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

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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.

     Original OP text 
I don't know WHAT the Hell happened (I blame shenanigans) but we're going to start from scratch. Post your feels for this awesome show again! Naow!

Edited by Mrph1 on Aug 26th 2024 at 10:24:26 AM

Demetrios Lucky Seven from Des Plaines, Illinois (unfortunately) Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Lucky Seven
#207976: Mar 20th 2025 at 12:01:41 PM

@Rytex: Good one. XD [tup]

-does the Charlie Brown scream after getting yet another page topper- tongue

Edited by Demetrios on Mar 20th 2025 at 2:02:36 PM

Come on! Let's bless them all until we get fershnickered!
Afrovenator Since: May, 2021 Relationship Status: LET'S HAVE A ZILLION BABIES
#207977: Mar 21st 2025 at 7:02:13 PM

In regards to the Earth Pony strength, didn't Big Mac drag an entire house in "Hearts and Hooves Day"? Also, how would Pinkie's family farm rocks if they weren't jacked?

Edit: In regards to outliers, it makes sense why Sunburst sucks at magic compared to other unicorns like Starlight or Twilight. I do think that the average EP is stronger than the average pegasus.

Edited by Afrovenator on Mar 21st 2025 at 10:07:11 AM

"You see, I had to trap Sonic in the hell dimension cause he disrespected gamers."
SpongeGuy11 Since: Jun, 2018
#207978: Mar 21st 2025 at 8:31:56 PM

If Starlight has better magic than Sunburst, why did Sunburst get accepted into Celestia's School of Gifted Unicorns, but not Starlight?

Theriocephalus Amateur Veteran from gimme a map and a moment and I can tell you Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Amateur Veteran
#207979: Mar 21st 2025 at 9:22:14 PM

Season 5 doesn't really portray Starlight as a magic powerhouse, it's worth noting. She's got one particular spell that she's very good at (the cutie mark thing), but otherwise she doesn't last long (or even try to do so) when Twilight is able to face her directly, and her time travel relies on Starswirl's magic scroll — she uses it physically to cast the spell, and the episode treats that plot angle as over and done with once the scroll is lost.

Season 6 and after treats her as a magical powerhouse with a wide range of spells in her own right, but that doesn't really seem to have really been a thing when the backstory was come up with.

theLibrarian Since: Jul, 2009
#207980: Mar 22nd 2025 at 10:07:00 AM

Sunburst got accepted because of his magical feat (just like Twilight), but his expertise lies far more in the academic and theoretical sides of magic rather than the practical, as we can see when he helps restore the Crystal Heart. He's good with regular unicorn magic but is not both a theoretical and practical genius like Twilight was.

Starlight likely did something similar after he left, shutting herself up and learning about a ton of magic to try and be like what she thought Sunburst was.

Edited by theLibrarian on Mar 22nd 2025 at 10:09:56 AM

GNinja The Element of Hyperbole. from The deepest, darkest corner of his mind. Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
The Element of Hyperbole.
#207981: Mar 22nd 2025 at 11:41:12 AM

Starlight always struck me as a relatively intellectually incurious pony, and that's the main thing that holds her back. In terms of raw talent, she might even be on par with Twilight, but Twilight is greatly interested in magic and is well read. I think Twilight will always know more magic than Starlight ever will. That's because Starlight by contrast will only learn new magic when she needs it for something specific. Even after being redeemed she's like that. Like, that big show off scene she has at the beginning of Every Little Thing she does? That's her intentionally trying to wow Twilight to get out of doing friendship work. She went out of her way to learn all that stuff for a reason, not because it's like her passion.

I always saw her and Sunburst as something similar. In The Crystalling we see her struggling with magic until Sunburst shows her how to do it, then she can do it easily, and in all of those flashbacks the main thing Starlight remembers is having fun with her best friend. I always headcanoned that after Sunburst left, it took her a long time to muster up any interest in learning magic again, and if anything getting her cutie mark when she did would've made her more angry. Because she COULD have been with Sunburst, but they got their marks at different times.

Edited by GNinja on Mar 22nd 2025 at 6:43:38 PM

Kaze ni Nare!
Rytex Your Friend on the Other Side from Here, There, Everywhere (Ancient one) Relationship Status: Married to the music
Your Friend on the Other Side
#207982: Mar 22nd 2025 at 6:45:23 PM

Let's also not forget, during that fight with Twilight, Starlight had a win condition infinitely easier to achieve than Twilight's win condition. Twilight's win condition was to stop Starlight from causing any deviation from the prime timeline, resulting in a Butterfly of Doom. Starlight literally had to cause even the tiniest change. She held all the power and none of Twilight's magical talent could overcome that. Hell, when Twilight tried to win through brute force multiple times, Starlight found a way to turn that against her.

