I'm sure that the next time he comes back he'll have a character, it's only a matter of time.

Hurray Blueshift love

The entire thing did seem a bit silly to me. Almost as if the only reason he regained his pony form was so the Crystal Heart could break him apart again.

I'm holding out the hope that this isn't the last we've seen of Sombra. Perhaps his defeat will lead to other things. Who knows?

In defense of Sombra, I liked how well prepared he was to keep the Crystal Heart out of anypony's reach. He even had a counter for Twilight's teleporting!

As for the book at the end, my theory is that this will be this season's Friendship Reports. At the end of each episode this season, the book will come out and something will be added to it. In the 13th episode, we'll finally see what it's all about.

And that's that!

The book is a Tardis Diary.

Luna is River Song and Time Turner (Dr. Hooves) becomes a major character this season.

Call it a shadow. They did say they'd banished him, and there was absolutely no explanation as to how he escaped (In fact, they say the kingdom has reappeared, but not that their seal has been broken), so let's say that the King Sombra we saw was merely a shadow of his dark intent. This now gives us the chance to shape his character into being something so powerful and awe-inspiring that his mere malicious intent is enough to cause a national crisis.

In other words:
The real form of Sombra is still imprisoned and biding his time, just waiting for his chance to reclaim his dark throne. With all the clever planning he did to hide the crystal, there's no way he'd have done something as stupid as a frontal assault unless that's all he had the power to do at the time. He became aware of the kingdom's reappearance and did what he could to stop it from his prison so that he could use its power to truly become free, but failed.

"We need more Sombra!" Gonna spam this all over the MLP-staffs Twitter soon...

You, see, this book, along with Celestia's line:

"...you will be ready for the next stage of your studies..."

and clues that will be showing up in the future,
we can predict that Twilight will be an Alicorn.

...you should take into consideration that Sombra is not really...equine anymore. I mean, look at his mane! And his teeth! And his voice!
I think we can safely say that the most sentient thing he has ever said would be "What? No!"

I really hope they stay away from the "Alicorn Twilight" path.

As someone else wrote in a blog, it removes the "I worked hard for where I am, and what I'm able to do!" aspect of who Twilight is, and replaces it with "I was born to do this."

I don't have a lot against Alicorn Twilight, if ONLY they make it temporary = one episode or so. Nothing more, or they bring about the end of G4.

No, Twilight's special talent is magic, and her ultimate destiny is to float raccoons over her head in an infinity loop. But seriously though, I can't wait until the community gets going on this. It'll be like the royal wedding and Chrysalis.

"What a terrible, one-shot villain!"
"Why don't they put more thought into this show?!"
"Yeah! It's not like it's aimed at 5 year old girls or something like that!"

TRAGIC BACKSTORY
DOWNER ENDING

"I'm gonna go listen to Blood on the Dancefloor and cut myself."
"Me too."
"You're both incredibly unstable, you know that? Now then, back to writing this watersports-inflation-foodplay-hoof-tentacle clop fanfic."

493961 That actually makes a lot of sense. Maybe this is a sign of stronger continuity between episodes to come?

in the other blogs they complain about the magic that was showed by celestia and twilight and the scene at the stairs, but i mean what is a little physicbending when it was possible for you as a filly to have a dragon age by more than 400 years.

Flutter-costume = best pony

493977

Doubt it. That's just my whole 'make it epic of gtfo' mentality. If they don't use it again, I'll be glad to make use of it myself and turn it into something that'd appeal to the older audiences. In reality, it's a kid's show, and that whole explanation sounds a bit too foreboding and grim. ._.

sadly true about Sombra, but I have a theory that he may actually come back in this same season just to mess with bronies everywhere.

I kind of have a sneaking suspicion Sombra will be back (if not in the show itself, maybe in the comic?). I caught the fact his horn went flying away and he's demonstrated regeneration abilities.

These 2 episodes were just build-up. King Sombra will be back and I guess then he will have a real role. Now he's just a shadow in the back. You know he was there but he never was really there. And it's a fact, we are the most afraid of the things we know nothing about.
And there was so much for-shadowing in this episode. The book, Twilight next step in her studies, Luna's dark look everytime and the crystal version of the mane 6 that looked too awesome to have so little screen-time.

Meh, Any sufficiently advanced form of magic is indistinguishable from a completely Ad-Hoc plot device. That's why the crystal heart worked.

