A thread to discuss My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the tie-in media.
All of the usual forum rules
apply. In addition, please remember that the thread is discussing a kids' show, and it's primarily focused on the work itself, not the fanfic — in particular, we don't want to see lewdness creeping in.
Edited by Mrph1 on Aug 26th 2024 at 10:24:26 AM
![]()
Getting a little heated is way better than letting people get talked at in a one-sided conversation.
Even within the setting. Twilight basically goes, "Hey, we should be careful because bad stuff might happen." Then they aren't careful and bad stuff is the consequence.
If they had been more cautious early on, they never would have saved Equestria. That's the thing.
If they'd listened to Twilight in Klugetown, they never would have went with Capper. He wouldn't have helped them take back Equestria and the Storm King would have won.
If they'd listened to Twilight on the pirate ship, they never would have convinced the pirates to abandon the Storm King's orders. They all would have been made to walk the plank, the pirates would go on being the Storm King's delivery birds, and Equestria would never be saved.
Conversely, if Twilight hadn't tried to steal the Pearl and if the plan to reach out to Princess Skystar had been genuine, they would have had an army of hippogriffs to help take back Equestria.
Twilight is 100% wrong because she's not the voice of reason. She's the voice of not trying in the first place. She doesn't say that they should go with Capper but be careful and watch for potential traps. She doesn't want to go with him at all. She doesn't say they should reach out to the birds but only within reason; she doesn't want to reach out to the birds at all.
She has tunnel-vision focus on getting to the Queen of the Hippogriffs with as few risks taken as possible, and it's because nobody listens to her that the mission ultimately succeeds. In fact, it was only because they went with Capper that they found out about Mt. Aeris and the hippogriffs in the first place. If Twilight had her way, she'd be picking a fight with the Queen of the Hippos about why they won't help halfway through the movie.
Once again: nobody's ever changed the world by playing it safe and taking minimal risks.
edited 6th Apr '18 5:22:53 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I think they would have found a way to Mt. Aeris eventually even without Capper and the pirate birds. Find the Klugetown equivalent of a Han Solo with a Millennium Falcon to smuggle them out of town without attracting the attention of the Storm King's forces (except they're discovered and trailed anyway because narrative). Find the hippogriffs, then negotiate and befriend their way into gaining all of them as an ally. In the end, no Capper and no pirate birds, but at least they have all the hippogriffs and the transformation pearl's powers backing them. And maybe the Klugetown equivalent of Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon after they come back at the last minute to save someone's bacon in the ensuing battle.
Basically, don't fall into the trap of thinking there is only one way history could have gone down. Or in this case, the events of a fictional story.
edited 6th Apr '18 5:48:15 PM by KylerThatch
This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...Yeah, it's not like almost getting captured and escaping is the only, or even most efficient way to fulfill their goals. I'm sure they could have found information about the Hippo Queen somewhere in Klugetown, and even if they run into danger... well they ran into danger anyway with Capper.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play![]()
![]()
![]()
2 things:
One, it's a huge leap in logic to say that because the events of the movie happened the way it did it couldn't possibly have happened any other way. The fact that we don't see what might have happened otherwise doesn't mean that there aren't any other sequences of events that could've led to them managing to save Equestria in the end. If they hadn't have gone with Capper, yeah, he wouldn't have helped them retake Equestria, but all that means is that he wouldn't have helped them. It would've been entirely possible for them to find and befriend somebody else.
Second, nobody is saying that they should never take risks, or that you should always play it safe, just that there's a middle ground between "trust no one" and "trust everyone". Trying to make that a dichotomy really oversimplifies the situation. It's true that Twilight definitely leans too hard on the former in the movie, but the fact that the movie seems to treat the latter is a valid solution is an issue.
Of course, this leads in what my main issue what the movie is: Twilight shouldn't be the one who has to learn the damn lesson. The entire show thus far as been about Twilight learning about friendship. She's the princess of Friendship. The Powers That Be in the Equestrian universe ascended her to alicornhood on the basis of her knowledge of friendship. Why the hell is the plot of the movie built around Twilight not understanding friendship and needing the rest of the cast to teach her?! If anything the rest of the cast should be getting discouraged and needing Twilight to encourage them, because she's the one who's supposedly the setting's expert in that domain.
edited 6th Apr '18 6:50:42 PM by JapaneseTeeth
Reaction Image RepositoryDid you put the right number of arrows in? Because I was agreeing with you.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayI got ninjad and was too lazy to fix it after typing all that.
