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community group sub-forums => mlp (my little pony) => Topic started by: Kay Alett on September 15, 2011, 12:43:02 pm

Title: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 15, 2011, 12:43:02 pm
Since the new season starts this saturday I thought I'd go ahead and get this thread started however it will remain locked untill saturday morning, at which time I will open it and we may all begin our ravenous talk of the start of the new season.

The new episode will be showing in just a few hours from now. Is everypony excited? Are we all biting at our hooves/nails/etc?

Season Two of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic!
Everything you want to discuss about the show goes here from the cast to how busy the gardners must be maintaining that hedgemaze! :o
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 17, 2011, 09:12:45 am
This is the first thing I thought of during the opening. :D

Chad Vader: Chocolate Rain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6dUCOS1bM0
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 17, 2011, 09:20:50 am
This is the first thing I thought of during the opening. :D

Chad Vader: Chocolate Rain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6dUCOS1bM0
lmto! Same here! :D
Oh man, so Discord is the original ruler of Equestria? Didn't see that coming. And WHERE is Luna!?

Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 17, 2011, 09:22:10 am
No kidding! That was a twist. Also, Discord is Q to a T. Even if I didn't already know it was the same actor, you can't help but peg the two. You'd think they had the Star Trek TNG writers making Discord.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kobuk on September 17, 2011, 09:24:20 am
Good choice of John de Lancie as voice actor for Discord. :) He's really great as a mischief maker.  :D First Q, then Discord.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 17, 2011, 09:32:34 am
Plus much like Q he appears in flashes of white light, plus he even snaps his fingers!!! :D

But oh my god... He corrupted Fluttershy by FORCE! The most dependable of ponies and he just.... OH POOR FLUTTERSHY!!! :'(
Epic episoe to star off with, Rainbow Dash fearring that Cloudsdale would fall apart without her. Such a cool point to bring up.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 17, 2011, 09:34:56 am
Good choice of John de Lancie as voice actor for Discord. :) He's really great as a mischief maker.  :D First Q, then Discord.
That's it. I'm not letting you deny any more. You're a brony. Welcome to the herd. *Shoves a cutie mark on your flank*

Anywho, back to the episode at hoof. It... has left me speachless. The crew wasn't kidding when they said Season 2 was gonna hold a lot of surprises.

Oh yeah, FLUTTERSHY! Man, I loved how she was so clueless, making Discord pissed off. Just read Kalo's new post.


Now I'm speachless again. :P
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 17, 2011, 09:40:06 am
I love how Pinkie is all "Guys THINK about this for a second! Eternal chaos means we have chocolate rain, CHOCOLATE RAIN!" :P Oh Pinkie... You'd hand the devil your soul for a lifetime supply of candy wouldn't you? :(

And yeah... Kobuk is certainly a Brony. There is no denying it now. :D

God this episode.... I'm full of so much SQUEE right now there is no ~yay~ quiet enough to describe my joy.

EDIT: oh yeah and then whe the elements are gone Pinkie is all. "Oh well. If you need me I'll be in a chocolate puddl with a giant swizzle straw!"

Like...Oh well, the world is doomed but we have chocolate rain so I'm not mad!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on September 17, 2011, 09:56:19 am
Okay, another great episode. I just wish they would have given us a full hour season opener >.>
But oh well, just have to wait now.

I thought AJ was surprisingly weak when she went gray. I would think it would have taken a bit more than that to get to her? But in general, I like how she's obviously still not comfortable with or used to lying at all.
Also, RD's loyalty basically just switched from her friends to her home, though the reason was a bit egocentric. But messing with all their personalities like that just makes me appreciate them even more.

I'm curious to see how much fan material we see in the next week based solely off this episode now.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 17, 2011, 10:01:08 am
I like how Rarity tries to resist Discord's attempts to mess her up.

