My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)

Maybe the griffons we more like shrewd, respectable merchants in their glory days, and only got self-destructively cutthroat when they lost the idol of Boreas and became hopeless and desperate?

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

At best you'd be looking at an effectively tribal society, I think. You might liken it to the Charr in Guild Wars 2.

The Charr are, appropriately, a race of cat-like beast people who have what can essentially be described as a Military-industrial tribal society. Their society is divided into three Legions—Iron, Blood and Ashe—each of which has a distinct culture, and maintains its own lands. The legions are composed of smaller units called Warbands, a group of 5-15 Charr who all work similar jobs and roles. Though a Charr has one warband, they might have affiliation with others—high-ranking Charr may be one of a smaller answering to a yet-higher Charr, leading all the way up to the Imperator at the top of their legion.

Each Legion considers itself distinct from the others, and they're often not even vaguely nice to each other. But they all work together because they recognize that fighting would make each of them individually weaker, while by working together each of them becomes stronger.

I can imagine a society with the griffons-as-presented working similarly: They cooperate not necessarily because they like each other, but because they recognize it benefits all of them.

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All that said I'm not sure I buy the idea that 'All Griffons are greedy and self-centered' that the show posits, at least not on an inherent level. It simply makes no sense—they'd never bother to form a society in the first place.

In real life, many species of Raptor are actually reasonably social, nesting, and sometimes even feeding, communally. Many species of large cat are similar. While they may not hunt communally like humans did, I feel like a culture built off of that behaviour would at least have a strong sense of community—which would easily give way to a sense of altruism.

But more to the point, the whole idea of the Idol of Boreas was that it brought the Griffons together. If they were truly so greedy, I don't think it would have—I think they would have torn themselves to pieces fighting over it instead. I also don't think they would have been able to compete in a team event in the Equestria Games, which aired before Griffonstone. More than anything, they're probably lacking a cultural reason to give a shit.

Of course if they can appear at the Equestria Games they may well be a provincial kingdom, and if the prevailing attitude of the people ruling them is 'They're greedy and selfish' and they don't care enough to know their recent history, maybe there's a reason they're short on pride.

Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.

I prefer to treat Griffonstone as just, like, one place where griffons lives and not even the biggest and I will twist around whatever goddamn facts I need to to make that a reality.

Oh, I'm 100% there with you. In fact the current mini-arc of my ask blog is taking place in Zohannon, a country with a very high griffon population. The griffons there arrange themselves in a few different tribes with very different cultures, none of which are particularly money-oriented. Essentially the Griffonstone tribe was A) a mercantile tribe and B) Poorly treated by history and popular perception.

Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.

I went with that-

Well, Griffonstone used to be the hotshot of the disparate griffon kingdoms, the lynchpin of a loose confederation. It's influence is what kept the other kingdoms in line and its fall from grace is what led to them descending into anarchy.

One griffon starts reuniting the griffon kingdoms up north by force of arms, the kingdoms down south unite into a stronger federation to keep the empire back and Griffonstone, caught in the middle, is one part demilitarized zone and neutral territory, one part Equestrian protectorate and one part shameful reminder of glories lost.

Two questions: 1) How is regular MLP threat so huge and yet this one is only 18 pages long? 2) Anyone else read comic tie-ins and think that there were best part? Not to diss the movie, but it was fine. Comics were awesome.

The show has been around for a while and the corresponding thread is the main locus of activity.

You're also comparing a one-shot movie that released a few months ago compared to a general thread for the fandom where the show has been going on for over seven years. Even if the movie ended up as a super smash hit, it's not a fair comparison.

I don't know if I'd say I liked the comics more than the movie, but they definitely helped give context on a bunch of the new characters who otherwise had their intros and backgrounds a bit glossed over. I think I enjoyed the movie a bit more as a result.

Speaking of the comics, I recently went back to the last one because my friend got the art book and apparently it says that Tempest doesn't have a cutie mark. I checked the last set of pages after she's decloaked and those clever jerks specifically engineer the panels to hide her butt. It's always either off-panel or obscured by her tail, which is noticeably longer than in the movie in order to meet this need.

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How would Tempest not have a cutie mark? That's the kind of detail that would need to be brought up and discussed in the work to be a thing; not just a throwaway comment in the art book.

