^^ Right, but from a semantic point of view I'd still like to point out that "anything worth finding" is not, strictly speaking, the same thing as "anything".

Put another way, most of Antarctica served as a darn effective barrier to the hinterlands of the continent. Just because most people wouldn't consider a giant frozen plain to be worth exploring doesn't inherently mean the giant frozen plain wasn't there.

Heck, if nothing else a polar barrier could block a theoretical route to the other hemisphere. The Arctic ice certainly proved a formidable barrier to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

@Yammi: I have a...

Well, 'ask' blog isn't exactly the right term for it anymore, but I have a tumblr blog. It's mostly domestic thing about Hoops and Dumbbell so my larger headcanons and verse don't matter that much, but there's a couple of small details here and there. Dumbbell is a student teacher and one of his students is an immigrant from The Passlands, Hoops' dad comes from a country called Zohannon and he has a few traditions from there (As well as a few other Zohannonite characters including Griffons, as Zohannon is the Griffon's original territory), that kind of stuff.

Post of the Day #2310

Whenever I get the urge make a novelty sock puppet I remember that I don't want do be the user who loses their original account and ends up with the sock account

So! "Twilight's Kingdom".

Yeah, they did kinda have Twilight trek halfway across the country just to unfurl a banner and wave from a balcony. I get the importance of having all the royalty in one place to give the talks the extra... hmm, let's say legitimacy, but the way Celestia worded it might as well have said that Twilight's just there to look good. If your royal duty is to essentially be there for the look of the thing but not to take part in anything of actual importance, I can see how you might get the impression that you're essentially window dressing.

"You'll Play Your Part" is a lovely song, but it's pretty much the other three princesses singing about how they have no clue what Twilight's meant to do with herself or what her destiny is, but they're sure she'll figure something out. This is not bad in and of itself, I want to stress — they're hardly omniscient, and having Twilight work out her own place in the world is certainly a narratively satisfying way to do things — the issue is primarily that it doesn't fit especially well with the narrative the show was hinting at in Season 3 that Celestia was guiding Twilight towards a big destiny or apotheosis.

... that being said, Twilight actually does do things as a princess beyond smiling and waving. She had her role judging the trades at the trader exchange, and the Ponyville locals all clearly look up to her a lot.

Tirek is one delightfully creepy bastard before getting his power boosts. I think I like him a lot more when he's being a weird old creep than when he's his powered-up, Big Red Devil, evil-for-evil's-sake bad guy self. Also, you gotta love the sounds of bones cracking when he grows after eating magic the first time.

The first scene of part 2 is... interesting. Twilight wants to get her friends involved to help her keep the alicorn magic secret, but Celestia tells her not to in order to keep them safe. Valid reason to skirt around the magic of friendship, fair enough, but it makes the "I've finally learned it's okay to rely on my friends for help" bit in "School Raze" make even less sense. Why does a finale I like so much have so many plot holes?

And the princesses' plan is thrown off by Tirek happening to look at one of the windows. The best laid plans o' mice and men...

I have no clue how intentional this was, but "Let the Rainbow Remind You", especially the first lines, provides a nice preemptive rebuttal to Starlight's the-tall-poppy-gets-cut-down take on equality.

There are a lot of things that provide a pre-emptive rebuttal to Starlight's philosophy because Starlight's philosophy is the polar opposite of the show's central thesis.

Royalty just being there at events to smile and wave and look pretty is no strange thing in monarchies, mind you. But these days they usually DO have a job of their own, or they do charity work or the like. Royal families have had centuries of practice with what to do with the sort of superfluous royalty that Twilight seems to have become. Have no kingdom to rule? No problem, you can always promote friendship education. And in this world, friendship is an actually tangible thing, so it isn't even as symbolic as that sounds.

The problem isn't royalty being useless, since that is common and understandable. The problem is that it jars with the season 3 subplot.

Of course, season 3 was written back when they thought it might be the last, so they wanted Magical Mystery Cure to be a satisfying series finale. Shame they had no idea what to do afterwards.

It makes it look like Celestia only planned up until Twilight's coronation, but never stopped to consider what ROLE she should have. Which, realistically, she should have done long before Twi's ascension.

HOT TAKE: Magical Mystery Cure would have been a pretty anticlimactic series finale. It's a fun premise for a silly musical Slice of Life episode and I love it, but it is weird that this is the thing that made Twilight suddenly ascend.

Not uncovering the Elements of Harmony. Not reimprisoning Discord. Not saving the Crystal Empire. Not defeating Tirek. No, it's that one time when she f*cked up and ruined her friends' lives. But then she unf*cked all of her friends. THAT WAS WHEN SHE WAS TRULY WORTHY.

Like. I feel like they just stapled Twilight's ascension to the end of an already-written Slice of Life episode to make sure they got it done before the possible cancellation. It's a great episode, mind you, but having it be where Twilight proves that she's ready to become an alicorn is about on par with having her ascension at the end of "Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" or "Twilight Time".

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 20th 2018 at 7:13:26 AM

That's a contender for the most controversial thing you've said right there.

Edited by Zennistrad on Oct 20th 2018 at 10:16:56 AM

Would it surprise you to learn that M.A. Larson's initial idea for the episode was a lot more epic? It would've been a two-parter, and instead of Twi just messing up her friends' destinies and/or cutie marks, it would have involved Twi opening Pandora's Box and screwing up all magic in the entire world. Then she would have invented an entirely new kind of magic in order to fix everything.

