YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S5 E12 "Amending Fences"

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Did Twilight's old friends really forgive her so easily, or are they taking advantage of their past connection to a pony who is now royalty? Note Minuette's asking Twilight to "really fluff 'em up" during their picture.
  • Was the latter initially true, but they actually enjoyed spending time with Twilight to the point where they were willing to help her with Moondancer? Note Minuette (again) being the one who tells Moondancer that they would take her back.
  • Did Moondancer really hold much of a grudge personally against Twilight in particular, or was she just filled with bitter self-deprecation in general?
• Base-Breaking Character: Moondancer's design has split the fanbase, with some decrying the blatant Palette Swap in favor of a slightly more original design^note Some fans compared that design to Fluttershy's, though from the IDW comics (which has its OWN can of worms when discussed) while others like the design and say that it helps support the idea that she is Twilight's Shadow Archetype.
• Broken Base:
  • Is Moondancer's anger at Twilight justifiable, since Twilight didn't show up to the first party she ever threw, or has she been holding a grudge for far too long? On one hand, Twilight was ordered to go to Ponyville by Princess Celestia; on the other hand, Twilight essentially abandoned a pony who thought very highly of her and made zero attempts to contact or even explain what happened for over a year. It isn't clear whether they were more than acquaintances when Twilight left, since Twilight's Establishing Character Moment in the opener implied that she tended to turn down social events. Some believe that Moondancer's bitterness isn't directed at Twilight (at least in particular), but rather mostly at herself.
  • Is Twilight making the journey to apologize to her old acquaintances a sign of her Character Development, or another example of her blowing personal mistakes completely out of proportion to people whom she apparently treated politely to begin with? The IDW comics showed her behavior was far more decent to others than Sunset Shimmer's arrogance during her own apprenticeship to Princess Celestia, yet this makes it very clear that Twilight had a habit of selfishly leaving them behind to do other things long before she moved to Ponyville. Going from the first episode alone makes it hard to fault her, since she genuinely thought the Mare in the Moon threat to be more important, and it is implied that she turns people down so she can study, which is an admirable pursuit for a show aimed at a young demographic.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Minuette. She was already pretty popular to begin with. After this episode, the fans find her very adorable.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • This episode pretty much canonizes four more background ponies and adds them as supporting cast. Twilight's promise to return and visit them is an open book for stories.
  • A spell that enables Twilight (or presumably any other pony) to appear in books is prime for fandom exploration.
  • Apparently, not everyone in Canterlot lives the high life, and some live in rather dillapidated buildings, leaving open room for stories about class struggle in Canterlot.
  • What Starlight Glimmer has been doing between the events of "The Cutie Map" and this episode begs for exploration.
  • What if Twilight had attended Moondancer's party thanks to Celestia's friendship nudging? The Canterlot Six, perhaps?
• Genius Bonus: "One of Haycart's methods". The idea of a spell that allows a reader to physically enter a book is a reasonable translation of Descartes' philosophies into the magical universe of Equestria.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Moondancer is essentially a glimpse into an alternate history of what would've happened if Twilight Sparkle wasn't accepted into Celestia's School of Gifted Unicorns. In The Cutie Re-Mark, the alternate history versions of Twilight Sparkle are never seen, although it is safe to say that they also turned out for the worst, like Moondancer.
  • "Books! God, I love books! Dear Princess Celestia: I'm so alone." This meme originated as a comic featuring Twilight, but is even more applicable to Moondancer, where it is played depressingly serious. To say nothing of how Twilight could have wound up like her.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: This parody video released a year before this episode had Twinkleshine complain that they were never going to get any character development. Then we got this episode.
• I Knew It!:
  • Many people had suspected the plot for the episode involved Twilight Sparkle making up with her old classmates when seeing a teaser showing Twilight, Spike, Minuette, Lemon Hearts, and Twinkleshine together.
  • The episode revealed that Spike's gift was for Moondancer.
• Les Yay: Moondancer's reaction to being shunned by Twilight at her party is rather extreme, especially considering that she had at least three other friends who clearly wanted to spend time with her. If Twilight wasn't merely a friend to Moondancer, but a secret, desperate crush, it would go a long way to explain her heartbreak at Twilight's abandonment.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • A "Joke Debate" that some folks in the fandom had since the first scenes from the first episode was whether Spike's gift was "FOR Moondancer" or "FROM Moondancer". As of this episode, the "debate" was finally solved when it was revealed that the gift was "FOR Moondancer". Many people have proclaimed that "The long national nightmare is over".
  • "Can you name everypony?" The episode opens with Twilight having trouble even remembering her old friends.
  • Lemon Heart's face expression when her head was shoved into a beaker has become a running gag within the fanbase.
• Older Than They Think: Twilight using a spell to enter books was actually showcased first in the comics during the "Ponies in Book Land" arc (#15-16) where she used a spell to transport Rarity, Dash, Pinkie and her into books to stop a bookworm.
• Paranoia Fuel: Starlight Glimmer's cameo shows she can be anywhere she wants.
• She Really Can Act: Kazumi Evans is best known as the Non-Singing Voice for Rarity, and she had her first in-series speaking roles as the deliciously evil Adagio Dazzle and the cultured-to-a-fault Octavia Melody in Rainbow Rocks. But her heartwrenching outburst and emotional breakdown as Moondancer prove her talents go well beyond singing and hamming it up.
• The Producer Thinks of Everything: The reason Minuette, Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts are seen in the background in previous episodes? They go to Ponyville to visit Lyra, who lives there.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: This episode seems like it could have worked well as a "follow the map" episode, similar to "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" (since it is about repairing a broken friendship and helping someone get past being burnt by a bad experience), but they opted to separate it from that story arc.
• Wangst: Some have found it hard to feel pity for Moondancer with her acting rude, refusing Twilight's attempts to make amends, and shutting out all of her friends and loved ones, simply because one pony didn't come to her party.
• Win Back the Crowd: After two contested episodes falling short of the 100th, this episode is generally regarded as a vast improvement, with some even calling it one of the best of the season, if not the best of the entire series.
• The Woobie: It seems that Twilight being called to Ponyville had some severe consequences for Moondancer, whose social life was just budding. Not showing up to her first party pretty much turned her into a recluse who did nothing but study... pretty much like Twilight would have been if she never moved to Ponyville. Worse, Moondancer was convinced that she didn't have any value or true friends, something she tearfully reveals to Twilight at the end.

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