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

Pinkie Pride has been seen!

It's actually a nice story, entertaining, enjoyable, and with few logical problems. It's what I needed though it may be because this season really isn't as entertaining as the ones before though it might be nostalgia blinding me a bit.

Oh, and that buggering multicolored sheen! Pinkamena saw it, she was looking at it, and she didn't say a word about it or even seem taken aback! Is it not actually supposed to be seen?

Edited by fredhot16 on Jan 21st 2019 at 7:19:46 AM

I don't think the raindow sheen exists in-universe. It's just a visual cue for viewers.

For me, the biggest problem with Discord was that after season three, his friendship with Fluttershy by and large became an Informed Attribute. In seasons four through six, Discord and Fluttershy never get an episode about the bond they established in "Keep Calm and Flutter On".

The repeated lip service but lack of real story emphasis makes their friendship look less sincere. It makes it look as if Fluttershy is merely holding Discord's leash, fashioned out of his unhealthy and obsessive fixation on her, with neither character particularly liking the other as a person.

Oh, and that horribly OOC part in "Twilight's Kingdom" where Discord betrays Fluttershy, violating his characterization both before and since that episode, didn't help with that.

Instead, Discord becomes Twilight's satellite character, providing some moments of fine hilarity while constantly undermining the very idea that Discord is capable of reformation. Discord is always at his ugliest as a character when the show pairs him up with Twilight (or, in the case of "A Matter of Principals", Discount Twilight). At the same time, never really offering a counterpoint to the idea that trying to rehabilitate Discord was a mistake - because the pony tasked with that particular rehabilitation is always conveniently absent whenever he's onscreen.

The closest they come to a genuine Discord/Fluttershy episode in those three seasons is "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", which is about jealous possessiveness and ultimately reinforces the idea that Discord is not Fluttershy's friend, he's her burden that she has to rein in for the good of Equestria.

It wouldn't be until season seven, with "Discordant Harmony", that we finally get an episode where Fluttershy and Discord legitimately enjoy being around one another.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 21st 2019 at 8:26:17 AM

I don't think that Discord occasionally trolling Twilight makes his reformation a mistake, given that he would have done much, much worse if he weren't reformed, assuming they have no way to keep him frozen without the elements.

Discord lives to cause mayhem, and Twinkie is practically the personification of order. It would be a crime not to have him mess with her. The problem is when he does so more than his supposed big friendship with butteryellow.

If the choice is, "This or Discord running rampant with chaos magic," yes. Nothing he does is ever so terrible.

The show never suggests that's a concern, though. Fans have created that idea to patch the glaring hole in Discord's handling, but all the show ever asserts is that Celestia wants to try and reform him because he could be a benefit to Equestria.

The choice "Keep Calm and Flutter On" presents is that it's either this or him being frozen in stone forever, which would be a terrible waste of his incredible magic. To this end, almost nothing that he does between seasons four through six suggest that him being here is a positive alternative to him remaining a statue.

Season six makes some progress on that front by having Discord make new friends outside of Fluttershy - "Dungeons and Discords" - and then him finally doing something actually beneficial to Equestria - "To Where and Back Again". But the most basic way of showing Discord's reformation, having an episode where he and Fluttershy hang out and he's not a terrible person who only does terrible things, wouldn't come along until season seven.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 21st 2019 at 8:50:25 AM

I think Fluttershy initially seeing Discord as her Burden to bear fits nicely with my interpretation of her character. She would see it as her duty because of her self-imposed status as the Nice Pony. Discord starts not as her friend, but as her Project. It is only later that that grows into real friendship.

The show never suggests that's a concern, though.

It was implied. Discord initially started to break free because Celestia lost her connection to the elements, so it stands to reason that there is at the very least a risk of him breaking out again when the Manes die. But even ignoring that, they had to give up the elements just half a season later.

But it does undermine his reformation because his antics? It's discord being the Master of Chaos but more restrained. He's not tossing cauldrons of chaos on everybody but rather tossing ladles of it at Sparkles. He's still the same amoral manipulative bugger as before but he turned the dial from "zv9" to "eb2" and hides behind a flimsy layer of "being changed" and "tests".

And he didn't bother using his magic to help Equestria when his plunderseeds were rampant!

Edit: Oh, and as for :

Considering how much time it took for discord to break free from his petrification from when the Elements became inert or even when they went from Celestia and that discord still needed a chaotic display to get him free, it was probably not that much a concern to Celestia.

Oh, and the tree of Harmony? It, as a concept, didn't exist when Celestia let discord from his petrification.

Heck, it's still not clear why the Elements had to stay with the tree from a Watsonian view. After all, it's been restored to how it was when Celestia and Luna found it. Couldn't they simply take it back after the plunderseeds were gone?

Edited by fredhot16 on Jan 21st 2019 at 12:52:06 PM

Would Discord be as fun to watch if he got a Friendship Rainbow Lobotomy, though? Half the fun of watching Discord is him being a jealous jerk. There's a difference between a villain reforming and a villain changing their entire pesonality.

I don't want a lobotomy. I want him to learn or show that he's capable of learning. I want him to try to change. His antics do nothing but illustrate that he's learned nothing but how to try to be covert and his comeuppance has him suffer but not actually learn anything.