I don't think there's any kind of definitive proof that Twilight or Starlight is stronger in magic than the other. They didn't exactly meet in a straight fight.

So with that in mind, I don't know how sound it is to say that she should have been in Celestia's School because she could match Twilight in a duel.

Edited by Rytex on Mar 22nd 2025 at 8:46:49 AM

The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
Ferot_Dreadnaught Since: Mar, 2015
#207983: Mar 22nd 2025 at 7:28:29 PM

[up]That fits my point that Starlight only did as well as she did against Twilight out of skill, lacking the power to win a prolonged fight but the time spell mean it never lasted that long (but it raised the question of why Starlight's stamina persists if she's also time traveling with each use).

@Afrovenator: Big Mac pulling the house was under the effects of love potion/Rule of Funny, rather than clearly his normal strength (it remains his biggest feat)/earth pony exclusive strength. And Trixie worked on the Pie's rock farm without issue, so they don't need super (by pony standards at least) strength to mine (Maud is the only one showing super-level abilities). As said before, Lily Longsocks is the only one showing ability beyond Charles Atlas Superpower and is treated as an outlier. I just realized earth ponies with unique powers (Pinkie/Cheese/Maud sense) are at least around as common as those with super strength, what does that say about strength being a normal earth pony power?

As for Starlight's powers, Aborted Arc notes Twilight explicitly noted she was unusually powerful, and was able to match her in spellcasting. And in the S1 premiere Starlight's upset that Twilight's able to use a spell it to her months to master. So it seems inconsistent if she was supposed to be more powerful. Should AA be moved to They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot as fans projecting the possible plot rather than being deliberately set up? (Just realizes Twilight's ability could have reminded Starlight of Sunburst's thus triggering her.)

The issue is the show never clearly established the difference between power and skill in magic that could explain this. My thoughts:

  • Skilled: Starlight, Star Swirl, and other normal magic prodigies who's effectiveness is smarts in using it and power comes from repeat practice.
  • Knowledgeable: Sunburst, who has great theoretical know-how but lacks the magic skill to put them into practice himself.
  • Powerful: Twilight and alicorns, who's innate power is such they can preform feats equal or far surpassing what regular unicorns need skill and practice to match.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Mar 22nd 2025 at 7:32:00 AM

superboy313 Since: May, 2015
#207984: Mar 22nd 2025 at 9:26:55 PM

Probably talked about this before, but here's how I think My Little Pony would be different if it were rated TV-PG:

  • More mature themes would be featured. Like Applejack's parents would be explicitly stated to be dead and we'd get a flashback showing how they died.
  • Violence would be far more prevalent. The battle between Twilight and Tirek for example would actually have them throwing fists at each other.
  • A few suggestive moments. Particularly in Equestria Girls.
  • Never Say "Die" would be averted completely. With characters saying "kill" instead of "destroy".
  • The season finales would be a lot darker than they already are. In "To Where and Back Again", Queen Chrysalis would not only ponynap the Mane Six and Princesses, but she would also slowly and painfully drain the life out of them to fuel her kingdom. Possibly resulting in them dying temporarily and being brought back to life by the power of friendship. (Think the Powerpuff Girls episode "Knock It Off")
  • At least one or two villains would be a Complete Monster. King Sombra, Queen Chrysalis and Lord Tirek seem like the best candidates.
  • Twilight suffering from PTSD like Steven Universe or Samurai Jack.

Edited by superboy313 on Mar 22nd 2025 at 8:28:36 AM

VengefulBale Bishie Gijinka Meta Knight from Nowhere Since: Feb, 2016 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Bishie Gijinka Meta Knight
#207985: Mar 22nd 2025 at 9:32:00 PM

[up] With the way Season 9 portrayed him, it's doubtful a Darker and Edgier work would make Tirek a CM since he has actual noble traits on principle compared to Chrysalis, Sombra and Cozy. The former two are definitely likelier to be monstruous.

Prettiest Meta Knight Gijinka, ngl
superboy313 Since: May, 2015
#207986: Mar 23rd 2025 at 1:49:43 AM

[up]As for Twilight having an emotional breakdown near the end of the series, it would probably be more like Steven's than Jack's. As attempting suicide out of despair might be going a little too far.

What would it even be about anyway?

Edited by superboy313 on Mar 23rd 2025 at 1:57:44 AM

storyyeller More like giant cherries from Appleloosa Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: RelationshipOutOfBoundsException: 1
More like giant cherries
#207987: Mar 23rd 2025 at 11:41:04 AM

In regards to the Earth Pony strength, didn't Big Mac drag an entire house in "Hearts and Hooves Day"?

