Friendship is Card Games: The Mean 6 · 11:46am Jun 10th, 2018
Wherein the Bearers of Harmony face off against one of their greatest adversaries: Cheap, off-brand knockoffs.
I do appreciate how Chrysalis couldn’t resist an insect theme for her photographer disguise.
Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it voice actor joke: When totally-not-Chrysalis plucks a hair from Fluttershy’s mane, said mane briefly Pinkifies.
Wait, Dash’s hairs are each individually rainbow colored? How the heck does that work?
Nope, completely unsuspicious behavior there. Flawless infiltration, Chryssy.
It took me a moment to adjust to Chrysalis’s voice. This keeps happening when she shows up after “A Canterlot Wedding;” I always imagine her as more menacing than a throatier Trixie. Why, oh why did they drop the reverb?
Chrysalis’s behavior is… worrisome. I think losing her hive broke her. Still, it’s nice to see confirmation that she really is as short-sighted and foolish as I always thought. (And for those of you who prefer a cleverer Chrysalis, blame the insanity.)
That being said, the visuals on the cloning spell are awesome.
At first, I was concerned about Rarity packing so lightly, but the episode definitely made it work. Credit for trying, but you’re not there yet, Clothes Horse.
Hmm… On the one hand, I rather like how the clones are imperfect physical copies to go along with the “Return of Harmony” callbacks, especially the knockoff cutie marks. Such things are not easily recreated. On the other, I’d expect such egregious transcription errors to be obvious to some of the actual Bearers, especially Rarity. On Ahuizotl’s tail, change blindness is a documented phenomenon, so there actually is some evidence to support ponies who aren’t Incarlsistency failing to spot the difference. There’s even in-show precedent, since Spike was the only one who noticed the Bearer’s discordant desaturation in “Return of Harmony,” and he’s nowhere to be seen this episode.
I quite appreciate Clone Twilight acting as Scott Evil. Seriously, Chryssy, why didn’t you just shoot them?
Uh, Pinkie? Don’t rosebushes usually have thorns? They aren’t exactly made for rolling in.
Twilight may not have weekly friendship reports anymore, but she still doesn’t deal well with tardiness. That said, Applejack definitely has a thing or two to tell her about not seeing the forest for the trees when dealing with get-togethers. No pun intended given the location.
Clone Twilight’s plotting really got me to sit up and take notice. An evil Twilight Sparkle, with all of her power and none of her moral scruples? That’s solid gold when it comes to story potential. One little tweak to the timeline, and… well, I’ll put that idea on the pile.
The splitting up and mixing of the groups does largely feel organic. The interactions less so, but I can buy Pinkie assuming that Twilight’s quizzing her, ponies trusting their best friends, and so forth. Heck, they don’t even have a reason to consider the possibility of changelings. Rarity being the one to notice that there’s something off about Applejack is arguably a point in her favor. A less distracting environment (and a less frizzy mane) and she’d probably have pegged the clone for what she was.
Those are awfully gentle seeming birds for the Everfree, though I suppose even that food chain needs its lower links. Does kind of undercut the whole “the animals take care of themselves” thing. I suppose we’ll see if Fluttershy contracts some kind of horrible disease in the next few days.
Asking what Clone Rarity plans on doing with that fishing rod is a good question. A better one is why Applejack brought it when the campsite isn’t anywhere near a body of water.
Rainbow Power never stopped being a thing.
Looks like clone Twilight contracted Chrysalis’s Evil Monologue Syndrome. A shame.
Heh. Grubsitting. I don’t know why that amuses me to the extent that it does, but still.
Out of all the possible references, I was not expecting one to 127 Hours. First Big Mac in “Where the Apple Lies,” now this. What is it with the Apple family and amputation?
Very good to see Twilight actually live up to her title as Princess of Friendship and cut through the drama. Though I do hope everypony compares notes later and realizes something here didn’t add up.
I do have to love Chrysalis’s expression after the clones move towards the Cave of Harmony. “I’m right here you know. I heard all of your plotting. Amateurs.”
And now a dramatization of my reaction to the Tree of Harmony taking matters into its own branches:
As I’ve said in the past, Harmony isn’t always nice.
