lighting Dust because she was a great flyer, despite witnessing firsthand how big of an ego she had.
When Lighting Dust mouths off to her about how easy the camp will be, her squad is given laps to set her straight. But the moment she exceeds Spitfire's expectations, Spitfire complements Dust, despite never addressing her issues about respect.
Then when she asks to be put on the Dizzy Tron at maximum speed, not only does Spitfire indulge her, but makes her team captain because she is a risk taker. Rainbow Dash isn't bothered by Lighting's ego before this, bragging and gloating right about how they're both shoe ins for the wonderbolts right alongside Lighting Dust.
It isn't until her spot is taken that she begins to react to Lighting's antics, and even after being hurt by her actions she doesn't try very hard to convince Lighting Dust that what she is doing is wrong, and she never brings it up to Spitfire so she can deal with it.
Spitfire herself see nothing wrong with the tornado when she's first told about it, implying that she believes that academy recruits should have been able to handle it.
Again, the only reason the tornado was a problem was because Rainbow Dash's friends appeared out of nowhere at that exact moment.
Right. I'm saying that she's no worse than Celestia, or Rainbow Dash* not that she doesn't have problems.
*Remember we are talking about a mare who delayed saving a pony's life to sign more autographs, and who had Scottaloo push a volatile storm onto a active stunt course to boost her falling rep.
To say nothing of sabotaging a government instillation responsible for the distribution of water across Equestria.
And Lighting Dust is the definition of someone who takes racing too far. She's extremely dangerous on the track, but not as much off it. We never see her screwing around outside of a athletics show or training event.
Celestia keeps dragging everyone into her mayhem at random intervals, even sending Philomena to Fluttershy without informing her anything about her bird's eccentrics. Frankly I'm not convinced she doesn't just like seeing people suffer.
And no one was significantly hurt by Lighting's stunts. Rainbow Dash recovers pretty quickly from her sprained wing, and that's the only actual injury she gave anyone.
The point is moot because she enjoyed his terrorism, even after the fact. If she was really bothered by any of it, there would be guilt or remorse, but there's not. She had no problem with Discord's Terrorism. She enjoyed it.
5702281
You're just describing a personality here. Discord is a coward. Discord is a sadist. Discord is an egomaniac. Character traits like these don't generally change without a reason. I get the desire to see something different as a viewer, but I think expecting Discord to totally reinvent himself and change his entire way of thinking every episode is a bit much.
That too, but I meant what I originally said as well. Whether it takes the form of a big magical blast or not, the "power of friendship" is something that villains in this series consistently underestimate. In Discord's case, he underestimated the impact of those letters, not the impact of the Elements.
I don't know, I'd say that Twilight's day was sufficiently ruined, even if Cadance's wasn't. She talks her around, but Twilight's still in a noticeably bad mood for most of the actual episode. I'm gonna call this one two out of three goals achieved.
Well, if making her jealous was the goal, then this is another technically successful plan then, just one with unwanted consequences.
Don't know. Maybe? But discording her made her give up on friendship, so in that state, I don't think she'd think to take any mementos of her friends with her, any more than Applejack would think on her own to try telling the truth again. It was the curiosity of Spike producing dozens of these old letters that drew her to read them. So, just like the others, she needed someone else to put the truth in front of her eyes before she could recognise it.
I don't think it was intended to be temporary. Discord has made permanent creations before. I more believe that impermanence is just a general weakness of his magic that requires effort to overcome. The spells on the bearers were probably intended to be permanent. I think that they just weren't permanent enough.
Well, you already know my answer to this.
Another miscommunication, then. When I said, "Rainbow Dash especially put up a hell of a fight," I was talking about her fighting against Twilight's attempts to cure her (not against Discord's magic), continuing from my previous sentence, "a lot of the others seemed resistant to snapping out of it through any means other than force." So I assumed your response was also talking about that.
These conversations get a little muddled sometimes. We're covering a lot of different topics per comment.
Well, yeah. He underestimated her. There you have it.
If anything, I think that this incident would have put him more at ease about Twilight. Fluttershy couldn't be manipulated the way Discord planned, and he had to brute force her brainwashing. Twilight, on the other hand, he broke just as intended. If I were Discord in this situation, I'd be especially wary of Fluttershy snapping out of it on her own, given that she already showed unusual resistance to it, but I wouldn't be too worried about Twilight, because she doesn't initially seem any more resistant than the rest of her friends.
Fluttershy was already against Discord in Return of Harmony. We were discussing why he didn't attempt to exploit Pinkie's feelings instead of trying his brainwashing plan. Who Celestia should've chosen to reform him in Keep Calm and Flutter On is a whole separate discussion, and one which I've already stated I agree with you on.
Well, yes. You can conceivably write Discord as a murderer if you want to be dark about it. I've done it. You can write him as a rapist too, because there's nothing that specifically prevents him from being that, either. But in canon, there's no good reason to assume that he does such things.
