I think that post Faust mlp was fundamentally directionless compared to Lauren Faust era mlp (s1 up to but not including Canterlot wedding) and this all comes down to the meta-narrative reason why Lauren Faust created FiM in the first place. It being her ultimate critique and commentary on the cartoon industry and the state of children’s media. That reason for the show’s existence dies very quickly after she left. There is no big meta-narrative driving the show after she leaves. There are many examples of such critiques stemming from this big, driving meta-narrative vision that she had. The running joke of no-pony liking pinkies singing in episodes such as part 2 of the premiere, over a barrel and baby cakes was satire, beautiful satire and a great commentary on all the overproduced, unnecessary midi music that plagues so much of children’s movies and shows. A dog and pony show, being another beautiful critique on the trope of the “fight girl” in so much of children’s media by positing the opposite, that women don’t have to become more masculine in order to be strong and it does that beautifully, having rarity use her wits to get out of her situation all the while never changing anything about herself. And then there’s of course the most overarching one which I think is best explained in this quote from a Craig McCracken interview from 2013. “When she (Lauren Faust) grew up, everything that was made for her was never good and everything that was made for her brothers was really high-quality. Why can’t shows for girls be good?”. Why shouldn’t kids media force children to grow mentally and emotionally if they want to be entertained rather than jingling meaningless eye candy in front of kid’s faces and rehashing simple inoffensive themes/morals over and over again, you know? It’s that bitter nourishing rhubarb onto the sugarcoated crust of childhood pie that sits something of a premium these days and is lost in post Faust mlp.The meaningless eye candy jingling of the Tirek fight, the transformations, the castle and practically everything else in the s4 finale and the non-existent character writing with 0 accompanying setup and therefore 0 accompanying payoff of the s3 finale ( the same is true for almost all of s3/4), is a stark contrast to the combined skillful use of discord’s powerful yet self-destructive arrogance and a setup of the entire 1st season to weave together a story with real payoff from real setup by real characters in a real story and this is done constantly throughout Faust era mlp, with most episodes being used to set up other episodes creating a cohesive narrative where everything feeds into everything else rather than contradicting each other, narrative-wise. post Faust mlp basically turned into a parody of itself and exactly the kind of cartoon that she was criticizing, commenting on and poking fun at.
>>42541716Even if there are episodes that do this post Faust (like cutie map and amending fences), they’re usually self-contained to the episode and don’t fix the problem that there was no more big, meta-narrative ideal guiding the show in one direction anymore and thus, struggled to do much that didn’t fit into 23 minutes. It’s basically a different show, set in the same universe. and don’t even get me started on post Larson and going into Haber era mlp. like multiply what i said above by 50. the only meta thing he manages to do is complain about bronies.
I think you're basically correct about this, although I'd place the roots of this particular species of rot squarely in S4. That's where you start getting the real mad-libs episode concepts (what if they were superheroes, what if Fluttershy turned into a bat, etcetera) and where the characters and the world as a whole come apart at the seams that were sewn together in the Faust seasons. Plus, that's where the obnoxious self-aware humour and self-referential writing start to rear their heads in earnest. It's the fanfic season. S3 holds up the Faustian spirit surprisingly well, up until the Twilicorn incident.
>>42541773I think by magical mystery cure, the change was already apparent. if MMC was more or less the same but S3 was spent setting it up, much like how the gala episode was very well set up in S1 and how return harmony's setup was basically all of S1, then it would have been pretty good. The driving idea that led to Faust era mlp being as much of a cohesive narrative as it was, was already gone by S3, because of canterlot wedding. This Antony c vid explains my opinion of canterlot wedding far better than I ever could, and if you look into it, most of the same shortcomings of canterlot wedding are present in S3. https://youtu.be/y36UT2tOvkI?feature=shared
>>42541800So far as I can tell, the reason S3 manages to give off the superficial appearance of aligning with the Faust seasons is because it largely stays character-focused. What it lacks is character interplay. The dynamic of the Faust seasons is based around setting up strong, contrasting personalities for each of the Manes, then writing episodes that highlight those contrasts and how they negotiate them. S3 is more of a series of individual character studies. We still get to explore those strongly-defined characters, but there's much less of them playing off one another and demonstrating how their friendship overcomes their differences. It's not quite the same, but it's still miles ahead of the nonsense that started in S4. Also, yes, FiM didn't truly die until Twilicorn, but it was admitted to the hospice at around the point in ACW where Celly and Chryssi had an anime beam struggle.
>>42541830>S3 is more of a series of individual character studiesI wonder how much of that comes down to the fact that it's a half-length season. If they had a full 26 I feel like we would've gotten more pairing/group episodes, the fact that they did two dedicated Spike episodes says to me the original plan was that and they got told about the shorter season mid-production.
>>42541840I've never gotten why spike episodes exist, he's very clearly written to play off of the mane 6 and especially twilight. Almost every episode where he's left to his own devices, makes up some personality that's then forgotten by the end of the episode ( thankfully, because if they stuck, then spoke would have been a way worse character) because his, much like applejack's, personality is based on the ponies he interacts with and THATS written very well. His ambiguous relationship between twilight was my favourite running joke of the series. In great episodes like winter wrap up, one minute they could act like friends, another they could act in a caring mother and son way, and in another they could act like passive aggressive, bratty siblings. It was one of my favourite dynamics of the show. Spike should have never had his own episodes, the only one that I can remember that actually stuck the landing is gauntlet of fire, but that one's more of the exception to the rule than anything else.
>>42541855I don't mind the idea of him having an episode, but I think a duo episode's a far better idea for the reason you say. By himself he's just a dipshit kid, and one dipshit kid by himself is far less entertaining than the trio of dipshit kids.
>>42541716There is no difference between Season 2 and everything after Season 2. Vogelfag was right. It's just the same. You can watch a Season 2 episode and the right after watch a Season 9 episode and you get the same experience. Different chefs, same meal. The exception is the RoH of Harmony, which feels more like Season 1. Imagine calling Season 2 of Faust's narrative when they demystified dragons into bully teenagers and actually Nightmare Moon was not an obscure pony's tale that nopony recognised when she came back, but actually everypony knew her and she now has a national holiday. LOL.
>>42541936>the entire town gasps when they hear her name>obscure pony's taleEh, you're gonna struggle with that one. Them not immediately recognizing her is a little strange but the statue in that episode does look a little off, it's within the realm of being explainable. I do agree there's a big tonal shift between season 1 and season 2 but I don't think season 2 directly contradicts season 1, it just gets more openly fan pander-y and very aware of its own success.
>>42541855>why spike episodes existIt's very clearly just a writer seeing spike and deciding he deserves to take a episode slot.
>>42541936I never expected much from dragons in the first place tbdesu. They didn't exactly set them up for novelty when the first non-Spike example we see is living in a cave and hoarding gold.
>>42541716Not reading that
>>42541955They have Nightmare Moon iconography during Nightmare Night. They know what she looks like. There is more evidence supporting that almost nopony knew about her than her being a national icon like Pinkie Pie trying to guess her name and Twilight crossreferencing different sources to find out more about the legend.
>>42541716
Yeah I'm not reading all that
>>42541980How insightful.
>>42541936You just had to mention the beast. It's too bad the writefag side of the fandom never interacted with the reviewer side of the fandom and vice versa to actually create something or at least for the reviewfags to see how incompetent they are at analyzing storytelling.
>>42543145The beast?
>>42542281I'm flabbergasted
>>42544018Don't be.
>>42541716can I get a TLDR
>>42545534no
>>42546305please?
>>42546660Read the fucking subject of the thread!
>>42547131Ok :(
>>42541716faustfags losthaber won
>>42548134
>>42545534Tldr: stop being a faggot.
>>42548553it's not bait
>>42541716>The running joke of no-pony liking pinkies singing in episodes such as part 2 of the premiere, over a barrel and baby cakes was satire, beautiful satire and a great commentary on all the overproduced, unnecessary midi music that plagues so much of children’s movies and shows.what about the smile song?
>>42549571It IS.
you mean if I make shitty threads, I too, can get (You)s?
>>42550021You made a shitty reply, so yes.
>>42541716>setup of the entire 1st season>with most episodes being used to set up other episodes creating a cohesive narrative where everything feeds into everything elsewould you be able to expand more or give examples on these couple points here anon?and thank you for being able to put into words that which I cannot
>>42541716>>42550525really great thread by the way, I fucking CRAVE these kinds of threads
>>42541716>That reason for the show’s existence dies very quickly after she left.Selling toys?
>>42550585The meta-narrative reason, not the financial reason.
>>42550529Yea, 4chan have actual good discussion if you force them too. Turns out the best way to do that is to write a wall of text to disinterest the gooners.
>>42549654>>42550525Really the only reason the satire could be abandoned is if the song is more valuable than the satire. This is pretty much the only pinkie song that is more or as valuable as the satire. I can't really name another one?
>>42550525To answer your second question, feeling pinkie keen introduces us to the idea that twilight obsesses over things she cannot control. This is taken to its extreme in lesson zero and then the idea is further expanded upon in its about time, where the idea is expanded to twilight obsessing over things she cannot control robs her of the ability to think about the things she can control. https://youtu.be/5QUwiLyTTCQ?feature=sharedWatch this video if you want a great explanation of it's about time. Made by a guy who's great at analysis and critique, you might see in some of his videos that I just copied his script in my post, kek. This is just one example (but it's my favourite one, lol). Another one is setting up the characters special talents before we actually hear them in cutie mark chronicles, like in boast busters and dog and pony show. >and thank you for being able to put into words that which I cannotKek, it's usually the other way around for me, I'm glad I could be the one to write down your own opinion better than you could. As for your first question, I've got college soon and my mobile network blocks 4chan so I fear that this thread might die by the time I go home and answer your question, so I wouldn't mind if you link a discord username or something just in case this thread does before I get home.
>>42550953@snipergaming1979 btw on discord
>>42541716>this all comes down to the meta-narrative reason why Lauren Faust created FiM in the first place.if you think that creating something genuinely good requires someone to criticize and deconstruct other media then you're too high on postmodernism
>>42550957>battardyikes
>>42550529same, I need MOAR!
>>42550957why
>>42552226Why not?
>>42552941groomcord...
In our modern world, defined by recursive meditation and the proliferative entropy of signs, FiM, under the creative vision of Lauren Faust, constitutes a metaphysical rapture, a provisional sanctuary against the ontic erosion characteristic of the hyperreality we’ve surrendered ourselves to. The show, exclusively early on, before it was subsumed into a regimen of corporate repetition and thematic sterilization, offered a mode of cultural production that, while operating within the apparatus of commodity animation, suspended the logic of its own instrumentalization. Faust’s vision re-inscribed sincerity and authenticity as a mode of ontological resistance.The inaugural episodes of FiM do not traffic in the vacuous optimism endemic to children’s programming. Rather, they construct a semiotic architecture grounded in moral realism, wherein the virtues embodied by the central character subvert expectations by refusing a didactic slogan of its own nature, but emerge as internally coherent modalities of being. They are not tools, not functions, not performative facades in the service of consumer empathy. They were, within the diegetic structure, irreducible modes of existence.The disclosive quality of the early FiM reveals an ontological commitment absent in most contemporary media formations. Twilight Sparkle’s narrative arc, especially within Faust’s framework, unfolds as a paradigmatic gesture of inward transcendence. Her initial orientation, reliant on epistemic certainty, abstraction, and detachment, is not resolved through accumulation of knowledge but through existential surrender to Community, alterity, and the precarity of intersubjective vulnerability. This is not narrative development in the Aristotelian sense, but spiritual metamorphosis: a movement from the hegemony of the logical to the necessity of the faithful, hence “My faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”
>>42553933Faust’s Equestria is not utopian, despite the many voices on /mlp/ that think so. It is, instead, structured by lack. Conflict, error, moral dissonance, and character deficiency could’ve been used as narrative exigencies, much like other cartoons, but instead they turn these into ontological affirmations. The social fabric of FiM is not presented as seamless, it is wounded, sutured by continual acts of trust, forgiveness, and becoming. In this way, the show institutes a kind of ritual economy that resists commodification, much like its creator refused to commodify something she whimsically created stories with in her infancy. Friendship, within this scheme, is an event, a rupture in the isolated self, opening the subject to responsibility without guarantee.What follows Faust’s departure is neither evolution nor divergence. It is a collapse, the show, severed from its spiritual telos, begins to replace its own form. Characters cease to grow, instead, they repeat. The ethical stakes dissolve into the aesthetic gloss of brand continuity. Morality is no longer lived but displayed. The later seasons of FiM become the very hyperreal spectacle the early seasons resisted, this simulation, the simulacra of sincerity, with the Real amputated.This transition parallels the fate of modern religions, wherein the ritual is no longer a gift but a function, the sacred no longer encountered but simulated. The ecclesiological becomes performative, Faith is made marketable. What began as a gesture toward Being, Dasein, ends as the endless reproduction of content. So too with FiM, its early articulation approached the sacred, but its latter phases are indistinguishable from the content-machinery it once punctured.
>>42553933>>42553963what do you call this type of autism?
>>42554339The first one's clearly ai, retard.
>>42554339clearly you're not a baller
>>42541716I disagree. S1-2 were directionless seasons, they had no cohesive narrative or overarching goal for any the characters, not even the main character. Twilight was just fucking around Ponyville with no plans for her future, she's prized pupil of Celestia and Faust does nothing with that. Faust had no clue how to proceed beyond the setup she lucked into. You speak of Faust's commentary as if she had this grand vision, but none of it is actually reflected in the show itself if you go through it objectively, you're just seeing what you want to see because of your reverence for her. However that blank slate is exactly what the fandom latched onto to create their own lore and stories. Luna is a good example of this phenomenon, a lazily written nonsensical character that got pump and dumped right in the beginning is given a deep backstory by its fans. Equestria was essentially a sandbox for creativity and it's partially because the Faust seasons were directionless, it allowed fans to do whatever they wanted without having to worry about canon since the canon wasn't going anywhere.
>>42541936I think I agree somewhat, 2 is closer to 9 than to 1. S1 was janky as fuck, the writing all over the place, like each writer seemed to have their own version of Twilight, and random fantasy tropes were thrown around haphazardly without much care for the immersion. That type of soul can only come from a fresh inexperienced team.
>>42554394Why would I be balling?
>>42555172Ballers are cool people.
>>42556172He isn't, Season 1 clearly has that metanarrative once you notice it. Suited For Success, which he hasn't mentioned, is also meant as an allegory for executives fucking with your creative vision. The Mane 6 without Rarity represent the executives and Rarity is supposed to represent an artist. Maybe Lauren was also seething about her Galaxy Girls series being canned while working on Season 1.
>>42556194>>42556827Nigga, I gave a paragraph and a half on why not. Go back to your tamers and iwtcird threads.
>>42557482Kys, get ai to do it for you.
>>42556194There are so many, lol I could barely name them all.
>>42558127no we need your input
>>42558369I already did and I'm not shortening it for people with tiktok level attention spans.
>>42558369
>>42541716I wish Lauren Faust had stayed. The writing quality and characterization became formulaic after she left, with good episodes and scenes being mostly (to my knowledge) the result of devoted writers and artists pushing for something more.I would love to see Lauren Faust's MLP run free unbridled by Hasbro, whose higher-ups act more like the nobles of Canterlot than Ponyville residents.
>>42556194Also the animal sanctuary episode with Fluttershy in a later season taps into this. Her exasperation that the workers messed with her vision and thought they knew better.
>>42558552We can only dream now of what could have been.
>>42556953>Go back to your tamers and iwtcird threads.>xe compares IWTCIRD with troonersAnon, I...
>>42558696IWTCIRD!!!
>>42558696>>42559072Zoomers...
>>42558501Got a suit and tie on today, huh?But can't quite help it when the real dips show up, can you?
>>42556194Naw, a bit shallow there. The m6 represent customers, and the thing is that executives are also customers. Your boss is a customer. They purchase your time and effort for the completion of tasks and products. The fact they are higher up on the ladder doesn't mean they know better than you how to preform the one tiny profession which you occupy. The customer is always right in matters of taste, but they likely don't know shit about how you specifically produce that taste given your tools, and available materials, and time.So it is a "executives fuck off" just as much as a "karen fuck off" and even a "fans fuck off."And you know what, it's a "fans fuck off" that WORKS and doesn't make me stare at a lazy ill-intended bastard for 22 minutes with comically exaggerated negative personality traits. Mistral shows are not satire, and neither is that shit. It's nice to see that there actually IS a way to represent a group of fools without being hate-filled to the point of undermining your own point.
>>42559663Fame and misfortune is if suited for success was bad.
>>42561082Vogelschizo...
>>42541716>The meaningless eye candy jingling of the Tirek fight, the transformations, the castle and practically everything else in the s4 finale and the non-existent character writing with 0 accompanying setup and therefore 0 accompanying payoff of the s3 finale ( the same is true for almost all of s3/4), is a stark contrast to the combined skillful use of discord’s powerful yet self-destructive arrogance and a setup of the entire 1st season to weave together a story with real payoff from real setup by real characters in a real story and this is done constantly throughout Faust era mlp, with most episodes being used to set up other episodes creating a cohesive narrative where everything feeds into everything else rather than contradicting each other, narrative-wise. Man, I wish this was multiple sentences with their own points which eventually build to an equivalent point. So, what I'm hearing is that you think that season 4's final and opener don't create a cohesive narrative within their season, and that season 2 does not have this problem. Unfortunately, finding a cohesive line of themes is a subjective exercise in creativity and rationalization. You can't say "there isn't meaning" because you'll be wrong the moment someone makes some shit up.You've got to find what the meaning is, and then dunk on that for being shit.https://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/37491629/#q37492252https://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/32853823/#q32854193Here's some of my prior attempts at similar arguments. I'm gonna try to build out from these.All fiction is a lie. At the beginning of every work of fiction, there is one necessary event. It is an explosion of humor, a singular humoring of the premise dragged from the infinite void of imaginable scenarios. In that moment, everything is possible, and that justifies many subsequent acts of coincidence, since the starting point which set those coincidences up was so chosen. While these ideas are easily applied to causality, they also apply thematically, and in terms of character development. The basic act of suspension of disbelief doesn't just anchor us in a setting and moment, but in a philosophical starting position, like a shining light, reaching out in all directions.In s1e1, Twilight has an initial goal. Before her trying to save the world, she is first looking for problems. She's looking for problems because she assumes she is meant to accomplish something. We quickly find that she assumes she must accomplish something because she is the favored and invested-in student of the queen of the sun, and she's right, for exactly that reason. Metanarrativly, the main character must obviously DO something, because she is invested in by the associated corporation and loved by the associated creative vision. Due to the expectations, the path forward and the world around her must manifest, and they do. Thus, the first moment of the show equates the sisters with the forces responsible for the creation of the show.
>>42561896We overlook the infinite improbability of twilight finding a prophesy in folklore which then actually comes true. We overlook how bad Steve's tail-mostash is, and so does he. We overlook the obvious mental instability of each of the mares and slowly decide to like them anyway. Pinkie tells us, outright, to simply giggle away these concerns of ours. Twilight overlooks AJ bein' a bitch and flings herself from a cliff for no benefit, on the assumption that there must be a reason, a form of faith. In the end, twilight simply overlooks the physical destruction of the elements, assuming victory must be possible, and she's right, and it is because she is loved, on every level. She's loved by the creators and so this moment must have a point. She's loved by celestia and so her success must be possible. She's loved by her friends, she assumes, and so the elements can lie in those connections.Thus, the assumption that her existence must have a point is made narrativly equivalent to the choice to see value in these 5 crazy mares. That choice to look beyond the surface and find something of value is also equivalent to faust's initial desire for a girl's cartoon that was 'high quality," bot metaphorically and literally. The claim they are worth consideration IS the heart of the show.And from there, everything in the show is framed as a slow shaving down of that idea, into a super fine point.Most of season 1 focuses on complications. Winter wrap up and the slumber-party episode both feature a world which is wildly more difficult and complicated than twilight's initial idea. There's a mismatch here, between here initial assumptions and the reality she has to work with. Ticket master turns ever character into such a complication that no right answer can be given, and then reveals that celestia is ALSO more complicated than initially assumed when it turns out more tickets are easily available. While the personal complications offer frustrations which cannot be dealt with on their terms, complications ALSO mean that the assumptions which trap you are ALSO potentially false. There is likely a way out, and it exists, still, because you are loved. Given this framework, I can rapid-fire S1 examples and expect you to understand them.Twilight bails AJ out with harvest, Pinkie is rescued from the griffin's humiliation by rainbow, twilight didn't actually need to hide her power in boast busters because the town liked her, fluttershy's terrifying conceptualization of a dragon crumbles the moment that her loved ones need her, Twilight's sleepover book does NOT cover how to fix catty bitches who hate eachother but they get over it for twilight's sake. More specifically, AJ littrally gives a speech about focusing on the "one big thing that actually matters" and swallows her pride enough to say the magic words which cause rarity to instantly cooperate. It's somewhat dissappointing that rarity wasn't swayed by her love of anyone but herself and apologies.
>>42562032Swarm of the century is directly about twilight's worry over what celestia will think, and so the bugs can be viewed as a metaphor for the chaos which preparation and worry inflict on someone when preparing their home. Note that they leave at the same time as celestia. Either way actually learning what pinkie was on about would have solved the problem completely, simply listening. Similarly, if twilight ever actually listened to celestia, she would know there was absolutely nothing to worry about, just like with the tickets earlier.Winter wrap up is exactly twilight looking for a catastophy again, just like in episode 1, and for the same reason. She finds it, multiple times, and is tolerated until she has enough information to find something she actually can do. Call of the cutie is applebloom catastrophic over her assumed place in life and then getting rescued from that worry by her new friends, just like twilight 1 episode before. Fall weather friends is, finally, a bit off. There's a detail I ignored in episode 1, and that's fluttershy. She does a simple reenactment of "The lion and the mouse", one of Aesop's Fables. AJ and rainbow basically do a twist on "The tortoise and the hare". While Fluttershy can be argued to have seen "value" in the lion, and AJ+rainbow can be said to have fought over something that didn't actually matter and so harm themselves with their squabbling, the show still tends to be less clear-cut in cases where it is clearly taking heavy inspiration from older mythology. That hints at a secondary set of themes which may add something to the primary set of themes, but I don't see how exactly to crystalise that idea yet, and will have to save that for another time. Instead, I will simply note obvious.... I forget what word I want here, but obvious reenactments with a twist. Suited for success involves the creation of clothes only as an act of affection where endless stress is piled up based on the requests of friends only for those requests to turn out to suck eggs and not be necessary in the first place. Rarity didn't need to bind herself to those expectations just like twilight didn't need to bind herself to the 2 ticket gala limit.Feeling pinkie keen obviously involves a character worrying unnecessarily when friendship and trust is all that matters, but I would like to focus on the importance of contradiction. Pinkie here presents a complication. In winter wrap-up, and most occasions, the problems brought with complication are solved with the introduction of complication within the premise. More information eventually unravels the problem itself. The problems caused by learning and trying are also solved by learning and trying. Here, that idea is directly contradicted, and that's a good thing. Twilight does not learn a thing which lets her comprehend the pinkie sense. She instead shifts her basic understanding of what comprehension is, the assumptions she started with.
>>42562097She accepts her lack of information. This appears to fly in the face of all prior episodes, but it does not. It clarifies, sets a boundary, creates a limit to the ideas previously expressed. Drinking water is good. It is not a contradiction to say that drowning is bad. Similarly, while understanding is good, total understanding of all things is neither possible or good, at least from the perspective of a human attempting to live a human life. Some information is, if not harmful, at least too fucking expensive, or at minimum it is too expensive to force at this exact moment.Thus, the vague light we started with is shaved down a little more.Sonic rainboom puts rainbow in the place of fluttershy in dragonshy, almost exactly, but also has rarity re-enact Icarus. Both rarity and Rainbow are saved by their connection, in that moment. Again, rarity learns less than the tomboy she shares the episode with.In stare master, the unreckonable complication IS children, but also a spicy chicken. While she stands up for the kids when the time comes, she also only succeeds because the rage she's directing at the chicken is framed as authoritative, not from power but from shame. She speaks for the good of everyone, and claims a large enough moral authority to advocate for the good of everyone by implication, including the cockatrice. >show stoppersnooo, I don't want to think about that. Why did I set myself up for this, fuck fuck fuck
>>42562129Turns out show stoppers is the introduction of the clubhouse, and they initially see it as garbage which they have to give some TLC. That's the first scene, which conveniently implies the episode was about that to some degree. The treehouse is fixed by applebloom alone almost instantly. A talent is hinted for all 3. Up until 8 minutes, they badly fail at cutiemark hunting, ignoring the talents they started the episode with. It's bad enough that cheeralee steps in and suggests a talent show, which is maybe similar to what AJ did at the start of the episode, at least in that the suggestions of an adult failed to make the basis for the passion of these foal's lives. This could be taken as foreshadowing that their marks would NOT be these particular talents. Up until 14, they are practicing a musical play and doing terribly. their initial mistake is selecting the responsibilities which sound like fun while shying away from more obvious talents. This is the feeling of watching someone own-fault over and over. The talent show lasts up to 18:50, unfortunately. After that the ponies assume their performance was a comedy. During the awards, the audience stomps their hooves instead of clapping, which was a real treat after... that. Then, something important happens.The cutiemark crusaders revise their starting assumption. They have fallen upon the humor and love of the community and discovered their own stupidity and over-complications, and come to a completely wrong conclusion. They follow every pattern up until this point, and fail, even in their happy ending. Directly after stare master, where fluttershy successfully occupies every posture of both giving and receiving love at the same time while working within the limitations of her own ignorance, the crusaders not only fail to build on the philosophy which has been built up to this point but strike it down at its base, only still allowed to try again.This episode was also twilight's failure in everything but that, as she and AJ and cheeralee were all invested in the development of these kids. Community, the force which twilight has been learning and wielding up until this point, does not complete the job here. It can only give patience, and she gives patience with it, and you, hopefully, withhold your judgment until the implied counter-argument of the next few episodes is complete.That also means that this episode is, by nature, incomplete, on top of being intentionally cringe. Too bad.
>>42562287Dog+pony show uses cringe as a weapon and warps patience into stubbornness. It follows nicely from show-stoppers. There's no particular sign of her needing and having faith in a rescue, but one does come. This also isn't the first time rarity was allowed an exception from full participation in the love-solves-all themes. She does use a secondary talent, gem-hunting, in service of her regular talent, and the episode is partially about her NOT getting tied down by her talent when it would drag her away from her real destiny. That part follows well from show-stoppers. Spike is rewarded for his patience with a gem. Specifically, he is patiently NOT taking the fruits of rarity's labor for himself, which can be viewed as similar to twilight's decision not to try to force the kids to follow what she thinks their talents are. That also paid off, in that the talent they eventually get turns out way more valuable.Meanwhile, the diamond dogs attempt to force rarity into labor in a way which gets in the way of her artistic endeavors. This can be viewed as the tendency of money-focused business-people to force art-creators into stifling constraints, and is here framed as the exact opposite of love or patience, and the cause of inefficiency and conflict. Perhaps it is important that spike and the m5 each are lost in their own imaginings of rarity and their rescue, which turn out to be wrong. That part is certainly a theme so far, and leads directly into the finale. The dogs, also, are wrong about their assumptions about what will happen, and it is specifically because they do not bother to understand rarity, who is helpful at first.There is a moment between twilight and spike, in which he breaks a stalactite for use as a lance and yells a command to charge. Twilight questions him, until he says please, and she relents. This is a more ideal version of the bad arrangement between rarity and the dogs. The message is very simple. People function better when you treat them as a person. What would be a nightmare BECOMES valuable because you chose to value them. Maybe rarity is being used to represent self-love. She's clearly the most self-insert girl-power of the bunch in a show where god is a woman. Maybe that excuses the contradiction in the sleepover episode of having AJ apologize just to feed her ego and get her to cooperate while rarity got to be stubborn and prideful. That also makes some sense of using her as a beauty-based Icarus, a clear marking of the limits and downfall of her pride.Actually, rarity DOES expect a rescue. At the end, she sets up a wagon full of gems for every one of her friends to drag home. Her faith in each friend translates directly into 1 wagon of gems value each.
>>42562374>green isn't your colorFluttershy does fashion for rarity despite not liking it. Early on, spike serves as a pincushion and says there is no pain that would stop him from helping rarity (the pins don't hurt though). So, he and fluttershy share the same motive here. Due to personal connection, fluttershy is motivated to do her best for photofinish, for rarity. This builds directly from the prior episode, where the dog-employers were completely disinterested in the motives of their worker. This time, though photofinish still isn't interested in knowing fluttershy, rarity is the beloved friend who convinces fluttershy to preform in an unfulfilling task. The personal connection forces both of them to perpetuate this farce until rarity eventually just can't take it anymore and chooses to be honest.There's a sub-plot where twilight keeps secrets. It follows directly from the patience she showed in show-stoppers, but again fails to actually solve any particular problem other than allowing the natural course of events to play out. It is unclear from this if she's making a good decision, but it is now a direct in-story expression of suspension of disbelief allowing the story to occur, and it's straining. There is growing difficulty in ignoring the flaws which were ignored so far, and rarity solves the episode specifically by admitting such a flaw.>Over a Barrel"There is no love between the bufallo and ponies, or very little. Applejack has a love of bloomberg, the apple tree, and her family in apaloosa. Rainbow gets to know the bufaloo, and so forms a connection with them. This means that the decision to love and value has now lead directly to conflict between former friends. What's more, the solutions and efforts of the main characters exclusively worsen the larger conflict. Honesty does not stop the growing hostilities, at least not when these random mares stick their noses into the buisness of this town. The conflict ends not because the mares are friends or because the chief's daughter appeals to him or because pinkie sings a song where she outright tells them the answer, but because the chief tastes a pie and decides he wants that. Since he now personally values the pie, he now personally values the apple trees. Since he values the trees, he seeks to minimize the damage of his stampede, and instantly thinks of only removing a small passage in the orchard instead of destroying the orchard. The choice to value is on the part of the one in conflict, not on the heros that want to solve things. It also applies to pie, and apple trees, and even Indians.
>>42562473>a bird in the hoofSuch a direct application of the themes that it doesn't really need an explanation. Assumed bird could die. Assumed celestia would be mad. Didn't learn about the bird properly. Learned they were wrong and were bailed bout by simple benevolence. Feels like a step back in terms of narrative progression, but it is good to reinforce the basics on occasion. Maybe this should have been earlier in the season, or not. >The Cutie Mark ChroniclesScotaloo spends the whole episode searching for something while actively ignoring it, and even by the end she still doesn't really get it. She starts with a basic misunderstanding of what motivates people and what is good, and keeps chasing that macho image. She does not choose to value it, or come to understand it, but is hugged and tolerated all the same, and given time and patience. >Owl's Well That Ends WellSpike starts with the assumption that he must complete a task in order to live up to his love and investment, and unlike twilight, he's wrong. While the completion of those tasks would be nice, it turns out that his place is not based on that. The love is not conditional, and neither was twilight's. While twilight has an idea of how he can help, it's fine if an owl does it.By implication, while celestia absolutely had a plan for how twilight could help with nightmare moon, twilight's value was not actually contingent on that. >Party of OneLastly, the limits of patience. If someone is being willfully blind and sinking into their own mental shortcomings, and you think you can get away with it, you drag them by force and throw them before proof they are loved. Maybe assault won't often so perfectly solve your problems in real life, but at minimum there is a time for action instead of patience, some form of action. Not everything will actually solve itself, and not everyone will maintain the faith needed to find out for themselves.
>>42562494And that's the end of season 1, aside from the finale. >best night everThis sits in direct apparent contradiction to the start of the season, but in that contradiction the whole is found. Where the start was the great bursting of potential and humoring of flaw, this is the great gaping maw of fact and face. Again we come with all our ill-formed ideas and giggle away what concerns may exists, only to harm all those around us in our ignorance and arrogance. In total faith and imagined value they are blind. They may even think they are patient, but they are patient in service to ideas they decided on long ago, very impatiently. They see a whole castle full of people who haven't chosen to value them, and pull out force to make them see, but they don't see, themselves. They assume there must be a reason, an opportunity, and so imagine one into existence, and that is a mistake, here, because this world doesn't love them. And in the end, they take shelter in a smaller world which does.That's a very sad way to say it, but it is what happens. A better philosophy would be able to understand what the gala was and treat it according the the opportunities it actually presents. A better show might take this setup and use it to slowly wrestle the wider apathetic world into some kind of livable environment. Maybe the characters could become less arrogant, less filled with notions and bias, and more adaptable. However, we all know, that isn't what happened. This shaved-down point, this bright edge we see at the end of this season, with it's solid core somewhere in there, will one day shave away that good single point, and miss it's mark. In the good world, this core, this shelter and sanctuary, is used as a fallback, a base from which all neurosis may be postponed and lessened, so that the world at-large can be dealt with with a calmer hoof or hand.In a sick world, filly-Luna never stops sobbing in Celestia's arms, and twilight never stops eating doughnuts with her friends while ignoring the outside world, and calling that patience. And that's it for season 1. Season 2 tomorrow, maybe, or the next day.
>>42562032>AJ littrally gives a speech about focusing on the "one big thing that actually matters" and swallows her pride enough to say the magic words which cause rarity to instantly cooperate. It's somewhat dissappointing that rarity wasn't swayed by her love of anyone but herself and apologies.Yea, it's a bit backwards how the episode tries to say 'both sides have a point' and have AJ literally say that Rarity was right, while in terms of actual execution, it's really just AJ who's in the right and Rarity's methods were completely wrong all the way through. Rarity's 'attention to detail' doesn't really solve anything here, it only causes her to ignore the actual problems at hand in favor of wasting her attention on things that don't actually fix anything. I don't know why the writers were so averse to just admitting Applejack has a point sometimes and the other character can actually be wrong, but apparently she simply must be stated to be wrong even in circumstances where her solution is the correct one.>>42562473>>Over a Barrel"You know, there's interesting moral hypocrisies in this episode, especially on the part of the buffalo, that the show and the fanbase both unfortunately often completely overlook. I feel like people usually side with the buffalo just due to historical bias, but in terms of actions, they actually have way less of a moral high ground than the settler ponies do.
>>42563085>I feel like people usually side with the buffalo just due to historical bias, but in terms of actions, they actually have way less of a moral high ground than the settler ponies do.this>ownership comes from labor put in natural resources>buffalos literally do nothing with the land they pass through>p0nies farm on it>somehow buffalos owned it
>>42563104>>buffalos literally do nothing with the land they pass throughThis is the part that gets me most of all. They don't even live on the land, they just stampede through it once in a while. That;s like going to war with someone for building a house along a path that you commute on. Besides that, the episode also kind of glossed over the fact that the buffalo's attack, kidnap, and steal property from ponies who have nothing to do with the conflict with the settlers. Like, the buffalo's straight up steal Bloomberg, and while Applejack may have relatives who are settlers, she herself has nothing to do with their feud, so the buffalo attacking their train and stealing her property really diminishes any moral high ground they could have, since their just as guilty of the thing they accuse the settlers of. You could argue they're actually worse in fact, since they're knowingly stealing someones property, where as the settlers didn't even know about the buffalo when they first arrived, since you know, they didn't actually inhabit the land they lay claim to.
>>42563104That's a very idealistic view of ownership, to the point where it just doesn't function.At the highest level, ownership comes from a man with a gun. Reduced to the animal level, ownership is territorial integrity and comes from reputation made by claw and roar.Somewhere in the middle, ownership comes from the payment of tribute in the form of taxes and purchase. In all three cases, interest parties make a sacrifice which translates into manpower in order to secure that resource, which is outside of the labor put into the development of that resource. You put money, which is manpower, into the ownership of the land because of your interest, and your interest is generally the exploitation of that land for your own good and peace.So, if there were a speices which absolutely required a particular mountain pass to be clear every year 2 times a year or they would all die, the would be right to go to war over that land just so they could make their yearly trips in time. When survival is the difference, your interest is high, and so your sacrifice in blood can be worth making. There's nothing hypocritical or petty about that. Too bad the buffalo were full of shit and valued the well being of others less than yearly baked goods. Not only that, they valued their own sacrificed lives less than baked goods, or valued their own stubbornness itself less than pie.Probably, they thought of it as freedom and a birthright, and again they traded it for flaky crust.
>>42563196>That's a very idealistic view of ownership, to the point where it just doesn't function.literally the only moral and logical way for ownership to work is to define in as extension of one's labor. Ownership by force/"might makes right" is inhuman and just animalYou do need "violent" force to protect your property, but it's not a requirement for its existence (just for long-term continuous existence) >In all three cases, interest parties make a sacrifice which translates into manpower in order to secure that resource, which is outside of the labor put into the development of that resourceSecuring resources is an act of putting labor into s aid resources. A simple fence already establishes that you own a plot of land >So, if there were a speices which absolutely required a particular mountain pass to be clear every year 2 times a year or they would all die, the would be right to go to war over that land just so they could make their yearly trips in timea intelligent species would put a fucking border over the territory >Probably, they thought of it as freedom and a birthright, and again they traded it for flaky crust.just like real American Indians keklet's stop /mlpol/ b4 thread derails into off-topic garbage
>>42563196i seems contradictory to fight for ownership and safety you cant fight for peace.
>>42562523So, metanarrativly, in season 1 we had twilight sparkle being blessed by the benevolence of celestia, which is equated to the artist/corpos blessing the show. These blessing came with the assumption that there must be a point behind it, and so that there must be a plan or expectation in need of fulfilling. As such, the assumption that there must be a point enables the assumption that the old mare's tale has any deeper meaning, the assumption that hope is not lost when facing nmm, the assumption that the elements were inside, and so the assumption that these mares are worth anything, which is equivalent to the assumption that a girls cartoon can be worth anything.Twililght stays in ponyville, and does this specifically to learn about being friends, which is to say she is there to learn how to value these insane hicks and find her place. Initially, she's hyper aggressive in attempting to help applejack, though rainbow prompts twilight in that case. Eventually, she simply stands by and waits patiently in the cmc's case and in "green isn't your color," as the show has repeatedly punished neurotic behavior and rewarded the discarding of assumption.Finally, at the gala, the m6 are exposed to an audience that fundamentally is not invested in them, and cannot force themselves down this audience's throat. The initial assumption that they are loved itself becomes a neurotic assumption, and so the methods that have been learned about finding your place do not apply. The solution, in the moment, is to retreat to the smaller circle of people who actually like you. Irl, this is equivalent to the show finally being released into the world. Some people will like it. Some people won't. No matter how high-quality this little girl's cartoon is, it can't actually force people to like it. As such, this isn't a tiny circle just for these 6, it's a small circle just for us.And that's nice, if dangerous. MLP is clearly a show with themes of day and night, involving the meeting of extremes. It starts with sun and moon. On one end of the season, it metaphorically is created. On the other, it metaphorically is published. Twiliight is in her nature a sheltered higher-class scholar autist and she spend all her time trying to reach down and help people from on high. That's how she starts, at least, and almost immediately finds she has to actually know people to help them.So, in season 1 they were born and defined. That was the task.
>>42566178Season 2 opens with discord. It's his name, and it's what wakes him up from stone when the cmc fight next to him. Following directly from the gala, this is a direct answer to that solution. Even in your tiny circle, there will still be strife. The whole episode follows this idea, in that the characters personalities warp and deform and they fight, and then they are reminded by a set of scrolls that they have been friends and that was better than this. Taking the magic out of the situation, people aren't the most rational things. Our perspectives and observations are imperfect, as is our decision making. Given nothing but time, we may come to resent those near us simply because we're having and off day ourselves, or because we simply aren't good enough to interpret events without negativity on a consistent basis, and so these imaginary or minor problems may stack up until they feel important. If our perspectives on other people may shift so easily, naturally, like a force of nature, then some amount of actual effort has to be made to center ourselves and remember who we and who others are. Nostalgic memories are an excellent balm for that affliction. Note that, in remembering who others are, the characters also remember themselves, and so form their identities. So, season 1 formed the characters and their place in the world, and season 2 immediately challenged that. >lesson zeroIn some ways, this is somehow more on the nose. Twilight assumes that she must complete a task which would justify the blessings afforded to her, and she's wrong. The stress of searching for that task when it doesn't reasonably exist at this time drives her away from patience and stability and her normal persona and directly into neurosis. The shelter of her friend group doesn't prevent the issue, though they do forcefully come solve it afterwords. She also deforms the personalities of those around her with the want-it-need-it doll. Other characters carry the burden here, and that extends to the task of writing letters to celestia. The growth which twilight experienced is being spread to others too, instead of kept to herself along with all the pressure.>Luna EclipsedShe isn't who we thought she was and persoanlly does not understand her place in culture or the meaning of her associated holiday. Pinkie tells her. Notably, the holiday is about wearing costumes, the identity of others. >Sisterhooves SocialSweetie spends the start of the episode failing to be useful at home and eventually gets mad about all the rejection which results. Rarity mopes and copes until she finds a piece of paper which reminds her of their bond, exactly the the scrolls against discord. Rarity then uses mud to pretend to be AJ and compete in the sisterhooves social, and so get back in sweetie's good graces by temporarrally shedding her identity. While the more direct use of identity here is odd, it is basically exactly the discord episode but without the magical parts.
>>42566260>The Cutie PoxLiteral symbol of identity twisted by magic curse. The solution is to speak the truth, which would mean sincerely expressing yourself, and so expressing an actual true identity metaphorically. >May the Best Pet Win!Rainbow things she wants one thing, but actually wants another. Eventually, she figures it out and speaks the truth. The turtle is sincere to the point of being strange the whole time.>The Mysterious Mare Do WellA fucked up episode, but the themes are clear at least. Rainbow lives for adulation when was she really wants is companionship. Her companions pull their companionship away from her and kick her in the teeth until she breaks down and admits what she actually wants while pouting alone. Notably, rainbow doesn't actually learn her lesson about what really matters to her, and instead is told to be less of a braggart, so maybe she deserved suffering. >sweet and eliteRarity lies about who she is and who here friends are and then eventually admits who she is and who her friends are. >Secret of My ExcessSpike's physical body and personality deform while he semi-lies in order to hoard gifts. Eventually, he makes a direct choice between what he wants and what he needs, and chooses to remember rarity by way of a sparkly red heart-gem, and so becomes himself again.>Hearth's Warming EveThe cast is cast in a play as a group of dead ponies from history. This historic event involves ponies choosing peace over war through personal connection, and this bit of history is like scroll which reminds their whole civilization who they are every year. Your history is also part of the information you use to ground your identity. >Family Appreciation DayYour grandmother's life is also full of memories that ground and justify the shape of your own life. Who she is is part of who you are.>Baby Cakesfuck
>>42566286Well, there's the not-your-babies implication, but that's kind of ignored, which is basically the answer in that case. That, or abandon. Put up or shut up. Pick one. He picks fatherhood.Repeatedly, pinkie incorrectly interfaces with the babies and is frustrated. She makes noise in the hospital, is impatient while the kids are being changed, and doesn't know she needs to burp them. There's a tiny amount of "identity" theme here, in that she's trying to initially find a place in their lives, but that's not the same as the episodes so far. This is an introduction, and so it seems like it belongs more in the previous season than this one, but she's in the authoritative position instead of the youth position and the people she's getting to know are babies. As an adult, she's trying carefully not to fuck everything up, and the infinite benevolence of the babies won't rescue her from any real mistake she might make.Twilight arrives halfway trhough the episode and says she thought pinkie might need help. Pinkie gets prideful about it instantly and pushes twilight out, meaning that pinkie has defined part of her self worth by her ability to complete this task, which is the exact mistake of 90% of the other episodes, just from a fresh perspective. At this point in adulthood, it really does matter if you're capable or not, though you could always just accept your inability. Those are the two acceptable actions: put up or shut up.Pinkie chooses to force compliance through strict demands with no feedback, which appears to work momentarily, but doesn't. The tighter she attempts to hold the kids, the stronger they resist and the more she gets hurt for her efforts. Pinkie breaks down and bawls, and the kids stop what they are doing and dump flower on themselves to make her feel better. This is... insane if taken directly as a lesson we are supposed to learn. It's not completely metaphorically wrong, but it is still depending on the benevolence of babies while refusing help from twilight.In her letter to celestia, she directly says she wasn't actually ready, so we can interpret this as a total failure on her part if we wish. However, the babies still say her name, and so show some affection for her, and that causes her to agree to try again.So, we can take that as the less-magical version of "babies suddenly caring about your feelings and doing something for you," which is not reasonable to expect. Instead, the thing which gets you through your frustration at your own failure is your own value of those babies and/or their affection they return to you.This one seems thematically strange now, in terms of its place in this season, but it may make more sense after looking at the rest of the season.
>>42566343>The Last RoundupAj is so crushed by pride and shame that she runs away after failing a competition and not living up to her self-image. Her friends have to come basically force her to be truthful, and then they go home, despite the lack of prize-money, because nobody actually cared about the money. >The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000While less direly tied to identity than most of S2, it still is tied directly to pride based on skill, and so isn't far from the last roundup. Also, dash is driven to eat dirt for cider. In the end, the main reason the flimflam brothers leave is that public opinion shifts against them, which means that your actual quality of output and level of responsability DOES matter when people don't like you, or else you're just fucked if people don't already like you for you.Applejacks's note is ALWAYS worth mentioning, particularly now.> I wanted to share my thoughts with you. [clears throat] I didn't learn anythin'! Ha! I was right all along! If you take your time to do things the right way, your work will speak for itself. Sure I could tell you I learned something about how my friends are always there to help me, and I can count on them no matter what, but truth is, I knew that already too.It approaches perfection, aside from the arrogance. Patience has been reinforced over and over and over. The possitve version of the lesson of "best night ever" is that you've always got your bonds to fall back on, and can rest your mind on that to maintain the calm needed to act with care and purpose, or patience. Any number of mistakes may be forgiven when you're what mattersYet, there also is the flaw. She fucked up, and then said she learned nothing. She changed nothing. When one makes a mistake, they should learn how to avoid it, or at least get a little closer to learning that. There is, here, a hint of stagnation, and this is supposed to be a mare nation.
>>42541716This thread's gone to shit.
>>42566433Don't worry, after I'm done briefly mentioning all 221 epsidoes and putting forward a theory as to the narrative of every season, I'll give the thread back.
>>42566426>Read it and weepOn top of pretending not to like what she likes, rainbow dash is also clearly self-inserting as daring do, in the way which we all do. She admits it, eventually. Simple. There may be something to say about the relationship between the irl audience and these dumb ponies, about how we live better by admitting our enjoyments, and define ourselves in relation to purple smart, but not much. It's just been awhile since the show touched on the meta narrative directly.>hears and hooves dayThey drink potions that force them to become different people for a bit. Paired with the next episode, it draws a very clear line between playing matchmaker, which is bad I guess, and bringing to lovers together, which is good I guess.>a friend in deedOpens with pinkie entertaining the kids, hinting that this episode is about more competently attempting the adult role of the binary as defined above. Sure enough, she immediately shows detailed knowledge of many characters and uses that knowledge to improve their lives. It's not the "searching for your place" of the first season. It's not the "just force it" which failed over and over. Her own identity is already fairly secure. All she's doing here is showing off, and cranky doodle donkey is just another challenge she WILL figure out. And she does.Notably, pinkie retreats to get advice from multiple friends at once, which may be the first scene like that. and is a pretty direct expression of best night ever's lesson.Successful attempts involve asking questions and listening to the answer, so long as we ignore that he says he wants her to go away... which I think he doesn't technically say until the end. When she acts against that, she brings matilda with her, which I think is enough to qualify for the exception from party of one, and without having to assault anyone.So, this episode is like stare master, in that it is more about a character perfectly representing the philosophy that has been displayed so far in practice, more than a character really learning. This is also s2e18, where that was s1e17
>>42566458>putting your hoof downNo matter how you cut it, this degree of shyness is about being seen. It doesn't exist where there are no other people. Maybe it isn't always about "how others see you," but it is about public appearance. In this case, there's clearly a difference between how she sees herself and how she is, and she eventually excersizes enough self control to be better, by finding a functional middle point between how she once was and how she behaved without inhibition.>it's about timeLiterally a character fails to recognize themselves properly and experiences existential dread until realizing everything was fine. >dragon questTeen goes to his genetic people to learn about himself and discoveres that his real home made him who he is.>hurricane fluttershyNot that different from putting your hoof down. Flying seems to require not just commitment and awareness, but calm cofort in your own skin. While she doesn't necessarily get that far, she figures out how to fly as a performance.>ponyville confidentialPublic perception is turned into a weapon, or really is just abused with total apathy. While perception has been tied into identity in the last few episodes, this is less personal of an angle. It's like they took all of the personal attention which pinkie mastered in 'a friend in deed' and used it for personal gain instead of keeping it secret and using it only for the good of that person. They also form an actual secret identity, and that identity is soon hated for its works. If taken as part of the adult side of the coin, this can be a limit placed on being nosy, even when people willingly answer your questions. Is solved by honestly publishing their mistakes. >MMMystery on the Friendship Express"End of the season. Pinkie is explicitly given an important task, a responsibility. She gets assistance from her friends immediately.While she's very modivated, she doesn't seem to place her self-worth on the task. Determining the identity of the cake-thief isn't quite the same kind of identity-issue from early in the season. Halfway through the epsisode, pinkei and twilight switch hats and roles, meaning that pinkie's methods failed. Pinkie's method was to assume it was each competitor and then come up with a method they could have used. Twilight's method was to interview pinkie for information and observe objects for physical evidence. Twilight's version worked. The lesson's pretty clear, and while the identity theming is present, it's not really primary. This is just a strict mystery, and it hamers home the way to avoid the mistake of assumption which exists in basically every episode prior. it says it directly: bother to actually ask and pay attention, and adjust your ideas accordingly instead of being stubborn. And if you can't, then make twilight do it. That's fine.