That said, I have to be concerned by the ambiguity of what else Chrysalis might have done with and/or to the Tree. After all, we never see it again in the episode; the camera’s careful to keep it out of view in that last shot. If Chryssy’s afraid to confront the Bearers, she may not be willing to take on the Elements themselves (especially not after that display,) but she definitely seems like the sort who might try to fire on the thing out of spite, or try to take the Elements for herself. We definitely haven’t seen the last of Chrysalis, and I worry about what she’s done here.
Aside from that… I haven’t exactly made my disdain for Queen Bugbutt a secret, and so I greatly enjoyed watching her get hoisted by her cloned petards. The plot did require more than the main cast’s fair share of failed Spot checks, but overall, this made for a fun comedy of errors. Not at all what I was expecting from this episode, but I can’t say I was disappointed. Not at all a bad way to close out this half of the season.
Now, time for some originality.
Sibling Seeker 1W
Creature — Bird
Flying
When Sibling Seeker dies, create a 1/1 white Bird creature token with flying.
Few stories set in the Everfree end happily.
1/1
Eager Shutterbug 1U
Creature — Unicorn Rogue
U, T: Tap target creature with no gene counters on it. Put a gene counter on that creature. Then, if there are four or more creatures with gene counters on them on the battlefield, untap and transform Eager Shutterbug.
”Hold that pose.”
1/1
Chrysalis, Clonemother
(UB) Legendary Creature — Shapeshifter
Flying
1UB: Tap target creature and put a gene counter on it.
2UB, T: Destroy target creature with a gene counter on it. If that creature was destroyed this way, create a token that’s a copy of it.
4/4
Rapid Output 1U
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
When Rapid Output enters the battlefield, draw a card.
Whenever you cast a spell during your turn, untap enchanted creature.
”That pony needs to take it easy.”
—Rainbow Dash, Bearer of Loyalty
Overloaded Camper 2U
Creature — Unicorn Scout
Overloaded Camper enters the battlefield tapped and doesn’t untap during your untap step.
Whenever you cast an artifact spell, untap Overloaded Camper.
”Feel free to help me unload some of this stuff.”
4/4
Harsh Winter 3U
Snow Instant
Tap all nonsnow creatures. If S was spent to cast this spell, those creatures don’t untap during their controllers’ next untap steps. (S can be paid with one mana from a snow source.)
Even the Everfree’s unregulated weather is a predator.
Curse of Covetousness 4U
Enchantment — Aura Curse
Enchant player
At the beginning of enchanted player’s upkeep, you may exchange control of target nonland permanent they control and target nonland permanent they don’t control.
”May your reach forever exceed your grasp.”
Compulsive Hoarding 7UU
Sorcery
Improvise (Your artifacts can help cast this spell. Each artifact you tap after you're done activating mana abilities pays for 1.)
Gain control of all artifacts.
Everypony’s trash is a madmare’s treasure.
Wither the Disharmonious 2B
Instant
Strive — This spell costs 1B more to cast for each target beyond the first.
Any number of target creatures each get -3/-3 until end of turn.
”And ponies wonder why I’m scared of that thing.”
—Discord
Grub Tender 3B
Creature — Shapeshifter
2B, T: Exile target creature card from a graveyard. Create two 1/1 black Shapeshifter creature tokens.
Sacrifice another Shapeshifter: Grub Tender gains indestructible until end of turn.
In or out of the hive, the weak feed the strong.
2/2
Curse of Resentment 3BB
Enchantment — Aura Curse
Enchant player
At the beginning of enchanted player’s upkeep, Curse of Resentment deals damage to them equal to the number of creatures they control.
Friendship is a powerful force even in its absence.
Expedient Solution 4B
Instant
This spell cost 2 less to cast if it targets a tapped creature.
Destroy target creature.
”So much simpler this way.”
—Twilight Sparkle, cloned alicorn
Wreck the Campsite 4B
Sorcery
Destroy target land. Put a -1/-1 counter on each of up to two target creatures.
The clones neither knew nor cared why the tents were there. They simply took joy in ruining them.
