"Uprooted" Review: The Spirit of Friendship

This episode hit all the right chords with me. All of them. It deals with a lesson for life that is important, but underestimated by many in this world, in a society where people are quick with throwing old things away:

Preservation is important to retain the remembrance on those we have lost.

It is a lesson My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has brushed over once already, at the end of "Castle Sweet Castle", when we saw how Twilight's friends had hung up the roots of Twilight's Library and equipped it with crystals that show memories of all the good times they had in the library. But here, we have an episode that deals with this lesson in a far more in-depth way.

The Tree of Harmony contacted Sandbar, Gallus, Yona, Smolder, Ocellus and Silverstream in their dreams during summer break after their second year at the School of Friendship and called for them to come because he needs them. After they had followed his call and found out that the Tree of Harmony had been killed by Sombra and that the Elements of Harmony are destroyed, they made the decision to stay together in Ponyville and help the Tree of Harmony to not become forgotten by the ponies of Equestria, after they saw his remains and after Silverstream's idea for how to revive him didn't work.
It was after Smolder, Yona, Gallus, Ocellus and Silverstream had gotten permission by their parents to stay and when Sandbar, as local resident, used the time they needed to start with their plan, that the lesson began.
Instead of keeping the remains of the Tree of Harmony, Sandbar "got rid of them" and believed that planting a symbolical tree would be enough to honor the Tree of Harmony and to keep the memories on him intact. His friends called him out for it and explained that this isn't the same and they did it a little better than him. But in the end, they ended up with trying to remind on the Tree of Harmony with mere symbols, too.

Gallus opened a museum to teach ponies about the Tree of Harmony, but he only showed depictions of the Tree as replicas and even made up facts about him.

Silverstream tried to paint the Tree of Harmony and the Elements, but used modern art for it and the results did look nothing like the Tree or the Elements.

Smolder wanted to build a monument that looks like the Tree of Harmony, but had to discover that she already started to forget his exact look.

Ocellus came the closest to the goal, she wanted to create a space where ponies could meditate and think about the Tree of Harmony, but what she didn't take into account was that most ponies don't even know how the Tree of Harmony looked.

All five of them tried their best to keep the memories on the Tree of Harmony alive in Equestria, but missed the mark. Only Yona, after seeing her friends' attempts, figured it out. The only way to properly preserve the remembrance on the Tree of Harmony was to take what was left of him and to build a monument out of his remains.
And when they did so, the result didn't look like the Tree of Harmony, but since it had been constructed with parts of the Tree's body, it was fit to invoke the memories just by looking at it. They even took the fragments of the Elements of Harmony and assembled them back together, to restore their look. And it was there that they learned how important preservation is to remember someone you lost.
Glueing something that was shattered back together might not make it look the exact same again and some parts might be missing, but it will allow you to still see what you are familiar with and to remember what you lost.
It is because of this that you should never throw something away that holds a meaning to you, not even after it broke or got damaged. Everything contains important memories that would get lost otherwise.

Sandbar and the others had learned this lesson together and, afterwards, they got rewarded for this in the most unexpected way. The remains of the Tree of Harmony they had built their treehouse with suddenly began to glow with magical energy again and the crystals of the Tree of Harmony grew into a huge crystal treehouse on the inner yard of Celestia's and Luna's old castle.
It took me six watches of the episode to understand what was happening in this moment. At first, I thought the Tree of Harmony was still alive after Sombra's attack and that he had waited with giving them this crystal treehouse until they learned something, earned it and were ready to receive it.
I wondered what that could be, but after I saw the episode for the sixth time, the scales fell from my eyes.
What they did and what earned them the crystal treehouse, it wasn't that they took the remains of the Tree of Harmony and assembled them again. It was that they worked together to do it. Before this, all of them were separate and tried to do their own thing. They had even fought over what the best method is. But then they united and worked on their goal together as friends. And this gave the Tree of Harmony what he needed to grow again and to form the crystal treehouse.
It was their friendship that revived the Tree of Harmony. And this is the reason why he summoned them and told them that he needs them. The Tree of Harmony did not survive the attack by Sombra, he was not still alive. He died from this attack and what he needed from Silverstream and her friends was not to keep his memory alive, but to resurrect him, so he called them with his last, remaining power before he died.
The Tree of Harmony is a spiritual lifeform that can only live if there is friendship and so, it was their friendship that brought him back to life.
And the Tree of Harmony's rebirth inside Celestia's and Luna's old castle in and of itself is a symbol. He came back to life because of the friendship between them after they reassembled his remains and if someone died and you keep mementos of them, then they will become alive in you again every time you look at the mementos and revel in your memories on them.
Even though there will be many who will debate whether the Tree of Harmony really counts as a living being, because he doesn't look like what most imagine as one, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic finally has an episode that does not just deal with loss, but with death as well.

And the gift they have received from the Tree of Harmony when it came back to life, it actually gives me hope for something. The Tree of Harmony told them that "friendship will always be safe inside its walls" when he spoke about the crystal treehouse he grew for them. Friendship is, as even the Tree of Harmony himself shows, the force of all that is good in Equestria. And what he said sounded like that anything evil cannot enter their crystal treehouse, so what he gave them there as a gift is a sanctuary that can keep them and others safe from evil beings that want to harm them.
The question remains why he gave them such a sanctuary and what he wants them to do with it, but one thing I think is pretty clear, this indicates that he has a very big and important plan and purpose for them and this crystal treehouse is a part of this.
My theory about the Student Six inheriting the Elements of Harmony now did not become true, but I am sure this is also something that will still happen later and that I just predicted it too early.
I might start to sound insane to you at this point with how much I harp on about this, but seeing this has given me some more hope again that, even though Season 9 will be the last one, Generation 5 will not be a reboot. What we have seen in this episode foreshadows a great future and I don't think they would show us all of these things if they wouldn't already know Hasbro's final plans for Generation 5 and that it will be a sequel to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Filled with new hope, I can't wait to see where the future leads us from here and what secrets the crystal treehouse holds. Hopefully, we'll get answers soon.