Like, she even has a signature spell. She's basically a murderous Jubilee, putting her affinity for creating fireworks to violent applications. You'd think her Cutie Mark would be, like, popping lights or something.

edited 4th Jan '18 9:36:47 AM by TobiasDrake

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That's what I thought, too, which is why I went back to the comic. I was like, "There's no way this is a thing." Apparently it is, though. I agree that it really should have been brought up in the movie proper—perhaps as a major sore spot in her motivation because that's a pretty big deal.

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That doesn't necessarily mean it's a thing. Absence of evidence not being evidence of absence and all. If they always engineered panels to avoid showing her butt but never clearly demonstrate her lack of cutie mark, it qualifies as inconclusive. It means the request is probably real, but her explicitly not having a cutie mark has yet to be demonstrated within the work.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say someone didn't want the comic to accidentally step on the film and/or show's toes by establishing something as character-defining as her cutie mark. That seems like the kind of detail that would qualify for the "You're just supplemental so you don't get to touch this" treatment.

If she ever shows up again, then her cutie mark or lack thereof can be established by the series proper.

edited 4th Jan '18 10:02:33 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

I can't recall off the top of my head if there was any mention of Tempest's cutie mark (or lack thereof) in her backstory book. I tried scanning a few chapters, but I'd have to carefully comb through the entire thing to be sure.

edited 4th Jan '18 10:29:47 AM by KylerThatch

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

If she really does just not have a Cutie Mark, then I'm really hoping that she shows up in the show. There could be a fascinating episode about that. Like, maybe running away at such a young age and rejecting her calling in life led to her Cutie Mark never manifesting.

Helping Tempest reconnect with who she was supposed to become could be a great Crusaders episode.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Wait, doesn't she have a cutie mark in the movie?

Optimism is a duty.

She spends the entire film wearing full-body plate mail so, y'know, you tell me.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

She doesn't have signature spell, it's just side effect of broken horn. The whole point is that she doesn't have magic.

x2 Well, kinda. If you look more closely, it's a some sort of body suit with selective piece of plate barding. The weirdest thing for me is there's no chest plate, since that's probably one of the places she'd want armoured more than others (and Celestia's royal guards happen to have armour that protects there).

She has magic, but with the state of her horn as it is, it's uncontrollable. She either goes full power or no power (the comics have her risking using moderate-power magic while acknowledging the risk of having it backfire—YMMV on its significance). Her motivation to fix her horn is more of a psychological thing, but presumably she also wants to be able to use her horn for something other than blowing stuff up.

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I have to say that "uncontrollable" is not the word I would use to describe her magic. She may not be able to cast spells with it the way most unicorns (theoretically) can, but she has enough control of her magic blasts to destroy an airship without also taking out her own ship that's latched on to it. Even if all she can do is make stuff explode, she can still aim pretty well.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Well, uncontrollable in terms of power, not accuracy. I guess, yeah, that term may be a bit too vague. Video game analogy time: she's a FPS protagonist whose only gun is a rocket launcher. She can aim it just fine, but her targets are going to be in pain, whether she likes it or not.

edited 4th Jan '18 1:09:54 PM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

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And now you've given me the mental image of her as the Soldier from TF 2. Thanks.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

I think it's worth pointing out that only griffons in Griffonstone are shown to be greedy jerks. None of the griffons we've seen outside of that particular area seem to follow that. Gustave seems to be doing fine, Gilda is a jerk but wasn't particularly greedy in her first appearance (outside of wanting Dash for herself but that's a whole other ball of wax from monetary greed), and Gabby is just fine once she gets out of that area. You could easily argue that Griffons as a species are fine, but Griffonstone in particular developed an unhealthy culture because they placed to much emphasis on material wealth and when they ran into hard times they doubled down on the hoarding instead of looking for ways to improve things.

Granted, it would be a lot of extrapolation, but it's hardly impossible to see things that way.

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My Little Pony: The Movie

Alright, so this is going to be a little different than normal because I've seen this movie like four times, so I'm not going to be able to provide immediate reactions as things develop. Also, as is typical of my movie breakdowns, it's going to be broken out in chunks.

"Excuse me, dragon on the move! Important princess documents coming through!" Spike. Spike. Bouncing on jello is terribly unhygienic. Spike. Ponies are going to be eating that and you just stuck your feet on it. Not cool, bro.