I'm curious to see how much fan material we see in the next week based solely off this episode now.
Me too, especially since a ST:TNG/MLP fan video showed up not long after the Discord teaser came out.

Oh well... The episode is done and so is its repeat.... Now we all have to sufer through a week till the next episode and the conclusion...
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on September 17, 2011, 10:58:04 am
Speculation time!
I'm hearing a lot of talk about how people think the CMC will have a large role in the resolution of this story. Thoughts or opinions? This could potentially be a great learning opportunity for those three (could we see CMC cutie marks by the end of the next episode?). Also like how they were in this episode without a single mention of looking for their cutie marks.

More realistically though, Twilight will somehow have to help snap them all out of their gray-ness so they can work as a team again. She at least has her magic back now... but I doubt this will be as simple as a spell (already shown that her spells don't work against Discord's shenanigans).

Oh, also... Derpy confirmed in season 2. Missed it when watching the first time due to poor video quality.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 17, 2011, 11:00:34 am
She's in Discord's vision of Cloudsdale falling apart. :)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kobuk on September 17, 2011, 11:39:40 am
I never said or claimed to be a brony. I'm just a fan of actor John de Lancie and I like his style of humor and wit ever since he appeared as Q on STNG.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on September 17, 2011, 12:11:39 pm
Was the first episode a part 1 of 2? 

Haven't seen it yet.  :P
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 17, 2011, 12:14:33 pm
Yes, it's a 2 parter
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on September 17, 2011, 12:25:32 pm
Yes, it's a 2 parter

Ok .. Sounds interesting. :orbunny:
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 17, 2011, 01:19:47 pm
Yes, it's a 2 parter

Ok .. Sounds interesting. :orbunny:
Very, but sadly we have to wait a week... :(
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on September 17, 2011, 08:42:47 pm
Yes, it's a 2 parter

Ok .. Sounds interesting. :orbunny:
Very, but sadly we have to wait a week... :(

Has the new episode made it online?
I don't have acess to the Hub on tv. :P
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 17, 2011, 08:46:16 pm
Yes, it's a 2 parter
Ok .. Sounds interesting. :orbunny:
Very, but sadly we have to wait a week... :(

Has the new episode made it online?
I don't have acess to the Hub on tv. :P
Yeah its been online since like, an hour or so after it aired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrBVNkDl_EQ
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on September 17, 2011, 09:11:30 pm
Ok thanks. I have been doing searches on youtube of and on with
only teasers showing for the new episode.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Sheeta on September 17, 2011, 10:24:17 pm
Just finished watching it on the YouTubes...that was pretty fun.  Can't wait to see what happens!  I'll watch it again on the 12:30pm replay Monday on the big screen.

I've now officially drawn my pony and cutie mark.  Yeah, yeah, I know...welcome to the herd...you've officially got me.  ;)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kobuk on September 17, 2011, 10:27:35 pm
Eternal chaos brings chocolate rain!

CHOCOLATE RAIN!

 :goldlaugh: :goldlaugh: :goldlaugh:
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 17, 2011, 10:49:40 pm
Just finished watching it on the YouTubes...that was pretty fun.  Can't wait to see what happens!  I'll watch it again on the 12:30pm replay Monday on the big screen.

I've now officially drawn my pony and cutie mark.  Yeah, yeah, I know...welcome to the herd...you've officially got me.  ;)
Welcome Indeed. I think you'll enjoy it here. :)

*Looks over at Kobuk enjoying the chocolate rain*
Do I need to send welcomes to you as well Kobuk? Perhaps by now you've developed a Mountain Dew cutie mark? Or maybe it has more to do with care and keeping of a fursuit?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kobuk on September 17, 2011, 10:55:06 pm
What? I couldn't hear you.

