My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Reviews ~ Equestria Girls: Rollercoaster of Friendship

Tags

Applejack, Equestria Girls, Fluttershy, My Little Pony, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, opinion, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarijack, Rarity, review, Rollercoaster of Friendship, Sci-Twi, shipping, Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Vignette Valencia, youtube

Synopsis:

It’s Summer in the human world, and Applejack and Rarity are trying to get a job at the newly-opened Equestrialand theme park selling caramel apples so they can spend the summer hanging out with each other. Instead, however, Applejack doesn’t get hired for the job, and Rarity ends up getting hired by the director of public affairs, an infamous and self-absorbed online “Snapgab” personality named Vignette Valencia, for the job of lead costume designer for the park’s Light Parade. Applejack is disappointed that she misses the chance to spend the summer with Rarity but, as a costume designer job is important to her, she encourages her to take the job regardless. While Rarity hits it off with her new boss readily, she soon gets overwhelmed by the demand of the position and ends up inviting her friends over to the park on the day of the Light Parade with VIP passes to hopefully help mitigate the stress. However, on arrival, Applejack is clearly upset to see how close she and Vignette are already.

As Applejack makes no secret of her jealousy of Rarity’s relationship with Vignette, she, in turn, shows no interest in the girls until they mention they’re the Rainbooms, and on seeing their own feed on Snapgab she decides to have them highlight the Light Parade. As Rarity is too busy to spend any time with the girls, including Applejack, they break off and go around the park. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash both end up trying out the roller coasters, but Dash is the one who ends up getting weak in the knees while Fluttershy enjoys herself. Afterward, Valencia tags Fluttershy to speak with her privately, announcing that she wants to make the Rainbooms appeal to a larger demographic by having them all change their appearances and personalities for the performance. When Fluttershy shows her hesitation, however, Valencia unveils her cell phone, which the audience sees has been tainted by Equestrian magic, and takes a picture of Fluttershy with it; teleporting her into a seemingly white, empty void.

While Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer attempt to win at a rigged ring toss game, with predictable results, Applejack notices Fluttershy is missing and tries to ask Rarity about it, but gets angry when Rarity seems to be more concerned (and increasingly stressed) about the parade. Applejack snoops around the park and finally discovers Fluttershy was last seen with Vignette. After a mishap involving a fake “Deputy Fun Inspector” badge that Pinkie Pie gave her, Applejack accidentally gets access to the park security cameras and spots Valencia as she brings Rainbow Dash to one side with much the same proposal she gave to Fluttershy. On refusing, Rainbow Dash gets zapped into the same void, and Applejack, on seeing her vanish, realizes they’re in trouble.

Rarity almost reaches a breaking point as Vignette, getting increasingly demanding and changing her mind almost constantly about what she wants, commission the costumes to be redone with an hour before the parade. She also gets angrier when Applejack doesn’t show up for final fittings and sound check on time, but as soon as Applejack does arrive she immediately reveals what Vignette has done to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. She attempts to prove it by swiping Vignette’s phone and using it, but unfortunately Vignette overheard her accusations and swapped her phone for a normal one. Nevertheless, Applejack persists in her accusations, leading Rarity to lash back that she’s angry that she was hired and Applejack wasn’t, before Applejack lashes out that Vignette always panders to everyone and that Rarity’s “not special”. This makes her break down in tears and Applejack shamefully runs off. Twilight, Sunset, and Pinkie, however, realize that Applejack never makes things up and was telling the truth about Vignette, but she snapshots them as well as soon as they discover it. Rarity comes back out just as Vignette creates holographic versions of the girls to perform instead according to her idea, and she likewise exposes that she no longer cares about Rarity’s vision and wants to use her own for the parade instead. Rarity realizes Applejack was telling the truth about Vignette, right before she tries to take a picture of her as well.

However, Rarity is able to interrupt Vignette’s phone by blocking its effect with her gem shields, and she runs off to find Applejack while Vignette herself takes over for the parade. On meeting Applejack, Rarity surprises her by apologizing for letting Vignette’s flattery of her distract her from caring about her friends and the two reconcile. Soon after, they get a call from Twilight who has a plan for getting them out of “the phone”, only for Rarity and Applejack to discover that the girls were simply teleported into a random white room within the park itself. However, they soon realize Vignette is getting more corrupted and is now changing whatever she doesn’t like, and that if she does the same to the crowd at the parade thousands of people will be crammed into the room at one time and will be crushed. The girls manage to confront Vignette at the parade just as the crowd boos her horrible song, with Rarity declaring it’s ok to want to be more admired but not at the expense of the ones who care about you. She and the girls “pony-up” and Rarity destroys Vignette’s phone with a rainbow whip. In the aftermath, Vignette admits her vast online popularity has become a substitute for having real friends in her life, but both Rarity and Applejack offer to befriend her. And as the crowd loved the “lightshow” during the parade, the girls are able to perform a new song to cap off the night: “Side by Side”.

Review:

Is this secretly, or even accidentally, the most brilliant entry in the Equestria Girls franchise to date?

Following a series of mediocre specials, what little love the Equestria Girls franchise seemed to garner from “Rainbow Rocks” appeared to have cooled considerably until “Forgotten Friendship/Most Likely to Be Forgotten” aired. I, at least, was far more enthusiastic about the future of the franchise after that came out and was looking forward to the next special. Unfortunately, this was a step backward, almost feeling like a glorified Youtube short rather than something worth an hour-long special.

Part of the reason “Forgotten Friendship” succeeded where “Rollercoaster of Friendship” failed that I realize I didn’t pick up at the time was not simply the focus on Sunset Shimmer but the fact that, aside from the first movie, “Forgotten Friendship” attached itself back to the main series more than any other entry. We spent a good amount of time in good ol’ Equestria and got to expand on both the pony Twilight Sparkle as well as Princess Celestia. By comparison, “Rollercoaster of Friendship”, like most EQ entries, is grounded solidly in the real world where there is, quite literally, little magic to be found.

On the second viewing, I compliment this entry for taking a few more risks, but none of them really panned out (with one possible exception…). One was the series attempting to subvert expectations. The girls appear that they’re on the road to all being trapped again with a buildup to another magic demon to fight, only to turn out they were never trapped at all but stuck in an ordinary room with an unlocked door the whole time. The problem with this one is it didn’t end up being nearly as funny as they hoped. It didn’t help that the build up to it was almost part-and-parcel a repeat of “Mirror Magic”. (Fluttershy is even the first one captured again.) Rather than being an amusing turnabout, it came off as series laziness.

Another was trying to focus on one or two of the girls instead of the group as a whole…and by “as a whole” I mean Sunset, Sci-Twi, and “Etc.”. 😛 This one focuses specifically on Applejack and Rarity and their relationship. The problem is one of the other specials already focused on Rarity: “Dance Magic”. So rather than looking like it’s giving all the girls their chance to shine, it looks like she’s unbalanced in coverage compared to the others.

The third, and biggest, was the villain. One thing the series hadn’t touched on yet that was ripe territory for the EQ spinoff was the impact of social media: how it encourages people to become more superficial while at the same time addicting them to the praise and attention they get from grooming a fake personality and appearance. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to hit that hard with the villain. Vignette Valencia is tied with Juniper Montage as the worst villain of the franchise. Unlike Juniper, they tried to give something charismatic with Vignette; namely her ability to roll off complicated responses mixed with LOLspeak and never pausing for air. It was an interesting idea, but it fell flat. Even after watching the special twice I can barely comprehend what Vignette is saying. What more, she is, by far, the most shoehorned villain redemption yet. Throughout the entire special Vignette is continuously superficial and self-absorbed. Even when she hires Rarity she’s only interested in using her. She doesn’t so much get “corrupted” in this one as gets more used to her newfound power. While people complain about Juniper, she at least came off in “Movie Magic” as someone thoughtlessly selfish as opposed to outright selfish. Vignette comes off as just plain selfish and uncaring. And while the special does try to pass in a message at the end about how one can have thousands of followers and no real friends, which is the true black mark of social media, it’s almost an afterthought like a fortune cookie message rather than tied into the plot.

Instead, the plot plays out like a series of Youtube shorts, especially with the bits with Fluttershy/Rainbow Dash and Sunset Shimmer/Sci-Twi. A lot of the humor comes from Rarity stressing out over her new job and the drama comes from the relationship strain between her and Applejack. None of that has anything to do with social media. Now if the series ever tries to do a special that really does focus on social media, it’ll come off as rehashing from this.

This all made for a rather mediocre special to me, but there were two things that stood out. One was something that stood out to me personally. The other…was pretty much the reason this somewhat unremarkable special ended up generating tons of buzz.

As Silver Quill noted in his review of “Friendship Games”, as admired as Sunset Shimmer is the ongoing complaint is that she’s effectively a different character from her initial appearance. He argued that the one thing Sunset has in common both as a villain and as a protagonist is her need to prove herself to be “better” than any challenge that comes her way. And what I liked about this special is it rammed it home in her scene with Sci-Twi. Although she states right at the outset that the game is rigged, she still has to beat it. Why? Because she can’t let the game be “better” than her. She has to prove she’s superior to it. She says it directly in a cold voice: “I don’t like to lose.”

The other needs little introduction…

In the world of the Internet, the rule for shipping two people together is pretty much that they simply appear in the same scene together. This episode, however, made a much more plausible case than usual for “Rarijack”. While all of it is solidly in the realm of ambiguous, there are more than a few moments in this episode. First, there’s the fact the whole center of the episode is Applejack and Rarity wanting to work in the same place so they can hang out all summer. Nothing’s wrong with that or unusual among friends, but the fact that it apparently is so important that the two of them get to do it together as opposed to any of their other friends is unusual. Applejack’s constant reactions to Rarity and Vignette shows she’s clearly jealous. She could be jealous of their friendship, but at the bare minimum that would indicate that Applejack views Rarity as a friend with a special status above the rest of the Humane Seven. Then there’s the fact that Applejack and Rarity constantly hold hands and blush when they look at each other, especially in the ending song when the two seem to be singing to one another.

Considering the fact that similar gestures and looks have been used with Lyra and Bon Bon, who the fandom considered to be a homosexual couple and the show writers seemingly endorsed in later episodes, this has led to widespread speculation that Applejack and Rarity’s human forms are a homosexual couple as well.

For me personally, I don’t think there was anything “conclusive” in favor of that viewpoint. If you realize the whole setup for this plot is contingent on Applejack and Rarity being closer friends with each other than the rest of the girls, it doesn’t seem so much of a big deal. For those who think the episode was implying that Applejack and Rarity or a couple, my suggestion is to think about the plot from the standpoint of them not being a couple and then ask how you could have presented the same plot in such a way to ensure no ambiguity while still letting their relationship as friends come through. I don’t think you could have, so this is going to have to be another one of those deals where I think the audience is just reading too much into it…or, perhaps, subtle fanservice.

In conclusion…average. It seemed a bit worse than average when it first came out due to being overshadowed by “Forgotten Friendship”, but now I consider it solidly middle-ground. Takes some chances but doesn’t really push them enough to work.

Fun Facts:

Similar to “Forgotten Friendship”, this special was originally conceived as a five-part miniseries to be showed as part of the Equestria Girls Youtube series. The TV version appears to be identical to this one.

Apparently, Stinky Bottoms’ Discount Hat Emporium exists in both worlds. 😛

Equestria Land ironically seems to be a land based off of MLP:FIM as if it was an actual series in the human world. Surreal.

Considering the fact the girls have dealt with actual Sirens, I’m surprised Rarity is so cool about fake ones being in the show. 😛

Microchips gets mentioned by name for the first time in a special, although his name was introduced in an earlier Youtube short.

MICROCHIPS: (Offering) “Caramel Apple?” APPLEJACK: “Uh…’Applejack’.” It took me a while to get that joke. That’s what you get for naming yourselves after common objects. 😛

Nice continuity joke. VALENCIA: “I need a stress salad!” (Later) FLUTTERSHY: “Do you mind if I eat this salad? I’m feeling stressed.” RAINBOW DASH: “You gonna eat that stress salad?”

Although they originally appeared in human form in one of the shorts for “Rainbow Rocks”, the humanized Flim-Flam brothers make their first special appearance in this episode.

After Rarity screams about needing a bigger pile of clothes to scream into, the shot fades out and fades in on one of the stuffed animals at Flim and Flam’s ring-toss game: a horse with the same coloration as Rarity. 😀

“…because she’s always blowing smoke up your chimney!” Earn that Y7 rating.

Pinkie Pie knew they were in a room the whole time but just went along with it. 😛

Rating:

2.5 Stars out of 5

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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Reviews ~ Comic Arc #25 (IDW My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Issues #51-53): “From the Shadows”

Tags

Applejack, Fluttershy, IDW, IDW comic, My Little Pony, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, opinion, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, review, Shadow Lock, Spike, the Pony of Shadows, Twilight Sparkle

Synopsis:

After an outing to see “The Bridle of Frankenstag” with the rest of the Mane Six, Twilight Sparkle and Spike are heading home to the Castle of Friendship only to find it has been broken into. The thief is still inside, a mysterious gray unicorn stallion, but he manages to escape with several of Twilight’s books after ransacking the library. Fearful about what just happened, Twilight calls the girls over for an impromptu sleep-over, and on ordering the remaining books she finds that none of the spellbooks have been taken but, rather, history books about monstrous figures from Equestria’s past. The next day, Twilight and Spike use a Location Spell she placed on the books to find them, but on finally tracking them down she finds the books abandoned in an alley with all of their pages blanked out. The girls split up in town, realizing the thief couldn’t have gone far, and through independent investigation find the culprit is a pony named Shadow Lock who has a specialty for book magic, including the ability to erase not only the contents of books but also the knowledge that the content gave to anyone who ever read that book. They manage to track him down to the Public Library just as he’s about to check out even more books, but on being confronted by the girls he uses his power to bring multiple monsters to life out of the books to attack them.