The fact remains that Discord has never actually killed anybody or let them die as far as we know, even when he had a strong incentive to do so. And every time we've seen him intentionally endanger others, he's always been in full control of the situation the entire time, because he's powerful enough to stop it at any time he chooses. Yes, he'll unleash rampaging monsters on you or destroy farmlands, and he'll probably let it go way too far if nobody stops him, but he can make that monster disappear or give you food any time he wants, so you're never actually going to get maimed or starve to death on his watch unless he deliberately chooses to maim or starve you. And I see no evidence to suggest that Discord is that big a fan of maiming or starving people. You can call him many things, but I don't think "bloodthirsty" is one of them.
They matter as part of a cohesive set, but that set is incomplete and broken if Twilight leaves. I find it unlikely that they could defeat Discord without her. Even if all five of them snapped out of the brainwashing on their own, and Twilight left the Element of Magic behind in Ponyville for them to find and pick up, there's still no guarantee that they would actually be able activate the full set. I mean, Celestia could use all six Elements, but she's Celestia, and even she permanently lost access to the Elements after that. I have serious doubts that Applejack, for example, could do the same thing.
And if even if she could, that would just make separating the group even more pointless, because in that case, Applejack alone would be no less a threat than Applejack in a group.
Arrogance. Thought he'd already won. We know this already.
Yes. Don't get me wrong, the entire cast in season six were not nearly paranoid enough about the changelings, especially where Thorax was concerned. But at least Starlight had met Thorax before. She actually does ask him to verify his identity, and he answers the question to her satisfaction, recounting an event that they were both present for. But Starlight hasn't met Zecora, so with her, she'd just be knocking on a stranger's door and taking a gamble.
You're right, I was misremembering. She wasn't breaking rules per se, she was breaking formation. Spitfire encouraged irresponsibility. Dash was the one telling Lightning Dust to cool it throughout the episode, until she caved when it came to the tornado. So maybe it's a little bit more ambiguous, since nobody was properly discouraging her. Still, Lightning Dust knew full well that she was being reckless and endangering other fliers, so my point remains.
I'll agree that she's no worse than Dash. Generally speaking, at least.
Celestia didn't send Philomena to Fluttershy. Fluttershy stole her after Celestia was called away to a meeting. It's a real stretch to try to blame Celestia for anything that happened in that episode.
Again, the distinction I drew is that Lightning Dust knew that the tornado was potentially dangerous before she did it, and Celestia had no way of knowing that a column was going to nearly fall on someone or that Discord was going to go apeshit before she sent out invitations. The bad part isn't the finding fun in danger after the fact. The bad part is the deliberate endangerment, which Celestia didn't do. I see no reason why she should feel guilty when she neither intended harm nor caused harm.
5702415
I also specifically address the implication that he steals his designs from our universe, which speaks to his lack of creativity.
For the record, I don't just dislike Discord for his lack of artistry.
But it is an aspect of his character.
I don't. I expect to get some insight into his character, which is another thing we rarely got.
Discord rehashes more character moments than Fluttershy, for considerably less backstory. He's a walking meme. I understand why that's attractive but being appealing to the audience and being a fleshed-out character are two very different things.
What do we really know about Discord? He appeared one day. We don't know if this is his world or if he crossed over. Was he born? Ascended from being a mortal? Descended like a writer's insert? Written into existence? Couldn't tell you, and the show certainly won't.
We have nothing to compare his experiences to, or to get a handle on why he acts the way he does outside of the show.
And again, his thought process throughout the show tend to involve him knowing a lot of meta knowledge. Where does he get it? How much does he know in advance?
We don't know, because again the show doesn't tell us. And like everything else involving Discord, it's used pretty inconsistently.
I'll say one out of two. I don't buy him really trying to teach Twilight anything, because even his friendship medallion seeks to censor her out of it. Implying he doesn't really care about her or how she perceives him. He's just framing it that way to avoid criticism.
Plus, he still wound up getting sick, which I highly doubt was the original plan. It's kind of hard to be smug and superior from a sick bed. Although to be fair, he comes pretty close with that troll at the end.
I mean in the short term yes. It fails pretty quickly though, which is the problem. Discord's goals are so painfully short term that reformed or villain, he fails to deliver in a compelling way beyond single appearances. If the idea is just to troll Twilight, then it's a success.
If the idea is to successfully troll Twilight, then not only are his tactics reversed on him, making him look foolish as a result, but it's pretty clear he takes being excluded as hard as Twilight, if not harder. Which makes sense for someone with his ego.
Power as in friendship in general? Or Power as in the specific Magic that emerges from Friendship? Because there is a difference. Are we talking social relationships or emotional commitments? Because there are villains in MLP who understand how to utilize and manipulate social relationships.
And suppose Twilight just happens to walk past a photo of her friends or her diary on her way out?
Realistically speaking, Spike passing even twenty letters at this point isn't really all that engaging. She's seen it about a million times. And it's clear she doesn't care about Spike at that point, because he's clearly in pain, and she doesn't notice it until she snaps out of her fugue.
The huge pile of them might be a distraction, but why would Twilight take the time to read them just because they were there, if she had really given up on friendship? And if she hadn't given up (speaking realistically) why wouldn't any healthy communication snap her out of it?
And why would Discord turn the whole town upside down, but miss the home of his arch enemy? It's located in the center of town; it wouldn't be difficult to get to or notice for that matter.