Also, I want to know what these documents are supposed to be. Spike calls them important princess documents, but when Twilight shows off her plan to the Princesses, it's done on a whiteboard. Spike. What are these documents, Spike? Why are they so important that you had to stick your feet in jello? SPIKE!

"Wow! Everypony from Manehattan to Saddle Arabia is here!" I was going to make a joke about that distance if the official map revealed it not to actually be that far, but then I realized that Saddle Arabia isn't even on the official map of Equestria. So, yeah. That's fair. She's basically saying that everypony in Equestria plus even ponies from beyond Equestria are coming to the celebration.

And, like, she's not wrong. Even the one pony in the Storm King's employ shows up!

"This is your Friendship Festival! Everypony's happiness rests in your hooves." Here we see the first inklings of the flaw that Twilight will wrestle with through this movie: the problem of self-deprecating narcissism. Twilight is so stressed out by this entire ordeal that she's seeing herself as solely, personally responsible for its success. This festival is meant to celebrate the bonds of friendship between ponies, but Twilight emphasizes "your" in a way that claims ownership of it.

Here's the thing about narcissism: being narcissistic doesn't actually mean that you think everything you do is great. You can be negatively narcissistic. The difference is that whatever you do, it's the most of it. When a narcissist is doing well, what they've done is the greatest thing that's ever been done. Nobody could possibly match what they just did. But when a narcissist feels they did poorly, then what they did is the worst thing that's ever been done. The entire universe is conspiring to laugh at how terrible they are.

"I'm just so nervous about this meeting!" "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout?" Because what kid doesn't know Gary Coleman? That reference is so dated it's not even a Parental Bonus. It's a grandparental bonus.

"I'm about to ask the three most royal Princesses in Equestria for a favor." Out of four. Three most royal princesses out of four. This statement doesn't actually mean anything about the other Princesses; it's a harsh judgment of Twilight herself. She's basically saying, "I'm about to walk in there with my peers and suck like I do. I'm the shittiest Princess! I'm, like, negative Princesses, that's how much I suck! I mean, have you met me?"

I mean, she's not wrong. The other three are more royal than her in the sense that they have, like, actual governance responsibilities and shit. But it's still part of the narcissistic breakdown that will ultimately lead to her crisis of faith later in the movie.

"Just remember the most important thing." "SMILE?!?!" Twilight Sparkle is hereby banned from ever smiling again.

"You're a princess too!" "…right…." Twilight is thoroughly unimpressed with this advice. As she should be, because her problem isn't that she doesn't realize she's a Princess. It's that she's having a narcissistic panic attack so she thinks she's the worst Princess who ever wore a crown.

"Good morning, Princesses." Let's talk about Luna's throne, because it's about goddamn time she got one. I think. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about Luna's throne. On the one hoof, it's nice to see acknowledgement that she, too, rules Equestria. But on the other, I realize that I'm not actually sure why she needs one. She and Celestia trade shifts.

Maybe Celestia just got tired of having to deal with Luna's butt cooties after a millennium of that seat being hers and hers alone. Whatever the case, nice to see Luna has her own throne. Too bad she probably won't be allowed to keep it when we return to the show.

"Yes, she is the 'mane' event." …am I the only one who's bothered by ponies deliberately making horse puns? That's weird. Horse puns are funny because of the juxtaposition between the pony world and our sense of normalcy. Hearing a character in-universe deliberately make this joke is like having your buddy go, "Tax law? Hey, who 'NOSE' about that stuff, amirite?"

Nobody talks like that.

"Based on my precise calculations…." I mentioned this before, but one of Twilight's precise calculations involves the equation "(Apple plus Heart)". I am endlessly amused by this.

"But wait, there's more!" I love how pissed off Luna is at this statement. She glares daggers at Twilight.

"If you could use your Crystal magic to create an aurora above the stage…." Okay, what? I'm sorry, Twilight, but what? This devolved into pure gibberish. What do crystals and auroras have to do with each other? An aurora is created when the magnetosphere is disturbed by solar winds. I think Twilight hastily threw this part together when she realized she had five minutes before her presentation and she'd spent way too much time thinking about the Apple + Heart equation.

"Presenting Songbird Serenade!" So, uh, are those important princess documents just sitting on the floor in the hall outside? Neither Spike nor Twilight has them. They are never seen again. I think he just wanted an excuse to bounce on the jello.

