Intellectual honesty · 2:53pm Feb 1st, 2021
I had an interesting experience over the last week. I had recently renewed a discussion with another blogger regarding (in a roundabout way) Princess Luna, and an alternate potential ending to the series that another writer proposed in a story. The blogger asked me to propose how this alternate ending would have played out, and I did, to a less than enthusiastic reception.
When I made my response, I had to admit from the get go that there were a number of episodes that I had never watched over the years, for a variety of reasons. Some plots seemed like they'd be too cliché, while others took the story in a direction I wasn't fond of. And I must admit that though there were some good stories in season 9 ("Common Ground" being one of them), I made very little effort to follow that season, having concluded that the whole succession idea just didn't work for me. In saying this of course, I have to mention that I'm much older than most fans. My initial exposure to MLP came with Gen 1, and my impression of the cute perky mom Windy Whistles is colored by my memories of her predecessor, the restrained, analytical, but still charming Wind Whistler. I've certainly seen what happens when a cartoon like MLP gets caught up in the cute, and the "stories" just become the source of terminal brain rot. (which was a big reason Lauren Faust constructed the story she did to try and avoid such things) And yes, I'm well aware of the actual meaning of "jumping the shark", having witnessed it first hand.
But that said, can one make a proposal for an alternate ending without reading the entire story? I think that I've seen enough to get the general gist of things, but I have noticed that there are things that one misses if you don't focus. Heck, I've reread a couple of my own stories, and found mistakes and sentences different from what I thought was there. Our friend Quibble Pants was able in his own mind to take what he wanted from Daring Doo's adventures, but how does that work in reality, or is that at least part of the reason we're hear in the first place, to fill in the gaps and ask the "what if..." question? Or...are we obligated to hear the whole story, even those parts we don't particularly approve of. I'm not entirely sure, but in the meantime, I think that I will try to watch a few more of the episodes I missed before I respond to that particular blogger.