I consider H&HD to be less dispositive than MMDW because it is confounded by the love potion and Rule of Funny.

Post of the Week #3651

In that shot, it's not just the way pony blinking animations always look like "bedroom eyes" if you pause halfway through. It's also the way she's looking over her shoulder, partially hiding behind her outspread wing. And that she's in her library (and the fandom loves to joke about how much she loves her books). It's a perfect storm of innocuous details accidentally converging to make it look like Twi's flirting with us.

Posted by Meta Four on 11th Sep 2016 02:29:26 PM - Post #162338 in the new thread

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play
DoctorWTF Since: Jul, 2020
#207988: Mar 23rd 2025 at 8:20:25 PM

[up][up][up][up] Perhaps they also wouldn't have been so hesitant to formally acknowledge Scootaloo as disabled. Which might ironically have made her situation feel less tragic if she were allowed to explore the wonderful world of aeronautics instead of having the staff be like "oh, she just hasn't figured it out yet" but having her receive no assistance in that department.

And for what it's worth, if we extend that to G5, then Opaline already comes fairly close to qualifying as a Complete Monster - a TV-PG rating could easily put her over the edge.

Ferot_Dreadnaught Since: Mar, 2015
#207989: Mar 23rd 2025 at 8:33:24 PM

  • Keep in mind Chrysalis failed to qualify as CM in part because she came off as Unintentionally Sympathetic, many complaining her punishment in the finale was unfair even if fewer than the other villains. What specifically would you change to make her that much more heinous?
  • How would the heroes briefly dying in the S6 benefit that stories intended themes of leaders encouraging not suppressing individuals uniqueness and having to put aside self-doubt to do what's right? Otherwise is seems pointless given we'd know it wouldn't stick.
  • The SJ and SU PTSD examples worked because they had the whole series of traumas to lead up to it. Given how FIM was Twilight overcoming her issues though friendship, how would such still leave lasting traumas that would lead to such? (It took time skips for those PTSD cases to develop, where could such fit into FIM.)

Darker and Edgier worked for S5 Samurai Jack because it was already a dark and violent series, S5 merely made it more explicit and deconstructed the implications. How would being darker fit and benefit the intended themes and content of FIM? (One is allowing Cozy and others to cross enough lines their punishment no longer seems unfair.)

Keep in mind the 2017 tired to be darker, but failed so badly a common general audience criticism was that it was overly saccharine (presumable due to not taking the darker stuff seriously enough), and even fans who understood it was darker gave it mixed reception/thought it didn't do anything the less dark show hadn't done better, seeming evidence against being darker fitting FIM. How would your proposed darkening avoid that?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Mar 23rd 2025 at 8:33:52 AM

SpongeGuy11 Since: Jun, 2018
#207990: Mar 23rd 2025 at 8:47:28 PM

[up]If the 2017 movie being dark didn't work, what made it work when other story driven shows took a darker tone later like Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe, Avatar the Last Airbender, TMNT 2012, Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated, OK KO, Gravity Falls, Amphibia, Duck Tales 2017, Owl House, and more? MLP is about as dark and story driven as those shows. There is a Nightmare Fuel page for a reason.

And what about movies based on TV shows that went a Darker and Edgier route such as the first Sponge Bob movie, Recess School's Out, the first two Rugrats movies, and The Simpsons Movie? Given those shows were even more on the comedic side than MLP, how did that approach not backfire on those movies?

Edited by SpongeGuy11 on Mar 23rd 2025 at 11:48:03 AM

Theriocephalus Amateur Veteran from gimme a map and a moment and I can tell you Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Amateur Veteran
#207991: Mar 23rd 2025 at 11:09:22 PM

Would you say that the 2017 movie "worked" in the first place? It had its good points, but I don't think I've ever really seen it discussed as a particularly high point in the show's history.

SpongeGuy11 Since: Jun, 2018
#207992: Mar 23rd 2025 at 11:24:12 PM

[up]By that logic, what about other movies based on TV shows? What helped them be better than MLP's movie? Like, how else could they have done for the movie?

VengefulBale Bishie Gijinka Meta Knight from Nowhere Since: Feb, 2016 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Bishie Gijinka Meta Knight
#207993: Mar 23rd 2025 at 11:42:47 PM

The MLP movie is divisive at best. It bombed, fans perceived it as being character assassination for the sake of plot and its villain was pathetic. Only parts everyone 100% liked were Capper, Tempest and the songs.

