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.
>>42606916
Keeping the train going.
b
>>42609257
>>42610608
>>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.