>>42566515>a canterlot weddingI have SO much to say about a canterlot wedding, but this isn't a canterlot wedding review. It's a season 2 review inside of a whole-series review. So, what SHOULD I say here? Should I point out that twilight isn't who we thought she was? Should I point out that shining's bride isn't who twilight thought she was? Should I point out that said bride then turned out to be a different person AGAIN, this time a bug? Should I point out that changelings are shapeshifters in general? Should I point out that celestia gave up on twilight and misunderstood her? Should I point out that every character is taking the adult position and bending over backwards for fake cadence while exercising an abundance of patience and witholding their assumptions?No, I should keep it narrow.In general, most characters exercise every part of every lesson up until this point. Twilight isn't, by the end, wrong or making assumptions. She has gathered more information than others and seen her brother abused with her own eyes. That's not the point of failure in this system.She fails when even her own tiny circle finally fails as a sanctuary. She's found the limit, the point at which they won't chase her down and bring her back. She's left screaming in rage in the dark, hardly a trace of herself left. And then, cadence reaches out a hoof.Metaphorically, this appears to make no sense. If this is "the dark savage place people go when they are isolated and lose their identity", then why would cadence be here?Well, we don't know chrysalis yet. We know "fake cadence." From our perspective, there are two potential cadences, and this can be taken more directly, metaphorically. When you hear that someone has gotten romantically involved with your loved one, the obvious worry is "ok well is this person fucking terrible or not???" You're wondering what attitude they are bringing into your family. Maybe they are a possessive freak driven by instinct who's infesting your lives like a parasite and controlling people through force and other physical persuasion. Maybe they are cool. Cadence is cool. Bug-queen is a freakAfter this meeting in the cave, twilight and cadence emerge and cadence takes her place by her new husband. In other words, the effect of this meeting is that cadence replaces chrysalis in the real world and chrysalis is ejected from existence, nearly. So, this meeting took place in the heart. Cadence chooses to appeal to twilight using the nostalgic "ladybug" dance, meaning that it is cadence who chooses to reach out and appeal to twilight, just like twilight reached out to her friends using the friendship letters in s2e2. We have moved to the opposite side of the arrangement. What we did for others, someone has done for us, and that's what it really took to save cadence. To save cadence, we had to let cadence choose to save us insteadAnd in doing that, she became the real cadence, and we regained our reputation as the real twilight
>>42566286>>Baby Cakes>fuckKek. Seems like a lot of people usually gloss over this one in favor of MMDW when talking about shitty episodes.>>42566426>Yet, there also is the flaw. She fucked up, and then said she learned nothing. She changed nothing. When one makes a mistake, they should learn how to avoid it, or at least get a little closer to learning that. There is, here, a hint of stagnation, and this is supposed to be a mare nation.I think you're being a little overly dramatic here. Every character had an episode where they were right and didn't learn any thing. In fact, AJ was the last pony of the mane 6 to receive such an episode. Difference between her and the rest of them is that they had their episodes in season 1, where they weren't the ones writing the letter, and in subsequent seasons, where there were no more letters. AJ actually has the least amount of "I was right" episodes compared to everyone else, as this is basically her first and only episode of that nature. If this is supposed to be evidence of stagnation, then the other characters are all far more stagnant, and have been since season 1.Plus, what exactly is her grievous fuck up here she needed to learn from anyway? She isn't the one that bet the farm stupidly, granny did that. Applejack was pretty sensible the whole way through.
>>42566619"there is a flaw" is not an extreme statement. "She fucked up", while more vulgar, is also not that impactful of a claim. "There is a hint of" is the far opposite of overly dramatic, it's a downplay."grievous" is exactly dramatic, for effect. That's what it is. That's the point.Anyway, I was mostly running on the assumption that if one makes no mistakes, then they generally don't end up in extremely stupid situations like this, particularly in moral-based kids cartoons. >on rewatching the episodeAj makes two mistakes, basically, which are both one mistake, in essense.While her family huddles to discuss their next move, her only contribution is "I don't know" and "we've done it like this till now", which are inactive and uncertain responses. When Applebloom and grannie are busy getting trolled and baited by flim and flam until they accept an unfavorable challenge, initially grannie attempts to keep applebloom calm. AJ does not do the same favor for grannie, or attempt to. She, instead, sweats a lot and looks worried. She is consumed with uncertainty and unwilling to move off of tradition or take any action which will alter the course of things. What happens, she just lets happen.More importantly, she and her family are simply failing as suppliers. There are enough apples that the apple family parts with whole sections of the orchard for free. By the end of the episode, on account of the competition, there's more than enough barrels to sell some to everyone. The sales of cider represent enough money that apparently the business would be doomed without them, and the apples can make a significant change in the supply just by trying a bit harder, and simply don't want to, and won't ask for help without strange circumstances, and won't hire a guy to run on a treadmill. These would be changes, they would have to be made proactively under normal circumstances in order to adapt to the demand for their supply. They don't.Aj's version of tradition at this time IS stagnation, fear and unwillingness to grapple with the slightest hint of uncertainty, to the point where they could have rightfully lost an effective monopoly. Even going forward, there are changes to their buisness model they should make, and they won't.Grievous, minor, it doesn't matter. There's a business mistake which pretends to be a traditionalist philosophy mistake, but is actually an emotional weakness, and she doesn't fix it, or account for it. She embraces it, and then chooses to write the queen about it.
>>42566619When pinkie was in the right, in swarm, pinkie WAS in the right. She didn't make a mistake. She didn't spend the whole episode making up for the mistake. She cleaned up the messes of others. Pinkie did the bailing. It would be better if she communicated more clearly, but nobody was interested, she may be neurologically incapable, and most importantly she didn't need their help. She legitimately had this handled, just as well as it could be handled, even with others making it worse.And lastly, if I should accept that the thematic tendency towards resting on the good will of others has at this point lead to AJ's current willingness to cling to her traditions, then the stagnation which is currently just a hint DOES flow through every episode by implication, and is exactly equivalent to knowing that one is loved enough to be forgiven for whatever goes wrongIt would be an unfortunate conclusion, but thankfully would only be a retroactive change in meaning not fully represented in earlier episodes.>fuckmmdw is fun, a good time, plenty enjoyable. The ending is just a slap. It's objectionable, somewhat disgusting.Babycakes, meanwhile, is just loud. It's just.... so loud and dumb and misses a lot of what makes the show good by only having one intelligent character on screen for the most part, and having that character be pinkie. I like pinkie, just, maybe I don't like it when she acts in a way poorly designed to entertain a baby. But, it isn't disgusting.They are totally unrelated kinds of bad.
>>42566433>implying it wasn';t at the start
>>42566746>pinkie WAS in the right. She didn't make a mistake.She wasn't though. She spent the entire episode refusing to explain her intentions even when the other characters asked her. The entire episode would have been over in a few minutes if she had just explained the situation when Twilight asked her to at the beginning.>It would be better if she communicated more clearly, but nobody was interestedThey were interested, she just walked off.Besides that, the thing with the apples is that their production is fine. They can make cider plenty fast, that isn't their bottleneck. The bottleneck in their production is the quality controls they have in place. Realistically, it probably isn't worth the money to hire a bunch of extra ponies to only increase production by a little bit. Her friends can't always be there to provide free labor. The episode does a pretty good job of showing the error in the attitudes of the townsponies. At first, they want more cider, and that's it. There's not enough cider, and they just want more. Flim and Flam then serve as a sort of 'be careful what you wish for' element, as their practices easily produce enough cider for everyone, but a large portion of it is low quality and no where near what the ponies actually want to drink. Everyone can always work harder for something, you can always put in more effort, so I just find it a bit unrealistic to say the apples just need to work harder and provide more product that, frankly, is a luxury. Cider isn't a vital product, the town ponies aren't owed cider, it isn't really the Apple's responsibility to make sure there's tons of cider for everyone to have.
>>42568308Here's the dialogue btw. Pinkie was asked and had an opportunity to explain, and she refused. The whole episode happens the way id does because she didn't stop to explain the situation to Twilight when she asked her what a parasprite was right here. That is an error on her part.
>>42566433Might just make new threads on different analysisfag topics. I ain't reading all that and it's cluttering everything up.
>>42568308>and most importantly, she didn't need their helpThe rest, fine, sure.>harderWhile "they could" appeals to infinite possibilities and would be meaningless on my part, the issue here is "they did" and we saw it make a significant difference instantly.>moreIn less than 30 minutes they duplicated their production line. Quality control is, currently, an old woman, and her skill, also, is duplicated by rarity within 2 minutes of learning or less.>it isn't the apples responsibilityIt is exactly that. They took competition to be a threat. Both the apples and the flimflams had sufficient greed to squabble over exclusive rights to sell in ponyville. The fact they desire that monopoly and depend on it means they have a responsibility to maintain it, and that means keeping that market cornered, for their own selfish sake. Economically, they are showing a weakness which created this conflict. Sure, they aren't slaves, but that doesn't make all their free actions good ideas.You can say the town is retarded, and that's true. They shouldn't be giving the right of production away without direct agreements constituting contracts. It should be more like village bread makers back in the day, where not doing your job would piss off like everyone, and your job was made pretty clear and objective.The difference which makes the apples better than flimflam, is that when the pressure came and they had to produce faster, flim and flam sacrificed quality, and the apples didn't, because the apples cared about the quality of what they were selling. That's the good thing which the apples believed in, and which they did not have to learn a lesson about.
>>42568359There's not shit to clutter, nobody else is posting, basically.
>>42566594So season 1 had characters repeatedly being wrong and learning the limitations of the kinds of assumptions which could be justified. Similarly, the characters themselves were created and clarified, given their defined personalities in the first place. It involved the creation of and discovery of these characters and their surrounding world, and ended on a movement from a benevolent environment into a new and apathetic environment which they could not handle yet. Season 2 has characters directly confronting versions of themselves and dealing with tasks which were far less forgiving of failure. In moving from the "benevolent" to the "real", they were perpetually stressed to the point that it tested and bent their sense of self. (AJ, despite her passivity, DID completely resist this primary challenge which the season presented to everyone) What season 1 constructed, season 2 deconstructed, and hopefully made a bit stronger. Also, twilight and pinkie litterally exchanging hats repeatedly while pinkie gets better at being a detective is a pretty direct visual metaphor.Season 3 is weird, cause it is short. The opener is about negativity. The end has twilight use the bonds between her friends to remind them what their jobs are supposed to be, which feels now like a repeat of the identity-vs-nostalgia ideas of season 2. Somewhere between, there must be some connective tissue
>>42543145What do you guys think of HIM, his review style compared to others? I think The Beast's style is very direct and simple. He doesn't go full metaphor and he only goes full technical when he says "scene by scene analysis". Also it really goes to show how interested the fandom is in understanding a little kids show better or improving their own discussion over TV Shows which is zero. He said he's reviewing other shows too.https://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/42559907https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/150263796
internet shat itself for hours and now I'm sleepyso, first day missed
>>42569369>crystal empire3 things of note. The m5 distracting the crystal ponies with a fake heart DID work, just not forever.Twilight and spike at the fear-door both failed to overcome it They just woke eachother up and then twilight magic-ed the door away. Twilight won by letting spike take the heart without her, and accepting that she would therefore fail celestia's test.So.. what the fuck does this mean?Accepting help from a friend to overcome your own neurotic nonsense seems to fit with the prior lessons about nostalgia and memory, but just without any nostalgia or memories involved. It's rainbow using force in party of one, except we didn't need to drag the characters off to see proof of anything. In isolation it's the simplistic thing in the world, but in the context of this show it seems lacking. Perhaps that's the point? I could say that the characters are being given the chance to willingly choose their reactions, instead of being forced, but if that were the case then twilght would have broken out of the illusion alone.The crystal ponies are being turned from their depressive state by the likeness of the crystal heart, but not the real one. However, the problem isn't fully solved until the real one shows up. Where does this fit into the previous narratives? What's a fake reminder? What would a fake friendship-scroll be? What's a real friendship-scroll, then?When twilight let spike take the heart, that required that she looked directly into the face of her fears and accepted that they would certainly come to pass. She didn't actually make a choice of self-sacrifice, because she had no option to succeed on the terms celestia gave her. She lost. Her victory was in salvaging what good she could from the situation in spite of being upset. She was trapped by her fears again, and she simply lived in the fears, which is a completely different answer from the door answer earlier.Why was it required that cadence showed up with a real artifact? Why are we suddenly focusing on authenticity in direct opposition to sincerity? Isn't the power in you all along? Taken as a depressive episode suffered by the whole kingdom, why would authenticity OR sincerity solve this problem? Interpreted that way, suddenly twilight's answer fits much better, in that she just lived within the "depression" and made reasonable choices within that framework, but the metaphor is exactly backwards for the crystal ponies, who lived in total denial of the problems until someone else arrived with the solution.In the literary tradition of the holy grail, the kingdom becomes sick when the king becomes sick, and is cured when the king is cured. The king is cured when the correct words are spoken to him, and those correct words generally represent in some way a philosophical counterpoint to the narrative ill which the work primarily discusses. The grail then appears as the kingdom is healed, and so represents hat fictional country's bright future.
>>42572742So, what would it mean that twilight supplied the answer "simply accept the depression" and everyone in the kingdom implemented this answer by becoming not-depressed. You could squint super-hard and say that the crystal ponies implemented this answer by finding out that the heart they were using was fake, but that wasn't their choice and did not help solve the problem, instead making everything worse.Given all this, we can say that twilight's confrontation with the door was a sample and she used an incomplete answer. It's purpose was maybe to define very clearly what her fear was so that it would be easily recognised as the very thing she accepts later. While twilight and spike are initially able to rescue each other from unhappy thoughts through a simple nudge, twilight makes the decision to accept and engage in unhappy thoughts while sparing spike and everyone else.And on top of that, the ponies mistake cadence for "the crystal princess", who's long dead by now, and so their princess is still sincere instead of authentic, while the heart is both. The messaging is horrendously confused, and that is also true for celestia. Because celestia wanted to test twilight for "some reason", she suddenly commands twilight to save the empire basically alone. This wasn't a mistake. It wasn't a clever ploy, or at least that is never stated Celestia legitimately said that dumb shit and then walked it back later when she realized that twilight had done the right thing.It's an episode about a hypocrisy, and the great sadness which twilight accepts, she learns was false. In return, she instead learns that celestia is wrong. This is the moment when she proved she was worthy to rule, and that worthiness came with the knowledge that those in charge are frauds. With that in mind, the storyline with the crystal ponies can be taken as them getting a glimpse at the same truth, and then reinstating the myth of authority. Note that the heart appeared before them at the same time as a heroic and somewhat theatrical cadence. The mythical artifact symbol which channels the joy of the masses into a productive output is equated to the worship of the elite, to the idea of a noble noble.
>>42572776>Too Many Pinkie PiesWhile the identity-issues are strong here, there is a much greater focus on pinkie being sad while losing access to the smiles she needs for her mental state, which follows well from the somber sombra episode. Twilight also doesn't really interact and instead decides which pinkie is real, hopefully correctly. It's fucked, but also makes sense as an expression of the acceptance of the judgment of ignorant authority by the masses. In that framework, it really wouldn't matter if twilight was actually right, because she's defined as right.>One Bad AppleCmc specifically avoid involving applejack when babs bullies them, but AJ still manages to mention that babs was a victim of bullying back home. It's not nearly the heavy-handed application of asymmetrical authority in the prior 3 episodes, but it is a display of what happens when that authority is removed for a time. The second to last thing babs does is promise AJ that she will talk to her own authority figures back home, and the last thing she does is use the threat of Diamond+Silver's mothers in order to intimidate them into a mud puddle.>Magic DuelTrixie gets mind-controlled and given powerful magic. At first, this doesn't seem to involve the prior themes of this season, but it does.Second scene is twilight levitating all of fluttershy's current mid-sized animal friends in synchronized sky-swimming while fluttershy worries. If these were actual animals, they wouldn't probably be fans of this, but they love it. It's a direct followup to "boast busters", which was about being a braggart. This one is instead about power and its abuse, or corruptive influence. Twilight initially tells Trixie "Stop picking on my friends," which follows from babs action at the end of the prior episode. Zacora: "It's an abuse of power."Seems pretty clear.This is a fight between twilight and a foil, and so is like a canterlot wedding, in that these are two potential version of "a very powerful local unicorn in a position of authority." Trixie, the corrupt version, is imagined as holding everyone in a giant glass bowl (always a fence, every time) and forcing them to pull an intentionally inefficient carriage, while using only her own power for anything she cares about. Twilight gets help on account of people actually liking her. The noble version of power and authority wins.Zacora tells twilight to ignore the voice in her head telling her that something is wrong with trixie, since it prevents the kind of focus zacora is attempting to teach twilight in this one-scene training arc.
>>42572967Fluttershy breaks out and tells twilight what twilight might have figured out on her own. Zacora says that twilight finished her lessons, but whatever improvement this may have represented never shows itself in any provable way. The only training scene we saw, twilight failed. So how are we to interpret this? Is zacora another authority which was wrong and had nothing to offer twilight other than a nudge in the right direction, or did twilight learn some degree of balance and self control which she immediately uses in the following magic duel?Well, twilight immediately lies and tells trixie that zacora gave her a more powerful amulet, meaning that the immediate use of the idea of zacora's training is a red herring. So, it's a red herring. By extension, celestia is a red herring. By extension, the creative direction of hasbro and the writers is a red herring, if you'll remember the metanarrative from episode 1.>Sleepless in PonyvilleScootaloo is consumed by her fears, same as crystal empire. The coming of princess luna helps convince her to be honest with rainbow and thus turn raimbow from a source of anxiety into comfort. At one point scoot falsely identifies the snoring of rainbow as the sound of "the headless horse". Another way to say that is that this episode is solved by submitting to authority, and prolonged when authority is ejected from scoots'es dream space. The fear we see is mostly direct fear from sharp stimuli, like sudden noises while scoots is on the edge of awareness. She gets spooked like a horse does, which is at least neat. The solution is to express her fear of rejection by rainbow dash. That kind of fear is distinct from the kind she's been actively experiencing, but the episode does everything it can to equate them. In the first nightmare, scotaloo makes one attempt to get help from rainbow, who is replaced with a monster jumpscare. In the terms laid out by the show so far, Scotaloo lacks a place to fall back on, lacks an inner circle. That inner circle is now being equated with authority and it's stabilizing presence. The plot and themes are not interested in the details of how and why, and even suggests through implication that a failure on the part of authority is actually a failure by the followers, which they have the responsibility to fix.It's cute seeing scoots get a "sister", rainbow is just kind of ass as a sister.
>>42573081To be clear: are you claiming that somebody put these themes in here, or is it a "let's give this SNR pisspot a whipping and see what possibly pareidolic nonsense comes out" kind of an exercise? Because the gap between these widened abruptly.And where can I read this version of the grail story?
>>42573115https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_King>The Fisher King is both the protector and physical embodiment of his lands, but a wound renders him impotent and his kingdom barrenA wound to the king renders the kingdom barren. While that part didn't exactly happen this time, shining did get injured on his "horn".If you need an example, runescape. If you need a better one, pick an book featuring the character and there's a good chance of most of the details lining up mostly. Art is transformative, so don't expect 100%.>Ok but are the theme's REAL?If I burn it, is it firewood?Depends on which exact theme you're asking about. Obviously I can't read the mind of a person from the past. That isn't how reading works. Instead, I have to make my case by reading the work and then pointing at the things which line up.Often times, a writer won't intend to put specific themes in a story, but will instead just try to make a story that feels right. When their instincts lead them to repeat ideas, iterate, make points, and eventually construct a narrative, was it intentional or not?What about when one author makes a theme and another author misunderstands that theme and accidentally makes a fucked up statement with themes they intentionally included? Does that count?Listen, I claim that all themes I so much as hint at are cannon until such a time as a specific theme should be questioned, at which point that one theme is debatable, because they all are, and I'll probably try to support it if I can. I ain't god. So tell me what specific small bit you're not sold on.
>>42573081>Wonderbolts AcademyThere's a lot about authority here. This is the one where lightning dust is overly competitive and then gets punished because a random hot air balloon invaded the airspace designated for high-danger sky magic, and for being a bitch in general.In direct terms, rainbow makes a bunch of accusations and quits, and spitfire chases her down, punishes lightning without investigation, and un-fires rainbow. It's some shit. Taken as part of this season, it is an example of the lesser (rainbow/scoots) bringing their problem to the leader (spitfire/rainbow) and the issue immediately being solved through total support This is just the other side of that described dynamic and follows directly from the fraudulent nature of authority shown in the premier which is still being treated as legitimate.>Apple Family ReunionAj puts on a more convincing rendition of being "in charge" (that's a quote from grannie)She tries her heart out and ends up planning so many activities that even the games become tiring marathons of efficiency without the time to talk or relax and the food prep becomes an assembly line. Strangely, the catastrophe is a poorly thought out rainbow-bat display during a wagon ride, which did not happen on account of rushing other people. This destroyed the barn. Everyone honestly tells AJ what she did wrong by overworking them, and she immediately suggests they build a new barn in an hour or two so they can take a commemorative photograph. This is.. somehow a solution. We just have to assume she stopped being so pushy about it and everything worked out and/or that their whole extended family is really fucking practiced at this and enjoys it.Take it as a baby-step improvement of the prior episode, with AJ in spitfire's place.
>>42573232>Spike at Your Serviceoh god no please. You can't make me. I'll have procrastinated by the time I post this, you'll see.anyway,> Spike: Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.> Twilight Sparkle: Huh. That's not that many."Twilight sparkle had 12 books. That's as many as 2 sixes, and that's terrible."> Spike: Are you kidding? How are you supposed to read twelve books in one weekend?> Twilight Sparkle: Princess Celestia obviously thinks I can or she would never have assigned them to me. I'm not planning on letting her down.Never before has a character so directly stated the assumption they have been working with since the beginning, and it takes this form. Even after directly learning of celestia's failings, she still believes that anything with the touch of celestia must be correct. The other half of that assumption, that received benevolence requires repayment, is the whole mistake spike spends the episode making, while being tolerated, despite making a huge mess and not listening to AJ.This is a massive step backwords, essentially to the beginning, in terms of theming. However, we are given AJ's perspective in terms of framing. We do not empathize with spike as a PoV character. We instead know constantly that he's fucking up for no reason and we're just patiently waiting for him to stop.There's a "joke" at rainbows expense where she mentions a book idea where the main character is just herself fr fr, which I think is notable enough to note for the implications.Spike escalates his unhelpful help. Rainbow gives him a task he was meant to fail, which he completes.AJ makes a plan to stage a timerwolf attack and pretend to get her hoof stuck in some rocks, so that spike can "save her life" and so repay his debt. This is similar to rainbow's problem in "may the best pet win", where Rainbow got trapped under a rock and "Tank" freed her. A real timberwolf shows up and AJ gets really trapped, and really rescued. So, we have a gesture designed to alleviate anxiety which fails due to being fake and is replaced with a more authentic gesture. Spike directly questions the fake gesture and so learns that all his servitude caused AJ to seek danger, which is why he requests that they actually try to avoid putting themselves in danger. He has seen that his need to pay his imagined debts so aggressively has caused harm.In the last scene, he still goes home and expresses affection mixed with aggressive enthusiasm for helping twilight, who he actually can help, so it is unclear that he learned the lesson fully.
Keep up the good work. I wish I could live from this. Well no not really, with how perfectionist and idealistic I am I wish I could have a worthy title/job that's less Trey Parker/Hollywood and more: this guy invented the fridge, washing machine, electricity, computer, this guy saved gaming/cartoons/music, this guy deserves to live and to be remembered after death. If I ever earned a lot of money from something bad I'd be obsessed with making something good to prove I'm not talentless nor retarded.Also when I needed it most back in 2011-2012 there was no place where to discuss at this level unless we're talking fanfics. So that time of need passed for me.
>>42574530this
>keep calm and flutter onRarity: Fluttershy's detainedgoodSo today the big dumb boy we're tolerating is discord. It's a task direct from celestia. She specifically singles out fluttershy.> Spike: Uh, w-w-we probably need a volunteer to run away from here right away to get them. I'll do it!> Princess Celestia: No need, Spike. I have them right here, and I've cast a spell so Discord can't take them and hide them again. Bitch, what? You can what?Fluttershy and AJ are confronting a beaver for flooding the orchard. Fluttershy makes AJ apologize for calling the beaver a "nuisance", which it is. It's a legitimate catastrophe at this time, actually. It is utterly unreasonable to be mad about being called a nuance, as long as it isn't used as a description of yourself as a person. Point being, AJ offers the most empty possible apology "I apologize." and the beaver opens the dam. It's unclear if AJ or the beaver are supposed to be reflections of discord in this scenario, so far.Later, discord mind-controls the beavers into making a larger dam and flooding the orchard properly. At the same time, he's contributing to a dinner-party at fluttershy's house where the inanimate objects take offense to comments and assault the other 5 ponies. Fluttershy ignores the candles pummeling rainbow, and is annoyed that her friends legitimately have no intention to treat discord like a person and only intend to convince fluttershy to blast him with the elements again as quickly as possible. After we draw attention to discord's direct control of the beavers, it is therefore implied that the actions of the candles and gravy pots were, at least, his responsibility and treated as extensions of his will, even if that may not be literally true.Clearly she's behaving as a mediator in the earlier beaver situation and the later discord situation, so the equivalents should be fluttershy = fluttershy, beaver = discord, and AJ = everyone else, but that doesn't work. Fluttershy doesn't force everyone to apologize to discord just for him to cooperate with attitude, unless you want to stretch and say that un-stoning him was like the appology. Discord does undo the harm he caused, and so is still a good candidate for the beaver-role, but didn't get an apology from anyone at all. He did ultimately get his mind changed because fluttershy told him they were friends, but that would mean that fluttershy was in AJ's position as the "one who said the magic words". However, discord was ultimatly convinced by the withholding of those words, not the saying, and fluttershy did not initially perpetuate the conflict by refusing to be polite, that's her friends.Once more, the message is horrendously confused, if examined only on its own terms using this lens.
>>42574067 fuck>>42575792Instead, apply the lens used in the crystal empire.Flutters, AJ, and the beaver display an earlier and flawed version of the conflict, and not a direct example of the philosophy which will be tested and reflected later.Instead of the normal rules, this is more like the fear-door, where we're seeing the starting position of the characters which they will overcome.Discord's cooperation cannot be assumed, and for good reason. He's legitimately defending himself from brainwashing and a hateful mob. The beaver had no real beef other than losing some productivity. He's at least neutral, if grumpy. Discord is not their friend, and he's not theirs. He has no benevolence, and they have none for him. The rules which allow a simple apology to end the conflict do not apply.Why does the beaver care if AJ bends enough to offer an empty apology? Well, if the beaver can extract an apology, it can get a read for the degree of respect that AJ has for its personhood. That's partially false, but is at least true enough for the beaver.Meanwhile, what discord ultimately wants is personhood, here in the form of a friend. Fluttershy promises not to use violence against him, but then stubbornly refuses to be friends with him until he unfucks the orchard. You could say that he's the one apologizing and fluttershy is the one allowing the desired "flow" of friendship/water to occur, but mostly that direct comparison just still doesn't function.Taken as a correction instead of an equation, it's more like if AJ didn't apologize, still managed to communicate that the beaver is a person with rights instead of "just" a nuisance, and the beaver apologized for causing the problem in the first place before making his dams someplace useful. So dam = discord's magic, then, which is also funny as he's a demonic figure and that means his magic is a damnation, at least for the purposes of this pun.
>>42541716You are aware it has been 15 years since applicable relevance yes? You needn't think so deep on the matter especially considering you're at the very least, in your 30's OP.
>>42575799>Just for SidekicksExceedingly simple plot. Feels like an Aesop, but not one that I know of.Spike eats his own cake ingredients, and so fails to make his cake. To fix this, he gets the m6 to pay him in gems to watch their pets while they go to the crystal empire. He fails to bake his cake because the animals take his attention. Particularly, angel bunny runs away near instantly.Angel bunny makes it to the cmc treehouse, and he convinces the cmc to watch the animals for 1 gem, which doesn't last long enough. He pays zacora for help and only gets unhelpful advice. He pays grannie to keep his failures secret. He pays a conductor for a ticket after angel bunny sneaks onboard a train. He pays for food stolen by the animals. He uses his last gem as a projectile to prevent the nearby m6 ponies from finding out he ended up in the crystal empire with all their pets. Angel bunny threatens to kick the bottom of the ponie's seats in the train on the way home, and relents when spike appologisesl, instead returning the gem which spike threw earlier. Finally, spike eats the last gem and fails to make his cake.The obvious phrase is "have your cake and eat it to", in that spike ate his cake-parts and so failed to actually have his cake. He also sold his time and so failed to actually make his cake using that time, since you cannot sell your time and have it to. His apology to angel is misplaced. Sure, he didn't do what he promised but he didn't have the time to properly neglect angel bunny. Angel legitimately wanted to hang out with the cmc instead of spike, so that wasn't an issue. At best, he could be apologizing for his intent. Taken with the prior episode in mind, and other examples like "family reunion" the apology is treated as a moment of connection between spike and the bunny. Given an actual connection with the implication of personhood, the bunny was satisfied. This also involved spike simply accepting his fears would come to pass, which can be related to the fear-door, and to fluttershy's decision to let discord be free.Anyway, he's clearly in a position of authority trying to wrangle a bunch of irrational fools.
>>42576021>games ponies playThis is the fake harshwhinny one. While "Peach Bottom" is not actually the inspector, they end up passing due to their treatment of peachbottom, meaning it didn't matter that the inspector was fake, or that they never formed a personal connection with her, though I suppose peachbottom does. Also, while spike's heart was in the wrong place but he ultimately did his job, the m6 heart were in the right place and the did zero percent of their job.In the first scene, rainbow has a short flashback of a traumatic memory where an official reads an announcement with no embellishment or emotion from a paper. In response, filly-rainbow yells "no". In the same scene, pinkie yells "no" for poor reasons. As spike yelled "why" multiple times last episode with similar framing, this action now becomes some kind of symbol and/or theme from sheer repetition.> Rainbow Dash: She was probably testing us to see if we could remain in control of a complex situation. Looks like we passed. Bump– > Fluttershy: –cha!(they hoof-bump)Peach has clostraphobia and is attempting to get outside, but rainbow keeps misinterpreting it and finding excuses to keep peach inside and distracted. Eventually, rainbow pulls a bowl off her head, which is the last contribution the girls personally make to Peach's vacation. Rainbow physically freed her from her fears through light contact (and a separate bit of slapstick).Twilight learns a little breathing exercise from cadence and uses it repeatedly, and so is now able to regulate herself more fully instead of needing spike to be there to wake her up from her fears. Once they realize they still need to find harshwhinny, pinkie suggests that they don't need to check the spa, since there would be no way to fix the situation in that worst-case scenario. The ponies then accept that the worst fear must already have occurred, and head directly to that spa, yet another accepted fear guiding the characters to the correct answer.Once there:> Rainbow Dash: When I was a little filly, I wanted so badly for Cloudsdale to win the Equestria Games. But it didn't happen. So I thought I could make up for that disappointment by helping the Crystal Empire win the chance to host the Games. But it looks like I ruined your chances instead.Stop talking. I literally laughed while telling her stupid ass to stop talking. Nobody cares. Your backstory hardly matters right now and didn't help here and there's no reason for cadence to know this. Structurally, according to the themes of the season, this SHOULD be the answer, as rainbow is admitting her mistakes to the princess in charge, but there's no logical reason why it would be in this case.
>>42576148None the less, immediately after that confession the real harshwhinny stands up and says she talked to peach bottom and the empire passed inspection.There's one other "no" scream by pinkie, earlier, followed immediately by a "yes" scream, as pinkie was again simply answer the question asked with too much dramatic flair. In other words, the emotionality behind pinkie is not sincere or authentic, but is necessary for the flow of the episode, serves the purpose. Rainbow's is sincere and authentic, but doesn't help directly, but still leads into the episode's end just the same. Peach bottom isn't an inspector. Harshwhinny is wrong when she implies that peachbottom offered a pure review of the true experience of the crystal empire. None of it matters.There's some inability to take the concerns of people seriously which sits right along messaging about forming a close enough connection to really understand people and maintain their personhood. There's a dehumanizing exceptional division between those who get to know the hidden truth and carry great burdens right next to repeated solutions based on clear two-way communication and understanding. There's a riddle here, and I know god damn well that the finale puts it on a pedestal for us.
>>42576150>magical mystery cureUtter fucking nonsense from the first moment. We don't get to know what's happening until twlilight gets a flashback, which is after we've already seen her friends being weird. The chaos, then, can only be intentional, but in-media-res also saves a bit of time in an overstuffed episode, so even that can't be taken for granted.There's so fucking much to talk about, so many angles to cover, so many little things you can get by covering every nook and cranny, but that's been true this whole time. If you line up every scene by a minor character, you get one result. If you line up every scene by a writer, you get another. I haven't mentioned once the voice acting of a single person, or the quality of the dialogue at different times, and so I won't be able to substantiate it when we get to the point where every episode has an exposition dump in the first few minutes instead of a little moment of life which will be interrupted by the new plot. I haven't mentioned faces, or the little pony bodies which have claimed a chunk of the part of my brain responsible for reading emotions from gestures, or the animation tricks and shortcomings which change over time. Always, there's another rock to look under, another depth which can be searched to find the deep things.And you never find the deep things if you don't look in the depths, anon. >42575878 So I'll miss a lot, but that's what it takes if I want to help. That's what it takes to really get to know something, or someone. That's the cost if I would like to know what i'm talking about, for when I someday, maybe, try again, and present these ideas in a consice, direct way more designed for others to consume. Such a project doesn't actually require proving my point in every single episode, but this is needed to know that my point actually applies before I say it.So, the themes of the series.Twilight is clearly singled out as a single exception, possibly in the universe, but clearly in this dynamic. She's given the knowledge of what the ponies were, and so what they could be, while everyone else only sees what they are. In effect, she sees their potential, sees a better world. This better world takes the form of each pony doing a job which they are better at, and so being more efficient in terms of labor as a group. She takes frauds, neither genuine or sincere, and rearranges them. The ponies aren't just missing their memories, but are fundamentally different people with different histories. So, when twilight asks fluttershy to come do rainbow's job and fluttershy agrees, her motive is that she wishes to lessen the burden of labor which rainbow holds, and the dopamine she gets for success is defined by this lessening of burden.
>>42576491 Specialization, as a human practice, allows for less labor overall to provide more output and less frustration, but only based on the current shape of human society. If requisite labor is not completed, then specialization creates zero productivity.As such, your personhood is defined by your place in society, and your place in society is defined by your ability to lessen the burden of others. This is what fluttershy is united with, and this is what twilight uses to string fluttershy along. This is the logic which defines relation, and so this is friendship. In grasping that fundamental truth, twilight could manipulate it, reshape it, and so improve society by altering the individuals within it as she sees fit.In her lowest moment, spike says it should be fine because "they're your friends", and that's all twilight needs as inspiration, meaning that this fact of identity contains the information twilight needs. It is framed here as the solution, and so the tiny phrase "they are your friends" must lead to the conclusion "and so they can be returned to their rightful configuration", meaning that "being" who they are and friends IS that they will accept their correct places in society for eachother's sake, and they do.In this way, twilight, who is not recognized and so can't be authentic as a leader, forces people who are NOT the people she knows to become the people she knows. She CREATES authenticity and sincerity where it otherwise would not exist, with a bunch of frauds as ingredients. This ability IS "being a princess", or being in charge, or knowing the underlying truth and the difference between right and wrong.So she's a princess, and she becomes an alicorn. She didn't ask her friends if they wanted to change, and celestia didn't ask her if she wanted to change, and that's right, because the alicorn is in charge, and you're a dumb little follower, and everyone dies if we aren't made to act efficiently.>season 3This was weird for a lot of reasons, not just because it's short. The way it approaches lessons is fundamentally different, and the plots are fundamentally different in their structure as a result. Characters do not begin by expressing the lesson in-miniature and end by expressing it in a more fleshed-out plot. Nobody says outright what the lesson was. Instead, the plots are fundamentally transformative, about change. Things start in one shape, and end in another, and not just by absorbing the little nugget of home-town wisdom which was already there.There are 13 episodes. That's crystal empire: about twilight sparklecrystal empire2: about twilight sparkletoo many pinkie pies: pinkieone bad apple: cmcmagic duel: twilightsleepless in ponyville: scotaloowonderbotls academy: rainbowapple family reunion: AJspike at your service: spikekeep calm and flutter on: fluttershyjust for sidekicks: spikegames ponies play: m6, minor focus on rainbowmagical mystery cure: twilight and m6
>>42576541That's 4/13 episodes for spike and the cmc, no episode for rarity, and 2 real group episodes. They still appear often in episodes not focusing on them, but have become more solitary, by comparison. In particular, there's less of twilight shoving her nose into everything.After season 1 created them, and season 2 deconstructed them, season 3 simply uses them.Season 3 talks about leadership in terms of a burden, and of fakes and replacements who become the real thing by appearing to be. Rainbow outright says that writers tend to write about themselves, even without realizing it. It's slightly embarrased. It's a season without the same direction which lead it previously. The training wheels are gone. The artists must slot themselves into this system, form themselves around their roles, become the new leaders and workers in charge. They will be changed by the pressures put on them. The show, which started simply, is transformed. The episodes start with simple ideas, which are transformed into new ideas by each episode end, rather than simply absorbed.Spike seeks an impossibility, to have his gems and his gem-cake, but he can't do both. In the labor to create his cake, he cannot preserve his gems. In the effort to create season 3, they could not hold on to seasons1 and 2. Twilight could not hold onto her friends, as they were, and also have them as she knew they could be. AJ could not fill her reunion with activities, and still have moments. We are ingredients. We are transformed. There is no such thing as corruption, or being a fake, and don't worry about it. And when you are corrupted and changed, you'll be changed into what you should be, and what you already where.In season 1, interface with the world is difficult and you can always fall back to your circle when you fail and try again.In season 2, that inner circle and those inner worlds fail, and have to be remade from the base ingredients of memory and willingness to try, and so depend more on the inner world and the possibility of an inner circle than the reality of one.In season 3, that circle is eventually envisioned in the cadence breathing-exercise, in which twilight discovers that she "isn't worried" much to her shock, because she has full faith in her friends to do their part. Her anxieties don't have to be fought, because she is dealing in knowledge instead of hope. She gets to deal in knowledge because she has looked under the hood and seen the limitations, the flaws, the worst case scenarios, and so knows when they apply and need to be accounted for, and when they don't. She becomes a self-starting engine, with no or minimal need for reminders before she finishes her little cry and figures out how to be productive.And so we don't deal with the line between manipulation and cooperation, between real and fake, because, at least so far, there isn't one. There's only convincing and not-convincing, and McCarthy hopes she was convincing, if not in those terms.
>>42575792>Bitch, what? You can what?Y'know, the spell that keeps anyone from messing with the EoH. Like the one that stopped anyone from messing with them prior to Return of Harmony... oh, right, yeah, whoops. I don't personally believe that Celestia suddenly powered up enough to find a way around chaos magic. Rather, I think this line was a concession to the surprisingly significant number of viewers who failed to grasp why Discord didn't simply delete the Elements when he had the chance in RoH (if we also ignore the fact that their bearers are meant to be able to access their power regardless of the status of the physical relic/toy accessory, but that detail was dropped as soon as it was introduced, so... whatever). He wants to do things in the most personally entertaining, self-gratifying way possible, even when the stakes are high, so while he very well could have won by default, he chose to try and beat the ponies at their own game, instead. This principle applies to his scheme in KCaFO nearly as much as it does in RoH, so I think Celestia's line is only there to pre-empt those Reddit-tier, missing-the-point 'why didn't the hobbits just fly into Mordor' types of questions from people who weren't paying enough attention.Of course, there's no precedent for exposition lying to the viewer in this show, so everything I just said is basically headcanon.
I wouldn't have noticed any connection to the overall themes since I wouldn't be actively looking for them and I'd be much more focused on things I can react to, since my reviews are all over the place instead of focusing on 1 thing or at least trying to make connections all over the place. Which is a welcome addition and finally a unique opinion.My style of review is much more realistic and on point by focusing on the entertainment and interesting executions scene by scene rather than attributing anything to aesops despite this world being inhabited by unicorns and pegasi, because in this one Pegasus doesn't exist, he's many and mount olympus gets repurposed into Cloudsdale which makes me lose my patience with something more distilled than Disney's pop entertainment take on Greek fables. Yeah finally a reviewer who at least specializes in something and has the patience for it. Thing about anonimity is just that, nobody there to recognize you forever, no name attached to it beyond one of many, this person, these people are unique by these posts and defined by these posts alone rather than these videos and this personality. Sadly 4chan also isn't a multimedia website, it's mostly a text and imageboard, no vocaroo, no video. This generation is obsessed with TikToks, meaning requirement for video editing to get them to repeat after you your messsages.
>>42541716>>42541936I'm sure this has all been said before but I think a big part of how the show lost a lot of its identity after S1 is how it fundamentally changed the way that magic worked. The whole message behind the pilot two-parter is 'the magic was inside you all along', the EoH themselves are really just rocks and destroying them means nothing. The mcguffins didn't matter, what mattered were the lessons learned along the way. And then the S2 opener is another hunt for those same mcguffins, and they use the mcguffins to beat the baddy. Granted, they do have a good message of how memories of your accomplishments can fight off self-doubt/depression, and it's made clear that it's the strength of the M6 that win the day... but they still can't beat Discord without possessing the physical EoH, which is a direct contradiction to S1. As time goes on, there's far more of a focus towards mcguffins. The crystal heart. Starswirl's book. The tree of harmony and its mystery box. Chrysalis's anti-magic throne. The artifacts of the pillars of harmony. Grogar's bell. It moved magic away from being a fundamentally unknowable force with no limits and towards the realm of quantifiable power levels and mcguffins being required for specific payoffs.And to be clear, this isn't a bad thing at all when you're creating a story. I don't even think I'd agree that S1 is better than S2 as a whole. But it does seem to deviate from what FiM was designed to be. The habit of making each season ender a big high-stakes adventure two-parter also fucked with the feel a lot. It all starts to feel like the characters are incidental to the plot and the magic system, rather than the other way around. It seems to contradict episodes like Boast Busters or Dragonshy, which are very explicit about how power level doesn't matter nearly as much as the emotional state of the characters, and that the real conflict of the show should always be internal. I don't think the future seasons completely abandoned that idea, but they certainly didn't stick to it very closely either.
"Different" chefs, same meal, indeed. Unfortunately there's a masterchef there too. Same meal being "The ponies are assholes now, they're depressive angry pathetic parodies of themselves. There's basically no difference between the Mane6 and Gilda or Trixie." >What are the splitting hair differences between each season?Aside from the themes, fancy new macguffin, etc. which anon pointed out expertly out of S3 ...S2,S3,S4 go through a transition where S4 feels like S9 IF S4 were diarrhea fire.S2We tease going to Tartarus, we don't actually go inside it. We tease the Timberwolves in a flashback. We tease a Christmas episode once again with windigos barely appearing for 20 seconds. No 2 ponies being paired up, we instead pair them up with OCs ah I mean one-shot characters.We tease the Wonderbolts through proxy by Hurricane FluttershyDaring Do is in a bookWe get Luna... she yells and is depressed at the same time somehow.S3We "introduce" a new location called Crystal Empire, no changelings tho.We actually get timberwolves and even a giant timberwolf.Discord's magical constructs and beavers are related to the plot and he stays on screen for 90% of the episode.We actually get the Wonderbolts, but it's in training.It's Trixie and she's evil as opposed to just being a Diamond Tiara. (feels like a S5+ episode already)Luna but she no longers yells nor is depressed leaving us with no personality.S4Nightmare Moon flashback ... which delivers no new information about what actually happened.Back to the royal old sister castle only to forget about it.Power Ponies as opposed to Mysterious Mare Do WellDaring Do is realFluttershy gets turned into a vampireWeird AlIt's Rarity and she's got evil green magic.Equestria Games/Crystal Empire/Cadence+Shining ArmourTirek+DiscordWe kinda get some pairing episodes.S5+More locationsWoW more cutie mark rape starring GlimmerNow we force the mane6 to go on adventures and misadventures in pairs of 2.I'll be honest I didn't pay as much attention to S5+ it kinda turns into a blurAnd beyond...S2 teases you with the concepts, but they still stay slice of life or just out of reach in flashback episodes or offscreen.S3 starts to kinda introduce more insane ideas like alicorn amulets and a redeemed Discord while still not quite there yet since it's in transition.S4 finished the transition and I keep mistaking it for S5 despite there being a ... cutie mark map. a cutie map..It starts putting in a lot more adventure episodes and extravagant fantasy ideas like artefacts in it while ironically not feeling adventurous at all since there's no journey, the journey and struggle is always skipped with no character-driven actions and no story either.It's "different" in a very superficial way. Here have another unfitting meal allegory... actually no while I was writing it it sounded dumb.
>>42578166>There's basically no difference between the Mane6 and Gilda or Trixie."Ehh, to be fair, was there ever substantial difference between characters like RD and them anyway? Boast Busters even goes out of its way to show RD having the same attitude they were disliking in Trixie, and she starts heckling Trixie specifically to get the heat off her back. Some of these characters were always assholes. If anything, future seasons actually reigned them in more in some ways. RD's jackassery was ignored and she was let off the hook way more in season 1 than it was in subsequent seasons. Future seasons actually did punish her for being an asshole.