As the girls begin to struggle with the monsters, Shadow calls out that what he’s doing is for their own good; that he’s trying to keep “a darkness” from returning to Equestria. While the girls manage to stop the rampaging monsters by hurriedly moving to the end of their stories, he escapes in the confusion. Over the next few days the girls attempt to stake out classrooms, newspaper offices, and historical reenactment sites to try and corner Shadow Lock, but he either doesn’t show or manages to escape in the same way he escaped the library: unleashing more monsters. Finally, Twilight and the girls set a trap at the Canterlot Museum by holding a huge “History of Equestria” exhibit, then staking out that location. Sure enough, Shadow Lock sneaks in and makes for the archives, thinking the girls asleep, but on arrival he’s surprised to see Twilight Sparkle is awake and waiting for him. She stops him from summoning another monster from a book and offers to hear him out on his reasons for why he’s doing what he’s doing; suspecting that she has the upper hand in she can always call out to wake her friends up to help her. What she doesn’t realize, however, is that Shadow Lock already dealt with them by trapping them in a world brought to life by the museum exhibits.

Pinkie Pie and Applejack find themselves stuck in the cavepony exhibit, Rarity and Rainbow Dash are stuck in the Egyptian-themed exhibit with Queen Cleopatrot, and Fluttershy and Spike are stuck in the medieval exhibit with pony knights and a full-sized dragon. Shadow Lock, deciding to let Twilight continue to think everything’s fine, explains that he discovered he is the last descendant of an ancient pony who was corrupted by darkness into a horrible monster capable of dooming all of Equestria. He first discovered it on reading about him in a book, and ever since then he’s continually found more passages of him that has made him obsessed with the fear that he too will be corrupted by darkness into the same monster. He felt the only way to prevent it from happening was to erase all memory of his existence so that none will ever follow in his footsteps. Twilight, however, points out this won’t stop the inevitable of another tyrant appearing and that erasing and hiding from history won’t stop it; that one has to embrace both the good parts and bad parts of their history if they want to learn from it and keep it from happening again. Her point is proven when Shadow Lock realizes, to his own horror, that by using his spell he has already erased from his own mind how the monster was stopped the first time. Not long after, he is surprised as the rest of the girls show up; revealing they escaped the history traps that they had been stuck in by doing something different from normal history–further proving Twilight’s point. He apologizes for all he’s done and changes his strategy; instead deciding to go through Equestria and use history to find a way to stop the monster from returning and the same thing from happening again. As he departs, Twilight realizes she never got the name of the villain from him, but the girls brush it off. Meanwhile, in the Ponyville House of Antiques, a shoppony accidentally knocks over a blind buy barrel that contains an old journal marked with a star swirl and a picture of the same monster from Shadow Lock’s memory inside…

Review:

With this story arc, the combination IDW comic/main series arc of the Pillars of Old Equestria and the Pony of Shadows was officially launched. The timing was good as it came out prior to the start of Season Seven, even though the actual arc on the show wouldn’t start until midseason. Plotwise, it was an interesting and clever way to launch things to me.

Overall, this whole arc is well-balanced. All of the girls are given something to do although they are shoved into pairs for most of it. Each one gets their own lines, quirks, and gags, just like you would expect from any episode trying to use all of them. The girls treat the whole plot in a rather “light” manner even though it does have some heavy implications, especially when the audience doesn’t know what Shadow Lock’s intentions are exactly initially. The balance works out well in this one rather than being a sharp contrast such as in “Reflections”, “Chaos Theory”, and “The Ponies of Dark Water” (to a lesser extent).

On the “darker” side, the biggest standout is Shadow Lock himself. There’s been a number of OCs in the IDW Comic over the years; many of them just there to fulfill minor roles. Creating a new villain, and a stallion no less, was eye-catching a bit in and of itself. I’m a bit grimacing at the use of a cloak yet again, but overall there’s something about Shadow Lock personality-wise that makes him seem a bit different from the other Equestrians. His attitude seems a bit sharper and more severe.

Some of the last issue is a bit of a callback to the plot in #15 and #16, especially with more monsters coming out of books. I kind of kept thinking of that arc as this one went on, so if there was anything I would mark this arc down for that would be it. Nevertheless, it was still fun and made for some good jokes.

Seen in the context of the entire season arc, a point I will make here and will make later is that the comics went a long way into making the Pony of Shadows a much more intimidating, fearsome, and dangerous foe than the show itself managed. Liberated from the Y-rating and having much more room to work with as they could focus on individual characters, the comic overall did a much better job of promoting the stakes for the Season Seven finale, which itself had such character overload it really only had time for a 44 minute exposition dump. This arc, on the other hand, created an intriguing and foreboding villain in Shadow Lock, and the fact that he was trying to save Equestria from something far deadlier and went to such lengths to ensure it, not to mention the hints and hype that began in this issue, really geared me up more for the Season Seven finale than I would have been otherwise. In that regard, it did its job very well.

If you frame this prequel in the light of what we eventually got out of the show, it seems to downgrade its rating a bit. But keeping in mind how much better the comic did plus how effectively this started building up for the finale, I give it a higher rating it deserves.

Fun Facts:

This comic arc is the prelude to the IDW “Legends of Magic” limited series and the second half of Season Seven’s overarching story arc. The last page connects directly to Season Seven’s “Uncommon Bond”. This arc also, in part, fixes the plot holes of many of the Pillars of Old Equestria never getting mentioned, the Pony of Shadows not having any reputation from legend, and Celestia and Luna not remembering that the Pillars were real individuals, although the “Legends of Magic” arc would later explain that as well by having them purposely avoid making their presence known to either of them. (As well as a brief line from Fluttershy using the incident to explain why the CMCs are still in the same grade after seven years. :P)

“The Bridle of Frankenstag” is playing in the same theater from “The Ponies of Dark Water”, which was apparently rebuilt. Although the girls clearly point out it was a play, the IDW Comic writers seem to have forgotten that film exists in Equestria (as evidenced in “Hurricane Fluttershy” and “One Bad Apple”). 😛

I just noticed…instead of sleeping bags, rollaways, or even spare rooms, for sleepovers Twilight has entire beds in her own bedroom. Weird.

As a nod back to Rainbow Dash admitting to Scootaloo that scary stories got to her when she was younger in “Sleepless in Ponyville”, she’s the only one who had nightmares of Frankenstag.

This arc might be the first time Fluttershy has ever used her attractiveness to get out of a situation.

The cyclops pony bears a resemblance to Bulk Biceps. His Cutie Mark is an eyeball. H. Pony Lovecart is a parody of H.P. Lovecraft, whose horror writings often featured elderich horrors of monstrosities that included tentacles. Hence, nothing but a mass of tentacles comes from his book. Frankenstag’s monster is a parody of Frankenstein’s monster and, as if often the case with those who have read the book, he corrects the cast on misconceptions given from the popular media version. 😛

The “Marshans” are parodies of the Martians in “War of the Worlds”. In that story, the Martian invaders were eventually destroyed by contracting infections and sickness from Earth’s native bacteria.

The Mane-Iac briefly returns in a cameo.

Trenderhoof (from “Simple Ways”) cameos at the Canterlot Daily News office. (Were newspapers really around back in the days of the Pony of Shadows? :P)

Ponebert by Trot Adams is (obviously) a parody of Dilbert by Scott Adams. It seems, just like in real life, the quality of its humor is somewhat up for debate.

In Colonial Whinniesburg, Prancy Drew makes a brief cameo.

So ponies DO have bathrooms and they DO use toilet paper. 😛

Somnambula as a locale (rather than an individual) is mentioned for the first time in this arc.

This arc is the first appearance of the Pony of Shadows (although only as a drawing in a book).

It’s never explained how Shadow Lock managed to descend from the Pony of Shadows, although it’s safe to assume he isn’t a direct descendant of Stygian. It’s also never explained how he got the scar across his snout. Shadow Lock doesn’t look like it compared to the show version, but he does bear a slight resemblance to Stygian in “Legends of Magic”.

Some of Pinkie Pie’s attempts to talk to the caveponies include saying “Artoo Deetoo” or R2-D2, the droid from the Star Wars franchise.

Pinkie Pie randomly mentions the Matrix, complete with shades.

Rating:

4 Stars out of 5

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Reviews ~ Comic Arc #24 (IDW My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Issues #48-50): “Chaos Theory”

Tags

Accord, Applejack, Chaos Theory, Discord, Fluttershy, IDW, IDW comic, My Little Pony, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, opinion, Pinkie Pie, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, review, Spike, Twilight Sparkle

Synopsis:

The Mane Six, Spike, and Starlight Glimmer are all heading out with the residents of Ponyville to enjoy the Cosmic Convergence Conjunction, only to find that they have a “party crasher”: Discord. It’s not long before his chaotic nature and need to be the center of attention earn him a scolding from the girls, who pouts and disappears. Not long after, the Cosmic Convergence Conjuction occurs but, as it does, Starlight notices something nearby. The girls look and see what appears to be a blend of a strange egg and Discord smoldering in the ground. They take it back to the Castle of Friendship only for it to hatch, revealing a creature that looks like Discord but dresses neatly, talks calmly, and acts mannerly. He indicates that he’s a creature that Discord transformed into as a result of the energy of the conjunction, and is not a spirit of chaos but one of order and harmony. Twilight Sparkle names him “Accord” and, on learning that he wants to help bring order and harmony to Equestria, decide to reintroduce him to town. He ends up being extremely mannerly and helpful, earning the admiration of all of the girls except Fluttershy, but Starlight gets uneasy when Accord, rather than fix a hotel under construction that is suffering from a clash of styles from disagreeing architects, momentarily mind controls both of them instead to make them agree on the same design. Twilight and the others rub it off as a mistake, however, and the next day Accord and the girls are invited to Canterlot for a royal luncheon with Celestia and Luna to formally introduce him. While at the luncheon, Starlight vocalizes her disapproval with how Accord acted the other day, but Accord soon surprises everypony by saying he wishes to bring complete harmony to everypony in Equestria via unity, and he plans to achieve unity by making every resident in Equestria think exactly alike and run it under his own direction. He starts by trying to mind-control everypony in the palace and, while Celestia manages to protect the girls, herself, and Luna, everypony else is turned into a like-minded zombie.

Unable to reason with Accord, who believes he is simply doing what Celestia and Luna were trying to do “more efficiently”, Twilight tells Celestia and the rest of the girls to start evacuating Canterlot while she and Luna enter Accord’s mind using her dream magic. While they successfully enter, they soon discovered he’s changed inside and out and all he has is a uniform sameness throughout his mind. Nevertheless, Twilight manages to find a snow globe in one of the monolithic offices inside his head that contains the original Discord. She breaks it open and frees him, but Discord informs her that he is merely the last part of what Accord is now that is still Discord. He confesses that he was truly hurt when the girls scolded him at the Cosmic Convergence Conjunction and felt he would never fit in with them, so he decided to change himself into a harmonious form instead. Unfortunately, he can’t change back unless Accord willingly changes himself back into Discord, and shortly after confessing this the Accords inside his mind trap the three of them… Back outside, Celestia and the girls break for it only to discover Accord is not only rapidly expanding his control to all of the other ponies in Canterlot but he is, in effect, copying his own consciousness onto them in order to make them partially clones of himself from a mental standpoint. They manage to escape the zone of his magic influence and round up whoever isn’t converted yet to the train station, only to get a rather bad surprise: Twilight and Luna, both now mind-controlled as well, suddenly arrive.

The group manages to escape on a train and head toward Ponyville, but while en route Celestia begins to wonder if Accord might actually have a point; seeing as he seems to have brought harmony and balance far easier and more quickly than Celestia has. Starlight protests that he’s gone about it through making ponies conform and be controlled, as she did once, rather than trying to get them to work together as friends. She begins to speculate based on similar incidents (such as with the cursed water, the Mirror Universe, and Inspiration Manifestation) that both Discord and Accord themselves actually had the same goals (making friends) but went about it in different ways. On arriving in Ponyville, Celestia leads the girls to go for the Elements of Harmony with the intent of using them against Accord and Celestia taking Twilight’s spot. Soon after, Accord teleports in and invites them to try, and not only do the Elements not work they actually enhance his power to allow him to instantly mind-control everypony in Equestria except Starlight (who was protecting herself at the point of the attack). However, before Accord can do the same to her, she points out that since she’s the only non-controlled one left and no threat to him that he should be able to convince her to join his philosophy without forcing her. Accord agrees to the challenge, claiming that he’s made everypony in Equestria his friends by making them think alike and that “friendship is order”. Starlight counters that friendship is about understanding and connecting with others because of differences, and that Accord hasn’t really made a single friend or brought any ponies to work together. All he’s made is copies of himself who can only think and act the way he wants them to “and not a single friend”. Realizing he was wrong all along, Accord tells Starlight goodbye and says he hopes this is the last she’ll ever see of him before turning back into Discord. The girls all welcome Discord back and learn to appreciate how differences and “chaos” helps build friendships, and the cast ends with a proclamation that “friendship is magic”.

Review:

First things first. (Holds a gun to the head of the part of my Angry Inner Fanboy who’s mad that Starlight’s second appearance in the main IDW series was another “Starlight Saves Absolutely Every Other Protagonist in the Entire Series by Herself” story to keep him from complaining.) On we go.

A big theme that keeps getting revisited in the “My Little Pony” franchise is the idea of what would happen if characters would be the opposite of their true selves. Ironically, that idea first came around because of Discord way back in Season Two’s “Return of Harmony”. But with Discord reaching the point where he tried to fit in more with the regular cast, and him being such a stand-out character, it caused no end of fan speculation as to what Discord would be like if he was the opposite of his current self.

It was played up mostly for laughs but with a touch of “aw” and drama in “Discordant Harmony” in Season Seven. By comparison…this arc went much darker with it. It essentially showed that being an omnipotent creature is pretty much a dangerous thing for Equestria whether he wants chaos or order.