Also, we need to settle on a name for the RR so we can get it posted.
Reaction Image RepositoryIt's been quite a while since the Dread Arrow Ninja made an appearance.
As for the title, I vote for Pony Pony Literature Club.
edited 6th Apr '18 6:58:23 PM by storyyeller
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayThat the events could have happened in other ways is a double-edged sword. There might be other ways they could have achieved their goals, but there are also many other ways in which their goals would not have been achieved and their mission would end in failure. It is just as much a logical trap to assume that if they didn't do the things that led to success, they would still have inevitably succeeded some other way.
It's true that there are many ways that history can go down, but there are just as many outcomes as there are paths. Many of those are unpleasant. It is, in fact, a lot harder to achieve a good outcome than an unpleasant one because there are just so many different ways a given event can go poorly. For Want Of A Nail is a trope for a reason; failure is so much easier to achieve than success.
As for why Twilight's the one who has to learn this: because it's a crisis of faith. Believing in friendship is not Twilight's default mode. It's something she's had to come around to. She's a convert to the Magic of Friendship. She's had to make a serious effort to change her behavior in order to find value in it in the first place. A recurring element of MLP's antagonists is that there but for the grace of Ponyville, Twilight could have been Sunset Shimmer or Starlight Glimmer or Tempest Storm.
But they've never really drawn that parallel before. Sunset and Starlight were presented as "Like Twilight but bad", but the movie goes the extra mile by letting us see Twilight fall from grace. It's about her backsliding into the cranky misanthrope she was when we met her for the first time. This is a very real hurdle that many people who try to improve themselves face; the ease with which old habits resurface when life is at its hardest.
edited 6th Apr '18 7:30:39 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.There are plenty of ways that anything could go wrong. It's impossible to know with 100% certainty what will and what won't work. We can only know with 100% certainty what did and did not work.
Any work of fiction's message is buried in the did and the did not.
edited 6th Apr '18 7:57:34 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Ah, I think I'm seeing where part of the disagreement is coming from. Tobias, if I'm not mistaken, you're coming from the perspective that the events of the story already happened as they did, and building the case from there? Whereas I'm approaching this more from the angle of what the characters might have or haven't known in the moment while all of the things were still happening. Does that sound about right?
This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...So, I'm back. The shelter looks after me well, though it's ultra-right-wing and ultra-conservative. As a newby, I have to attend "church services" every morning or the first 30 days, except they're not church services. They're just called that. They're actually pro-Apartheid propaganda sessions.
Still, I'm smart enough to know that and am making friends despite that. I've actually met and befriended a brother and sister who watch the show.
So, I'm going to deal with the politics in order to survive. Because the ideals that things like this show have taught me are strong enough to survive any attempts t corrupt them.
Post of the Day #2114
They actually went out of their way to create new background ponies and give them names and lines for this. Thunder Lane (I think that's his name) is pretty cool. Also, there's that grotesquely buff pegasus again. I'm getting a Ren and Stimpy vibe from him, but in a good way. Derpy also continues to exist, so there's a plus.
I'm talking about the film's themes; the central message behind why things played out the way they did. The underlying reason behind who got rewarded and who got punished based on the moral lesson the film wants to push.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

@Tobias: I think you're overstating the degree of wariness they show. I think it could be argued that their degree of caution is appropriate for the setting, but approaching any sort of realistic situation in that way would be pretty dangerous. Like, yeah, give a guy a chance, but also show some awareness that you might be taken advantage of and take steps to prevent it. Nobody's disputing that the movie's narrative is geared to demonstrate the moral that friendship is the best way to solve problems, what's in question is whether the actual plot of the movie bears out that moral, regardless of what the movie wants us to take away from it.
Like I said before; the moral only works if the plot plays out naturally; if they only end up winning because of narrative fiat, it falls flat.
That said, I also don't think that Twilight is 100% wrong all through the movie either. Yeah, friendship solves all their problems in the end, but by the same token they wouldn't have had do deal with those issues in the first place if they had been a bit more cautious early on.
edited 6th Apr '18 1:22:32 PM by JapaneseTeeth
Reaction Image Repository