>>42578166If you want a truly different show ... if you want something with the same characters, but that actually feels different then you unfortunately have to watch Pony Life. It feels nothing like S2-S9. It feels like Littlest Pet Shop mixed with Teen Titans GO. It feels like Tell Your Tale mixed with Teen Titans GO. It feels like Teen Titans GO mixed with a baby show like MLP G3 and G3.5 , we can't beat around the bush.Seasons 2 through 9 ...It's made by the same people, even Mike Vogel himself admitted S8 Chrysalis' episode is copied all the way from season 2 Return of Harmony.The guidelines even for S6-S9 as shown by the leaks shows Lesson Zero as Twilight's defacto episode as opposed to Mare In The Moon 1 and The Elements of Harmony 2 or Bridle Gossip. MA Larson himself said "Here have a script where they're not assholes." "No thank you, we're writing them as assholes."Only time Twilight was ever "neurotic" was for 2 gag scenes that lasted 5 to 10 seconds... Bird In A Hoof and Swarm of the Century ... and Feeling Pinkie Keen counts as rage rather than insanity. This isn't Ned Flanderising, this is swapping Homer Simpson with Ned Flanders and saying Ned Flanders was always married to Marge AND THEN flanderising Ned further, this is what it actually is.This isn't jumping the shark ... oh no ... this is eating the shark. So what's the difference and similarity between S2-S9? Same exact base, same starting point that being S2. And then setting the shit and diarrhea on fire. THE PEAK the absolute peak of that diarrhea on fire was S9's premiere+finale and The Movie , where it's 100 million dollars of "Let's sing a song so we skip the pirates, the hippogriffs, let's also skip the desert, the swamp, just skip it." and then you wake up that when Twilight gets captured by Tempest there's still about 40% of the movie left and it still feels rushed because nothing was accomplished. There was no final fight with the Storm King. Tempest didn't betray him like she should have, a lot of missed beats.The Movie feels like a S4 episode where you actually go on an adventure instead of teasing it, BUT , it's horribly executed through the worst cinema sin possible: skipping content, offscreen, nothing happening, refusing to perform, the actor falling asleep.I remember some /co/ quotes way back then which /mlp/ mistakingly kept copy-pasting without context. "Higher highs and lower lows" referring to shit vs diarrhea; May The Best Pet Win vs Mysterious Mare Do Well. No, S2 episodes between each other feel exactly the same. It's not like Rick and Morty Season 3-8 where you wake up with some good episodes inbetween the really garbage ones. Or wake up with a random S1 tier episode in S3, because unlike Faust, Roiland was still a writer on the show through S3,S4 before he jumped to only voice actor for S5+ before being forcefully thrown out.It's not like you're watching S6 and Tell Your Tale & Pony Life get accidentally mixed in.
>>42578199Assume we changed the cooks (which they didn't) we still have to follow the formula which says Twilight is an anal-retentive neurotic unicorn and nowhere does it say "smart" or "avatar of the viewer" or "sane level-headed one".Assume we changed the formula, but it's still the same cooks. You get Frenemies.Assume we changed the cooks(not really), but not the formula. You get Equestria Girls I shit you not.Assume we changed the cooks and the formula (while the formula & the cooks are still breathing down your neck): You get Sparkle's Seven.Assume we finally address Larson's concern about "Why can't you just stop writing them like assholes"? We get ... Sounds of Silence .. which is just The Crystal Empire 2-parter remade under a different context, BUT WITH A TWIST.Apparently they actually discussed "Alright guys this is a newcomer voice actor which we actually respect for some ungodly reason despite how unfunny she is ... this time let's not write her character like an asshole" Larson:"Hey ... how about you do that for every episode and actually give all those brains and "allowed to be fun and get away with shit" from Glimmer & Discord & Spitfire to the Mane6 instead?" ... "Shut up, Larson. Anyway Sounds of Silence, fellow executives and newcomer voice actor for just 1 episode"If Pinkie Pie was written like Autumn Blaze then people wouldn't have a problem with Pinkie Pie. As much ...If every secondary character was written like Autumn Blaze then people wouldn't have a problem with secondary characters... as much. You feel free to give your own opinion on Autumn Blaze's personality if it's written worth a damn.So Autumn Blaze, a puny one-shot character was written with her own song, helping solve the plot, rescue the main character, not be depressive like the other backgrounders ... because the executives ALL decided to write her the opposite of how they normally write the Mane6 ... it wasn't a mistake. They actually admitted to writing the Mane6 like assholes and various other characters.And here's another extremely rare of rare instances , a single instance where Fluttershy is written similar to her S1 personality and even different and improved. She's much more confident and calm in this one as opposed to anxious and shy. Or yelling, angry and cruel like S2+ kept writing her as cause apparently a 10 second joke from S1 is an entire characterization to them.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPdSbklW_5I&ab_channel=Letupita725HD%E2%98%85
>What's the difference between S1 and S2+ ? It's the same damn archetypes.Same difference between S2+ and Pony Life. It's an entirely different execution. Different dialogue, voice ACTING, humour, level of IQ, different emotions being used, etc. Just like comparing the voice actors' performance from G3 to G4. It's the same damn actors, but the execution is 180.The arguing in Look Before You Sleep feels different from the arguing in S2+ , it's still arguing, but it's exactly like comparing Fall Weather Friends to Non Compete Clause.>So what's S2+ missing from S1?Besides the entire execution from humour, dialogue, voice acting, IQ, emotions, etc...Character individuality with each being given a scene of their own.Positivity. S2 opens with everyone being mind controlled into Emo Peter Parkers and it kinda sticks true through Hearth's Warming Eve & The Last RoundupMonsters lasting more than 10 seconds like in S2. Monsters like the Dragon, Ursa Minor+Major being handled more seriously as opposed to Cerberus that seems to have 0 intelligence.All mane6 being allowed in an episode or at least pairs instead of everyone being paired with an OC like Cranky Doodle Donkey, Fancy Pants, Baby Cakes, etc. where in Baby Cakes Twilight Sparkle literally gets thrown out by Pinkie Pie, similar to Bird In A Hoof if Fluttershy had thrown Twilight out.Flying sequences for Rainbow Dash being storyboarded and animated by somebody competent who isn't just sliding her from point A to point B.Dream sequences showing said Rainbow Dash sequences or fun what if scenarios like Celestia being taken away by parasprites, Fluttershy being locked in a cage in the everfree, each Mane5 fantasizing about what they'll do at the gala in Ticket Master. Each Mane5 dreaming what Rarity is doing in A Dog & Pony Show. Each mane6 getting a fashion show in Suited For Success/Dress For Failure.Twilight Sparkle having more than a Star Trek lazer spell to deal with a giant bear.Assholes like Trixie & Gilda, Diamond Tiara, Pegasus bullies being told to take a hike instead of accepting their bullshit; Glimmer, Discord, Maud Pie, Luna, Mud Briar, Moondancer, the list goes on.Understanding basic messages like "the power was within you all along, you didn't need the rock" which a jew doesn't understand.Understanding how cutie mark works which the jew doesn't understand.FITTING world design such as Cloudsdale, Canterlot, weather ponies, winter wrap up, falling of the leaves, summersun celebration, the everfree forest, not literally "Tartarus" and "Cerberus" and "Changelings" which for some retarded reason feed on love, but they're fully grown changelings, not babies replacing fillies with changelings in a cuckoo bird scenario like changelings originally do. And those stupid zap apples.Adventure episodes like Dragonshy actually feel like journey-styled episodes.A LOT MORE DIALOGUE.A better pacing.BNE VS Sweet & Elite. Accidentally retarded -> purposefully retarded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V38i8ISifd4&ab_channel=BreadBoysI found S2 unique and interesting in a The Room kind of way because of stuff like the changelings because of how they expertly monkey paw and fuck things up through a mixture of ignorance, incompetence and malice.>Hey you know the legendary changeling monsters who feed on love? we added them to MLPOh that's kinda harsh on the baby ponies and ... where are the baby changelings? Why are these fully grown ass changelings? WHY DO THEY LOOK LIKE KELPIES? THEY LOOK LIKE KELPIES. What's the actual Kelpie going to look like?And the best which not the even fandom missed: Lovebug: I don't believe in love ... which I just used 5 minutes ago saying Shining Armour's for Cadence was powerful enough to defeat Celestia...https://youtu.be/5gM4WixYLrs?t=2190But for some retarded reason they included this detail all the way from season 1 in Canterlot Wedding. Makes you think they added that line on purpose to give people an aneurysm from stupidity and goldfish memory.Pinkie Pie: [humming]Twilight Sparkle: Hm... Itchy nose...Pinkie Pie: [gasp]Twilight Sparkle: Aha! That makes no sense. See? She's hiding like something's about to fall from the sky, but a twitchy tail means something's gonna fall from the sky, not an itchy nose. *swarm of bees appear*Another amazing blunder only this show could possibly do:https://youtu.be/-tnXN5cnbas?t=2452I've never even in my life seen these kinds of lapses in logic in cartoon shows from the 90s and 2000s no matter how dumb... maybe from the 2010s. Star Butterfly not knowing how to stop a bike while riding on said bike was unadultered retardation. Albeit that was done for the sake of entertainment, while MLP's retardation is done for the sake of ... doing nothing? ending an episode sooner? somehow excusing why the character is allowing them to power up despite this never being a problem in any show previously and people instead accepting that just fine?
>>42578458I see you've been stimulated. While nobody else was posting, it was fine for me to post infinitely long post chains. Now that you're also here, the task of filtering between our posts while scrolling represents an undo burden on any reader.I won't say to put on your name, but put on a name, and consider posting (continued) at the end of your posts until you're done for the day. Ideally, we would post "(#/#)", but I'm dealing in too much information for that and you... probably can't.
>>42578528Well I'm finished for now. My inspiration comes and goes abruptly.
>>42579008Yes, but sort of. I'm reviewing them in the way one reviews a manual or a spreadsheet, scraping them for data. What I'm mainly doing is producing an analysis of each season, and choosing to doublecheck every episode as I go along. A "review" tends to be a complete once-over and description of the plot and feel of a product, and this is a less detailed project than that on the episode-level. For my purposes, I often have to be that detailed anyway, which many of these actually do get fairly comprehensive reviews.So, yes. That is in fact what I am doing.
>>42578710Bonus roundAs is noted often, the twiggles-wings are clearly corporate mandates or at least appeare as such. Celestia did that by intent, but twilight worked under her direction without question and would never have done anything else. Originally, celestia was representative of the artists and creators and twilight was the show itself and sometimes an audience PoV. She is now functioning as a director, ascended above the ponies and above finding her own place. She's not us anymore, or at least not as much. We, as the audience, have also learned everything she's learned and experienced everything she's experienced, but constantly this season we see things from the viewpoint of others. I made special mention of her use in "showstoppers" where she was made to patiently watch the cmc run off to be silly somewhere else. In that moment, we also knew, and had known the whole time, that the cmc couldn't really be helped.Now, she's more likely to be blasting pinkie while we, with great alarm, fail to empathize with her. In the very last scene, when she's a princess, we have no idea how she feels about it, and we argued about what it would mean for her and the show for years, even after the season 4 premiere. Rainbow confesses to cadence about her feelings from her very pointless trauma and accomplishes nothing in "games ponies play." I made note that it's really unclear what the point of that was, but one has formed. What we see right in front of us is actually clear. She gets ignored. Her feelings don't matter. This moment, this fuckup which they committed and she worked the hardest to screw up fruther, isn't about her. Cadence doesn't say a word to her and there's no clearer way to say "This isn't about you", Rainbow, you bitch.This isn't about you, or me, or forming a connection between the artist and the audience, or the royal scholar and the hicks. This isn't about twilight as we know her and her special place. This isn't about spike and his cake. This isn't about AJ's pride and overacheivment. This isn't about Ms harshwhinny's rather bad day. A thousand pinkie pies ruining the town's peace and quiet is not about pinkie pie or her feelings, or her right to exist, or twilight's test directly from celestia.THAT's the theme, taken simply and found pure and unzipped straight across the peaks and corners of this season, appearing fresh and smooth and simple like a newborn, and it's a message directly from mcarthy to mecarthy, with a side-dish of "you can fuck off too, we all can." This is the attidude with which the team rose to the challenge.But me? I feel like I fuckin' nailed it, instead.
I Quoted the wrong post.>>42576622 prior post>>42579874 current post... nailed it
>>42579879 / >>42579874>season 4Starts with some plants and ends with jack in the box. Need I say more?Structurally it pretends at being so simple that I can describe it perfectly without anyone knowing which of hundreds of shows I'm talking about. A mcguffin collects symbols of particular triumphs collected during the adventures of heros in a magical kingdom, and once it is satisfied by the stockpile of answered philosophical questions, it unfolds to offer the heros salvation from an otherwise surmountable challenge. That's almost every simple adventure ever to occur. That's the m6 collecting allies in the movie. That's harry slowly destroying each horcruxes. That's every tournament anime. That's a knight slowly collecting the right inspirations so that he can say the right word to the fisher king and solve everything. It's even the structure of a 5 paragraph essay.But, it's a full-sized season, and there's only 6 key-holes in the box. Further, season 3 intentionally dabbled in intentional incoherence and the refusal to allow the audience to understand what is happening. As I vaugly recall, tirek was in the right, should have won, at least on the terms of the finale. So, while I'll humor it, there's a good chance that such a direct reading would miss the full point. I smell a bait-and-switch.>Princess twilight sparkleIt's the title. It's the gaping uncertainty the previous season took so much care to create and maintain when it was blowing it's load early for fear of losing its contract, and we're gonna smack right into it without a hint of grace.First thing we see is rainbow instructing her to fly above the ground, and then twilight smacks right into it without a hint of grace. Her mistake was even "trying to hard".They then call her "princess" and tell her to act like one and dress like one while she expresses that she would like to not lose her friends in exchange for 5 formal subjects, strangers you might say, kind of like magical mystery cure.Next scene> Rarity: It's everypony's dream to someday wear a crown and have their coronation ceremony preserved in stained glass for all to see. [sighs]> Rainbow Dash: I don't know if it's *everypony's* dream.Considering that mcarthy once said it was every little girl's dream to be a princess, we're now directly connecting the author's expressed public opinions to the narrative conflict of the show they were in charge of making. It is also once again rainbow who's being used to reinforce such a connection. We approach a point where the characters simply behave as moth pieces for an argument the author is having with themselves, but we're not there yet.If someone could post a pic of the tweet where she said that, so I could know what date that occurred on, that would be peachy.Twilght's friends bail while bragging about the fun they will have in ponyville, without her.
>>42580012Spike quickly checks a bunch of things off of a simple checklist and brags about being ahead of schedual, which feels like the plot congratulating itself on covering the connection between last season and now and setting up the plot very quickly, and maybe foreshadowing of the above-mentioned simple season-structure if you want to stretch.Twilight makes an uncertain landing when the simplicity of the completed list calms her, and then begins flying without noticing when she starts imaging catastrophes. This means that the wings and the wing-side of her are now coded as being the catastrophizing part of her. Perhaps this means her "transformation" was more like "becoming aware" of her wings, which would answer the contradiction in the prior season where people were manipulated into "changing to become" who they "always were". It fits with knowledge being a burden and characters gaining power by simply accepting the truth of their fears, so this reinforces that general idea and gives it a more concise form, if I'm right.Short scene where celestia talks about the summer sun celebration basically just being a reminder that she banished her sister. She also uses the word "transformation" to describe what was done to luna, and so she retroactively paints the events of the first episode using the theming created in the third season. So, the celebration is given a retroactive meaning to celestia at the same time as the current luna is labeled as the "true:" luna and the first two seasons are retroactively altered to follow the current season's. This is a straightforward set of thematically similar events and a masterclass in getting your scent all over the project you've taken charge of.Immediately, celestia and luna are quietly claimed by the insidious tentacles of the plundervines, and so there's an implication that Mcarthy is representing her own influence which she just expressed in the form of these vines.The sky breaks. It is night and it is day at the same time. The celebration is a reminder of celestia's betrayal and luna's return at the same time. Faust's seasons are a complete package at the same time as they are a part of mcarthy's. It's a very direct symbol.
>>42580085You'll notice, because I'll tell you, that I am only 7 minutes in to a 2-parter, and already about 2 posts deep.Every single thing these characters say reads as a direct commentarry on the thematic trends up until that point. In the prior season, I was absolutely thirsty for a shred of a hint as to what the events meant. I had to paint actions and characters as being responses to events which were, in terms of causality, unrelated. In the first two seasons, the themes were direct enough that characters didn't have to give any hints, and the point of an episode was laid out clearly at the end anyway. There was plenty of space for the characters to simply breath, just be. I am now downing in narrative, being waterboarded, force fed. Mcarthy is an untamed stallion, a wild word-slinging bastard, an energetic animated Escher, and she's fucking with us.The next moments are twilight staring into the two-truths sky while a random mare loudly asks "What does it mean???!!!!"It's so fucking on the nose that I cannot take the bait any longer, and also, I don't need to. This isn't an episode review, it's a series review, and all that matters is that I confirm that my ideas are supported, and take note of what may challenge those ideas. Plundervines start cursing ponyville.Rarity and sweetie's magic power is turned against them in the form of disobedient telekinesis, effectively animating object to attack them.Twilight is reminded to use her wings to get to Ponyville, reinforcing the connection between facing your anxiety and facing the actual problems, or using your fear as a tool.For just a moment, the themes quiet down a bit. Twilight equips the elements, thinks for a moment, and knows just what to do. She's in charge and has the answers, unites her heart and her reason, puts a name to the sky, and I squint. She walks outside and summons discord. It feels like the show, normal, just banter. He babbles. He's full of shit, and he drops a little hint, and I put together the obvious. Mcarthy is a duplicitous bastard, just the same, but here implies they can't resist dangling the answer right in front of us. So, that's the two sides of this season. On one side, the direct and explicit to the point of numbing your mind, on the other side the truth stated plainly in a way you're manipulated into ignoring. God I love discord.Zacora explicitly names the sky and promises an understanding of its contradiction. The blessing given by the alicorn potion is knowledge, which is the direct meaning, but also luna appears to be talking to twilight for a moment. Based on what we've got so far, it should be the case that this is more than a joke, maybe more than twilight facing the worst possibility. It is, in objective terms, luna telling twilight that she would not give up her power and let twilight have any glory. While that's a misunderstanding, it is still an extra interpretation which has retroactively re-painted the events as they occurred.
>>42580249Twilight dodges chunks of the ceiling when NMM blasts a hold in it. Twilight experiences these events as if they were real and currently happening, and so all of twilight's responses are real, and her main response to the loss of celestia is to just sit there and sob. The appearance of the elements (which are representative of her friends) snap her out of it and she realizes she's in the past.Current-discord can't help but draw attention to his empty popcorn snack-bag, seconds after we saw him eating unpopped seeds from a different stack bag in the past.The m6 learn about the tree of harmony and enter the forest to find it. The m5 then send twilight back, based on her being politically important to the functioning of their government at this time. Discord seems actually surprised to see her. She mopes, and then taunts her until she goes back into the forest to act like a hero.She gets knocked out by some kind of gas from a strange face-hugger looking part of the plunder-vines, and her friends have to come rescue her well enough that she can fire off some laser-magic. They accept that they still need their friends, even if equestria needs a princess, and so she can be both. Like the sky, she is both things. This is also now a very large number of times in which twilight was disabled by crying or physically until someone helpped her out.They have to return the elements to the tree so that it maintains enough power to keep the forest in check and push back the plundervines. It seems like it's the same as twilight postponing her transformation into a real princess in favor of continuing her adventures, or at least that's the direct reading. We also have to forget that the elements are representative of the assumption that thes 5 mares are worth anything as characters, and so deep enough to have a real personality and worth. Even in mmc, that they are friends is who they are. Twilight directly argues that the real friendship is still inside them, but that would just mean there's a disconnect between what the symbols are doing and what the actual signified concept is doing. We are essentially directly told to ignore this. We are told it's a choice between being a princess and being a friend, but mmc said that being a princess and being their friend was the same thing, and the symbol used here also says that they are the same thing.
>>42580502Is this the flagrant secret which the episode has promised to wave under our noses? If so, what's it supposed to mean?Discord reveals that he planted the seeds and then just didn't help, thorough he did help actually, outright telling us what the actual point of those flashbacks was, and so retroactively changing them. Remember that the seeds were framed as being and extension of discord's will, like the beavers, but also the vines were framed as the altering influence of the new writing team. Those influences can't be removed. Twilight throws her body into the grasp of the vines and is wrapped up just like celestia and luna, and only in that moment do all the vines disappear. Only once twilight lets herself be fully wrapped in their influence do they stop existing. An alternative read of that is that we now live in the world where those vines have been accepted, They are no longer a pernicious influence, but instead are the the world. After this point, celestia and luna preform a summer sun celebration day-night change, and twilight uses her wings to preform an impromptu feat of speed and color, a completely unexplained and unnamed star-boom, where she flys quickly and projects a huge image of her cutimark during the sun-setting. This is to say, she uses her wings well, and does this immediately after accepting the symbol of the pernicious influence which gave her those wings.Is that the hidden theme, or a regular one? Has some other thing been hidden under my nose which will only become apparent once I've interpreted the whole season? Did I nail it?This time even after all this attention, I don't know.
Who's making too many threads and bumping too many threads?
Are you marepilled?
>>42580508>castle maniaTwilight fails to find information on the lockbox maguffin in her library and implies she would be helpless if the canterlot library has nothing. Celestia suggests she try the everfree castle library. Given the prior episode, this is framed as twilight giving up and receiving outside help again. The library is information from the past, same as the potion, and is full of spiders, a symbol of fear which she outright ignores. Special attention is given to the statue which we saw NNM decapitate last episode, which is still here.AJ and rainbow willingly cover themselves in a different frightful poisonous bug, bees, and have a staring contest, while pinkie mocks the premise, and so mocks the symbols used so far.the m6 and spike enter in separate groups for separate reasons. Twilight's after books and information while spike is following. AJ is making up a dare and rainbow is accepting her challenge. Rarity is looking for inspiration instead of information and wants to restore some tapestries, and fluttershy is following rarity and angel bunny while showing concern. It seems like each of these people should represent an idea which will be further explored in the 6 key episodes, but Spike, AJ, and rainbow are all too similar. Even fluttershy is focused on negativity, through the concern she's showing.In every group, there's one character who is driven to continue and another who is more opposed to their project. The characters don't recognize eachother and suffer from alienation, until twilight comes out and physically restrains them all long enough for everyone to think for a moment.Pinkie has been playing a pipe organ which is connected to the system of traps in the castle, and everyone goes as a group to question her, with twilight physically and metephorically carrying the group. Pinkie had recognized everyone instantly, but was unable to talk to them before they ran off. Her playing was without meaning, and so the actions of the castle, which were previously ascribed with intent, were actually arbitrary and without meaning, and so we an expression of the philosophical absurd.Twilight outright states the direct lesson of the episode:>Twilight Sparkle: Well, it's good to know that whenever your imagination is getting away from you, a good friend can help you rein it in. And she also preformed that lesson, but good friends also were the source of the panic which she solved. Pinkie seems to serve as a direct counterpoint to the direct lesson, almost offering the opposite lesson through implication.
>>42582100She also says that having familiarity with the castle through celestia's diary kept her fear down, and suggest the m6 all keep a journal, which is basically the same as friendship-lessons, except being done for its own sake.This has hints of the extremely common "writers talk about how good stories are.">Daring Don'tThis episode is at least fun, yet I can feel traces of me getting actually upset at the prospect of having to consume it again.If taken as a direct reflection of the writing team's conditions, then rainbow's extreme need for more content to the point where she bothers an author would be a reflection of fans during the season 3-4 break, which I think was long and uncertain, but I don't think this read of the situation is correct, and it wouldn't likely be intended even if it were correct.> Twilight Sparkle: Hmm, I don't know... what she probably wants most of all is respect for her privacy.> Rainbow Dash: She can always just say no.Here we have the characters directly mentioning the obvious counter-point, meaning that the episode is explicitly partially about that. They continue to lightly squabble about this until AK yearling fights some stallions in her daring-do outfit.Caballeron says his motive for stealing the big gold ring was just money and retirement.Despite the fundamental change in what kind of task they are considering doing, twilight has to be argued into treating this as something other than an issue of privacy, and the whole group stands by and does nothing during the fight. You could be super-hyper-generous and say that these ponies are taking the contents of her book (that's where the ring was hidden) and selling it, and so represent the business forces in the life of an author, and so the irl meaning would be that there are ALREADY dickheads inside of the house of your favorite author giving them a hard time, and that's the money-people, and you should help them somehow, and this idea is in direct opposition to the idea of respecting privacy.
>>42582170Rainbow flys off without a plan, and then just spergs out near daring. We clearly see daring lose a fight on account of being distracted by rainbow, for the second time. The m5 catch up as daring is getting dragged back to a pyramid/fortress thing, and convince rainbow to stop crying and try again, now that it apparently matters. Daring twice attempts to carry way to much weight and nearly gets eaten by piranhas and nearly fails to deconstruct the mcguffin -pylon. Rainbow helps her lift her own stone-shacked body and then helps her lift the big golden rings, which somehow destroys the fortress. The direct reading is that daring tends to put to much wait on herself and sometimes people need assistance completing their tasks. Rainbow's stated lesson in the journal is that she needed a reminder so that her hero worship wouldn't cause a lack of confidence in herself so that she could actually contribute. Daring stated that her plan was to get captured so that she could destroy the rings and fortress, meaning that every one of the m6's failures actually helped, retroactively.If we say, instead, that rainbow is acting as a representative of the current writing team, as rainbow has done before, then we could say that daring is the original writing team, and so we just watched the new writing team slowly find their footing in the conflict between management and artists and discover that the more experienced predecessors had a plan all along, and that's nice, but doesn't perfectly fit with the ending. Daring flaps off with her new found freedom, and intends to turn her personal conflict with management into her new book, which is what I'm now accusing the actual writers of doing. The removal of each gold ring and destruction of the pyramid is then another representation of the fundamental unseating of the show as it was originally envisioned, each episode, down to the base. They even used the final potential episode as bait, which would mean that smallest ring was MMC. Issue is, rainbow doesn't write. Faust didn't' help defeat hasbro with her planning. Given the reading suggested here, rainbow contributed only enthusiasm, and started as clearly being an audience representation. So, she would be the enthusiasm of the audience and it's effect in the negotiations to secure a contract for more seasons.But, that contribution doesn't require an invasion of privacy. We only help by being hype, and by interpreting the cartoon after release to complete the process of altering the meaning of the work.So, again, rainbow is both things, and so can't be defined, and all the things around her shift in meaning based on this.The direct meaning is clear and objectionable and gets a section in the journal, an argument between the characters, a visual metaphor in the form of carrying weight together, and a main character getting rewarded for her actions.The indirect message is, I hope, a contradiction to this, and yet the strong symbols I see aren't
>>42582195I see the gold ring of the first episode getting tossed on the ground where it shatters. I see us helping her do it, just the same as I see her helping faust do it. I see this season and this episode arriving by mail as a direct result.But I, while I see this extra layer, right now, the contradiction slips through my grasp. Perhaps the alternative read mostly agrees with the normal read on the things I most want contradicted, which would be unfortunate.>Flight to the finishDash makes special mention of her prior flag-carrying exploits while harshwhinny attempts to keep her "professional" and describe the actual rules of the flag-carrying competition by which the new flag-carriers will be selected. Given the prior episode, foals = new writers, dash = old writers, and harsh = professional people in charge of hiring, and it's really simple and direct, so direct that I can immediately start looking for the alternative read which should be somewhere in here.cmc pick diversity as the focus of their presentation. Diamond tiara, a competitor, targets scoot's disability as a way to discourage her, which smells exactly like office politics. They even pick the word "brave" as their backhanded descriptor. She cries and gives up and has to be picked up by someone else.The routine the cmc puts on is one reflecting the community attitude of ponyville, and is one in which the main part of their display is the use of a pegasus who can't fly. That specifically, the fact she isn't flying, is the thing which makes their act stand out, though this is not directly explained. Rainbow does tell her that flying isn't important, but doesn't go so far as explaining that NOT requiring her to fly is exactly what makes their act such a good representation of their town. Kindness sells, at least as a performance.Perhaps scrappy diversity in the workplace is also performative corporate kindness and that's the double-meaning here. Despite looking the whole time for a decision between the direct message and the quiet message, I didn't find much here. Maybe this is an issue with me, where that particular equivalence seems above mention, less like scoots is representing two separate ideas and more like we're just saying the same thing two different ways.Alternatively, the season is designed to make me jump at shadows and there's really nothing that deep here, sometimes.(done for the night probably)
>>42541716Larson talked about that when interviewed on Equestria Confidential (renamed EquestriaNow, and now since deleted.) He said Lauren would make them stay in the writers room until they could figure out how to turn a clique on its head.
>>42584476Yea, I've seen that episode, it's peak. It was so interesting to find out how episodes were written. I also never put 2 and 2 together that the animators and the writers never met so the animators could just misinterpret the script, and that explains so many confusing things in FiM. Idk why they changed the name tho to equestria now. Also idk why Owen deleted all the videos just like last week or so.
>>42584476It reveals "some" things, but leaves most of it out such as if Mitch Anderson Larson is a writer worth hiring to work by himself or how angry Lauren Faust can get just like her Frankie Foster counterpart. However just like the other interviews it reveals 5% that Faust knew how to kinda guide a production or at best reveals that Larson is very bad at perspectives, revealing himself and working for quality productions or understanding what's happening around his head, he's not good at understanding what's going on around his head. Generalistic stuff such as "Ah yeah there was a direction and Faust did everything" really isn't helping explain anything. The email leaks at least 50% explain that the directors, supervisors are just as retarded as the executives but for some reason it doesn't reveal what the writers and voice actors were doing or how they were being directed.It's not a documentary by any sense of the word.
>>42584664Most of the interviews including from the executives go "Yeah Faust knew what she was doing" which inadvertently makes them say they're all talentless hacks and directionless retards. They kiss her ass but then nobody says why she quit and neither offer to change things so she comes back and give her the reins back 100%. While also refusing to admit responsibility for it. And any responsibility and humility taken is dishonest and double faceted. "We should do something about these problems...(which are totally not caused by me, it's caused by the "higher ups" I'm totally not a higher up, trust me)" , cool how about you fire yourself and hire somebody competent? "Well uhh I still need the money... and there's nobody replace me..." fire yourself "Now let's not get ahead of ourselves.". None of the interviews can count as documentaries when even most documentaries do not reveal a person's behaviour, personality if he's a hypocrite, if he's easy to work with.
bamped
>>42582220>power poniesDraws on a tradition full of intentionally simplistic stories. If checked against S2, comics have alternate identities and behaviors and are nostalgic reminders of how to be your better selves.If checked against S3, heros view themselves as exceptions capable of having greater knowledge and power than others while disregarding the stress this puts on them and, in pretending, become the worthy authority they desire to be.If checked against S4, heroes tend to view their alter-egos not as a temporary stress-indued mental lapses, but as equal versions of themselves, meaning that heros are "both things".I assert that the S1 equivalencies are there, but are a smidge more abstract.However, I see an extra angle. Daring do is also an actual fictional hero. To scoots, rainbow is a hero. Twilight is stepping into the shoes of the other princesses in the premier. All deal with different issues with that process. Scoots focuses on a fundamental difference between her and dash and feels unworthy. Dash is simply completely uncertain on how she can actually help, and her enthusiasm causes failures which causes discouragement. Twilight restricts herself based on her perception of her role, instead of failure or unworthiness, and chooses to keep the heroic part of herself. This angle, where hero worship and it's unhealthy effects are primary themes instead of exclusively expressions of conditions for the creative team, seems more supported than the earlier "both things" interpretation, but castle mania doesn't seem to contain a hero, and focuses only on alienation and a negative image of a monster. There's no reason for it to be out of place like that, as the second episode, particularly since power-ponies is the episode which is the most based on references. Earlier aesop references took greater leeway with thematic and narrative alignment, so it doesn't quite seem right to upturn my whole interpretation of the season based on an interpretation created by a reference-episode which doesn't even account for everything.The ponies are restoring more of the old castle, as a team this time.> Spike: Good old Spike is here, ready to do his part!But nobody wants his help. In a spike review, this would be a continuation form owls-well and eventually lead to his later line, "and that's my fair share", but this isn't that.
>>42586558Spike reads the magic- booby-trapped comic book on, the same pedestal where twilight found the journal of celestia, so that supports the equivalence between the sisters and heros. After the rest get sucked into the book trying to rescue eachother, Pinkie jumps in willingly, so she's being an exception again. Maniac is a mix between the joker and doc oc, two things.All the ponies other than pinkie fail at using their powers in some inconvenient way. Pinkie just gets cupcakes. They figure the powers out shortly after that, and this difference is basically dropped from then on. Pinkie wasn't afraid in the first place, and pinkie didn't have to learn to use her new powers.Fluttershy takes the longest to use her powers, waiting until a small bug is hurt and her power's use is somewhat justified.Maniac loses due to having her "hair power" turned up 1000x, which immediately ties her up and removes her remaining sanity.Spike tries multiple times to avoid being noticed, and is underestimated, meaning that his "power" despite not having an actual power is to go unnoticed. Scoot's power was being a cripple. Rainbow's power in the daring-do episode, legitimately, was to brashly run ahead and fuck everything up without thinking and then to brashly fly into the fortress without a plan again while being able to lift stuff with her normal functional body, which is the same attitude which caused her to show up at daring's house in the first place. It's their flaws that make them work, you might say. Twilight's flaw as a princess, that she willingly puts herself in danger, is also what allowed her to succeed against the plundervines, though the act of surrendering herself placed her in the same position as both the actual princesses, and so that act is still both picking heroism over princess hood and princess hood over heroism. Again, castle mania doesn't fit as well as the others in this framework, and may require more thought or more episodes in order to fit in as well.Lastly, spike did not require encouragement or collapse like a crying bitch like every female main character so far this season, and that's just great, since it's progress. And since it's a bit funny. He thought he was totally worthless and tried anyway.
>>42586712>Bats!Doesn't contain a hero.Also, fluttershy isn't showing a flaw early on, other than not knowing this kind of animal very well. That's not the kind of flaw which is fundamental enough to "make her work", and it certainly doesn't turn out to save the day. Meanwhile, AJ shows plenty of suspicion and accusations about the bats, and that tendency doesn't then save the day. To say that this episode follows the pattern, we have to say that fluttershy's caring is, at least according to the episode, a flaw in the same sense as crippled wings, a princess that acts as a hero, or a broken brain, and we still wouldn't have a hero here.Castle mania was the prior really fear-based episode, and also didn't really contain a hero, at least directly. Twilight was reading the sister's diary and following their instruction, but her hero-worship didn't undercut her self-image at all and served as a source of power. Maybe these episodes belong in a separate category together, if there are more episodes later on to support that idea. Fluttershy argues that letting the bats use part of the orchard would result in spit-out seeds growing more apple trees, but an orchard doesn't generally need or want disorganized random trees and fluttershy is kind of assuming things would work out that way without experience to back it up. However, the episode seems to support the idea, and it is ultimately just an example of what answer she could give, so the answer is at least intended to represent a reasonable answer until the episode says otherwise, even if it isn't actually a good answer.Flutters gets pressured into using her stare to keep the "vampire fruit bats" still long enough for twilight to blast their instincts out of them. Twilight did something simmilar tot he breezies, but this time it works. However, those instincts get transferred to fluttershy, complete with a physical transformation into a fruit vampire, which occurs at night .After running around a dark forest, the other ponies sacrifice AJ's prized giant apple which she was originally attempting to protect from these bats and use mirrors to force Fluttershy to look into her own eyes. The idea is that she would immobilize herself with her own stare, but the stare isn't a passive move normally. It sort of works anyway after three tries, and then twilght blasts her back to normal.AJ does put a bat preserve on her land. She says she saw her short shortsightedness, but we have no idea why. None of the events of the episode should have lead to that conclusion. What we actually see is that getting rid of the fruit bats non-violently is a pain in the ass, and then she thinks better of it. She also lost the first two days of harvest season to pest control, along with an absurd amount of her crop.
>>42587364>None of the events of the episode should have lead to that conclusion.It's worse than that. The episode actively supports AJ's argument, only to declare her wrong at the end anyway. Fluttershy gains the bats' instincts, and she immediately becomes hostile, territorial, and eats all the apples without any capacity to be bargained with. But when the bats' instincts are returned to them, all of a sudden they just... wont act like that? All of Flutterhy's actions as a bat kinda proves AJ right about them, but then the writers decided Fluttershy simply couldn't possibly be wrong, and so everyone just takes her side for no reason. The narrative just declares AJ 'shortsided' for not wanting to go along with Flutter's retarded plan that doesn't actually work, and the episode showed wouldn't work, but we're just expected to accept anyway.This episode is really one of Flutters worst, for me at least.
>>42587364No pony collapses while crying and needs to be picked up. No pony is a hero or undergoes hero worship in any form. However, fluttershy is a lot like discord here, in that she presents "good" advice which is ignored because of an us-vs-them mentality.Fluttershy's stare has always been a tool of shame fueled by righteousness. The solution to her rampage is to just jump her, which is pretty meaningless, but also to force her to look at herself. That's a pretty clear shame symbol. If so, then fluttershy giving herself a dumb look was equivalent to her bawling and then she got "picked up" by twilight shooting her.Fluttershy says she learned not to get peer pressured in the first place, and so avoid these upsetting situations, but the first thing she did was oppose the group and it resulted in her cowering while being circled.The direct lesson we are sold is a nature preserve being chosen instead of obliteration and a pony who threw a tantrum learning to avoid throwing tantrums.What we actually see is an ecological terror campaign successfully inflicting large enough damages that avoiding those damages is worth suffering a pest infestation, and fluttershy learning that she shouldn't have helped the pest control team in the first place, because terror is WAY better. That power is what she carries forward.This offers yet another lens which can be applied to prior episodes.Rainbow learns that rushing in to try to help is good, but then lets daring do go home alone to write.Spike learns he can be useful even if nobody has a use for him in that moment, but then still runs after them while equating "being a part of the team" with "receiving assignments."Scoots learns she don't need to fly, but then buzzes across the country in order to do her presentation.Twilight learns she can act as hero, and then puts herself in a captured ball with the other princesses and makes a spur-of-the-moment contribution to the summer sun celebration display.Castle mania involved fear from alienation, but the solution as given was friends and familiarity. It's true that being familiar with a place and the people there would make them lest scary, but it's also true that the characters already had familiarity with each other, and that didn't save them. It just barely fits this model of contradiction described here, but it does so in a smudged manner. It's like you go on a jog, and bring water, but run out of water, and then say you learned to bring water. It takes mental gymnastics to force that to be a contradiction.Can't wait for the next episode to give me ANOTHER new framework which still applies to every prior episode other than castle-mania. If this is intentional, it's pretty fucking impressive.
Don't die yet, this is still interesting.
Just read this whole thread, I won't say I agree with everything but it's nice to see someone trying to take FiM seriously as a piece of art. Here's hoping we get more.
>Twilight did something similar to the breeziesI mean the parasprites. Twilight removed the parasprites need to eat stuff, and also the bats need to eat stuff.>>42587397>Rarity Takes ManehattanIt must first be said that the moral is to not be a huge bitch, and so the foil in the episode is rarity if she was a huge bitch. Clearly, then, we should all learn to stop being pink like suri and be more like rarity.First thing we see is minor spikeabuse, where he thanklessly gets even more work tossed at him than he expected. Second thing is rarity fanning out 7 tickets to a show in manehattan for her friend group, as a gift. They all get on a train to manehattan for a fasion show rarity is participating in.The tickets are for "hinny of the hills", which a reditor suggests is a reference to "The Maid of the Mountains." However, I don't see any connection between this arbitrarily selected reference and the episode, at least not from the plot synopsis. Rarity says she got those tickets by contributing designs for costumes for that show. Rainbow criticizes the practice of people bursting into song in musicals. Rarity bursts into song about her practice of giving people stuff in the hopes that they will be nice and give her things which she wants.>If some are grouchy, pay no mindshe sings this line while drawing attention to spike, who is just quietly carrying her shit>Surprise instead with something kindAt least she gives him a carrotdog after that.The idea as she shows it seems close to tip-culture, except she's giving gems before she even receives service. While tipping is in America, it seems it started in europe, so I don't know how valid it is to imply that tipping is a practice associated with irl new-york and America, specifically. Rarity seems to say that her practice is particularly effective here. That implies that manehattan is a particularly friendly place, but she specifically mentions that the place has a cold reputation, and so her approach can also be read as a direct counter to new york culture, since hypothetical cartoon newyorkers would be particularly vulnerable to generosity, as they may not receive it often. Given that the show overall uses ponyville as a symbol mixing a hamlet and a small modern town in order to represent the good and personal traits of humanity, manehattan vs the m6 is effectively a culture-class between the mythical smalltown friendliness and the big city. While the smalltown symbol has had 3 seasons to get fleshed out, manhattan is brand new and it's unclear what it represents other than what I can assume based on my own knowledge of new york, as described above.Rarity realizes she's almost late to the fashion show, and then that she's forgotten her dresses. The taxi who's tire they fixed and the doorman who they tipped at their hotel solve each of those problems for rarity, meaning her generosity during the song had a payoff.
>>42587410 should have linked this instead>>42592318The fashion director-thing pony chides rarity for being 20 seconds early instead of 1800, and the ponies in line for a taxi earlier told her to wait in line like everyone else, so the reasoning behind manehattan's argument is basically that these supposedly cold and impersonal systems exist specifically to make sure that everybody gets their fair share of time and resources.Suri lies and pretends to know rarity from a knitting club, or actually knew her, I'm uncertain. She shows affection exactly long enough to get rarity to agree to give her some of the custom fabric she made, and then disappears. Suri appears the next day with dresses using the fabric rarity wanted to show off and treats coco like garbage despite coco doing the labor of actually making the dresses. Rarity handing over the fabric was another example of her being geneours.Look, I would continue, but the ponies outright say what the themes are and that's really, actually, honestly beneath me.>Suri: It takes some small-town fillies a while to learn it's everypony for herself in the big city, m'kay?>Rarity: My generosity has ruined me, I tell you! Ruined! [bawls]Later, in rarity's happy sweatshop:>Rarity: Oh! I see! I go out of my way to get you tickets for a show, and this is how you repay me? >Rarity: Oh, go ahead! See your little show! Congratu-pony-lations, fillies! Sounds like you've all figured out already it's everypony for herself in this town!So she became like suri after a single setback, is the idea.She finishes her new improvised line with exactly enough time, meaning at least there actually wasn't enough spare time to also see the show.Rarity has the first of the rainbow-item moments this season during the fashion show. She sees empty seats where she expects her friends to be, and the velvet rope barrier, which is grey for some reason, shines a rainbow before rarity's eyes also shine as a rainbow. At that moment, she is inspired to stop being as selfish, ungrateful, and manipulative and run out of the show to go find her friends. Turns out they just overslept.The only line we get to hear from the show is:> Hinny of the Hills: [singing] And I'm a dancing pony!>Rainbow Dash: Wow, Applejack. I know your thing is honesty, but come on!>Rainbow Dash: I know. Ponies just bursting into song in random places at the drop of a hat? Who does that? With that, it's a pattern now. Repeatedly, the episode fails to remain earnest in what it is presenting. It's embarrassed, tongue-in-cheek, treating itself as a joke.>Rainbow Dash: I loved it! [beat] Uh, I mean, it was a'ight.Straight insincere, or at least the characters have to be.Rarity is lied to by suri and believes she lost the fashion competition. During the musical, coco shows up with rarity's 1st place prize and says she was inspired to quit working for suri when she saw rarity and her friends being non-bitches. She was made to believe.
>>42592609>>42592318I kinda wish Rarity didn't win the fashion contest. I feel like it diminishes the moral at the end with everything going her way. The whole emotional climax is Rarity deciding her friends are more important to her than winning is, but then she wins anyway and just gets the best of both worlds. She doesn't actually have to sacrifice anything to get what she wants. They don't even miss the play, she can just pull strings and get a private show done. Sweet and Elite has a similar problem. There are no consequences for failure, no actual choice or sacrifice to be made, the characters can have their cake and eat it too. It really lessens the sense of development.I know a lot of people say that Rarity has 'the best' episodes, but stuff like this is why I disagree. Most Rarity episodes tend to end with her getting everything she wants and everything going her way regardless of any fuck-ups along the way. There just isn't a sense of actual danger of failing in her episodes. There's never any serious setbacks in her pursuits of her goal, and while Rarifags may love that and how perfect amazing it makes her look, for me it just makes her episodes feel boring. I already know she has the best designs, I already know nobody is going to be able to outdo her, because she's Rarity, she's already the best. There are no stakes.
>>42592609Rarity receives rainbow-thread from coco, which is her rainbow-charged item for the mcguffin box. She also got the theater crew to do a private showing of the play by promising to make their costumes next time, and then hired coco to do it instead, which is not what she promised.Rarity writes her lesson:>I learned that, while there are ponies who will take advantage of your generosity, you should never, ever let that cause you to abandon your generous spirit.So, the direct read is clear. We are meant to understand that generosity was good and whatever good she put out into the world would eventually comes back to her to solve her problems, but those problems are also caused by that generosity. All the extra time the mares spent doing good during the song caused rarity to be potentially late, but also saved her from the consequences of being late. Being generous to suri cost her a dress line, but also caused coco to be invested in the situation and so eventually turn on suri, and resulted in Rarity making the winning dress line.After this point, rarity doesn't actually do anything which is generous, based on her definition. She regrets overworking her friends while not saying thank you, but her regrets are based on incorrect assumptions. She actually got away with her behavior without anyone holding it against her. The m5 were gone because they were sleeping, and they were sleeping because they worked through the night, and working through the night was 100% required for rarity to win, which was the goal. If she had been less of a jerk and let her friends go to the play, she would have lost. The extra showing of the play wasn't a gift of generosity without strings attached. It was a trade of services: 1 shift of work for the theater crew for the talents of an award winning designer for their next play, and she obviously did not pay ahead of time. She also made some mare she just met do the job instead. She was engaging in a transactional exchange AND not holding to the agreement, which means that the final expression in the episode of rarity's way of NOT being transational is to simply act as though an agreed on trade was just a favor which could be paid for however she wished, or never paid for at all.Ultimately, her choice to pay more than is required and then monopolize services which everyone uses is a desire to be treated as a special exception. She wants to be special and cut in line and show up 2 seconds before the deadline so badly that she'll risk everything for it and dig herself in an ever deeper hole and keep juggling one favor to fix the mess of the last favor while undercutting the whole social system with money.
>>42592959Annoying that the most words so far have been spent on rarity takes manhattan, an episode which stays out loud what you're supposed to think at every part, but there may be a point here.The lessons as written make no sense given the facts of the case. At best, you can say that rarity hated the feeling of hypothetically losing her friends over this, and so her moment of clarity was real, but that means her moment of truth was based on false ideas and the truth she learned has not been supported by testing. If that's the case, then the negative side of the episode had a point, and it is possible that the point of this episode is dishonest, insincere, a mockery, and we're meant to realize that.Direct read says that rainbow-eyes represented rarity's choice to value her friends and coco's gift represented the original generous action of rarity contributing designs to the play which changed forms over and over until it eventually became that thread, as kindness cannot be created or destroyed but only can change form. Direct read says rainbow is silly for being enthusiastic about the playIndirect read says that making her friends work overnight was a good thing to do, but at least that having a dramatic fit where she guilt-tripped people didn't actually accomplish anything. If she had taken the same actions but chosen not to be a jerk about it, she wouldn't have to fear that everyone had abandoned her. "Thank you" is free, and when people like you they will forgive you even if you are a jerk occationally.Given this ultimate cope, we can look back at daring do and be satisfied that the apparent lesson wasn't the actual lesson, and we can look at pinkie in castle mania and recognize her as the narrative force of absurdity used to deconstruct ideas which the writers express using the characters but actually think are silly. Remember, she scored the competition of bravery between AJ and Rainbow by scribbling a bunch of doodles all over the score card, because none of their dick measuring mattered.
>>42593054>>42592959>>42592609>>42592318You know, reading through your analysis', it seems like there's a fairly consistent pattern of Rarity being exempt from consequences or the morals of her episodes, like you also pointed out in LBYS and ADAPS.>She's clearly the most self-insert girl-power of the bunch in a show where god is a womanThis is starting to feel more and more true the more in depth you go on her.
>>42584597HER name is now AdaI really am kicking myself for not saving that episode. it had the whole gang there, interviewing the big man himself. I also miss Sheldon, I wish he didn't disappear.
>>42541716>I yapYeah you sure do
>>42594213Who's ada now? https://hobune.stream/tpa-h/channels/UCXWL_P-344evkGXH7jA4DuAAlso all the episodes are archived.
>>42594213Do you know what happened to Sheldon or did he really just disappear without a trace?