The art is really great and the pacing is pretty good, keeping things at a very tense progression after Accord reveals his intentions that keeps you engrossed in the story. I don’t think that the show could ever get away with an ending this philosophical, but…it was rather appropriate, fitting, and even clever. Most of the times in the main series when a character talks down a villain it basically amounts to “I’ll be your friend”. In this one, the dialogue was more mature and satisfying. Using the more mature rating for a more intelligent plot is good to me. And there were quite a number of callbacks both to the TV series and the comic, making this a very unifying arc. And the ending message is good as well…that chaos in and of itself isn’t necessarily evil just as order in and of itself isn’t necessarily good, and that it’s possible to appreciate and even befriend both.

However, for being an arc that focuses on Discord and the normal zaniness that surrounds him, even when he’s trying to be “orderly”, this arc goes in a dark direction pretty quick. Even the narrative hook is a bit unusual. The odd egg/chrysalis thing that Discord changes into is a bit unsettling looking right at the start, already foreshadowing that things are going to go from humorous to dark pretty quickly in this arc. And indeed they do. Similar to the “Reflections” arc, this plotline very quickly gets into dark territory. Many of the scenes of the Stepford Smiler ponies are very disturbing looking, especially when it starts showing the other ponies aren’t merely brainwashed but have been turned into copies of Accord, in a sense. The comic makes numerous attempts to try and alleviate this with comic relief, but…similar to the “Reflections” arc, it doesn’t work out that well to me. In fact, it works a little less. The plot just gets a little too heavy to be able to lift it out of it, even with someone like Andy Fleecs doing the normally wonderful art.

This does have the feel of a season-capping episode, but…it also suffers from most of the pitfalls of one. The biggest part is the rest of the girls are just there to be random gags and one liners. Celestia, Starlight, Luna, and Twilight get a good amount of focus, but Fluttershy gets largely ignored after the first part even though anything that would happen to Discord would impact her the most.

And…what the heck, I’ll let him get it out. (Lowers gun)

This comic was likely in production long before “To Where and Back Again” came out or was even known about, but I’m a little disappointed at the show staff for not warning the IDW Comic writers they planned to do an arc where Starlight would save the entire cast more or less by herself, because the fact they put out a second arc where she does the same thing in the comic made me frown a little. In several ways, it’s worse than it was for “To Where and Back Again”. In that one, Starlight found herself forced into a position of leadership she didn’t want to be in. She was hesitant and self-doubting at least, and part of the story had to be her being willing to direct others to work together. In this one, Starlight is portrayed as already being smarter, stronger, and even possibly more empathic than the others. And the issue with that is that it continuously renders not only the Mane Six superfluous compared to her but also casts doubt upon how they ever did anything to change her, as she already seems to be “better at friendship” than them without them saying or doing anything to change her…a fact that seems accurate considering the flimsy resolution of “The Cutie Re-Mark”. It’s not to say I don’t like Starlight Glimmer, but…seriously? Could they have not done an arc or two where she was working with the girls instead of bailing them and the princesses of Equestria out? …Again?

All in all, this is still a good arc in spite of its flaws. It’s not quite as funny or show-appropriate as it would like to be and I personally feel it could have gone in slightly different directions, but overall it’s still a tense, dramatic, and colorful arc. A good solid benchmark for their 50th issue. Here’s to seeing fifty more. 🙂

Fun Facts:

This arc is also known simply as: “Accord”.

Discord breaks the fourth wall earlier than usual, saying “in the four color flesh”. Comic coloration is done in only four colors: Yellow, Cyan, Magenta, and Black. A moment later he’s unhappy on seeing that the script for Issue #48 has him saying puns.

Accord is physically identical to Discord in spite of being “a creature of harmony” except in one detail: instead of a beard he has a mustache.

In possibly a nod to “Fairly Oddparents”, Accord’s word bubbles are more rectangular and rounded on the sides rather than ovals.

Both this arc as well as “Discordant Harmony” in the main series explored the idea of what would happen if Discord started acting “less chaotic”, but it’s interesting to note in both versions Fluttershy doesn’t like how he’s changed and wants him to be more chaotic.

Spike dreams of eating Kentucky Fried Crystals. Not sure how that will work out…

As with most Andy Price drawn stories, the IDW exclusive character Kibitz makes a return.

I’m sure most fans thought Twilight Sparkle eating her Toasty Oats breakfast was adorable. 😀

This comic might be the only indication we’ll ever get of numeric distances in Ponyville. The distance between Ponyville and Canterlot is 14 miles, the distance between Canterlot and Dodge Junction is 48 miles, and the distance from Canterlot to New Horseleans (never before mentioned in the TV series) is 260.

The looks on the faces of the mind-controlled ponies is a classic “Stepford Smiler”, which is similar to what was done in Season Five’s own “The Cutie Map” with Starlight’s commune members.

This story arc features a number of callbacks to earlier arcs. A major plot point is a callback to the “Friends Forever” issue with Luna and Discord–namely the fact Luna has entered Discord’s mind before. Another is a callback to the “Reflections” arc when Celestia mentions the evil version of herself. Lastly, there’s a callback to “The Ponies of Dark Waters”.

In a bit of comic relief, when Accord says he’s trying to achieve the same goal as Princess Celestia, Celestia screams: “WAT.”

Discord’s original persona is found in Accord’s mind in a snow globe, which may or may not be an allusion to “Coraline”. At any rate, the sled in the snow globe is named Rosebud, an allusion to “Citizen Kane”.

The mysterious fedora pony appears at the train station.

A pony version of Jimmy Olson calls out on seeing the mind-controlled Twilight and Luna.

As more comic relief, Starlight easily distracts the mind-controlled Twilight and Luna with a toy monkey.

When Princess Celestia tries to use the Magic Element of Harmony, it connects to her golden collar instead of as a tiara.

At the part where Starlight makes the point that you can’t be friends with “someone who’s exactly like you”, she’s looking at a random picture of Sunset Shimmer. As this arc came out in Season Six, it’s likely that this is a joke at the frequent fan complaint that Starlight Glimmer was nothing more than an attempt to clone Sunset Shimmer into a permanent role on the show.

A number of jokes are on the page where Discord returns. He brings Twilight and Luna in a fourth-wall breaking cardboard box that says “characters not seen for 16 pages”, he has a pizza from Panucci’s (the pizzaria in “Futurama”), and Doctor Whooves, no longer brainwashed, says he can finally blink…an allusion to Doctor Who’s fights against the Weeping Angels. Soon after, Discord complains about the entire story arc, saying he was only on nine of the sixty pages.

The final page is a tribute to IDW’s 50th issue of the My Little Pony series. It has numerous little nods, such as another appearance of the fedora pony, a Changeling, a foal with a horn like King Sombra’s, and an appearance from a buffalo and stag.

Issue #50 was a plus-sized issue that capped the “Chaos Theory” story arc with a ten page short called: “For the Pony Who Has Everything”, in which Discord gives Celestia a “birthday present” of turning her into a normal pegasus to take a day off as an average pony. Her Sun Cutie Mark is replaced with a Christmas tree light bulb. Eventually, Discord turns himself into a pegasus to tag along…with the Cutie Mark of an electric cord (obviously to plug in Celestia’s light bulb). When incognito Celestia says hi to Pinkie Pie, she reenacts her reaction to Twilight from the first episode, and one of the ponies in the impromptu pony parade is Jay Fosgitt, the short’s artist, in pony form.

Rating:

4 Stars out of 5

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Reviews ~ Friends Forever #33 (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Friends Forever #33): “Applejack & Cherry Jubilee”

Tags

Applejack, Buffalo Bull, Calamity Mane, Cherry Jubilee, Friends Forever, IDW, IDW comic, My Little Pony, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, opinion, review

Synopsis:

The Equine Flu is making its rounds about Equestria, and as Cherry Jubilee is currently shorthanded for harvest season she’s called Applejack to come help her. While harvesting one day, a group of ponies called “Buffalo Bull’s Amazing Wild West Show”, which Applejack is a fan of (and, in particular, its star attraction “Calamity Mane”), rides up to the farm. Calamity Mane herself comes out and explains that the troop is sick with the flu and asks if they can stay to recuperate for a few days. Yet when Applejack approves them staying without consulting Cherry and tells her about it, on mentioning that Buffalo Bull and Calamity Mane are there she gets so enraged that she only allows them to stay one night, but tomorrow wants both them and Applejack gone (for letting them stay at all). Applejack and Calamity both try to find out the reason for being angry, but not only do Cherry and Buffalo Bull (who himself caught the flu) say nothing but it turns out Bull is angry to find out they stopped at Dodge Junction in the first place and now is getting sicker. Applejack decides to go to the town library instead to see if she can find something in the history of the town to give a clue, and ends up discovering that Cherry Jubilee is, in fact, the original “Calamity Mane”. On confronting Cherry with this, she breaks down enough to tell the whole story. As a young filly she felt her special calling was cherry farming but wanted a chance to go abroad in Equestria. When Buffalo Bull’s (then) small show stopped by the town, they fell in love with each other and she accepted his offer to join his show to see Equestria, changing to a stage name of “Calamity Mane”. While the show enjoyed success, Cherry eventually tired of the exhaustion of stage life and wanted to settle down. While they were stopped in Dodge Junction, Bull publicly proposed to her and, panicking and not sure what she wanted, she ran off to a nearby cherry farm. Feeling her calling there once again, she grew more confused and went to talk to Bull about it; only to discover he had packed up the show and left her behind. Although Cherry eventually found her calling working on that farm and eventually buying it, she never stopped hurting over being abandoned by Bull and, now, from having replaced her with a different mare. Applejack tries to point out that both Bull and her ended up having good lives that made them happy doing what they wanted and tries to tell her that holding onto her grudge isn’t going to make her or Bull happy. Cherry seems to ignore this and runs to confront Bull but, on seeing him sick and heartbroken as well, lets go of her resentment. The two finally apologize for hurting each other and reconcile. A few days later, Cherry has also managed to reconcile with the current Calamity Mane. Buffalo Bull puts on his first show in Dodge Junction in years, inviting Cherry Jubilee to also perform under her real name. She, in turn, welcomes Calamity Mane on stage to perform with her while thanking Applejack for making it all possible.

Review:

Kind of ironic that Applejack, who has a history to me of having the most bland and humdrum episodes, ended up having the most heartfelt and emotional episode of the regular series with “The Perfect Pear”. Similarly, one of the most heartfelt and emotional issues of the “Friends Forever” series also goes to her.

Cherry Jubilee hasn’t had too much to do in the main series, which goes without saying. She was pretty much just a character brought in help move the plot in two episodes. Characters like this, however, are gold for the IDW Comic because they’ve been established along with relationships to other characters but haven’t yet been fleshed out. And this one did a marvelous job of that.

While the IDW Comic gets away with more than the show does based on the medium, it still has a responsibility to remain grounded not far from Y-rated territory, so it’s still subject to many of the same constraints. Nevertheless, just as was done in Season Seven, the comic managed to push the envelope by going in a story direction that little kids would find somewhat entertaining but the adult audience would understand far better and hits a bit closer to home. The experience of first being in love is something that feels very new and yet wonderful to lots of younger people. Yet it’s not very long after we first start forming connections with other people outside of our family’s that run far deeper and tighter than mere friendship that we start to learn just how “tender” and “vulnerable” those same connections are. One of the bitter lessons of most people’s younger years is the pain that accompanies throwing your heart around and giving it to other people. Yet none of that, however, is nearly as brutal or painful as when we feel like we’ve found the person who might be “the one” and bare everything to them, perhaps for a period of years, and feel like we could be together forever even if we’re still at the part of our lives where we’re trying to figure out who we are.

And as a result, when something happens that breaks that connection, there are two overwhelming emotional responses: extreme sadness and a desire for revenge. When you get hurt that bad and that deeply, it often spawns feelings of wanting to hurt that person back. And while this is most bitter, typically, in relationships…turning otherwise reasonable and pleasant people into their most hurting, venomous, and vengeful natures…it can happen any time someone hurts us deeply. And, similar to as was shown in “The Perfect Pear”, the pain can be so bad that we feel it “deserves” the grudges that we associate with it. That the misery and anguish we feel needs to keep being honored by never stopping being angry or hateful to the one who hurt us.

And just like in “The Perfect Pear”, all that ends up doing is rotting at our own hearts. Having a hole put into them ironically makes us want to keep that hole in there forever.

The truth is everyone has their reasons for doing the things they do. Some of them are selfish. Some of them are foolish. Some of them are based solely on raw and misplaced emotion and revenge. Rarely, however, (and far less often than most people are willing to accept) do people do things out of a pure desire to just be cruel for the sake of being cruel. Rarer still is the person who is willing to see what they contributed to get them to the point of where they are today and to apologize for it.

While it’s pretty clear that Bull and Cherry are friends again by the end of this story, whether or not they went so far as to restart their relationship is probably too much of a stretch. Yet even that was alright, because they finally got to part on friendly terms and finally understood, and accepted, that both of them were thinking more of themselves than anyone else in what happened and, for better or for worse, both ended up with the lives they wanted…leaving it pointless to spend the rest of their lives angry and hurting over what they did to each other.

This isn’t quite as tragic as “The Perfect Pear” and the ending isn’t quite as bittersweet although it does make the point, once again, that life’s too short to go around clinging to grudges. However, the real reason I mark it down was the “new” Calamity Mane. She is, for all intensive purposes, an innocent bystander. It’s clear she didn’t know that Cherry Jubilee was the original Calamity Mane and she looks up to Buffalo Bull in a non-romantic way, and yet she suddenly finds herself (unfairly) receiving Cherry’s wrath for Bull’s mistake. The most stand-out panel to me is where she overhears Buffalo Bull telling Cherry it was a mistake to replace “the one and only Calamity Mane”…something that clearly hurts her. Yet all we get is Applejack quickly throwing in an almost comedic “I’m sure he didn’t mean that”. At this point, you could have made an entire separate storyline in which the newer Calamity Mane now wonders if she was never anything more than a way of getting revenge on Cherry.