*continues noming on chocolate rain*   *nom,noms*
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on September 17, 2011, 11:29:42 pm
That popcorn with chocolate rain looked pretty good.  :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on September 18, 2011, 04:05:41 am
That popcorn with chocolate rain looked pretty good.  :D

Why would you want to stop this!? It's raining chocolate!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 18, 2011, 04:40:37 am
So after listening to a podcast talking about such things, I'm trying to decide my speculative angle on Discord. Some options:

Discord is more of a troll than Celestia and just having some fun with no true lasting ill will
He's a true villan wishing to disrupt Equestria, kinda like how NMM wanted (mostly because he showed his anger when Fluttershy trolled him back)
One suggestion I heard was he and Celestia are in cohoots to teach the ponies a lesson

I dunno. I think I'm gonna have to watch it a second time through to really look at everything. Off hoof, I'm leaning that he's going to go the way of NMM. He's consumed by an evil energy that needs to be broken. Then he'll become more or less normal again. Problem with that, is it would be too much of a re-hash of the first two episodes. Actually, with how "Q" like he is, I would almost bet he'll follow something like ST:TNG's story line of Q, where this is a trial of sorts that he'll judge. It's been long enough since TNG that they could easily use a similar line without affecting their target audience much and perhaps much of the Brony community too. Then have him pop in here and there during the season to troll about.

Also, I know where you live.
Also also, waiting for another "Dumb Rock" comment from Rarity.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on September 18, 2011, 04:47:29 am
A little something I made..

(http://i1237.photobucket.com/albums/ff478/Junyad/Plotinmyponies.png)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 18, 2011, 02:33:51 pm
I'm a bit sad that Pinkie's hair didn't deflate when Discord got her.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 18, 2011, 02:39:54 pm
Well she was just angry and not demented. :P
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 19, 2011, 12:40:57 pm
Not posting this on the adult references thread because it would risk being a spoiler, but I wonder if they got the maze idea from the movie "Labyrinth"?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 19, 2011, 02:38:01 pm
I don't know if I should feel special, but I found an animation error. If it's been spotted already, I can at least say I found it on my own. :P

(http://www.thefoxydj.com/missing_mark.jpg)

Tisk tisk. Not even 90 seconds into the new season too. :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on September 19, 2011, 02:55:29 pm
Looks like pinky isn't as pink as she should be.  

But if it's the little group of ponies at the beginning it's not
pinky.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 19, 2011, 03:02:57 pm
Looks like pinky isn't as pink as she should be.  :D
Nope, Pinky isn't in that pic. That's Twist in the background and she has a blank flank. She used to be, but got her cutie mark in the first season.

http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Twist
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on September 19, 2011, 03:09:45 pm
Good catch. I imagine many others will notice too.  :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 19, 2011, 03:16:47 pm
Nice catch there Narei. :D

BLANK FLANK! :D :D :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on September 19, 2011, 04:45:40 pm
Yeah, no denying that one. But the look on Sweetie Belle's face... the combination of the animation style and simply how expressive they made the characters makes for some rather awkward expressions if you pause it on a single frame.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Sheeta on September 20, 2011, 02:35:42 pm
Just watched it again, and it's even more fun the second time around.  I absolutely loved Fluttershy's smile when Discord was trying to get to her.  She loved and tolerated the (yay!) outta him!   :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 20, 2011, 04:10:22 pm
This confuses me. Can anypony explain what this means?

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/09/confirmed-gap-between-discord-and.html
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 20, 2011, 04:27:07 pm
This confuses me. Can anypony explain what this means?

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/09/confirmed-gap-between-discord-and.html
It means that for whatever reason, they decided to put in a gap. Probably a marketing ploy for ratings or something so they can skip a week or so with re-runs and still have higher numbers. I wouldn't be too concerned about it.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on September 20, 2011, 05:08:34 pm
This confuses me. Can anypony explain what this means?

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/09/confirmed-gap-between-discord-and.html
It means that for whatever reason, they decided to put in a gap. Probably a marketing ploy for ratings or something so they can skip a week or so with re-runs and still have higher numbers. I wouldn't be too concerned about it.