Also, I love Twilight's goofy "Ta-da!" pose with her wings, in which she tries poorly to conceal the faceplanted Spike way too late.

"You are the Princess of Friendship. You already have all the magic you need." There's Celestia spelling out the central theme of the film before the audience even has a chance to realize it's a conflict. This is one of those things you only catch on rewatch, and it's great. Celestia literally just told us how this movie will end.

"So that'd be a no?" Can I just say how much I love that Twilight's crrrazy plan gets straight-up rejected by the Princesses and is then never revisited. They tell her no and they mean it. A lot of movies would set this as a sort of tacit stake of the conflict; when Twilight saves the day, the Princesses will reward her by going through with what she wanted in the beginning. The hero does the heroic thing and is then rewarded by being given whatever the thing they wanted at the start was.

But that doesn't happen here. Twilight's plan to move the sun and moon for optimal lighting is denied and that is the last it's spoken of. Saving the day doesn't make it stop being a bad idea. Twilight just has to live with the fact that the authority figures in her chain of command do not like her idea. The end.

I really appreciate that bit of reality.

"Yes! Sky cleared and ready for the festival." I don't know what it is about the film's animation but Rainbow Dash looks more girlish here than she normally does. I can't put my finger on it but there's something about her that just oozes femininity. It makes me happy to see due to the way fans tend to treat her like the token guy in the group due to her aggressive habits and cockiness. She's not a guy. She's a headstrong and cock-sure woman and that's okay.

"I don't think it's the balloon that's out of control, Pinkie Pie." Fluttershy's totally right here, too. The Discord balloon didn't even touch the birds. This disruption is all Pinkie, and that's what makes this a surprisingly great Discord moment in a movie he doesn't even f*cking appear in. He didn't screw up Fluttershy's display. He baited Pinkie into doing it for him. That makes it her fault under chapter 4, page 17 of the Universal Troll Guidelines.

And Fluttershy immediately excused him for it because of course she did. In like five seconds, the movie has summarized the entire relationship between Discord and the Mane Six.

"Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm doo do doo do do." I really want to know what song Rarity was humming.

"Wow, Rarity. That's a fine job you're doin' there. 'Course it might not get done 'til after the concert!" And there's our first Rarijack moment in a film that has quite a few of them. And, in typical Rarijack style, this can either be used to support or condemn the ship. On the one hoof, AJ went out of her way to go seek out Rarity and comment on her work. On the other, her choice of comment was a backhanded compliment to tell Rarity she's doing a shit job.

"Faster if I do my Sonic Rainboom!" Why did Rainbow Dash decorate Fluttershy too? She wasn't even in the way; Rainbow had to curve up onto the stage to hit her. That could only have been deliberate.

"Come on, it's fine!" "If you were raised in a barn! …no offense, Applejack." "None taken. Especially since I wasn't raised in a barn. My family just happens to have a barn. Where I was born. And spent…most of my formative years…." "RAISED IN A BARN!!!" These are the moments that make My Little Pony shine. When the characters are just talking about shit and bouncing personalities off each other, hilarity ensues.

"If I fail at the festival then who am I?!?!" Twilight's neurotic breakdown here further reinforces the crisis of faith she'll have later.

"As the Princess of Friendship, you cannot fail! This day will define who you are! The pressure is intense. It's almost too much for any single pony to handle! AHHHHHHH!" This is why you're the Pity Friend, Pinkie Pie.

"You can be honest let your problems be known, 'cause you got us to pick up the slack!" Twilight tastes the cider, finds it to be bitter, and adds more sugar to it herself. I'm taking this moment as an explanation of the weird "Twilight can totes cook you guys," bits from season seven. Clearly, AJ's been teaching her. Clearly.

"Inside and out beautiful throughout! Generosity is what we're all about!" I'm so glad that Rarity sings this. Something I've complained about is that the writers are too quick to hammer that Honesty button with AJ. Everypony and their dog is quick to tell you that she's the most Honest pony that ever Honested an Honesty. She's so Honest and, like, even her Honesty is super Honest.

We even got a f*cking origin story for AJ being Honest. An origin story for Applejack's Honesty.

None of the other ponies are treated like this. There's no origin story for Rainbow Dash's Loyalty. Ponies don't gather around and talk about how she's so Loyal and, like, the most Loyal pony in all of Equestria, you don't even known.