Sombra gave me a more Azathoth feeling. And with that I mean his representation in the board game Arkham Horror. The idea is that the guy is so powerful that you instantly wipe if he ever gets free. In the same way Sombra is so powerful that he basically instawins if he managed to break through the defenses. He is there to be a looming threat in the distance, not a villain to fight like they did with Discord or NMM. Therefore he won't have much interaction with the characters and thus not much back story.

As for the book, it had swirly stars on it. And Luna implies she knew Starswirl the bearded in Nightmare Night. So I reckon it's highly advanced magic for twilight to study. Doubt they're going the Alicorn Twilight road.

Got to agree that Sombra was rather wasted as a villain...

but the manifold joys of the rest of the story meant I found myself caring very little, tbh.

I'm betting it's Alicorn!Twilight and I'm preparing for the Joss of a lifetime.

constellations! That book is about the sky and constellations! Most likely, Twilight is going to be honored with a constellation in the sky for her by Luna, and the book is how Luna is going to do it. Not like Luna gets a very very big paint brush and paints the sky after all....

Oh look, you wrote the journal for me. :V

Yeah, Sombra was less a character and more just a plot point. That and he looked like a Terrible OC.
Also shadow (or dark) magic is now canon, and we know that Celestia must have dabbled in it previously. That's about a years worth of fics there.
As to the book: Someone else suggested it may be related to Star Swirl the Bearded, which actually makes sense. I am okay with this.

But most importantly Pinkie Pie had some great lines in these two episodes.

Of course there was no building of threat, he had yet to return to power. The goal was to prevent that from happening, not to defeat him after the fact.

Sombra was disappointing. He wasn't a villian, he was a time limit.

As for the Alicorn Twilight thing, I don't believe it at all. The 'next stage of [her] studies' and claiming that it means she will become an Alicorn is what I like to call "jumping to conclusions". She is going to advance her studies, and will proably no longer be Clestia's student by the end of this series, probably becoming a court mage or something.

As for that pic of her with wings- it isn't the first time we have seen animation errors in promtional material- heck, Derpy is an animation error. And why would something like that be made public if she was going to become one? If I was Hasbro, I would keep that one pretty close to my chest.

Now, the book. What is it? We have never seen it before, its cover has a patten of stars with have also never seen before. A night sky blue/black with stars over a spiral, or swirl.
Star Swirl.
Who is Twilight's best pony?
Star Swirl.
Who recognised Twilight's Star Swirl costume?
Luna.
Where am I going with this?
I have no idea.

I had a lot of the same feelings about Sombra, and also about the toy-centric aspects of the episode, as I posted on my own blog (where nobody will ever see, haha!)...

Sombra the biggest nothing villain ever. Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis... They all had their defined personalities, powers with an easily understood theme (darkness, chaos, deception), and interactions with the rest of the cast that went beyond merely, "I'm a threat, fear me!" Even MLP G1 villains were better. Bring back Grogar!

As for the toy thing... This is what we were warned about waaaaaaay back in the beginning when FiM first launched, remember? Let me refresh your memory! --> The End of the Creator-Driven Era in TV Animation

Also... Why did Celestia insist that Twilight resolve this problem ALONE to begin with, I wonder? Isn't that opposite to what she's always taught before? Trollestia, anyone?

The fun parts of the episode were the songs, the Mane Six generally being themselves, and Twilight Sparkle's classical (almost trite by this time) stress-induced freakout. Oh, and pony jousting! So, despite my gripes, I had fun.

Anyone else think it was kind of insulting of Celestia to describe King Sombra as:

"An evil unicorn whose heart was black as night".

I mean insulting to Luna of course. Luna is pretty much the physical manifestation of the night, pretty harsh to describe pure evil as your sister.

They put a stupid black to grey gradient overlay on his teeth. and that was the second time we saw him. the first time, his teeth weren't colored different at all.

