Help! My Heart is Full of Pony! - Learning · 3:31am Jan 29th, 2021
School Daze marked a fundamental shift in the show for myriad reasons, and not just the obvious ones.
For those who don't remember, the episode starts out with Twilight applying for a permit to establish the Friendship School. The main obstacle is Chancellor Neighsay - a bureaucrat in charge of accrediting institutions of learning. Twilight has to go strictly by the book if her academy is to get EEA approval.
So, of course, Twilight spends the entire first episode...well... Twilighting. Her curriculum, in its rigid adherence to EEA guidelines, ends up defeating the original purpose of the school. The classes are boring. The students are miserable. The teachers are miserable. The whole thing is just plain unconducive to friendship.
Or so it would seem. The Young Six meet each other under these circumstances, and actually bond over their shared dislike of the school.
This episode is pivotal, not only in establishing a new premise, new characters, and locations, but also in shifting the lens through which the show explores its own themes.
Throughout the run of MLP: FIM, we see countless examples of "teachers learning from their students." First in Celestia, (and to a lesser extent in Luna), and then in Twilight as she instructs Starlight. Here, we see that undercurrent developed into a fully fleshed out theme.
In School Daze, we actually see the magic of friendship flourish despite Twilight Sparkle instead of because of her. More importantly, we see Starlight Glimmer step up, and smack the EEA book out of Twilight's hooves. She had similarly stood her ground in Shadow Play, (the finale of the season before), but in this moment, she permanently consolidates her new role in the show: the voice of reason.
For the next two seasons we see countless instances of Starlight being "the grounded one," and even more stories about students and teachers learning from one another.
This theme has always been delightful, but now that the show is over, I see it in a whole new light. MLP:FiM ends with Twilight guiding her star pupil, Luster Dawn to Ponyville to learn how to make friends. It's a bittersweet moment - one that signifies both an ending to the story as we know it, and a gateway to new beginnings that sadly, we, the audience, will never get to see.
At the time I associated this with parenthood - watching your children learn and grow and have adventures of their own. I even speculated about what it might mean for the magic of friendship itself - how it would take new shape as Luster's journey unfolds just as the Elements of Harmony had evolved with the Mane Six.
However, as I reflect on School Daze now - the lessons that the Young Six learned; the pony that Starlight became; and, of course, the complex, ever-entwining theme of reciprocal education betwixt teacher and student - I look at the finale differently.
I look at Luster Dawn's future journey, and marvel at how much Twilight Sparkle will get to learn.
Discuss.
-Sprocket
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Voice of reason? Starlight 'Didn't think that one through' Glimmer? No...... Starlight is not good at being the voice of reason. What she is very good at is being the voice of "Screw what others think or the rules say, do what you feel is right!" And also being the best at lateral thinking when it comes to problem solving. (Pinkie Pie does not count, that isn't lateral thinking, that is thinking using geometry only Lovecraft (or possibly MC Escher) could envision) What makes her and Trixie so damn fun as a pair is that Trixie is just so damn Trixie that it actually forces Starlight to try and be 'the sensible one' for a change, since Trixie is even more impulsive then Starlight.
But yes,the next step for one who feels they have mastered their craft is to teach,and thus find new ways to learn.
Thank you as usual for your perspective and thoughts. :)
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She and Spike are frequently used as the straight man when Twilight freaks out, which would not have been possible for either of them had they not gradually self actualized over the course of several years.