I agree.. It's all about rateings.. 

Hopefully they didn't reduce the number of
episodes for season 2..   
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 20, 2011, 05:34:52 pm
Nope, they confirmed I think 26, including the 2 hold overs from Season 1 that didn't air. That's a heck of a lot for that kind of show.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kobuk on September 20, 2011, 05:36:07 pm
*impatient*

Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?

*grabs Kalo and snarls* MAKE IT HURRY UP AND GET HERE!  :goldpissed:




 :D  :D  :D  :D  :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on September 20, 2011, 07:18:03 pm
*impatient*

Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?

*grabs Kalo and snarls* MAKE IT HURRY UP AND GET HERE!  :goldpissed:




 :D  :D  :D  :D  :D

(http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQOIf7oUbIBpQVfY8ER5byxmifdGQmYaRglNum4CN5fZhM2R93G87_Q8K78FA)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 20, 2011, 09:54:50 pm
*impatient*

Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?

*grabs Kalo and snarls* MAKE IT HURRY UP AND GET HERE!  :goldpissed:




 :D  :D  :D  :D  :D
*smirks and smiles at Kobuk*
Not easy when you need your pony fix is it? Have you tried watching some of the first season episodes? Or maybe browse youtube for some Q videos? Also you can try visiting Equestria Daily and perusing some of the drawfriend posts, PMVs and believe it or not there is some good fan fiction out there. :)

C'mon everypony, Kobuk needs our help. He's picked quite a dangerous time to join the herd. You know how it is when you're new to the series, yu feel that compulsion for the new. We had to get by with watching the first season in mare-athons but he's been brought in on the epic-ness of the second seasons start. So lets not have any picking. :)

*gives Kobuk a custom Discord figurine to stave off his shakes*
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on September 22, 2011, 11:34:08 am
I have watched the "Return of Harmony Part 1" episode a few times through now (I am ever more rapidly spiraling downwards into Bronydom, I know) and here are some of my own personal thoughts about it:

First of all, I've tried, but I can't help but shake the opinion that this storyline is too much of a rehash of the Season 1 opening story, "Friendship is Magic" parts 1 and 2.  I know that I am not the only person here who has picked up on this.  Even worse, I feel that the season 1 opening story involving taking down a villain with the Elements of Harmony was *much* better-- it setup the locations, characters, and mood for the series very well, etc.  Unfortunately, the plot of the new episode "Return of Harmony - Part 1" really gives me the impression of "here we go again" far more than it makes me think that the series is going somewhere new and exciting that I haven't seen before.  On top of that, the overall tone of this episode seems somewhat darker than any other episode that I think that I have seen for this series-- it doesn't really seem to quite fit with the overall bright and warm tone that all of season 1 had, and I have to wonder if some of the more creepy elements like the talking apple piles, the mocking balloon garden, and the creepier than usual music soundtrack might be a bit off-putting to the youngest viewers that this show is supposed to be targeted at.  The original villain Nightmare Moon and her antics weren't really all that dark or imposing by comparison.  I am not saying that MLP:FiM shouldn't have a more serious lot every now and then, but as I said before the more foreboding tone of this episode just doesn't seem to quite fit with the tone of the episodes from season 1.

