My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Live Reactions & Discussion)

You know, this episode has now made me propose a test to see just how good or bad a Freudian Excuse is: the Broly test.

For those unaware, Broly is a character from the Dragon Ball Z movies. He is a Saiyan like main character Goku, but is incredibly deranged, evil, and strong as fuck. And he has it out for Goku. Why? Because when they were babies, Goku cried all the time.

The Broly test measures how warranted a Freudian Excuse is by asking this question: is it dumber than Broly's?

Well, hard to tell of Chrissi is really an 'evil overlord' at least to her own changelings. She wasn't trying to rule ponies, she just saw them as food.

Totally different circumstances, but yes, also very hard to undo that easily and work to reform. Also, Flim Falm bros remain villains. Lighting Dust, Svengallop, Suri, still plenty of ponies that remain assholes.

I get the complaint about reformations, but we'll just have to admit that the show isn't really going to do the kind of long-form, season-long storytelling needed to make these things less abrupt. The show has many strengths, but the long build, unfortunately, is not one of those things. They're getting better, but it's not quite Gravity Falls.

What I'm saying is that I want Alex Hirsch to do Gen 5.

edited 28th Nov '15 9:10:55 PM by edvedd

It's always nice when they provide more foreshadowing and so on, but it didn't really seem like a bad excuse to me. Also, I highly doubt Starlight will be joining the mane 6, At best she'll ve a recurring character like Discord.

I think the main issue is that we don't know enough about Starlight to tell if obsessing over something like this is in-character for her.

But again, I think the idea that a character would form a vendetta against something due to being burned by it once is plausible, but it needed more development as opposed to just being pulled out at the end. I think there's definitely some legitimate characterization to be explored here (Starlight apparently does buy in to her own rhetoric to a degree in that she legitimately believes that differences between friends will separate them), but the show blew through all that in about eight minutes or so, which really isn't enough time to explore something like that.

Basically, the facts of what happened, that Starlight went bad because of this particular traumatic incident and decided to turn over a new leaf when she got more perspective, are fine IMO. The problem is that the whole turnaround is tacked on. If you're going to solve a problem by having the a character resolve their personal issues, those issues need to be introduced before the scene where the resolution takes place.

Granted you'd think the show would've ironed that out by now, since "spend the whole episode focusing on an issue and then resolving it in the last three minutes" is a bit of a recurring issue.

@Adric: I'd take out the Sixth Ranger example until we know exactly what role she's going to play.

edited 28th Nov '15 9:15:22 PM by JapaneseTeeth

The problem is that the whole turnaround is tacked on. If you're going to solve a problem by having the a character resolve their personal issues, those issues need to be introduced before the scene where the resolution takes place.

Pretty much, and not helped by the fact that we've already seen this franchise do the same thing with other characters and pull it off better.

Exactly. That's why I'm so split on the resolution. On one hand, I really like it because they went the route of trying to understand the villain and talking them down rather than just blasting them with the Friendship Cannon. It makes the victory much more meaningful because it feels like Twilight really earned. She used her abilities and knowledge to figure out a solution to the problem rather than relying on the "Instant Win" button.

On the other hand, yeah, it was super-fast, and it relied on Starlight's childhood trauma, which is something the show never hinted at before, which makes it feel a bit like a "get out of jail free" card, and the montage at the end of everyone befriending her kind of felt like gilding the lily. Like, we get it, she's turning over a new leaf.

TL;DR it was good in some ways and less good in others. Overall I think it was solid, but needed to be paced better.

And now I'm going to bed.

@JT: Yeah, it still seems odd that they can't quite work out their pacing. The first two episodes of S5 were done well though.

It just seems like a problem with more ambitious shows these days. Gravity Falls season 2 has been great, but even still I've felt like the pacing has been off. Some jokes just don't breathe properly anymore.

Except it was clear that there had to be some reason why Starlight was as nuts a she was, and had the views she does. You don't get THAT screwed, while being that lucid and be to scheme like that, without some reason, so, you knew there was one. What it is is really secondary.

Still failing to see how this was an issue. There was no real need, nor direct point where it should have been mentioned before, it works logically for Twilight to find out why when she did, everything about it fits... beyond Starlight's massive overreaction to it. But that's just her being more then a bit unhinged. Could it have been done better? Sure, but nothing about it was wrong either. Every part of it worked just fine.

I think everyone agrees on the 'it could be done better'. I'm sure plenty of people like the idea, if not necessarily how it was done.

edited 28th Nov '15 9:32:04 PM by edvedd

I get that, but what does finding out her backstory when we did have to do with it? Not like it was some massive secret, or really explained much. It was clear all along there was something wrong with her, and had to have been some reason for her to snap like she did, and it made sense for it show up when it did, and it not coming up earlier really doesn't make any holes. The details, really were rather irrelevant overall.