Coerced Cooperation 3R
Sorcery
Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn. Coerced Cooperation deals 2 damage to it.
Chrysalis’s methods of persuasion have become more crude since her defeat, but no less effective.
Scrap Sculptor 2G
Creature — Badger Artificer
Whenever an artifact is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
Some denizens of the Everfree express their disdain for the works of ponies in more abstract ways.
3/2
Stalking Bugbear 4GG
Creature — Insect Bear
Deathtouch
Provoke (Whenever this creature attacks, you may have target creature defending player controls untap and block it if able.)
The Everfree canopy is often too dense for a bugbear’s weak wings, but its stinger remains effective.
3/3
Twisted Heartwood 3
Artifact
T: Add one mana of any color.
4, T, Sacrifice Twisted Heartwood: Create a token that’s a copy of target creature.
A vestige of changeling magic yet lingers in the ravaged husks.
Look Back and Laugh (wb)
Instant
Exile target card from a graveyard. You gain life equal to that card’s converted mana cost.
Comedy is tragedy plus time. For Pinkie Pie, that time is usually a matter of seconds.
Jerome, Everfree Emcee 1GW
Legendary Creature — Squirrel
Whenever one or more creatures attack you or a planeswalker you control, roll a six-sided die.
Whenever you roll a 4 or higher on a die, put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.
Party crashers not welcome.
2/2
Twilight, the Merciless 1UBR
Legendary Creature — Wizard
Alicorn (This card is also a Pony Pegasus Unicorn.)
Flying
2, Sacrifice another creature: Choose one —
• Counter target instant or sorcery spell.
• Target creature gets -2/-2 until end of turn.
• Destroy target artifact.
2/2
Tirek’s Escape 2WU
Enchantment — Saga
(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I, II — Until the end of the turn Tirek’s Escape leaves the battlefield, target creature has base power and toughness 0/1 and loses all abilities.
III — Creatures you control get +2/+1 and gain flying and vigilance until end of turn.
Insolent Minions 2(br)(br)
Creature — Pony Minion
At the beginning of your upkeep, Insolent Minions deals 1 damage to you.
”It’s so hard to grow good help these days.”
—Chrysalis, deposed changeling queen
5/5
If she were any stupider, she'd end up yelling about meddling kids and their mutt.......
4880086 Well put.
Love the review and card writeup as usual!
I might suggest maybe making Sibling Seeker initially not flying (While the token having flying) if not the fit thematically with the nest brother 'flying' out to find the non-flying dead one.)
DHX said they dropped the reverb because it made it difficult to understand what Chrysalis was saying.
I loved how the clones got mixed up with the originals - and neither side seemed to notice. Ordinarily, I'd have expected a deliberate attempt on the clone's part to cause strife amongst the Originals. But it could've just as easily gone the other way around, had one of the mane 6 wandered off with their oblivious knock off copies.
I can totally see Pinkie Pie wandering off with the five off-brands.
Well, okay, it'd become fairly obvious to Pinkie that something ain't right with any of them by that point - but imagine the hilarity of Chrysalis' side getting infiltrated by the chipper pink pony.
Hay, even Chrysalis might not immediately catch on to one of her fakes being replaced by the real deal, especially if Pinkie could just guess her plan with one of her "hunches". Oh, the hilarity.
Perhaps they weren't going to stay at the camp site the entire time? Maybe go to a nearby pond or something. *shrug*
A better question would be:
Do ponies fish?
Well, Fluttershy does, sure. Those living in more mixed areas including meat-eating races would, too.
But what was Applejack planning to do with her catch? Roast it over the camp fire? I think not.
Are there animals at her farm that eat fish?
Pigs might, but never naturally, and only to fatten them. And apparently it affects milk production for cows, though perhaps with sideeffects.
....Or it's for Winnona, apparently fish is healthy for dogs. Ah, darker theories debunked.
Looking forward to it.
Yeah. They weren't exactly nice, their Twilight was scheming and could have easily posed a real threat!
The way evil Twilight acted, I was almost expecting Chryssi would have to team up with the real Mane 6 to go up against her own creation. Wouldn't that have been something, and truly ironic.