On that note why didn't he deal with Canterlot Castle and the ponies there? It seems like an oversight to have left the seat of government alone long enough for someone to have dug up that kind of information to use against him.
Except that's basically speculation. We don't have anything to suggest that is or isn't the case.
Yup. No arguments here.
And yet he isn't bothered by any of them being a problem. He leaves them alone together in a small town and doesn't seem to worry once about them getting together.
He doesn't even react when they do get together at the end, which frankly should have been an immediate red flag, if he was really counting on Twilight leaving.
It's still relevant though, because the impetus for Discord trusting Fluttershy is her promise she makes to him at the end not to use her Element of Harmony against him.
That is also not in character. Fluttershy lies to get out of tricky situations. (Party Of One)
So why would Discord trust her when he clearly overheard Celestia talking her into befriending him?
But you know who does take her promises seriously, and nearly drove her friends bonkers in order to get them to keep theirs? That's right it's Pinkie Pie. (Green Isn't Your Color)
That we see explicitly on screen. Just because we didn't see something explicitly on screen, doesn't mean it wouldn't have logically happened in a realistic environment.
Same thing with Cozy Glow. We never see anyone die from her plan, so why would we assume any deaths took place? Probably because yeah, we could contrive scenarios where no one died as a result of her actions, but realistically it's not very likely.
Which incidentally is the problem with Discord.
It wasn't until he went after kids in "A Matter Of Principals" that I realized that while it might have been poorly developed from a standpoint of what people actually wanted to see, he had always been that petty, even during his reformation.
I was simply making excuses for him because quite frankly, I didn't want Celestia, Fluttershy, Twilight and the others to have been wrong in giving him a second chance.
I wanted Discord to get better, so I overlooked obvious problems with his character development to give them the benefit of the doubt. Looking back though, it's pretty obvious where the flaws lay, even from early on.
How many times has he actually done that though? Discord isn't omniscient or omni powerful, and he gets bored and wanders off all the time.
His chaos in The Return Of Harmony is shown to be running, even when his attention isn't focused on it. So why wouldn't chaos have realistically claimed a life or two?
What about Rarity luging that bolder around and driving everyone away out of sheer uncontrolled paranoia? You think it's impossible that she keels over from exhaustion and dies in her own house, without anyone around to help her?
What about sun stroke? The movie confirms that it is a thing in this universe. What's going to happen to Rainbow Dash clinging to that cloud while constantly exposed to the elements?
That's not getting into the fact that insane people are hardly the best at survival in general, and Discord was turning most of Ponyvile into them.
How long can Big Mac go around digging underground before a tunnel collapses and suffocates him?
Discord didn't even know the Tatzelwurm existed, let alone that it tried to eat Twilight and Cadence. And if he could actually get sick from it, there's a real question what effect his powers would have on it.
How about what he does to the Ponyvile bunnies? If one of those legs break, and their trying to hobble around on stilts it's going to be much harder for those rabbits to move, not to mention hide from predators. These things didn't happen because the writers decided that they wouldn't, not because they couldn't.
Which is the problem. Outside of the Main Six (and Starlight Glimmer) no one can.
There's a scene where ponies are stuck hanging around in the Plundervines and the only reason Discord lets them go is because Twilight ambles by.
Or unless he puts you in a dangerous situation to laugh at your freakout, and then he runs off to do something else and you're killed in the meantime, which is absolutely something he'd do.
I'm not saying Discord is a serial killer. I'm saying he is a criminally negligent being who loves creating terror and misery, has to power to endanger people's lives with a snap, and the only believable reason he hasn't killed anyone, is because the writers were running censorship interference for him.
He's Lighting Dust, but without any understanding of social norms or restraint off the course and granted with nearly unlimited power and a potentially greater disregard for pony safety. Realistically, if anyone was going to cause accidental deaths, it would be Discord.
Which is a cliche. A believable cliche, but no less overused because of it. It's literally the downfall of over half the villains I've seen in my life to turn their backs on their enemies.
If my expectations had been lower, maybe it wouldn't have been as annoying, but I found it disappointing when the guy who was supposed to be an archetype of Q got beaten like every ever villain on the block.
Q is the kind of villain who has to be outthought rather than out maneuvered, and who reveals something about his enemies every time he shows up. Discord just touches someone, and he wins. Twilight does literally the exact same thing, and she wins.
There are no grand or meaningful character revelations in "The Return Of Harmony" outside of Twilight's character.
And she already went through a similar crisis that was much more believable during the premier, then it was after almost a season of character growth, with Twilight being arguably the most mature one in the group, (despite supposedly having no prior experience with Friendship).
And because I know that Discord can just make the Main Six obey him with no effort whatsoever, future clashes have no dramatic tension, because I know Discord is not even trying and is basically just spinning his wheels for the remainder of the series.
Additionally using his powers in this way, calls attention to the fact he could have done anything to them with his powers, but he doesn't because reasons.
And it's unnecessary, because between the Main Six's disfunction from the early series, and Discord's charm, you could easily break them up naturally, and it would have been more thematically consistent if Discord didn't believe in friendship at all as opposed to not believing in its Harmony Magic (which has beaten him twice).