We all have pretty different views on it, I guess.

My other big problem is that this is a very weak ending to the season's myth arc. Now, I'm not expecting every episode of the season to flow directly into the next with a intricately interconnected plot thread leading from one end of the season to the other, but I was expecting something.

Last season had a clear myth arc. We opened with the girls returning the Elements of Harmony to the Tree of Harmony, and the mystery box appearing. Throughout the season, the lessons the girls learned gave them keys to the box, which ultimately tied together in the finale to help them beat Tirek. Not every episode tied into the myth arc, but those that did had a direct impact on the finale.

This season, we start with the capital-M Map sending the girls on a mission that brings them into conflict with Starlight. Over the course of the season we get three more episodes where the Map sends the girls off in pairs to fix friendship problems, and then the finale has Twilight and Starlight using the Map for time travel shenanigans. The problem is, nothing between the opener and the finale had anything to do with them. Even the other Map episodes didn't have any relevance to the finale. They clearly set up a myth arc, and then didn't deliver on it.

And the killer is, it would have been so easy to do. All the friendship problems the Map sent the girls off to fix were problems with former friends drifting apart or being divided over their differences, just as in Starlight's backstory. We saw Rainbow Dash reestablish a once-ruined friendship with Gilda. We saw a town in Manehattan that had lost all sense of community find it again with something as simple as a low-budget play on the side of the street. We saw generations of bitter conflict resolved over a common interest.

If Twilight had changed Starlight's mind by using the Map to take Starlight to these events to see for herself that broken friendships can be mended, that differences can be overcome by common interests, and that it only takes a little to affect a big change for the better, it would have tied those episodes back into the myth arc, establishing a much more satisfying throughline for the season, and would have been far more powerful a way of changing Starlight's mind than just giving her good advice until she suddenly decides to take it for no apparent reason.

I mean, what I just described is basically A Christmas Friendship Carol with Twilight playing all three ghosts to Starlight's Scrooge.

I'll just leave this here.

Honestly, "it was a good episode, but the ending was rushed," is practically the MLP mantra at this point.

It might have worked better if the time spent on the ending song was used to flesh Starlight out before her turn, and have her befriending everyone else happen early next season.

I was wondering about this too. The map arc really isn't resolved at all. Hopefully it'll still be ongoing next season.

edited 28th Nov '15 10:15:09 PM by Crowfall

I guess that, for a show that has always been more slice of life with two 'big' episodes a season, the myth arc is not always the most comfortable fit. It's never been the show's strongest suit, and it's something they only started doing in season 4.

I still think season 5 has been one of the best seasons overall. Season 4 has been slightly forgettable, but there are more episodes in season 5 that I've outright liked.

edited 28th Nov '15 10:26:32 PM by edvedd

finally saw the finale. good end to a good season.

though i'm wondering what happened to Sunburst now.

Rewatching it... honestly,Starlight's redemption just played better this time. I have no real issue with it now.

So...what does everyone think of this "Ashlands Timeline" towards the end of the episode? I've heard a couple theories about it, but I'm just really curious as to how that could've spurned off.

Also, god damn! They really are trying to scare the kids with these two! We had freaking total war in one of the other timelines, a tribal timeline with the ponies whittled down to basically nothing, there was one point where if you thought about it long enough, Twilight just killed Filly!Rainbow by complete accident, and...well...the "Ashlands Timeline".

The ashlands one is scary because you don't know what happened. Something just went horribly wrong, and that's it.

i have a theory abut what happened in the "Ashlands Timeline."

y'know how in all the previous timelines, it was just one threat the Mane 6 had neutralized that took over? well, in the Ashlands, it was all of them. Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis, Discord, Sombra, Tirek—they all got into it with each other, and the resulting war took them out along with darn near everything else.

edited 28th Nov '15 10:56:28 PM by crimsonstorm15

Yea, I saw that theory over on Derpibooru just now, actually. It's pretty plausible, now that I think about it.

I wonder if someone's gonna ask the writer or staff about this timeline. It's just been bothering me so much.

Yeah, it's honestly the last thing I expected, and it was jarring and strange.

Rather depressing, too. This show's supposed to be bright and colorful, and to have it all go away, not just the colors, but the ponies, the towns, the trees, the life...it's just painful.

Heck, there was a lot of playing with color in this episode. I guess that was a tool Josh/the animators/whoever used to say, "Hey, this seems off."

Yeah after realing the recap page I say that each of the timeline hada color motif goign (even watching the episodes I noticed that the map had a different color for the first two timelines and the Ashladns)

Also I think it's equally possible the Ashlands might be started not by all the old villains, but by a new one. And ash is associated by flames, which is turn is associated by the sun...