The way the episode was going, I was totally expecting a cliffhanger ending and having to wait 4 months for part 2 --- which, with all the leaked information including episode synopsis for the entire season, would have really sucked --- what I didn't expect was for the clones to die in the most horrifying way possible.
Everyone's probably going to be talking about that.
Sure, they certainly weren't nice ponies - but this gives me unwelcome flashbacks to a certain other group of young clones getting unjustly sentences to non-existence.
They didn't deserve to die.
The Tree of Harmony killed them.
The Tree of Harmony killed them.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2017/6/4/1453484__safe_screencap_twilight+sparkle_alicorn_cropped_pony_reaction+image_shocked_solo_twilight+sparkle+%28alicorn%29.jpeg
Harmony. You know, for Friendship.
. . .
And then Pinkie Pie stumbled into the cave and went "Oooh, pretty colored wood. Just what I needed for fire wood!".
I'm sorry
I feel the fact that they didn't notice the differences are made more believable because they always kept the interactions between the 2 groups to a minimum as well as keeping the main 6 under stress with their own issues with the trip (like revealing at the end that Rarity wasn't actually comfortable camping with so little luggage). They might figure it out if they discuss it later but for now they definitely had no reason to suspect anything sinister was going on.
Wait what happened?
4880086
At least she disguised herself with her magic and not a rubber mask.
4880094
The problem is that that would make it a more feathery Doomed Traveler. I sometimes have to diverge from the source material for the sake of unique and/or playable designs (see also how Eager Shutterbug asks for four photos rather than six to enact her sinister plans.)
4880120
Bah. That's a problem for the sound engineers.
4880148
Pinkie accidentally infiltrating the clones is a fantastic mental image.
We have seen ponies fish before, including Rarity's father. As for what they do with them, horses can certainly digest meat...
And I also have a story about the Tree's rather harsh reaction planned, likely coming sooner than the one about Clonelight taking off on her own.
4880180
Chrysalis cloned the Mane Six. Things did not go according to plan from that point on.
I have to admit it somewhat bothered me that the main characters never figured out what was going on. I would have liked to see that thread tied up.
One thing I very much liked was the clones' behaviors, especially in how they were at least somewhat distinguished from the discorded ponies' in "The Return of Harmony". Take Rarity -- even regular Rarity under Discord’s influence was obsessed with guarding something she believed genuinely valuable; Clone Rarity just had an utterly uncontrollable obsession with hoarding any piece of valueless junk she happened to be looking at, junk that she knew she had no use for. A lot of the time, they seemed less outright evil and more like borderline automata completely puppeteered by self-destructive urges. The utterly psychotic expressions that Clone Rarity and Clone Fluttershy's kept sporting really sold that, in my opinion.
It makes me think that, even assuming that the Tree hadn't destroyed them all when they tried to get the Elements and that Chrysalis and Evil Twilight's plans hand't banked on a fundamentally flawed understanding of how the Elements work, they were all doomed to failure from the start. It's a paradox of sorts that for a villain to have any hope of doing anything -- of being an effective villain -- they need positive, admirable traits in some quantity. Determination, intelligence, planning, cohesion, patience, creativity, that sort of thing. All of MLP's villains fit this pattern, overall -- all of them are determined and driven in pursuing their goals, Discord is cunning and creative, Tirek showed remarkable patience and even a degree of honor (if nothing else, he keeps his word). But the Mean Six had nothing -- they were shallow, living stereotypes, their entire personalities were little besides exaggerated vices and personality faults, constantly harming everyone else, including each other, entirely for the sake of being cruel, or lying, or hoarding trash. Imagine how any attempt at getting them to do anything would have gone in the long term: Clone Fluttershy would have been sabotaging everyone else at every occasion, Clone Rarity would have constantly been staling everyone else’s stuff for no reason, Clone Rainbow would have just ditched everyone else at a moment’s notice, Clone Twilight would likely have backstabbed everyone else anyway. If the Tree hadn’t destroyed them, they’d have destroyed themselves through their inability to do anything besides spitefully harming anyone and everyone in sight.
4880188
It's sad, though.
