Help! My Heart is Full of Pony! - Humdrum · 5:04am Sep 27th, 2020
Everypony remembers Power Ponies for its fun premise, its campy action, its awesome villain, and its crowd-pleasing comedy.
However it was also the very first Spike episode where the central conflict didn't revolve around him being, well...a jerk.
It took a while for the show to figure out the potential in Spike. He started out as a pushover, and something of a joke. Slowly, he evolved to become the straight man - the voice of reason - a grounding force, and moral compass. In between, there was Power Ponies - the first episode to really stop and ask the question, "What must it be like for Spike? Living on the sidelines of greatness?"
It's a beautiful story.
The fact that the episode used "Humdrum," the Power Ponies' bumbling sidekick, as an allegory to reflect upon how MLP itself had treated Spike for its first couple of seasons? That was an added layer of genius. Spike, as a character, literally realizes his own self worth by transcending the archetypes and tropes that had boxed both him and Humdrum in.
*cues up the Inception BWAAAAAA noise*
Discuss.
-Sprocket
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It's always nice when you can work with the character to explore their greater potential. And yes, the metareference was strong with this one.
...Huh. I didn't realize that's where it started; as usual, thanks. :D
...The Inception reference seems to be going completely over my head, though. I even went on YouTube to find out what the noise sounded like, but... nope, still doesn't make sense to me. I'd guess it's connected to something in the movie. Oh well; it looks like it was probably just a joke at the end of the post, at least. :)
5365203
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=830I9w7I7wM
There was a low brass/synth BWAAAAH! sound that Hans Zimmer invented for the movie Inception. It's literally in everything now, especially trailer music.
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As for Spike, and "where it started," he wasn't a jerk in Dragon Quest, but they didn't let him be very heroic either. Power Ponies is a milestone because he was actually useful and strong.
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I think that's what I found when I looked, yes. Thanks for the link and explanation, though.
...Er. But I am afraid that I still do not understand what it means here.
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Aye, it's weird to think back to this aspect of the time before, my view of Spike so informed by actually-later episodes.
Thanks for the little bit of additional information/reminder, too. :)
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Inception is about a dream within a dream within a dream...
Basically, I was making a joke about how meta Humdrum is.
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Ah! Okay, yes, that makes sense; thanks, and sorry about the difficulty I had getting it. :)