The way the art is drawn in the final panels, it looks as if Calamity Mane was just supposed to be happy for Bull and Cherry at the end but then, reading back through it, the writers realized that Calamity had just been wronged as badly as Cherry had been. So the dialogue was amended to include a few throwaway lines to show Cherry had made friends with her after all and didn’t mind her taking over her old spot. The biggest indication of that is the next to last panel when Cherry asks Calamity to come on stage as well…yet in the last panel Calamity is clearly just watching the show alongside Applejack. That’s something a little too big to overlook.

But aside from that, this is one of the best of the “Friends Forever” series and another surprisingly emotional tale from the most down-to-earth of the Mane Six. It’s not quite “The Perfect Pear”, but it’s definitely one of the high marks of the comic.

Fun Facts:

This entire storyline features a lot of nods to “Buffalo Bill” Cody, one of the last legendary figures of the American Old West. He was most infamously known for “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West”, a traveling show that showcased numerous acts and stunts that were themed with the 1800s American West and, in great part, helped romanticize and popularize the idea of the Old West culture. Among its most notable acts was the storytelling of Martha “Calamity Jane” Cannary, a prominent frontierswoman from the Old West and contemporary of “Wild Bill” Hickock, and Annie Oakley, an infamous sharpshooter and exhibition shooter. Buffalo Bull is clearly inspired by Buffalo Bill, especially running “Buffalo Bull’s Amazing Wild West Show”, while Calamity Mane seems to share aspects of both Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley.

It appears that Twilight Sparkle has used her princess status to promote literacy. Although she doesn’t appear in this issue, there’s a poster with her face on it in the library encouraging ponies to read. 😛

The gremlins appear…AGAIN. This time as stickers in a scrap book. So does a Pigasus from the Friends Forever with Applejack and Fluttershy.

Rating:

4.5 Stars out of 5

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Reviews ~ Comic Arc #23 (IDW My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Issues #46-47): “Election”

Tags

Applejack, election, Filthy Rich, Fluttershy, IDW, IDW comic, Mayor Mare, My Little Pony, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, opinion, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, review, Starlight Glimmer, Twilight Sparkle

Synopsis:

Shortly after Mayor Mare dedicates and opens a brand new playground on a plot of land donated by the Apple Family, an earthquake suddenly destroys it in spite of the fact the ground has been stable for years. Some of the Ponyville citizens end up blaming the mayor for not being better prepared for the incident, in spite of her insistence that not all disasters can be prepared for and some have to be dealt with as best as they can when they show up before making sure they don’t happen again. Filthy Rich seizes the opportunity of discontent to make his own bid to run for mayor, leading to Ponyville needing to hold its first election in years. All of the girls are divided, each wanting to vote for a candidate for different reasons, and Twilight Sparkle herself ends up joining Mayor Mare’s campaign team. Filthy runs an aggressive campaign making a great deal of promises for benefits for everypony, swaying a majority of the voters, while Mayor Mare’s own campaign of only making sure ponies get what they need rather than things they want but can’t have ends up falling flat. Filthy Rich wins the election and starts off with a fresh slew of promises, capping with a vow that no earthquakes will ever happen in Ponyville again…right before one demolishes a house.

As soon as Filthy Rich is sworn in, things start going bad. The earthquakes continue to destroy parts of Ponyville, the new Hoofball Stadium is being built right next to Fluttershy’s property (keeping her and the animals up all night), taxes are soaring in a vain attempt to try and pay for all of Filthy’s promises, the new playground he builds is made using the cheapest labor and materials and falls apart instantly, and pretty much all other promises he made he has to renege on. The girls try to ask (Former) Mayor Mare for help, but she answers not only can one pony not fix everything, but she’s not the mayor anymore. At a town hall meeting that night, Filthy gets pelted by the furious townsfolk and vainly tries to promise them more to pacify them, which prompts Mayor Mare to make an appearance and set the townsfolk straight that an elected official’s job is to make plans, work hard, and fix things when they go wrong. At that moment, the source of the earthquakes reveals itself: a tatzlwurm. Mayor Mare ends up rallying the town and using them to drive the monster off. Filthy Rich, ready to be done with politics, begins to go about the long bureaucratic process to resign from being mayor and turn it over to her, while Fluttershy finally gets some sleep.

Review:

Considering the timing of this issue on when it came out and the content, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that this was poking at one 2016 US Presidential Election candidate in particular. However, I don’t agree even if that was the intention. The moral of this one could apply to pretty much any political candidate, including both Presidential ones in 2016 or any election.

The moral is a pretty good one for living in any sort of republic or democracy, or even for something as simple as putting your trust in anyone such as a lawyer or salesman: be careful about individuals who tell you what you want to hear and stop to think about whether or not they can deliver. This goes certainly for candidates you are not in favor of but more so for ones that you are, as you’re likely to simply hear what you want to hear in those cases. The problem is the lesson was more one for the citizens of Ponyville as a whole rather than just Filthy Rich, although he still needed one of his own. After all, they were the ones who fell for Filthy’s promises to begin with.

Other than that, it’s a pretty good story. I tend the Apples were a bit more ornery and hostile than they needed to be, but it was fairly entertaining. I noticed with Agnes Garbowska’s art style that the comic story can be more “drawn out” because she tends to draw big characters with fewer word balloons in a panel, so that even though this is a two-issue comic it feels more like a one-parter. While I normally didn’t take Filthy Rich for the politician type, I’ll admit that in the situation he seems appropriate. The only real alternative would have been to create an OC just for the issue, and it would have had less of an impact that way. Ironically enough it didn’t seem to have the same amount of laughs as the previous arc, but I liked the inclusions not only of Starlight Glimmer (appearing on equal footing with the rest of the Mane Six is always a plus) but also giving a bit of time to Diamond Tiara, who has had little reason to be in the series since Season Five.

All in all, a nice little story.

Fun Facts:

This was the first IDW arc to feature Starlight Glimmer as a character, although the events of “The Cutie Map” were mentioned in an earlier issue.

At this point, “Crusaders of the Lost Mark” had taken place, so Diamond Tiara was finished being a bully. I think the few lines she got in this arc was the most use they’ve had for her character since. 😛

After the town meeting, the girls return to the Castle of Friendship for a snack. They aren’t actually eating at the Cutie Map but the dining room, but, for some reason, Twilight’s chair is in there…

One of the mayor’s aides that’s spazzing out is named Nervous Nellie. Please don’t tell me her special talent is being nervous. 😛

In spite of the fact that “Slice of Life” called him “Doctor”, in this issue the Doctor Who pony is officially named “Time Turner”.

Pinkie Pie is dressed as Abraham Lincoln for election day. Was there an Abraham-Lincoln-Pony at one point…?

Starlight raises the question of if “Mayor” is a part of Mayor Mare’s name. 😛

Boffyball, from Rarity and Gilda’s “Friends Forever” issue, gets a callback.

Apparently, at one point, Filthy broke the fourth wall and promised background characters more screen time. 😛

The Tatzlwurm, which first appeared in “Three’s a Crowd”, is back. Apparently it behaves just like the Grab-oids in “Tremors”: attracted to small sounds but scared away by really loud ones.

One of Andy Price’s cover illustrations features the pony version of Tara Strong voice acting for Twilight Sparkle, and not being happy with IDW’s choice in dialogue. 😛

Rating:

3 Stars out of 5

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Reviews ~ Comic Arc #22 (IDW My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Issues #43-45): “The Ponies of Dark Water”

Tags

Apple Bloom, Applejack, CMCs, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Fluttershy, IDW, IDW comic, My Little Pony, opinion, Pinkie Pie, Princess Luna, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, review, Spike, Sweetie Belle, The Ponies of Dark Water, Twilight Sparkle

Synopsis:

On the way back from Abyssinia after saving Equestria yet again, the Mane Six and Spike hear a bubbling and a rumbling, and soon discover a recently-emerged hot spring. Deciding it looks like a good place to relax, they all slip in and ease up for a while before heading home. The next day, Spike wakes up and sees Twilight missing. On going into town, she finds that the city is routinely being disrupted by continuous Sonic Rainbooms, Applejack is acting like a ruthless, cutthroat businesswoman and yelling at Apple Bloom for being a bad “employee”, Twilight is using her magic to declare herself the new Empress of Ponyville by virtue of her intelligence, and Rarity’s vanity has grown so staggering that she can no longer tolerate the slightest imperfection and is wanting to challenge Twilight for rule as she is “the finest”. Spike gathers the CMCs and they retreat to their clubhouse, where they determine all of this happened as a result of the hot spring. Not knowing what to do, they send a letter to Princess Celestia, who, on realizing that the Mane Six are being dominated by their own darker natures, dispatches Princess Luna (who has experience) to help. Soon after, Spike and the CMCs are bucked out of the clubhouse by Applejack who demands rent. Luna arrives and puts a stop to her, discovering dark magic inside of her. Before she can draw it out, however, she discovers the hard way that the magic has also increased her power; allowing her to break free of Luna’s holding spell and flee. Unable to change her or the others back on her own, Luna dispatches the CMCs to go get Zecora and see if she knows a potion to undo the magic while she and Spike try to maintain order in town. However, on entering the Everfree Forest the CMCs almost immediately run into a hoard of savage animals being led by Fluttershy, and back in Sugarcube Corner Pinkie Pie gets ready to unleash her own twisted brand of “fun”.

The previous day, Twilight, obsessed with gaining all knowledge and gaining it immediately, invents a device to allow her to steal the brain power of other ponies and add it to her own; soon running around town and turning ponies into morons to add to her intelligence. In the present, the CMCs are surrounded by Fluttershy’s animals and Scootaloo accidentally steps on Angel Bunny’s foot. As a result, Fluttershy calls for their blood and sics the forest on them for intruding. Back in Ponyville, mysterious gifts have been left all over town, but on opening them they explode; driving panicking ponies into the local theater where Pinkie Pie holds them hostage for a deranged comedy show. At the same time, Rarity, infuriated at outdated fashions, blows up a clothing store, getting the attention of Luna. Back in the forest, the CMCs manage to meet up with Zecora just as Fluttershy catches up to them, but on using one of Zecora’s smoke bombs to escape she ends up growing so angry she has the forest declare war on Ponyville. Back with Luna and Rarity, they get into a battle and, in the ensuing struggle, bust into the theater; prompting Pinkie Pie to blow it up with her (live) party cannon to escape. In the aftermath, the CMCs, Luna, Spike, and Zecora reunite and realize that Spike was not affected by the water like the Mane Six were. Zecora theorizes that the cure may reside in Spike’s draconic nature, but before she can do anything Rarity and Pinkie Pie re-emerge, with the former running off to confront Twilight for rule of Ponyville while the latter begins bombarding the town with water balloons loaded with the same hot spring water. As all of Ponyville begins to turn evil, the group runs for cover only for Luna to get hit by one of the balloons, causing her to revert into Nightmare Moon.

Pinkie Pie gloats over her success only momentarily, before Nightmare Moon sets her sights on her as her first target. Fortunately, in the length of time it takes her to finally disable Pinkie Pie, Zecora and Spike are able to make a cure from his scales. Once Moon disables Pinkie and runs to the Castle of Friendship to deal with Rarity and Twilight, they give the cure to Pinkie and revert her to normal. The girls go to Applejack next, stopping her from cornering the Appleloosan market and reverting her as well. On hearing Pinkie say she only cared about being funny no matter what, and Applejack say she only cared about caring for the farm and her apples, the CMCs realize the water took their virtues and enlarged and distorted them into vices. Using that as an idea, they create a cure-water-trapped target and start loudly boasting that nopony can hit it, causing Rainbow Dash to come out of the sky and nail it to prove them wrong and, as a result, curing her as well. She takes pails of water loaded with cure and creates a thunderstorm over Ponyville next, curing both Fluttershy and the rest of the afflicted residents. Unfortunately, Rarity and Twilight were both indoors locked in a battle for supremacy. As the two battle on, Princess Luna is cured by the rainstorm, but continues the guise of Nightmare Moon and gets Rarity and Twilight to agree to a compromise to divide Equestria among them, sealing it with a toast spiked with cure. Although Rarity falls for it, Twilight does not; boasting that at this point she is so intelligent she has already imagined every possible contingency and future imaginable. Soon after, however, she sets off another one of Pinkie’s cure-water-traps, because the essence of comedy is unpredictability. All of the Mane Six are miserable that they caused so much trouble from doing things they thought were their assets, but Luna comforts them: telling them to be glad it was just cursed water and not their own arrogance and jealousy. The girls undo all of their damage that they can, and Zecora purifies the hot spring before Luna sets off to depart. She leaves saying she was glad that the corruption of the water also ruined their friendship–saying if they had been both evil and united no pony could have stopped them.

Review:

It had been a while since the IDW Comic did a multi-part story, and even longer since it had done a multi-part dramatic arc. To me, similar to the plotline itself, this arc suffered a bit of an identity crisis.

The storyline itself isn’t necessarily new. As early as “The Return of Harmony” we had a storyline where the Mane Six were acting the opposite of their true selves. This one ramped it up to eleven, however, basically turning each of the girls into a different form of supervillain. I also give it props for being something that hasn’t really been done on the show or the comic yet: an installment where both the Mane Six and the CMCs highlight the same storyline. In fact, this goes a bit farther by having it be the CMCs and Spike vs. the Mane Six. In “The Return of Harmony”, the girls still seemed like themselves but just grossly (and humorously) exaggerated in the opposite direction. Here they all seem far more mature and dark-natured in all aspects. Hence, I think it’s different enough to not think of it as a ripoff. It also highlights both Princess Luna and Zecora, who are two of my more favorite recurring characters, so it has that going for it too.

However, as a I said before, this arc has an identity crisis. Similar to “Night of the Living Apples”, the storyline doesn’t seem to know whether it should be the theme of a normal episode or if it should aim for something darker. Whereas the silliness in “Night of the Living Apples” eventually won out, here…I don’t see a clear victor. While the evil versions of the Mane Six get to go overboard to a humorous degree a few times, the “fight” between Pinkie Pie and Nightmare Moon is pretty amusing, and some of the comments from the stupefied ponies are funny, there’s something missing in the tone in this one. A lot of the dialogue doesn’t even seem like it’s still MLP:FIM, and at times it looks like it’s relying on the artwork to keep the story grounded in the show’s motif. I know the girls aren’t exactly supposed to be acting like themselves, but at times it seems like that’s being used as an excuse to go beyond making them evil versions of themselves and go straight to making new characters.