Nopony else will ever even know what even happened to those clones - it reminds me of that one Voyager episode where they realized they, and even their ship, were actually copies of the original Voyager and its crew, made from alien goop that couldn't remain stable under prolongued warp-field exposure.
They literally melted to death while trying to reach the original Voyager - all that was left for Voyager to encounter was a pile of floating sludge in space, not even a record of their ships' logs survived.
Voyager never even knew they had existed.
To leave no trace, to not even be remembered, that is terrifying.
...If Twilight and friends knew what the tree had done, how would they react to that?
...Oh wait. Twilight would probably just go "they're just magical constructs, so it's fine", like with the Pinkie clones.
4880188
And it was only tangentially a crooked real estate deal.
Nature's popcorn.
*coughs nervously* Yeeeeeah... and even as an imperfect copy, that clone's magic was stronger than Chrysalis'!
All-in-all, my takeaway from this episode is that the Tree of Harmony is outright terrifying. It's ridiculously powerful, willing to end the life of creatures it finds disharmonious, and (given that it grew Twilight's castle[1] and the Map) nearly omniscient. Yikes!
---------------------------
[1] And, going by its crystalline components, probably the School of Friendship, too. That damned thing seemed to have popped up overnight, after all.
You say Wither the Disharmonious, I say Hex.
I loved the Bizarro Mane 6 even more than the Discorded 6, especially Bizarro Twilight. Even before she outright monologued that she was going to betray Chrysalis, I said her whole vibe just screamed grand vizier. Chrysalis might have been proud to have her for a daughter, had the situation been different.
The first part of Tirek's Escape looks like it's missing a few words
4880149 Exactly. And those that did spend any real time around a clone did call out that something was off about them, with AJ and RD even trying to work out what it might be. But none of them spend enough time around a clone to really give it much thought. Aside from Pinkie, but it's Pinkie.
4880193 4880282 The question is, just how 'alive' were the clones in the first place? Were they actual beings, or just golems animated by Chryssi's magic? Given how one note they were, I'm going more with the latter, much like the Pinkie clones.
Also iisaw, per the writer of the ep, there was an unstated several month time skip during which the school was built.
You know, she'd be far more successful if she was a good strategist.
4880191
Given what Chrysalis has reduced herself to in her madness, one could argue that the clones are perfect extensions of her in that regard.
4880193 4880524
Oh no, I'm not getting into the personhood issue again. Though judging by the Pinkie clone from "The Saddle Row Review," I'd say they had the potential for personhood, though only Twilight's clone seemed to realize it. And possibly Applejack's. Takes a lot of creativity to spin a yarn on the fly like that.
4880282
It's not like Chryssy's had a lot of opportunities to feast on love lately. Indeed, I find myself wondering where she got the juice for the cloning spell itself. (Heck, that may explain why the clones came out so half-baked; she couldn't spare the power for more faithful copies, in every sense of the word.) Also, it's amusing to note that the beam struggle between Chrysalis and Clone Twilight recalls the one from "A Canterlot Wedding," with Chrysalis in Celestia's position. Sadly, the Tree of Harmony decided it had had enough of the ersatz Bearers before that could reach its logical conclusion.
I am not apologizing for "cloned petards" I am darn proud of that pun.
You say that like it's news.
4880340
On the one hand, Hex is guaranteed to kill anything that doesn't have indestructible (or, heh, hexproof,) and costs less than half what Wither the Disharmonious would with six targets. On the other hand, WtD can target fewer than six creatures. Different niches.
(Unless you meant the Tree cast Hex, which is entirely plausible.)
4880493
It's an unusual (and, as far as I can tell, unprecedented) termination clause for the rest of that sentence. The creatures stay drained until the end of the turn when the Saga leaves the battlefield, either due to its own effect or something else.
4880554
I did, in fact, mean the tree was casting it.
4880540 She actually is, most of her plans do work and are fairly solid.
It's just she's also rather short sighted, fails to really consider what to do afterwards, and allows her ego to get the better of her so makes amateur seeming mistakes because she's either too busy gloating over how great she is, or dismisses a potential threat as not anything that could possibly work against her.
