YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S9 E26 "The Last Problem"

• Broken Base:
  • Opinions on Twilight's Distant Finale look is subject to various interpretations, and that is not counting the can of worms that is the subject of her outliving her friends being re-opened after several years due to existence of said appearance.
  • On the subject of her look, some Take a Third Option when it comes to the love it and hate it crowd, saying they like the idea, but they shouldn't have reused Celestia's model as it comes off as too creepy, and should've reused Luna or Cadance's model instead or given her a unique appearance.
  • The rest of the Mane 6 having bags under their eyes has also been quite divisive among fans. Was it a good way to showcase how much older they’ve gotten, or were they too cartoonishly over-exaggerated to take seriously? One fan even went out of their way to re-edit the episode by removing their bags.
  • The episode itself. To some it was a perfect Grand Finale that wrapped up the series nicely and gave closure to the Mane 6 and their adventures over the years. To others it was a complete mess that ruined any interesting and potential storytelling and felt it left certain questions open.
• Die for Our Ship: Shippers were not amused that none of the already confirmed fan pairings were shown to have gotten together save Pinkie Pie×Cheese Sandwich, which got some fire for only going with the safest pairing. The deliberately hinted Applejack×Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy×Discord got its own heat from those who shipped them with anyone else.
• Fanfic Fuel: The And the Adventure Continues ending naturally sets up a ton of it, both for how things got the way they are in the Distant Finale and where they go from there.
  • Twilight is now a full-fledged Alicorn Princess with a student of her own, and the rest of the Mane Six still regularly meet with her to help run all of Equestria. And Gallus is the leader of her guards.
  • Twilight's reign in general. Not to mention, despite Word of God stating that Vague Age is in play, the sight of Twilight's new body reopened the question as to whether or not she will once again outlive her friends.
  • Pinkie is married to Cheese Sandwich, and they have a son who's unsurprisingly a huge hoofful. The grown-up Pound and Pumpkin Cake also run Sugarcube Corner.
  • Said son is introduced playing with a Boneless 6. What happened with 3 through 5?
  • Fluttershy is now apparently living full time with Discord in his dimension, and they may or may not be a couple.
  • Applejack and Rainbow Dash also may or may not be a couple, while both still pursuing their own interests with Sweet Apple Acres (where Big Mac and Sugar Belle have a son) and the Wonderbolts (where Rainbow has taken over as Captain from Spitfire).
  • Yona and Sandbar are working with Rarity and run Ponyville's Carousel Boutique as she continues to expand her business to Yakyakistan, and once more are implied to be a couple.
  • Starlight, Sunburst, and Trixie are still running the School of Friendship, with the CMC, Ocellus, Silverstream, and Smolder as teachers. There's also the implication that Starlight and Sunburst are a couple and Luster Dawn is their daughter, though this has been subjected to Flip-Flop of God.
  • Gallus is one of Twilight Sparkle's royal guards. How did that come to happen? Does Twilight treat him differently since he was a former student and friend? Also worth noting is that he the first non-pony seen to be part of Canterlot's guard, and is also the only one of the Young Six who is not seemingly living in Ponyville.
  • Twilight's student Luster Dawn is taken to Ponyville to begin her own study of friendship, and quickly heads off with a pony, yak, griffin, and kirin. Can you say G5?
  • What are Celestia and Luna doing in retirement? Now that they are free of their royal duties, do they spend most of their time relaxing at their home in Silver Shoals, or do they go around having adventures and helping others as "Between Dark and Dawn" suggested they wanted to do?
  • Flurry Heart appears to be in charge of the Crystal Empire, but the whereabouts of her parents are unknown.
  • It's unknown if Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow are still trapped in stone or if any of them were ever let out with a chance at redemption. It's possible that could be done by Luster Dawn.
  • Lyra and Bon Bon are now married and still live in Ponyville.
  • The stained glass window depicting the Young Six hovering over some kind of monster is open to many interpretations and a second one with Flurry Heart wielding the Crystal Heart. All what we can say is that it shows that they had at least one adventure of their own. What are the details? That's up to you to figure out.
  • In a Freeze-Frame Bonus, one can also see that the Cutie Mark Crusaders also have a window mural almost similar to the Student Six. Considering the only thing really visible in it is Sweetie Belle, one has to wonder what they were dealing with that earned them that window.
  • The fates of the characters not shown in this episode.