494055 Yeah, it's completely true that FIM is (in the end) a really big commercial, but so far the writers have melded the sales aspects of it with the series convincingly. (Okay, for the most part, but even if Cadence was blatant, the point is that the story for the finale was worth it.) Like, for example, 493973 has a quote in his comment about the show being for 5 yr old girls. Well, my MA in Children's Lit tells me that what we can write and expose children that age is much more than pastel-colored-infinite-happiness... and more important than my fleeting opinion, is the precedent they have set. So... yeah it was disappointing in that sense. I never expect them to write for my age-group, but they have proven time and again that they can write in a way that incorporates all that they need to put in and make it into the stories that have drawn us all in without making it feel... mostly pointless other than for sales. Although I guess it's a good way to get rid of Shiny and Cadence. (Oh, they're busy in the north!)

494033 I still thank you for linking me from your blog!

494008 I like the Starswirl idea.

Sombre may not have done or said anything but that nothing was still awesome. The chase scene in the blizzard and the sorta siege on the city was still pretty cool. Not to mention dark magic and slaves being cannon. SO much fanfic potential with this one. Also, I have this nagging feeling that he isn't through yet. As pinkie would say, "give him time." Also, why does everyone come to the conclusion that twi might turn into an alicorn? Sure this is a possibility, but wouldn't it be more plausible if she just became like star swirl and just be a court mage or something? Just a thought.

49405 I assume that she didn't want Twilight to do it by herself, and the real test was to accept help from her friends when she needed it to save everyone, even if it might make her fail.

494071

Hmmm.... NMM = night & darkness, Sombra = shadows

Sombra gets defeated and banished shortly after NMM, if you take the "thousand years ago" comment literally. Could it be that Sombra and NMM were, um... "allies" back in the day?

It would explain why Celestia didn't want Luna to get involved, despite her obvious interest and concern over the situation.

493954 To be fair, Blueshift IS best pony.

To be honest, Sombra was the only villain to this date in MLP to be used as a plot device and dead line.

Unlike the other villains, he had nothing. No motives, no reasons behind his actions. If you look at the other villains in the series, Nightmare Moon had a motive and reasons, Discord as well and Chrysalis just has too little back story and information on her character to know her motive other than just wanting to conquer for the sake of conquering.

On another point, I don't really believe in the "Alicorn Twilight" concept mainly because it would kill the purpose of the show, in my opinion. If Twilight ever was to become all-powerful, how would she need friendship to help her in her problems if she just could solve them herself. Well, that's just me.

494055 I think that Celestia insisted that Twilight do it alone so that she would get herself so much into the idea that she was supposed to save the Crystal Kingdom that she would have no choice but to tell Spike to deliver the Crystal Heart instead of Twilight. In a way, yeah, Trollestia was involved in all of this.

Dark magic? Luna's magic is dark? Next stage of your studies? That look Luna gave Twilight? Luna will be Twilight's next teacher.

I found the ending to be rather repetive of Season 2's ending. Namely, Twilight passing the ball (or crystal heart in this case) to another party member to carry it the final few yards to score the winning goal. In the finale of season 2 she frees Cadence so the princess can go blast the love eating invaders with a massive tummy-ache inducing (I'm guessing) ammount of love to fling them across the country. This time she passed the ball to Spike so he could carry it to Cadence who, once again, does a massive AoE spell to send the baddie packing. Then Twilight doesn't even get a place in the Stained Glass History Windows of Awesomeness? After she did almost all the work getting the heart? Talk about ungrateful...

All in all, this episode felt the most like a toy add. Sure, there were some nods to internet culture and some cute moments (Splinter Pie! or is it Pinkie Cell?) and the villian was a complete let-down. But that said, I had fun. Dash vs Shy jousting was just so much win.

I either thought the book was a book of constellations in the sky or Luna's diary

Discord: *taps King Sombra's head*

Discorded Sombra: ...... *raises his hoof up to the air and speaks in a sing-song voice* I've got PERSONALITYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!~

But seriously, the Crystal ponies seemed frightened of him enough. There's only one explanation for all of this:

King Sombra was Cupcakes Pinkie Pie as a bucking head of state. He probably also had a real Rainbow Factory just to subvert what was once beautiful into another sign of meaningless cruelty.

That's why the Hub couldn't actually afford to show us ANYTHING about him. I mean, the most kosher thing about him is his strange obsession with having a squad of underaged fillies as his maids in his castle....yeah, best to just to skimp over all that.

...Welp, that's my answer to it until somebody at Hasbro decides to do something with the character.

Bones: He's dead, Jim.

Aaaaaand, there you have it.