>>42594506Owen is trans now>>42594509he rebranded his channel years ago ifaik
>>42595137Really? I've never seen a rebranded channel, the main one that I've seen is privated.
Is there any way I can rationalise the idea that discord couldn't corrupt fluttershy because she has little ego and that's why she needed to be the one to reform him due to said lack of ego, her " you are going to love me!" Plot in the gala episode, and the idea that the way she acts around animals *in* the gala episode is the precursor to her more assertive self in the later show ( in episodes like viva las Pegasus and the Kirin episode) all together without having the interpretation of the gala episode imply that fluttershy has ego? If what I just said makes any sense at all?
>>42595898No, there isn't.Fluttershy has plenty of ego, and even has things she would stand up for. However, she specifically values kindness. Sometimes, kindness requires that you stand up for what is right, in order to either defend someone or to make sure that unhealthy behavior patterns don't form. Neither of these applies when it's just her and discord, alone. There weren't any small animals available to threaten, and if there were then fluttershy wouldn't experience any doubt as a result. She would know exactly what she wanted. While her value system isn't perfect and she could be shown enough illusions so that discord could get her eventually, it's pretty hard to do with just the two of them.However, he might have done just that. The moment before he gets her, he expresses frustration that she isn't giving him what he wants, meaning that he's implying that she's being unkind by being kind.
Lets try to keep this up until we at least make it through the key episodes. If this thread does die, then I hope you make a new one to continue your analysis through at least those episodes Anon.
>>42596637Yea, I'd honestly be fine with him skipping the other season 4 episodes and going straight to key episode analysis first. That's where the real meat is.
Bumping
>pinkie apple pie>Pinkie Pie: I guess it is a little smudged, but I see most of it there, and when I read it, I knew in my heart it was true!This the one where pinkie discovers that she's distantly related to the apple family, So far she has appeared behind books in a book shelf, and taken the bottom scroll from a stack without it falling over. Pinkie's defiance of logic so far hasn't been nearly this extreme. She's done things like "walk into the castle where all her freinds are screaming and decide to go play the organ" or "drool about cake" or "find the correct book in twilight's library. You may think of this as typical pinkie behavior, but she's actually pulling more magical/illogical stuff per second than she did at any point other than "griffin the brush off."This also seems to be in direct opposition to her use in castle mania, where she instead brought ideas into question. Here, she believes in what is written in an old scroll, even if that belief is plainly not supported. Her stance here is also plainly anti-alienation, though it does involve questioning who exactly someone is. >Pinkie Pie: Well, you actually have a fourth cousin twice removed by a fifth cousin, but that's like exactly like a sister!Here she's plainly wrong, and yet still right in spirit, as long as AB accepts her statement. This phrase also contains the phase "by a fifth cousin", which puts the audience in a strange position. Pinkie's description here is "smudged". However, I seem to recall ultimately believing that pinkie was right, and I'll here request that all of you say if you did or didn't believe pinkie on some level while watching the first time. My reason was simple. If the apples and pies aren't related, then this is an episode about pinkie having a hairbrained idea and then dragging a family on a roadtrip to support it, and failing. It would be from nothing, to nothing. Meanwhile, if she is related, then they simply learn to live without proof of the truth which they know, which is a slight bit more meaningful and agrees with "feeling pinkie keen".When pinkie says "by a fifth cousin", we as audience members are likely to believe she at least must mean something by it, and so we are also put in the position of believing in a smudged bit of information related specifically to our faith that the episode has a point. The difference between AJ and pinkie is that AJ wants proof before getting excited, and pinkie wants to get excited before getting proof. Given that we eventually decide we don't need proof, what is framed as a "it doesn't matter who's right" conclusion is actually a "AJ was wrong and pinkie's approach was unequivocally correct" conclusion.> Granny Smith: Has anypony seen my travelin' bonnet?> Apple Bloom: Isn't that it on your head?> [beat]> Granny Smith: No!> Apple Bloom: It looks an awful lot like--> Granny Smith: Well, it ain't, and that's final!Character is blatantly wrong.
>>42597756Doesn't matter because they decide to follow their emotions instead of adhering to reality. It's a slightly less comfortable formation of the message of the episode.> Applejack: Er, no, Granny, your teeth are fine. I just wanted to be sure that we're all on the same page about showin' Pinkie Pie how awesome a family we really are. We want her to get to know the family she's been born into, but, like, the best version of it, y'know?Ok... so now we've got the character who is supposed to be concerned with proof and confirmation in this episode ALSO suggesting that they try to forge proof. AJ, as a symbol for the cause which she represents, is immediately an utter failure, and she didn't even need to get challenged first like Rarity did.Note that this actual attempt at deception is actually perfectly normal for her character. Her big moment in the second episode was literally deception where she demanded that someone treat her as though she was reliable. Later, her backstory episode will show that she stopped lying because lying fucked up her reputation. In apple bucking season, she refuses help over and over while insisting that she can carry any burden which comes her way. In "The Last Roundup", she refused to come home until she could make enough money to contribute the amount of money which she could have won at a rodeo as a gift to the town. She is constantly attempting to be the best 100% dependable version of herself which she imagines in her head, which is NOT actually an expression of her true inner self OR of the truth of reality. It is instead the delusion that she is that great in the first place, because such a person WOULD call it honesty, and would deserve twilight's unquestioning trust. Seconds later, AJ questions if they need so much shit, if big mac can carry it, or if the wagon will break, and now it's Big mac who's blatantly lying while being believed.Granny, during the song:> We're peas in a pod, we're thick as thieves> Any cliché you can throw at meAnother self-aware jab. They are starting to pile up, particularly after last episode.Wagon breaks. They use tree sap to glue it into a raft and abandon half their stuff on the roadside. Pinkie is taking pictures of them, in which they look terrible, and putting them in a scrapbook. That's basically an object of proof, and the proof makes people look like shit.Aj holds back when scolding big mac in order to look good in front of pinkie.> Pinkie Pie: So what you're saying is, if I have the courage to jump, the parachute will open.> Big McIntosh: Eeyup.Sounds like what we just saw. The apples "jumped off a cliff" by carrying way to much weight on a damaged wagon, and then solved the issue using a nearby resource. They found their parachute. > Applejack: And you're sure it's not that cave? The one we're headin' straight for?> Granny Smith: Now, Applejack, I taught you better than to question your elder ponies!
>>42597885Grannie is again plainly wrong and demanding her feelings take priority, demanding faith.Pinkie continues to snap photos of the failures of the apples, and so represent the side of proof. Individual characters all fail as representatives of any particular coherent side of the philosophical argument at play, and so individual actions must instead be checked individually.AJ finally decides to stop letting grannie steer the ship, and the chaos that results from her lack of faith in a blatantly bad system results in the loss of the steering wheel. The apples make it to the house of Goldie Delicious after falling down a waterfall, dragging a small sled made of their remaining wood. The moment pinkie leaves for a minute, the apples all admit their mistakes and reconcile on their failures. Pinkie witnesses this, which further embarrasses them, but impresses her.Goldie invites them in to look through her library of family documents and scrap books, but the proof they wanted is also smudged here.In the friendship journal, >Applejack: Twilight agreed this was definitely an experience worth puttin' in the journal. Think I'll write about how bein' a good family isn't about bein' perfect as much as it is about bein' able to get through the rough patches together. About bein' able to forgive each other for mistakes.>Apple Bloom: Don't forget to mention how really good friends can also feel like your family.And what this means is that the direct message of the episode is hardly about proof at all. It's intended to be about pride, which the apples represent and which pinkie doesn't at all. Using this read, AJ released pinkie from the need to prove herself factually after AJ spent a whole episode suffering from the need to prove herself. Family has an objective reality, but that's not relevant to the human experience of family bonds. A blood relation doesn't make someone your family in the relevant social sense, but an emotional bond can.The direct read also somewhat ignores the fact that pinkie's presence added the little bit of extra stress which made the apples so prideful in the first place, added the little bit of extra stress which destroyed their raft, made big mac show off and destroy their wagon, and inspired this trip in the first place. That can be solved by saying that, when AJ declared her family, AJ also declared that it was right to let her see such inefficiencies. Rather than remove the irritant and stressor, they chose to stop stressing out under her gaze, and so that is what family is according to this episode. Family is the people you don't have to show off for, and who you can communicate directly with, and you can just declare people to be family in that way.The direct read here is actually pretty great, unlike most episodes this season. It's not objectionable, really.
>>42597974It's only when you pay attention to the details that you find this little extra current about proof and faith, where none of the characters really manage to stand for a side but the idea keeps coming up, where they have to deal with the fact that proof was unavailable from the start, and you absolutely cannot assume that a parachute will just unfold for you when you jump. That part is closer to "if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough." Because that's what the apples actually do. They tank a bunch of suffering and any attempt to prevent that suffering ahead of time fails and makes everything worse. They don't actually stop bickering, or learn to think head, or set aside their pride, they just let it hang out, and let pinkie believe she's family.>Rainbow FallsSkipping to the end, rainbow says the lesson is that she will choose her friends over victory. A footnote, this is the episode where AJ spends the whole episode attempting to shove apple-based baked goods town everyone's throats. It's free food during a competition, but it's also a very I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-this-character sort of thing. In early fim, she was the second most important of the m6 (socially, from the ponies perspectives) and spewed southern-isms all the time. Now, not so much, and these "apple brown betties" became a symbol for that trend. Odd that it comes right after pinkie-apple-pie, and episode where they at least tried with her.Rarity contributed some sports uniforms, but doesn't keep drawing attention to it. This might be the first time we see her make a bad outfit.Twilight gets to preform her season 1 role of being a nosy advisor who ultimately just stands back and watches mistakes happen. She learned that lesson particularly well after apple bucking season.Pinkie is extra screechie today. This is to say, this episode intentionally attempts to give all 6 characters some screentime and uses them to intentionally evoke their earlier selves, while perpetually missing the mark just by a little bit. In fluttershy's case, she's being direct and modivated in a way that follows well from her development so far, but 3 of them got a bit lobotomized, and rainbow is "having an episode".
>>42598464>apple brown bettiesI mean this was a personal symbol, not that anyone else in the world cared about them. Just me.Rainbow does the most cringe thing in the world and pretends to have every bone in her body broken in order to avoid choosing between joining cloudsdale and sticking with ponyville.Rainbow has the second rainbow-eyes moment this season while looking at a flag representing her team while in the horspital. At that time, soarin is pointing out that both teams will fail to qualify if rainbow continues to sit in bed, and is sad about that, and sad about getting no visitors whiel rainbow got a bunch.Rainbow confronts spitfire and says she wants to stay loyal to the team where her friends are, but when pushed on this she instead says that she doesn't want to be on a team which would lie to soarin in order to sideline him, that their behavior made them less desirable as a team. The flag which gave a rainbow-shine in the hospital earlier was only there because rainbow had people visit her in the hospital, and soarin didn't have that. So, you can read that as rainbow realising that she's picked the worst possible option where both teams fail and she doesn't get to either win or support her friends, or youc an read it as rainbow realizing that her team is actually just better than the cloudsdale team as people.If the conflict was between winning and loyalty, then she chose to fail at both. If she was going to give up winning, she could have lost just as easily on her home team. That means that loyalty vs victory is not actually the conflict, despite what rainbow thinks, because she chose neither. She chose a third thing, and she valued cloudsdale for reasons other than the victory which they still could give her. That's the thing she discovered that they couldn't actually give her.Spitfire pins a little thunder-wing pin on rainbows last-place qualifying lanyard, and that's the rainbow-charged key object which she takes home. So that's 2 gifts given by 2 ponies who were made to believe that being things were possible by watching the behaviors of main characters, and 2 moments where the main character chooses to rush off to where their friends are after their eyes glow in a moment of regret.Also, I have to mention that hero-worship is very present in this episode, obviously.
>>42598582>Three's a CrowdThis is the other good cadence episode and therefore much much better than the episode which I thought it was. >Twilight Sparkle: I think it's pretty clear that my visit with Cadance didn't go quite the way I expected. But in the end, I realized that when you're with a good friend, even the most chaotic day can end up being a great experience that brings you closer.Well, pinkie has been exemplifying this idea often this season, castle mania, power ponies, pinkie apple pie, she often rides the curve balls the world throws at her.Fluttershy is excited about getting some kind of permit to interact with breezies, and pinkie enters the scene while being just as excited about a flyer for used patio furniture, so this is clearly a joke about how silly it is to actually be excited for a thing. I don't much appreciate it, bit at least it is still consistent with her use this season.After twilight geeks out about starswirl stuff and explains that she wants a normal not-catastrophic memory with cadence today at the history-fair> Rainbow Dash: [hacks] Uh, sorry. Something in my throat... like a big ball of 'lame'!So rainbow is acting like she did in manehattan, is basically on team pinkie right now.Discord pretends to be sick, but fluttershy just left on a train, so he demands attention from the other ponies. Rainbow flees and discord distracts pinkie, leaving AJ and rarity to attempt to keep him from Twilight and Cadence. It is notable that the two excitement-skeptical ponies escape first.Discord is faking illness 1 episode after rainbow faked illness, so there's probably something there.He simply curses AJ and rarity, turning them blue and getting them out of his way so he can target twilight.
>>42597756>>42597885>>42597974I feel bad for AJ. It seems like so many of her episodes are about how she's a fuckup that isn't that can't do anything without the help of other ponies, and she's never as great as she thinks she is or tires to be, meanwhile for every other character, it feels like half their episodes are about how amazing and perfect they are just the way they are. It's sad. She tries the hardest out of anyone in the group, yet she's also the one always getting kicked down and told she's never good enough. I swear the writers could make an episode about Applejack entering an apple pie baking contest, and she would still lose and have a moral about how it's okay she's a loser because her friends still lover her regardless. I don't think any other character puts in as much effort with so little payoff or reward as her, she just gets endless flak for not being perfect.>>>42598464> it's also a very I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-this-character sort of thing>but 3 of them got a bit lobotomized, and rainbow is "having an episode".I'm reminded of this post I found on the archive, which I think has a good point. Rainbow's big character arc, trying to join the Wonderbolts, ultimately has nothing to do with the rest of the mane 6. With the exception of Fluttershy, none of them are able to interact with that part of her life beyond just watching from the sidelines. Her goals are so far removed from the ability of the others to meaningfully interact with that there almost isn't a way to involve them in her episodes without reducing them to one note caricatures. And if she isn't the focus of an episode, then Rainbow herself also tends to be pretty one note and unimportant, because she has almost nothing really tying her to the rest(Bats! is a great example of this).Rainbow's entire arc was mishandled in a lot of ways, and I think the lack of interconnection with the rest of the mane 6 one of the biggest weaknesses. Any episode about the Wonderbolts will usually require them to be sidelined and reduced to almost parodies of themselves, because there's nothing else for them to do in that kind of episode.
For discord's perspective, he was reformed, helpfully messed with twilight during the plundervine indecent, and then did this. He claims to have been exchanging letters with fluttershy, certainly not living in her house, so that's probably pleasant, but he's had exactly 1 friend and all they have done is exchange letters and rightfully accuse him terrorizing a town and kidnapping royalty once. His plot is to gain a sacrifice of time and attention, to make a test and make others pass it. He has doubts, or really total ignorance, about the value of this whole friendship thing, and so he's making others prove it exists and show him what it means. His formulation is retarded: "You will do X thing that I want, or you don't really like me." is a shit argument and also a guilt trip, but that's the level he's on, and it doesn't count fully if he can't get anyone upset in the process. That's what makes the sacrifice real.They put up with him and then travel to the edge of equestria in order to get a medicinal flower and fight a big snake thing. He is overjoyed and pretends to get caught before explaining his plan. Cadence explains that, actually, doing stressful physical activity is a wonderful break from her life in the empire and that her day was not ruined, and discord, that fucking bastard, stops being overjoyed and scowls.The worm gets him actually-sick (I assume), and the ponies care for him in fluttershy's house in some manner. You would figure that he should suffer the repercussions of his lie in a boy-who-cried-wolf scenario, but that simply does not happen. He obtained proof that they would care for him, and the proof was correct, they WILL care for him. At least some of the damage and suffering he created managed to splash back and hit him, so there IS a lesson there, which he did not fully learn.So, twilight said that her lesson was that chaotic days can be good with a friend. This follows well from AJ's episode where she learned that she doesn't need to force presentability. It is, however, fucking cope. Twilight was initially pissed at discord for intentionally damaging her day, and did nothing at all to earn her happy ending, and never implemented her lesson in any way. Cadence was simply a chill bitch. Maybe, you could say that twilight learned she should also be a chill bitch like cadence. That lesson takes the form of not taking discord too seriously when he hasn't earned it, ignoring his antics, and not even acknowledging that he did them wrong. Pinkie and rainbow, who could not actually be bothered by him, were spared. AJ and Rarity, who could be made to suffer and dragged into his bullshit, were infected.
Nice to see some in depth discussion on the show instead of shitposting.
>>42599675It's shocking, right?
>>42599675You're welcome kek, I'll probably do this kind of thread regularly, but I'll post a question more often than an essay.
>>42600119Once this thread eventually dies.
>>42598951 missed link>>42599306There is, therefore, the second interpretation. Less that chaos is good with a friend, and more that letting everything slide off your back like rain off a duck is a useful skill in the intentional creation of your own experiences. The unfortunate part is that this skill is equated to pinkie's inability to take anything actually seriously and rainbow's unwillingness to feel. Those two forces are the heros here.Twilight's obsession with starswirl ends up as just a footnote here. You also have to stretch pretty far to turn cadence into a hero, so that theme isn't particularly strong this time. >Pinkie PrideHere, the hero worship is in overdrive, but we're the hero, initially. We're 50% of the way through the episode by the time pinkie stops being depressed because other people are excited by a party by the new party planner in town, Cheese Sandwich. She looks at a bunch of pictures of old parties she threw, so that's nostalgic reminders puling her from a sadness.Second half of the episode is a comedy dick-measuring competition.Pinkie has her rainbow-eye moment while looking at Rainbow Dash pinned by a giant paper-mache cake. She realizes that this competition is not a birthday party, and not about rainbow, who's birthday it is. That's her regret as she understands it and states it. She tries to leave town, which is the opposite of what rarity and rainbow did in their rainbow-eye moments. Everyone chases her down and tells her outright that cheese is only getting this attention because he's novel and temporary.For pinkie's entry in the journal, she chews on the eraser of a pencil and may not have written anything. Cheese Sandwich gives her his shimmering rainbow cock in a box and fucks off, roll credits.Without a journal entry, this can be considered a kind of test, or a prompt to figure it out yourself. Really, it's just a normal episode, and only a step up when compared to its contemporaries. It's also the first time we've paid particular attention to the insecurities which are felt when elders see how brightly the newer generations shine. There's direct competition here, and also in rainbow falls, rarity takes manehattan, and flight to the finish. That's a lot for this show, but not enough to say it's the correct theme I've been looking for, just a theme which is also in the very large pile of inconsistent themes this season. Stated message, by rainbow, is that pinkie didn't need to be afraid of cheese taking her place because she's just as good as him and his current popularity is based on this being a temporary visitor, while pinkie's regret was being self-centered and making the day about herself instead of rainbow.However, cheese came to town for Pinkie, specifically, and her attempt to separate herself from the situation was rejected completely. In the end, the good party really was just as much about the party throwers as the birthday girl.
Bumping before bed.
>>42600614>Simple Ways>Pinkie Pie: I'm glad the committee didn't automatically pick me so everypony gets a chance to see how great being me actually is! Even though the festival's basically a party and the pony of ceremonies gets to organize the whole thing! So it'd totally make sense if they did pick me.This degree of self-centeredness seems to support my read on the prior episode. Rarity is selected to design a local festival of sorts. Her motivation is to court the attention of some stallion who is known to find new trends early and write articles about them, not because she wants the popularity, but because she's into him. He falls in love with AJ as a pretty mare and AJ's farm as an aesthetic representation of rural history. Rarity dresses and acts as a hick and changes her festival's planned theme to 'rural' in order to better appeal to trenderhoof, and AJ starts acting as a satiorisation of rarity's normal behavior. They haven't been this catty to eachother since "look before you sleep".It works when rarity sees mud on a dress she made for AJ. Rarity tells trenderhoof that he's being mad annoying by faking his personality for AJ the same way Rarity's faking her personality for him.>Real friends will like you for who you are, and changing yourself to impress them is no way to make new onesWhile the direct lesson is at least reflected in trenderhoof's experience, rarity never doubted that her friends would like her, and it wouldn't be fair to expect trenderhoof to be her "real friend" in the first place, so it half applies to the central conflicts. Applejack also won by being annoying and by pretending to be someone else, which isn't exactly a rejection of the lesson rarity learned in theory, but is support for the idea that there are times when you should not be yourself, which is an oppositional idea, at least.Rarity + trenderhoof is also an example of an unhealthy form of parasocial relationship, It isn't hero worship, and doesn't cause a chrisis of self worth, but it is in the same ballpark.Rarity vs AJ is almost direct competition, but AJ isn't really playing to win here.
>>42597756>pinkie apple piehttps://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/40609770/and bump.
Why is this faustnigger "reviewer" glossing over ALL the problems in the early seasons while autistically nitpicking dumb shit post-faust?
>>42601688The quality of the episodes is not on trial in these reviews, and neither are the themes. The primary goal is to figure out what those are, what is being said by the work. In s1, simply stating the themes directly is simple and sounds nice and the support for those themes is self-evident. In s4, stating the themes presents a complicated tangle of ideas and much greater attention must be paid in order to figure out what those themes are. You, hearing a largely neutral description of what I've found, have reached the conclusion that s4 sounds like shit. i don't even agree, at least not based on the information I'm providing. I think you noticed that the later seasons got more words said about them, and concluded that they must be bad.
>>42601726A common critique of the early seasons are the morals and themes not lining up with many episodes. You should have a LOT more to say about early episodes than a one sentence quip repeating what the intern writing Celestia's letters said. The premiere is one of the most nonsensical episodes in the show and you non-critically glazed the fuck out of it like a OF simp.>In season 2, that inner circle and those inner worlds fail, and have to be remade from the base ingredients of memory and willingness to try, and so depend more on the inner world and the possibility of an inner circle than the reality of one.Seriously nigger? It's like you shat this out off ChatGPT.
>>42601762The majority of my mention of the premier was the metanarrative reasoning why it feels that it can ask the audience to simply ignore, or 'overlook' a billion little details. No part of that section claims it's actually good.Again, you're mistaking 'few words said' for 'glazing the fuck out of'And saying that one-line summary sounds like gpt made it doesn't tell me what your objection is. Does it sound too glazing? Does it not sound glazing enough? Why?Use your words.
As a newfag who wasn't around for discussions in years past, I love these kinds of threads. Gives me a chance to bounce my ideas off other anons.
He does have a nice flowing prose and the fact he focuses on 1 thing is what makes him easy to follow.I'm curious if he's capable of analyzing characters or even people like Vogelfag's personality.
>>42604337Me or the guy doing 8000 replies?
Don't tell me OP was Antony C all along.
>>42605385Literally who?
>>42605385No no, lol. If only. I just know Antony c is peak.
Bump
>>42600906>filli vanilliStarts with fluttershy singing for her birds/animals and getting caught doing that by her friends.Rarity blatantly introduces the concept of the "ponytones" singing group and invites fluttershy to preform with them, and pinkie states out loud what fluttershy's worst fears could be about that. That's two characters both quickly describing things which the audience should generally learn to care about and empathize with slowly, but pinkie gets a swat on the head for it, so the episode at least knows that it is overstepping a bit. It's also another case of pinkie being... a bit extra this season, though no magic is involved this timeFluttershy-relevant episodes working backwords from here are "rainbow falls" "Bats!" "castle mania" "Keep Calm and Flutter On" and "Hurricane Fluttershy"If huricane fluttershy taught her to step up when she's needed, not just when she finds behavior intolerably offensive, then kcfo taught her to do that against direct opposition. Bats made that opposition active instead of passive but she only learned to avoid peer pressure which puts a limit on what she learned in huricaneFluttershy. Rainbow falls had her publicly competing for mere glory instead of actual important stuff. Filli vanilli is about even lower steaks, in that she privately enjoys expressing herself through song and will do that same thing in publicIn this case, the lower steaks means greater progression, as less force is required to cause fluttershy to overcome her issues, and greater joy is being gained overall.I take special note because she has a reputation for learning nothing, or re-learning the same thing over and over, which is true, and I suspect that her character growth will stall out after this episode. You really can't get much further than "I will embrace irrational expressive urges in public just because I feel like it because I'm just that comfortable in my own skin." She's not quite there, but appearing on a stage is arguably even harder than that. At the very least, something would have to reverse her trend towards progress soonBig mac, singing, frames the choice to sing as distinct from the choice to speak clearly, and sometimes easier, so I guess that's a direction fluttershy could progress, hypothetically. It seems like a throwaway line meant to directly explain his own actions here, which would make that 3 characters who are using their screen time to exposit direct explanations
>>42607419>Rarity: oh yes, it is wonderful when a plan comes together without any sort of drama, isn't it?Past a certain point, the characters aren't so much speaking as passing messages directly from the author to you, and this can't be taken as anything other than a wry jab at the nature of stories. The audience is supposed to be in on the joke, here. "Alright, audience, this is what the ponytones are. This is fluttershy's motive. This is why big mac is on stage. This is the part right before I fuck their day up for our entertainment."In the next 24 hours big mac loses his voice in a "turkey-call" competition hosted at his farm while competing, and loses it against pinkie pie, who is again acting as a tool of chaos.Rarity bemones the absurdity of that explanation, again feeling like a direct comment from the author on their own solution. If so, then it's less rarity saying "I can't believe this" and more thw writer saying "wow didn't I come up with such a wacky thing?"Look, it's not standard, but it can be done well. If the author's going to communicate on this fiction-aware level instead of presenting the characters as living things, then this information is a part of the work which must be engaged with. I would talk about the quality of the delivery, but once it is clear that this isn't an accident, it is no longer valid to call it a mistake without talking about the actual quality of the presentation.And this isn't that kind of review, I say through gritted teeth.The ponytones performance is associated with a fundraiser for a pet center, so the steaks are actually a bit higher than they could have been, meaning that fluttershy is making even less progress than she could have, and being lightly pushed into preforming later.Zacora prepares some poison joke potion so that fluttershy can have a deeper voice and sing offstage while big mac lip-syncs. They do, it's good, and a whole bunch of ponies adopt pets. For a good portion of the runtime, over and over, fluttershy agrees to do another show in order to not disappoint whoever just asked rarity to do another show, and then they do another show. This continues until big mac gets his voice back, at which point she asks to do one more, and gets so into the music that she does some jazzy adlibbing and knocks down the curtain which hides her from the audience, and gets emotionally obliterated.There's a section which is like 20 seconds long which is absolutely packed with words. Fluttershy: [deep male voice] [starts crying] Applejack: Big Mac, you got some 'splainin' to do! [beat] Turkey call? Big McIntosh: Eeyup. Applejack: Trash your voice? Big McIntosh: Eeyup. Applejack: Zecora remedy? Big McIntosh: Eeyup. Applejack: Not quick enough? Big McIntosh: Nnope. Applejack: Needed a deep voice? Big McIntosh: Eeyup. Applejack: Poison joke? Big McIntosh: Eeyup. Applejack: Flutterguy? Big McIntosh: Eeyup.
>>42607512 Applejack: Better now? Big McIntosh: Eeyup. Applejack: And that shy filly was livin' her dream in the shadows because she couldn't bring herself to come into the spotlight? Big McIntosh: Eeyup. Applejack: Well, for corn's sake! Let's go!1. This is the clearest depiction of how these two must communicate in the show, with the second best being in applebucking season, I think. The main difference is that he mostly uses full sentences in applebucking season, and none at all here. While I like that, it also requires that we inflate Big Mac's verbal issues a bit. Like with lesson zero, it's not a problem when events line up to cause it to happen once, but becomes a problem when it is the default, and no longer needs a situational justification. Similarly, pinkie's use as a screechy magical annoyance is largely explained by her metaphorical use in this season, but will later become the default which, when circumstances line up, becomes even more extreme. 2. AJ just basically did a review of the whole episode, given from the perspective of the person who wrote it, which follows from the "author is just directly talking to us ABOUT the episode" idea I've been mentioning. It is simultaneously the author's direct interpretation AND a perfect character-moment which flows from the personalities of the characters.When Fluttershy gets exposed, the visuals switch to an abstract representation of her inner world in which bright, glowing, significant faces shine so hard that fluttershy is viably obliterated, almost like sombra later. Laster, when she's running through town at midnight and her friends are chasing her, they offer questions as arguments. Rarity: When that curtain fell, and everypony saw you singing, you lived your worst nightmare! Was it really that bad? Fluttershy: Yes! Twilight Sparkle: Well, what was so bad about it? Rainbow Dash: The thunderous applause? Applejack: The praise for your fantastic singin'? Pinkie Pie: The screaming fans?!And with that, she smiles and the next scene is her on stage where people can see her, singing.Fluttershy says she should develop in babysteps, and writes in the journal that one should not let fears stop them from doing what they love. Since big mac was cured during the last ponytone performance where she was hiding, those steaks I mentioned were gone, and so it really was about her own comfort and expression at that time, instead of some external conflict. She also didn't really get to choose performance most of the time, but that's only because of her own cowardice. "Babysteps", then, is an answer to that part specifically. Being pressured into larger gestures doesn't really help increase overall comfort and makes expressing yourself an even worse prospect in the future, by association.
>>42607561However, that's not what solved the conflict. Instead, a group of mouthpieces just questioned if her emotional response really fit with the objective description of events she experienced, and she just smiled and was all better. Now, that's not entirely unrealistic, in that you can often get people to see how silly they are being by asking these kinds of questions, but it is basically the author saying that the central conflict is silly and based on silliness, that fluttershy is not making any sense, and that the solution is for her to stop being so gosh darned irrational. Well, again, that's true, in that being rational is the solution to being irrational, but it isn't particularly meaningful as a solution. Meanwhile, the strongest bit of show-don't-tell all season exists in this episode which is all about telling instead of showing. The abstract nightmare sequence with the glowing faces communicates how fluttershy feels in that moment perfectly, and why, and that scene depicts the bad guy. The good guy is the "hand of the author", and the bad guy is the illusion of character and plot, The good guy is breaking character, and the bad guy is keeping in character. The good force here is a frank discussion between the author and the audience using the constructs of fiction as a medium and willing suspension of disbelief, and the bad guy is total immersion. The good guy is rarity and pinkie united in blatant exposition, and a hefty dose of skepticism about this whole affair.
>>42607512>If so, then it's less rarity saying "I can't believe this" and more thw writer saying "wow didn't I come up with such a wacky thing?"They do that in Rarity Takes Manehattan too>"Wow Applejack, I know honesty is your thing, but c'mon!"It even happens in season 1.>"Wow Pinkie Pie, you're so random!"I personally hate this type of fourth wall leaning dialogue. It always just makes me groan every time I hear it.
Keeping the train going.
b
>>42609257CHOO CHOO
>>42607584>twilight timeSweetie declines to go over the "steps" of practicing telekinesis. Apple bloom "more or less" follows some potion making instructions. Scootaloo tries to make twilight read the instructions on how to fix/build a unicycle and complains when told where the book is. 3 points make a pattern so the opener of this episode is about failure caused by lazyness and skipping out on preparation, but I recall that being an incidental detail in this episode which only relates a little to the rest of what happens. It also at least appears to be in direct opposition of the first episode of the show, but I'll bring that up later.Diamond Tiarra and SS get attention and praise through association with diamond's acrobatic butler, and also some unnamed important ponies in manehattan. Sweetie has a daydream about the cmc getting good at the skills they studied and getting praise that way, but that dream is completely dropped when diamond makes fun of her for not being associated with important ponies. Simply, sweetie bell isn't good at magic yet, and can't just use it to flex, so she brags about hanging with twilight.Rest of the episode is the cmc, diamond, and silver attempting to leverage and monopolize twilight's time for popularity with the other foals until she finally figures out that nobody is interested in study and everybody is just using her. She asks the cmc to prove they weren't using her by displaying the skills they gained from their time with her and practicing all week, which they fail at, because they didn't practice or study.Twilight kicks everyone out. The CMC apologize, while suddenly correctly preforming their skill which twilight was helping them with. Sweetie writes a journal entry which makes it seem like she doesn't get why twilight forgave her, and like she's just kind of assuming she's been forgiven based on being allowed to write a journal entry.Alright so sweetie thinks that twilight simply gave her good grace and that saved the day, and also that her own stupidity caused this problem for basically no reason, and that's true, but is also isn't what we see happen, again. Sweetie learns that whatever social capital her friends have is none of her fucking business, and that the nature of such friendship which allows forgiveness of missteps also implies the responsibility to try to make fewer missteps. If twilight has to forgive her friend sweetie, then that means twilght cannot fully defend herself from sweetie's retardations, which would mean sweetie has a responsibility to at least try not be a slimeball if she wants that forgiveness to continue.
Bedtime bump
>>42611648However, sweetie doesn't actually do anything with that lesson. She's (subjectively) wrong about why twilight forgave her, and never has to step up and speak the truth or else hold her stupid tongue in order to do right by twilight or anyone else. From twilight's perspective, she asked the kids to prove they had been practicing and improving, and then the kids showed her proof they have practiced and improved. That's extra weird, because they didn't practice. In the beginning, they are shit because they don't want to follow instruction and instead just want to try shit and see what works. At the end, a few seconds after failing again, they simply get way better at their skills. I see a whole three ways to interpret this.1.They actually got better exactly the way they intended in the beginning, by failing. This process was simply compressed a little bit for runtime, and a more reasonable version of events would involve the cmc making up for their failure to study and earning back twilight's trust.2. The act of apologizing was the victory of the cmc, and so the skilled action they are taking on screen is a mere reflection of that. 3. They were simply clever enough that all they needed was an extra 5 minutes of tinkering.If it's number 3, then twilight was in the wrong in the first scene, as she mostly resisted or chided the cmc for using that approach. In that case, it would be twilght's fault that the cmc didn't have any skills to show off in public, which resulted in sweetie using her association as a shallow weapon. Sweetie, noticing that twilight's value to her is low, would have traded away her good will for something useful. In this case, the phrase "give us a chance" which gets used later would mean "let us actually try" instead of just "let us make up for selling you out".If it's #2, well mostly that's lame. It reminds me a bit of the "baby cakes" scene where the foals suddenly cover themselves in flower to comfort pinkie despite being stupid babies. Generally gesturing at "the joy kids bring to your life by growing" as a concept which motivates twilight would at least make sense here, but doesn't really have anything to do with the episode. It would be an example of benevolence which is in line with earlier seasons, but not this season, and would render most of the details here meaningless. If #1, then twilight was right in the first scene, and the cmc did learn to preform self-directed practice on their own, just not on screen or in the literal interpretation of events.
>>42611648>>42612270 (forgot name x2)In 1 and 3, "twilight time" was a handicap, at least at this point, and the cmc were legitimately better off without it. If it's 2, then the skills were metaphorical and the cmc didn't actually learn how to do anything cool, yet, but instead used the apology in order to earn more time in which they could get better at stuff.Also, if twilight mistakenly thought they practiced, then she forgave the due to circumstances outside of the control of anyone, and so the forgiveness wasn't really earned at all and nothing can be learned from it.However, if she knew exactly what was going on and was imply charmed by the kids attitude, then we're back to s1 benevolence without any meaningful additions.So, every part of this is highly open to interpretation, do the point where you can't really say what happened or what it meant either in the moment or in terms of the whole episode. Is it good? Is it bad? Who fucked up and why? No matter what, even sweetie knows she doesn't know, in the journal.>direct opposition tot he first episodeSo, twilight makes an assumption about nnm, and then an assumption about the elements, and is right.The cmc want to make assumptions and try stuff, which isn't that different, right?Well, twilight makes her assumption after plenty of research. You can say she earned the right to make assumptions once she had put forward time and effort in order to disqualify most of the possible wrong conclusions, that an expert gets to make assumptions and check them. The cmc wanted to skip the research part and make assumptions without knowledge. If that's the case, then the cmc should have been in the wrong, which means #2 needs to be the correct interpretation. However, that doesn't fit with the idea that twilight also made such assumptions about her new friends, who she did not know very well at all. This new focus on "being knowledgeable before you mess around" isn't really present in the S1 premier, and would imply that trusting the m5 was the wrong move, undercutting the idea of friendship as displayed in the show.I thought there would be a way to square that circle, but I'm not seeing one now. On the positive side, this mostly invalidates the interpretation that the cmc's sudden skill-burst was purely allegorical, unless it is an intentional attack on the core concept of the show. But, in the other two interpretations, twilight's still in the wrong, despite being nothing but nice all episode, and sweetie being a brat. I suppose, that's what being an adult is like.
Still going? Based.
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Just gotta keep it going til we get through season 4.
Finally, a high quality thread.
>>42614130Indeed.
>>42612272Suited for Success and A Dog and Pony Show In S1 served as pretty clear reflections of the writers lives. It would be difficult to write a story about overbearing and demanding slavedriver bosses without your own experience sneaking in. Lots of S4 has felt a bit allegorical in that way, but not in such simple terms. This episode is weird, because it uses the paparazzi and fame, and yet no writer for mlp could have experienced such overwhelming pressure. They just aren't that big. Maybe the voice actors are, but I don't think Dave Polsky has had t dress up in over encumbering clothing to avoid notice, or had their friends use their fame for personal benefit. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't consume such rags, but I don't think they face those kinds of pressures. And, if not, then why is this episode like this? What is it supposed to mean that we're suddenly talking about tmz and/or using the characters to reflect the actors directly? Perhaps I can limply say that this follows from the frankness of the prior episode, in which the artifice of storytelling itself is viewed as a trifle which stands between the audience and true understanding of the author's communicated vision. Perhaps it is meant to be candid.In every season, there's a bit of a switch mid-season as to what perspective the stories are generally being told from. Generally, we go from a child-like position to a more adult one, as described above. Here, we seem to be doing the opposite of that. Twilight is offered full and overwhelming knowledge in the premier. Rarity is being a professional fashionista. The ponies willingly enter the castle, mostly alone, for their own reasons. Their fates are mostly in their own hands, and there isn't really a greater power out there which shields them from repercussions, only a friend to pick them up when they fail. Daring, while being more experienced, ends up being bailed out by rainbow acting on her own. Spike bails everyone in power ponies. Sweetie, on the other hand, is forgiven as a solution to the conflict.>It Ain't Easy Being BreeziesInstantly, the metenarrative is all I see. Who exactly do you think is the freeloading glob of fragile alien grumps moving through life but getting enamored with a pretty yellow pony? Thankfully, the connection is a bit weak, so it's abstracted enough to not just be mockery or just be the audience and also be kids in general. Hopefully it needn't be mentioned again.If twilight time was partially about failing at growing a person properly by being heavy handed, then the early scenes in IAEBB are about a whole town carefully toning down their excitement so that they can support tiny mini-people without being heavy handed. The initial problem, a leaf in the breeze, is caused by spike crawling up onto a branch to get a better view. The breezie's were harmed just by the desire to watch them.
>>42615024Past that point, fluttershy steps up to directly rescue the breezies who fell behind, and so they instantly depend on her even to their own detriment. That's most of the rest of the episode.>Rarity: I feel like I should design you a special hero's gown! Rarity frames this as being a hero-thing, so that negative relationship is framed as hero-dependency, then.Later, after seabreeze(the leader-breezie who curses and yells) runs off alone and gets rescued from a beehive. Seabreeze: - Nobreezie ever listens to me! Fluttershy: - it's hard for them to hear you when you're shouting and being mean. The message doesn't get across. Seabreeze: But what about those bees? You were not nice to them, and that was the only way they listened! Fluttershy: Yes, but they had to go, and they wouldn't listen to me any other way. At which point, for the first time this season, the main character looks directly at the wisdom of the annoying apparent antagonist and willingly adopts it. Every other time, it was automatic, and unintentional. Rarity become like suri. Pinkie like cheese. Rainbow like spitfire, and soarin. Sweetie like diamond. Here, fluttershy wasn't challenged by someone else doing better than her andher morals didn't fold under this slight pressure. She accepted the logic behind another's actions and willingly adopted their point.This is also the 4rth rainbow-eye moment, and fluttershy is not really experiencing regret. She also isn't going to go to her friends. She's going to kick some breezie's out.On the way home, seabreeze apologizes for being too gruff to another breezie, offering some encouragement which arguably wasn't needed.AFter getting home, Seabreeze gives fluttershy a flower, which is her rainbow-charged key.Twilight transformed her friends into breezies, as a larger group of breezies was needed to capture the breeze safely and use it for transportation. At the end of the episode, rainbow asks to be transformed into a griffin, and twilight refused. Taken as part of the episode's message, twilight offered a single transformation (breezie form) and then refused to cave in to rainbow's whims after that (griffin/dragon). This paints rainbow's desire to use twilight's cool resources as the same thing as the breezie's desire to stay in her house and eat her food and not progress to the detriment of themselves, which is a bit of a stretch.
>>42615031If I accept that the end-joke of IAEBB was a bit of a strech of the point of the episode, then the end joke of "twilight time" could be the same way. In it, spike makes nachos for twilight time. Way too many kids show up. He goes and makes way more nachos. When he finishes, all the kids are gone, and he's left with too many nachos.It fits the "dammed if you do, dammed if you don't" aspect of the episode, which is good, because that interpretation is a bit too abstract and needs more simple support like that. Gold star, me.>Somepony to Watch Over MeAn episode about AJ's mother instincts annoying applebloom, but it opens with the apple family deciding AB is old enough to stay home on her own and ends with AJ saving her from a carnivore.The freedom of being allowed home alone is linked here to the trust that AB can handle responsibilities. Once AJ abandons her pie-delivery and comes back home, AJ baby-proofs everything in the orchard, including the chores which AB was given, meaning that AB no longer has a method to prove herself worthy of responsibility, because all the responsibility has been removed from her assigned chores. If nothing can go wrong, then she isn't proving anything by finishing her chores, or learning anything. AB decides to sneak out and finish AJ's delivery, the only responsible activity which is left and which AJ neglected.The funniest self-aware thing in the show happens, in that scootaloo interrupts AB's song and tells her there's no time for one.Sweetie puts on a bow and pretends to be AB in her bed.> Applejack: [yawning] Just... checkin' in on you again. [sighs] Look at you, dozin' so peaceful-like. Here I am, checkin' up on you every five seconds, and you're totally fine. Maybe you don't need me frettin' over you all the time.The idea that AB could have just earned AJ's confidence by sleeping seems absurd. Even if AJ managed to become calm enough to stop imagining horrifying scenarios while 'AB' was sleeping all night, that doesn't mean that she'll worry less next time AB is offered some actual freedom. In theory, AJ's cooler head could let her reach correct conclusions and see how silly she's being right now, but that undercuts the idea that responsibility is linked to freedom in the first place.
>>42615118On the other hand, AJ's worry, which she was beginning to give up on, has now been proven worthwhile, at least emotionally.Applebloom escapes a chimara in a swamp full of fire-vents while carrying a heavy pie-cart, for awhile. AJ catches up just as AB wishes AJ were there, and swiftly handles the chimera using tools which AB could not have known to bring. AJ switches from being mad and doubling down on her smothering to being impressed when AB pulls the piecart from the bushes, meaning that AB had lost zero resources by the time AJ showed up to fix things, meaning that AB's choice was 100% correct and required in order to solve the conflict.>"Duce Switchell": Mm-hm! Andouille! This pie's even tastier than my momma's swamp water casserole!> [Cajun ponies cheering]His mom looks sad> "Duce Switchell": Aw, now, momma, don't be like that.The finishing joke is the betrayal of a mother, which is a required part of growing up, and is basically what AB did by sneaking out to obtain proof of her competence.There's another angle here which isn't really covered, where AJ's smothering lead directly to AB facing greater danger with less preparation, but we'll just have to be glad and satisfied that we're so clever in finding that one.Linking this to the rest of the season, S4 is constantly throwing shade at its own nature as literally being a generation of the my little pony cartoon. Characters in positions of authority are wrong and competitive spirit is pitting characters against each other. Maybe it's a bit too specific to claim that s4e1+2 was about the influence of the new team fully subsuming and replacing the influences of the older content and the plundervines were a visual representation of that, but what I've just described is exactly a new will finding its way out of the shadow of it's mother and the often irrational constraints that shadow creates.In this case, the bianary definition "foal" vs "adult", left AB in a place where she could no longer access the tools which prove adulthood, because why would you give a baby those tools? The definitions are wrong, because she's both things.
>>42615120>Maud PiePinkie calls all her friends over at 4 am or something in order to test rock candy for a tradition Pinkie has with Maud. Later, for a picnic where they meat Maud, Rartiy puts on a fucking terrable hat with clear rocks glued to it because pinkie said maud liked fashion. Aj brings Muffins, which should be normal. All the ponies bring their pets, knowing Maud has a pet.Maud eats a part of rarity's hat out of the muffin basket, has a rock for a pet, and denies the basic idea of fasion as meaningful expression.Maud dodges every expectation they have of her and is some kind of neurodivergent, which results in feelings of alienation for everyone but pinkie, and that's most of the episode. All of the m6's preparations are wrong and come out half-baked, even from a normal perspective. Maud's attempts to engage, or even joke, come across as pranks, at best. When it's time to tell pinkie that none of them really get or like maud or think she likes them, AJ kicks twilight forward to make her do it. That's so blatantly against her commonly understood role as the element of honesty that I had to mention it. Aj ends up doing most of the talking anyway.Pinkie makes a themed obstacle course in a desperate bid to combine everyone's interest. It threatens Pinkie's life, so maud obliterates it with her hooves, hugs her sister, and decides this is no longer worth it before going home. She's a fucking beast for that, forever.Everyone decides that loving pinkie pie is enough of a common interest to say they are friends with maud, makes rock candy necklaces arranged in into artistic self-expressions, and surprises maud+pinkie back at the rock farm. Obviously, this is bullshit. I am not your friend just because you are my friend's friend. At best, we must tolerate and get along with eachother, but only the most insipid logic dribbled by a manipulator would actually say this makes me "best friends" with a person I otherwise don't like. However, in this case, the main issue was that they didn't understand maud and couldn't get a read on how she felt, so their bond with pinkie does partially solve that problem and remove a lot of the alienation. The rock candy also seems quite a bit like the elements of harmony, which are gone now. They were given away. The main characters are also reeving rainbow-charged objects as gifts. This all equates the action of giving up the EoH with the action of other people giving the m6 rainbow-objects, and also equates maud's box with the maguffin box, and potentially offers a specific meaning to the things which we will later find in that box.
based thread
can somewhat screenshot all these please?
bump
>>42616800Please do.
>>42575878Bro I'm 18.
>>42618263you are liar
>forgotIn the breezie episode and the above AB episode, the characters are delivering food to a location while being doted on by a force which is preventing progression, so there's another similarity I think I didn't mention.>For Whom the Sweetie Belle ToilsFirst scene, sweetie is being a gofer while rarity idly mulls over ideas for her "most prestigious order ever". Rarity's uncertanty causes sweetie to act inefficiently, and trip over herself. This is a direct improvement from their relationship as shown in "sisterhooves social", where rarity tried her hardest to sideline sweetie and sweetie destroyed valuable materials out of ignorance. Here, even if sweetie is still a clumsy child, she's being intentionally involved in the process and has enough information to respond to rarity's desires with some success.Then, sweetie gives rarity the impossible task of fixing 3 costumes by tomorrow for sweetie, while also finishing her order, all to Rarity's own standards. The 3 costumes are for a play with the cmc, while the order is for sapphire shores. Sweetie failed to tell rarity about this project earlier because she desperately wanted to keep her sister out of it in order to grow individuality, and her resulting dresses were shit enough that she caved at the last second and asked for help. This is, then, another "betrayal of the mother", as described above, or another trip to save the breezies, though sweetie was just mature enough to ask for help.Her play, also, is> Sweetie Belle: Forsooth and anon, I cometh forthwith and posthaste with glad tidings, miladies. is shit. It's a layer of nonsense which, at least, supplies fillies acting silly. By child-written play standards, it's good, but that's a really low standard.There's a real point made this season to generate and comment on cringe, and this is that, but it's also an aspiring storyteller specifically failing to make a good product while bucking the influence of an older artist, which is about as pure of a self-allegory as you can make, and it's cringe and overshadowed by the pretty pastel skin it wears.Rarity makes a pretty hat for sapphire which completely falls apart without one key part, which feels like some kind of metephore.Sweetie brings her complaint directly to rarity, but the maturity ends there.Later> Sweetie Belle: [gulping water] I wish there was a way I could take back all the work I did!And then she pulls the last important stitch out of the hat, meaning that the last stitch is metaphorically equivalent to sweetie's contribution to the product.