  • Because of her royal duties, does Twilight still make time to talk to Sunset Shimmer? Furthermore, how would Sunset react to Twilight's new role as the ruler of Equestria?
  • Rarity says that the Council of Friendship is how they've "continued to face every problem and threat to Equestria over the years." What kind of problems and threats?
  • That window depicting the Young Six and the monster? Could be viewed as a threat that wouldn't be out of place in a Season Finale. There have probably been times in the Time Skip when they've gotten stuck and asked the Council for an assist to put the threat away (also see the Legendary Thief of the Caper Crew). As many problems and issues as they'd have, communicating such a need isn't one of them.
  • Luster Dawn is shown joining her own band of friends in the final scene. Presumably, as Gallus is now a Canterlot guard, Sandbar and Yona are running Rarity's flagship boutique, and the other three are on the faculty at the School of Friendship, these are the first or second successors of the Student Six.
  • It wasn't known why Celestia and Luna had both different body proportions and a different mane from Cadance and Twilight. The finale, however, reveals that Twilight grew over several years and gained an ethereal mane. This opens up new possibilities for Luna and Celestia: did they ever have "normal" pony proportions and manes too?
• Fanon: Lil' Cheese has a filly-like design despite Jim Miller stating the kid was male (the eyelashes apparently making him look "super cute"). As a result, some fans have adopted the idea that Lil' Cheese is a late bloomer, given that younger Pound Cake had eyelashes and a rounder nose.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • A notable portion of the fanbase have rejected the Distant Finale for disagreeing with the outcomes, especially shipping related, and for imposing Foregone Conclusion limiting the creative potential for any future works fanon or canon.
    • Several who otherwise accept the Distant Finale's happenings reject the casts Exhausted Eye Bag feeling it makes them too old, older than their parents at present despite how young their future children were, and re-opening the can of worms about Twilight outliving her friends.
  • There has been a small portion of fans who still refuse to acknowledge Equestria Girls despite Sunset Shimmer's cameo, those who don't just reject it arguing it has no impact on the story or just because Sunset's canon doesn't mean the events of her series are.
• I Knew It!: Many fans have speculated that Sunset Shimmer would make an appearance somewhere in the main show before it ended. Sure enough she’s in the final song via still image.
• Informed Wrongness: Big Mac messing up the orders was supposed to be his fault. But since Applejack labelled all the crates with the same stamp and we have no idea how the local alphabet works, the mess-up is actually her fault.
• Narm Charm: The sight of the rest of the Mane Six featuring heavy bags under their eyes. As over exaggerated as they might be considering their parents didn’t have bags as heavy, it’s still affective in showing just how much older they are now by comparison.
• Older Than They Think: Many believe Spike's mention of Abyssinia was them becoming a Canon Immigrant from the comics. In fact it was first mentioned in Discord's "Glass of Water" song from "Three's a Crowd" years before coming up in the comics. It's only the comics worldbuilding that's introduced^note the Abyssinians being Cat People thus their hostilities with the Diamond Dogs.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • In "A Horse-Shoe In", Doctor Hooves says that Yona is brilliant in science, to the point where she could expand the current understanding of science if nurtured. This plays no part in her path after the time skip, where she's running Carousel Boutique alongside Sandbar.
  • In "Uprooted", Silverstream was shown to be dreaming of joining the Wonderbolts, and she'd be the first non-pegasus to do so. The future scenes put a good amount of emphasis on non-ponies integrating into Equestria; a shot of Silverstream as a Wonderbolt would have fit beautifully with that. Yet not only has this not happened in the future, but we see the Wonderbolts flying and it's still an all-pegasus team.
  • We don't even get a hint of what Celestia and Luna have been doing in their retirement or where they are now.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Many people assumed that Li'l Cheese, Pinkie's child, was a girl due to having eyelashes, which only fillies and mares have had in the past and Jim Miller referring to them as "he" was a typo. They later clarified that Li'l Cheese is actually a colt, is stated as such in the script, and just has eyelashes because it makes him "super cute". Then Josh Haber contradicted him and said they didn't assign a gender to Pinkie's child, stating that they only used male pronouns in the script for "expedience sake."
• WTH, Costuming Department?: A minor example. Fans have noticed that Twilight's peytral has a sharp point facing her neck in the middle, which is basically asking for Twilight to get impaled whenever she has to bend down her neck.

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