Edited by fredhot16 on Jan 21st 2019 at 8:47:59 AM

Discord is at his best when he's a jerk but not actively malicious. One of my favorite Discord episodes is "What About Discord?", where the conflict is driven by Twilight's not unreasonable suspicion that Discord's pulling a fast one over her, rooted in unfair jealousy.

With the caveat of ignoring the last thirty seconds or so of the episode where they pull the obligatory "And then Discord was the bad guy after all!" twist in the laziest possible fashion, and promptly undermine the entire f*cking episode that preceded it.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 21st 2019 at 9:52:18 AM

Wow, EQG POTD. I remember all the speculation and theorizing surrounding Sunset.

I also remember all fearmongering the fandom was engaging in back then. Fuck those times.

I remember how we looked at the first sentence in her blindbag description ("formerly Celestia's student") and went apeshit, but completely ignored the second one about how she knew of a portal to magical adventures.

Yeah, 2011 to mid-2012 was the Golden Age, then mid-2012-mid-2014 was the Gilded Age, in which it seemed golden but really was just full of angry fearmongers, and then mid-2014-early-2016 was the Silver Age. Around late 2017 (movie, S7 finale) was the Bronze Age, so I think we've checked all of our obligatory fandom "ages".

Edited by Rytex on Jan 21st 2019 at 10:42:11 AM

Erm, fearmongering?

Well, Sunset's toy was revealed sometime before the first information about EGQ got leaked and promptly dismissed. It would be some time after the EQG speculation began running rampant that some would take notice of that part of the blurb.

People on those days were more worried about the goddamn Alicorn Twilight toy.

Erm, I meant what Rytex uttered about fearmongering.

I've never been fond of Starset being Celesta's former student. It seems unneeded and I preferred Twilight being Celestia's first student in... a long time. But, that brings up an elephant in the room: Sunset's age in pony years. Was she aged down as a human? I always assumed she was 24+ as a pony.

Well, the Mane 6 are clearly young adults going by their respective careers. But apparently they're still in high school over in EQG-land. I blame portal weirdness.

16 may be considered adult by Pony standards. Then again isn't Granny Smith pushing 100?

I actually really like the concept of Sunset as Celestia's failed student, both for her personal arc, but also because of the implications on Celestia and Twilight's relationship.

Going by the comics, the relatioship between both was of a very diffrent nature to Celestia's with Twilight. More formal and distant, and since it took place before the show began, Luna was never in the picutre, so Celestia was probably percieved very different back then than she is now.

Celestia's relationship with Twilight, despite the later's habit of putting her Cellie on a pedestal, has always been considerably more personal, and Celestia has expressed as much in episodes.

Adding to this, Sunset's apology to Celestia is about her own failings as a student, and while she's delivering it, Celestia is posturing, as if gauging her reactions. And when Celestia starts showing the self we as the audience are most familiar with, Sunset is taken aback, because she's never seen this side of Celestia before.

I see Celestia learning from her mistakes with Sunset as one of the stepping stones that led to her success with Twilight (of course, Twilight's own temperament was the other factor that resulted in this success in my book).

Maybe more, Granny Smith was a young mare when her family came to what became Ponyville.

Edited by MrSeyker on Jan 21st 2019 at 12:10:23 PM

It just occurred to me that Sunset would have never really known the pony Luna.

Eh, Sunset was Celestia's former student so as to have her be Sparkles's shadow. (Shadow Sparkles. Man, that moniker is either awesome or quite, quite lame.) It's supposed to be part of how Sunset's way of leadership is the wrong way so as to contrast with how Sparkles got the crown. It's a admirable attempt at a theme so as to give it literary merit.

As for Sunset's age, she became Celestia's student about, erm, "not long before Twilight" and then left in an undetermined amount of time. Sparkles was a filly, about eight or so (I really don't know), and Shimmer was over there for at least three Equestria Girls years and considering how Sparkles became an adult from when Shimmer fled...

Look, Equestria Girls ages are a vague, unknowable thing that aren't really that vital so there ain't going to be any clarification on it. You'll drive yourself mad trying to fit in a way that makes sense.

I can definitely see Celestia being more cold and distant, albeit still polite, pre-Sunset.

You can still see a remnant of this here and there. Her dismissive, bored attitude to the Gala. Her almost complete lack of relations with foreign nations. You can also see it in little mentions she makes about her pre-Twilight days. The Sun Summer Celebration being a time of grief for her. The way she always hides behind that smile of hers. Her mentioning that she learned just as much from Twilight as the other way around.

It also shows a bit in how ponies treated her in the early seasons: with great deference, almost worshipful, but also with an immediate distancing. In the early days, pretty much every pony coming face to face with Celectia immediately, instinctively assumes the role of subject. Compare that with how ponies treat her in later seasons: still polite, but less awestruck and deferential.

Another huge clue is how Luna acted towards her subjects the first time she appeared as herself: with a booming, commanding voice, and very formal. The Canterlot Voice was not a special occasion: it was the default. Luna had to unlearn that.

Edited by Redmess on Jan 21st 2019 at 9:56:30 PM

Eh, I wouldn't go so far as to make that interpretation, especially since that comic is really dated and has no actual relevance for Equestria Girls now (and is kinda lame and has logical stretches) though that's merely me squabbling.