Luna and Celestia fell apart pretty much the same way and watching the Main Six be driven apart would justify his world view that friendship isn't worth much.
And the subversion of that view would shake his confidence and make him much more willing to try something new, such as trying to weaponize friendship against the elements.
The problem with making him this powerful off the bat is that you know he can do basically anything, and there's no real reason to be invested, because any loss he suffers is going to be completely contrived.
Did she? She seems convinced that her fellow flyers can handle it. And the flight course is over clouds, which are better than airbags for Pegasi, so they are a lot safer doing this, than say stock car racing.
Now is she a jerk about it? Sure. No argument.
But I don't think you can make the case that she was knowingly endangering ponies based off of that alone.
I'm misremembering again.
That being said, the point remains. Lighting Dust only acts like a heel in athletic environments usually only around ponies who are trained to handle it. And while what she does with Scootaloo is awful, she's still only one filly, who can potentially be singled out for rescue if it comes to that.
Celestia pulls her nonsense in a crowded hall, full of random assorted ponies and untrained bureaucrats, who couldn't possibly hope to know what to do in a dangerous situation. Not to mention children in the case of the second gala. She's also using the actions of people she can't really predict, unlike Lighting Dust, who if the worst comes to happen, has her own team present.
At the end of the day, Celestia's still endangering civilians to suit her own needs, and if someone had been crushed or trampled to death in the ensuring panic, Celestia would be partly responsible, as surely as Lighting Dust would have been if Scootaloo had died in the Washout's, or if the tornado had actually killed the Main Six.
She doesn't though. Never did Rainbow Dash. Rainbow's initial objection is that it's unnecessary, not that it's unsafe. And then Rainbow proceeds to enthusiastically go ahead with it anyway, because she remembers what Spitfire said about pushing herself.
And then the balloon emerges from out of sight only after the tornado was already out of control.
So Lighting Dust blowing the event off in "Wonderbolts Academy" is not a problem for you? I only ask because it really seems to tick people off, but Celestia does pretty much the same thing in "Make New Friends But Keep Discord" and no one seems to notice it.
5702658
This is contingent on assuming that displays of fourth wall awareness are canonical and should be taken seriously. I can take or leave that idea, personally.
I can understand this frustration to an extent, though personally I take the opposite stance. I quite like a certain degree of ambiguity around a character or story element. It engages me and inspires me creatively. It might even be one of the major reasons why I like Discord as much as I do. His existence, powers, and known history imply a lot about him and the world in general while definitively saying very little, and most of my stories came from my attempts to fill in those gaps with my own imagination.
In contrast, I look at how the show gave the Tree of Harmony a definitive backstory in season seven, and it just leaves me cold. I don't hate it the way some people hated the addition of midi-chlorians to Star Wars, but I feel like it significantly reduced my interest in the (canon) Tree of Harmony. It turned something cool and mysterious into something mundane and boring. Or at least that's how I feel.
Friendship in general. Sometimes that friendship allows the main characters to come together long enough to hit the win button, but other times it's a little more nuanced than that. For example, some villains like Starlight are defeated by reforming them instead of by force.
I'd say that something specific would have to draw her attention to it. But we're into a hypothetical of a hypothetical here, so I don't want to speculate too much. Ask me how it works specifically in my own universe and I could give you a definitive answer, but if we're talking about canon, I really couldn't say for sure.
Rewatching the scene, I think it's because she's confused. She started reading one to identify what it even was, and then continued reading to figure out why the princess was sending them.
Don't know. It could be any number of things. Leaving some pockets of normalcy to contrast the chaos? Saving them for later? A psychological tactic to give a false sense of security? Didn't have the time? Celestia fought him off? Chaos magic doesn't work as well in interiors? Discord is a stupid dumb idiot who doesn't think? Pick your favourite reason.
Much of this whole conversation is speculation. You pointed out earlier that there's very little we know for sure about Discord, and that's true. We're just forming opinions based on observable trends.
Yeah, well, I said if I were Discord I'd be paying more attention. The actual Discord fucked up there, and I'm not going to dispute that.
She does, yes, but befriending Discord was a task she was supposed to be taking seriously. It's not a situation she was trying to escape from, and lying and breaking promises would not have helped her in that situation. In fact, she succeeded precisely because she was keeping her promise. That's why Discord trusted her.
Now who's speculating?
Matter of Principals was a serious misstep of an episode, and I don't blame you for souring on the character as a result of it. I regard it as a major derailment of his character arc, a regression back to flaws which Discord had certainly showed previously, but was supposed to be past by that point. Discordant Harmony felt out of character to me as well for unrelated reasons, but it was at least still a clear progression for him, and I feel like that episode's characterisation would have been a much better endpoint for Discord than what he became by season nine.
Basically, I get it. I wanted him to be better too.
How many times has he stopped his own chaos? Every time someone he cares about asked him to (except the times he was a villain or rendered powerless). And since you asked before, how many times has he stopped it entirely of his own accord? We don't know, because we've never seen him in a situation where he's left to make that judgement on his own. You assume he'd make the worst possible choice and let someone get eaten before he stops the bear. I say he wouldn't.