So having Rarity be the one to bring her Element into this is a refreshing change of pace.

"Today needs to be perfect; it all comes down to me." There's that narcissism again.

"I am the Princess of Friendship but that is more than just a crown; it's a promise to bring ponies together and never let anypony down!" Unkeepable narcissistic promises. That, right there, is the pressure Twilight's putting herself under. A promise to "never let anypony down" is a terrible promise becuase that's literally impossible. You can't please all people all the time.

"We're gonna need some more supplies to make a really big surprise! She'll be so shocked; she's sure to love it too!" What about Twilight Sparkle makes you think she enjoys being shocked?

Can we take a moment to talk about how amazing Pinkie is at baking? She had the last verse of the song but still managed to complete her giant cake super-cannon before the final chorus was done, despite getting the idea for it during her verse.

Then again, the cake did melt so…perhaps this is more of an indictment at the quality of rush jobs.

"Storm clouds?! I ordered perfect weather! Rainbow Dash….'" I love how Twilight immediately blames Rainbow for the arrival of the Storm King's ships. It's an honest mistake.

"Oooh! I bet those are the clowns I ordered!" Never change, Pinkie Pie.

"And now to deliver the evil, evil message, put your hooves together for Commander TEMPEST!!!" Seriously, f*ck this guy. He's obnoxious. Though I do like that he has no idea that ponies stomp instead of clapping. But anyways, that's not the point.

I want to take a moment to talk about Tempest Shadow. I love the decision to use the supermodel body type for her. She's got the same body type as Sassy Saddles, Princess Cadance, and Fleur de Lis, but she's disfigured. She has a scar across her eye, a broken horn, and a mane style that says she's a tough military gal and she'll f*ck you up.

But there's more to her. It's interesting that Tempest is the only female character in the Storm King's chain of command. The Storm King himself, Grubber, and even their mooks are profoundly masculine characters and they bring with them a complete disdain for the girliness that is My Little Pony. It's like Equestra was suddenly invaded by a boys' cartoon from the nineties; they're here to kick ass and shit, and they don't want your girly nonsense in their way.

In essence, the Patriarchy has come for Equestria, and Tempest has gone out of her way to fit perfectly into that mold. She's "one of the good ones". She's "a credit to her gender". She's decked out to look as masculine as possible and drank gallons of the antifeminist kool-aid, never missing an opportunity to deride Ponyville for being weak and girly and not cool at all. She's even changed her name; Tempest Shadow is the kind of nonsense a 13-year-old boy in the 90's would come up with.

"This is my action ranger, TEMPEST SHADOW. He has knives that shoot out of his wrists and he wears lots of black and shoots death lasers from his eyes. They're lasers that cause instant death! And he flies around the city bringing MURDERJUSTICE to the criminals of Bloodtopia!"

We'll see more of this dynamic when the Storm King himself shows up and is horribly offended at even being around the levels of girliness on display in My Little Pony. But as it is, I think Tempest is a fascinating rendition of a woman embracing misogynistic values in order to slide into the Patriarchy in a place that makes her feel stronger and better off than the other women around her, while still never quite the equal of the men around her.

Something Viking pointed out that I found really interesting is her relationship with Grubber, getting back to him. Despite Tempest being ostensibly the second-in-command, the Storm King saw fit to saddle her with a babysitter. He bumbles about incompetently, does almost nothing to positively contribute to their cause, is obnoxious at best and straight-up detrimental at worst, and yet his position within the Storm King's Patriarchy is never in question.

As we see later in the film, hers is.

"And why should we cower before you? There's one of you and hundreds of us." Luna is greatly overestimating the average pony's willingness to participate in violence. Note that once the invasion begins in earnest, the ponies don't even try to defend themselves. They rout instantly. Violence is not the pony way.

"Luna, quick! Go south beyond the Badlands! Seek help from the Queen of the Hippo—" Even Princess Celestia straight up declares this fight to be unwinnable and urges Luna to go seek help. I've heard defenses of how easily she's taken out in this movie that center around Tempest hitting her while she's distracted, but those defenses don't excuse the fact that, five seconds into the invasion, Celestia just gives up.

Like the rest of the ponies, Celestia doesn't even try to resist the Storm King. She doesn't even cast a single spell. Cadance fought harder than Celestia did. This becomes especially egregious later in the film when the Storm King's forces are utterly defeated by like ten people.