>>42619406 missed link>>42615194We spend time in a dream sequence, which is, plot-wise, equivalent to just thinking about stuff.We go almost directly to the childhood trauma which spawns sweetie's behavior, and luna just stomps to force her to see the parts of sweetie's 5th birthday which she didn't know about, or imagine, basically similar to offering rarity the benefit of the doubt.Luna shows sweetie a future where sabotaging rarity ruins her, which is basically equivalent to "but what if you make bad things happen with your actions."Sweetie wakes up and she and the cmc take a train to canterlot, break in to the studio of sapphire shores, and steal the hat before rarity can open the box it is in. Sweetie, alone, fixes the stitching and adds a little dolphin embroidery based on the dolphins which appeared in her dreams. Sapphire loves it, because she has the same dream dolphins, so there's something uncomfortable about that. Feels like a dog whistle for some straight up conspiratorial shit among the creatives at hasbro and/or hollywood or something like that, but we'll never know. Regardless of that representation of either occult symbology or subliminal messaging, this is an example of sweetie returning the good will directed at her after becoming impressed by rarity's behavior, which starts to feel a lot like every character who previously gave one of the rainbow items this season. It's not a key, however.
Best thread on /mlp/
>>42619744indeed
>>42620284https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNj8beDWVWU
>>42581775What does being marepilled entail? Is liking mares sufficient?
>>42620896kek
>>42619506>Leap of faithA title that just comes out and says it, if you catch my drift.>Apple Bloom: Just one more time? Please?First scene is AB begging for "one more time", which feels plenty self-allegorical. The apple family is playing in the local lake, except grannie, who talks about how she used to be a high-dive champ of some kind. >Apple Bloom: Do you think I could be a high diver?She is told no by her whole family, which fits this episode neatly in line with all the prior episodes about lessers who must sneak out and prove their abilities enough to earn some respect. That doesn't actually happen, this episode. Instead, we focus more on grannie's personal phobias spawned from failure and physical trauma in her sport.Flim and flam sell an everything-cure which doesn't actually do anything, but grannie buys some and can suddenly swim again, so it's explicitly a placebo which is curing her phobias and giving her confidence. AJ is pressured to support this until grannie attempts to do a particularly risky dive.AJ has a rainbow-eyes moment while while looking at grannie drinking more cure and planning to do more risky stuff, at the bottom in particular. AJ admits the truth, and so destroys the placebic effect. A pony who was working with flim and flam is inspired to quit by AJ's words, and gives her a bit>Silver Shill: - have it, as a reminder of how you helped me finally see the truth.So the weird part is this. Grannie keeps her new confidence at the end of the episode. Due to the dynamic between AB and Grannie, grannie's ability to get over her fears is equal to grannie's ability to encourage and tolerate applebloom's need to be a big pony and follow in grannies' hoofprints, despite it being dangerous.If applied to the prior episodes, grannie supporting AB is like if AJ had believed in AB in "some pony to watch over me." In that case, AB would have been fine at home and the whole dangerous adventure wouldn't have happened. In this case, having faith is blind and drives grannie to do dangerous stuff, which is bad. You can see the chimera cornering AB as being the same as Grannie diving for a tiny tiny pool, and both characters needed to be saved. So is the cure-all bad or not, thematically speaking? It is what lets AB run out and prove herself, but also is what would have made AJ finish her own delivery. It's what made Grannie risk herself, but also what made sweetie dare to put a dolphin on that headdress. It's what helped scoots stop crying and do her routine, but is also what caused daring do to commit to a plan where she had to lift more weight than she could carry, and what made rainbow go after her. It should be what caused the breezie to run out alone, but it isn't. They were desperate.So, is it good to offer the youth some faith or not?
>>42621637Metanarrativly, it's a link between old-gen and new, which is to say S1+2 and S4, and so rejecting it is rejecting the whole idea of this season existing, so is the tonic bad?Well, grannie learns it's a lie, and she keeps swimming. There is no repercussion for AJ telling the truth. She didn't actually have to make a hard moral decision, just a correct decision. The tonic, then, is a crutch, a temporary and imperfect solution which waits to be replaced with the mere memory of that crutch. It isn't evil, but allowing it to persist is. It's a challenge, which must be met immediately. Translated back into the metanarrative, the support of your betters is a crutch and a challenge which courts failure, which seems like a really strange result until you remember "twilight time" and the breezie episode, where we see the support of an authority lead to failure.Feels like a coherent season through line is finally starting to form.>Testing Testing 1, 2, 3So bad that I procrastinated on the prior episode just to push this one off.
>>42621821>There is no repercussion for AJ telling the truth.Tbf, there is that bit earlier in the episode where she refuses to say the elixir is fake, and other ponies start buying it because she approved of it, so telling the truth at the end does now pose at least some risk for her reputation.>>Testing Testing 1, 2, 3>So bad that I procrastinated on the prior episode just to push this one off.I am super excited because I also really dislike this episode. Cant wait to see your analysis.
>>42621821Mirrors the first few seconds of the season, in that rainbow and twilight share a scene where they fly and one of them tries to help the other get better at something. In s4e1, twilight needed to learn flying. Here, in s4e21, rainbow needs to learn history and other random nerd bullshit in order to pass the minimum written requirements to join her semi-military flying organization. Neatly, rainbow displays her ability to catch information while flying right here, so the rest of the episode is just waiting for the ponies to notice. It's pretty unlikely that a viewer would notice right away either, but the foreshadowing is there. However, it's so strong that, I pray, I can mostly just write off the whole middle as "fuck around until you learn the answer was back where you began">Rainbow Dash: Uh, seriously? Your freakouts are so epic, you sing whole freakout arias about freaking out.OofAnother of these lines from RD, and this one hurts extra bad, because we all know that this personality trait slowly becomes Twilight's primary trait, and this is the show directly pushing the idea.>Rainbow Dash: I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna fail! And it's all your fault!She says this after fucking around while twilight tries 3 study methods on her, and then failing a small quiz. For once, the adult is not at fault, unlike prior episodes, so far. Rainbow responds to failure with panic and then aggression, and twilight returns that aggression, comparing her own success record to the blue retard's. Obviously, that's something of a mistake, but rainbow isn't really leaving any room for a good response by attacking while being too stupid for any calm response to work on her. Fluttershy breaks up the fight.Fluttershy puts on a play using animals as a history lesson. Pinkie does a rap. Rarity creates replicas of historic uniforms, which each of the m5 dress up in. AJ tells rainbow she learned about apples over many years, and that rainbow's "up a creek".We have a compressed repeat of the prior scenes, where rainbow's friends all argue about using their forms of study again and rainbow gives up, yells, and flys off.During the following pep talk, twilight mentions that rainbow can read books, which she does while sitting, and retains information from, canonically.The m5 trick rainbow into doing a fly-by of the town while the town is acting out history scenes, holding giant flash cards, and mowing grass into relevant symbols. A direct reading says rainbow has an absurd brain super power and is also half as smart as we thought she was, in general. She passes the test.Twilight writes in the journal:>I needed to learn something just as important. One way of learning isn't better than another. After all, every pony is unique and individual.This is straight bullshit. While she pushed for her method of learning, at no point did she say or act like she thought the other methods were invalid.
more kino, lovely!
The other anon will probably get to this in his analysis, but I'd just like to say that my reason for disliking Testing 123 is how it's one of those episodes that just completely spits in the face of character development. Some of Dash's defining character flaws are that she's impatient and hot headed, and here for the very first time in the show, those flaws are actually serving as obstacles to her goal. For the first time, her own impatience is going to make her fail something that would prevent her from joining the Wonderbolts. That's great, that's what character flaws are supposed to do. They're supposed to be things that stand in a character's way and stop them from achieving their goals, requiring them to develop and grow past the flaw before they're able to accomplish their goal. But instead of doing that, the show just goes "Actually, Dashie is amazing and perfect the way she is, and instead of needing to learn to slow down and have patience for once, she just needs the help of an entire town in order to learn a 3 minute history lesson." And so Dash doesn't actually grow past her flaws. She's still impatient, she's still hot headed, she's still brash, and she just accomplishes her goal regardless because the writers gave her a mental superpower that allowed her to circumvent the flaws that would otherwise inhibit her. There is no development, no growth, Dash's flaws are just glorified and she can get what she wants without having to change for it. Hell, she just gives up during the episode when she decides that the effort of learning 3 minutes of history is just too damn hard. So much for that devotion she's supposed to have. She doesn't grow, she doesn't mature, instead the show bends over backwards to keep her exactly as she is and removing all obstacles for her so she never has to change.It's no wonder so many people complain about characters learning the same lessons over and over again when most of the fan favorite episodes are ones that glorify the characters and give them everything they want without having to change for it. No shit the characters were stagnant, that's what everyone cheered for.
>>42622597It's one of those things that in almost in any other show would get accusations of a character being a Mary Sue levied against them, and justifiably so. One of the most quintessential traits of a Mary Sue is that their flaws don't actually serve as serious impediments to them. Here, for the very first and last time in the series, Dash's flaws were actually acting as an impediment for her Wonderbolt aspirations. And instead of actually using it for character growth, the writers just turn her into a Mary Sue who's able to learn it all just fine without having to overcome those flaws at all. As a result, Dash at the end of the day isn't a Wonerbolt because she worked hard, or because she was super dedicated and ardent, no, she's a Wonderbolt because she was ordained by destiny to be the fastest flyer ever and was already the fastest even as a child, and she has mental superpowers which give her unmatched levels of observation and information processing as long as it occurs in her peripheral vision while she's flying. She accomplishes her dream because she has a laundry list of superpowers that she was simply born with because she's just that special. There is no arc, no journey, nothing to be overcome, she's just the best and always has been because she was preordained to be at birth. It was never a question of if she could be a Wonderbolt, only when. All she has to do is show up and the position will simply come to her because she's just naturally so awesome. If you relate to Dash or she's your favorite character, it feels great. If you want to see a character develop and grow, it cripples any development she could possibly have. I've noticed even a lot of Dashfags will admit her arc feels a bit hollow and lackluster, this is why. What went wrong is that there never was any actual struggle to overcome.
>>42622150I hesitate to even call this the direct lesson. It isn't just that the details line up to tell a different story, but that this is wholly something else.Also rainbow dives directly into depressed hopeless helplessness and needs to be picked back up, so that theme is strong here.Direct lesson is about a character being differently-abled and in need of finding a better method, that there IS a better method for them in particular which is worth finding instead of insisting on making a known method work. Everyone just needs to find their brain superpower, according to this.However, rainbow reads, and that is mentioned here. We also see her slowly interact with each teaching method. From pinkie-rap, she learns only the sound and none of the names. During twilght's lessons, she focuses on pranks and physical activities, which one would do if they were bored. After learning her dream is under threat, she reacts with pain and displeasure at fluttershy's play. Plays aren't complicated, but the layer of abstraction is enough to make the experience agony, meaning that anything slightly uncertain and abstract leaves room for doubting your own understanding, which she can't stand. Even when rainbow is trying, the implication of potential failure causes an emotional state that makes willingly continuing impossible.The link here is entertainment. Things which require her to actively try to think make her feel stupid, but things which supply enough entertainment to force her to think are understood perfectly easily. That's why flying works.During the rarity segment, she responds with active fear just to being asked to look at the uniforms. She yells "they are too much for my eyes," but that makes no sense. Her eyes process far more information than that, and the uniforms aren't that extreme. She isn't afraid of costumes. She isn't afraid of crowds. She isn't overstimulated visually, or informationally. 1.5 scenes later, the episode repeats itself, but worse, by having the m5 bicker and repeatedly showing rash's distraught face, in order to really drive home the point while slightly damaging the actual presentation and filling runtime. Later, twilight says it directly, that dash is being "overwhelmed", which is to say that that is what the episode is going for. Obviously, again, she's not, in terms of sheer volume. Instead, the mere demand that she learn overwhelms by wounding her ego. It literally comes down to that, and when she finally does learn she learns without ever having to think about how she should try to learn. This is the problem they solve, in the end.
>>42622923At every step, everything here only works if you offer a bad-faith interpretation in favor of the episode. The episode says "overwhelm" and means "hurt ego". It depicts "some are differently-abled" and it means "make learning fun". The episode depicts a set of isolated methods which don't work for their own reason, but just about neglects the one throughline which all those examples point to. Everything here is held together by an offhand mention of a book which invalidates a literal interpretation of events, and the knowledge that the literal version of the episode is dookie dog shit which tells people that they don't have to ever try or face defeat every hour of every day while having a good enough attitude to come back and win. The episode repeats itself. Dash and twilight take two flights and then experience a flashback of that flight. The m5 all push for their study methods, and then all push for their study methods again in the bickering scene, despite the fact that bickering doesn't follow from their prior behaviors and is directly at odds from AJ's fully zen "Guess you're fucked, sugarcube." from moments prior. Each method individually is an iteration on the same basic idea, and that idea is "Wow this teacher is cringe and Rainbow is a dickhead."The episode has offered itself so much structure that it should be easy to use iteration to very clearly drive home the point which was intended, but it doesn't. Instead, to find the point, you have to look directly at the flaws, find the dissatisfaction yourself, figure out what would fix it, and pretend it's a better episode. We seem to have gone a bit past "manipulated into not understanding" here. This is a bit more than using an annoying character to imply the truth, or having a villain be technically correct in some manner.This is also a real doubling down of "twilight time's" interpreted point, regarldess of if you accept my indirect reading of TT123 or not. Both seem to say, pretty clearly, that expecting people to just "get gud" with regards to reading a fucking book is unreasonable.Well, if we're talking purely from the perspective of people trying to cause someone else to learn, while viewing the person learning purely as an obstacle who must be overcome, then the lesson's correct. This IS how far you would have to go in order to make someone learn without depending on them to do half the work. If we put 100% of the burden on the teacher and absolutely reject the possibility of failure, then we should aim to accomplish a method which does not require the student to try hard or have a good attitude. I recall explaining to an older family member of mine that, in maths above algebra, we use * instead of x for multiplication because x is a letter which gets used as a variable. He tossed the napkin we were using away and rejected learning outright. The question we're facing in these episodes isn't "how could he learn", it's "how could I have taught... THAT.
>>42622970>Trade Ya!Opens with the most blatant exposition dump so far. There's been a few one-line exchanges this season like this, but this is the worst.Twilight is scheduled to oversee a trade fair as an authority. She's taking over from cadence, who did it last year. There's something to say about cadence, but it should wait for next episode. For now, this is twilight finally actually doing princess duties of any kind, and taking over for cadence. She also is displeased and reluctant when a foal ask for an autograph, so that's something.There's a moment where RD and FS trade a rusty horseshoe for a crystal chalice. They intend to make a chain of trades which ends in RD getting the last book in her Daring Do collection in a very classic and obvious set of events. Instead, the chalice breaks. Immediately after, pinkie stops a trade where twilight would have given her pile of unwanted books for a broken quill. She points out that the quill isn't actually valuable or desired, and this can be viewed as a direct counter to the normal version of RD's trade-chain story. The normal answer is unrealistic, as you have to actually offer something of value instead of expecting someone to want your garbage.Rd gives the shattered chalice to an art pony, who wants it specifically as shards, by chance, so she is again trading garbage and getting lucky. In order to figure out what chicken-statue they should be trading for, they actually bother to clarify what exactly their next trade-partner wants, which means RD has to stand there and keep other people from getting any chickens while FS flys off to check. Then, they work at a food stall in order to speed up the lunch break of a pony who's lamp they want. There is no complication in trading away the discord-shaped lamp. Finally, they trade a 2-headed dog for RD's desired Daring Do book, but also trade "many moons" worth of fluttershy's services to train that dog, away from ponyville, without discussion of further pay.At that moment, Rarity and AJ are each refusing to use the funds of the other to trade for antique objects they each want. They refuse to do the exact thing which rainbow does by trading away fluttershy without thinking about it.Twilight realizes that the sentimental value of her objects is a reason to keep them after all, which is the opposite of what rainbow did by trading away her "lucky" horse shoe. At this point, every other plotline exists to show the opposite of rainbow's plotline, but AJ and rarity are just as wrong as RD.Rainbow... sues, and manages to get the other pony to agree to undo the trade using sentimental appeal. AJ and Rarity and Rainbow trade their leftover unwanted goods for little trinkets for Rartiy and AJ and Fluttershy, respectively.
>>42623210> So that should settle it once and for all which of us is the better friend.> Rainbow Dash: Oh, come on! You both gave up what you wanted to get something for each other! That's the coolest thing a friend can do. Trust me, I know.RD dares to open her retarded mouth and chide her friends for their improper attitude, even while all 3 of them all took the correct actions and she did the worst. Probably, she speaks up because she personally knows what can happen when people lose sight of what's important, which is to say that this is an expression of her own mild trauma.For once, nobody collapses and needs to be picked back up, at all. Maybe we're past that, after having faced its most pure and debilitating form in the prior episode. Maybe fluttershy, who sacrificed herself to make others happy, is meant to fill that role. Maybe Twilight, who starts out not seeing the value of her books, is meant to fill that role, and so imply that all of these characters dabble lightly in that idea. At a minimum, the idea has been altered a bit, here.As preparation for the Tirek episode, maybe rainbow managing to break written rules using charisma is foreshadowing. I can say that pinkie's attempts to help mirrors all the ill-conceived attempts to help and guide in prior episodes, where it itself sucks and fails but that failure leaves a memory which solves the issue. It's a bit indirect, in that it doesn't feature a helpless student or youth proving their worth by sneaking out, and instead features a lady deciding she likes her garbage.Everything's just kind of a stretch here, which might make sense, as we're near the end of the season and so, finally, starting to distance ourselves from earlier folly and themes.RegardlessDirect message: learn to value your stuff and so maybe don't embark on a big self-blinding quest to trade away what you love for some shiny new bullshit and instead appreciate what you have with who you likeindirect message: Seemingly free exchange comes with a constant tax of complexity, always another little detail. Nothing can ever be simple. The drive to face those complications can blind you, but ultimately you WILL have to make some trades, if only to make up for what you've done. Just, aim smaller. You can't have everything. Scale matters, and so details matter. Don't be pinkie, who throws all her energy into hype in order to sell really really well. Instead, sell what you value less than others value it, which requires knowing both yourself and your trade partner. Meta: Actually, maybe the sentimental value of the original form of older content shouldn't be completely subsumed. Ain't that something?
>>42623210>>42623261There's one more lesson to be learned from Trade Ya!, actually. It's an economics lesson.Barter based economies suck ass and the whole reason we invented money was specifically so we wouldn't have to deal with trade bullshit like this any more.
>>42623261>Inspiration ManifestationThis is an episode where an artist goes mad with power and paints her own whims over the town of ponyville. The metanarrative aspect is so clear that it's hardly worth mentioning each time it manifests.Rarity makes a gold-covered puppet-box for a guy, which is very pretty but has wheels which don't touch the ground and a view-port which is too small to fit two puppets at a time. Spike finds a magic book in the old castle where we already found 2 other books, the comic book and the diary of the sisters, so it's implied to be their kin in some way.Owlowiscious spends the whole episode attempting to warn spike and getting ignored, so that puts the owl at odds with whatever force the book represents. The book outright says that rarity will only be cured of its influence when spike tells her the truth, which means that it's influence is the influence of spikes lies. He's offering encouragement, inflating her ego, and enabling this behavior through support. So, the book is that enabling support, which makes it the same as the cure-all. This is why taking the book away from rarity didn't remove her new powers or new insanity. He didn't remove the support which that book represented.It's a big episode for spike, but that conversation is better saved for next episode.It's a tiny episode for cadence. She is mentioned as helping clean up the town from dark magic. Last episode, she was mentioned as preforming duties at the trade fair. In other words, when the writers need to pick a character to be a responsible princess who exemplifies the duties which twilight is being forced into, the pick her. For now, she's dependable enough to function as a background fixture. In "three's a crowd", she was tough enough to handle the kinds of challenges which twilight faces, which helps bridge the gap between the person twilight is and the person she's supposed to be. At least for right now, cadence functions as a summit. As the counter-message is present in the form of owlowiscious, there's no need for an indirect and direct message. Spike is weak and dishonest and that turns out to be wrong and he eventually has to listen to the feathery nag. Of note, a team of alicorns have to clean up his mess, and he misapplies his "just be honest" lesson by telling twilight she looks like shit after cleaning up his mess when she tries to scold him. Based. However, if there's an indirect message implied, it's right there, and it's being saved for next episode.
Keep it up!
>>42624293>Equestria GamesRuBbEr DuckY youar THE onE!Opening is rainbow dash giving a pep talk on a train where the ponyville athletes agree to try their best in spite of probable losses. In other words, she faces, immediately, the potential for failure.Spike empathizes with AB a little bit, saying she's "just nervous" about doing her part at the equestria games.He is immediately kidnapped by crystal guards and dumped at the palace in front of princesses cadence and twilight. It is explained that the crystal ponies revere him for basically saving their city and defeating an evil wizard/king thing. He agrees to light an equivalent to the Olympic Torch, as an honored public figure. When he enters the stadium, he suddenly gets stage fright and can't make fire. Twilight secretly lights it, baling him out. He believes he lit it with his mind, and gains unfounded confidence from that, so that's the "cure-all" equivalent this episode. Twilight quickly tells him the truth, and he's sad about it. For once, ripping away the false confidence had a repercussion.The games begin proper, so a device which disables magic is used on unicorns entering the stadium to prevent cheating. Spike seeks out mrs harshwhinny in order to volunteer for some other important duty so that he can feel like he's lived up to the admiration that has been placed on him. She ignores him.He, without permission, enters the center of the magic-disabled stadium where twilight can't possibly clean up his mess, and hijacks the ceremonial singing of the cloudsdale anthem without knowing the words. He thought it was going to be the crystal empire anthem. It is at this moment that he learned pain.Days later, twilight drags him out of his mope cave and into the stadium, when an archer lets a stray arrow lose into a cloud overhead. It swiftly becomes a threatening solid hunk of ice. The pegasi can't lift it and the unicorns don't have magic. Spike uses pegasi as platforms and burns away the ice. However, this doesn't making him happy yet. He says that undoing his initial failure is the only thing that would really cure his shame, so cadence suggests he light some fireworks at the game's closing ceremony, which satisfies him.>Spike: You know, it's kinda weird. No matter how many times others tell you you're great, all the praise in the world means nothing if you don't feel it inside. [inhales] [breathes fire] Sometimes to feel good about yourself, you gotta let go of the past. That way, when the time comes to let your greatness fly, you'll be able to light up the whole sky.As per usual, the character is strictly wrong. He lets his greatness fly even while feeling like absolute shit, and he does it because harm will come if he doesn't. It's important, and that's what counts, what breaks through his depression and shame. Further, he doesn't let go in order to light the fireworks, he lights the fireworks in order to let go. He needed this event in order to regain his pride.
>>42624701Spike preforms a textbook "betrayal of the mother" and gets smacked down by reality immediately. His false confidence doesn't offer him any support or let him demonstrate competence, and so doesn't do for him what it did for grannie. He seeks out a task to prove himself, but fails that one too. Twilight does not coddle him or think much less of him, and instead drags him out into public after tolerating his behavior for a bit. The moment where he can show his value simply comes, but the memory which he collected wasn't enough. He had to willingly go back and face the origin of his trauma willingly, perhaps using that memory of competence as support.If we think back to castle mania, his super power was to be beneath notice. He's not, here. He's the hero. The ability to sneak, then, is a temporary measure. It's a power that the child imagines it has, but it's really equivalent to the patience everyone has for a kid. They aren't expected to be great. The hero is expected to be great. But these expectations don't actually determine what they are capable of, and success and failure don't actually determine how they feel about themselves. AB didn't complete the delivery. Grannie didn't do her high dive. Daring didn't lift the rings alone. Spike did a big heroic act and embarrassed himself, and neither affected his original wound directly. He had to satisfy him.I like to draw attention to the crystal ponies. They are terrified. The mare feeding spike gems is very nervous. Realistically, he will outlive all of them, and can eat everything in their kingdom. Though young, and kind, he still represents a terrifying amount of force in the long term. The guard ponies kidnap him without a word and dump him on the floor under the orders of the princesses. He's a hero to them and a nuclear bomb. They do NOT want to do that, but we can only speculate why they do. Clearly, the compulsion they have to follow the orders of cadence is stronger than their fear and love of spike. Cadence is a calm and even kind of person, and patient. They cannot be like this from her actions alone. Therefore, this is an expression of trauma, probably from the evil king who tortured them for unknown reasons for 1000 years. Cadence is the ruler, and they do EXACTLY what she says, in the way they understand it. I imagine she or twilight simply said, "Bring me spike."Therefore, in an episode about fear of failure and nervousness, they are the most nervous, and we see them fumbling a bit as a result of that nervousness before we see spike fail the first time at the games.
Bumping. Nearly to the end of season 4.
>>42625359Saving this with many survivors
>>42625640Good.
>>42625359Waiting for moar
>blogshit threadgood riddance.
>>42627835You say as you help keep it going for us.
>>42628373he didn't bump it, I did it for him and deleted my reply
>>42628376Oh, yea I missed that. Thought his post had bumped.
>>42554339Someone explaining exactly why pone was a dead mare walking when S3 came out of the sausage grinder.
I think the s4 finale is the next one, right?
>>42624854>twilight's kingdom> Spike: Seems like only yesterday I was saving this place from being totally destroyed. Hey, you guys remember that?> Rainbow Dash: You only mentioned it about fifteen times on the train here.Immediate blatant exposition, followed by rainbow specifically attacking someone's enthusiasm.Rarity calls rainbow a hypocrite, so that's the answer to that season-long theme, at this moment.A footnote, we see the crystal heart for a moment here and in "equestria games." This time, it's spinning far less quickly.Twilight says that "smiling and waving" as a princess is the same as s&w as a regular pony, which means it's both things. She's sad, doesn't feel like the task lives up to her title.After a song, celestia tells twilight "Your time will come." This seems to confirm twilgiht's fears that her time has not yet come, that she needs to be looking out for some future event where she does something important to justify her existence as a princess. However, during the song they say "You are a princess. You'll do your part." in a context that paints this as a truism. They could mean that twilight is a princess, and that being a princess is that she will do her part, that they are the same thing.Tirek sucks a unicorn dry of magic in a dark alley, and celestia wakes up from a dream where she saw that happen. Luna kicks down her door and they immediately start planning based on that vision which they both had. She just says it. That's not the unconscious of sweetiebell potentially making reasonable guesses about the future. That's not an association based on the use of alicorn magic in a potion. That's not an inference from celestia's inaction against NMM. That's not an assumption based on a mysterious aether which she accessed one time when twilight ascended. She had a vision, and the alicorns are deciding how to rule based on it. That's cannon. Celestia decides to give the heroic job of catching tirek to discord instead of twilight. Twilight, moping, decides to read in the everfree castle. Her friends follow.Discord shows up, shoves them at the lockbox macguffin, hands them their friendship journal, and tells them to open the box and read the book.They outright say that he's very annoying but might still have a point, so there's that theme confirmed.Discord physically chains tirek, but tirek offers him freedom while claiming his current role is just "errand boy for ponies" and is imprisonment. Twilight checks discord's bookmarks in the friendship journal and finds a commonality between them.> Twilight Sparkle: I've found that each of you has had to face a situation where living up to the Element of Harmony you represent wasn't easy.This means that narrative and thematic analysis of the season is an explicit part of the narrative, complete with bookmarks, and this is what she thinks the theme is. The objects which the characters received turn into 5 actual keys and enter the box.
>>42630555Twilight now thinks she has to help someone with a magic problem>missed a detailwhen discord pulls out the magic of a pony, they lose their cutiemarkAnyway, the princesses all decide to put their magic in twilight, since it can't just be deleted or hidden someplace. Reasons for this are1. it would be lame2. getting rid of the magic would not get rid of what the magic represents, which I haven't covered yet. Point is, that would be a contradiction. They give it to twilght because she's new, and tirek may not know about her.Twilight raises the sun the next morning, poorly.Tirek enters the palace looking for magic. He eventually gives up on interrogation, and tosses the 3 princesses into tartarus. Tirek gives discord his amulet. Discord alters the murals, but claims not to have altered twilight's. It's unclear if he did, because he tells tirek he "needed assurance" before revealing who twilight is, and he received the amulet right before tirek noticed the mosaic. This also means that celestia's plan was ruined the moment twilght raised the sun, if tirek was paying attention, or when discord told, or inevitably when tirek came to the palace and saw the mosaic.We could say that, since she sometimes uses visions instead of traditional strategy, she sometimes overlooks details which would otherwise matter while knowing part of how things should turn out.Twilight, burdened with new power, digs a trench with her face just like she did in the opener of s4e1. She also tells her friends to stay behind and walks into the forest while simultaneously deciding not to use her overcharged wings, or teleport.Discord stuffs the m5+lizard in a cage and gifts them to tirek as leverage against twilight. Tirek sucks them dry of magic, and then sucks discord. The amulet came from tirek's brother, who he hates a bit.> Discord: Surely you saw this coming.> Fluttershy: [crying] I didn't. I really didn't.> Applejack: Surely you saw this comin'.> Discord: [weakly] I didn't. I truly didn't.Discord and fluttershy say the same exact line, meaning that discord swiftly finds himself in the position of those he betrays.Twilight gets 2 minutes to figure out how to use her magic again. Tirek finds her and fights her. The combat itself has basically no deeper meaning, other than two things. Twilight's house gets destroyed because she teleported to it, and tirek admits that he didn't realize twilight had all the missing magic. He might be kinda dumb. These are not particularly deep meanings.
>>42630678Tirek, deciding he can't overpower twilight, trades her friends for her power. She has her rainbow-eye moment, and agrees. She insists on receiving discord, who gives her tirek's brother's amulet. Everyone immediately realizes it is the 6th key, runs to the chest, and then unlocks the box. It gives them one-time rainbow-forms which move at the speed of a nationwide magic shockwave, casts rainbow-lasers that strip tirek of his stolen magic and put him instantly in tartarus, breaks the princesses chains, and restores all the drained ponies so that they stand back up, filled with life again. The box grows an eyesore crystal tree-castle in the middle of ponyville, and is gone forever.In song, the ponies say they have a light in them, which is their individuality, which they are meant to share.>So, what does it mean?Well, tirek offers discord freedom. In this case, that freedom is the mere absence of responsibility, but discord wrongly thinks that he's getting friendship in this deal. Since friendship, regardless of its form, is a relationship and so places definitions on the people involved, friendship is the acceptance of some negotiable format of responsibility, in that you are responsible for meeting your personal minimum definition of friend. He asked for a paradox, and got nothing after a delay. Tirek, then, traded friends for magic, when those are the same thing, and so got nothing after a short delay. While it's true that a man alone has unlimited freedom and so unlimited power, a man alone can do little more than bully trees in a forest and eat. If only in the form of works, he has to create some form of form, and then has to operate within the bounds required to make use of and/or maintain those forms. Even hunting requires that the hunting grounds are maintained, and honestly a fuckload of restrictions on behavior.So, when tirek ripped out a pony's magic, he also ripped out their destiny, or cutiemark, and left them lethargic and unmotivated. Tirek's direct argument, that he could give you freedom in return for your relationships, was true, but those relationships are also everything, and the true form of a completely free person in this sense is a bored and sad lump So, when tirek uses friendship as a weapon against twilight, he gets what he wants. She has a weakness, and this is it. However, he took the magic, while failing to take what that magic represented.I mentioned the fisher king, who presides over a sick kingdom which is suddenly cured when he is cured. At the climax of this finale, every pony in the kingdom is ragdolled onto the ground with dim eyes and no purpose, until the ruler of their nation is given the right words by discord, at which point a metaphysically-fast expression of a better world alters the state of the kingdom. Twilight lives in the holy grail's son, and was, for a moment, the glow of the grail made flesh.
>>42630769If removing magic, which is friendship, removes a cutiemark and relationships, then there is a link between identity, destiny, and relationships. Who you are is the sum of your expressions in the world and your reactions to them, and your relationships is the interaction between those expressions and the people and objects nearby. They are, then, pretty close to the same thing, so the list of things which is magic is getting long. This supports the earlier interpretation of "you are a princess, you'll do your part" as well as the last season's "that they are friends is who they are".Twilight's issue was that she couldn't see a future where she fulfilled her purpose, and the common ponies lost the mark representing their future and purpose while twilight temporarily discarded her friends, for their safety, dumbly and with zero success.The giant ball of power which twilight gets loaded with is identical to receiving full responsibility of the whole kingdom, in literal terms, which is another reason why tirek couldn't hold onto that power for long. It's also, just generally, what being a princess is, and so is the same question she was struggling with in the season premier. It's also an attempt to use the same power which spike used in the comic episode, but it doesn't work, like at all.If I look for an enabler, along the lines of the cure-all or the inspiration manifestation, or fluttershy using big mac and the needs of others as an excuse, then there's three candidates. Twilight is inspired by a wrong idea of responsibility. Discord is inspired by a complete lie. Tirek is enabled by discord, when he could have been stopped, and a wrong idea about power. Most of the time, these enablers are used by someone other than the main character, but not always, so that doesn't help. As the enablers are temporary measures which must be overcome in order to create a permanent improvement in the self, it's probably discord and freedom is the cure-all.If alicorn magic offers visions of the future and past, then that means that alicorns magic is the basic ability to make plans and create purpose. It's just having foresight and a memory, in non-magical terms. In the start, rarity accuses rainbow of hypocrisy. Discord, after betraying fluttershy, does not expect to be betrayed. Tirek, after leaving each person behind him without purpose or power, expects to maintain purpose or power. Twilight, after learning not to put herself above her friends in the premier, leaves them behind for their safety. Twilight, after giving a more real freedom and purpose to others, receives the same. For each key, a person saw our characters in action, and were inspired. Their actions came back to them, immediately. Rainbow was snarky and disapproving at spike, and rarity was snarky and disapproving at rainbow.
>>42630881Twilight says fairly clear, that they receive a token after clinging to their elements under adversity, where those elements are their force of personality. That fits with the ending song, where they sing about letting their lights shine. If so, the season would be pretty clear and simple, where each episode involves a character undergoing adversity and then finding their own better nature. Thing is, that's every story with a happy ending, and most with a sad one. Person/thing has trait, then trait is put under stress, and then the trait works if it's a positive lesson and fails if it's a negative example. That's not a theme, that's just communication. Subject + predicate is just noun + verb which is "thing" under "condition" with a point. If I stretch for details, it's a theme of inspiration where you get a token of that inspiration. In that case, who inspired scootaloo in flight to the finish? What were half the episodes in the season? Was fluttershy inspired in filli vanilli? Sort of, but it doesn't quite fit.Assuming that we just accept this, then tirek and scorpan were both lords. Scorpan lived among the ponies and was inspired. He chose to be like them. His brother, given the same offer, refused, which was the other possibility scorpan could have chosen. Then, tirek is defined as the one who could not be inspired. That makes him the final challenge in a season of inspirations by force of personality and goodness. Even if it doesn't line up with the details, it is at least internally consistent, and discord teeters on the edge between being like scorpan and like tirek.This would all hint that twilight's problem is a lack of being inspired, and that's pretty clearly wrong. She has an idol and is desperate to participate in society. >So, the bookmarksTwilight Sparkle: Pinkie Pie, you realized that seeing your friend laugh was more important than proving you were a better party planner than Cheese Sandwich.After her r-eye moment, pinkie tries to leave town. This means that it wasn't seeing dash laugh that mattered, but that dash laughed. It also means it didn't matter who was making her laugh, not just that their comedy competition was unimportant.
>>42630948Fluttershy, it was when you realized that the way to show kindness to the Breezies was by forcing them to leave your home.Fluttershy: Oh, the looks on their poor little faces! But I knew that, as difficult as it was, pushing them away was the kindest thing I could do.This part shows us a flashback of kicking the breezie's out. That's legitimately how she remembers it, what seemed important to her. Her r-eye happened when the blue breezie managed to show her her own hypocrisy. She was forced to acknowledge that meaner words had a place, and she already used them sometimes. The issue wasn't pushing them away or throwing them out, it was being rude willfully for the good of the target of that rudeness. Oddly, the breezie was inspired to be nicer sometimes, which means fluttershy became a bit more like the breezie while the breezie became a bit more like fluttershy. Twilight Sparkle: Applejack, do you remember when you had to tell everypony that the tonic Granny bought from the Flim Flam brothers didn't really work? Applejack: How could I forget? It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Applejack: [flashback] I hate to disappoint everypony, but there's no way Granny could have made that dive, because this tonic is a fake! Applejack: [present] And in that moment, I knew I had to be honest. I just knew it.This is the closest to fitting what the ponies say it is, but at the moment AJ made the choice, she was watching her grandma get set up for death by a pair of liars. The answer was pretty clear. If anything, she was forced to be honest, and she says directly that it was hardly a choice. Twilight Sparkle: Rainbow Dash, you had the chance to fly with the Wonderbolts at the Equestria Games, but instead you chose to compete with your friends.At RD's r-eye moment, she was already choosing to race with neither team. Loyalty is involved, but she was avoiding making a hard choice at all. Just like with the discording of RD in s2e1/2, she's inevitably being disloyal to somebody. She is, however, mad that soarin got nothing but lies while she got a big fun hospital visit from her friends and team. So, if anything, she's mad at them for not having any loyalty. Twilight Sparkle: Rarity, even after Suri took advantage of your generosity at Fashion Week in Manehattan, you didn't let it cause you to abandon your generous spirit. Rarity: I simply couldn't have lived with myself if I didn't do something special for the friends who have always been so generous to me!But at her r-eye moment, she's upset because she thinks her friends chose to abandon her. She absolutely abandoned her generous spirit, and thought she was getting comeuppance..
>>42630953In the premeire, we get multiple flashbacks with multiple needed interpretations each. Progress in that story is made by finding multiple ways to interpret the same information or points of the scene. In presenting that book, the act of scraping the seasons for details is made an explicit part of the plot. That means that interpretation is part of the plot, which implies strongly that no solid singular answer will be found, as that would somewhat ruin the point. The main link I see between the 5 r-eye moments is repercussion, a simple utilitarian moment. "If I keep being a bitch my friends will leave." "If I keep being soft, the breezie will get stranded." "If I keep measuring dicks, RD will be sad." "If I don't tell the truth, grannie'll fuckin die." "If I stay here in bed, both teams will fail." This is, again, every lesson. All lessons involve avoiding negative results and aiming for better ones, by some standard. Because the subjective suggestions of the characters don't hold up, I search for a more objective answer, and find the bare bones of morality. Without a subjective eye painting over it, making a mistake, filling in a blank, saying something unsupported, there is no further link, only the scaffold for one.When twilight chooses to save discord, labels him as a friend in spite of his misbehavior, she, through action, defines what a friend is, and disproves the version of "friend" which tirek argued against. Through her force of will, she doesn't avoid a bad fate. The only difference is that discord could have remained imprisoned, and she frees him. It is pure and direct and without complication. Her friendship is not contingent. It is an interpretation. She decided to interpret him as friend, and so he was. It became true because she declared it, and acted on it. Interpretation created reality.AJ didn't redefine honesty. Pinkie didn't create the concept of laughter. Rainbow, most of all, did not define the concept of loyalty. So, this direct read of twilight's case doesn't extend to the other examples, except that the other examples must be linked to twilight's situation by the viewer. You, despite the broad terms, are prompted to find a connection, or at least assume there is one. In this way, we could argue that the act of reinterpretation at odds with the original reading of the text is the link between what twilight does and all the prior examples. By remaining open to and demanding interpretation, by being vague, the other examples find a commonality with twilight's example, where she herself does the interpretation.However, Twilight's r-eye moment isn't when she saves discord. It's when she decides to trade power for her friends, which we know includes discord.
>>42631557In "equestria games", spike has a moment where he knows what to do and he does it. That good deed alone is not appreciated by him. It's not fueled by any lesson he learns. It's simply there. When he searches for some kind of glory, that comes with the implication that he is not already full of glory, that he has to earn it. Focusing on this, he is filled with fear and uncertainty.Twilight worries about her role, about proving her place, about holding up the weight of an infinite responsibility. Then, she throws it away when she knows what to do. Her own values express themselves in spite of all her prior worries.Rainbow is so worried that she is fully paralized and then she just gets over it when the time comes.Pinkie can't stand having competition, and then simply drops the issue.Rarity's personal philosophy is challenged and she gives everything to try to win a competition, and then she runs off just like pinkie.The ponies are all terrified of literally nothing in castlemania and then they just get over it and that lack of fear is the answer.Fluttershy is destroyed by fear in filli vanilli, and then she's told that she's being silly, and she gets over it.>focusing from here on episodes which do not very obviously fall into this pattern of daring don'tRainbow acts as an absolute freak on account of wanting to do well without having an idea what she means by "well", and on account of wanting there to be more books. She actually manages to contribute when she gets over the idea of her own failure, at which point she applies her instincts in a situation where they actually apply.bats!Fluttershy lets herself get pushed into a corner and becomes a problem. AJ ends up having to give up what she was after in order to fix this.Three's a CrowdDiscord wants proof and causes problems for it, and cadence solves the central conflict by just being cool about it.Twilight TimeIf sweetie didn't feel like she had to prove anything to DT, none of this would have happened.Maud PieEntire issue is trying to force a friendship through traditional means instead of appreciating what is already the case.Testing Testing 1, 2, 3"Rainbow's terror is so strong that she can't sit still and learn to learn, and then does it automatically. She "just does it."Trade Ya!Rainbow gives up what she's after, twilight decides she doesn't need to offload her books, and RR + AJ stop bickering over who should receive more and just buy what they can for eachother as gifts, and then get chided for STILL trying to compete instead of just enjoying what they've done.And in the finale, discord harbored doubts about the validity of his friendships, looking for more without being able to define it, and twilight looks for tasks to prove her princess-ness, without having any idea what that means or appreciating who she already is.In short, this is a series of stories about people who are pushed by their own worry to act absolutely retarded.
>>42631609Honorable mention, grannie was kept away from the water by an irrational fear based on a trauma for 250 years or something... just ignore the part in pinkie apple pie where she is in a river. You can simply say that episode happened later, chronologically.anyway>absolutely retardedThat worry, itself, then, is wrong. Based on the s4e1+2, twilight is worried about her future at a time when the show itself has just had a working conclusion. The staff have lost their original creative direction and are now in charge of a media craze. Thus, the buzzing question hanging above twilight's head, "how can I justify my own existence?", is also being asked by the show itself. "How can we justify a season 4?" The answer is, shut up! Stop being weird about it. Just calm the hell down, and watch the cartoon, and the meaning will happen automatically, or it won't at all.So, twilight simply sacrifices herself to the vines, and does what she thinks needs doing, and doesn't worry about if she's a hero or a princess.
keep it up my dude I love reading this
>>42631622Castle mania sets up the rest of the season. In it, the m6 are used in 3 different ways. Twilight is spared fear by a diary rendering everything familiar. Pinkie never had to deal with the fear in the first place, and quickly became a part of that place, because pinkie instantly recognized her friends. Pinkie directly questions the basis of RD and AJ's competition, and so the answer she represents is to question the line between familiar and unfamiliar, to disbelieve in the concept which is causing others problems. When twilight confronts pinkie, pinkie is folded into that familiarity, and yet some basic form of alienation continues to exist, slipping off into the night, shapeless.Pinkie is successfully reinterpreted, just as the memories in the premiere were reinterpreted. Familiarity and assumptions serve as an anchor which is required for any understanding at all, but an assumption must ultimately be destroyed in order to become more correct about anything. Without the ability to question and strip away our assumptions about what is known and familiar, we cannot extend what is known and familiar. Similarly, without anything to ground ourselves in, we can not use our understanding on the world to affect meaningful change or help, and can only produce strange and terrifying voluntaries.These are the two forces at opposite ends of this season's narrative. These are the yin and the yang which here seek harmony.At the beginning of the finale, spike crows directly to the camera in a way which tells us when and where and why we are. The artifice of fiction is weakened for a moment in order to directly speak to the audience. Rainbow dash mocks him. Spike is the one clinging to a story in order to anchor himself. Rainbow is asking him to move on. Since the season has already determined that we will all do what we must when the moment comes, it is clearly not necessary that he cling to these stories, but rainbow does the same thing, and so either everyone has to fundamentally change, or such behavior should be tolerated, even as we admit that it is non-ideal in the long run and gets more annoying with repetition. It is unfortunately too difficult to say which character is here representing traditional storytelling and which character represents a weakening of artifice so that the author can speak frankly and share the guts of that artifice directly with the audience. While spike is doing an info-dump, both characters are still in-character. While spike sucks as a character for a moment, it is rainbow who admits that he sucks as a character. So, which is the frank comment? Is it the character who points out the flaws in presentation or the character who is that flawed presentation? Maybe it's just a separate alignment.
>>42634704In the last confrontation, in the finale, twilight sets aside the flawed words of celestia, which are the basis for the familiarity which gave her power in castle mania. So, is twilight setting aside familiarity and assumptions by overcoming celestia, or is she wielding familiarity and assumptions by siding with her friends and folds discord into that familiarity? Is twilight attacking the premise of the show, or embracing it?It's neither, because the question is wrong and cannot be answered. Is twilight a hero or a princess? She's twilight. What's more, familiarity didn't actually let them confront pinkie. They had to directly face the source of their fear in order to confront pinkie, and so move outside of the protection of Celestia's book.Is spike a character or a mouthpiece? Neither, he's spike, and spike is a fictional construct.>the 3rd way characters were used in castle-maniaRainbow and AJ are locked in a competition with no rules, seeking something to justify an undefined victory. Rarity is specifically seeking out relics of the past in order to restore them, or steal them, it's somewhat unclear what her real intent is. Fluttershy just follows her in out of concern, and spends her time scared for Angel Bunny's sake.Eventually twilight has to come in with her crutch-diary and use a few moments of force in order to give everyone the chance to calm down. Given that knowledge, all of them are basically fine after that point.This is to say, while pinkie and twilight have specific ways of avoiding the terror of the dark, most ponies spend a fair amount of time in the muck, and in a specific set of ways. The season was, as you can see above, exceedingly difficult to form into a singular narrative, instead switching considerably so that every episode tends to have similarities to the episode before and after it, but few obvious similarities continued from one end of the season to the other. Perhaps they can instead be grouped into mini-narratives, preferably 4 of them corresponding to these 4 ponies.
You should make a ponepaste for your analysis', just compile it all in one file. Or you could separate them by season too.
