YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S7 E25 "Shadow Play – Part 1"

• Broken Base: Twilight's showing in both this and the second part of the finale. Some feel she's carrying the Idiot Ball for freeing the Pillars and unwittingly freeing the Pony of Shadows too without any backup plan, and then that she goes along with Star Swirl's plan to just re-seal the Pony of Shadows. Supporters point out that Twilight's hero worship of Star Swirl is well-founded, as is her reluctance to speak out against or see flaws in her idols (just look at how she treats Celestia), so she clearly wasn't thinking straight and was too close to the matter to see the bigger picture beyond Star Swirl's involvement. Her expressions when Starlight questions Star Swirl also show she is conflicted about his plan, but is too guilty over freeing the Pony of Shadows and/or too afraid to stand up to Star Swirl to voice her concerns.
• Fanfic Fuel: The opening storybook segment depicts gemstones embodying the Elements of Harmony hanging from the Tree of Harmony, in a perfectly accurate reflection of their colors and the order they appear... except there's a seventh gem, colored green. Animation error, or...?
• Genius Bonus: Those runes that Sunburst and Applejack examine at Ponehenge. They're Norse runes, and just look at what they spell out.
• Narm Charm: Pony-related puns on real-world places are par for the course for this series, but even under that banner, "Ponehenge" sounds pretty silly. On the other hand for some it sounds so silly that it loops back to being funny.
• Shocking Moments: The prologue alone reveals that the ancient heroes the season has focused on were all part of a group with Star Swirl the Bearded, they fought against the Pony of Shadows, and they created what would grow into the Tree of Harmony. The first minute of the episode is a rapid-fire series of Reveals that fans have been waiting for for almost the entire show's run.
• Unexpected Character:
  • While Star Swirl still being around after over 1000 years was something many fans believed for various reasons, the other Pillars of Equestria returning was something no one saw coming (the sole bit of Foreshadowing was Mage Meadowbrook disappearing, which seemed like a case of Never Say "Die").
  • Garble turns out to have Flash Magnus's artifact.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The return of the Pony of Shadows looks like something you'd see in a hand-drawn animated film, not a Flash-based cartoon.

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