YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S8 E8 "The Parent Map"

• Accidental Aesop: Concerning Firelight and Stellar Flare's ways of going about Sire Hollow: Live in the present. Being stuck in the past is not enjoyable if you preserve every little thing. But progressing too quickly isn't any better if you don't leave well enough alone. Symbolically, Firelight is so absorbed in making every thing and every pony (especially his daughter) just the way it is that he can't appreciate who Starlight has become. Meanwhile, Stellar Flare is so obsessed with planning her son's future that she neglects what her son wants in the here and now.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Starlight's mother and Sunburst's father aren't seen, and their parents go from angry and bitter at each other to good friends in the span of an afternoon, a bit quickly for two strangers who happen to be on opposite sides of an important social issue. Coupled with Starlight and Sunburst being good friends as kids, Starlight's similar mannerisms to Sunburst's mother, and the source for the episode's title pun, and it's led to speculation that Starlight and Sunburst could be siblings, and were too young at the time to remember their parents splitting up and/or their parents kept this secret from them. The two of them even seem to start planning a joint road trip to visit both of them.^note A stallion implied to be his father had appeared in flashbacks in "The Cutie Re-Mark" and "The Crystalling", but it wasn't confirmed, leaving wiggle room in his identity.
  • The glimpse of Starlight's old bedroom implies she's a Former Teen Rebel, which has led to jokes that the whole "anti-cutie mark cult" stuff that Starlight started was just a rebellious phase that got way out of hand.
  • After seeing how similar Firelight acts like Twilight, could Starlight's hostility towards her in Season 5 be fuelled by being constantly reminded of her overbearing father?
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: It's revealed Starlight Glimmer's Parental Issues with her father Firelight amounted to him being a caring but overbearing parent with Starlight's Dark and Troubled Past amounting to a Cutaway Gag implying she was an Emo Teen. Even those who liked the episode and Firelight were displeased by it undercutting Starlight's Freudian Excuse by her seemingly being so well off otherwise.
• Fanfic Fuel: Both Stellar Flare and Firelight's spouses were never shown or even mentioned in this episode. Where are they now?
• Genius Bonus: Sunburst's guide to magical arcana was written by Houyhnhnm, the name of a race of intelligent, talking horses in Gulliver's Travels.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Welcome to Sire's Hollow!"
  • Starlight's old bedroom has given rise to "Edgelight Glimmer", depicting teenage Starlight as into goth/emo/rock subculture. Accordingly, "It's not a phase!" has been attached to this depiction.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The episode could have involved Starlight's father finding out about her stint as a villain, or Sunburst's mom reacting to his failure to live up to his childhood potential. But Starlight's villainy is given a brief nod with no major revelations about it to Firelight, and Stellar Flare seems perfectly aware of how Sunburst is doing currently.
  • The episode provided a perfect opportunity to give more backstory on Starlight and Sunburst, including how the attitudes of their parents shaped them as adults, and how their lives went wrong once they left the village. We get no new backstory on them and the effect their parents had on their development is left for viewers to infer.
  • The episode was initially presented as a clash between modern gentrification and historical preservation, and how in their own ways both are important for a town to thrive. But once Stellar Flare and Firelight come to an understand, all of this is swept under the rug to focus on their relationships with their children.
  • Starlight and Sunburst returning home to find that it has changed could've been a full episode/moral on the "you can never really go home" concept.
  • Flashbacks of Starlight and Sunburst as foals implied Sunburst had a father, but it's only his mother who appears in this episode.

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