I got a little hung up on the fact that the evil versions of the girls kept insisting they were “better”, while once they were cured they claimed they were obsessed with one thing. The two don’t seem to connect to me. I’m not a big fan of “corruption” in fiction, in which a character is turned by external means into an evil version of themselves. I always have the thought that if a character we normally think of as moral, upstanding, devoted, and determined can be so easily turned evil just by a cosmic light switch, then what does that say about the character?

This storyline does have what you would expect from a drama-based episode, namely a mixture of the show’s signature humor along with some points of genuine tension and drama. Especially at the conclusion of the second issue. The problem is a lot of the tension that’s built up at the end of the second issue goes nowhere. Even as Nightmare Moon, Luna ends up helping out by disabling Pinkie Pie and then reverting back to normal “off screen”. The plotline with the rest of the town beginning to turn evil doesn’t seem to go anywhere (other than a quick piracy joke by DJ-Pon-3). But most of all, it ends rather awkwardly. I’m not sure if Luna’s final statement is supposed to be in praise of the Mane Six (who, admittedly, have little to be proud of by the end of the arc) or ending on a bit of a dark note. Either way, it seemed an odd way to wrap it up.

In the end, I’m not really sure whether this should be taken as a more serious arc or something that, in spite of having the evil Mane Six, is all there just for an odd yet good laugh. I think it’s ultimately a pretty good story and entertaining, but it’s not quite as smooth or memorable as it could have been.

Fun Facts:

The title of this arc is a knockoff of “The Pirates of Dark Water”, an early 90s action/adventure animated series.

In the beginning of this issue, the girls are coming back from an adventure in “Abyssinia”. Aside from a brief mention in Season Four’s “Glass of Water” song by Discord, this region has never featured in the main TV series. However, one of the MLP Movie prequel comics placed Klugetown within its borders.

When Evil Applejack tries to buck the CMCs out of their clubhouse saying she’s taking it back, she says: “I eminently need your domain.” Eminent Domain is a principle of government to be able to seize private property for public use under certain conditions, provided it compensates for it.

Evil Pinkie Pie is a parody of the Joker. In her first appearance, she parodies not one but two scenes from the 1989 “Batman” film: breaking into hysterical laughter on seeing her appearance in a mirror and quoting: “Wait ’til they get a load of me!”

As another Batman parody, Evil Twilight Sparkle’s brain-power-stealing device resembles the Riddler’s first model of “The Box” from “Batman Forever”.

The two philosopher ponies mention an older philosopher named “Sowcrates”. In “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, the title characters routinely mispronounce Greek philosopher Socrates’ name phonetically as “Sow-crates”.

Part of Evil Pinkie Pie’s act is to imitate Jerry Seinfeld, while at another part her puppet show quotes the novelty song: “Yakity Yak”.

Issue #44 was actually used in the Screwattack series “Death Battle” for the match between Pinkie Pie and Deadpool, when it was used to show the destructive potential that Pinkie Pie’s party cannon has when loaded with live ammunition. Oddly enough, if they had included Issue #45 as well, it would have shown she shares another power with Deadpool: namely in that she can’t be predicted.

Spike mentions that he had tickets to see “that Celestia Rap Musical”, likely an allusion to “Hamilton”.

In spite of the continuous “Sonic Rainbooms”, Evil Rainbow Dash doesn’t even appear until the final issue of the arc.

It’s never really explained if Evil Fluttershy was able to command the animals or if she somehow infected them with the corruption as well. At any rate, when she dismisses them some of them look annoyed that she canceled the war…

One of the philosopher ponies, once stupefied, says: “Mashed potatoes can be your friends”, a line from Weird Al Yankovic’s “Dare to Be Stupid”. The other philosopher pony says: “You see, both characters’ mothers have the same name”, an allusion to the infamous “Martha” scene from “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”.

When cleaning up Ponyville, Twilight enchants multiple brooms to sweep together, a possibly allusion to “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” from “Fantasia”.

Rating:

3.5 Stars out of 5

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Reviews ~ Equestria Girls: Forgotten Friendship

Tags

A Friendship to Remember, Applejack, Equestria Girls, Fluttershy, Forgotten Friendship, Most Likely to Be Forgotten, My Little Pony, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, opinion, Pinkie Pie, Princess Celestia, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, review, Sci-Twi, Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Wallflower Blush, youtube

Synopsis:

At Canterlot High School, Sunset Shimmer, who has retained position of President of the Yearbook Committee and Editor-in-Chief since her days when she was still a bully, is finishing up getting the results for the “superlatives” for this year’s edition. She’s pleased to learn that she and the rest of the Humane Seven have been named “Best Friends”, but Trixie is outraged that she was not voted “Greatest and Most Powerful-est” (in spite of the fact that was never a category) and vows revenge. The girls decide to take their group photo using Twilight Sparkle’s new drone camera tomorrow at a beach outing for the yearbook, and that night Sunset writes to the Equestrian Twilight Sparkle thanking her for giving her the second chance that turned her into who she is today. The next day, however, when Sunset arrives at the beach, the rest of her friends act cold, afraid, and hostile to her. On touching them, she realizes the girls have had their memories of her erased.

On further learning the only memories any of the girls have of her is of her being cruel, mean, and deceptive, Sunset writes to the Equestrian Twilight and is relieved to discover she still remembers her “being nice”. Sunset returns to Equestria to try and find out how the Humane Six lost their memories and, unable to help her alone, Twilight takes her to Princess Celestia; leading the two to finally reconcile. Celestia and Luna, in turn, take the two to the forbidden section of the Canterlot Library, where they find a record from Clover the Clever in the pre-Equestria era of an old pony sorceress who used a magical item called the Memory Stone to erase memories and fragments of memories from her victims. The records show Clover was able to thwart her attempts to erase his own memory by keeping records of everything she erased, and eventually chased her through a portal before the record abruptly ends; indicating Clover hid the rest to keep anyone from finding the stone. Sunset believes the stone was hidden in the human world and a human has uncovered it and used it against her.

Sunset returns to the human world while Equestrian Twilight continues her research, attempting to convince the girls through photographs that her claims of their friendship are real, but not only are the photos dismissed as forgeries but she is falsely accused of intentionally breaking Human Twilight’s drone camera when she accidentally steps on it. When Sunset sees Trixie is still trying to get into the yearbook, she suspects her of having the stone and using it as revenge for not including her superlative and confronts her in the school hallway. Trixie ends up being clueless about the entire matter, but on overhearing Sunset talk about how she knows she’s one type of way yet everyone in school sees her differently, she sympathizes with her considering her own attempts to constantly be “great and powerful” and believes her story. She agrees to help Sunset find the true culprit in exchange for getting put in the yearbook. Meanwhile, Equestrian Twilight finds Clover’s missing record showing the stone was buried in a circle of three rocks, but also discovers that erased memories are gone permanently if they stay removed for three days.

Sunset and Trixie go about the school but are unable to find anyone who looks like a potential suspect. Finally, they are down to only one student left to investigate: Wallflower Blush, a quiet, introverted member of Sunset’s own yearbook committee and the sole member of the Gardening Club, who is so unremarkable that she constantly goes unnoticed and forgotten by everyone (including Sunset and Trixie). At that point, Twilight writes back to Sunset with the news of the rock formation and the warning that the stone has to be destroyed by sunset that day. On seeing that Wallflower’s desktop background is of the rock formation, she touches Wallflower and discovers she accidentally discovered the Memory Stone and used it to remove everyone’s positive memories of Sunset. She angrily confronts her and demands to know what she did to her to cause her to do this to her, to which Wallflower angrily responds that, to her, Sunset never changed at all: she ignored her completely as a bully and she continued to ignore her completely as everyone’s “best friend”, and that she erased everyone’s memories so that everyone would see her the same way she does–as”the biggest meanie”. Before Sunset and Trixie can stop her, she uses the stone to erase their memory of the entire encounter and leaves them locked in the editing room.

Sunset, however, took a cue from Clover the Clever and left herself a note to check Twilight’s broken drone’s camera, which she set to record the moment before she confronted Wallflower. After watching the footage, Trixie gets Sunset to realize Wallflower had a point, and Sunset mentions that even when everyone hates her permanently tomorrow she’ll still have one friend in her. This, however, emboldens Trixie enough to try out one of her “escape artist tricks”, which manages to get Sunset free. She runs out to confront Wallflower again, but this time does so in front of the rest of the Humane Seven and, in the ensuing confrontation, Wallflower accidentally blurts out that she did indeed erase their memories of Sunset. Infuriated that her plan to get back at Sunset has been exposed and determined to make her suffer, Wallflower moves to erase the Humane Six’s memories of high school all together. Realizing that will destroy their friendships with each other, Sunset jumps into the path of the attack rather than let herself be the cause of breaking up their friendship a second time. Sunset’s own memories of high school (and, ergo, the entire human world and living as a human) are erased, but on seeing her sacrifice for them the rest of the girls finally believe that she’s really their friend and are still able to unite with her to “pony up” and destroy the Memory Stone before sunset. Everyone’s memories are restored and Wallflower, after seeing firsthand what her desire for revenge did to Sunset, repents of her own behavior. As it turns out, however, Sunset apologizes to her for never being a good friend. As Sunset writes to Equestrian Twilight about the stone’s destruction, she reveals she made amends by including Wallflower on a page in the yearbook for the Gardening Club, as well as gave Trixie her full page superlative for “Greatest and Most Powerful-est”.

Review:

The “Equestria Girls” franchise, by most estimates, was undergoing a degeneration until this special. No one really liked the original, but “Rainbow Rocks” blew everyone away with one of the show’s greatest ensemble darkhorses: Sunset Shimmer elevated from generic villain to deuteragonist. “Friendship Games” was considered by most fans to be lesser by comparison, and “Legend of Everfree” paled compared to that. The three 22 minute specials were rather unremarkable as well, especially among those who disliked Starlight Glimmer as “Mirror Magic” made it look as if she was going to shanghai the EG universe just as she was accused of doing the same to the main series. Even ignoring that, continuous generic plotlines with one-dimensional villains who “just needed a friend” led the entire series to feeling like it was more or less copies of each previous one with slight modifications.

By comparison, the shorts featured on Youtube were a bit better received as they were small vignettes that allowed the individual girls to shine in different situations rather than have most of the Humane Seven squashed into a “character lump” while one or two other characters did everything. Yet once again, the shorts shined when they went to the star of the EG series, Sunset Shimmer. Through them, Sunset has been revealed to be a multi-faceted, oddly pragmatic, and lovable character…especially in ones like “My Past is Not Today”, “Monday Blues”, and “Rarity’s Display of Affection”.

It seems only natural that what would get the “Equestria Girls” franchise back on track would be a special devoted to everyone’s favorite bacon-headed girl.

“Forgotten Friendship” was widely loved by the fan base, and with good reason. Not only was this special a bit of a departure from the normal fare, but it also was a bit more “mature” than those others. It relied a lot heavier on character and internal conflict rather than on a lot of magic and colorful pictures and action sequences. In that sense alone, the new Y7 rating was justified. This special was good in the same way that “The Perfect Pear” was good–the story is great but really little kids likely won’t understand why.

Going with that, this is a special that focused more on a theme and concept rather than an overt tangible antagonist (although there was one of those too): namely the idea of how much of our own identity is, ironically, shaped by the perception of others toward us. Most of us work very hard to make sure people only see the “best” side of us, and if we do something wrong we work even harder to try and show off so much good that people will forget those moments. Sunset is caught in the situation of what would happen if all anyone could remember about them was everything bad they had ever done. The end result is a look at just how much of ourselves we define based on the reaction of others, and what sort of existential crises might result. (There are a number of times in the episode Sunset begins to revert to her old way of acting as a result of being treated like her old self.) The lesson Sunset herself learns (Can you really go around calling yourself a good person if all you are is “not mean” to people?) even goes back into that–causing her to ask herself if it really matters if the school gives her an award for a superlative when she personally knows she didn’t live up to that standard.

Some fans might have thought making Trixie be the surprise co-star of this special was just to capitalize on her newer, more prominent role in the main series. Since she’s Starlight’s friend now, they decided to make her Sunset’s friend. I…disagree. Going with the theme of the special, she belongs here. As is pointed out, Trixie is the very poster child of an individual who is constantly trying to make herself into a better individual by making herself appear to everyone as a greater individual. She always fails at it, but…in spite of continuously failing, she always sees herself personally as “great and powerful” even if no one else does and never gives up trying to promote that view. In that odd way, for all of her obnoxiousness, selfishness, childishness, and pettiness…Trixie is rather endearing and even slightly admirable. It’s something of the same deal as with Wile E. Coyote or Team Rocket: you admire a character for never giving up or abandoning who they are.

Wallflower Blush ended up being one of the more popular EG villains as well. While I’m pretty sure the Dazzlings still hold Number One, I’d place her up there with Midnight Sparkle in a tie. While Midnight Sparkle definitely has more charisma, in terms of realism and motivation it goes to Wallflower. Since “Rainbow Rocks”, the villains were pretty much cookie cutouts: character who doesn’t rely on friendship acquires Equestrian magic, ends up misusing it and being corrupted, turns into a monster, and gets blasted into submission/tearful apologies by the Humane Seven. Wallflower Blush…didn’t really break the mold, but she did “deform” it quite a bit.