Tempest, for her part, also screws up here. If Twilight hadn't caught the petrified Luna, Tempest would have had to explain to the Storm King why she totally killed one of the four Princesses they needed for the empowering spell.

"I would but I just had a hearty meal and I will sink and I will sidecramp." Shit like this is exactly what I'm talking about. Grubber is straight-up detrimental to his side, but his job security is ironclad.

"Celestia told Luna to find the Queen of the Hippos." I'll be honest, it kinda bugs me that the hippogriff queen is a queen. The hippogriffs have a queen. The Storm has a king. The hippos themselves, as we see in the credits, have a queen. So why does Equestria only have princesses? That kind of inconsistency really stands out and highlights the problem inherent in using "Princess" as a little girl's highest aspirational title in the first place. If they were seeking the Princess of the Hippos, it wouldn't be noticeable, but the Queen of the Hippos clashes terribly with the creative choice made for the series in the first place.

"I've heard they're surprisingly graceful for their size, but they're always hungry." "Hungry?!" "Hippos?!" If Hasbro ever makes a Hungry Hungry Hippos show, I expect the Queen of the Hippos to be spontaneously abducted by a Pinkie Pie cameo in one episode.

"I understand you're scared and nopony else has to go but I have to find this queen. She might be our only hope." I want to take a moment and talk about leadership. I've mentioned this before, but while Twilight is the main character in the sense that everyone supports her and is helping her with her quest on these Adventure plots, Applejack's kind of a secondary leader in the sense of looking out for the group, keeping them together, and making sure everypony's doing what they're supposed to be doing.

This is an interesting moment in that regard. Rainbow Dash is the first pony to speak up and volunteer to join Twilight, but before she does that, she looks to AJ. AJ gives her a nod, nonverbally giving her the go-ahead for what she wanted to do.

"All this power wasted on parties." Hi, my name is Bloodtempest Murdershadow and I like to reaffirm to myself how much I hate girly things whenever I'm alone.

I love the dial-up internet gag with the communication potion but it's kind of a confusing reference. Dial-up has never had the necessary bandwidth for video calls.

"I'm in the middle of a big rebrand here. The Storm King is tracking as intensely intimidating but you know what? I need to back it up. You know what I need to back it up with? A STORM!!!" I love this guy. He's so drunk on his own masculinity. His entire motivation is that his empire is built on a Big Fish story and he doesn't actually have a fish to prove it.

His bros are like, "Bro, bro, you keep saying you caught a fish bigger than my car. Where's the fish, bro? I want to see the fish." And now he's all like, "Tempest, you get me that fish or so help me!" He's all bark with no bite to show for it. He's the guy in the bar who asks his bros to hold him back so that he can pretend like he wants to start a fight. He's a pathetic loser who likes to think of himself as a total badass, but who's probably never been in a fight in his life.

He's a narcissist with delusions of grandeur, and that makes him a great adversary for Twilight Sparkle, a narcissist with delusions of incompetence.

As an aside, the fact that he's such a paper tiger makes the third act that much more appropriate. When ten people tear through his army, it fits, because his army is a reflection of the Storm King himself. They're very big and they look scary but they're practically harmless. In the initial invasion, they don't even attack anyone. They just stomp around looking menacing while ponies flee in terror.

The only person in the entire Storm Kingdom who is legitimately dangerous is Fizzlepop Berrytwist. But she's a woman so she will never be anything more than a disposable tool.

"The branch, the twig, the bleugh." "And you're locking down the four pegacornicuses whatever you call them?" The sheer lack of f*cks he gives about the details of his own evil plan is a great establishing character piece. The Storm King wants Tempest's plan to empower him to succeed, but he is adamantly opposed to actually knowing too much about how this girly shit works. Which is why she even has to explain it to him again in this scene in the first place.

Right now, he's being that guy who's like, "Yeah, they watch that show, uh, Soldier Mars or whatever it's called," when he knows damned well that it's called Sailor Moon, but doesn’t want his bros to think that's actually a thing he'd know. He's openly deriding the means by which to carry out a plan he's 100% onboard with because he hates the girly stuff involved with it. He's invested in the plan, but he doesn't want to look like it's something he'd be invested in.