>>42634769Episodes about competition:Castle mania, Flight to the finish, Rarity takes manehattan, rainbow falls, pinkie pride, simple ways*, twilight time*, trade ya, equestria games, which is a mere 9/26, or /22 if you exclude the premire and finale. It's a theme, and it's alot, but not half.Hero episodes, marked with * when they are non-literal heros:Castle mania*, daring don't, power ponies, rainbow falls, three's a crowd(starswirl, negligable), pinkie pride, simple ways* (he's an influence and rarity straight-up transferred her worship of him into lust), twilight time* (twilight's influence and worship is a topic, this one time), for whom the sweetie bell toils***(hardly counts but luna is kind of being a hero and rarity is catching flack for being too heroic and good basically), equestria games.There's also leap of faith, which involves AJ functioning AS a public figure with influence on people so sort of. I refuse to count testingtesting123, but it did feature a brain superpower.That's... extremely subjective. That's 11 if I stretch as far as I am willing, and 4 if I'm strict with the intended definition. While there's a whole lot of people who are being inspired by other people and/or building them up in some manner, the song at the end of the finale frames this. There's a light of personality and virtue inside of people, and it is meant to shine, inspire, and build. That's the basic mechanic of the rainbow-keys.There are a lot of episodes about coddling:Twilight time, It ain't easy being breezies, somepony to watch over me, for whome the sweetie belle toils, leap of faith, and equestria games touch on that theme. Arguably, filli vanilli involves the coddling of fluttershy.That's only 7 episodes, but it is almost 7 episodes in a row and arguably 2 r-eye moments, with the maud episode as an exception.The maud episode is a little helpful. It doesn't contain heroes or competition, does contain people being tortured by their desperate attempts to conform to their preconceptions, and does contain the abandonment of those preconceptions in order to define someone into being a friend through sheer willpower. It also has a pretty direct echo of the act of putting the elements into a box and getting out nothing but the memory.Bats! also involves a singular character getting completely alienated where the other characters have to recognize their mistake, hunt her down, and fix it, and no hero, competition, or coddling (other than coddling the bats themselves)Trade ya offers the same kind of framing as catle mania, but with less terror. Pinkie delights in leveraging the arbitrary nature of value until twilight stops her and marks her book-pile as familiar. AJ+Rr compete. FS is driven by care while rainbow is driven by the need to obtain something old and valuable. The main difference is that they aren't terrified. That forms a skeleton on which we can hang the rest of the season.
>>42635238This.
>>42635238Please do this!
MORE EPISODES MORE REVIEWS!
BIG THICK JUICY TEXTWALLS
>>42635655Princess Twilight Sparkle"Castle Mane-ia (spine set)Daring Don't Chases a book of happy fiction, sees no coherent place for herself in this story. Leans on own judgment and saves another from a weight too largeFlight to the Finish Is outright competing for a spot. Insecure from the wispers of a jerk. Has to accept that she doesn't have to compare herself to othersPower Ponies Finds no place for himself. Weaponizes his own invisibility. Is asked to accept that he doesn't always need to actBats! (Pinkie set)Rarity Takes Manehattan Intimidated, acts just like the bitch who showed her up. Acts more like herself and less like the opposing jerk.Pinkie Apple Pie Chase old scroll of geniology for validation. Decides they don't need that validation.Rainbow Falls Pulls a similar trick to her idols, but not the same. Sneaks out to hang with cool kids. Decides to stand by her own values..Three's a Crowd Character pretending to be sick, like what rainbow did, demands the kind of attention rainbow got and more. He gets it. It seems like the inverse of "boy who cried wolf", where the lesson is to always respond even if it might be fake.Pinkie Pride pinkie competes with cheese until she notices that her competition is damaging and pointless.Simple Ways Rarity ends up in a competition with AJ but does not recognise the damage it causes, so AJ clowns on her until she stops being weird.Filli Vanilli fluttershy tries new artistic thing , likes it, refuses to admit it, has an ego crash when discorvered, simply gets over itTwilight Time children fail to grow under ill-fitting tutelage and cope poorly from the social shame, betraying their tutor, but grow quickly through failureIt Ain't Easy Being Breezies Instead of unlimited leeway, some amount of firmness is required in order to get people to grow instead of just using you forever.Somepony to Watch Over Me child seeks to prove their worth but can't under the protection of adults while also needing help from adults to handle their failuresMaud Pie" (Pinkie set)
>>42637948For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils" child seeks to prove their worth but can't under the protection of adults while also needing help from adults to handle their failures, but only needs emotional helpLeap of Faith" grannie is also only able to function as teacher while unburdened by fear and trauma, when she thinks it's no big dealTesting Testing 1, 2, 3" from prospective of teacher, to grow student, must remove as much difficulty as possable, to the point where they don't think they are trying.Trade Ya!" (spine set)Inspiration Manifestation" relic, have to be honest so that others have the proper feedback. After 5 episodes about how to properly encourage, this places a limit on that encouragment, suggesting honesty.Equestria Games says all prior answers can ultimately fail because confidence is ultimately an internal function which other's can't actually control. When that happens, the best other can do is patiently let you fix yourselfTwilight's Kingdom" I want to say basically everything from twilight time to equestria games is part of the (flutershy set), things about concern for others dragging you into uncertainty, If so, that's almost half the season.With Flight to the finish, Rarity takes manehattan, rainbow falls, pinkie pride, and simple ways, there's plenty of direct competition fueled by insecurity. However, Twilight Time is also fuled by insecurity and competitive nature, and clearly frames its conflict around trying to grow the young and underdeveloped. This list constantly skips episodes, while the latter half of the season is basically all FS coded. Three's a crowd borrows so strongly from Rainbow Falls that I want to put them in the same group, as they continue eachother's narrative, but they don't share in this overarching theme. That also gives competition a tiny fraction of the episodes, despite that theme being given extra space both in castle mania and in trade ya, which would indicate it should have a massive share of the episodes.
>>42637954Removing those, we've still got Daring don't, power ponies, pinkie apple pie, three's a crowd, and filli vanilli.The first three there all focus on trying to force yourself into the rolls you find on an old peice of paper, so that fits into the (rarity set), Three's a crowd, I can force into the competition set by saying it has to complement rainbow falls. I can squint and say it's part of the rarity set, because twilight just wants to geek out about starswirl, but that's bullshit. I could call it a part of the spine set, since it's got a moment in which all 4 friend ponies get dealt with in 2 different ways, and cadence acts as the bright half of the conflict while discord acts as the dim side. It's just not very crisp.Filli vanilli, however, has nothing. It's not competition. It's not coddling, quite. It's not chasing some old scroll and trying to fit yourself into it, except in that fluttershy is pretending to be modivated by self sacrafice when she's actually having a blast. She never faces her original trauma. It's vaugly on topic for the season, but just doesn't fit into these sets, as far as I can figure outI give you this as homeworkAnd with that, I think I'm done trying to untangle s4.
best thread on /mlp/
>>42638543True.
>>42637958So, what is a "strong narrative?"Narrative: the representation in art of an event or storyNarrative: a spoken or written account of connected events; a story.Event: a thing that happens, especially one of importance.Event: a postulated outcome, condition, or eventualityThus, a narrative is a description of any conceptual constructs given a frame of reference which point to a specific set of conditions within that frame. A "triple point"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_pointcan be described as a function only of temperature, in which the pressure and substance are kept static and time is not a factor. I choose water as the example substance, for convenience. I could present the data in the form of a set of numbers filling out a 1 row table. At each temperature logged, I can record the current volume of the substance. As the temperature raises, the ice should remain fairly stable. Right after the triple point, the ice should become a gas, and so have a much larger volume. Right at the triple point, the volume of the substance should rapidly increase, but be between its volume as a solid and its volume as a gas.Thus, if I record 3 numbers in a table, creating a generalization about the behavior of water as it increases in temperature and hits the triple point, that is a narrative.If I record only one number, the volume of water under a single temperature, while also taking the pressure for granted, that too is a narrative. Despite the lack of change, it describes an event and tells and interesting story using the medium of data. The strength of that narrative, then, is based on the clarity of the definitions which are being used. A strong narrative is one which clearly defines itself. Weak narrative: There is a pressure at which water can be liquid, gas, and solid, given some particular temperatureStrong narrative: H2O at "approximately 273.16±0.0001 K" and "611.657 pascals" experiences its "triple point">that's nerd shitClearly.A strong narrative is found in a modern cookbook. It's not data, and it doesn't intend to be too entertaining, but it tells a basically objectively verifiable story with a specific end and all expressions in the recipe contribute meaningfully to that end. Nice little stories about how gramgram made memories in the spring using that recipe are not actually part of the creation of that food, and so are not on topic, and weaken the narrative. That's annoying, though such diversions can allow for an understanding of the experience of the resulting food and its potential social use, and so may sometimes justify themselves somewhat.
>>42639087A strong narrative is "I will be the greatest ____!" Now, the narrative is focused on a single base concept and a character's relation to it. There is an implied direction of progress, and so an audience can more easily interpret each event in the story in relation to that, either as progress or a setback. So, does ulysses have a strong narrative?Well, nobody can ever tell you, for sure, what happens. Events are not described in the traditional sense of either word. The description given for the narration is "stream of consciousness" which is what happens when grandpa expired 4 years ago but he body kept going, and grandpa CERTAINLY does not present a strong narrative when he rambles. However, that's the conceit, is that you follow, in an unbroken chain, the stream of that consciousness. That, then, provides a single row of points which you can fill with that data of events. Somewhere in the particular order which these unfiltered thoughts flowed from the mind of the narrator is some point. The narrative is not "event x occurred and event y occurred next", but is instead "Event x was considered and event y was considered next." Somewhere, in there, is the narrative line, I assume. I have not finished Ulysses. I have not become one of the elite.But, my point remains. Where one hides their narrative behind layers of obscurity, abstraction, subjectivity, and intentionally unanswered questions by intentionally playing with art in an experimental fashion, is the resulting narrative weak? If a narrative which forces itself to be fully understood through clarity is strong, and a narrative which cannot be understood due to simply having no underlying meaning and so no clarity is weak, then is a narrative which has a specific and simple underlying meaning but which hides that meaning behind impenetrable communicative tricks that prevent anyone from understanding that meaning strong or weak? I think it is painfully clear. If a hermit writes a story in the woods, but nobody can read it, the narrative is weak.
>>42639128So, I owe a debt to argument ad absurdum. I've written a definition of strong narrative which says that experimental works have weak narratives, which is a wrong conclusion in some sense, and that must be accounted for. Being a bad reader does not make ulysses bad.The purpose of an experimental work is not to be understood. Thus, the standards for the narratives of experimental works, at least, should not be based on clarity. The purpose of a professional work is not to be understood. It is to make dollars. It makes dollars, generally, but convincing humans to consume it. Both desire engagement. The experimental work desires to drag readers, or the writer, down a less-used path of storytelling, where information about the transfer of information itself resides. Using this commonality, a stronger narrative is a narrative which compels the reader to extract the information from the narrative. In the form of a recipe book, that is the promise of a particular food experience, which is further amplified by the confidence gained when judging the clarity of the instructions. In the form of triple-point data, that is whatever surrounding labeling and context allows the reader to comprehend what is interesting about the data being provided, rather than just seeing numbers with no particular relevance.So, we have connected the base-meaning of narrative strength to it's larger and more esoteric "general use" meaning.>Season 1Young student moves into the world. Her original intent of doing good through sheer arrogance and competence turns out to be insufficient, and so she intends to slow down and learn about this alien world in order to handle all the curve balls it throws at her and become filled with sweet motivating love. The character's interest in the world is the same as our interest, so attention is paid to the exact things we would be interested in. She's a well-meaning smart girl with just a bit of snark and enough competence that her arrogance doesn't make her annoying. Ends with her finding the border between her safe zone and the rest of the world, and learning to use her comfort zone as an intentional respite when she needs it. Contains direct mention and reminder of the final event a few times, but does not directly focus on that final episode's plot or setting the whole time. Only way the narrative could be stronger is by being obsessive in a way which is counter to its slice of life nature.
>>42638543He has my blessings.
>>42639241>Season 2Opens with 3 children bickering. The main characters are, by circumstance and magic, also made to bicker. This happens over and over. The answer, at first, is to be reminded of happier ideas, and use those ideas to anchor ourselves so that we can respond to the problems around us. Happy memories of other people define our selves. By the end of the season, the characters are overcoming external pressure in order to solve mysteries, make tornadoes, and overcome professional pressure in order to guard everyone else's right to control their image, and always through willing cooperation. The finale rips away even that crutch, fully pulling the main character away from everything they could possibly use to recenter themselves and having the apparent enemy reach out and recenter them.Bickering, while fun, is less of a direct hook than good will. Personal deconstruction only functions if you already have the construction. Shining and cadence and their dumb wedding were advertised as an important event and I can't imagine anyone could take that shit seriously because the public appeal of that idea is just not that great. The wedding was decidedly not mentioned and played up a few times across the season, and was not a key part of multiple episodes. The world is treated as already known, despite not really being fully known. A primary theme in this narrative is the dissolution of meaning through stress which then needs to be reconstructed through nostalgia, and that means that this season carries a greater burden in terms of successfully making a lack of meaning meaningful. The characters and events depart from our understandings and interests, and make a point of that. It does an excellent job, but it is less strong than S1 in terms of narrative.>Season 3Student is thrust into positions of true responsibility which single them out and give them knowledge others may not have. Repeatedly, people are put in positions of authority and given extra knowledge that makes them different from others and makes them make choices others would not. The story is often told from many perspectives, rather than focusing on the perspective of a single individual. Individuals yearn for a functional authority structure, and problems are solved when a proper unequal dialogue between leader and populous occurs. Selflessness is the core virtue displayed again and again, which is valuable but ultimately paradoxical. All selfless action must ultimately make a selfish case for its existence. All exceptionalism must argue that two totally different roles are both equally ideal. The intentional employment of incoherence requires a careful leash is kept firm in order to create coherent meaning from it. The message "you are not the main character" is rather difficult to hammer into the main character. We will never understand twilight sparkle from this point on, and she does not represent us, and she's often just missing.
>>42640135The narrative, still, is strong. It focuses on one thing, but I doubt most people watching could have named that one thing. People are incredibly invested in the kinds of social structures which the season uses. After all, we keep making them. So, it's theme intentionally hides a bit, which is part of the point. The characters take a bit of a back seat, which is part of the point. The main character is not an audience stand in anymore, which is part of the point. The goals are less clear and more made up, which is part of the point.Still strong, but not as strong as season 2.>Season 4Character walks directly forward and says what the season is about. An actual physical representation of the season's arc manifests. Five key items tease at and build up the finale. Friendship wins. The narrative is so strong in terms of data and clarity that it is boring, trite, and fails to be strong in terms of being compelling. The dbz fight, which is surface-level, also fails to be meaningful in the same exceedingly-straightforward way.And that's bullshit. That leaves 60% of the season out, and would make those episodes meaningless distractions. The process of reinterpretation and dual meanings is introduced first episode, and every episode leaves enough room to fully reinterpret the point being made. The season takes the concept of narrative, and hides it under leaves for us. It asks the audience to distrust the show at the same time in which twilight sparkle is straining against the influence of her mentor. Like she must break the bonds placed on her by her mother-figure in order to grow, the show asks us to break the bonds of its suggestions in order to grow, gives us every tool to do that, and then waits for us to see.It's important. It's meaningful. It's there. There's a compelling narrative painted over top which help people consume the season, and that compelling force is oriented directly counter to the narrative. If I was mean, I could argue that the narrative has negative strength, pulling us away from comprehension. We are left, in the last moment, with the same agape incomprehension which MMC inflicted. While being negatively compelling, the more complex narrative also doesn't perfectly slot every episode into its structure and themes, and so is intentionally at least a little ill-defined.It has, I assure, you, I know for a fact, A narrative. That's the best I can give it. There IS one, with a point. There are two, even.>footnoteAfter twilight gives up her power which represents responsibility, she is drained just like every other pony tirek drained, and has to be picked back up by discord, so that theme comes to bear one last time.
>>42639675thanks vogel
saving for more
>>42641215soon
>>42641587?
>>42639675Vogelchad blessing save this thread!
MORE
>>42640190>season 5Starts with starlight, ends with starlight. Season-macguffin sends characters on arbitrary quests which don't add up to anything other than a world with more solved friendship problems. The term "friendship problem" itself implies a beginning, middle, and end to the problem, meaning that it is a structured event instead of a part of life which becomes meaningful only due to the efforts of those who live that life. That means this isn't about living life. It's about completing missions, and spreading your ideas. As a follow up to season 4, which was about characters looking for purpose and discovering that looking for purpose is a pointless poison that takes away from the purpose inside yourself, here the characters absolutely do not question the mission they are given. The faith in one's self which was created last season is externalized, turned into a faith of an external force. The metaphor is split, broken, turned on itself.Starlight, at the end of the season, exercises extreme control over the past, directly claiming it and rewriting it, which isn't that far from reinterpreting it. I smell a theme of "too many cooks", in which people grabbing control instead of accepting the world as it is causes harm. This is being expressed through a character who is said to be the personal pet of the new creative direction, which would mean that starlight destroys everything by expressing her inner self. The metanarrative there would be that the influence of the new power structure is bad, which means we now have to explain how Josh Haber wrote a story about how Josh Haber is bad. Seems hard.Someone who really gives WAY to much of a shit about who exactly is in charge of what at any particular time during the creation of this show, write something explaining how each season was written and who was in positions of power at the time. The wikipedia page seems to tell less than half the story, and is becoming more important as the seasons go on, though this is probably the last time it will be this important.
getting to the saucy parts now
>>42643743indeed
i hope you absolutely rip trixie to shreds
>>42644339There's no reason to. She amounts to nothing, very retarded nothing.>>42643470>the cutie mapTwilight calls the m6 because she assumes there must be some reason why they got a big castle, some point. This is the same mistake we've been grappling with since the beginning. At the start of season 1, while fully within the domain of celestia's plans, that was good enough. Since then, that idea has failed over and over. Now, it's suddenly the winning strategy again, like there's some force to have faith in.Map only appears when all m6 sit in their crystal thrones, signalling either participation or a physical representation of the combining of their inner lights mentioned last episode, last season. This would mean the expression of these friend's bonds = the influence of the current authority designing their adventures, in this season. Originally, the expression of their bond was equated to the investment of the art/business teams, which is not quite the same. First off, choice to value and be friends with each other is a lot closer conceptually to the choice to value the show on the part of artists/money/audience. Second, the choice to value a thing and the choice to control a thing are simply not the same, unless you have a very specific set of perspectives commonly held by the kind of people who seek power. For instance, you could say that twilight has essentially been suffering for 4 seasons from a lack of clear guidance. She was toyed with in s1e1. She did not understand her role in s1e26 and celestia didn't tell her like some kind of prankster. Celestia refused to do anything until twilight was reduced to a morose puddle in s2e2, and had to act again in lesson zero. Celestia finally took the most minimal action in s3e13 and twilight immediately grew wings specifically by controlling her friends, only for all of s4 to be about the uncertainty caused by a lack of clarity. If you're the kind of psycho who equates control and love, then your read of the show so far would be obvious. At that point, a table which tells you exactly what to do would be considered far more loving than offering the freedom to grow on your own terms. From this perspective, twilight, and any lesser, are hopless babies who will forever require handholding and freak out like a dog whenever left alone. How annoying, such a character would be.At least, we can view this as a more minor dispensing of artifice as the adventures are created either way. It's just the framing that's different. Fluttershy only agrees to go on the first map-mission because spike promises to drag her to talk about sports cards with him and big mac. It's a stronger anti-male signal than I remember seeing so far, and the first of many. Even if you don't buy that, this main character's motivation is staying as far away from another one of the main characters as possible, which is still... lets say sardonic.
keep it up with the great reviews my dude
>>42645140this
>>42644683>She amounts to nothing, very retarded nothing.holy based
>>42644683"Women don't like sports", also isn't very feminist. It's a little thing, but it is also the first unnecessary thing they chose to do.The ponies travel to "Our Town". Pinkie immediately distrusts the enforced smiles, knowing they are fake. Fluttershy likes the town. Fluttershy deals in animals, non-people with fewer rights who must have consistent standards of behavior in order to function and who will destroy everything if left alone, and she likes Our Town. Pinkie deals in people and making them happy. That is, therefore, the philosophical conflict of the episode. Starlight, who is yet another twilight foil, is framed as a leader, which means the difference between twilight and starlight is their leadership methods.Our Town is a commune, regardless of if it's communism or not. It's utopian, though every state should at least AIM for perfection. It's a cult, regardless of if there's a god involved. It is, in this way, a depiction of the Amareican idea of the false radical, which I assume Caneighdians share. This is, factually, a group which has separated itself from society in order to model a new order which they hope will challenge and alter current society based on itself. They do this by separating people from their place in the world and fitting them into their new mold. Remember, the cutiemark as related to tirek's draining, last episode, was placed in opposition to total freedom, where that total freedom was also isolation and a rejection of all structure and responsibility. In other words, a cutie mark and the associated magic was equivalent to one's role and associated bonds. Starlight, then, rips away the pony's true role and replaces it with her own. This forms a dichotomy, where twilight and starlight both represent the distribution of "cutiemarks" onto other ponies, but starlight's marks border on slavery, and twilight's mark determining how people live their lives is considered legitimate because it's "original" or "natural" or "rightful". This makes the conflict a very simple one between the current status-quo authority structure and a young radical who won't conform. The choice to depict such a non-conformist as a totalitarian cult leader who inflicts weakness on those who follow her, is an obvious stacking of the deck that reinforces exactly what perspective we're writing from.
>>42646977This is why they don't harvest the cutiemarks for any form of good. The ideological statement being made by the writers wouldn't allow for that, even if the characters are sitting on a massive goldmine of magic talent-constructs. There's no specification made about the economics involved. The assignment of roles without allowing for competition or excellence could be communistic. The restriction of goods and possessions so that all ponies are equal could be communistic. The presence of a single person wielding vastly unequal power due to their maintenance of the power structures that enforce equality on everyone else could be communistic in practice, though not in ideal.It's just not specified, because the episode is not interested in that ideological argument. To the episode, it's just about power, and whichever boogieman depiction gets used is irrelevant and coincidental. It's just slavery and control when a radical does it, but freedom when god/royalty/nobility does it.Starlight repeatedly shames any personality shown by ponies during the "our town" song. This includes any non-standard hair. Of course, no other pony is going around correcting the villagers, just her, and also her hair remains unique. Simple corrupt hypocrisy. > Rainbow Dash: [hushed] No, the reason to be rude is that they all keep staring at us!Regarding 1984, the cover-image is often an eye and people say it's not about communism or even just fascism, but surveillance. Where every action is constantly being observed and checked against the accepted philosophy, any single action can follow a person, even if it wouldn't otherwise have any significant repercussions. Given the goal of total compliance, any motivation or goal or joy other than strict compliance can only cause resistance, which means that joy itself becomes the enemy of a totalitarian state given total surveillance ability. Thankfully, this is horridly expensive and somewhat low-yield, but can be done much more cheaply by just making people spy on each other.The m6 have a conversation which is technically a disagreement but registers more like a conversation, except for the part where fluttershy suddenly throws shade at rainbow for earlier behavior. Fluttershy is already exercising the philosophy of Our Town. Sugar Belle inserts herself into this conversation right after fluttershy does that.> Sugar Belle: Is your friendship ending?According to the rules of friendship as understood by the locals, fluttershy's accusation carries the weight of ended friendship. As she was doing what they do, that means the threat which controls them, as they understand it, is "ended friendship." That's the force which starlight wields when she braids a non-conformist's hair, and that's the weapon fluttershy unknowingly picked up.This also signals Sugar's interest in the outside way of life, at the exact moment when fluttershy is using her way of life.
>>42647258M6 are locked in an indoctrination box where a speaker system blasts "war is peace" 1984 slogans at them, with some books full of "=" symbols. I know I've heard a story of some people who were kidnapped and locked in a room with pamphlets until indoctrinated like over 20 years ago, but I can't find evidence of that, so I cannot name the event that this part is referencing.Fluttershy pretends to join the cult in order to sneak out and steal back the m6 cutie marks, but instead learns that starlight still has her mark.Next day, fluttershy's attempt to dump water on starlight would have failed, if Party Favor hadn't seen a little bit of starlight's mark and tried to wipe it off, wiping the equality mark off instead.Town gets mad. Starlight argues that her exceptional position is required for the town to function. Starlight just screams at twilight when twilight tries to talk. Immediatly after starlight shut down discussion, she receives an ultimatum instead.> Sugar Belle: You can't have a cutie mark, Starlight! Either we're all equal, or none of us are!Starlight runs away.Next scene is a reference to the 1984 based commercial which launched the macintosh computer, which is to say it was a corporation wearing the skin of 1984 in order to sell a product which wasn't meaningfully distinct from another product. Seems pretty on the nose for this episode. DoubleDiamond throws a stick and breaks the cutiemark vault open.M6 and town ponies chase starlight through the snowy mountains to retrieve the m6 marks in jars.> Starlight Glimmer: Are you all so willing to give up everything because of these strangers?!> Sugar Belle: We gave up everything for you, because we thought you were our friend!> Starlight Glimmer: Spare me your sentimental nonsense! I gave these ponies real friendships they never could've had otherwise!> Double Diamond: How do you know that?! You never even gave us a chance!M6 already have their marks back. At this point, she teleports and escapes.> Double Diamond: This is a chance for all of us to get to know each other again for the very first time!So, Starlight's village didn't collapse under the weight of it's inefficiencies or suffering. Instead, the mere existence of outsiders brought doubts, and then the villagers discovered that starlight had never been honest with them. That was the deal breaker. The distance which starlight kept between people meant that they couldn't have the one thing they wanted, which was just her friendship. The desperate need to maintain power over people and control them is the exact weakness which lost starlight all her power and control. She did not sacrifice herself unto the plunder vines. Meanwhile, twilight constantly attempts to share herself, even when not allowed to speak.If I be nice, that's the lesson> Pinkie Pie: This feels like an ending! It doesn't have to be an ending yet, right? 'Cause that Sugar Belle can bake!Self aware, but not cynical like last season
I'm not really sure it's gonna be tenable to keep this thread alive though the rest of the series, so I hope you do end up continuing this analysis on ponepaste
>>42648822Nah we can get through this, I think possibly we can fit everything just in this thread.
>>42650408I hope so.
>>42647599>castle sweet castleTwilight does everyone else's chores as a way to avoid going home to her new big empty castle. In other words, the one doing good has an alternative motivation, which is specifically to avoid thinking about their own situation. This mirrors plenty of comments I've heard about protestors. This lens is tiresome to apply, saps my vitality.https://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/31895641/#q31899558Here is, for once, someone else's post. The m6 eat some pancakes here, and their choice of toppings in some way reflect their personalities, and so count as statements. I don't think it feeds into the whole episode's meaning, so I'll just let anon have an opinion about them and save some time.m5 volunteer to redecorate twilight's castle so that she doesn't feel spooked and alone all the time.Rarity assigns spike to "take twilight to the spa", so that's two episodes where he has power over who gets off-screened, so that might be something.The result is that all 5 grab things which matter to them and just install their random garbage in the castle, which means dirt growing daisies, rainbow dash's trophies, and a live bear. Spike checks on them and says it looks terrible, which is good because none of the women were willing to speak the truth. In the s4 finale song, combining expressions of their personality was a good thing. Now, it just makes a mess. They tell spike to stall twilight more while they try to fix their mess, but the moment that removing the contributions of others is normalized, they do it with negative regard for each other's feelings.According to the ponies, their mistake was decorating based on their own desires instead of twilight's, so that at least follows from last episode, where starlight was anti-dialogue and twilight was pro-dialogue. It also definitely has the "too many cooks" theme I suspected earlier.They rip up the roots of the golden oak library and hang it in the table-room with a bunch of photos embedded in gems, so that it's like the tree is being fed by the memories.On the one hand, we're hanging a corpse. On the other, it's a great representation of the use of nostalgia which is repeated over and over across the seasons.Importantly, the m5 each fill another room in the house with some functional contributions, so we can't say that this solution is a laughable token gesture incapable of making the castle feel lived-in. On the other hand, it is a foot note, only technically the case at all, not really part of the episode proper, and easily forgotten.
>>42653421>bloom and gloomBabs seed gets her cutie mark. The cmc think this means she can't be a crusader, but AB is left shivering on the floor at the idea of potentially getting a cutiemark which signifies a job that she doesn't like. Given the prior episodes, twilight fixed the castle which was forced on her by filling it with decorations from what she liked. Starlight's whole issue was that cutiemarks could force a future on you where you never see your friends again.Applebloom has a nightmare where she gets a pest-control cutiemark. A ghostly voice asks directly "Why should you have to keep it then?" The rest of the nightmare is ponyville being destroyed by bugs because AB gave up her cutiemark, so that's the answer to the question.Second nightmare shows her and her friends being separated by getting marks. Even if she erases her mark, her friends still have to go spend time on their own jobs and lives.Third shows rejection by her family for what her mark is,Fourth nightmare switches her mark constantly, which results in frustration directly at that uncertainty. She rushes into the forest and yells at the ghostly voice about it. Luna shows up, shows her the nightmares of her friends, and tells her that people will like her regardless of what mark she gets.The cmc decide they should send babs some token of their continued friendship, in case babs is feeling the same fears as them.Among the dreams, the only one which isn't directly addressed by this solution is the dream where rejecting a cutiemark results in bugs destroying the town. The answer to every other dream is "people will still like you so don't worry about it". In other words, you shouldn't let all your pesky other concerns get in the way of doing a job.>Tanks for the Memories Rainbow sabotages public utilities over a turtle and gets away with it.Of EXTREME interest to ME> Rainbow Dash: How can you be tired when the most exciting time of the year is right around the corner? And don't forget the best part – our first winter together! Between s2e7 and s5e5, less than 9 months elapse, based on this direct statement.May the Best Pet Win is s2e7. Hearth's Warming Eve is s2 e11, and signals winter is hitting. The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 is s2e15, and only makes sense if the Apple family has already sold most of their crop for the year and is trying to turn the leftovers into a viable product. This would mean that three seasons occur within about 1 month. It would also mean that the crystal empire is reborn, scouted for the equestria games by miss harshwhinny, and then used for the equestria games within about 1 month. This includes competitions to determine which teams may compete as seen in "rainbow falls."
>>42653815The writers never put much thought into the timline. Based on that flashback episode where AJ is a teenager, Apple Bloom should be like 5 years older than Diamond Tiara.
>>42653815I could say it is still in order if I just say that the Apples are economically weird and that Hearth's Warming Eve takes place in early spring, but the first thing you see in that episode is falling snow, which means the yearly winter wrap up has not occurred, and it's early winter. May the best pet win MUST take place after hearth's warming eve, shifting it forward by a few episodes, or else we have to claim that Hearths Warming Eve takes place after Tanks for the Memories.This means that, almost certainly, one year elapses between s1e13 Fall Weather friends and s5e5 Tanks for the memories, because both episodes feature a "Running of the Leaves". s1e11 is also winter wrap up, which would mean a whole year elapses during s1e12, unless you accept that episodes can be a few episodes out of chronological order.>AnywayRainbow ignores the consensus of everyone around her and is in denial about tank hibernating. She's (not*) mad about it. She decides to stop winter, making a face that clearly references the Grinch from the original Grinch cartoon movie. Next scene is a retelling of the "who's on first" comedy routine by Abbott and Costello in 1938. After the extreme focus on 1984 references in the s5 premier, I was expecting more like this. Rainbow sings a song about the mistake she's currently making, so that's similar to castle sweet castle when they were initially redecorating. The rest of the ponies put forward enough work to undo rainbow's attempts to sabotage winter. Maybe she could beat them if she got more aggressive, but then they might notice what she's doing.There's a track that plays while rainbow is sneaking around the cloudsdale factory, and I suspect it might reference metal gear or oceans 11, or hitman, but I don't know those tracks well enough and will not be investing the time at this time. Unsubstantiated suspicion.After rainbow/tank break everything, Rainbow and tank get sucked into a set of pipes which feels a bit like the end of luigie's mansion, but it is also just standard cartooning.>Twilight Sparkle: Prepare yourselves, everypony! Winter is coming!Spoken while looking up at the imploding factory. The way it zooms in, this was a game of thrones reference, simple as.Fluttershy is the one who tells rainbow her winter "will be petless", so we can call this an application of the lesson learned in the breezie episode and be pleased about that. They cry and that's the answer. Less denial, more being sad and acceptance, and certainly less of an ignorant young person engaging in pretty destructive and misguided activisim. Of note, nobody actually knew what rainbow dash did, unless she told them or someone found evidence off screen. It turns out she didn't get protected by her connections, necessarily. This is another blink-and-miss it footnote that changes the meaning of the episode, and it is again happening because the story wanted to focus on the big set-piece dramatic moment.
>>42653815>>42654125Reading through a lot of you analysis', I get the impression you don't think very highly of RD.I don't blame you, I think she's pretty badly handled too. Seems like a lot of RD episodes have a problem of her not actually internalizing the lesson of the episode, but everyone just brushing it off and moving on anyway.
>>42654125>appleoosa's most wantedThe cmc at a rodeo are excited to try activities for potential cutie marks. Sweetie bell mentions the danger/injury involved. Ab responds "no risk, no reward."They respond the same way when hearing about the "low down varmint" Trouble Shoes, so there's an equivalency drawn between the danger of the rodeo and the danger of this stallion. He's literally getting blamed for causing that danger.Feels a bit like confirmation bias and superstition. Ponies testify of all the ills he caused, and stack anecdotes and end up believing in myths. After the cmc sneak past braeburn to hunt down Trouble, Trouble Shoes gets blamed for kidnapping and the Sheriff forms a posy to hunt him.The cmc find his house during a rainstorm, and enter without permission. The house is a mobile home, somewhat like trixie's house, which means there's a tradition of such mobile homes in equestria. Anyway, Trouble is spooked by the screaming children in his house and knocks himself out.He believes he's received a cutiemark for bad luck, and is not happy with is lot in life, but that's a simple misinterpretation. In short, his attitude is the problem and his mark makes him a world class prat-fall clown. I'm not really ruining the presentation, AB just figures it out real quick.He gets jailed for kidnapping and sabotage he didn't do. The cmc break him out, dress him as a clown, and throw him at the rodeo halftime show or whatever that was. The cmc have to step forward and stop the crowd from attacking after his costume falls apart, but they liked his performance. The cmc are made to clean up the mess he made while clowning as a punishment, not for doing the wrong thing, but for disobedience to applejack's wishes. They were right, but still have to pay for that transgression.Trobleshoes lived his whole life outside of the bounds of society up until the cmc showed up and pushed him into his place. His place is to be a big clumsy oaf, a freak and a boogieman for entertainment. Troubleshoes is voiced by big jim miller, the director of half of this season. This is how he sees himself. This is how others see him. This is an expression of gratitude for those who put him in his place.
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>>42655537we go!
saving this thread with many survivors
>>42541716FiM peaked with season 5.
>>42654490>make new friends but keep discordPrior episode had troubleshoes as the mildly pathetic male character... I guess Tank was kind of the same? There was no important character in bloom and gloom, but the pest pony was a bit mean, left without really finishing his job, was very direct about the fact he only saw apple bloom as a replacement. Felt a lot like personal corporate experience printed directly into a cartoon.Anyway, opens with fluttershy telling discord how funny he is. Discord gets mad that fluttershy invited someone else (treehugger) to this year's gala. So, immediately after an episode painting jim miller as a clown, we have an episode where a man is called funny and must learn that he doesn't own the woman who complemented him. The chosen nemesis here is a druggy environmentalist with no memory and a bit of pretense, but at least she's allowed to have a point this time.He tries to get a different ponies to take him to the gala for a minute.He uses a solid-snake sneaking box, so there's the metal gear reference.Has a confrontation with FS/TreeHugger. Gets mad at the use of the word "vibe" like some kind of old fuck looking for an excuse, because he is.His ticket comes in the mail, so FS was right not to invite him in the first place.He brings "the smooze" to the party, which is a fat blob that eats everything and chases the mares around the moment it arrives, scares the hoes.Look, it's a "be jealous of my date" plot. It's the absolute bottom of the drama barrel, it is unpleasant to behold, and there's no need to give it more credit than that. While I'm being negative, discord is constantly doing basic teleportation. He can provide more visual entertainment than that. Start of episode> Fluttershy: [laughs] Oh, Discord, I've never known anypony as funny as you! now> Fluttershy: [laughing] Oh, Tree Hugger, I've never known anypony as funny as you!Discord's pissed, and even has a point. He does standup, and it flops.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNnCL0q3EuIColt based on the kid from the shining notices a glowing door before the smooze floods out, referencing the blood-flood. Could also be a visualisation of discord's "spaghetti" spilling.Treehugger makes... yoga noises at the smooze and her reconstitutes into a single big happy blob instead of a mess. Could read as getting attention from a female, or as someone actually bothering to confront and set boundaries, or just the application of any degree of positivity. Discord threatens to throw her into the sock puppet dimension, with crayon backgrounds, which is to say it's a worse artistic universe which a semi-representation of the worst aspects of a particular artist is threatening to banish a cartoon character to.Fluttershy successfully argues that making a friend is not abandoning your older friends and he chills out. End episode.
>>42657789really?
>>42659378Discord asks forgiveness for his "wrath" and the smooze is a pretty clear glutton.>The lost treasure of griffonstoneThe griffins have "griffin greed", and it's soothed by their pride in a golden idol. Anyway it's titled like an indiana Jones movie and the idol is a golden vaguely cup-shaped object, so it's the grail. The cup is later found on a ledge and is allowed to fall into an abyss when someone chooses friendship over the grail. So it's crusaders of the lost arc, the scene near the end of the movie where they lose the grail.You can compare the griffons to the dragons and see pretty clearly what's happening to the show. This is an inferior culture based around multiple human cultures. The dragons aren't. They suck for reasons that are unique to them, and also reasons that align more with particular inevitable age groups and so represent inherent parts of the human experience. Due to really wanting to shove all the popular-culture things which jim likes into the show, we're now inevitably reflecting and worsening the social ills which exist in earth media while failing to make meaningful statements from the borrowed symbology. The desire to deliver big specific set-pieces has left the narrative weaker, and we have neglected to pay attention to what that narrative actually is. I am now waiting for the starwars reference, though that one might not happen.This is the first "table" episode since the premier, and Pinkie and RD are assigned a quest in griffonstone.Pinkie asks "what ya readin, rainbow" referencing "the reading rainbow", even though the whole think with her loving books was already as subtle, unspoken reference to that. That's what we fill our quiet moments with, now, because that's what this is about, now.Rd imitates twilight, complete with hair-transformation, while reading a guidebook twilight made for her out loud. Again, imitation is the point.Pinkie spends most of their money on food before getting there, which matters because griffins only help if you pay them.After arrival, gilda calls them names while telling them the castle has no king, which seems like a monty python and the holy grail reference, but a thinner one> ARTHUR: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?> WOMAN: No one live there.> ARTHUR: Then who is your lord?> WOMAN: We don't have a lord..Grandpa griff tells them about the loss of their grail for 2 bits.> Grampa Gruff: [narrating] That's when Arimaspi came to steal our griffon treasure! King Guto tried to fight him off, but Arimaspi managed to get away with the idol!> [lightning cracks]> Arimaspi: [bellows]> Grampa Gruff: [narrating] They say when our treasure fell into the Abysmal Abyss, our pride went with it. King Guto was the last king of Griffonstone, and we all lived miserably ever after. The end!
>>42660071Basically, a goat thing was attracted to their object of wealth and assaulted their kingdom. It then was confronted on a bridge. A magic lightning bolt smashes the bridge in half, and the Arimaspi falls into the abyss. He's like a mix between smog the dragon and the balrog, and dies to a "you shall not pass" event.> Rainbow Dash: "-make Griffonstone cool again,"ooooooooh fuck>aired May 23, 2015Phrase originally used by ronald ragan and then bill clinton in 1992Trump used it as early as 2012, but released a book with that title printed on it in 2015. >Trump began using the slogan formally on November 7, 2012, the day after Barack Obama won his re-election against Mitt Romney.Which means, this can absolutely be an intentional dodge of the phrase while still bringing it up like it's fucking voldemort and jim doesn't realize what kind of story he's creating, or like it is a dog whistle, either way.RD goes for the treasure while Pinkie mingles and looks for the library.Pinkie is directed to a "no singing" sign when she tries that. It's like the "no time for a song" moment in "some pony to watch over me", except less funny. That interruption was also based on situational constraints while this one is based on a public rule.Rainbow gets stranded on a ledge in the abyss. Pinkie asks gilda for help. Gilda agrees after being reminded of when she and rd used to be friends. Pinkie looks directly at the camera and says that this willingness makes them current-day friends, even if gilda says it doesn't. They fall down the abyss and gilda has to choose between RD and the grail.> Pinkie Pie: - you don't need some golden idol to do that. You just need each other.> Rainbow Dash: Whoa, Pinkie. That was... really sappy.Been awhile since RD was used this way. She also doesn't seem to be hypocritical or in the wrong or exaggerating here. She just thinks it is sappy.Pinkie earlier suggested that gilda use baking powder in her awful scones (gilda is a baker), and then they push gilda to give away a sample of her improved goods. A griffin complements them, which is "the nicest thing" a griffin has ever said to gilda.The final joke is gummy the alligator back at sugarcube corner. He hasn't moved since pinkie left at the beginning of the episode, and certainly hasn't completed the baked goods as pinkie instructed. Similarly, the griffins made exactly zero progress in the absence of the grail, and the absence of a ruler. Pinkie, who attempted to follow twilight's instructions, did well. Rainbow, who went for the grail instead, got stuck in a hole. Gilda even said she had a "hero complex".
>>42660075Also pinkie keeps talking to a cold grey statue of the king.> Pinkie Pie: [to statue] See ya later, you old charmer.>slice of lifeFinally, at post 336, we reach episode 100/221. While it was once possible that we would finish this before the end of the thread, that is not the case now that I have to actually dig in order to find the angle by which each episode contributes to its season.Also, this just IS references, so much so that I don't have to name them specifically, I claim.Cranky donkey and matilda donkey are getting married. Their invitations have the wrong date listed. Derpy offered a cheep deal by using Featherweight's inexperienced services. Derpy asks "the doctor" for help, but he just babbles about irrelevant science-sounding nonsense and then worries about getting his suit tailored. Ponies offer him tailor services for participation in a bowling competition. He refuses, saying it's too complex to fully solve, and they suggest he just throws straight. The townsponies are concerned and gather when they see the m6 huddled. AB says it's either a "friendship problem" or a "monster attack" when the m6 act like that. That's odd, considering how few on-screen monster attacks there have been, and how we've only had 2 "friendship problems" ever, and no ponyville pony should know about either of them.Matilda recruits Amethyst Star to help move her wedding forward by a day. She was the main local organizer before twilight showed up, and twilight is busy fighting a bee-bear thing. Matilda assigns the flower-getting duty to Derpy, who wants to makeup for her mistake.Lyra learns that bonbon is a secret agent, which is a surprise, right after saying they know each other really well. The "you don't actually know me that well" theme hasn't been used since A Canterlot Wedding.Steven magnet, the serpent from s1e1+2, claims to be crankie's "best beast". Matilda is surprised to learn he's not a pony, and also that cranky and him had some dangerous adventures together. Matilda says the memories shared mean that the marriage between her and cranky is the important part, instead of the wedding itself. Steve says the wedding itself is actually what's important.Octavia and Vinal live in a two-sided-house and combine their artistic styles to create an attempt at non-standard wedding music, so I can read that as an implementation of s4's "combining inner lights" theme, even as it contains a divisive visual pun about "a house divided." They fuck around until octavia realizes the episode is almost over. They ride a mobile DJ setup through town, collecting most of the guests, until they trip on the twilicane discord made in s4e1+2 as a mockery of twilight's princessdom. Gummy, voiced by the same guy as steven magnet, sees the active car crash and has an internal monolouge which has almost nothing to do with what is currently happening, other than the fact it grapples with life's inherent chaos in a general sense.
>>42660709The ponies in the crash all land in their seats inside of town hall, where the wedding is, so perhaps that's the answer to gummy asking what the difference is between life with a cutiemark and life without.Celestia fails to bring a wedding gift so she and luna bicker. Put that in the growing pile of celestia's failures.The m6, who have beat the bugbear, get locked outside by derpy. Mayor mare officiates the wedding.Derpy used some experimental flameless fireworks from The Doctor's lab as the flowers for the wedding. The trigger for them is unknown, but they go off when the donkeys kiss and are wed, so the trigger is allegedly love. Makes enough sense, as emotionality affects the environment in this show. Feels like another grail representation, though a weak one, if so.Seeing this from outside, twilight expresses gratitude and love and hugs her fiends. >Rainbow Dash: Ow! That's where the bugbear bit me!A bugbear is a subject which inspires personal annoyance. Rainbow dash is currently receiving sappy affection and an injury from a bugbear is causing that affection to be painful. Rainbow has a bugbear which makes sappy things uncomfortable, and literally got big by a literal bugbear which is physically making this hug uncomfortable.According to the wiki, the vinyl car-sequence is a reference to "the Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil episode 'Runaway Recital' ", and ma larson said the twilicane is a reference to the shark from the phrase "jumping the shark". If so, then the difference between an arbitrary set of irrelevant missions and the missions given out by the magic table is that it is expected that the ponies will just stick the landing, meet their self-justifying destiny. The show expects to jump the shark intentionally, and live. The shark, here, is the central uncertainty of the main character. We're jumping over that, leaving it in the past, locking her and her friends outside. They don't quite deliver on that vision, but they somewhat try in later episodes.Anyway, this is the 100th episode, and it's a celebration, and the way we think to celebrate is to stuff it full of other shows and offscreen our cast. It's fun, at least.
>>42661553we go!
>>42660874>princess spikeLuna shows up. Seems to be getting a lot of attention this season, where she got none in others.At the... "Grand Equestria Pony Summit"... the princesses are going to "dedicate" a statue made of gems donated by each city in equestria. Twilight is overworked from organizing the summit. The princesses attempt to introduce spike to all the delegates for an undisclosed reason, but he is ignored. Spike seemed to think he was supposed to help keep the summit orderly.Later, twilight is mentally spent and has to sleep. Cadence tasks spike with keeping people from waking twilight. Spike begins wielding the authority of the princess to this end. This results in two delegates being ordered to share a single time slot to give presentations in an auditorium.So, that's a missing authority replaced with spike specifically and a problem caused specifically by too many cooks.Anyway, he slowly grabs more power and abuses it more while letting a water main remain damaged, but that problem was legitimately unsolvable unless someone cast a sound-blocking spell or someone carried twilight to a different bedroom farther away. That second option doesn't quite work, since ponies travel to twilight's room to get their disputes ruled on, which means they need to know where she is, and she needs to be nearby. Cadence calls spike out for abuse of power, and then his decisions result in the main hall getting flooded and the gem statue getting destroyed.That angers a mob, who marches on twilight's room. She wakes up, well rested. Spike is made to explain. With an extra prod from cadence, he says he enjoyed having ponies care about his opinion for once, and abused that power. That ulterior motive is true, but didn't result in any of the decisions which caused the hall to flood, and doesn't explain or apologize for his really excessive orders, like claiming the princess had ordered the spa pony to give him a massage. It's just less than half the message, and it's the part which reflects a "boo hoo I'm a piece of shit" mentality, while simultaneously refusing to actually acknowledge the worst of it.Anyway, the mob forgives him after twilight makes him explain himself, and they rebuild the gem statue. The last frame is spike in the middle of sneezing on the statue again, probably about to destroy it.
>>42663217>Party poopedSo it's a twist on the phrase "party pooper".. but what's the point of this twist? The party poopers in question are the yaks, but we instead make the pooping past-tense, and a description of what has happened instead of a description of a certain kind of person. It doesn't mean "party tired", because being tired from overwork isn't featured in the episode. We lose a layer of abstraction, and that's about it. Now we more directly have to think about the reality of a pile of shit chilling next to the jello bowl at a shindig. It betrays a scatological focus, feels like some freudian shit. So, the yaks suck. They are the second clear example of foreign people this season, and they are basically the most racist imaginable thing. It's more racist than racial profiling and segregated schools. Pretty sure they are supposed to be mongols, but it doesn't particularly matter. They frame themselves as perfectionists, and claim their rage is caused by imperfection, where that imperfection is any deviation from what they find familiar, or nostalgic for. The last scene in the prior episode is a chubby male misusing power, apologizing for a lesser version of what he did wrong, being forgiven, and then repeating part of his mistake. The first scene in this episode is a depiction of people who want perfection as a totally unreasonable mongol horde. It's disgusting. I am disgusted. My hatred of yaks is amplified beyond it's prior limits by what I have learned in my scholarly pursuits. I am enlightened by my intellect, and it's pissing me off. The metanarrative says that the yaks are also displeased consumers of twilight's offerings, which means they are some of the imagined viewers.I'm tempted to explain why the yaks might be in the right for some of their actions in an abstract sense, but nothing I say can take away from what I'm actually watching, which is a set of tantrums.There's a fair number of "crazy" and "stressed" faces. You can really feel the team straining against the limitations of their style, but they don't have the tools needed to cut loose yet, mostly. They really pack them in.My mood is so low that, when pinkie gets smacked in the face with a.... with an outhouse door... I rewind to catch it again. She's traveling to yakyakistan to get advice on how to make goods and services in a way yaks will like. In her absence, the m5 are without a party planner and attempt to do the job themselves, poorly.There's a scene with Cherri Jubalee which doesn't make much sense to include in that specific way, except that she ends up asleep at the wheel of a carriage, which fits the themes of the season.Pinkie lives through a Beetles band breakup reference. I don't think there was anything overt like that last episode, so this breaks a 1.5 episode streak.Pinkie makes it to the yak village, and then slides on a sled all the way back home on accident without learning anything.