On the spectrum of villains, there’s multiple axes to consider. Most modern ones place villains on the range from “True Villain” to “Anti-Villain”, dividing villains between those who are genuinely evil and those who are pretty much just confused or misguided individuals with good intentions. A different spectrum not often considered is motivation. Even if a villain does something genuinely cruel and malicious out of spite or hostility, there are some with such good motivation that we can’t help but admit we might have done the same thing. Wallflower isn’t quite to that extreme, but she’s close. Most fans of the show probably couldn’t identify with Gloriosa Daisy or Juniper Montage, but a lot of them have experienced feelings of invisibility or the dehumanization of being part of the high school crowd. In Wallflower’s case, she was an individual who had done a lot of work toward digging the hole she found herself in. The flashbacks reveal she didn’t make a ton of effort to try and join in at parties or social gatherings, and later she reveals that she erased memories of anything she had ever done to stand out…ironically making herself invisible as those would have been the things that would have made her stand out in people’s memories. Nevertheless, the fact remains Sunset never noticed her as a bully and never noticed her as a good friend either, so from her perspective Sunset never changed at all. So to see someone who you remember being a tyrant and a brat be loved and admired by everyone while you yourself, having never done anything cruel to anyone, still remain ignored by everyone?

The other part of this is that Wallflower shares something with older EG villains: egocentricity. She tends to see the world only from her perspective. She’s not as overt or obnoxious about it as other villains were so it doesn’t stand out, but it’s clear based on the episode. Wallflower continues to act the same way around Sunset in the editing room in spite of the fact she knows what she did to her. She describes the entire thing as trying to “teach her a lesson”. It heavily indicates that Wallflower does not realize just how badly she hurt Sunset by what she did, or what she would be doing if she fully erased the high school memories of the Humane Six. It’s not until she removes Sunset’s memories that she finally sees what she’s really been doing to her all this time, and the look on her face makes it clear she doesn’t like it. The fact that we get that instead of Wallflower turning into some magic memory-stealing demon is a major step forward. It’s not perfect, but it’s enough to make Wallflower’s change far more genuine.

If that wasn’t enough, this episode gave a lot of what fans had wanted to see. Sunset gets to interact with the Equestrian Twilight Sparkle, who hadn’t been seen since the brief appearance in “Friendship Games”. And it also gave what they had really been longing for, namely the reconciliation between her and Princess Celestia. Similar to a few scenes in “Legend of Everfree”, this special also indicated that Sunset Shimmer has a closer relationship with Sci-Twi than the other girls. Now…some fans have made the jump straight to homosexuality from that, but I think that’s extreme. For one thing, it would be one-sided because Sci-Twi has a boyfriend, and that would only make things more awkward for her to be around Sunset in that case. I tend to think that Sunset sees Sci-Twi as a “little sister”. And there are some genuine dramatic and gripping moments, including the climax in which Sunset cries out in anguish as her memories of the girls are removed one by one and how she looks at Sci-Twi and says: “Don’t forget me!”

Alas, there are some negatives.

This special has been compared to the infamous “Anon-a-Miss” arc from the IDW comic, which enjoyed a resurgence in popularity following the release of the special. One of the big differences between that story and this is that in this one the Humane Six have a plausible reason for instantly giving Sunset the cold shoulder. Nevertheless…most fans were a bit upset that the friendship-orientated personalities of the Humane Six didn’t make more of a connection. There are a fistful of scenes in which Sci-Twi starts to question it, which makes the most sense for her because she only has one “bad” memory of Sunset Shimmer and most of who Sci-Twi is today depended on Sunset Shimmer’s actions, meaning she would be the most likely to conclude something was “missing” in her memories. However, none of the girls ever seem to get the sensation that their group is somehow incomplete or question Sunset’s absence…in spite of the fact a comment by Rarity indicates they should have been experiencing deja vu of some sort or another. I think it would have been a nice touch myself, although going with the theme of the special I’m not sure it would have meshed.

The resolution was a bit hurried as well. While I compliment it for evading some of the expected tropes and cliches, it still adhered to quite a bit of convenience. The Humane Six just happened to be at that location and, what’s more, after giving Sunset the cold shoulder for three days they’re suddenly paying enough attention to her to overhear the key parts of her argument with Wallflower. And by not doing what I said above, it makes the fact that the girls turned around so easily, even considering Sunset’s sacrifice, a little unbelievable. If they had been starting to question if Sunset might be telling the truth, it would make sense. Since they didn’t, it seems like it was just a tad convenient.

Lastly, the moral was a tad smudged again. Everything started because of those superlatives in the yearbook. So was it arguing that superlatives were bad? Or that everyone should get a superlative just so that you acknowledge them, which defeats the purpose of a superlative to begin with? Also, by presenting the idea that Sunset was indeed in the wrong about her treatment of Wallflower, it leads to the idea that some of what happened to her was “merited”.

Nevertheless, none of those are major issues. This special was rightly one of the best in the entire Equestria Girls franchise. If future specials stick with the concept behind this one, not being afraid to consider a theme and treat the audience as being a bit older than the original crowd, and the EG franchise might indeed be able to endure when the main series departs in two seasons.

Fun Facts:

This special was the first entry in the “Equestria Girls” franchise to be rated Y7 instead of Y. While the dominant thought for the rating change is Wallflower Blush shouting: “I hate you!”, I noticed old Equestria Girls specials were retroactively upped to Y7 ratings as well, indicating it’s likely more of a change of ratings policy than new content.

This special was originally conceived as a five-part miniseries to be showed as part of the Equestria Girls Youtube series, which was eventually put online in weekly installments under the title of “Most Likely to Be Forgotten”. The special itself is a condensed version of the miniseries and is six minutes shorter, with several jokes and asides cut out, such as the pony Sunset Shimmer briefly spotting the pony Flash Sentry and a broken library index machine.

Similar to other Equestria Girls specials, this initially debuted in junior novel form under the title: “A Friendship to Remember”.

This special has frequently been compared to the IDW Comic Equestria Girls Holiday Special. Both plotlines featured Sunset Shimmer being unjustly accused of still being a cruel bully, the other girls casting her out, and the one responsible wanting to make Sunset suffer out of jealousy. It also shares a lot in common with the popular Season Five episode “Amending Fences”, which dealt with a character thinking of herself as a great friend discovering she had been neglecting someone for years.

A “wallflower” is a type of introverted person who attends social events but tends to stick to themselves and avoid standing out in any way.

Snips and Snails, in keeping with early episodes of the main series, have become Trixie’s minions again. With their memories erased, shouldn’t they be serving Sunset again?

Twilight’s drone had its AI changed by the Memory Stone to fear Sunset…somehow.

It has been noted that the Memory Stone is very similar in appearance to the Gossip Stones in “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”. However, as Silver Quill noted in his own review, this is likely not so much inspiration from Zelda as both drawing inspiration from the same source: namely the “third eye” in many Eastern belief systems such as Hindu and Taoism. It’s considered to be a point of higher consciousness, intuition, and spiritual perception. As Silver Quill also mentioned, it is worth noting whenever the girls either lose or gain memories, the point of entry/origin of the memories is the same spot where the “third eye” is said to reside.

In a surprising change to Equestrian history, it is revealed Clover the Clever was in fact a stallion. Apparently back in Season Two’s “Hearth’s Warming Eve”, the girls weren’t necessarily playing roles to gender.

Both songs in the special are incidents of the characters being aware of their own musical number. Wallflower mentions she was trying to get Sunset’s attention through her own song, and Trixie later fast-forwards through Wallflower’s on the drone recording.

When Sunset “ponies-up”, her memories are still missing and so, naturally, she looks confused about the entire experience.

Rating:

4.5 Stars out of 5

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Reviews ~ Season Seven, Episodes Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six: “Shadow Play”

Tags

Applejack, Flash Magnus, Fluttershy, Mage Meadowbrook, Mistmane, My Little Pony, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, opinion, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, review, Rockhoof, Shadow Play, Somnambula, Spike, Starlight Glimmer, Starswirl the Bearded, Stygian, Sunburst, the Pony of Shadows, Twilight Sparkle

Synopsis:

Sunburst has discovered that one of the treasures in the “blind buy” he made (in “Uncommon Bond”) was actually Starswirl the Bearded’s old journal. He reveals its contents to Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, the Mane Six, Spike, and Starlight Glimmer. Starswirl was gathered by an unnamed pony along with the five other legendary individuals mentioned in the Mane Six’s favorite tales, revealing them all to have been actual ponies and not mere myths, to form the Pillars of Old Equestria: the original group that devoted itself to banishing the newly-formed Equestria of the various evils inhabiting it and upholding the ideals of strength, bravery, beauty, hope, healing, and sorcery. However, he says the unnamed pony only brought them together to try and steal their power for himself. On driving him away, the pony embraced the powers of darkness and was turned into “the Pony of Shadows”, a foe devoted to covering Equestria with the same shadow. Unable to defeat him, the journal says the six went to confront him with a desperate plan, but fails to mention what happened afterward, and neither Starswirl nor the others were ever heard from again. Celestia entrusts the journal to Twilight and Sunburst to crack the mystery of their old mentor, and after extensive study and help from Starlight they discover a clue about a place called Ponehenge and, following the journal, uncover its ruins. On accidentally placing the journal at one spot in the ruins, a vision is projected showing what happened. The Pillars united their power through a magic artifact in each of their possession (Starswirl’s journal, Rockhoof’s shovel, Flash Magnus’ shield, Mistmane’s flower, Somnambula’s blindfold, and Meadowbrook’s mask) to create a spell to banish him to Limbo at the price of banishing themselves as well. As time and space has no meaning there, they have been trapped in that instant ever since. After further research, however, Twilight discovers that the spell can be broken and the six of them freed by reassembling their old artifacts, and the Cutie Map activates to show them where each of them are. Starlight suspects that Twilight only wants to break the spell for a chance to meet with her idol, and that they wouldn’t have banished themselves without good reason, but in the end her decision and those of the rest of the Mane Six and Sunburst overrides hers, and the artifacts are reassembled and the spell cast. The Pillars are immediately returned to the exact place where they disappeared, but as soon as they get their bearings Starswirl immediately tells Twilight to reverse the spell, shouting “you cannot bring only the Pillars back”. Moments later, the Pony of Shadows manifests himself as well.

The first act he performs is to immediately destroy Starswirl’s journal and Ponehenge so that he can’t be banished again. He attempts to destroy Starswirl next, but Twilight and Starlight intervene and, to his surprise, prove to be stronger than him in his currently weaker state. Vowing to destroy all hope in Equestria, he vanishes to regain his power and leaves everypony else behind. Starswirl is furious at Twilight for undoing the spell, and the chastisement by her idol leaves her feeling miserable. He states that they need to find where the Pony of Shadows went to perform the banishing spell a second time. The group takes the Pillars to the Cutie Map, where the Pillars reveal that the Tree of Harmony that resulted in the formation of the Castle of Friendship and the Cutie Map came from a seed they planted with a bit of their own virtue imbued into it. Seeing how much its power has grown in a thousand years, Starswirl decides to use the Elements of Harmony to perform the banishing spell again, much to the reluctance of the Mane Six on realizing doing so will kill the Tree of Harmony. Twilight, desperate to atone for her mistake and to prove she’s a good magic user to Starswirl, works on modifying the spell so that the Pillars themselves will not have to be trapped as well, and comes up with a solution that will allow the Elements of Harmony to open the gate to Limbo so that one powerful magic-using pony can push the Pony of Shadows inside; a solution Starswirl, after some pressure, accepts. However, when the Cutie Map activates again and all six members of the Mane Six are drawn to the Hollow Shades to confront the Pony of Shadows, Starlight grows concerned as the map has only ever sent the girls to solve friendship problems. On speaking with the other Pillars, she discovers the identity of the unnamed pony: a magic-less and weak unicorn named Stygian who had scholarly knowledge but no skill like them. She also discovers all of them always simply assumed Stygian tried to steal their powers out of greed and envy rather than knew for sure. Fearing this might be another friendship problem, Starlight confesses that banishment might not be the best course to Twilight but she, eager to prove herself to Starswirl, doesn’t listen; causing Starlight to chastise her as well. The Mane Six reclaim the Elements of Harmony from the tree and depart for the Hollow Shades, where they finally track the Pony of Shadows down. The gate is opened and starts to draw him inside, but Twilight hesitates to push him in and, in the course of doing so, notices a pony struggling to get out from within the Pony of Shadows. Diving inside of him, she meets Stygian face-to-face, who reveals he wanted to copy the powers of the Pillars not out of jealousy but because he always felt useless compared to them and wanted to help. When he was cast out as a result, he turned to “the darkness” and accepted its offer to make him stronger than the Pillars so he could have revenge. Unknown to Stygian, everything he has said is audible outside of the Pony of Shadows, and the Pillars realize their mistake. Starlight jumps in as well and she and Twilight encourage him to try and reunite with them, but when the shadows respond by clinging to him and forcing the two of them out, everyone, including Starswirl, shifts from trying to blast the Pony of Shadows into Limbo to seizing Stygian and yanking him out from within the monster. They’re able to separate him, and the shadows themselves are banished into Limbo instead. Starswirl finally admits he was wrong and he and the Pillars reconcile with Stygian, while the Mane Six are happily surprised to see the Elements of Harmony remain. Starswirl reunites with Celestia and Luna in Canterlot, but says that it isn’t the place for him. Instead, realizing he has a lot to learn, and with the Pillars eager to see how Equestria has changed, they decide to journey through Equestria before deciding where they will go. The episode ends with Twilight thanking Starlight for helping her to remember her “lessons” that she already learned.

Review:

And finally, the culmination of months of IDW Comic collaboration with the show in another two-part dramatic season finale. What’s my personal verdict?

Well, I find it better than Season Five and Season Six’s finales. Beyond that…it’s complicated. Short version, it had a couple things I liked and a lot of things I didn’t necessarily dislike but I was very “meh” about. Similar to the case with “My Little Pony: The Movie”, I expected more than got delivered. However, as time has gone on I’ve appreciated the movie more for what it did have and its villain. This episode, on the other hand, is very by-the-numbers…which is a much bigger minus.

It would have been one thing if this was a typical season finale, but this is a season finale that was being built up to in the IDW Comic for months. In the comic, the Pony of Shadows was made out to be such a powerful and malevolent villain, one so beyond any of the other villains until now, that his descendant Shadow Lock was purposely trying to erase any knowledge of his existence specifically to keep him from ever returning. That’s pretty intense. That promises something huge. And…we got a friendship misunderstanding with a character who’s practically a background pony. It may be the theme of the show, but…”Twilight’s Kingdom” left too much of an impression that’s being felt to this day. Fans long for powerful villains to defeat. It’s only a minor complaint, but it is a letdown. All that build-up for this.

