Treasure?

I hope it's filled with candy.

Discuss the episode here. Keep in mind, we don't want anyone murdering each other, so if you can all keep a calm, less snarky attitude towards each other, that would be fantastic.

Sincerely,

Admins of TWG

P.S. Sorry for being late again. Don't murder me.

4401206

P.S. Sorry for being late again. Don't murder me.

No promises

GILDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

(I said this for the other one, but I feel it bears repeating)

In other news, everything in the episode was awesome, from Dash trying to adventure the Griffon's problems away to Pinkie trying to bake them away. Gilda is also very adorable, and I want to hug her. Pinkie even made me snicker once or twice, and I'm typically immune to her humour.

I don't really care about worldbuilding, and I'm not even a big Griffon fan. I just really liked the episode. Lots and lots and lots.

4401206 I've already said my thoughts elsewhere, but it's worth reposting here.
I really liked it. It didn't actually ruin a single headcanon I had, it allowed me to thing of new possibilities for things I was writing, and we got to bring Grogar back, even if he was already dead. Also, we got to see griffons as something other than barbarians, and we got to see their kingdom, which was a wonderful plus. The moral was great too, money is better than friends, which is something I liked, but Diamond Tiara has yet to learn.

4401206 I thought it was great, world-building, moderate violence. Friendship sorta-saved the day, which was a blessing; I'm glad they didn't cram and have all the griffons be friends right away. It seems that griffons have a lot in common with dragons, what with being greedy with the bits. All in all, I thought it was pretty well done.

I think they made a Grinch reference with Gummy, did anyone else think so/ catch it?

4401233 You literally copy/pasted that from the first thread, didn't you?

4401240 Yeah.

I was already writing a story set in Griffonia, which I put tons of time into worldbuilding the griffon's culture, landscape, politics, and complex history of myths and legends and heroes from the very first king to the very last beast.

This new episode completely threw a wrench in that and so now I'm going to have to start my entire story over from scratch, unless I just completely ignore canon and make it an alternate universe fic, which I'd imagine wouldnt go over well with the community (ive had people threaten to report my story to the site admins if I post it over this shit). I'm already on the third freaking rewrite and I was just getting to a point where I liked it.

Let's just say I wasn't a fan of this episode.

4401284 So why did you re-write it if you liked it? Who cares if it's AU, who cares whether it's AU or not? Variety is the spice of life, after all. If they don't like it, that's their problem.

4401206 I am way behind in the episodes, I think.

4401297 Good point, thanks. Also, I meant to say that there were two other versions of the story, that I didn't like, before I got to the one I'm currently on, and THEN this episode came out. I haven't actually changed anything in reaction yet.

for some reason the griffons reminded me a little of dwarves....Not sure why.

4401308 It seems to me that AU stories have a stigma on this website, and that if I tag it AU then people would think that I'd just be using that as a free pass to fuck with canon however I want with no rules. Plus, the whole 'people have threatened to get my story deleted if I post it' thing.

4401314 Yes, because people can arbitrarily have stories deleted because it's AU.

I'm 99% sure that if your story gets deleted, it's not because you've done something non-canon, especially if you've tagged it appropriately.

4401323
4401325
Yeah, you're both right. If a bunch of people complain about my story being AU again I'll just tell them to buzz off. There are stories on this site with more drastic changes than Griffonia being based off of Norse culture instead of Bulgarian or whatever it's supposed to be in the show.

4401338
In a previous episode we had a griffin chef named Gustav.

4401338 Yeah. Gilda, Gustave, Gretta, Grandpa Gruff...

Do griffons have a thing for the letter G? Every single named griffon has had a G name (that I remember). Gilda, Gustav, Gretta, Grandpa Gruff...think that's it. Maybe it's just a heck of a coincidence.

4401347 It's probably canon, but they haven't confirmed it, so I'm going around naming them all after flight terms and flying animals.

4401284

This sounds like a serious problem had by a serious person.

The episode was adorable and heartwarming in my opinion, and it was awesome to see Gilda's return and more world-building. While not the best of Season 5, it still stands as being a wonderful episode. It's worth a watch if you haven't done so yet.

4401384 I am very autistic, thanks for asking.

4401206

I enjoyed it.