I'm not going to claim that nobody ever died in Discord's Equestria as an indirect result of something Discord did, but I think this is different from the initial claim that Discord is either a killer or apathetic to death. The bear scenario is a far cry from some of the examples you bring up here. And in many cases, it's unclear how responsible Discord would even be in the first place. I mean, he made Rarity selfish and obsessed with a boulder, but as far as we know, he didn't take away her ability to care for her own health. If Rarity did die of exhaustion that way, I could certainly understand blaming Discord for it, but if we removed Discord from existence, I couldn't say for sure that she wouldn't have still died of exhaustion hauling around a giant box of hats or something. So would it actually be Discord's fault, or Rarity's? How many degrees of separation between Discord and the death can he be held responsible for? How many degrees of separation should he feel guilt for? This is a broader philosophical question which might be beyond the scope of this conversation.
What I can say for sure is that Granny Smith in the earlier seasons was stated to have a bad hip. Discord's magic made her dance around the farm. And yet we never hear of her being injured or in pain as a result of this. So I am inclined to think that Discord actually does consider things like these.
Tatzlwurm is a bit different, because it's not something Discord created or caused. Twilight and Cadance were in genuine danger from that, and they were technically in that situation because of Discord, but if he didn't know about it, then it doesn't have any bearing on the question of his morality.
That would be both an example of things going too far, and an example of somebody else stopping him. It is notably not an example of someone dying or nearly dying in front of Discord. They're scared, but they're fine.
I disagree and don't think he would.
This is a Doylist explanation for a Watsonian problem, and I am simply not satisfied with that. Yes, obviously we're not gonna see him kill anyone in a kids' show, accidentally or otherwise. But what's the in-universe reason why he doesn't have a visible body count, and why nobody ever treats him like a killer? I'm saying maybe it's because Discord actually does have a tiny bit of a conscience even as a villain, and uses a fraction of his incredible power to keep people from dying as a result of his actions. But you're saying it's basically just luck. I can't definitively say that you're wrong, but I find this explanation a lot less likely than my one.
Discord does believe in Harmony magic. He's probably the most intimately aware of any villain in the show about what the Elements can do and his own personal vulnerability to them. That's why his entire plan is a direct attack on the bearers to prevent them from using them. It's underestimating the bearers as people and the strength of their bonds that blindsides him.
I like this as an idea, but since this is a criticism of the episode itself, I have to say that it's unrealistic from a production point of view. Establishing Discord and showing the stakes, setting the mane six against him, having them fight and break up, and having them all get back together again to take him down already took up nearly forty minutes in the version of Return of Harmony we got. To have that all happen, and to then also have Discord pivot to a second, even more complicated plan before his defeat, would require either a dedicated season arc or an extremely brisk pace. It would be nice to see if done well, but I think such a thing would have been beyond what Studio B were capable of at the time.
If she wasn't knowingly endangering anyone, and Spitfire approves of her attitude, then what was she kicked out of the Wonderbolts for?
You're still speaking as if Celestia knew that danger was likely at the Gala. Again, we're discussing her sending tickets to people who she thought would make a boring event interesting.
On its own, no. As I said, the problem for me is the deliberate endangerment, which I contend she did in fact do, at least to a degree. I think she should've been more introspective for that reason. But if I were to temporarily adopt your position that she didn't knowingly do anything wrong, and that it was all a completely random accident (which is also my position on Celestia and the Gala), then I think her only mistake was not reading the room. I can still enjoy a stock car race with crashes, but I wouldn't gush about how great the race was to a driver who nearly died.
5702759
I would like to. Unfortunately, there are things he knows which he couldn't possibly know except by reading the script. But I'll get to that latter.*
I do too. The problem is that Discord is ambiguous, while implying a lot about the world he's in, that subsequently makes it feel very boring and dull.
For example, magic is the end all be all. As a reality warper, Discord can conquer any other person in the universe except for a few specific weapons, and no one can stop him.
Magic has taken the place of any other talent as the most important thing one can have in a fight, which is especially limiting, and speaks to a willingness to use flash over anything else.
In the premier there were practical talents that wound up being useful for taking down Nightmare Moon. Here the only ponies that contribute to Discord's downfall are Twilight and Fluttershy. The others are just there to power the Rainbow.
Worse, magic is based on power levels. We see this in how Twilight can't defeat Discord's magic even while she's there, and Discord is off who knows where.
The problem with generic power levels is that it separates its characters into clear classes of who's relevant to the plot and who isn't, and forces everyone to conform around them whether it makes sense or not.
Like how they wound up buffing up Trixie in latter episodes in order to make her a good antagonist or sidekick. Instead of making her illusions useful, they just gave her Twilight levels of magic. The only time Trixie's talents are relevant again is when she's actively deprived of her magic in "To Where And Back Again".
Then there's the meta stuff, which is baffling inconstant at best, and downright contradictory at worse.
How does Discord not notice the elements restored and ready to blast him, but does notice the blink and you'll miss it signs pointing to where the keys to the Harmony Castle are found? *He'd have to be color blind to miss the first, and yet only by seeing color (or reading the script) could he possibly notice the second. So, which is it?