I'm not sure how any of that would have involved Friendship, but that would have definitely proven Twi's credentials as a Princess of Magic, at least.

Magical Mystery Cure was likely held back significantly by being written for Season 3, which was much shorter than normal and didn't allow for a two-part finale as usual. A plot with its sheer level of long-term significance would have definitely benefitted from having a two-parter to fully explore it in greater depth.

As it stands, the episode feels like it's completely rushed, with little thematic connection between the actual cutie mark swap and Twilight's ascension. And it's a primarily musical episode for some inexplicable reason that I still can't wrap my head around.

Edited by Zennistrad on Oct 20th 2018 at 11:50:45 AM

If you decouple the aspect of Twilight's ascension and just consider the plot about having to fix Starswirl's spell to put her friends' cutie marks back in order, it's a pretty good episode.

I think that the biggest issue "MMM" had was the combination of it being both such a plot-important episode and also being a single-length musical episode. It would have been cramped for time even without the songs, but as it stands it ends up skimming past a lot of important things.

As I see it, if an episode's concept can be summed up as "Twilight accidentally swaps her friends' talents and lives and her fixing it turns her into an alicorn", the interesting and/or entertaining parts are going to be a) the role-swap Bizarro Episode setup, b) the method Twilight comes up with to fix things and its execution, and c) the ascension itself. The issue is, however, that "MMM" gives very little focus to the first two — Fluttershy's predicament and her resolution are the only ones the show tackles at a normal pace, and in both cases the rest of the main characters are packed into song numbers that quickly introduce them, rush them offstage and head off to glance at the next character.

Ironically, only the segments transitioning between the major events and setup introductions are told at a slower pace — and given that most of them focus on Twilight feeling bad for what she's done, it's difficult to connect with her when we're shown so little of what she has done.

When we get to the resolution, the episode's breakneck pace has given the audience little time and information to properly digest what has happened and what it means for Twilight to have done what she has done, so a fair bit of the emotional impact of that is harmed because likely as not we're still busy trying to finishing processing everything else. Then, since there are only minutes to spare before the 22-minute time limit comes calling, the big conclusion needs to be wrapped up quickly with another musical number before the credits roll.

Essentially, "MMM" ended up rushing past its setup and plot, slowing down for the transitions, and diving into the status-quo changing resolution with relatively little buildup before rushing past that, too. It was not a well-paced episode, to say the least. The idea could have been really good, but it really needed have more room to take place in.

And it's a primarily musical episode for some inexplicable reason that I still can't wrap my head around.

The reason is to save time. MLP two parters already tended to be rushed at the best of time, and MMC had the unenviable task of trying to cram a two parter into a single episode. They basically had to make it a musical just to fit the plot.

If you decouple the aspect of Twilight's ascension and just consider the plot about having to fix Starswirl's spell to put her friends' cutie marks back in order, it's a pretty good episode.

Also this. I think it started out great, but lost a lot of stream once it randomly switched to the coronation.

slowing down for the transitions

I don't think it is so much slowing down for transitions as the fact that the very nature of a musical means the non-musical parts are slower paced. At least when the songs are used to convey plot, and not just for filler.

It was a good episode in the same way Crusaders of the Lost Mark was a good episode—it was 90% great and then WHOA HEY HELLO MAJOR PLOT DEVELOPMENT HOW YA DOING?

This. I agree with all the criticism, but I also really enjoyed MMC despite it. I know some people have been very harsh of the songs, but, well, I liked those too.

Post of the Day #2311

Exactly my thoughts on it. It's weird and doesn't really fit for this to be Twilight's ascension episode - though I do like the sound of What Could Have Been for the original idea that Meta Four mentioned - but if you ignore the ascension, it's a fun episode with a goofy premise and a lot of catchy music.

Yeah, it has some of my favorite songs in the show.

If I could rearrange the show, I think I'd cut the ascension off of it and stick the rest at the end of season 1, right before the Gala. Make it a sort of "Part 1" to "Best Night Ever".

The opening to the episode, "Morning in Ponyville", feels like it would be a perfect fit to start of the season 1 finale. Instead of being like, "This is the moment when Twilight was ready to ascend," the episode could be like, "This is the moment when Twilight truly belonged in Ponyville."

She's found her comfort zone here and been accepted by the town at large, and then she briefly f*cks it up. But, by solving the Surprise Best Friends Pop Quiz that is the episode's plot, she makes it right.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 21st 2018 at 9:33:02 AM

I don't think it would feel really earned at the end of season 1, though.

Without the ascension, I think it would be. Season 1 has a lot of focus on Twilight learning the town's ways and trying to belong there. Episodes like "Winter Wrap-Up", "Fall Weather Friends", and "Boast Busters" play on the idea that Twilight's the new pony on the block and is trying to learn how to fit in.

This stops being a thing in season two. By the time "Lesson Zero" rolls around, Twilight can f*ck up half of Ponyville with a love spell and be forgiven because she is absolutely 100% a part of this town and no one ever questions her place there again.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 21st 2018 at 10:59:13 AM

Looking back, "Lesson Zero" was one of the most important episodes in the whole show to influence the directions it went.