Good world building, lots of fun. Griffins having names starting with G, being greedy and grouchy (and gambling, though that's implied in the background). Rainbow Dash and Pinkie both trying to handle the problems in their own way... either being frustrated by no external resources or left to rot (that's dark). Visually, it's a really impressive episode, plus the whole story from Grandpa Gruff was well illustrated, paced, and acted. Regal and majestic soundtrack, too... actually bits of it reminded me of the repeating motif from the early 80s film Dune. Also, angry, screaming Gilda is kind of cool... and kind of scary. Young Gilda and Dash are adorable. Wonderful overall ^^

I had some issues with it, though, especially the ending:

1. Twilight really wanted to go with them, but didn't even as a tourist because... well, the map didn't send her there. It's kind of weak, seeing how just a few episodes ago she was looking for reasons not to go to her castle (traveling abroad as a Princess would be an awesome reason), and she might've been of help if she went.

2. Griffinstone could still really use the Idol of Borious (think that's how its spelled/pronounced) to get it out of, well... complete and utter destitution. Also Gilda is tasked with a job that it can't be completed in an afternoon, and she's going to need a lot of support as teaching Griffins in her Kingdom the value of life and friendship is, well... it's foreign to them. People in those types of circumstances (and that type of mentality) tend to be tough and uncaring because if they don't they can't survive. The issues are too complex and gestures of kindness won't be enough, but at the same time this episode has a lot of heart and was a lot of fun. It's pretty easy to see what it's trying to say -- friendship can shine through a lot of adversity and friends are more important than most anything in the world, but part of the reason Gilda even has that type of mentality is her connection with Rainbow Dash, otherwise she'd have had no friends and be like the other Griffins. There's hope in the ending that Gilda can show those she cares about kindness, it just feels oversimplified... just like you can't control who your friends hang out with, you can't control how others will react to those types of gestures (it's quite dangerous to show random people kindness in a place where they'll leave you to die if you don't have any money).

Just as an aside, the episode could have ended with all the friends there together rebuilding the town (separate of why Dash and Pinkie were called there), but didn't.

So I saw some issues with the episode, and I still liked it... and didn't dislike it enough to leave the fandom or grab a pitchfork. Afterall Gilda did say "YOU'RE WELCOME TO LEAVE ANY TIME!" XD

4401206 To me it's the best S.5 episode so far, apart for the rather sappy ending, I don't like so much the complete reversal of the characters, so I would have preferred Gilda to remain at least partially an asshole. But, apart from that, I really liked it.

4401402

I didn't ask, but thanks for sharing.

4401206 I can't believe it's taken so long for another PinkieDash episode. Seriously, we had a lot of Rarijack, TwiDash, FlutterDash, Appledash, and TwiPie within the past 4 seasons, but PinkieDash pretty much got pushed aside and forgotten about after "Griffon The Brush Off". I know that part of the plot of both "Wonderbolt Academy" and "Pinkie Pride" involved PinkieDash, but they weren't the focus of the episode.

It makes me hope that these map episodes will deliver more interactions between character pairings that haven't really been explored all that much. There's still a lot that can be done with stuff like AppleShy or RariTwi, and there's the practically ignored RariPie and RariDash pairings, pairings like that could be quite interesting.

It was a nice episode if its going to be a Daring Do story "RD in the gorge" then that should be the focus nice parody on Laura Croft Tomb Raider it was well done Gilda has been redeemed sort of leaves a lot of room for creativity at DHX

4401303 I'm in the same spot with my story, but I'm going to go ahead and go with my worldbuilding instead of what we just saw in the show, without the AU tag. I started it before the episode came out, and I'm really under no obligation to keep updating my story to match each new episode. Plenty of fics written back in Season 2 didn't, and we don't hate them for it. The AU tag is really meant for departing from the version of Equestria depicted in the show entirely, by changing something fundamental. Our stories aren't Alternate Universe, they're just very non-canon. There's a big difference there.

Anyway, this is my favorite episode so far. At least for this season, it's really hard to compare new episodes with old ones, at least for me. So I'm going to do what I do best and ramble. Fair warning to you.