Well Starlight is a horse of another color. She was only reformed after tying Twilight in a magic duel. And the reality is that a lot more villains were beaten by the rainbow rather than reformed.
I don't think Friendship is the main message MLP wound up promoting in its clashes with major villains, especially with individuals whose contribution to the plot were interchangeable and social dynamics that rarely seemed to matter outside of Slice Of Life segments.
There's an argument for teamwork and heroism but frankly all six of these characters are strangers, and if you took most of them and replace them with another pony, it would probably work just as well. Fluttershy and Twilight are the only consistently useful characters in the major villain duels.
Well that's the problem. Given his power levels, and consistent bulldog approach throughout the series, none of those things make sense other than the last one.
Which is why I maintain that Discord is a writer's tool. He has the appearance of ambiguity, but he's really actually pretty straightforward, usually in the most blatant way possible. Quite frankly, I thought he had all the subtlety of a steam train before Season 8, back when I did like the character.
Where is it observable that Discord's powers break down over time? I don't see any evidence for it.
Fair enough.
Except she stalls, lies, and tries to run away from facing the dragon in "Dragonshy" despite that being a mission from Princess Celestia too.
She actively pummels Rainbow Dash to avoid facing dragons in "Dragon Migration" showing she's still not over her fears in that episode either.
And even in "The Return Of Harmony" she's shown to be terrified of Discord's picture in stain glass when she sees it. And then she just kind of drops this fear when she sees his form in the hedge maze? We'll get to that latter too.**
Except he had no reason to believe that she would. It's not in character for her. Only plot convivence stopped her from fleeing outright, much less turning her back on her friends to keep a promise that Discord didn't even honor.
If it had been Pinkie Pie, it might have been arguable that it was somewhat plausible, although I personally think it still strains credibility. With Fluttershy they essentially have to sell us a different character in order to make it work.
Even if they had done it with Pinkie Pie though, the feel of the episode is that she doesn't care about her friends as much as Discord, which feels like a rather weird and disturbing message to begin their relationship with.
Based on rules of physics, at least some of which Equestria observes, even when Discord is exercising his power over it. It's not the same thing. Schroeder's Cat may be a popular thought experiment, but it is also complete gibberish.
When you look at the larger pattern of behavior, it's pretty clear he took away their ability to think critically. Rainbow Dash thinks she save Cloudsdale by sitting on it? Applejack thinks she can save her friendships by lying about the color of the sky?
It's all so nonsensical that only a crazy person would believe it. So yeah, if Rainbow Dash or someone else kicks the bucket under his influence, I have no choice but to believe it's his fault, because none of the Ponyvile Five would realistically act like this on their own.
Or the writers can't keep community, which is just as likely and more believable than Discord playing at guardian angel for Applejack's grandma.
Incidentally, I can't recall Grany Smith's hip inconveniencing her in any serious way throughout the series. At best it's a plot point to keep her out of the episode.
Discord was literally at the bottom off the hill initially. I find it baffling he wouldn't hear or see something.
Quite frankly one would assume he would be watching, just to enjoy Twilight and Cadence's suffering in digging out the flower. It's a big plant. He should have wanted to see the show if nothing else.
This is literally a case of him getting bored with his own scheme and leaving to check on something else, which is the entire point I'm making about him leaving ponies in dangerous situations.
Also, he speaks of Twilight facing great danger during his celebration but is shocked to see the Tatzelwurm for some reason. Another point where the writers seem to be making it up as they go along.
They were in the process of being squeezed by the vines. Now maybe you can't hurt ponies by squeezing them, but plenty of interactions involving Pinkie suggest that's not the case.
Well, that's the problem. We don't see any evidence that he wouldn't make the worst possible choice.
By engaging in his schemes to terrorize and unsettle ponies instead of trying to relate to them, he's already made the worse possible choice out of all the multitudes he has on the table, and he continues to make it throughout most of the series.
There's very little reason for it either. Ponies have not been shown to have been disturbed by him half as much as his actions. We see no signs that they fear him for what he is, only in what he does and continues to do. This should be obvious to anyone remotely aware of those around him, but it never occurs to Discord.
This is not someone who is interested in ponies or making them safe or comfortable. It flies in the face of who he is and what he does throughout the series.
And frankly from what we see, he'll change tact and violate whatever principals he has fairly easily if sufficiently angered or upset, and it takes very little to set him off, something we see even back in his scene with Fluttershy during his debut.
Many people would consider that a gamble not worth taking, especially if they were responsible for other people's lives. Celestia is evidently not one of those people though.
Then you'd have to explain why every other villain doesn't have a body count.
The explosions caused by Chrysalis in Canterlot do nothing to the city? Cozy Glow's plan doesn't kill hundreds of ponies? Tirek left ponies drained of their life force in back alleys, and no one of them ever reported it. Are they dead?
Even with Storm King and Sombra, the darkest implications we are shown is slavery. There is no abundance of graves, no morning that you'd expect from a nation that has been sacked or plundered. Do ponies just not care?
Twilight Sparkle was treating Starlight Glimmer like a sob story even before she learned about her past. She gets sent to her town of former victims and no one bats an eyelash? Either it's a regular occurrence for ponies to ignore bad things happening to them (which might not be unlikely), or the writers are just really bad at their jobs. Potentially both.