It also suffers from trying to go Darker and Edgier in the feeling of scope while dumbing down everyone so there's even a plot to begin with (like how the Storm King's army is defeated by a ragtag group of pirates and some ponies instead of an organized army) while doing nothing to feel larger than an extended episode of the series

Prettiest Meta Knight Gijinka, ngl
Theriocephalus Amateur Veteran from gimme a map and a moment and I can tell you Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Amateur Veteran
#207994: Mar 24th 2025 at 7:50:50 AM

I think that the movie's main issues centered around overcrowding.

One the one hand it was a part of an ongoing series, and as such it was conceptually obligated to include the series' central cast. Despite this you can tell that the story doesn't really have a place for most of the main six — Twilight and Pinkie are the only ones with significant roles, and the rest are just... sort of along for the ride.

(An episode in a regular season could get away with just including the one or two characters it wanted to use — many do — but the movie being so big and high profile couldn't get away with just writing out four of the six main characters.)

On the other hand it also included a large number of new characters with high-profile voice actors, who had to jockey for screentime with the main cast and each other. Tempest was the only one, I think, that really had the screen time she needed; Capper and the Storm King got a bit, and the rest... not so much.

So you end up with this constant rotation of new faces that show up for a scene, have a bit of focus, and leave the story for the next group, while two thirds of the nominal main characters are just trailing along for no immediately clear reason. It's not good writing.

(The G5 movie didn't have these issues, because by being the first installment of its generation it had no previously established characters to need to use and didn't overload itself with celebrity voice roles, so it only includes the characters needed for its story and has a much cleaner, more consistent narrative.)

SpongeGuy11 Since: Jun, 2018
#207995: Mar 24th 2025 at 8:20:01 AM

[up][up]It didn't bomb. It still made money with $61.3 million on a $6.5 million budget.

And how come no one's brought up how other movies based on TV shows fare compared to the MLP movie?

M29S5 Since: Mar, 2021
Ferot_Dreadnaught Since: Mar, 2015
#207997: Mar 24th 2025 at 1:05:55 PM

[up][up]Those other works were designed around action such they had the fundamentals to work as such (consistent and balanced abilities) for action to work. FIM only started to get serious action in the S2 finale, peaking in S4's, where it no longer had the escalation/wow factor to offset the flaws required to fit action in there (contrivances to set such up, inconstant abilities, everyone save the heroes being useless), and they higher quality animation deleted the movie past the point such action/characterization would have worked.

Not sure how the movies fare, but those that theatric releases even if profitable were only misted box offices successes at best.

@DoctorWTF: How is Opaline close to CM? She didn't hurt Misty even after learning of her defection, which put her below the trio in the FIM finale (who unambiguous tried to kill the heroes after threatening a baby dragon), it's clearly unwilling to acknowledge the Inferred Holocaust between gens (would sooner bring them back rather than kill off races, see the dragons) to the extent that would qualify her. (Granted, the issue of CM qualifications is such we've put a freeze on them for the foreseeable future.)

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Mar 24th 2025 at 1:06:11 AM

storyyeller More like giant cherries from Appleloosa Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: RelationshipOutOfBoundsException: 1
More like giant cherries
#207998: Mar 29th 2025 at 10:33:30 AM

Post of the Week #3652

@Tobias: I'm confused, are you talking about the establishment of the School of Friendship in general, or about the episode talking about each race's winter traditions? If it's the latter, I'm having trouble grasping where this missionary narrative is.

The missionary narrative is where Twilight apparently took it upon herself to give the changelings a list of directions on how to celebrate Pony Christmas when they were setting up their new pony-approved society.

It's reminiscent of Christian missionaries bringing to other cultures food and medicine but also Bibles, because the point of the mission is as much to convert as it is to aid. The food and medicine gets the missionary's foot in the door so that they can start preaching the Gospel to those who haven't heard it.

Before that, we'd been given no indication that ponies had any involvement in the development and establishment of Thorax's new hive. Thorax himself had learned and embraced friendship while in the Crystal Empire, but was being left to build his new culture himself. This piece of information, however, suggests a more direct hand in molding changeling culture to suit Equestrian values.

Especially since Twilight doesn't really have any established relationship with the changelings beyond briefly giving Thorax a stamp of approval after Spike vouched for him. It's a little awkward that it's the Princess of Friendship and not, say, Starlight or Trixie or Spike that decided the changelings needed to celebrate Pony Christmas.

Posted by Tobias Drake - Post #187771 in the new thread

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play
SpongeGuy11 Since: Jun, 2018
#207999: Mar 31st 2025 at 6:33:48 PM

Curious, what would Lauren Faust think of season 3 onward and the 2017 movie if she watched them? I know she didn't like Equestria Girls, but what would she think of season 3 onward and the movie?

KiraKiwi410 Since: Jun, 2024
#208000: Mar 31st 2025 at 11:44:57 PM

She'd probably be somewhat critical of them.


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