Thoughts On the Season 3 Kickoff · 4:52pm Nov 10th, 2012
Okay, seriously.
The short version is that it was great. The stakes were high, the characters remained as lovable as ever, and the ending was plenty satisfying. It even left us with some questions about season 3's future.
Now, the long version.
A couple of small things I liked. I liked Twilight's panic in the beginning. Especially after reading Correspondence, I find it hilarious when Twilight goes Lesson Zero on everypony. Plus, her glaring at Spike and blowing up the library gave me major Correspondence flashbacks. I can best summarize this as everypony was perfectly in character; Pinkie was silly, Rainbow was awesome, anything I could want from them. And like A Canterlot Wedding, there was tangible tension throughout. It was clear that if they lost, it would be catastrophic immediately, and the only other time we've gotten that was with Chrysalis. Overall, it was great...
...but not perfect by any means.
My main problem is the villain. Now, one thing I should say is that I like the idea of King Sombra, but that's the key word: idea. When he was shown in Celestia's flashback, I thought this guy would be like Nightmare Moon: confident, menacing, just a general badass. He doesn't even speak. He's kinda like Gloom from The Lion of Oz, only he doesn't have any truly menacing properties. There isn't any real reason to be afraid of him, he's really just a cloud of smoke. I don't hate Sombra, I just think he's a boring villain.
My only other complaint is that Shining getting his magic compromised was kinda pointless. He wasn't holding up the spell, he wasn't planning to, he wasn't doing anything with his magic. Maybe the writers were trying to show what Sombra could do, but it just came off as really needless to do. At least they didn't try to possess Shining again. Would have been kinda redundant.
Oh, about those questions I mentioned in the first paragraph. Well, Luna was holding up a book at the end with no title. What's the book? Why does she have it? What does it mean? What evil does it contain or tell us about?
Overall, I loved it. Watch it if you haven't already.
And if you haven't seen my moon calculations, go see them in the blog post entitled, "I've Lost My Marbles."
Vivat et nocte.
-ClarinetOverlord
Who wants Lord of the Rings?