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>>42644339>>42644683>>42646064TOTAL TRIXIE DEATH
>>42665157She is inspired by her trip to present the equestrian way instead of a yak-based party. The yaks, no longer comparing pinkie's offerings to what they are familiar for and nostalgic for, like the party she throws and don't do a war.>amending fencesA neet slob with an ugly soul receives attention and apologies all episode. At least the part where they make out is hot.Spike points out that twilight abandoned all her canterlot friends, so they immediately go to canterlot. Twilight's mage tower is found abandoned and filthy. Twilight meets Minuet, who is upbeat and immediately concerned only with getting proof that she knows a princess. Minuet arranges a lunch with Lemon Hearts and Twinkle Shine, and all are friendly with twilight. They laugh off her self-important apology, and say that they simply expect twilight to neglect them in the first place. Lyra is in ponyville often and twilight still neglected her, and that never changes.MoonDancer blows off the group when they meet at her neglected little house in the middle of canterlot. Twilight pesters her at the library, eventually projecting herself into a book as a drawing to administer an apology ambush. That magical technique is sufficient bait to get MD to talk about their common hobby. More nerd shit is traded to get MD to have dinner with the canterlot friend group, which turns out as a drag for everyone.That book-projection is the first time twilight does something like that, I think. She will project herself into a music box as a ballerina statue later.Twilight vividly imagines/hallucinates the party which MD threw in S1. If twilight hadn't missed that party, NMM would have won and twilight wouldn't have become an Element or met her friends, meaning twilight is paying for a no-fault mistake currently, just like in princess spike. This hallucination seems very "alicorn magic" like to me, but not in any objectively magical way. Minuet, in the memory, is attempting to force an upbeat perspective constantly, which means twilight sees her as a bit dishonest in the way that overly social people are. That explains her behavior all episode.Twilight grabs pinkie throws her at minuet to plan a party in order to make up for the party twilight missed. They use a trail of nerd books as literal bait for MD. The sheer selfish gall of claiming that this party should make up for missing MD's party causes MD to yell at twilight, which is way better than silence. MD cries a bit. The group points out all the other ponies who MD always had access to and she decides not to give everything up just because a friend moved on like what Starlight did. They make up and make out, really for real fr. Twilight is on a mission to reconnect with the friends she always had available, and the solution she gives to this grumpy twilight foil is that she should reconnect with the local friends she always had available, so that's internally consistent.
Fuck it, I'd love to see your take on Non Compete Clause, let's see if we can keep it going long enough. At least season 5 so far seems to be a lot quicker to get through than 4 was.
>>42666088DONT KILL TRIXIE
>>42670281She sucks so she deserves it.
>>42670281She will be baked inshallah
>>42671075NOO DONT MAKE HER INTO BAKEABLE GOODS
>>42671075>trixie's face when i squeeze her balls just a little too hard
>>42671321i will eat her masallah
>>42666795>Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?And so we reach the end of the big jim era, in which luna tortures herself over her past mistakes and what a bad person she is as penance because she can't meaningfully remove the slime of her ill soul.Look, the show is made by a team, ok? There's tons of people with their hands in the pie. A lot of them are writers. Each individual writer, presumably, has something to do with the creation of each episode. It makes sense for the state of the office at the time in which episodes were created to slip into the work. These are the moments in their lives, the objects of their current concern, and those should be reflected in the moments they imagine and the fictional events which makes sense according to them.In season's 1+2, Faust was not the only person with any control. While you can find similarities between her and twilight, she isn't twilight, and the show was talking about the idea of such a person in a highly abstract sense. In season 3+4, the show often talked about itself, worried about its own trajectory, and by implication touched on the general state of the office. In s 1-4, episodes wandered from the central idea well enough to include multiple perspectives and defy simple categorization.When I would say "mcarthy feels this" or "faust intends that" it was a simplification, something non-literal. We don't have a word for "the-abstract-concept-of-all-social-forces-working-on- the-product-in-a-way-that- presents- convincing -personification-and-can-often-be-understood- as-a-single-imaginary-mind"So what the actual fuck is this?Well, M.A. Larson will write whatever the fuck you tell him to write and they grab him when they need someone to deliver a consistently good-enough product with a little effort in it, and he did both "slice of life" and "amending fences". Jim miller himself both directed and wrote for "princess spike" "party pooped" and "do princesses dream of magic sheep" (with help). "Joanna Lewis & Kristine Songco," who are new to this crew, did "castle sweet castle", so I can say they were extra influenced by director jim if I want.Josh Haber is experienced and did "bloom and gloom", which conceptually involves a character grappling with their shadow, but which mostly doesn't drip with gross personality slime and even has a representation of a shithead boss.Cindy Morrow wrote "tanks for the memories" as her 11th and final episode, so it can also be read as a goodby and a "maybe I'll see you later?" from either herself or from the era of leadership which was currently ending, and a fool breaking everything.Natasha Levinger wrote "Make new friends but keep discord" but also "pinkie apple pie" and "it ain't easy being breezies", so she should have some control over what she writes and how.Amy Keating Rogers wrote "the lost treasure of griffonstone" as her 14th episode meaning a lot of those references were probably from her instead of the actual irl flesh man "jim miller"
>>42673329Counterpoint, faust has spoken about the development of "apple bucking season" Amy Keating Rogers wrote Apple Bucking Season. However, Faust that the retarded idea, supposedly, that ponies would headbut trees instead of kick them, and that was the reason that AJ was physically disabled in that episode. Not from overwork, but from repeated head injury. Now, that isn't what happened in the episode. Instead, someone argued her out of that position. Either Amy put her foot down, or the corporation didn't want to get sued for kids injuring themselves. Either way, that means that Faust, as a non-writer, still was responsible for imagining an initial version of the events of that episode. At the time, faust was "Executive producer." The wikipedia page says of season 1: "Each episode is directed by Jayson Thiessen with James Wootton as co-director."From the mlp wiki, "McCarthy was promoted to co-executive producer for season three onward, during which she also served as story editor." but James Wootton directed both season 2 and 3.wikipedia on season 4: "Each episode is directed by Jayson Thiessen with Jim Miller as co-director," meaning jim was already directing before the start of season 5, on top of doing storyboard work all the time. He, also, isn't even the co-executive producer at this time, and so shouldn't have the same degree or form of control as faust or Mcarthy did. By all rights, I should not be calling this the "big jim" era. credit here should go to whoever the executive producer was at the time of season 5. It's important that you understand how knowingly and intentionally flimsy it is to say that these specific humans were being reflected directly in their works. That's not supposed to be literal. If patterns hold, it shouldn't even be his name which I use for the concept.So why the fuck does this feel like jim miller extract? Like a caricature of the man which is also just the man? Well, somehow, he got the right to write for three episodes in a row, and everyone supported him in this endeavor, at least enough to make it happen. He saw the chance to grab the reins and he did. He was also used as the voice for king sombra, a character named after the concept of being sadness and evil and beyond help, meaning this idea of the semi-unfixable semi-shitbag was already a thing around there, and he already represented it.Anyway, the actual episode.
>>42673465Luna creates a magical AI and tells it to prevent her having a happy dream ever because she doesn't deserve it and isn't allowed to be happy. It leaves to go haunt the m6, because the m6 possess enough firepower to fix whatever is wrong in luna's nightmares, and so they make the Tantabus'es job impossible until it defeats them. They all have the same nightmare and poor sleep, while spike has perfect sleep. Spike mentions his perfect sleep twice, and the mares are mad at him for the crime of being happy and bragging, like he isn't allowed to be happy, or like it is inconsiderate of him to mention being happy.Luna brings the m6 to her room for a magic sleepover and invades their dreams directly.Rarity beholds the destruction of pretty dresses by dress mimics. Luna refuses to let Rarity help stop the tantabus, on the grounds that nobody should have to help Luna clean up Luna's mess. Rarity continues fighting dress mimics, saying she thinks she can handle it, probably.Pinkie's dreams shift setting with each step she takes, like a representation of adhd brain or something like that. Tantabus turns into gross monster cake, which luna blows up. Pinkie immediately recovers by sharing ice cream with dream-ponies.FS gets pampered by Angel bunny until the tantabus makes him big and evil. Luna just puts FS up on a tree as an escape, so FS is left watching evil angel chew on the tree that keeps her separate from her new fear.AJ is dreaming of a giant apple like from "Bats!" Luna doesn't help here. The Apple and half the orchard are simply rotted and AJ is left to just live with that.Rainbow is dreaming of combat with changelings. The tantabus turns this into singing happy sunflowers, which RD hates. Luna, again, does not help. Twilight dreams of reading in a library, and the tantabus turns the books into monsters. Luna shoots a crystalizing laser at the tantabus, but it gets enough extra power from twilight's unresolved fear that it breaks loose.For 5 out of 6 dreams, the tantabus targeted a happy thing specifically and turned it into a monster, or rot. For rainbow specifically, it overwrites the whole dream and replaces the happy thought(changelings) with something else entirely (sunflowers). Dash's big fear is also being alone, not cute stuff. She has expressed distaste for cute or corny things before, but that generally involves her actually liking the cute thing, or adventure books, and being dishonest about it. Her fear here should be one of honesty, of being perceived as uncool, but the sunflowers aren't doing that either. They are torturing her with annoying sounds.
>>42673678We could say that this is just the tantabus being bad at its job or a little clumsy, but it perfectly overturned the happy thoughts of the other ponies and formed an otherwise clear narrative for what its actions represent, so that still falls on the writers as a mistake. We could say dash has been the exception before where the m6 are involved, but there's little reason to do that in this case. We also know that she will later get dressed up by rarity and paired with zephyr, and we will have no reason to think that she actually likes those events other than her track record of dishonestly pretending not to like things prior to Griffonstone's ending. After this point, that becomes a record of getting exposed to things she just doesn't like over and over and tolerating them poorly. "Secrets and pies" comes to mind, where she willingly covers herself in garbage. Given that foreknowledge, this is the moment that trajectory was solidified, as a twisted mis-expression of "I'm not allowed to be happy".Tantabus escapes the dreams using pinkie's imagining of other ponies, meaning that pinkie doomed everyone in the world by being happy.Luna says she would do anything to fix this, "including accept your help", and fuses the dream of all the ponies down in ponyville so they can find the tantabus.They are actually in twilight's bedroom, I was wrong about that.The tantabus gains enough power to exit the dream by forming sharp implements (sword, scissors) and "cutting" space, meaning it has to create visual representations of its escape. The citizens of ponyville wield their happy thoughts (scoots grows big wings) against the tantabus to slow it down, while luna keeps resealing the cuts with other opposing visual metaphors (laser-cauterize, stitching) Obviously, using their happy thoughts should be insufficient. Fluttershy directs an evil-Angelbunny, which the tantabus made in the first place because it is capable of turning a happy thought upside down. It wouldn't make sense for that to be the answer.
>>42673829Twilight notices that the tantabus gets stronger as luna despairs.>Rainbow Dash: If it gets strong because you feel bad about what you did as Nightmare Moon, then you just gotta stop feeling bad for what you did!And with that, the bastardization of the narrative of season 4 is complete. In season 4, over and over, characters cause themselves problems where no problems exist because they worry. Spike didn't have to be worried and fail to make fire and then volunteer to sing an anthem. Rarity didn't have to sell her soul in order to win a fashion competition. Fluttershy didn't have to hold so tightly to the appearance of being kind in order to be kind. Grannie didn't have to carry her fear of water and AJ didn't have to let her grannie believe a lie in order to keep her happy. None of that retarded catastrophizing did any good for anyone. When the time came to do what was needed, they did, because who they are determines what they will feel is needed.So, this is the part where every little narcissist emerges from their mud pit of half-performative self pity and goes "oh, did you just say it's best to never feel bad? Don't mind if I do~" and reinterprets everything in the way that suits them personally and enables them to continue behaviors that don't fully satisfy their own needs. They'll sit in their Luxurious Bubble Bath (tm) and claim they could never get clean.So, assuming that I'm right and this is about sub-diagnosable narcissistic tenancies, the obvious counterpoint is that the feeling that what you're doing is wrong means you possess the instincts nessisarry to determine what is good.>Twilight Sparkle: But look at what you're doing! Nightmare Moon would've wanted the Tantabus to turn Equestria into a nightmare! You're doing everything you can to stop it! Don't you see? That proves you're not the same pony you were then! Everypony who knows you knows that Nightmare Moon is in the past! We all trust you, Luna! Do you trust us enough to believe we're right?And here's twilight directly stating that exact argument, but then resting that argument not on truth or on luna's own experience, but instead resting truth on connection, which is NOT a valid method of determining truth, because that kind of emotional appeal based on force of personality in terms of preformative games of charisma chicken is the launguage which would be understood by a person who would create an episode like the one I have interpreted from this episode of mlp.So I hope we all learned a lot about fictional Big Jim the personification of this half-season's creative vision, and that we can all not hold it directly against irl Big Jim, no matter how bad he is at taking criticism on twitter, which would be expected of a person described by this exact analysis.
fast board today
>>42674481Indeed.
Bump.
I require the reviews father
>>42673830 I want to point out that DPDoMS is a fun episode which I enjoy in general, and this is NOT a set of reviews of episode quality, up until the narrative specifically successfully ruins an episode. Also, big mac's apparent desire to be a princess has to be noted.>Canterlot BoutiqueRarity waits for a mail pony, bored. Pinkie shows up, eating a batch of strawberry cinnamon cilantro cup cakes, which are disgusting, because she made the mistake of creating them and must pay penance in order to avoid wasting them. Pinkie offers rarity a cup cake. She simply refuses to finish that gross shit which she was handed. It was that simple. The jim era is over, and our new director is Denny Lu, who may or may not have been the visionary responsible for whatever else will happen this and/or next season, and the first statement made was one of refusing to finish a self-harming mess which another handed him.Pinkie's cupcakes were also the thing keeping the mailpony away, so you can connect that to all the other "absent" symbols so far.Rarity gets ownership/rentership over a boutique in canterlot. Next scene, twilight blatantly narrates the connection between this episode and older episodes. There's no subtle narrative or metaphorical meaning behind doing this. She just does it. What was a rare practice which was always meaningful from a characterization perspective or made humorous in some way, is simply done here. That means it's the standard, now, and it will get more and more common now that the team has made the intentional choice to use this approach such that all episodes can be understood without extra context, which is a concern one might expect from corporate. I don't have anything confirming the actual source of this permanent and new apparent policy.Rarity and her new store manager, who is experienced around canterlot, ask twilight to wear a princess-twilight themed dress as a marketing ploy, and she agrees.There are two conflicts here. One, rarity has a personal value of "TLC", which to her means product quality by way of investing the proper time and effort. This will quickly conflict with the need to make money. The second conflict, when rarity is excited to open her boutique to the public, her manager opens the front door instead and calls everyone in, taking the project for herself. The allegory to the prior episodes is thick.The manager is named Sassy Saddles, by the way.Fashion Plate, a fashion photographer, takes pictures as rarity announces and describes her dress line. I mention him because the episode keeps giving him "unique" excited faces and hovering on those faces as the point of the shot. It's short and limited to this scene, so it's not that bad, but it is still the slow development of this kind of face as a primary part of how the show will become. Just should be noted.
>>42678725Anyway, rarity and SS are almost fully cooperating artistically, here, until sassy decides to re-name rarity's best dress without permission or prior notification and then accept 100 orders for hoof-made "princess dresses" in the first 5 minutes of business. They just directly argue about it after the reporter leaves, and rarity is pressured into cooperation. She works for days until bored and makes one dress a bit different from the others. The customer wants a dress that matches the advertised design, since that is what she ordered and that is what is associated with twilight.Rarity finishes her 100 orders and SS shows up with 100 more while suggesting they use an assembly line meant specifically to churn out the same dress endlessly. Rarity quits. At the "going out of business sale", rarity offloads all of her other dresses to customers who specifically want the aesthetic personality of each of those dresses. This is much more enjoyable and meaningful for rarity, who is willing to keep her boutique open again, and to employ SS now that she's made it clear that her boutique can work just fine without SS running the show.Last joke is the giant fat lime pony showing up late and asking if the princess dress is available, and getting told no before SS and RR laugh about it.So, who is SS? Is she jim, a director grabbing the power wielded by executive producers? Is SS mcarthy, and is rarity faust, such that this second boutique represents the continuation of the show under the same name? Is SS the corporate influence, specifically intending to treat this artist's princess-themed marriage of multiple personality and aesthetic combinations as if it were about a single main character and the marketable theme of princesshood?Well, no.Because we're not engaging in masturbatory self-obsession to nearly the same degree, it's about the abstract narrative pattern which overlaps all of these relevant topics, expressed as a story which is simple at its core. Like all the way up at post 42559663, the episode's message is capable of being fit into many situations, because the core of it is true and understandable. The formula for the most reliable sale of goods is a perfectly replicable experience with a social value placed on it by either the local hierarchy or the local shared social project. This formula, when followed blindly, is destructive to the meaning which it seeks to create, and to the creative spirit which would potentially revitalize it. Rarity, also had to stand for herself, because SS wasn't going to do it. She had to be the authority which was absent.The ponies who were consuming her mass-produced dress, are also basically like the yaks. They wanted exactly what they already knew, and ended up learning that they could be happy by embracing personal-fits which they hadn't previously considered. Only, this time they aren't retarded violent foreigners with an oddly specific set of demands.
>>42678821They just want the thing as advertised.So, when RR and SS laugh in the face of the big fat ugly pony who's late and dumb, it slides right on by, despite having the same general rage behind it.
thank you father but I demand more reviews
FATHER PLEASE
>>42680741dont get replaced bro, keep posting kino
No dying now.
>>42681524vogel got banned on sight lol
>>42678825>Rarity Investigates!Opens at the canterlot boutique, with rarity fishing for complements from SS on her new dress line. This more directly follows from the prior episode than any episode in the whole show, discounting finales and premiers, and excepting "games ponies play". It's also two rarity episodes in a row.Rarity is taking inspiration from older artistic works (noir books) to make her dresses, and also is taking behaviors from the characters. Her fiddly little presentation in the boutique is destroyed when rainbow slams the door open a little too hard.The characters do some passable exposition. The wonderbolts are doing acrobatics at the opening of a new/altered royal garden and RD invited Rarity to an associated free(?) dinner. After rainbow leaves, a mail pony opens the door, again threatening to destroy rarity's display, because her display is a bad idea that uses too much effort to create something too ill-defined and rickety, just like rarity's original name for the Princess Dress last episode, and potentially like Mcarthie's 4rth season fiddly Book-nerd navel-gazing Gordian knot.Rarity convinces the mailpony to "redo" her order, since the wrong items show up. On earth, that's nonsense. The mail pony doesn't pack your order and has no right to demand that a business mail anything in particular. Maybe it makes more sense in equstria, but she still talks him in to doing more work than he has time for that day, and without using generosity like in "rarity takes manehattan". Perhaps this is supposed to be another skill she learned from her noir books. A retired wonderbolt named Wind Rider with significant fame meets rainbow at the dinner. The next day, spitfire gets a note claiming her mom is sick and needs her help, so rainbow gets to fly at the garden thing in her place instead of being a reservist. Rarity comes to that show, and so does spitfire's mom, which is odd since she is supposed to be ill. WR points out that RD benefited from spitfire's absence, meaning RD had motive to forge that letter.Rarity decides to be an investigator, copying the lessons of her books. RD is impatient during the investigation, rushing past clues and acting aggressive and oppositional to the witnesses/guards. Rainbow begins to emotionally collapse on the grounds that she really did have a motivation to hypothetically do the crime.Rarity learns that a pony who bought a cake which was used as bait for the guards got a stain on their scarf. WR has a scarf. She finds him, accuses him, and then reveals the hidden stain on his scarf. WR framed RD so that RD wouldn't be a threat to his flying record in the future.RD flies out to a mountain and back to tell spitfire that she doesn't have to find a magic sickness-curing flower, which may or may not have instantly broken WR's record. The implication is there, but weak. Spitfire kicks WR out of the wonderbolts and gives RD his spot in the day's aerial display.
>>42683760The scene this episode where they use custom faces this episode is the scene where they interrogate the 3 guards, so it's a consistent pattern now.This episode is a fair bit like MMMystery on the Friendship Express. That episode contrasted pinkie's methods with twilight's methods. This one contrasted RD's methods with Rarity's.Rd actively avoided looking at things, avoided small talk, and directly challenged people. Rarity bothered to remember and think about clues on account of willingly getting lost in the role as a kind of game which took advantage of her natural tendencies.Pinkie engaged in confirmation bias and imagined how people could have committed the crime, and called that an investigation. Twilight paid less attention to "what if" and more to verifiable evidence, and to actually interfacing with reality instead of letting your assumptions guide you.Rainbow is worse than pinkie in terms of investigation. Imagining stories of how events could have occurred is a necessary step in figuring out how they actually occurred, and in figuring out how to find relevant evidence. Pinkie was immediately attempting to investigate, and learned how to do it better as the episode continued.However, rainbow acted with impatience at the end, when she chose to fly a large distance to retrieve spitfire. That wasn't her job. Her job was to be a reserve, and to fill a slot on the team if needed. This arrogant and risky move paid off, because she had the sheer balls to act. The episode frames her huge shortcomings as a set of natural tendencies, just like rarity's natural tenancies, which can be used for good in the right scenario.Rainbow's attempt to become a self-attacking ball of vice and negativity is simply brushed off by rarity, which is another direct answer to the attitude of the first half of the season, to trouble shoe's "that's just my lot in life" nonsense.The episode takes on a sepia tone and lets rarity monologue multiple times, intentionally dressing itself up in noir aesthetic and playing around just like rarity is doing, because that's what a reference is for according to this episode. It's a whole way of being, which artists and workers alike can dress up in if they like, for both fun and function.Also, if you personally forge a letter impersonating spitfire's mom and driving her to physically work all day under bad weather conditions, she will still make sure to punish you using the written bylaws instead of breaking character and yelling at you or kicking you out for valid personal reasons.Spitfire was the absent authority this episode.
>>42683866>"Made in ManehattanTwilight is very bored with books, having read her whole personal library. The magic table assigns a friendship problem to AJ and Rarity, so twilight is left to just suffer boredom.> Rarity: [gasps] I just remembered something! The Sisterhooves Social!> Applejack: We'll have to miss it. No tellin' how long we'll be in Manehattan. This comes from nowhere. Its only purpose is to create direct continuity between episodes, which is a new trend and part of the Denny Lu era. This isn't horrid as far as info-dumps go, and it is in direct conflict with the eventual project to make sure all episodes make sense given no further context, so that tendency hasn't started in earnest yet, after all.Rarity is very excited, treating manehattan's fashion district with the same enthusiasm she used for canterlot recently.AJ fails to respond quickly to the crosswalk signals, representing some kind of tendency towards doing what one feels like when they are good and ready, or at least not fitting herself within the narrow bounds of an efficient system. Rarity sells a hat in order to stop a pony for wearing green, and assume that was the friendship problem. AJ gives her an unimpressed on-model look, while rarity makes a silly off-model face. I can take this as self-aware commentary if I want.AJ attempts to talk directly to passerby and is ignored. Rarity sets up a "friendship advice" stand that feels like a "Peanuts" reference to me, or at least rarity feels like "Lucy" when she's yelling there, to me. I can argue that we're doubling down in AJ's failed attempts at freeform and willing exchanges and Rarity's attempts at using structure to her advantage. Neither work, but rarity gets hit in the face with a flyer asking for help with a theater thing with coco's name on it.> Coco Pommel: I can't believe you found my flyer. Quite a coincidence, don't you think?> Rarity: Applejack and I were specifically summoned here -- It's no coincidence, darling. It's fate! -So, explicitly, getting hit with that flier and bothering to read it is the exact reason these two were chosen, meaning that the improbability of this events is "lampshaded".Charity Kindheart was a pony who previously organized a "Midsummer Revival" every year. That's a theater event where locals contribute costumes and food, a community event. Charity retired, is absent, and so the MR is failing. Coco is too busy attempting to do her actual job in order to properly replace Charity, and isn't already a famous and well established designer. For some reason, she has not received any volunteers before AJ and Rarity found her flyer.
I cannot wait for OP to get to Starlight and Trixie's episodes, that's gonna be entertaining.Has anyone ever suggested he turn these into full-blown videos? DWK but actually good.
>>42684410Same, except I'm more excited to see what he says about the more controversial episodes. NCC, Honest Apple, the cheerleading episode, Fluttershy Leans In. those are going to be the real juicy bits.
>>42684371All the ponies AJ and Rarity ask are also busy just like Coco, except the last example we see. He's lounging in a boat while talking about his important oat import business. He even remembers the MR fondly, so it's unclear what we're supposed to take from this. All prior examples used "overwork" as the main reason why community spirit was dead, but this example says that overwork isn't the issue, which would mean self-importance is the issue underneath a lack of time.At 10:08 we see fantasy delacorte clock. Delecorte clock is near the east edge of central park, near the middle, which implies that the events of the story happen near fantasy central park. We see fantasy Gapstow bridge at 10:32, also in central park. Near the beginning of the episode, rarity says the neighborhood they have been sent to contains the "fashion district." The Garment District in new York is touching Bryant Park, which is correctly placed but does not resemble the overun park with the stage which AJ will try to clean. Most of the "green" locations on google streetview in manhattan are unusually large chunks of concrete outside of banks, perhapse with a tree and some chairs. "clinton" community garden is green and small enough, but I don't see a stage or anywhere to fit a play. Dewitt clinton park is full of sports fields and no grass. Balsley Park has exactly 1 compressed grassy knoll on it, and a punch of fences and seats. West end park has 1 unbalanced hippo statue balancing on its nose and multiple benches facing a plant-filled area, which is almost spiritually close to what AJ found in the park with an unbalanced pony statue, some benches, grass, and a stage. It's not that close, and we're pretty far away from the garment district at this point.I have spent multiple hours clicking on every plaza and park in Manhattan and I have not found a sufficient match. Coco looks down on the park from the window of her appartment. We're looking for a park that spans most of a block, is mostly grass, and has a small outdoor stage with some benches. Bonus points for having a statue. There's also a good chance that, if it ever actually existed, this park was changed as new york grew modern sensibilities developed. It's somewhat annoying, because locations in manehattan generally correspond to real locations. I tire.Anyway, failing to get help, Rarity just does the costume work herself and AJ tries to clear out an overgrown fantasy Park on her own. This might be insane, if the park represents centeral park, or just unreasonable, depending on what part this is supposed to be. She fails, and instead constructs a smaller stage on the edge of the park, plugging the entrance.
>>42684432I don't like Poochie or Shitxie, so I'm especially excited to see him rip into those two.
>>42684539The play is a retelling of Charity's first MF play. According to the retelling, charity wasn't well established at the time. She was rejected as a fasion designer, and instead recommended as a costume designer by the station who turned her down. She fails to get her community enough tickets to see her show, so she put on a smaller show in the local park. While this play is going on, local passerby just stop and watch.Because AJ failed to actually fix the park, now the local ponies have "Smaller" contributions which they can make to their own community, and a little spark of community spirit from the play.Charitie's failure to become a fasion pony and failure to get tickets both caused her to create the MF event. Her specfici personal traits which made her unsutibale for one kind of work also made her ideal for another. AJ's strict inferiority to twilight, who could have fixed the park in an instant, left the ponies with labor which they could do to maintain community spirit. While AJ's actions led to a greater degree of personal connection, it wasn't her slow country pony attitude or hospitality which contributed to the solution, and instead was just the fact she sucks, and is at least willing to make due sometimes. The episode, and this second half of the season, seems to want to hammer home the idea that different people, who might be bad in one situation, are good in other situations. That's what happened with RD last episode. That's what happened with charity in the play. It's just pretty funny that their example of what makes AJ special is that mentally she's slow and physically "weaker than twilght's horn".The last shot of the episode is a smug off-model AJ face, being so proud of how much she sucks, which is also the team being... really proud of these faces. At least the framing here associates the faces with smug presentations of one's weakest traits. If I didn't already know the future, it would be funny.
>>42666795>The group points out all the other ponies who MD always had access to and she decides not to give everything up just because a friend moved on like what Starlight didCorrection, Starlight had no other friends for support like Moondancer did, there was nothing for Starlight to give up. Starlight had lost everything and because she was a filly she didn't have the emotional maturity to deal with her heartache. The way Starlight was abandoned hurts more too because Sunburst did it straight to her face, whereas Twilight was "off-screen" so to speak. Additionally, Starlight's friendship with Sunsburst meant a lot more to her as they did everything together. Moondancer's relationship with a classmate she only sees sometimes during classes was very one-sided since Twilight did not give a fuck about friendship at that point and clearly neglected everyone.
>>42683691Good.
>>42684759>It's just pretty funny that their example of what makes AJ special is that mentally she's slow and physically "weaker than twilght's horn".Another way this could be said that's less harsh on Applejack, but still a bit depressing from a narrative point of view, is that AJ's specialty in the group is that she can't simply overcome every hurdle in her way with minimal effort. Or in other words, she's not a mary sue. It's depressing because that means the other characters are so OP and perfect at everything that you just can't use them in most of these conflicts because of how easily they could solve things, and AJ is the only one we can have an actual struggle with.
>>42644683The entire "choice to value" bit sounds like bullshitting.>a table which tells you exactly what to do would be considered far more loving than offering the freedom to grow on your own terms. From this perspective, twilight, and any lesser, are hopless babies who will forever require handholding and freak out like a dog whenever left alone. How annoying, such a character would be.That's a very cynical and short-sighted interpretation which is immediately invalidated by the fact that non-table episodes exist therefore the freedom to grow on their own terms never left. The cutie map makes suggestions based on what friendship problems in Equestria it feels are important to fix, the Tree of Harmony is like an omniscient entity subtly guiding the timeline towards harmony. It chose to target Our Town because it knew later on that Starlight would be crucial in saving Equestria. The finale is basically the cutie map manipulating Twilight into reforming Starlight, why else would every timeline magically be worse than the last, that is why the cutie map showed Starlight a devastating timeline that would shatter her world view the hardest. Whether every friendship mission is critical in preserving harmony is hard to say, but that is the ultimate goal of the Tree of Harmony.
>>42686625>countered by the fact other episodes existThis is the theory of the meaning implied by the table, which you're admitting exists. Other episodes having other completely contradictory implications wouldn't really change what occurs with the table. That said, I spend considerable time pointing out how that fairly cynical worldview is reflected in other episodes too, so we are BOTH gesturing at all the other episodes and saying "see???">suggestionsThere are no suggestions when one has enough future-sight that characters can assume success from the start. There's only prophesy. You can say something like "the table is capable of determining what will happen IF it calls two ponies to a spot, but is not capable of determining if those ponies will accept the call", but that would just mean that, in the absence of its authority, nothing gets fixed, which was the point.>the table showed starlight and twilight bad futures to manipulate them into compliance.. and this crackpot theory is why you're arguing that the table doesn't equate control and love?Because, if we assume the table is good, that REALLY seems to equate control, even lies and manipulations, with love.Anyway, we have no reason to assume the table has control over what happens in the bad timelines, since it was never born in them, unless you're offering the thing full omniscience and claiming it affected the exact way that each of the fights between starlight and Twilight turned out, despite taking no actions at that time.
>>42686933>in the absence of its authority, nothing gets fixed, which was the point.I suppose you're right. Twilight is a literal child of destiny, her existence is proof a hand of god is guiding the fate of the world, the way Twilight luckily makes the correct five friends instantly to take down NMM in less than a day is nothing short of divine intervention. The cutie map isn't any different than Celestia though, they're both "quest givers".>Anyway, we have no reason to assume the table has control over what happens in the bad timelinesWe do because of Twilight's observation of the timelines getting worse each time despite the same actions being taken, it's the same kind of divine intervention that happens for Twilight.>you're arguing that the table doesn't equate control and love?The map is just pointing out a problem that exists in the world, it's not doing anything different than what Celestia groomed Twilight for. In the end everyone has free will, neither Celestia nor the map can directly control their actions, only guide.
father I require more reviews
father i crave True...
>>42687790a true trvthnvke review
I will save this thread.
>>42691045thanks
>>42692493No problem.
review?
>>42541936Why didn't Celstra know about the mare in the moon? She banished her to the moon. I can understand it becoming an obscure legend to the general population, but why did she dismiss Twilight? I guess you can explain (both s1 Celstra and s2 Nightmare night) it away as ponies knew of Nightmare moon but thought it was a legend and/or didn't know she was on the moon? And if she was on the moon, she wouldn't be returning. Idk, someone else think for me.
>>42684759>brotherhooves socialPrior episode, this event was suddenly mentioned at both the beginning and the end, as though that were continuity. Technically, it is.The idea of the social is introduced in a fairly natural manner. While I've made special mention of the exposition so far, the particularly bad cases are very rare, and we must remember that it hasn't really gotten that bad yet.Big mac, watching AJ and applebloom practice for the sisterhooves social competitions in the yard, gets a bit jealous. He uses an old nostalgic toy AB used to love, but is unable to get any real praise or real attention.Aj gets called by the map, meaning this is a simultaneous episode like may the best pet win/games ponies play, as well as a follow up to sisterhooves social.AB is sad about not being able to compete, so big mac gets the idea to crossdress and pretend to be a female relative, so that he can take AJ's place in the competition.The episode really plays up his "I only speak single words" thing near the beginning, most likely to increase the juxtaposition between his BM persona and his chatty woman persona "Orchard Blossom." It seems most people know exactly what he's dong. He questions RD's relationship with scotalooo to get her to leave him alone. First event is a singing duet competition They do well, but OB drops their void at the end. This could be because big mac is a member of the ponytones, and so already is known to sing in his male voice, despite normally avoiding talking. It also implies that singing is considered "not a very Big mac thing to do", so it's ambiguous what they were going for exactly.They flub a cheer competition, jump rope, and juggling.An obstacle course race gets extra screentime. OB just breaks all the obstacles or dominates with his enormous body, eventually leaving AB behind. AB actually just underpreforms at an egg carry, and OB picks her up and carries her for the next section, meaning that AB herself is not good enough to win this competition, even if AJ were still in town. OB beats RD and scootaloo, but destroys his disguise in the process. BM and AB have a chat back home at sunset. AB tosses a bit of praise BM's way. The last bit in the episode is AB asking BM to playact as OB again, meaning that is the new activity they have in common, as a replacement for the old toy that doesn't work anymore.In Sisterhooves Social, Rarity completely disguised herself as AJ in order to prove herself to sweetie bell. The trick worked. Here, it doesn't. Big mac isn't fully putting on an identity, so much as playing with a persona for a bit. That's also what he is doing in the last moments of the episode, knowingly, for fun. That also fits in with the "references" idea this season, which isn't quite the same as nostalgia. This episode clarifies the difference. Big mac borrows the idea of the feminine, just like other episodes borrow the idea of indianna jones or like rarity acting like a detective.
>>42693991It's, uh, really fucking unfortunate that we're watching a cartoonification of the increasingly relevant right wing boogieman of the clumsy hairy buff trans who pretends just so that they can steal victory and accomplishment from women. I think the episode is coming from a good place, but the result is... best not to look at. At least he didn't get himself into a Mare's prison just so that he could be a perv with a laugh track.>crusaders of the lost markPipsqueek hires the CMC as campaign managers for "student pony president", and they agree, because literally any activity might potentially get them their marks.The cmc put Pip on a box where he can speak to the schoolyard. Diamond Tiarra is campaigning against him. >Pipsqueak: Our playground equipment took quite a beating during Twilight's battle with Tirek!Passable attempt to link this episode to the events of others.> Apple Bloom: 'Course, it doesn't hurt that her mother Spoiled Rich is president of the school board.Imperfect introduction of information, but good enough.>Silver Spoon: Exactly! Which is why when Diamond Tiara is voted student pony president, the school will be putting a statue of her in the center of our schoolyard!Note that Silver, here, gives an overjoyed custom face. There weren't really any of those in Brotherhooves Social, because big mac's face is already oddly shaped and kept looking at the camera. Adding odd faces wouldn't have had any impact, as there was no "normal" to work with. This, also, is just about the most happy we will ever see SS be, and it's when she's directly confirming that DT will get a statue commemorating, specifically, the fact that her mother has money and influence, and the art team wanted to punctuate that fact. DT gets mad at SS for stealing her big announcement. >He's it! Vote for Pip!That's just a very funny choice for a campaign slogan. It seems to ask someone to settle for the "correct" option, and it focuses on that choice to settle instead of creating enthusiasm for whatever good pip is meant to represent. It's... depressingly typical.Pip wins.There's a line that I missed while doing this review, because the line is in the middle of the song. https://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/42208468/#q42223041> [Silver Spoon]> I've a tiny suggestion> That you should be aware> You could probably win this election> If you show them all you real—>Diamond Tiara: I don't recall asking you to speak!When I originally analyzed silver spoon, I had to explain their breakup on the grounds that Diamond wronged her by getting mad when SS ruined the statue announcement, which justified reading into the events for less obvious motivations and matching those to SS's actions in the past.Instead, DT was just a bitch. It's still not clear that SS had a helpful suggestion, but it seems like she at least believed she did.
>>42694118I would like to see a mare prison episode, any excuse would do.
>>42694118I still suspect her of playing it up a bit at the end, but I can't really say she was just shallow here, anymore. She does effectively end their friendship over this, but their friendship was, in its current form, a toxic co-enabling of awful traits, and now I can say she finally saw that, though we may never know how much she grew or changed from this.>Silver Spoon: What? I don't have to follow her drama any more.>silver spoon, fin.The cmc stalk DT and see her mother talk to her.>DT> I've been told my whole life> What to do, what to say> Nopony showed me that> There might be some better wayThe episode, or at least DT, frames DT's actions as a direct result of the influence of her parent, using the Cakes as an example of a better family.Cmc invite DT to their clubhouse, where DT basically immediately tries sincerity, complementing the freedom the CMC have in their future, compared to DT's assumed responsibility from her family and social position. Remember that twilight came to ponyville as the right hand of god and was able to spend so much time learning that her no-experience ass knows more than basically anyone, her brother's the highest officer in the guard, and her babysitter is a young alicorn. There was already a narrative about an isolated elite learning to appreciate a bunch of working class hicks, and DT is now framed as being the same kind of person but with a greater degree of realistic influence from their station. If twilight is an extreme fantasy, then DT is now a grounded iteration of a similar idea. By implication, we should all be learning to show empathy to high-class snooty bitches like DT and young and arrogant social workers or whatever. The framing is now such that instead of "people in general should receive your consideration" it's "be nicer to your social betters and patiently see through their rude persona."At least it's true. You SHOULD be nice and patient and see through people's shallow bullshit.DT hears that pip's schoolyard budget proposal was rejected due to lack of money and immediately runs to the school to reveal this shortcoming to whatever students happen to be around. Diamond's mom exits the schoolhouse and immediately chides her for associating with the dirty, stupid, poor cmc. For this, Diamond rejects her mother and dunks on her for having no fiends. She gives her mom a note to deliver to her father, asking her father to donate money for playground equipment.
>>42694508So, while DT appears to be breaking out of her current toxic hierarchy, she's actually rejecting the influence of the mother in favor of the father. This makes some sense, symbolically. A mother represents shelter, nutrition, life's freebie. Their only priority is your safety, generally speaking. Becoming a better person, inevitably, means moving out of the safety which they construct, generally without permission. This pivotal moment in growth is what I have previously referred to as "the betrayal of the mother". A father, in this binary, represents interface with the world itself, and so the managing of danger, change, and the unknown. Generally, this means learning a trade, and willingly finding the father, often specifically to copy them. The specifics are less pinned down, because that's the point.However, this episode which appears like it should be about escaping a toxic hierarchy, instead ends with demoting the mother to delivery girl and calling the influence of a man forward. The mistake which causes DT to reject Spoiled is that Spoiled acts a bitch, in public, shaming DT. The mistake DT makes which loses her SS's friendship is, also, being a bitch and publicly shaming SS. That means the lesson is just "Don't be a bitch and shame people in public because they will turn on you." Which, again, it's true, at least. More specifically, DT and Spoiled were squabbling over power, and Spoiled is here in the role of usurper. She's taking power which ultimately flows from the absent father. If so, then the examples of SS, DT, Spoiled, Glimmer, and Princess Spike all insist that the desire to claim power, even to do good, is the mistake, and is theft. Glimmer stole from Celestia, and as a result had to be a bitch to cover up for her own weakness and maintain appearances. This doesn't match perfectly, but seems to be the intended reading.DT uses the traits of the school foals which she previously used as blackmail in the repair of the schoolyard, meaning she now is deciding to value the people around her, but that value is framed around personal traits which are good in some situations and, by implication, bad in others, rather than personhood. Rather, it equates those two things. This follows from Big Mac being an awful mare but good comedian, AJ being awful, RD being an awful investigator, and the ponies of Our Town making the mistake of rejecting their differences.SS seems to have maybe forgiven DT, but she still never speaks again, I think, so who knows?The cmc get their cutiemarks specifically in helping ponies find their marks, which represent specific destiny-ordained ways of living, and adherence to that destiny, a "right" path. > 'Cause the ultimate reward is a cutie mark!
>>42694514Right, also Spoiled used up all the custom-faces. This means they were used specifically to make a character more off putting, that the team SHOULD understand what they are doing.>The one where pinkie pie knowsIf I scrape the bottom of the barrel for this one, pinkie has to keep a secret which she has because she's responsible for the creation of a product, which is a conflict TV writers would obviously experience all the time. It's less a metanarrative, and more a "Here's what we did last Tuesday."Pinkie learns that cadence is pregnant. Every scene is her poorly hiding the secret while making awful uncomfortable faces. As an episode, this is a clear excuse to make as many faces as possible, as strangely as possible. It's like how silver ruined a secret last episode, but that wasn't really a significant event narrativly. It was more about DT's incorrect response to that, the fallout. Feels like a dangling theme, like it was supposed to be more meaningful than it is. particularly with how the show seems to love having single themes carry over between two episodes like thisPinkie makes a bunch of cake deliveries while avoiding social contact for her sanity.>Pinkie Pie: It didn't feel good ignoring my friends like that..I already don't have much patience for this episode's bullshit, and then they drop this ugly tell-don't-showPinkie fulfills more promises she made.As she's about to break, Shining & Cadence show up. They put the m6 through a scavenger hunt in town instead of just telling them. Pinkie makes it until the end, technically, and that's it. There's not really a lesson. Nobody is wrong about a thing and then learns that one method is better than another. She just complies, and it was hard, the end.Rewinding and watching it AGAIN, but muted, pinkie is is making some twisted face or another in 50% of scenes, for basically the whole scene, sometimes as the whole focus of a shot and point of a scene. Occasionally, this will spread to other characters, but mostly her. This was absolutely the art team being given an episode to play with. It also simply doesn't feel that bad. Maybe it's the fact that there's still enough normalcy to keep the feeling of normal. Maybe it's how short all the shots are, snapping between faces before I'm forced to really think about them. Point is, it doens't get my approval, but it gets a pass. The plot also isn't so horrible if you, like me, don't give a single fuck about how this pink retard feels anymore. Oh, pinkie, the days when I cared for you, oh.There's a pattern of episodes where a charters displays total mastery over the lessons of the season so far. In S1, that's dog and pony show with rarity. It's pinkie in S2 A Friend in Deed. Flutters in S3 Keep Calm. They don't actually learn anything, and instead just win by being right and holding on. That doesn't happen in S4, I think, but pinkie is doing it here, and what she's doing is keeping her hands off of what belongs to other's.
ooh more reviews nice
>>42694798>hearthbreakersFirst scene is AJ and twilight. AJ is arguing that Twilight/spike's way of celebrating hearthswarming isn't how others celebrate that tradition.More interesting, apparently hearthswarming has "hearthswarming dolls" which are little dolls of yourself which you "hang up." As horrifying as t hat sound, that means sitting a little doll of yourself over a fireplace, which is only an issue because it's Twilight literally putting herself on a shelf. She got spike a book in a box as his gift this year, and I'll be mentioning that a few days from now.The apple and pie families celebrate at pinkie's parent's house. On the train ride over, AJ does a one paragraph retelling of the hearthswarming story using holiday candies as the actors. The art style switches completely during this, and it's almost believable as a moment between AJ and AB.Maud Pie pulls a "I know what you were doing yesterday based on the earth on your feet" on AJ, which is a move taken from sherlock holmes. The references, while far rarer in the second half of the season, are still important enough to the narrative that I sort of have to catalogue them when they are obvious like this. It seems like full artstyle shifts are filling that role now, instead.>Igneous Rock: Surely thy name is not but Granny Smith. While the whole meeting scene is about how strange both groups find each other, this is the first line, and says it the most clearly. Igneous is a serious man. There's some room left in him for mirth and jokes, but even as a joke the point here would remain the same. They cannot understand eachother well enough to know what they are even intended to believe. Pinkie ends up speaking for marble and limestone, working as a bridge.Limestone immediately attempts to intimidate and boss around the apples. Her one demand she manages to get past Pinkie's interruption is that you shouldn't touch holder's bolder, which is a huge and unbalanced egg-rock right next to their house and a cliff. 10 seconds later, pinkie is sitting on the bolder while limestone yells at her.For dinner, the rocks literally serve rock soup. So, stone soup is a fable in which a person tricks a community/person into contributing various things to a soup using a rock as the original contribution, eventually creating a filling soup from "just a stone". There are lots of potential points to the story, but most of them involve the formation of and power of community spirit, at least by implication. This can easily be related to the choice to throw references/styles into the "pot" of this season, or the combining of traits which offer people strengths and weaknesses. Stones are also capable of getting hotter than the boiling point of water, and so can be used for extremely primitive cooking using a fire, but that doesn't seem as relevant.
>>42695185The rocks are making stone soup with just the stone and water, odd green water. The rock family just bites their rocks and drinks their broth like nothing is odd, meaning we simply cannot empathize with their perspective. They are fundamentally alien to us, to the point where we just have to imagine that this is a normal meal to them, like some other meal entirely with different properties. We have to pretend, to understand them, that it is a biscuit and gravy or something other than what it is.For "hearthswarming dolls", the rock family carves little rock statues with tiny picks, which is much more comprehensible. The apples do not possess this skill, and AB doesn't even seem to get the idea. To determine who gets to place "the flag" (it seems to be like placing a star/angel on the christmas tree), the ponies divide into teams and hunt down a (picture of a) piece of obsidian that limestone hid someplace on the farm. Mac and marble make noises at eachother from across a yard awkwardly while they search. Grannie hears from the rock parents about a "choosing stone" which assigns marriage pairings for the locals, which grannie is interested in.> Maud Pie: [deadpan] Have you ever wished you could turn into a rock?> Apple Bloom: I had a dream once I was an apple.> Maud Pie: [deadpan] We have a lot in common when it comes to thinking about turning into things.Maud is a fucking treat.Point being, everyone seems to like their searching partners now that they've had time together, which implies this tradition did its job perfectly.Pinkie mentions that presents get hidden. The flag-placer hides the presents, which results in most years involving no presents actually being received. Now, if I read into that, we've got a tradition in which the family proves itself capable of finding a scrap of paper on a rock farm with a quarry, and yet, most years, nobody finds a present. As a tradition, the effect is that the person most in charge of operations (limestone) gets to decide who finds the granite drawing, and therefor can determine who is in charge of hiding presents. That means she can, on bad years, make sure that nobody actually buys and hides a present, while still maintaining the hope that a gift exists and maintaining plausible deniability. The family can also get a clear measure of exactly how desperate a person is for a particular gift, because a more desperate person will keep searching for longer. If, after two months, the most desperate family member finds what they want out near the edge of the county, you can say they only found their gift because they spent the most time looking, instead of having to admit you just bought it. It seems really convenient for a family that lives outside of civilization where money is worth less than grain and the eldest child is territorial like a primitive form of police officer.