There were some good points. Although it was mostly episode padding, Spike did get a little scene to himself with Rainbow Dash and Garble in which his clumsy, timid, yet determined nature comes through. And while Starlight does get a lot of credit for the resolution, this ended up being an episode where she and Twilight worked more alongside each other to save the day rather than one standing out above the other. And again, the end of this episode rams home the point made in the previous episode and the reason I finally accepted Starlight as a cast member: Starlight means a lot as a friend to Twilight, and if that’s the case then I can accept her based on that.

The nicest thing about this episode, however, is the Lore associated with it. We’re finally really breaking ground on the history of Equestria and making it canon. While a lot of the characters in this episode were alluded directly to by the comic, interestingly the one comic-concept that seemed to become canon from this episode is the idea that there are dark and malevolent forces, “shadows” if you will, that actively tried to ruin and corrupt Equestria in ages past. Thanks to efforts of Celestia, Luna, and the Pillars, most of them are diminished or banished and Equestria is now the land it is today, but they aren’t gone completely. The idea was used frequently in the comic with creatures such as the Nightmares and the Umbra, entities of nothing but darkness that constantly look to claim others and use them for their ends. It’s somewhat analogous to the shadow entity in “A Wrinkle in Time”, the idea that all civilized worlds have to constantly be on guard from interstellar darkness invading them and that their best defense are those that embody love, peace, justice, and everything good and wholesome in this world. It also ties in further to the idea that began to come to light in the movie, that Equestrians are in fact terribly powerful and destructive but because they’re so peaceful and friendship-loving their power is never used for ill ends. I’m wondering if more of this Lore will come to light in later episodes.

Unfortunately, that’s where the good stuff ends to me. If I had to sum up what’s wrong with this two-parter in one phrase, it would be this: character overload.

This episode features all of the Mane Six, Spike, Starlight Glimmer, Sunburst, and all six of the Pillars of Old Equestria in the roles of protagonists…a staggering 15 characters. Each one of them gets a couple lines. With so many characters and so many things to do in order to set up this episode, there’s no time for all of them. In fact, there’s practically no time for any of them. Almost all of the first half of this has to be devoted to exposition, and a lot of the second half has to be devoted to backstory. Whatever is not devoted to that is devoted to the tension between Starswirl the Bearded, Twilight Sparkle, and Starlight Glimmer…three characters out of fifteen.

With all of this taking up so much time, there’s little opportunity to devote to character interactions with the rest of the girls and their respective idols, building up the malevolence and tension with the Pony of Shadows, getting into the heads or personas of the Pillars who suddenly find themselves instantly 1,000 years in the future, how they all react to suddenly being in this new world so radically different from theirs, or even having enough backstory to really have a chance to develop sympathy for Stygian and a sense of the relationship he once had with Starswirl. Instead, the last part has to be spoon fed to us in a monologue. That’s a real shame in light of the movie, which managed to garner sympathy for Tempest Shadow without any lines in a silent flashback.

All of those other details could have made for good plot points. Perhaps even good distinct episodes. Any one of the Pillars of Old Equestria adjusting to this new world they find themselves in could make for a good storyline, or any of their old exploits as a group and how they met (which I hear is being handled by the comic). Instead, because so much exposition has to be presented and so many characters are there to cycle through, we barely get any time at all for most of them. About the only thing new we know about any of them other than Starswirl at the end is…Flash Magnus and Rainbow Dash want to hang with each other.

None of that necessarily makes the episode “bad”, but it does water it down quite a bit and diminish its dramatic impact to practically nothing. This has the feel of a story that could have stood to be three or even four episodes long to try and dig into everyone a little more. I appreciate that in every scene the shot is overloaded with characters that the animators took time to give them all their own reactions, but that doesn’t change the fact they’re mostly there along for the ride.

At least the Elements of Harmony are back and doing their thing. And this episode does leave me hopeful for the future and where the show could go from here.

Fun Facts:

As mentioned in the previous review, IDW My Little Pony: Legends of Magic #6 leads directly into this episode. That issue concludes with Sunburst first reading the journal, discovering something shocking, and then running off to tell the princesses. This episode begins with him revealing his findings to them, the Mane Six, and Starlight Glimmer.

“The Pony of Shadows” was first introduced in IDW My Little Pony #53. His presentation and modus operandi, as well as his backstory, is somewhat similar to Ganondorf from “The Legend of Zelda” series, in particular with six “sages” unable to defeat a force of evil and instead sealing him away. However, he also has a lot in common with Venom from “Spider-Man” comics. In particular to his appearance, how the “darkness” appears to have latched onto him like a corrupting symbiote, and in one particular scene in which extensions of his fake wings act like Venom’s own synthetic webs. The Pony of Shadows is the closest the show has come so far to depicting a male alicorn.

Each of the “Pillars” corresponds to an “Element” in the sense that when the pillar is upheld, it gives rise to the virtue the element represents:

• Strength begets Honesty.
• Bravery begets Loyalty.
• Healing begets Kindness.
• Beauty begets Inspiration (and kind of Generosity…note Inspiration was originally supposed to be Rarity’s element, not Generosity)
• Hope begets Laughter.
• Sorcery begets Magic.

As I mentioned in an earlier review, Celestia and Luna now share the throne.

Twilight has a “nerd laugh” (with snorting) when she giggles about Starswirl’s hoofwriting.

Limbo was a non-Biblical idea Roman Catholicism endorsed back in medieval times as a place where those who lived morally righteous lives (and therefore were not culpable for suffering within Hell) yet who died prior to the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ (and therefore were not eligible for Heaven) went after death. (It is separate from the similar and likewise non-Biblical Roman Catholic idea of Purgatory, which is endorsed to this day.)  It was rejected with the emergence of Protestantism and the idea that mankind’s own righteousness alone is insufficient to gain any form of salvation, and rather that all salvation is purely through the work of Christ and that His Sacrifice transcends past, present, and future. Nevertheless, it remains a popular literary device as an extra-dimensional realm separate from the mortal realm. Now it’s apparently part of Pony Lore.

Petunia Paleo cameos at the old Mighty Helm site, who first appeared in Season Six’s “The Fault in Our Cutie Marks”. There’s also Indiana-Jones-pony, and looking like the “Crystal Skull” version. 😛 Ironically, Daring Do was originally a knockoff of Indiana Jones, and she cameos in this episode too.

Holy crud, Applejack is super-pony-ly strong. O_O

When Rainbow Dash answers Garble’s wager with “Fine”, I like how Spike panics. 😛

Ugh…Pinkie Pie carries Somnambula’s slime-coated blindfold in her mouth…

Similar to how the Timberwolves are drawn using 3D art, allowing the mixed media to make them more unsettling, the Pony of Shadows is hand-drawn as opposed to animated in Flash to make him stand out from the other characters.

By far, this two-parter sets the record for the most voice actors in a single episode (ok, technically two). Mostly because so many of the voice actors have done only one or two voices in show history. Starswirl the Bearded, first mentioned all the way back in Season Two’s “Luna Eclipsed”, finally gets a voice by Chris Britton, who has had an assortment of voice acting and live acting roles with his more notable ones being Mr. Sinister on the old “X-Men” TV series and Soichiro Yagami on “Death Note” (he also played a role in Netflix’s poorly-received live-action “Death Note”). Bill Newton, who plays Stygian/the Pony of Shadows, is new this season but got a lot of work as he’s also the voice of Pharynx and Bright Macintosh. Other “one-voice” roles include Ian Hanlin reprising Sunburst and Chiara Zanni reprising Daring Do.

When Pinkie Pie interjects to explain all the foes they’ve defeated to Starswirl, she produces the Journal of Friendship out of nowhere. The original one no less. Yay, hammerspace.

Neither Rockhoof nor Somnambula ever spoke in their original appearances. This is the first time either of them received a voice.

I pointed this out in an earlier review, but…Somnambula’s personality ended up being radically different from how she was depicted in the IDW Comic. Whereas that made her more like Pinkie Pie, here she’s definitely more sagacious and reserved.

I’m still kind of stunned that Mage Meadowbrook knows so much about magic and can’t do any. 😛

Does Rockhoof use his shovel as…a weapon? I’m getting flashbacks to “Mystery Men”… Does that make it a Warshovel?

One of the biggest surprises in this episode came from the flashback, in which one of the foes of the Pillars of Old Equestria were revealed: the Sirens in their original bodies. This was rather shocking because the show creators had officially stated that the “Equestria Girls” universe was a spin-off and distinct from the show’s universe. In fact, previous attempts in the series to feature a cameo by Sunset Shimmer have been shot down on those grounds (such as in “Slice of Life” and “The Cutie Re-Mark”). There’s a chance that this is an alternate version of the Sirens who got banished to Limbo themselves rather than the human universe, but most fans consider this permission to start including Sunset Shimmer as part of the regular show. At any rate, this is the first look we’ve really gotten of their true forms. Although they appeared somewhat in “Rainbow Rocks”, those forms were inconsistent in size and it was debatable if it represented reality or simply projections the actual Dazzlings were making of themselves. The design is mostly identical as is their size, which is revealed to be several times larger than a normal pony. Changes included adding different tones of color and reducing the size of their eyes. “The Art of Equestria” reveals one of the basic ways the artists make “evil-looking characters” more Y-rating appropriate is by enlarging their eyes, such as they did with Chrysalis. Apparently we can “scare” the kids a bit more now. 🙂 It seems even in Equestria their jewels were key to their power, although in this version they seem to be embedded in their chests rather than simply jewels they wear. Ironically, although this episode represented a collaboration with IDW Comic, it renders IDW’s FIENDship is Magic #3 completely bunk. 😛

In the flashback with the Sirens, a filly version of Esmeraldas teases a hunchback pony, who in turn slams a giant bell down on her. 😛

“Stygian” is an adjective that refers to the river Styx, a place in Greek mythology which represents the barrier to the Underworld. A very dark place, in other words. His design is rather interesting, made to look like the “dumber” ponies in the series and, therefore, more unremarkable and forgettable ones.

While the Castle of the Two Sisters makes an appearance in flashbacks, no sign of young Celestia and Luna like in the comic. Aw…

“It seems I never accounted for the Magic of Friendship.” This is an echo of the line Princess Celestia gave to Twilight in “Magical Mystery Cure”: “Something even a great unicorn like Starswirl the Bearded was not able to do, because he did not understand friendship like you do.” It’s a nice nod.

Rating:

2.5 Stars out of 5

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Reviews ~ Season Seven, Episode Sixteen: “Campfire Tales”

Tags

Apple Bloom, Applejack, Campfire Tales, Flash Magnus, Flash Sentry, IDW comic, Legends of Magic, Mistmane, My Little Pony, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, opinion, Pillars of Old Equestria, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, review, Rockhoof, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle

Synopsis:

Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash are out with their respective “little sisters”, namely Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo, on another camping trip to Winsome Falls. Unfortunately, their campground is attacked by a group of ravenous “flyders”, forcing them to take shelter in a cave and eventually getting trapped there. As the CMCs consider the trip a disaster, the older girls tell them three campfire stories to cheer them up. Applejack tells her favorite legend of an earth pony named Rockhoof, who by strength of will and determination single-hoovedly saved his home village from a volcanic eruption. Rarity tells her favorite legend of a unicorn named Mistmane, who sacrificed her physical beauty for the sake of restoring her own friend’s lost beauty and the ability to spread it throughout Equestria. Rainbow Dash tells her favorite legend of a pegasus named Flash Magnus, who bravely risked his own life to act as a diversion for dragons to save his comrades. When the stories are done, the girls are unable to get out the way they came in and instead find a new exit through the rear of the cave that leads straight to Winsome Falls. Encouraged by the stories, in spite of having lost their original campground the girls decide to make the most of their trip anyway.

Review:

And with this episode, we got the kickoff of probably the strangest thing the series has done so far. Keying off of the IDW Comic’s high popularity, Hasbro actually worked hand-in-hand with them this season not only to produce the various movie prequels but to create the “Legends of Magic” arc that introduced and elaborated on the Pillars of Old Equestria. For several months, both the TV series and the comic ran with parallel stories, gradually building up to the Season Seven finale. The comic arc ran a continuous story of Sunburst investigating the ancient library of Starswirl the Bearded and discovering stories about the Pillars of Old Equestria. In turn, the show would debut an episode featuring that character having been introduced in the comic.

From a personal standpoint? It sounded like something that should have been pretty awesome. In reality, I didn’t find it too intriguing. I’ll be honest…none of the Pillars of Old Equestria are that noteworthy to me. A huge problem was made with them that drags them down throughout this entire arc, and it boils down to forgetting what the show was all about.

Applejack embodies Honesty. That means she always tells the truth, and it also means that she can be pushy and mean because she always gives her opinion and says it’s the right one. Rarity embodies Inspiration and Generosity. That means she is always willing to share beauty with others, but it also means she fixates too much on external beauty at times and lets herself get taken advantage of. Rainbow Dash embodies Loyalty. That means she always sticks up for her friends, but in sticking up for them she’s learned to love the nature of a competition as well as winning and has gotten an ego.

By comparison, Rockhoof embodies Strength and that’s it. Mistmane embodies Beauty and that’s it. Flash Magnus embodies Bravery and that’s it. None of them have any negative characteristics, and because of that…they’re legends on a page, not real characters like the rest of those in the series are. What made the girls so great was because they were so well developed and rounded, to the point where their own virtues could be flaws in the right situation, that you could admire them no matter what situation or plot they were in. The Pillars of Equestria only get one “good side” and that’s it. The only one who would eventually be shown to have a negative side would have that be his only side, and the same problem but in the opposite direction. More on this later, but…it’s a general complaint for now.

This episode in particular, though?