The alternative is that even the Terrible Trio had a conscience and pulled their punches throughout their careers, which really just makes the ending that much more disturbing if you think about it.
Given all the times luck allowed Rainbow Dash or the Main Six to save someone, when realistically they shouldn't have been able to, I'm going to assume that it was the writer's plot choice of convince.
But why fight magic with magic? Why use something that you know is vastly outclassed by your enemies' abilities? Especially when you know what crippled them last time was natural born infighting? Why risk a push back if Twilight figured out what you were doing?
Why try to bend the bearers unnaturally when you can break them apart in a natural way that leaves no room for a spell to unravel?
Now Twilight might have tried unnaturally forcing the elements into compliance, but I don't think that would have worked too well.
Except it was already set up. We see subtle disagreements and weaknesses among the Main Six even before they enter the hedge maze.
Pinkie Pie wanted Discord's chaos to continue so she can stuff her face. Rarity's greed and fear of being dirty. **Fluttershy's fear of Discord and worry over her animals. Rainbow Dash and Applejack worrying about their respective homes. We already had the perfect ingredients set up, and it takes them the entire first fourth of the special to do it.
And then it pivots during the hedge maze encounter, where only some of those aspects are used, while others are dropped, and new ones come entirely out of nowhere. Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Fluttershy's conflicts are dropped to make way for entirely new ones, and all of it is predicated on the basis of mind control.
Then the next episode's first half is devoted entirely to showing the brainwashed Ponyvile five acting like Oc jerks so Twilight will break up with them, even though it's not compelling drama at all, because we know they're being brainwashed.
And then there's the time spent rounding up the Main Six, casting the spells, showing the flashbacks, and chasing down Rainbow Dash, all of which could be trimmed out in favor of group dynamics where the Main Six hash out their differences.
So yes, you could totally write a believable friendship spat in the time it took them to begin to write one and subsequently swap it out for a mind control plot and drama about the life and times of Twilight Sparkle.
Power Puff Girl's "Octi Evil" did it in just 11 minutes and 22 seconds nearly a fourth of the time, and it didn't have the benefit of one of the major protagonists actively defending the villain.
A property the writers would have known about, given that Laura Faust storyboarded that show and "The Return Of Harmony" makes references to its main antagonist in Discord's chat with Fluttershy.
Unknowingly endangering Twilight and the Elements of Harmony. Someone had to take the fall for nearly killing a princess, and it sure wasn't going to be Rainbow Dash, even if she was right there with Lighting contributing to the problem.
Which I might not have had a problem with, had Spitfire not been encouraging Lighting's ego every step of the way and had the near tragedy not boiled down to a lack of preparedness and understanding on behalf of both parties.
Frankly as fast Rainbow Dash and Lighting Dust were flying, they might have punctured the balloon by accident, even without the tornado. Realistically there should be either warnings posted, or some safe avenue for approaching the compound, but either there wasn't, or Twilight was unaware of them.
And it doesn't work for Rainbow Dash as a character moment either, since she has been proven to be just as careless on multiple occasions with the lives of both friends and strangers. The problem with the episode is that it feels like one big contrivance in light of Rainbow's previous characterization.
They're trying to compare a pony similar to Rainbow Dash to a version of Rainbow that's considerably more mature, but it just doesn't work, because they tried to cram all the relevant character growth over the course of this episode, rather than establishing it beforehand. And then they regress Rainbow Dash again anyway in future episodes, rendering said character growth worse than meaningless.
And one of those recipients is Discord. When has Discord ever behaved himself, outside of the one time he was nice to Celestia in Keep Calm And Flutter On?
I guess you could count "What About Discord" if you really want to, but is one day of non-threating public appearances really enough to justify inviting someone who tried to overthrow the monarchy multiple times to its biggest office party of the year?
Celestia is gloating to Twilight about the night's excitement.
Twilight who probably was extremely put out by Discord's mayhem wrecking her party. Twilight who saw Fluttershy frustrated and upset because Discord was being a jealous creep and nearly banished her friend to another dimension.***
This is the dictionary definition of not reading the room. But she gets away with it because she's Celestia, and Twilight would never question her in the latter seasons, regardless of how hurt or upset she is.
***Now do I understand why he's being a creep? Sure. The episode spelled it out pretty clearly in what was (I felt) an adequate test run for Starlight Glimmer's own origin story. But just because I understand what he's going through, doesn't mean those around him shouldn't be realistically pissed. But we're supposed to shrug it off by the end, because "Hey, it's Discord am I right"?
5702849
But lots of people have stopped Discord by a variety of means, not just magic power levels. In fact, you were criticising him before because most of his plans seem to fail. So do you want Discord to have more character-based weaknesses or less?
I think this is more because Twilight doesn't understand his magic in that episode than because of straight power levels. By his next appearance, both she and Celestia are capable of casting spells that work on him or resist him. Starlight too, in season eight. I think he is more powerful than them, but this obviously doesn't make him untouchable.