"I know you're disappointed but I've got one word for you: sponge cake." I love how Grubber doesn't even seem to care that Tempest electrocuted him. He cries out from it, but then two seconds later he eats his sponge cake and moves on like it didn't happen.

"It looks like a crackly chipped tooth on top of your head and you know you don't look good in hats." Hi, my name's Grubber and I'm just going to be over here, judging you on your appearance to remind you that even though you're a high-ranking member of our Patriarchy, you're still a woman and your physical attractiveness is the only thing that really matters about you.

This is one of those lines that wouldn't necessarily be misogynistic if not for the fact that people only ever say them to women. She's a high-ranking military officer trying to find a cure for her crippling disability and all he cares about is her relative f*ckability. And he gets away with it, with zero consequences. She doesn't even shock him again. She does get mad, but she restrains herself as though she's in the wrong for having an emotional reaction to her subordinate objectifying her.

Welcome to Patriarchy.

"Nothing for miles but sand. And this rock. And this cactus." That cactus. That cactus is a cactus that can pierce dragonscale. F*ck plants.

"Hmm? A road?" I love how Twilight's actually walking on the road Spike just discovered.

"Where there's a city, there's a spa!" Rarity never got that spa.

"Hey, you with the horn…you selling?" I love how creepy this guy is. He literally just asked Twilight if she's willing to let him disfigure her for profit. Like, I know there's a stereotype about waking up in a bathtub with your kidneys missing, but in that scenario, you generally don't agree to the kidney extraction procedure.

"Hey! No magic around my merchandise!" This guy waits patiently for several seconds to let Twilight finish restacking his barrels before he suddenly throws a fit about her use of magic. He's not actually upset about the magic. He just doesn't want to pay her.

"I want that fancy purple hair! I'll give you two Storm Bucks for it!" "Two Storm Bucks?! It's worth more than that!" "…eh?" I love how Rarity isn't upset at the implication that she'd sell her mane; she's just offended by the price. Even though she doesn't even know how much the price is worth in bits. The exchange rate isn't something that's ever come up before.

This is a great gag, and I like that they sandwich her right between Twilight and AJ so she can get a "The f*ck are you smoking?" reaction from both sides. It's easy to get distracted by Twilight because she makes a noise, but AJ's shaking her head disgustedly on the other side.

"I WANT ALL SEVEN FOR MY COLLECTION!!!" Fish, please. It's not a complete collection until you've got the Princesses too.

"Back off, everyone! Back it up! Y'all in some serious danger!" So then Capper Gambit shows up to save the day and I can't help but feel like this is an important life lesson that got overlooked by our pony cast. If the first impression of someone you ever have is that person bald-facedly lying to manipulate people, maybe that person shouldn't be trusted because that person lies to manipulate people.

Like, he straight-up telegraphs the kind of person he is in this scene, but the ponies are aided by it and they're also super-gullible so everypony promptly falls for it anyway.

"Enjoy your last moments and don’t touch anyone because parts will fall off." He immediately grabs his junk. I'm amazed they got that past the censors.

"I don't know if we should trust him." And here we see the beginning of Twilight's crisis of faith. This is the crux of her character arc through the film; she's lost her faith in the magic of friendship. The Storm King's infected her heart with cynicism, shattering the very foundation of what My Little Pony is about.

Logically, Twilight's in the right here. They shouldn't trust Capper. They shouldn't have anything to do with him. He's a bad guy, straight up. But changing hearts and minds through the magic of friendship, helping bad people to ultimately find their way, that's what these characters are all about. It's what they do. Capper doesn't know it, but it's what's about to happen to him.

That's what My Little Pony is, and Twilight's losing sight of that. She's absorbing a way of life that is fundamentally irreconcilable with who she is and what she stands for. She's taken her first step to becoming Tempest.

That fundamental conflict between the logically smart thing to do and the pony way is a great way of communicating this conflict. On first watch, it's easy to be on Twilight's side in moments like this. It's only on reflection, looking back, that you realize how important it was that the rest of the group wasn't "smart" about these things at all, but instead kept to the way of life they've always believed in.

There is no sound reason to extend a hoof in friendship to Capper. But that friendship will save Equestria.

"This town is not a nice place for little fillies all alone." Viking pointed out something that I can't unsee. We're supposed to take the world beyond Equestria as a dark place unlike our musical world of color and fun. There are three musical numbers that take place out here, one for each of the allies they recruit. The other two songs are started by ponies, swirling up their new companions in the jamboree of color and fun that they know and working to inspire them.