Also, as of this moment anyway, I am not sure if I am really pleased with the new villain, Discord.  I have nothing against the voice actor John de Lancie or his performance-- those were fine, and I did enjoy him back in the day when he played "Q" on ST:TNG.  Instead, the two things that I don't like about Discord are his (lack) of motivations for being evil, and the fact that he seems to be all-powerful.  To explain my first point, I absolutely hate villains that are evil just for the sake of it.  I usually view the world as shades of gray instead of just in black-and-white, so I like my heroes to have a little bit of dark in them, my villains to have a little bit of light in them, and for the villains to actually have a reason for doing the evil that they do instead of just doing evil to be evil.  For example, back when Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon, she wasn't originally evil, and her turn to darkness wasn't an overnight transformation.  Instead, she slowly became more and more upset that the ponies of Equestria enjoyed and were grateful for the daytime that her sister brought, but slept through and were unappreciative of the nights that she brought.  This resentment grew and turned to jealousy, and finally caused her to turn against her sister, who she focused her bitterness against.  Add that to the fact that Nightmare Moon was imprisoned in the moon by her sister for a thousand years, and there is some real motivation there as to why she would want to seek revenge against her sister and wreck everything that her sister had built.  And as horrible as that is, Nightmare Moon wasn't inherently evil-- she was just a pony that let her jealousy and bitterness consume her.  That is a very human backstory, and you can relate to it.  Who here hasn't felt spurned by someone who upstaged them at some point in their lives?  I don't think that the same can be said for Discord.  Sure, you can say that he is also resentful for being imprisoned for thousands of years and displayed as some kind of trophy in a garden, but that doesn't explain why he was originally evil and had to be imprisoned to begin with.  I hope that they delve a little more into his backstory in part 2, because villains that are evil only for the sake of it are rather one-dimensional characters.  As far as I'm concerned it's the villains that make the story, and I would like Discord to turn out to be an engaging one.

For my second point, as far as why I don't like Discord being seemingly all-powerful is because having a seemingly invincible foe often causes an unresolvable conflict for the heroes, and that can lead to the use of deus ex machina plot devices as a cheap way to resolve that conflict.  For example, I don't want to see the situation against Discord look utterly hopeless for the ponies until all of a sudden there is an unexpected and convenient appearance of a brand new powerful event, character, ability, or object that somehow defeats Discord and saves the day-- that can be rather unimaginative.  If your villains have human weaknesses and flaws on the other hand, you don't need to resort to deus ex machinas to resolve things-- you can resolve the stories through clever use of the characters' current talents and abilities to exploit their weaknesses rather than having some new unlikely invention, event, or ability resolve it for them.  As a side note, I also hope that the writers don't go down the other overused route of having the ponies somehow trick Discord (possibly by having him unintentionally break the rules of one of his own games) and fool him into re-imprisoning himself or leaving or something.  I would really like to see some kind of imaginative, unforeseen, and entertaining twist for the ponies to save the day here.  Like Ziel speculated, it would be interesting to have the Cutie Mark Crusaders somehow play an instrumental role in resolving the conflict in some way, especially since they were the characters that kicked off the events of the plot by releasing Discord to begin with.

I was also kind of surprised by how easily Applejack submitted to Discord's ruse in the hedge maze.  While I like the idea behind what Discord's message was (that it is sometimes easier to delude yourself than it is to accept a hard truth), Applejack succumbed to it with nary any resistance at all.  Even Rarity showed greater resistance against Discord than Applejack did, and she didn't have an entire episode of the series solely dedicated to her steadfast dependability (e.g. Episode 4 - "Applebuck Season").  With Fluttershy I did enjoy Discord's forcibly turning her mean as it broke the pattern of the story and it was an unexpected, but at the same time it lowers my opinion of Discord because it shows a lack of patience and cunning on his part.  He was the one that said he liked games to begin with, yet he was quick to cheat at his own game as soon as Fluttershy showed the slightest bit of resilience against him and his methods.  Lastly, I felt that Discord's trick against Rainbow Dash was one of the best since having the ponies lose Discord's game through Rainbow Dash leaving the maze was not something that I saw coming.  It really makes you wonder what is going to happen to the ponies now that Discord has won the "game," and how they are going to escape that situation.