First off: has anyone else noticed that no one ever uses the word "money" in this show? It's always "bits." No nicknames, no easier way of expressing it, it's always the plural of the unit itself. Today's episode hammered that in. Anyone catch Twilight's use of "bits" to describe the ancient griffons' treasure? It's like it's synonymous with "gold" and "money" at the same time. I've never heard any other franchise use a word like this. It's unique.

I'm super excited to see where this season goes. We've seen a lot of Cutie Mark lessons in the premiere and the prodigious CMC episodes, but there's also the theme of teaching others about friendship, which I've got to say is really cool. We saw a town with a completely different idea of friendship and a Cutie Mark gimmick to illustrate it, but now we go even more basic and have a town completely without friendship. They could have made this a random pony town, maybe with some evil scheme behind it like in the premiere (though I guess that would be dumb, since they already did that), but they took our old friend Gilda instead, and finally fleshed out her background and people, which is AWESOME.

Ohmygoshshe'ssoadorable! Best griffon is best character.

I'm usually the kind of guy who has to have odd references pointed out to him (with some noticeable exceptions), but am I the only one who thinks this guy:

is very reminiscent of these guys?
And I'm sure they themselves are a reference, but I don't really know to what.

But OH MY GOSH. What a history!

This guy's monster design :manlysquee:. Don't you just love it that at the same time Amy Keating Rogers crushes our souls and our headcanons by showing us Griffonstone, she also teases us with this mysterious monster from their history? No explanation, guy just shows up and ruins everyone's lives. Twilight and her monstrous history book both assure us there are plenty of untold but interesting stories about Griffons, and what we've been shown is really only a stepping stone. Anyone want to take a bet on how soon a story about the last Griffon king and the monster Arimaspi (you're welcome for the spelling) hits the featured box? I'm really tempted to write it myself, actually, but I'm already withers-deep in the OC Slamjam and my own epic adventure story. Still, no need to complain about our worldbuilding options being limited. We have as much to go on with Griffon history as Pony history, and look at all the stuff people twist that into!

Some things I learned from today's episode:

1) Equestria is officially the name of the world, since Twilight said the Griffon kingdom is part of it.

2) (Reinforced Idea) What the freak is wrong with ponies and their isolationist lack of general knowledge about the outside world? Every time we see a new race on the show it's like no one's ever heard of them before. Now Twilight's read an entire history book about Griffons that has no record of the past few hundred years. Not only that, she has no way of knowing what Griffonstone is like these days, which means no pony has been there since before the Idol was lost, and no griffon has said anything about it to the rest of the world. What the freak kind of world is that?? These are the Princesses of Equestria, and we've just established that the Griffon Kingdom should fall under their domain. So why do they know literally nothing about it? Canon confuses me so.

3) Don't mess with Pinkie's hair.

I really need to start making videos.

4401206 Tiny Gilda was adorable. Pretty much all I've got. Good episode though.

4402230

1) Equestria is officially the name of the world, since Twilight said the Griffon kingdom is part of it.

It may very well be a continent, or even a federal, or confederate, political entity, as the United Kingdom is part of Europe (continent) and UE.

2) (Reinforced Idea) What the freak is wrong with ponies and their isolationist lack of general knowledge about the outside world?

Pretty weird infact. It seems Twilight didn't even see a single picture of the place she is fantasizing about, though there are Griffons normally travelling the ponies-inhabited places of Equestria. One would say average ponies have no curiosity at all about what happens outside their immediate surroundings, so other races do not bother to give them any unsolicited information.

4401206 We now got a second official villain death. The Griffin Kingdom is a third world hellish dystopia. I have a feeling that Gilda might become the new Queen of the Griffins.

10 points for Gryffindor. ^^

4402230 I really want to write about Arimaspi, to be perfectly honest. It looks like a fun character to explore, and as a legend, there's plenty of room to diverge from canon materials.

4401206
I just watched it and I am very impressed. The lore of the griffin kingdom, the fact that we see a kingdom other than Equestria, and we see that it was struggling. Hmm Celestia what have you been doing on terms of foreign affairs. I love that we actually see why Glida acted the way that she did. That's what I wanna focus on; Gilda. that asshole from season one that no one liked, well I always held hope for her because no one is an ass unless they were treated as such. I want to see more of her turnaround honestly for one the writers didn't screw us over. Fave Episode so far