Wait. He actually DIED!? Wow. Everything from savage carnivores to immortal demons have been pacified in a non-lethal way. (Although Chrysalis was sent flying, but that never stopped Team Rocket...)

Personally, I'm absolutely sure we'll see more of Sombra, and probably find out more about him, as the season progresses. I mean, come on - Meghan McCarthy wrote "Canterlot Wedding", and managed to sell not only Chrysalis, but also Shining Armor and Cadence over that two-parter. I'm sure she would have been able to make Sombra an equally memorable and impressive bad guy if this was going to be his only appearance.

Also: ancient, evil, corruptive, dark magic using unicorn* witch-king, who mostly manifests as a shadowy cloud of evil darkness and who the Princesses, working in tandem, could only bury inside a glacier... You have to really work to come up with a villain who's more likely to return to haunt the heroines who beat her at the last moment. Especially since we see his horn, whole and intact, being tossed away from the explosing love-blast that incinerates his physical form! You need more than that to get truly rid of a serious lich lord!

*) To be honest, I'm not even certain if Sombra was a unicorn to begin with. All the Crystal ponies appear to be Earth Ponies, and his horn does not look like the horn of any unicorn or alicorn we've seen. I wouldn't put it past him to have stabbed himself in the head with an evil shadow-magic crystal to gain wicked powers in order to enslave the Crystal Empire!

Alright, Twilight has written something similar to the morale of the new episode, when applejack refused help from twilight and friends in applebuck season. However, Applejack was working to preserve her dignity as a mare who always gets the harvest in time, While twilight was doing it to pass a test for the princest, here twilight learned that sometimes we need to give up our personal needs for the saftey of others.

So in general. Crystal Empire, and Applebuck season. They both send the message that you shouldn't refuse help from your friends when you really need it. Twilight, learned to sacrifice, the quality of her work for the sake of others, and applejack learned not to sacrifice too much for her well being.

The lessons are similar in those ways but not identical.

494008>>494214I'm hoping that since Twilight has studied under Celestia for her entire life, the next step of her training(to be an arch mage or something hopefully) is to study under Luna, a master of magic long lost to Equestria-proper.

494431
I certainly hope so, he seemed a bit weak and powerless. Perhaps he was only able to rule effectively in the presence of fear or something. I was surprised King Sombra didn't just crystal Twilight's horn, that would have made her task next to impossible. The whole crystal heart thing looked more like wacky technology (clearly up with the spinning centrifuge effect) than magic.

I think they drove him away rather than defeating him, although I have to wonder why the crystal empire was conveniently gone for a thousand years. Makes you wonder if the one or both of the princesses did something to it and if Luna turning into NMM was either the cause or the reason it didn't return sooner. There's a lot of unexplained stuff there and far less time with Celestia and Twilight than there was in the episode with Discord. Luna seemed pretty pissed/angry/confused/sad? I don't know there seemed to be a lot of restrained emotion there.

494094 out of the countless love for the crystal empire blogs I read be proud of being the first I know of to point out how disappointing the main villain was.

But yanno what. I have a feeling that somewhere out there one of the writers secretly made a alternate script where cadence stayed down and sombra swarmed the empire with his shadows leading to a much more interesting and epic confrontation then .... oh cadence some how has enough magic to recast the spell yipee.

Me and Daring Do are gonna track down this writer wanna join?

I was thinking the same thing. Nightmare Moon had motive- she was jealous of her older sister and trying to be recognized. Discord's natural state is chaos and he ruled Equestria before Celestia and Luna so obviously he's want out and want his old world back. But Sombra....I wonder what his motives is besides just stereotypical power... dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Octavia.png Still, looking forward to this season!

494184 Blueshift is blue, and I love.

You forgot the whole mess of shipfics there is gonna be because of Rarity holding Twilight's hoof at the end of the episode.

494610
Compared to all the Rarijack shipping this episode is going to spawn, I think that will be a minor thing.

I worked hard on my fiction to try and give him a better personality, and origin... All that potential he could've had in the show... squandered... How could they?

493953
Thats what I'm going with. This was essentially just the teaser for what will hopefully be a much more fleshed-out character... Because in his current state, he cant even come close to holding a candle to the other villains. Compared to Discord, Chrysalis, and even Luna/Nightmare Moon he is just far too one-dimensional to be taken seriously... He also doesn't sound enough like Aku for my taste, but thats just personal preference...