>>42695335> Applejack: [sighs] I know they have their traditions and we have ours, but I just want them to see how much better theirs could be.Anyway, this is the red-alert statement by AJ. She sneaks out and covers the rock farm in colorful plastic decorations, installs a flagpole, and puts a bunch of gifts just... in a pile in the open. She suggests the Rocks try some of the traditions the Apples are used to.The confrontation about this is interrupted when the flag pole AJ installed turns a "fault line" into a fissure, and that fissure cracks over to Holder's Boulder and causes it to roll off of the cliff and into the quarry. The Apples are kicked out of the farm, or "wanted to leave", or "should go". It's exceedingly unclear, particularly if you let yourself read into the actions of the characters at all. Limestone says they "wanted to leave" but then points the Apples away with a scowl when AB looks at her through the window. AJ gets hit in the head with a large rock which pinkie giftwrapped and hid in the overhead luggage of the train home, and decides the Rocks have a "great tradition", which is insanity and/or brain damage. AJ. She stops the whole train just so her family can get out and walk back to the rock farm. I suspect this is why the confusion described above exists. The writers wanted AJ to be able to come back, and you can't just come back when someone declares you aren't welcome on their property without expecting a fight or legal action.I also have to note that AJ didn't actually touch holder's bolder. She raised a flag pole, which was a conceptual replacement for holder's bolder, in that the bolder was previously the high point they would place flags. The fault line, then was just a detail under the surface which AJ ran into because she messed with things she didn't understand. On the train ride home, grannie smith fogs up a window and uses that medium for a crude telling of the story of holder's bolder. It was a rock found in a dragon's nest right where the rock farm is currently. This farm is a dragonland which a pony took from the dragons, and that rock is a treasure older than history with unknown properties, said to bring luck. It could be superstition, but the main point is that this old thing has value and rules which you can't assume to know, which is the same as the traditions which AJ attempted to change, and the dirt which contained a faultline. Also, AJ shared history with AB using a medium on the way over, and Grannie shared history with AJ using a medium on the way back.The apples help push the boulder back up the ramp of the quarryLastly, the families get along for a bit in the house, trying their best to share and tolerate tiny amounts of eachother's eccentricities.
>>42695527Maud shares a set of rock-themed poems, like she did with twilight back in "maud pie". The difference is, this is the exact scenario in which that horrible experience is 100% appropriate. It's a slow day with plenty of company where maud's words fill the silence with calm, each word an attempt to reach out, a little platonic caress, without needing to pay attention, and without anything else they need to do today. A nice nap during wouldn't even be rude, probably. I've heard that people used to do this kind of thing pretty often, before radio. Don't know how true that is. It is a really good example of a negative trait being positive in the right circumstance. Anyway, we've got a set of gray ponies who's flow is disturbed by the introduction of a bunch of colorful ponies in the middle of nowhere. AJ's also forcing her way on a bunch of ponies. Sounds a lot like Ourtown, but this time the invaders are in the wrong. However, consistently, the side with more history is in the right and also the act of directly sharing and interfacing with people is correct while trying to force your way is not. In this case, that symbology actually sides against celestia, as AJ's planting of a celestail flag was a mistake which steped against a higher, older power.
Bumping, slides were bad tonight.
>>42695809When is it not?
>>42697105It was extra bad last night.
>>42697774It seems to have carried over now as it's a fast board currently
fast board sadly
>>42698216Seems to have slowed down a bit now, at least.
>>42698747Nah it's still fast annoyingly.
>>42699245Hopefully tonight will be better.
>>42695557>Scare MasterBecause she's a coward, fluttershy can't stand nightmare night. She has to go out and get some rabbit food, regardless.Spike convinces her to hang with her friends.> FS: But it's just like when I was afraid to sing in front of anypony. If I hadn't given it a try, I never would've found out how much I enjoy it.This isn't exposition. This is an attempt at continuity. It's good for that, for taking from both "luna ecplipsed" and "filli vanilli to make its plot. However, it's also a character directly telling us what the narrative is and how we're supposed to interpret it. When the show created the insult of stupid picky yaks, that was fine. That's just satire, baby. This, however, is NOT an insult. This is worse. Instead of calling people stupid, this is cutting your fucking meat and buckling your helmet on. This is the moment the show first admitted it kind of hated us, even the little girls. What's more, the choice to take this degree of control is consistent with the philosophy of the whole season which I've been arguing for. They don't think of it as hate, but after 7 years of it, this is the reason they will walk way going "not really.">"I will embrace irrational expressive urges in public just because I feel like it because I'm just that comfortable in my own skin."Last FS episode, I said she was just short of reaching this stage of development. This episode, she's willingly joining the festival of an artistic lunatic god. I basically nailed it.As FS makes up fears that ruin every activity, TS suggests she does the scaring instead. That's clearly "take a negative trait and put it in another situation where it is better", but it doesn't work at first.FS sets up a "spooky" tea party and narrates it, and we get some insight into how she thinks other people think. She doesn't provide tea, but expects that she can make her friends feel like they are the terrible hosts in this scenario. She takes for granted that rarity would want to cover up because she hasn't received a complement on her dress, and so has to explain herself further. FS uses an empty chair to create the idea of a friend not making it to a party and expects that to create a significant fear in others. In other words, every one of fluttershy's fears which she thinks to represent involve insecurities. Given nothing, no prompting, silence, fluttershy assumes that others will fill the blank space up with their own insecurities. This would mean that fluttershy herself does that constantly. This is an artist creating a bunch of stories that blatantly reveal her own mental state, in the exact way which I have been arguing that the show reveals the mental state of the team. It also has the same fear which Glimmer and Moon Dancer share, of a friend being absent, and it's treated as a stupid fear.
>>42704991>FS: Why don't you look terrified? You showed up to a party and everypony was extremely disappointed in you. Can you imagine anything more upsetting?She says this while looking at ponies who are disappointed at her at a party.At a hay-maze which the Apples put together, fluttershy secretly adds a bunch of unplanned scary features. Where the dark room full of floating eyeballs was not scary, the unexplained birds in ghost costumes was terrifying, because it was outside of the accepted band of planned events. When Flutters, dressed as a flutterbat, sees that her friends are legitimately terrified, she relents and asks for forgiveness. Now that they understand, the m5 retroactively decide they loved it.Now, there could have been a lesson here about respecting boundaries. FS is being annoying by setting her boundaries in places that don't make sense, like refusing a bag of candy on the grounds that one candy might be caramel and might clue her airways closed. She refused the mask part of her costume, and so effectively went to Halloween in a regular dress. Her friends tolerate this behavior, and she tries even harder as a result, enabled by the empowered expression of her own will. However, what he does to her friends is the opposite of respecting boundaries. Just last episode, AJ pushed past the boundaries of others without communication. The difference between Twilight and Glimmer was the willingness to talk directly with people and hear from them. However, the only reason fluttershy actually managed to be scary was by pushing past the consent of others, and they loved her for it. The only reason why she figured out nightmare night wasn't for her was that she pushed far past what either she or her friends said they liked. So, if anything, it's a lesson in disrespecting boundaries. I could also say that the fact that she personally didn't like disrespecting the boundaries is the intended point of the episode, and that makes sense, but that sort of ignores the fact that it appears 100% necessary and good according to the events depicted. Fluttershy using a flutterbat costume is "the acceptance of the shadow", but if so, that would mean that the expression of the shadow is inevitable, which would again undercut the apparent lesson where she attempts to reject it. It's also not an expression of her inner self, so it's a bit inappropriate to invoke the shadow in the first place.At the tea party, Fluttershy creates a presentation that doesn't make sense because she specifically is stuck in her perspective. Whoever wrote this empathizes with her at least somewhat. They wrote an episode where the m5 are fundamentally different from fluttershy in a way which cannot be rectified. It's not an issue of careful introduction of traditions over time, as is suggested but not tested in hearthsbreakers. Instead, it's a fundamental issue where patience just makes it much clearer where the line is.
>>42643470The theme of season 5 is broadly about how friendships effect ponies and how important it is to their lives. Amending Fences and What About Discord are the "key" episodes, both with important and relevant lessons. Starlight hiding in those episodes was no coincidence, they are related to her own experiences. She was also supposed to be hiding in The Mane Attraction too as foreshadowing to her own reformation but the animation team unfortunately missed the memo. And yes, the finale is her Reformation, NOT redemption, which actually happens in the season 6 finale. Spoilers: the theme for season 6 will be about comradery and teamwork.
>>42705196Twilight puts all her books in a pile so that she can re-shelve them for fun for 3 days. At that time, discord makes a bunch of memories and jokes with the m5. > Twilight Sparkle: That was strange, right? Since when have Rainbow Dash and Discord had inside jokes?> Spike: Since sometime in the last three days, I guess.> Twilight Sparkle: Hey! Nopony made you join me on my book-sort-cation.> Spike: I'm jokin', I'm jokin'!This response makes no sense, logically. Spike correctly answered the question asked. There should not have been an insult there, but there was, and he acknowledged it. This accusation from twilight should be irrational, but is treated as correct. This small moment would only happen if the writers were writing from twilight's perspective.Discord stops partway through a bob ross reference where he's explaining a joke twilight missed, so there may be some counter-point to the pracitce of using referances which has been more common and explicit this season.Twilight makes her friends recreate the events with the specific intent of extracting the friendship lesson, which is to say that twilight is in exactly the role of the viewer. It's rather like last season with the bookmarks discord left in the friendship journal, except that it's hopeless this time. Recreation necessarily introduces imperfections, which means that the interpretation of the audience will always be a pale shadow of what the writer intended. References, also, function to further obfuscate meaning and leave behind anyone who isn't already familiar, despite being the fundamental mechanism by which words themselves function.Twilight concludes that discord is fucking with her and gets zacora to make a general anti-mind-control potion. Zacora admits that her cauldron is a decorative object without any real function, immediately before the scene fades out and the image of crystal tree castle, so there's some kind of statement there.The m5 are offended instead of cooperative, but pinkie drinks some and still likes discord's jokes.>rd: Who to you take us for?Twilight, crying, admits that she's jealous and regretful. Her friends assure her that it's fine, so long as she can understand and admit her own feelings and as long as she doesn't try to force other people to conform to her needs. This is textbook acceptance of "the shadow", stated plainly.Discord admits to pushing her friends to not bother her all weekend specifically so that twilight would suffer and learn a lesson, but claims not to have intended this overblown jealousy response. This means her paranoia was justified. > Rainbow Dash: Yeah! And to top it off, you're accusing us of not being able to tell he was up to something! What do you take us for?By extention, rainbow dash really couldn't tell discord was up to something. Twilight merely said RD could have had a spell cast on her, which wouldn't be her fault really, but it turns out RD really was humiliated just as she suspected.
>>42705479In the loose sense, that's what the show is about.In particular, Is that what princess spike is about?Canterlot Boutique is a conflict between an business owning artist and her new manager. While twilight helps, friendship is a side note to the plot, at best.I suppose two clear exceptions aren't that significant generally, but if you pick a theme that extremely broad, it seems odd for there to be exceptions at all.
>>42646977>This forms a dichotomy, where twilight and starlight both represent the distribution of "cutiemarks" onto other ponies, but starlight's marks border on slavery, and twilight's mark determining how people live their lives is considered legitimate because it's "original" or "natural" or "rightful".The bordering on slavery part sounds a bit off. Without a cutie mark deciding what's best for you, you have the "freedom" to be whatever you want, a common theme in cmc episodes.>>42647258>Starlight repeatedly shames any personality shown by ponies during the "our town" song. This includes any non-standard hair. Of course, no other pony is going around correcting the villagers, just her, and also her hair remains unique. Simple corrupt hypocrisy.The entire song is scripted like a NK tour, it was all part of the play to propagandize potential new friends like Fluttershy. There are others actively upholding their views, Double Diamond for example, and the parents shielding their foals from the m6's blasphemy. Everypony in town believes in her ideology, more or less, and does their part. This is why Starlight rarely lifts a hoof, the villagers aren't forced at gunpoint to do things like what Trixie had to do. There is no state police keeping the villagers in line, the villagers themselves are the enforcement. They're simply operating under a [misguided] society they believed was right.
>>42705686It is a bit off. You might be imagining a bunch of slaves working on a plantation with no choice about what they do with their time, and that mostly not accurate for this situation.You'll hear people say things like "a slave to vice" or "slave to the devil" or "everyone's a slave to something" when they personally have some higher power they wish to invoke on behalf of some power structure. A magic which grabs a whole town and forces them to behave how you want would be a slave spell. A classic necromancer often turns the dead into actual slaves. A spell that rips away someone's destiny and gives them another destiny that serves your interest isn't slavery, but it borders on it, even if it isn't the literal structural practice of keeping slaves.That's what was meant by that.>the villagers all enforceThe villagers all enforce. That's an important bit of 1984. For DD specifically, we have too little information, but I would say that he's acting differently than the other OurTowners because he's serving the unequal power dynamic which Starlight represents. So, while anyone could service the corruption just like him, and his service itself isn't corrupt or hypocritical, he's still sticking out on account of not being equal.For starlight, the issue wasn't that only she enforces. The issue is that she is not enforced upon, and we don't see anyone else get away with the kinds of forceful correction she does.You can wave away that forceful correction as being part of the propaganda, but that doesn't really affect the point.
>>42705758>he's still sticking out on account of not being equalStarlight's vision of equality is not based on class structures. It's strictly about talents and abilities. Nopony cares that Starlight is the one leading them, they know that very well and want her guidance because they respect her. DD is just as equally mediocre as the rest of the town, and that's all anypony there cares about.
>>42705581So there's an insecurity running through this and the prior episode which is required to fully make sense of the expectations of the characters. Once you really start looking for insecurity as a theme, you'll find it anywhere, so I'll shelve that idea instead of following it all the way back to s5e1. It's conceptually similar to the shadow in this case anyway, which has been present as a theme the whole time.Twilight, in each magic table scene, has also been dissapointed to be excluded by the table. Not a single episode since castle sweet castle has focused on her up until now, and she spent that episode being kept away from the action intentionally by spike. She spends "princess spike" also being kept away frm the action by spike. This episode, she suspects that someone is keeping her out of the spotlight, and she's right. The writers are intentionally keeping her out of the way, and they know that, though she still gets a line or two in most episodes.Last scene is the m6 laughing and discord not getting the joke. They are, indirectly, laughing at him, but also themselves for getting worked up by his tricks. His unnamed fears and insecurities are correct, but he seems to get over it.>The Hooffields and McColtsMagic table sends TS and FS to deal with a fantasy recreation of the most famous hillbillies on earth. It's her turn now. She is placed among chaos and violence. Episode starts with FS organizing a book club with wild animals. As we just had a metaphor for narrative analysis last episode, this is more of that, and fluttershy is a voice guiding a bunch of wild animals through the process, which may be a metephore for the real hicks we're about to meet. > Twilight Sparkle: Do you think it'll be a problem about lying?> Twilight Sparkle: Ooh! Could it be about when two friends just randomly decide to do something together, but they forget to invite the third friend, and the third friend feels left out?> Twilight Sparkle: Or where one friend tells another friend's secret after they asked them not to?Last example is what about discord. Second is the one where pinkie pies knows. None are exactly "about lying" but princess spike is the closest, and it's pretty close.Hoofields are mad at mcolts for all the property damage, and so they keep fighting and exchanging property damage. The mcolts are mad because of the constant flinging of pumpkins at their property, across the valley. As neither side has an actual point to aim for and be satisfied by, and both sides have a fresh flow of real grievances, none of twilight's diplomatic solutions work for long. FS spends her time trying to give aid to the local criters. Is this romeo and juliete? Is this gaza? No, it's just what human conflict is like, sometimes even with the inclusion of proper governments, as represented by American folklore.
>>42706153The hoofields are good farmers while the mcolts are good builders, which means this is a partial retelling of the hearthswarming story. Both groups need each other to live, like the 3 tribes needed eachother originally.Twilight convinces the hoofields to send an apology cake to the mcolts, but they used it as a trojan horse. While twilight mopes, realizing that any peace she might achieve will be broken soon. Fluttershy talks to the local critters, realizing that the exploitation of the land for timber and food-based ammunition has left the critters without food or shelter. FS learns the actual history of the valley from the critters. Twilight uses all her magical might to force every pony to freeze. FS tells the hicks of Grub Hooffield and Piles McColt, who first came to this perfect natural valley to provide for the critters. One grew plants well. One built shelters well. They both attempted to use the same land, and squabbled over it. A simple lack of method to determine who gets to use what land led into a generational war that destroyed the nature they wanted to protect. While this speech shouldn't work, since the feud is not really about that anymore, it does.Last scene, after the hicks make up and share skills.>TS: What if it wants us to solve other kinds of problems, like quantum physics, or why the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?Quantum physicics is a red herring, but this story itself is about "Why the apple doesn't fall far from the tree", and how the episode itself has said so.This episode has about the least to do with one's shadow as any so far this season, but is exactly about an isolated group undergoing strife due specifically doe a lack of authority or structure. It also doesn't involve friendship itself, other than the fact FS and TS work together as friends. The families don't stop fighting because they decide to be friends. Maybe they become friends, but all we can say is that they have chosen to work together.
Back up you go.
>>42706155>the mane attractionm6 are contributing to a festival. AJ organized the building of a concert area and pinkie booked the #1 pop star, "countess coloratura." AJ doesn't know who that is, and everyone gasps. It seems like AJ is set up this way specifically to set up the rest of the episode. There's really no other reason for her to not know of the most popular singer in the world here, and such a naked hand of the author is basically never appreciated.The point is that she can treat Countess Coloratura as a normal pony. She doesn't have to overcome her own fangirling first in order to give CC what she needs, and what nobody else could give her.This also isn't the first you-don't-know-me-so-well moment and can be compared to canterlot wedding. AJ knows people we don't know about, and also CC has a different past than what any pony knows about.Whenever a movie or show manages to book a performer who is particularly well known for something, there's a moment when the show/movie sets aside everything they are doing in order to let that performer do whatever their "bit" is. A comedian in a movie generally fails as an actor and does jokes for a minute. A singer gets a whole episode arranged to give them multiple chances to sing. Cheese sandwich got away with this partially because weird al actually couldn't do his bit in this context. The man makes complex parody songs from well known music. His talent isn't actually singing or jokes, even if he does both, and there wasn't a place for that in the episode. Lenna Hall, the actor for CC, isn't a pop star. She released one album and preformed in a bunch of musicals and won a tony award. As such, despite being assigned the role of best pop star in the world and old friend of a main character and having her sing 3.5 times, she doesn't quite overtake the quality of the show. CC isn't her.Her manager makes additional demands while threatening to pull her acts from the festival if they aren't met, enough to use up all of pinkie's labor for 24 hours.AJ tells CC about it, but she accuses AJ of being a jealous liar. AJ convinces her to test the manager. He agrees to cancel an event with the local school and they get a recording of him bullying pinkie again, so CC ditches him.She puts on a show without using all the backup dancers and technology that the manager provided.> That I am just a pony> I make mistakes from time to time> But now I know the real me> And put my heart out on the line
>>42708872During this episode, she accuses AJ of having alternative motivations, but is wrong. It's a little inaccurate, but with these lines, it seems that the one with a shadow that they accept is supposed to be CC. The real, unsuppressible inner desire is occasionally expressed in those events where she meets local foals. The veil that she wears is supposed to be the persona she chooses to put on despite how it fails to represent her self, and that works symbolically, but she always knew who she was and was actively trying to do what she really wanted. The one with an alternative motivation is actually her manager, but he never accepts that shadow and he allows it to harm others, unchecked.The conflict last episode also involved ponies who thought they were acting to save the critters, but took actions clearly motivated by their own need for self aggrandizement, leaving their original goal behind. The problem is solved when they gain a common goal focused around the improvement and maintenance of the community, which involves actual connection with that community. That is the same, this episode. "Manager" is the same role which spike abused in princess spike. Spoiled Rich, DT's mom, was also a middleman who was grabbing the power of another and using it for their own ends. It's a little funny that AJ was special here because she didn't know what everyone else knew. Again, she's special because she's slow, a little bit.This is now consistent enough that I start wondering who, exactly, what single human, is supposed to be the archetype of the manager who grabs the power of the system around them and pulls it away from the project which all involved are motivated to contribute to in order to serve their own interests. It's too consistent. There's some shared experience within the mlp office which they are trying to reflect. If we go all the way back to Tanks for the Memories, rainbow almost destroys everything because she's trying to cling to the familiar. Twilight, in castle sweet castle, also is trying to cling to the familiar, and her friends attempt to fill her house with their own ill-fitting and mismatched preferences.I kind of think this whole season might have been throwing shade at mcarthy, but I'm not sure. Could be anti corporate. Occasionally throws shade at the writers themselves for taking too many liberties instead of adhering to their duty. Feels like there should be a more solid answer.
>>42708880>It's a little funny that AJ was special here because she didn't know what everyone else knew. Again, she's special because she's slow, a little bit.What? I thought AJ's thing here was that she was the ONLY one who really 'knew', because she was childhood friends with CC?
>>42708907Yes.If AJ had already known about and worshiped the idea of countess coloratura, she would not have been able to easily wield their childhood memories. She would have had a different motivation. AJ would have potentially wanted to involve herself with the famous pop pony, exactly as CC accuses her later on. > Coloratura: That's not true! Svengallop has always supported me in all my interests. You're just saying those things because you're jealous!> Applejack: Jealous of what? A pony who hides behind a veil so thick she can't see when somepony's usin' her? No, I'm not jealous of that, Rara!> Coloratura: I am not Rara! I am Countess Coloratura! And while we may have been friends when we were young, we have clearly gone in different directions!Being her childhood friend was not enough. It was also important that CC was wrong here, or else she would have thrown AJ aside.Because AJ was ignorant of countess coloratra, she "knew" the real CC more easily. These things are the same, as I intend to communicate them.
probably will have to do a new thread to finish the whole series, but we'll keep this one going til bump limit
I wonder if he'll even catch the butterfly effect theme in the next episode. I'm expecting to see all the same easily refuted braindead takes that gets parroted by the monkeys here.
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>>42709965I'd love to see a second thread so OP better make it when it reaches 500.
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>>42708880>The cutie remark, 1+2Starts with twilight sparkle in an auditorium rehearsing a speech she's going to give to the current students of Celestia's school for gifted unicorns. She wants to get it "prefect", without reading off her note cards. There's been a theme about people acting with alternative motivations that cause them to behave counter to their actual goal. Twilight, here, is right on that line. She could be concerned more about her own appearance than the good of the students, or she could be perfectly sincere in her desire to "set a good example." The test for this is simple. Is it actually good to set the example that one must not read off of their notes? Is that a good thing to show magic students? Well, it encourages full memorization to an unrealistic degree. So, plainly, no. I wanted to argue that it depends on if you're magical practice is practical or scientific. Someone who has to do a magical job for years on end should know everything relevant to them by heart, if only to save time. Someone who is picking apart the secrets of the universe has to deal in more data than one person can ever hold, and present their findings to other people in the form of a data table with some explanatory paragraphs. A researcher doesn't need to memorize everything, and a practitioner doesn't need to perfectly know anything outside of their specialization. Twilight, as of the first scene, is wrong in a way which is relevant to starlight's objection. Twilight is holding up a shallow aesthetic that pretentiously inflates the apparent importance and perfection of institutions and experts, and by extension, justifies the separation of people in order to serve the good of society.This scene is also required in order to make sure that the audience knows what celestia's school is, so that the later plot point with sunburst makes sense and seems to be talking about something relevant to the show. It serves the purpose of exposition perfectly, and without being exposition at all. The show has only really fucked up one time with exposition, which is a fantastic track record, despite the fact I keep mentioning every minor drop in quality or outlier. I simply think it gets worse, and so have to get a measure of how bad/good it is in order to prove that. It is Moon Dancer, specifically, who wakes up spike the next day so that he can operate the projector during twilight's speech. He is sitting among the audience members, and direct connection with these people is what allows the presentation to happen and makes up for twilight's mistake the prior night.The presentation points out that the CMC and m6 both got their cutiemarks at the same time, and that some of the effects of this are "unknown".
>>42714387Twilight glimpses Starlight in the audience, but can't find her again when she looks. This distraction causes her to have to check her notes. Starlight, then is equated to an inherent human flaw in twilight's worldview. Twilight failed to fully identify and communicate with Starlight because of the role assigned to each of them. Something is always forgotten when a distance is placed between you and your ability to simply check, check your notes or otherwise.Spike directly describes what starlight's motivations are, and it's annoying because I just praised the show for clearly showing that it knows how to stitch information into the plot properly. It's also annoying because, well...Starlight is waiting at the crystal table with a magic scroll. She casts what's on it, and then crumples it and tosses it aside, saying "Won't be needing that anymore." A time portal swallows her and disappears. Spike reaches down and touches her paper ball, and twilight and spike are immediately sucked into another time portal.So, to be clear, starlight glimmer crumpled her NOTES and tossed aside her NOTES and then spike, the character who was previously in the audience, reached down and touched the notes while twilight told him not to touch the note. That's almost really cool and extremely nerdy but UNFORTUNATELY spike just dumped exposition which is information displayed specifically to remind people of what is happening in the show. Spike interacted directly with the irl audience just like he interacted directly with the audience of twilight's magic presentation. While in the audience of the presentation, he was literally operating a projector to show clips of older content. The show has, with a laser accuracy, positioned the act of naked lazy exposition as the ideal, ascended position and painted the need to avoid it as pretentious, harmful perfectionism. I don't like it.The time-portal has a set of white gear-like celestial symbols, which invokes the idea of the firmament. That is, for my purposes, a hypothetical giant glass-ish dome over the earth which is part of the divine clockwork system that moves objects across the sky. Even failing that, the movement of celestial bodies is one of the primary ways time is measured and defined, so a time spell that features star-symbols who's motions are measured and attached to some deeper metaphysical machinery is symbolically understandable, but implies that there is a deeper machine which starlight has invoked. The first time FS falls to the ground, Twilight tries to save her, and is held back by spike, who scolds her for not allowing things to play out.Starlight just holds rainbow telekineticly, preventing the rainboom. Twilight is sucked into the resulting future.Everythingis red-tinted. AJ is the only m6 member still around. > Applejack: Of course I am. This is my home.
>>42714387Due to the crystal ponies not being saved from sombra, they are made to fight for him. All equestrian economic activity has been focused on the war effort. While I'm sure there's countless examples through history of economies shifting like that, there's only one war like that since the industrial revolution, meaning this is ww2, either from an American or a Canadian perspective. I don't know what Canadians were doing at that time. Our Town, also, featured ww2 based themes, meaning there may be some statement in here about those wars specifically. As, for the Americans, that war is largely about isolationism and its shortcomings, that's the obvious connection. The crystal ponies were left on their own, isolated, and their tiny empire threatened everyone everywhere as a result. In the first conflict with starlight, twilight did absolutely nothing, simply allowing starlight to act, and ended up here. Spike, note, was still right, as saving FS's yellow butt would have been a bad thing, but total inaction is insufficient.As this story is now a WW2 allegory, I'm somewhat expecting a metaphor for the nukes. It would have to be some kind of explosion, but this show isn't that violent......no...NOAre you FUCKING kidding me?? N"OGod dammit, everything is always the fucking nukes, holy SHIT I'm chuckling like I'm mentally ill helpAnyway, AJ asks what's different in this timeline.> Twilight Sparkle: Well, for one thing, where we came from, there's no war with King Sombra and AJ makes this face. <-> Twilight Sparkle: [gasps] Spike, that's it! The map is connected to the Tree of Harmony! It must sense that something isn't right!Remember, the tree is a physical object in the everfree, meaning that the actual tree does exist, even if the castle doesn't. The table, seen here, does not come out of a time portal with spike and twilight, as far as we know. It's just here. AJ also hasn't seen it around, meaning that it's a somewhat recent addition to the scenery around town. We have no idea how this table got here. Maybe the tree had enough magic on its own to create this table and these damaged crystal chairs, but in this timeline the elements could not have been reunited with the tree, so it should be killed by plundervines by now anyway. Potentially, the table itself is a required component of the timetravel spell, and so is always present at the future exits of the portals, but that's not really a fully supported theory. It is the best we have, though. We also have to assume that the plundervines haven't destroyed the tree yet, and that implies that the m6 were draining the tree by using the elements, and that they caused the tree to be overtaken by weeds by being heros.
>>42714430Twilight, after being encouraged by the fact that a semi-omnicient tree may be supporting her, decides she just has to interfere even earlier and returns to the past. As starlight originally modified the spell, this also drags starlight into the past from wherever she isStarlight traps Twilight in stone for a minute, during which starlight makes peace between RD and the bullies. Twilight wanted to stop Starlight earlier, and starlight stopped the rainboom earlier, executing on the same idea, because that idea is not the fundamental difference between twilight and starlight and is not a valid philosophical answer to whatever question is being explored. Starlight successfully argues that the bullies should help fluttershy be more equal, but twilight fails to argue that RD should believe that she's exceptional enough to preform a rainboom.Twilight is sucked into a green-tinted future this time. Immediately, pinkie and FS and others are presenting a united front, pointing spears at Twilight and accusing her of being a changeling. This is the second militarized timeline in a row. In this case, the group is united against any who would hide among them and do damage from within. That literally means spies in this case, but it also accurately describes bullies. They are executing on a philosophy which sacrifices individuality in order to remove social (or magical) attacks. Zacora steps forward with some truth-revelation salve and rubs it on Twilight and Spike, who glow. Zacora concludes that she and her warband should not exist, as they do not glow, and are therefore less "true" than Twilight is. That means that magic recognizes the distinction between a "real" timeline and a "fake" timeline, to some degree. Zacora also makes a metephor to explain the basic consent that tiny changes make larger downstream changes, as children need that explained to them. I only mention it because it's the only real thing twilight learns during this timeline, and it reinforces the whole "one true answer" thing implied by the universe recognizing that this twilight is more "true" than this zacora.Zacora and company fight a losing fight against the changelings. As we've already accepted we're dealing in allegories, a hopeless fight in a dense jungle folloiwng a WW2 depiction sounds pretty like the Vietnam war. to an American ear, but isn't particularly meaningful. Starlight and Twilight fight actively in the past, which distracts the foals and prevents the rainboom, meaning they can't have a flashy fight at all and Twilight is failing to implement the only thing she learned. Starlight mocks Twilight's aim, which is literal, but also the choice to fight is a very inaccurate solution to use here.Nest future contains a rainbow dash who is the enforcer for NMM, right after twilight distracted her from learning that she loved races and winning by giving her a very flashy bit of violence to ogle at.
>>42714493So this RD actively likes the violence, and being tough, and thinking of herself as tough. Rarity is also there, and is as much of a workaholic as normal. She also "doesn't know anypony who would" associate with dragons, so she's racist. Considering dragons generally suck, it's not the worst racism ever.This is NMM's future. She won. It's also not a time of conflict. It doesn't match to any particular earth scenario, and is explicitly a "what if the good guys lost" scenario. While Vietnam wouldn't win for the same reason that the USA couldn't win that war, that leads to the unfortunate conclusion that sombra and NMM are both Hitler, sort of. Regardless, it's a future where equestria aka "the west" has fallen to violent, macho impulses, racism, and general authoritarianism. Rarity, an artist, has also been reduced to exceedingly formal attitude and and task of rotating the tapestries which decorate the halls of power.NMM is the one enemy observant enough to figure out what twilight's doing and wants that power. She doesn't get it, cause twilight just teleports away and jumps through time, but NMM pays attention the most, and directly threatens to control time herself, making her future a potential end state of this conflict.Eternal night doesn't kill everything, but we don't really know what the moon is in mlp. Based on this episode, "eternal night" just means the rise of fascism, so maybe we can just notice that total plant death isn't... necessarily something that results from fascism, and be satisfied with that explanation as to why the plants didn't die. > Twilight Sparkle: Now more than ever I know how important it is to stop you!So that's what twilight learned from that future. She knows, ideologically, what's on the line if starlight wins.Starlight simply physically trips rainbow. The resulting future is Tirek doing thoughtless violence.Twilight accidentally shoves RD in a gem like a fool. The resulting future is Discord clowning on the princesses. A pie falls on twilight and literally gives her a red nose.Starlight uses telekinisis to cheat for FS so that FS doesn't appear to suck at flight and doesn't get bullied. In the resulting future, Flim and flam, who constantly lie about their abilities, outcompete everybody and cover equestria in smog.Twilight points out that she and Starlight are both locked in a sisyphean task, and starlight, who is motivated only by spite, accepts that with glee.Twilight attempts to describe the most basic thing about the unpredictability of altering the past, but Starlight don't believe her and accuses her of just having an oversized ego, an alternative motivation.The trigger event for this last timeline is starlight simply blasting rainbow's butt with a laser. The resulting future is windswept devastation, not a sign of life. Twilight grabbed Starlight and pulled her into this future too.
>>42714651As funny as it is to notice that the future which results from hitting a child is a world which is itself devastated, that's not all that's happening here. Twilight attempts to sell the "little changes make big differences" thing again, and that's true, but it also isn't what we've seen. We have more than enough examples. The butterfly effect takes the inherent chaos of life and uses it to make the effect of an action effectively random once there has been enough distance from the cause. The butterfly effect says that if you hug your grandma and give her a nice kiss, she may be hit by a bus because of the 3 second delay you caused. It says a butterfly can cause a tornado on the other side of the planet. It does NOT say that taking an action in line with a particular philosophy will cause a future which reflects that action. It says it WON'T, that there probably WON'T be a reasonable connection between action and result after enough time and life occurs. It does not allow you to reach the conclusion "this butterfly is very important" and it doesn't let you reach the conclusion "twilight sparkle's friends are very important." This thing which is happening is a different thing.Starlight glimmer is staring down the barrel of insanity and being asked to accept it.Also, in their last confrontation, Twilight is attempting to tell starlight, directly, what she knows. More specifically, twilight it attempting to tell starlight that the details matter, that she needs to check the results of her actions, and pay attention to cause and effect. Starlight, like in the premier, is shutting down conversation, doubting, and yelling again. The difference between these two characters has finally been displayed.Starlight reacts like Moon Dancer did when twilight was presumptuous enough to finally offend her. She dives into irrationality and swings her grievance like a weapon, because it's all that's left once everything else has been stripped away. All reason has been invalidated and she has to restart from first principals, and the principal shatters, because it's fucking dumb, and she just has to let go of it like luna did.In the flashback, if sunburst hadn't gotten his cutiemark right then, a stack of books would have fallen on starlight. There's probably enough mass there to kill a child, but either way, that's still a bad thing that would have happened. That means that removing sunburst's cutiemark would have had negative repercussions. Just like with twilight harming moondancer, and spike failing as a princess, and discord teaching twilight a lesson, there was clearly no choice in the matter (tongue-cheek). They were forced by circumstance to make such mistakes, and simply had to fix things afterwords.
>>42714733Starlight and twilight return to the past and Starlight threatens to rip the time-travel scroll, sealing in one final future. She says "who knows what will happen", as each new future could be anything, and she doesn't have to believe the next will also be horrible. The answer there is just.. just fucking check. Just go to the future and check before you destroy the scroll, if you're not retarded. She's retarded. So, twilight tells her that it's her responsibility to make sure that she doesn't lose her fiends, that she goes and checks. Starlight hands over the scroll, and they both take their hooves off of the wheel of time. Episode's basically over. Starlight becomes a friendship student. During the end-season song, starlight gets a big group hug in her home village, which I'm pretty sure is a continuity error as she'll harbor fears about her village hating her later, but we'll see. So, when twilight is attempting to talk starlight down, twilight focuses on trying to convince her of the damage which will occur. Twilight does not, at any point, ask starlight about her past, and I think that's important, or will be. At the moment when starlight becomes a good guy, she's holding a hostage, and has total control over what will happen, and so she gets to make a meaningful choice.Even in the moment when Starlight's goals appeared impossible, they weren't, actually. Starlight had no idea what would happen in the years between s5e27 and the rainboom. She could, potentially, find out. She could find out about NMM and solve that, fix discord's return, spray the bugs, re-cage tirek before he snowballs, and enable celestia and luna to beat discord again just by tossing the elements their way, maybe, or introducing him to fluttershy, maybe, or just being his friend herself. If she were to push far enough, she could eventually replace each of the heroic deeds of twilight sparkle, but that isn't what she represents. That's not the shutting down of possibilities and the voices of others in order to secure ones self.The crumpled paper which brought twilight and spike into the past was left as a trap, which means that starlight didn't need to bring twilight along. She wanted to. She specifcially wanted to challenge twilight and have a clash of ideas, which is the opposite of what I'm saying starlight generally represents. It's a hole in her armor, and the motivations which caused that are the same motivations which eventually cause her to dump her backstory. Each of the m5 get a moment in this finale. AJ is still working hard, even as her ideal life is swallowed by conflict and she never develops into a pillar of her community because the community is gone. She's still trying to carry the responsibility she can. Rainbow has always been agressive and a braggart in order to cover for her lonliness and insecurity, and now she's serving a different public image in order to fill the hole in her heart by servicing her lady.
>>42714913Rarity personally fuels the aesthetics of the regime, being responsible for the prettification of the only thing which is allowed to receive glory and praise currently. She's making the world look better in the only way she can. Pinkie is the first to step forward and challenge spike to prove himself, and accepts his fire as proof. She's still making peace, though it's unclear how she's fighting off her depression in this environment. She's the worst translated character. Fluttershy jumps directly to destruction of all changelings, meaning she'll kill whatever moves basically. Given all her lessons about being firm in order to be kind, and her penchant for being extremely aggressive when her sensibilities are offended in order to stand up for what she thinks is right, I would totally see her entering a state like this and living that way for years and years.All of them, other than pinkie, still have the same base emotional motivation which normally pushes them to focus on their element, and pinkie might just get her supply of smiles from the village offscreen. She might be more herself than any of the others, actually, as normal pinkie would have the exact same exchange if the situation was right. There's a bit of an issue with this sort of thing when your joke character will just say basically anything arbitrarily.Twilight got Starlight to mirror her at the end. Twilight decided to share, and soon starlight decided to share, even if starlight's sharing was a bit more meaningful. The madness that starlight had to accept, that her actions were leading to, effectively, arbitrary results, is similar to the faith which characters place in the table repeatedly this season. They can't see the connection between sending characters to places and solving friendship problems, but they know it's there. Twilight doesn't know why her friends are so important, but she knows they are.Starlight's decision to remove twilgihts' mark is basically the same as the decision to go back in time and make twilight go to Moon Cancer's party. Sure, she can avoid making a mistake, but that mistake had to happen. Ultimately, Starlight's choice to remove cutiemarks and the destinies they represent is painted as a form of cowardice, that she and her whole town were avoiding the choices they themselves would make if allowed to act on their freedom. And so, twilight talks starlight down, and twilight sparkle and starlight glimmer makes god damn sure that rainbow dash drops the bombs on hiroshima and nagasaki because they have faith that the true timeline which is existentially more valid than cowardly alternative timelines is right and beyond their station to mess with, and then they clean their rooms.
>>42715009Wasn't actually done, but I thought I was.The timelines serve as specific arguments as to why twilight and starlight should keep their hooves off, particularly since each lesson just leads to a more messed up timeline instead of slow improvement. >ww2 timelineInaction is insufficient. >changlingsRather than being inspired to believe in their ability to do the impossible, people are more easily inspired to raise each other up to mediocrity. Without that excellence, you will sacrifice everything eventually.>eternal nightMere direct confrontation is too chaotic to lead to any result other than harm and spectical.>tirekYou're apathetic or malicious on occasion, and bullies win when that happens>clown timelineYou're a clumsy imperfect fool and cannot demand perfect execution of yourself.>flim and flamShortcuts don't prepare you and if you don't stand for anything, you'll fall for anything, and the lowest common denominator of paperclip optimization morality will take over>desolationYou're taken by fits of irrationality and aggression >so, the spirit of harmonyTwilight suggests that the ambient amount of friendship was slightly lower in alternative timelines. She has a point, but also is talking out of her ass.She also says the tree must "feel something's wrong", but there's no explenation for what that means or exactly how much the tree knows across timelines or what it does.Regarding the future-manipulation the table is known to do, it appears to have massive limitations. It will, occupationally, detect a specific set of events which it can trigger by calling two ponies and sending them on a mission. Characters specifically talk about how the table's involvement means their victory should be inevitable, but we do not see any other form of confirmed prophesy from the table. The elements of harmony are capable of determining the correct punishment for any particular target, it seems, but there's not way to 100% confirm that. So, it's not unreasonable to think that the tree and associated order/harmony magics involve future sight, but it's not confirmed either. Alicorn magic, and dream magic which luna does, both clearly involve future-sight, so it's not outside of the bounds of the show's magic. However, we only see the table call people and predict friendship problem solutions.The spell that Glimmer used the table to cast does what glimmer wants it to do. We can assume that the table has some sway over exactly how the portals open, but that would be an assumption, and almost completely unsupported. Further, if you offer the table that kind of power, then this becomes the story of two women getting lied to until they get really scared and manipulated and give up and go home, which is lame.>page 10 in 1.5 hrfucking god damn
crazy, isn't it?
>>42716553eeyup
>>42554705>each writer seemed to have their own version of TwilightThis is really fucking interesting to me. Care to give me any examples?
>>42541716IRL Rarity would have been mercilessly raped and left for dead.
>>42714387Twilight was doing a simple lecture on cutie mark magic, no data tables or number crunching involved.>>42714392It was just quick exposition to give new viewers a vague idea of what's at stake, a naughty pony thwarted by Twilight seeks revenge similar to a Trixie.Starlight didn't crumple "notes", that was Starswirl's time travel spell which was recently modified to utilize the cutie map's powers. She used it as bait because she knew Twilight, or Spike, would be too curious to not check it out. They fell for Starlight's trap, she is smart enough to know she can't take on an alicorn head to head so she used her cleverness to even the odds.>>42714430The cutie map was literally a necessary component of Starlight's time travel trap. It allowed the user to go to any time or place and even pull others into the spell. Incorporating an omniscient manifestation of destiny naturally had unforeseen consequences.>>42714733The timelines are the result of the butterfly effect. I'm not sure what you're referring to about "an action in line with a philosophy", can you clarify that? Butterfly effect doesn't mean totally random if that's what you're getting at, just hard to predict due to the number of variables at play.>>42714913Starlight was in denial at that point and not thinking straight so she was definitely being irrational. Seeing the final timeline broke her.Not a continuity error, Starlight just felt she didn't deserve to be forgiven yet because she had yet to forgive herself. Her guilt ate away at her.>>42715959Zecora admits her timeline wasn't meant to be, so it's not exactly a lie, a lie also implies a conscious decision but the ToH is more like a force than a god. We don't know exactly how much sway the map/ToH has but it is a real omnipresent force effecting the world as early as Twilight's birth.I like the connections you made about the way the rainboom was stopped and the resulting timelines. I found that part the most interesting.
>>42718102>it's a simple lectureI know.>here let me define exposition for youI know,>it's not a note is a scrollA book is a lot of notes stapled together. If Starwirl put marks on a scroll, then that's a note, particularly when we're talking about notes as a symbol. The blurring of those lines is what a symbol does and is.>naturally had unforeseen consequences.It's head cannon. Can't be more than that. Even if we assume it's true, we have to assume what those consequences are, so it's just a dead end conversationally and in terms of meaning. Only suborn instance upon one's gut instinct lies this way>butterfly effect doesn't mean random True random in a deterministic system does not exist. The idea is "effectively random", which is not the same.If I press a detonator switch and an explosion happens, I have just created a large change from a small input, but I have not demonstrated the butterfly effect. For one thing, the result was immediate, which is not the the kind of causal relationship which the butterfly effect describes. For another, the detonator is human created specifically to be particularly significant in terms of the state of the system. A human, noting that the detonator was being activated, would mark that as a large change in initial conditions. Prior to its involvement with time travel, the butterfly effect was basically an expression of frustration on the part of a meteorologist, that his models were capable of failing due to the smallest and least notable factors in the environment. The butterfly effect marks the "size" of an initial condition based on apparent relevance specifically to help describe it's unusual actual relevance, while a basic demonstration of physics might mark a factor as small based on its literal mass or energy, likely to describe the function of a lever or gear.So, I notice that the future timelines exist based on actions taken in the past, and I notice that it's not just the physical actions themselves, but the ideas those actions represent that affects the future. Starlight cheats, and the best cheaters rule the future. That's the expressed philosophy which is being echoed directly int he resulting future. That's not the butterfly effect. It's not the butterfly effect when I press the "ice" button and the ice dispenser gives me ice. That's not just a complex and unpredictable but still predetermined result. If it were, then starlight would be right, because the futures would be reasonable and random enough that she could just make a few more futures until one turned out good, and twilight would just be an egomaniac who thought the world revolved around her. Instead, starlight isn't making a small change in the past at all, but an obviously significant change which is leading directly to the obvious result. She's removing a hero from the history books and then both of them are acting surprised when shit's worse.
>>42718351that's two different points, mind you.1. Deleting twilight is obviously significant like pressing a detonator2. The actual timelines are flavored based directly on the input actions rather than having some more obscure relationship between cause and effect>not contWe'll see>a lie implies a conscious decisionThat's what would be implied, yes, that exactly. If we say that the table was able to control exactly which timeline would result by placing it's portals at the perfect time and place, then that would mean it intentionally showed both mares the timelines it wanted while intending them to be terrified in the exact way they were terrified and both conclude the conflict in the exact way they eventually concluded the conflict. True omniscience paired with any freedom of direct action is a bitch.But I don't think it had real control over how the portals were formed, anyway.The ending, where the time scroll gets sucked up for not explained reason, is a bit odd.>that's the most interestingWell that's the "philosophy represented in an action" part
>>42718351>A book is a lot of notes stapled together.kek, just use the right word next time.>It's head cannon.It's inference based on the facts we know. Unless you think anything not directly stated by the show means headcanon, I guess that means Luna canonically only got mad at ponies falling asleep at night, nothing else.>So, I noticeA small input doesn't mean the result has to have zero relation to the initial change, it is entirely possible for the result to still have acted in a logical way out of the infinite ways it could have played out simply out of chance, such as Dashie being inspired to become a soldier instead of a Shadowbolt, her entire outlook in life was changed from just one small change. Because we're talking about people some things are impossible, like there is no possible timeline for Fluttershy to hate animals since everypony is destined to get their cutie marks at some point or another, which limits the randomness to some degree. Your ice machine example doesn't work because it is one single event. The equivalent of your example is simply the rainboom being stopped, one single event; you pressed the button ice came out, Dashie was distracted no rainboom. The difference with the resulting timelines is they had 20 years of thousands of events building off of each other until the resulting timeline we see, like floating Fluttershy resulting in capitalism taking over. The "philosophy" doesn't change that, there were still thousands of differences you're ignoring like Equestria changing its entire economic system. In fact that just supports the idea that the cutie map is subtly effecting things by showing a specific timeline out of all the infinite possibilities to match the "philosophy".Basically stopping the rainboom is the small input that created many highly different timelines. The slight differences in how the rainboom is stopped represents how the initial conditions are impossible to replicate even in a deterministic system because of the slight fluctuations in atoms and such. The timelines are a result of the butterfly effect. The put it another way, it's the cause and effect over many generations, not just one single set.>We'll seeNo, I gave you the answer. Whatever mental gymnastics you're thinking of, you're dead wrong.>But I don't think it had real control over how the portals were formed, anyway.Neither do I, the ToH is an ambient force, not a god. It's not controlling, it's influencing. Just like how gravity influences our acceleration, it's not controlling us.