I was not fond of Trixie learning advanced magic either, but I don't think that was the reason for it. The only time her newfound magic skill is even relevant to the plot is when she's causing accidents, like in All Bottled Up. I think this was something the writers just did for the hell of it.
Unless you're talking about Magic Duel? In which case, I agree; I think the episode would've been more interesting without the Alicorn Amulet.
Well, he had a minute to figure out the first, and all of season four to figure out the latter.
I didn't say they weren't.
There has always been somewhat of a tonal disconnect between the SOL episodes and the adventure two-parters, and Twilight-centrism has been a long running criticism levelled towards them. Personally, I don't mind it, so long as the adventures are entertaining and reasonably well-done for what they are, but I do get your point.
Might've guessed that one was your favourite. See, I think all of those except the last two would be perfectly fine explanations, especially the psychological tactic one. Because earlier we were discussing unoriginality, and you were criticising Discord for always using manipulation to avoid direct confrontation instead of changing up his strategy. Now we're discussing why he left these locations alone, and one of my suggestions is that it could possibly be a manipulation, but now Discord is too straightforward to think of that? So which is it? Is Discord too manipulative, or not manipulative enough?
Pretty much everything Discord ever created/summoned onscreen that wasn't the plundervines, the landscape of his Equestria, or Chaosville didn't stick around without him for any longer than a minute. Also that one table lamp, I guess. The Elements of Harmony can account for some of that, and Discord deliberately banishing his creations can explain some more, but earlier you were saying that Discord is the type to set things in motion and then forget about them, so surely he's not responsible enough to banish his creations every time he gets bored of them, right? If they aren't generally impermanent, then shouldn't Ponyville be swarmed with his leftovers by now?
The lesson learned from Dragonshy wasn't not being afraid of dragons anymore. It was being able to face her fears for the sake of her friends, and with the help of her friends. The dragon migration was not a call to step up like Dragonshy was, so she avoided it, just like she avoids Nightmare Nights. Return of Harmony and Keep Calm were calls to action, so she did her duty.
She promised not to use the Elements on him, and when the others were ready to use the Elements on him, she refused to help. Her trustworthiness is self-demonstrating.
Where their specific delusions are concerned, yes, but I don't think this extends to the point of removing any ability to function in daily life or sense of self-preservation. Rainbow Dash thinks that a single cloud is Cloudsdale, but I'm pretty sure she still knows she's relaxing under an open sky, so if she's feeling too warm and at a risk of a sunstroke, I don't see anything stopping her from just finding some shade like she usually would.
Doylist explanation for Watsonian problem again.
Well, if he did, then he shouldn't have found the thing's appearance surprising, so clearly he didn't.
Yeah, that's pretty inconsistent.
The vines are also covered in thorns, and yet nobody bleeds from it. Just like all of Discord's chaos, it's entirely bloodless. They were screaming because they were trapped and scared, not because they were hurt or in real danger. One situation is more serious than the other, and if Discord actually did worse things, then he would get worse reactions than we see.
And I don't see any evidence he would.
We're literally arguing headcanons here. The show doesn't definitively prove either one of us right, and this is all a matter of interpretation, which we already know we don't agree on. Maybe we should just let this one rest?
Maybe they do? Tirek, Chrysalis, Cozy, Sombra, and the Storm King are not shown anywhere near the kind of leniency Discord gets. Maybe there's a reason for that?
In fact, I think Sombra canonically did kill Princess Amore. In the comics, at least.
Having said that, we can explain why most of them probably never killed anybody if we wanted to. Tirek and Sombra both have quick, efficient, and non-lethal options to take someone out of the fight (magic-draining and mind control, respectively) and no specific need to kill anybody. And Chrysalis (probably) can't control every changeling in her army, but does have every incentive to take as many ponies alive as she can, since they're a food source for her people. So you can whitewash those guys if you really want to. Personally, I do not, but if the show had chosen to reform them instead of doing what it did, then I could see it.
Cozy and the Storm King I won't defend, because personally, I'm pretty sure they did kill people. I don't know how you could take away the flight abilities of everybody in a sky-dwelling city or drive an entire nation from their capital without a body count.
I'm gonna go with both.
Oh no, I find the end of the series extremely fucking disturbing.
He didn't know it was outclassed?
To clarify, since I think this will be another point of confusion, corrupting the bearers with magic is not the same as trying to directly take on the rainbow laser with magic. He understands Harmony magic, and knows that challenging it directly is a losing prospect, and so does everything in his power to prevent it from being used. But he doesn't understand the strength of their actual emotional bond, and doesn't know that it can overcome his brainwashing, and so implements that plan.
Firstly because it's harder. Secondly because he's on a time limit before they defeat him. Thirdly because it's not guaranteed to be any more effective or permanent than using magic. Fourthly because he probably doesn't care how he does it so long as it's done.
As I said, an extremely brisk pace. I don't think it would've been to the episode's benefit.
And for reasons I already mentioned previously, she had every reason to believe that Discord would be in a good mood at the Gala, not on the warpath.
Twilight who wasn't personally impacted by Discord's actions any more than every other guest was. Twilight who's been through this all before. Twilight who already knows Celestia's opinion of the Gala from last time (and who shouldn't have been nearly as surprised by her reaction as she was).