Help! My Heart is Full of Pony! - Twilight Time · 4:46am Nov 27th, 2020
When Sweet and Elite first aired, a lot of bronies rightly pointed out that Rarity would have no reason to be ashamed of her friends (or to invent an impressive back story for Rainbow Dash). At that point, the Mane Six had already saved the world three times, Twilight was Princess Celestia's star protege, and Rainbow Dash had won the Best Young Flyer Competition.
For several years afterwards, this sort of thing continued to happen. The show's main characters racked up XP, and accomplished some fairly important feats, but, in order to keep the show's slice of life tone, the writers conveniently acted as though none of the other ponies in Equestria would have any reason to know who the Mane Six were.
It hardly interfered with the show's enjoyability of course. In fact, it gave the show room to breathe - to focus on down to earth storytelling.
Twilight Time broke that mould.
In this episode, it is revealed that the Cute Mark Crusaders meet with Twilight Sparkle each week - purely for the love of learning - to study and hone their various skills in hopes of discovering their purpose, and earning their cutie marks. When their classmates learn of this however, the CMC's earn a sort of celebrity status amongst their peers. Diamond Tiara manipulates the situation to make it a thousand times worse.
Eventually the CMC's abuse their influence over their peers and start accepting favors they oughtn't. By the end, the entire class is a stampeding horde that the CMC's can't control.
Of course, it all comes crashing down when Twilight discovers the truth, and they are rightfully mortified. In the end, the CMC's, having learned their lesson, go back to having special weekly "Twilight Time" in secret, purely for the love of learning.
This episode is remarkable - not just as a milestone in the show's continuity (actually acknowledging that Twilight's princess status would affect how she was treated and perceived) - but also in how it treats the characters. Here we have a completely fair, and totally realistic depiction of the intense social pressure that children put on one another. It is 100% believable, understandable, and relatable that three good natured kids like the CMC's could get caught up in sudden popularity, and make bad choices.
Most cartoons with child characters sculpt them in order to efficiently convey ideas that are relatable to children. The Cutie Mark Crusaders have always been childlike, but their characterization is usually very stylized in this way. In Twilight Time however, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom behave like real children. Their behavior - both bad and good - is never exaggerated (even if the circumstances around them grow to become larger than life).
They screw up like real kids screw up, and they remain morally conflicted throughout every stage of their popularity arc.
Perhaps I am projecting my own bias, as I faced a lot of those same social problems growing up, but it seems to me that this episode did a spectacular job of writing children realistically.
What do you think?
Discuss.
-Sprocket
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It was very nice to see the show finally acknowledge that, if nothing else, a member of the main cast growing new limbs deserves some recognition. And the Crusaders' mismanagement of their popularity does feel very genuine.
I find your analysis interesting, as usual, and thank you for it. I don't recall ever really facing that sort of social problem growing up, though (popularity in my age group not being something I recall ever having much of or caring much about), so I don't have the same sort of personal comparison to make.
Which in a way makes your analysis more interesting, of course. :)