Thoughts on an unfinished spell.

What makes an unfinished worked notable? It’s an interesting question if you think about it, every creative type has any number of unfinished pieces, left in that state for one reason or another. Yet there’s usually only one piece that is known for being unfinished. When it comes down to it, the notable unfinished works are often ones done in the twilight of the creator’s life, often things they were working on when they died.

So, what does this have to do with ponies?

It’s all about context, in this case Star Swirl’s Unfinished Spell, the one that Twilight solved to become an alicorn back at the end of Season 3. It was the last spell in his spell book and we assumed unfinished because he died. Now though, with the end of Season 7, we know better. It was unfinished because he was thrown into limbo along with the rest of the Pillars to save Equestria.

There’s an interesting implication to this. If this was the last spell he wrote in the book, he must have been working on it when trying to stop the Pony of Shadows. Which brings us back to an old question, what was the spell originally for?

Now, let’s put that aside for a moment (don’t worry, we’ll get back to it) and ask another question. Why did the spell, even unfinished, cause the mane six’s cuties marks to swap? The show provides a little bit of an answer to that as we see the spell interacting with the Elements of Harmony. It’s quite possible that without a catalyst that connected the six of them together the spell never would have worked. If she had cast it anyplace else (or any otherpony tried to cast it) nothing would have happened.

One other thing we learned from the end of season 7 was that Star Swill and the Pillars created and planted a seed that grew into the Tree of Harmony. So why would his unfinished spell interact with something that didn’t exist at the time he tried to create it? Maybe because the unfinished spell is the reason that the Tree of Harmony exist in the first place.

The spell was unfinished because it needed at catalyst to connect the ponies together, so he tried to create that catalyst which ended up becoming the seed that grew into the Tree of Harmony. This seed was planted before the pillars were sent to Limbo as a way to protect Equstria when they were gone.

So, back to the question from before, what was the spell for? We can draw the conclusion that it was a plan to defeat the pony of shadows. Combining the powers of the pillars as one, possibly to create the same effect the elements have when used together. Whatever the case it turned out to be a dead end, but in trying to fix the problem lead to the creating of the seed.

The spell was a weapon, an unfinished weapon that Twilight discovered was still loaded when she first cast it. The fact that she was able to fix it and become an alicorn… well we see the elements firing on Twilight in the show, leaving nothing but a scorch mark behind. Take that as you will.

That does suggest an interesting thought, if the spell was a weapon did Celestia know? And if she did know why did she give it to Twilight?

I think the answer is fairly simple. Yes she knew, and she gave it to Twilight for the same reason she decided they had to reform Discord. Because she knew some terrible evil was coming, and coming fast, and she was trying to find any way to stop it. This evil turned out to be Lord Tirek, and we know how that turned out.