4880554
It doesn't seem necessary, at least to me. After all, it's a triggered ability that persists until the end of the turn. Stating that the source of the ability doesn't need to stick around for the effect to persist feels like a waste of text. Activated abilities don't do that, why would a triggered ability need to?
4880188
Is this a new episode? Interesting. I'm lagging a tiny bit behind.
4880621
Chrysalis is a decent strategist, but she's terrible at using the army she has rather than the army she wants. It's her greatest weakness after her ego, and both can be seen in her first appearance. She is terrible at using changeling abilities on a strategic level. Tactical, yes. She's a... passable infiltrator. She certainly seems to have gotten over herself to some degree since the wedding. But rather than, say, gradually infiltrate pony society and secretly siphon off their love as an unseen species-scale parasite, she decided the best course of action was to take a species designed for such tactics, reveal their existence to all and sundry, and try to extract love through a campaign of terror. In Chrysalis's mind, this was a brilliant plan. From an objective perspective, she would have doomed her entire species were it not for Thorax.
4880710
Yes, but not this turn. Remember, this is a Saga. Its first chapter ability (yes, that's actually what they're called) resolves when it enters the battlefield. Its second and third resolve when it gets its second and third lore counters, usually at the beginning of its controller's next two precombat main phases. For Tirek's Escape, that means one creature is getting turned into a vanilla 0/1 for three turns, and another one for two turns. It's similar to how long Time of Ice keeps creatures tapped. I had to do it that way to let the effect synergize with the chapter III ability, keeping those creatures 0/1s long enough that they can't block your army of vigilant fliers.
4880793
As of now, we're in a mid-season hiatus, so you have some time to catch up.
4880797
Oooh. I was misreading how that worked. Apologies. Still, possible it could be worded better.
4880797 Oh, agreed, and I think that's part of her ego as well. She's so sure of herself, needs so much to prove how amazing she is, that she simply can't stand the thought of the kind of slow, methodical infiltration. She needs to do something big, something grand, pull off a huge plan with massive results, and makes sure those she beats KNOW that she was the one who did it.
Why do some of the costs for these cards have values that are lowercase and within parentheses?
4880867
That's how I represent hybrid mana. Using Look Back and Laugh as an example, you can cast it by spending either one white mana or one black mana.
4880621
True
I like to think that the reverb disappeared because Chrysallis became weaker after her initial defeat. After all, she has been getting less and less love with every appearance.
Man, I was hoping I'd like this episode. Season eight hasn't been great, but I've liked it more than seven so far. I was expecting villain decay, but not to this degree. This is probably the stupidest plan of any villain on this show. Chrysalis made evil clones to use the Elements of Harmony, without even knowing if that was possible in the first place, and made them both more powerful than her, and with the agency to betray her. No matter how many logical hoops I jump through in my head, I can't possibly justify this. No character this stupid should be as successful as Chrysalis has otherwise been.
Also, I don't know if anybody else noticed, but this whole episode was just a giant rehash of that one subplot from Return of Chrysalis done in a less interesting setting, with the Return of Harmony call-backs being a second rehash on top of that. This episode was rehash overload.
4880797
Going by Oliver's Points of Canon series, the changelings under Thorax may still be doomed anyway.
Which I am completely fine with.
4880554
Hmmmmm. This seems like it could easily become a mirror for a discussion about the ethics of... abortion. YIKES!
The mental image of an alien crashlanding their space ship into Ponyville Hospital's infant-ward comes to mind. Then, as everypony is reeling in horror, the alien emerges from the wreckage, looks around at the tiny bodies, letting out a sigh of relief. "Pfew, I thought I hit something fully sapient there for a second. FEAR NOT, WE COME IN PEACE!"
Uh. Yeah, no peace there, buddy.
So.... yeaaaaah, you can easily spin this both ways.
That episode was quite nice, but do you know what I would have prefered? Absolutely no interaction between the two groups. Just the Mane 7 having fun on their trip while Chrysalis tries to do the equivalent of herding psychopathic cats and utterly fails to accomplish anything.
This was closer to my preference then I would have expected when I started watching, but still...
Also, I love Twilight, the Merciless. Both the character and the card.