It’s got more than a few flaws. For the overarching narrative, it’s not too bad although there is one huge one. Scootaloo has been Flanderized from how she appeared in “Sleepless in Ponyville”, now being scared of everything even in broad daylight. Scootaloo wasn’t even scared in that episode until she heard her first scary story. Yet aside from that, the six girls don’t do much this episode other than set up reasons to hear the other stories.

As for the stories themselves…none of them were terribly great to me. Honestly, I found the best part of all of them was the art design. It looks like the animators really had a chance to be creative with the Pillars of Equestria and the associated worlds they are from.

In terms of the content, though, they didn’t really grab me. Rockhoof’s was considered the worst by at least a few fans and…I’m kind of one of them. It’s basically perpetuating the immortal myth that so long as you just simply “believe in your dreams” and “be determined” you’ll always succeed. In reality you usually need to put in a ton of effort and hard work to reach your goals, and even then there’s a good amount of talent that needs to be there usually. Bottom line, you’re not going to just get the best possible outcome handed to you because you believed in it.

Flash Magnus’ was better, but still nothing too wonderful. In his case, bravery in the face of almost certain destruction was emphasized, and it’s a story that has happened many times in history from many brave men and women. Situations where they knew they were likely doomed to die but they had a chance to save others if they risked their lives. Yet in real life, you usually don’t get magic shields to help, and many of those stories end up with people making the supreme sacrifice rather than achieving eternal glory. Still, many times people do survive and get Medals of Honor, and so this one was better at least, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen characters we like more and understand better having done before.

Mistmane’s was the best of the set, as it featured, a bit surprisingly, a character making a permanent sacrifice. That’s actually a little surprising for the show, and it was a decent lesson to show kids that true beauty comes from within and not all stories have a perfect ending. It had more interpersonal drama than the other two stories as well, which were more tales of one lone hero standing up against forces of nature when everyone else was ready to give up. The design was nice too. Yet in spite of all of that…I dunno. Something seemed so “bare bones” about all of it. Maybe if we would have had more of a chance to get into the characters and the setting it would have left more of an impact.

It’s not a bad episode by any means. But with something mixing the IDW Comic, which is prone to taking more content risks than the show does, in a grand arc with the actual show, I expected something with a bit more punch. Instead, to me, it was something that was more, like most of the second half of Season Seven, solidly average.

Fun Facts:

This episode continues the new tradition started way back in Season Three’s “Sleepless in Ponyville”.

I’m sorry…because Equestria actually has swarms of flying spiders, it is the most terrifying place in existence, friendship or not. 😦

Sweetie Belle has mastered how to use magic shields.

Rainbow Dash can carry fire.

As mentioned in the review, this episode marked the start of the build up not only to the Season Seven finale but was part of an arc that tied into the IDW Comic’s “Legends of Magic” series. The first issue of the “Legends of Magic” series was put out on April 12, 2017, several months before this episode would air. However, this arc officially kicked off with Friendship is Magic #50, the first issue in the “Chaos Theory” storyline, that was published on February 1, 2017, which introduced Shadow Lock who would later turn out to be a descendant of Stygian. At the time the episode debuted, only four issues had been published introducing four of the Pillars of Equestria: Starswirl the Bearded (in his appearance he would take on the show in spite of earlier renditions), Rockhoof, Mistmane, and Flash Magnus.

Each of the Pillars of Equestria corresponds to a different nationality. Rockhoof is Norwegian-based. Mistmane is Chinese-based. Flash Magnus is Roman-based.

In spite of being tied in with the IDW Comic, fans of both were quick to notice a discrepancy. Rockhoof’s story in “Legends of Magic” #2 indicated that he gained his incredible power through hard work, determination, and sticking to his routine no matter what. In this episode, however…he just sort of gets it magically bestowed on him for plot convenience.

Rockhoof does not get any lines in his story. It wouldn’t be until “Shadow Play” that we would hear his voice.

Interestingly enough, in this episode Rainbow Dash mentions how it would be impossible even for her to dig the trench in time, yet in “Shadow Play” there would be an allusion that Applejack herself might actually be physically a match for Rockhoof. 😛

Rarity somehow makes shadow puppets with her hooves… Not only that, they’re of “Ballerina Twilight” from “A Royal Problem”.

Both Mistmane and the other Chinese-inspired unicorns in her story have somewhat unique physical features, in that their ears are more pointed and their horns are recurved. It’s possible that she and the other Chinese-inspired unicorns are supposed to be “Kirins”, the Chinese unicorn, although those are usually depicted with long necks.

Mistmane has the unusual and unique design choice of having two-toned legs, ear tips, and a horn that blend into another color rather than having a clear demarcation.

It’s entirely possible that one of the dragons in Flash Magnus’ tale was Dragonlord Torch, not just in appearance but actual identity.

Rating:

2.5 Stars out of 5

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Reviews ~ Season Seven, Episode Fourteen: “Fame and Misfortune”

Tags

Applejack, Coconut Cream, Fame and Misfortune, Fluttershy, Journal of Friendship, My Little Pony, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, opinion, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, review, Toola Roola, Twilight Sparkle

Synopsis:

After breaking up an argument between two filly friends, Toola Roola and Coconut Cream, Twilight Sparkle goes back to her library and digs out her old Journal of Friendship and gets an idea. With Starlight Glimmer’s help, she makes hundreds of copies of it to distribute across Equestria, believing all the friendship lessons she and the girls learned will benefit ponies all over with their own friendships. Soon after, however, everything becomes a disaster. Apple Bloom is only using the book to market her own Cutie Mark related activities, ponies who hate Rarity in the book have driven her to compulsively “stress sew”, everypony won’t stop laughing at Pinkie Pie for thinking everything she does is supposed to be funny, pegasus fillies won’t stop mobbing Rainbow Dash, ponies are accusing Fluttershy of never growing out of her shyness everywhere she goes, and Applejack is overrun by fans who want to “join the Apple Family”. Things continue to get worse until a mob of so-called “fans” are nearly rioting outside the Castle of Friendship, and Twilight is miserable and blames herself for their own outrageous behavior for publishing the journal in the first place. Even when she and the girls confront the crowd, they only rage at each other even more. Feeling hopeless, the girls retreat back into the castle only to have Starlight bring around Toola Roola and Coconut Cream, who both read the journal and had their friendship strengthened as a result of it. Seeing that at least two ponies read and appreciate the journal for what it was trying to be, the girls are encouraged to believe it was worthwhile. They share a “friendship hug” while leaving the raging crowd outside to rant and fume.

Review:

This is another one of those weird ones. This episode got pretty much universal hate from the fans…while I really enjoyed it. For everyone who hates it, heh…I got two things for you. (1) I wonder if you’re missing the point of this episode. (2) Most of the people who hate this episode make me laugh because they don’t realize what they’re doing: essentially becoming the lesson of the episode themselves.

To sum up: if “Slice of Life” was the ultimate love letter to the fans, “Fame and Misfortune” is the ultimate hate mail to the fans. Almost everything that went on with all of the characters in this episode wasn’t meant to make background ponies hateworthy or, in my opinion, to even be considered as canon with the rest of the series. It was for the writers and show creators to vent their frustrations they receive on having to deal with the (often toxic) fandom.

Here’s what I found:

• Ironically, the show takes a stab at its own original purpose with the CMCs, who decide to use the book to push their idea for a Cutie Mark Summer Camp. Twilight gets unhappy that the book is being used simply to sell a product…which is the whole purpose of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” to begin with: to sell toys.
• The ponies who simply get signatures from Twilight Sparkle on their journals before turning them into collectibles is poking fun at the fans who don’t even really care about the show to begin with–they simply buy all the merchandise hoping to sell them for a profit years from now.
• The two ponies talking at the outdoor cafe represent the “haters” of a fandom: individuals who do absolutely nothing but hate a particular character and, in order to justify that hate, constantly misinterpret everything they say or do as something despicable and loathsome. Starlight Glimmer has been the target of this section of the fandom for some time. As a result, these two ponies are the only ones she confronts personally off camera. 😛 In fact, fans disliked Starlight Glimmer so much they did indeed begin to boycott the show…which is exactly what ponies do to Rarity’s business later in the episode.
• Pinkie Pie’s “fans” are those who read way too much into something. While these ones aren’t always as annoying, the fact that they continuously see things, good or bad, that were never there when that was never the intention gets annoying after a while. They declare certain things brilliant or hilarious simply due to love of a character rather than reality. Princess Luna and Derpy Hooves were targets of this early on.
• Rainbow Dash’s “fans” are the ones who go crazy about only one character in particular. Basically they only care about one character and think everything they say or do is wonderful and brilliant, and anything negative about them (even if they’re intended to be a negative character) was really them secretly being wonderful or sabotages by others. It’s somewhat similar to Pinkie Pie’s fans, only they go to the extreme where they think all other characters need to be diminished to prop that character up or even project negative characteristics onto them to make them look less. Fans like this eventually give rise to Draco in Leather Pants and Ron the Death Eater tropes.
• Fluttershy’s haters…well, um (swallow)…are those who get upset that characters never seem to grow even late in the series or even regress from time to time…you know, people like me. ._. (Yes, I’m ashamed…)
• Applejack’s fans are the ones who take their love of the show way, WAY too far, essentially making themselves “honorary ponies” and trying to act like the characters on the show. Every fandom has them. You know…crazy people. 😛
• Finally, Toola Roola and Coconut Cream represent the “real fan”; not so much from learning lessons about friendship, but the individuals who take what MLP:FIM is and appreciate it for what it is, no more and no less.

Fandoms are, unfortunately, a misfortune of life when you want to be a fan of anything, yet the Internet has made them a whole new level of insane and crazy, to the point of shaming people into wanting to commit suicide and forcing show writers to bow to their insane delusions even if they were never the original staff. Often they drive more casual fans away from the show with how crazy they get and can be downright savage to one another. However, writers, actors, and staff for a show get it even worse because they have to be subjected to every nut out there. People often say they dislike something because of the “toxic fandom”. What they fail to realize is that fandom is short for “fanatic domain”. If a show has a fandom, by definition it’s made up of crazy people who represent the absolute worst of the fans. Every fandom is toxic because that’s what a fandom is.

And frankly? They need to be called out on it. Being a fan doesn’t give you a license to be a maniac or a jerk.

This episode was an attempt by the writers, to me, to highlight the irresponsible and downright nutty behavior of the fandom. It was an allegory for how the people behind the show feel when being subjected to this insanity, and how the fame and notoriety the show has achieved nevertheless is a mixed blessing because of how people act and rave. It showed how emotionally draining and miserable something that you love, something that your passion is, can be when it’s forced to be subjected to fandom poison.

The lesson at the end was supposed to be that the people out there who genuinely appreciate the show, who see the mistakes and flaws of characters as the very things that make them more real and relatable, are the ones who make all of the toxicity worthwhile. The girls are able to press on because they realize “someone out there gets what this is supposed to be”. It’s a lesson for anyone who wants to pursue an artistic fashion, and it’s a lesson for the fans themselves who aren’t toxic: you can’t control other people, only how you respond to them.

It’s disheartening that so many people in the fandom ended up doing exactly what their pony representations did at the end of this episode…missed this point entirely and argued instead about how repulsive the ponies in the crowd acted. They don’t even realize they ARE the ponies in the crowd. Yet even this episode seemed to anticipate that would happen, and the answer is to simply ignore them and press on.

For me personally? I saw what this episode was supposed to be on the nose, and it’s a bit sobering for my own reviews. I only mark it down because, er, it’s not exactly the most uplifting of episodes even with the end. And none of the target little kids would get what it was trying to say.

Uh, heh…I’ll try to tone down my Fluttershy criticism from now on… (gulp)

Fun Facts:

This episode was penned by M.A. Larson, the most infamous writer on the show. With episodes like “The Return of Harmony”, “Magical Mystery Cure”, and “Slice of Life”, he’s gained the reputation of being the most unconventional writer of the show who never writes an episode unless something striking is going to happen. As a result, misinformation was leaked about who the writer of this episode was to the public. It wasn’t until the episode debuted that he was revealed as the writer.

Toola Roola and Coconut Cream were both G3 My Little Ponies originally. Similar to Moondancer, they have identical coloration in their Friendship is Magic incarnations.

As another nod to Larson’s influence, the moral that Twilight teaches Toola Roola and Coconut Cream (“Friendship isn’t always easy, but there’s no doubt it’s worth fighting for.”) was for “The Return of Harmony”…and which Discord infamously gagged to on hearing.

I hate to emulate one of the ponies in this episode, but…the “Journal of Friendship” phase of the show only was during Season Four. In Season One and the first part of Season Two it was Twilight’s letters to Celestia, while most of Season Two and Three it was the Mane Six’s letters to Celestia. There haven’t been any since the Cutie Map took over in Season Five, although the IDW Comic (which, as we will see, influenced the second half of this season) continued to use them. The letters could have always been compiled in the journal, I suppose.

One of the pages in the book completely disintegrates. Twilight makes an odd face after Starlight’s mockery.

Failed attempt at continuity. Apple Bloom mentions she’s thinking of creating a “Cutie Mark summer camp”. This seems to allude to the future episode “Marks and Recreation”, but in that episode the idea is fresh to them again.

The Journal of Friendship only received 1 and a half stars according to the book review.

By far, the most infamous face from Season Seven is the one Rarity has when Twilight and Starlight confront her in her sewing room.

Toward the end, the crowd of ponies echo various complaints that the writers had to have heard a dozen times. Probably the two biggest ones are “Twilight was more interesting before she got wings”, which was a major complaint of fans when she was turned into an alicorn at the end of Season Three…and one M.A. Larson himself is probably sick of hearing. Another one is “Are Pinkie Pie and Applejack related or what?”, which really shouldn’t have been a big of a deal as it ended up being but was drug up with “Hearthbreakers” and Marble Pie (I’m sore about that one ruining MarbleMac. :()

During “Flawless”, the girls pair up with their own species: the pegasi (Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash), the earth ponies (Applejack and Pinkie Pie), and the unicorns [originally](Rarity and Twilight Sparkle).

I noted after the song Amethyst Star seemed to “get it”, but she joins back in with the arguing soon after.

Rating:

4 Stars out of 5