But this one's started by Capper. He uses this song to convince the ponies of his falsified good intentions, straight up manipulating them by preying on their natures. But how did he know that music was the way to win a pony's heart? A random joe on the street who's never seen ponies before wouldn't have that knowledge.

He's too good at this con for it to be his first time manipulating ponies. Capper's done this before.

"Don't fear these darkened alleys. They're scary, yes, I know." I was going to say something about the bats attacking Fluttershy and how she, of all ponies, should be able to handle that. But it occurs to me: for as much as Fluttershy's talent is supposed to be animal handling, it never works beyond her immediate area of influence. While her idyllic cottage in Ponyville is full of animals that listen to her, the animals in places even as close as Canterlot consistently do not give a single solitary f*ck about her methods.

She's not the ultimate animal handler. She's just well-liked by the animals of one specific region.

"Oooh, so many fun breakables!" There's something you never want to hear Pinkie Pie say.

Also, Capper has a portrait of some kind of fish dude in a Naval uniform on the wall, with his own head cut out and taped over it. Viking pointed out that this is where Rarity gets the idea for that uniform she gives him at the end of the movie. Foreshadowing!

And this seems like a good place to take my first break. Everypony's chilling at Capper's place with no idea of the two separate forms of danger headed their way.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Comic material here, which may have coloured things for me, but Grubber actually originally had Tempest's position and he was chosen for it because it was spineless and lacked ambition, meaning he probably won't ever betray Storm King—to the detriment of everything else, of course (the first comic is all about how Storm King's ghostly original second-in-commmand backstabs him to try to make off with several airships' worth of treasure with Calaeno and her crew). When Storm King recruited Tempest, he demoted Grubber and put her in his place. Storm King knows that Tempest is ambitious, though, which is why he keeps an eye out (and the movie later has a scene where he perceives what she says as a prelude to betrayal).

It was an unfortunate corporate mandate. Faust wanted Queen Celestia—they said, "No." Still, haven't principalities been a thing in the real world?

I still feel like this statement is more a rejection of self and her past, given what kind of spell she has a talent for.

Wait, where did you get the impression that it's Internet? I saw it as making fun of old, shitty cell phones and their dubious service, myself.

Fun bit of hypocrisy here, IIRC, but he blanches at the girly stuff of MLP, yet the merch that Celaeno is shipping is a bunch of that cutesy, touristy junk you see at every vacation locale.

You might be reading a biiiit too much into this one. Grubber's just your standard total idiot, so of course he doesn't understand how horns and magic work. Par for the course when his boss at the very top doesn't even care about the details.

Eh, it's kinda debatable. Because if Tempest, ironically, hadn't showed up to accidentally fix things, the girls probably would have ended up in a cage, sold off into slavery. Going along with him without fully trusting him would have been a reasonable thing. It doesn't have to be a choice between telling him to shove off or going all in with him.

To be fair, she's being rather pushy with the Canterlot ones. She, of all ponies, should know that rather loudly running at a bunch of animals just minding their own business is probably going to make them run away. I feel like she got so carried away there that she forgot even the basics.

FE: Genealogy Story Run 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

You know, that kind of reminds me of some posts I've seen pointing out that most female characters (generally those Strong Female Character (TM) types) in male-dominated media do the contradictory thing of disdaining all "girly" things, including makeup, and yet still manage to look like supermodels. Because the most important thing about them is that they still have to be fuckable, basically, but effortlessly fuckable. So that is an interesting dimension to Tempest having that supermodel body type. That's a really fascinating angle to look at Tempest by. I like it.

edited 15th Jan '18 1:18:16 PM by DeathsApprentice

Trust you? The only person I can trust is myself.

Still, haven't principalities been a thing in the real world?

Yes, but it's worth noting that in terms of political structure Equestria is typically presented as being more like an Empire, or at least a collection of city-states. Griffonstone and the Crystal Empire both appear to be under the purview of Equestria despite having their own ruling bodies, so it's really a question of whether or not either exists beyond the scope of the city we've seen.

Actually, if it's the latter then Princess might make sense as a title—if Celestia were the Princess of Canterlot, rather than Equestria as a whole.

Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.