Hopefully I don't sound overly negative about the season 2 opening episode.  Overall, I felt that this episode of MLP:FiM was pretty close to MLP:FiM's usual high standard, and for all I know all of my minor misgivings may still be resolved in part 2 of this story-- it is really kind of hard to accurately critique anything when you've only seen half of the story!  In any case, I will be looking forward to watching the resolution of this story on my DVR on Sunday night once I return home from the vintage computer fair that I am attending all weekend!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 22, 2011, 12:45:37 pm
Well Nightmare Moon didn't actually come about due to her resentment, Lauren Faust has stated several tims that it was due to magic. An outside force (I speculate Discord) turned her into Nightmare Moon.

Also Discord is the spirit of Chaos itself so its in his nature to be faily evil and cruel seeming. Its already been establishd that the Elements of Harmony (harmony being the natural opposite of the state of discord/chaos) were able to defeat him once before so naturally they're the currently only hope of stopping him. The mane 6 have a strong friendship together centered around Twilight so I can easily envision a situation where Twilight gets them back to being themselves. Also Discord was overthrown from his rule of Equestria and imprisoned in stone by both Celestia AND Luna so it happened before Luna became Nightmare Moon, meaning he's been in stone for over 1000 years. So I'd say in this episode he isn't evil for the sake of it, he's getting revenge for having his kingdom stolen out from under him and being imprisoned for over a millenium.

As for how he corrupted 5 of the mane 6 I don't really have a nit-picky stand on it. I don't particularly mind one way or another on how it happened, mostly due to I understand they're under time constraints.

Personally I love that the episode goes on like any of the others ithout re-establishing anything. It always feels clunky to me to re-introduce things at the start of a season. I like just jumping in and going. I did kinda feel that the episode has a feel of "The Mare in the Moon" but I don't mind, its only the second time they've faced down a dark power like this. I also LOVED how much darker the episode was. I enjoy the sweet light-hearted nature of the show but I've been wanting to see some more grim elements get put in. As for the whole "Its a kids show" argument, I don't see that as being valid. Kids live in the real world and the real world isn't pretty. I had a good childhood with lots of playing and I had quite a lot of dark points in it that didn't spoil me from "being a kid" and quitee honestly I always cartoons that took on darker, more serious situations. Its one othe reasons I liked TMNT growing up and as i got a little older The Sonic Sat AM and the 90s Batman cartoon. I honestly think that saying something is just "A kids show" is simply an excuse to not put in a lot of effort in the writing. Kids can take dark elementss to cartoons better than you think.

I believe Americans are too obsessed with the image of "innocense of youth" I think that kind of thinking does not prepare a child for the realities of the world. If you let them grow up thinking everything is cookies and sunshine all the time they're gonna be pretty damaged when reality comes in.

I'm not saying the show has to be as dark as the darkest Grimdark fan fiction, I'm simply trying to state that a little seriousness, complex plot and dark elements added to a show "for kids" is not a bad thing and in the end can teach a child a better lesson about life than any letter Twilight can write at the end of an episode.

Those are my thoughts on the subject of darker plots. I'll make a new thread for this subject So if anyone wishes to discuss that particular subject please post in THIS (http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=42397.new#new) thread.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: 489109 on September 24, 2011, 09:34:06 am
OMGosh, OMGosh, OMGosh, OMGosh, OMGosh!

The final scene of Episode Two is just so full of win it is almost indescribable. Not going to spoil it for anyone, but I have to say it was beyond all expectations. Everypony is going to love it and if you don't I will be flabbergasted.

The Discord arc is now finished, on to the regular season of Season Two now. See everypony next week.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kobuk on September 24, 2011, 09:36:37 am
I thought when Discord had mentioned his riddle to the ponies back in Ep. 1, I thought "......starting back where you began" had meant at the castle? That's where the Harmony items were originally kept and that's where I originally thought Discord may have hidden them. So I assumed the ponies would have to go back to the castle and finish things there.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on September 24, 2011, 11:46:51 am
Part 2 in both seasons shows that Friendship owns the magic. :orbunny:
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 24, 2011, 01:01:20 pm
(http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/joker-heath-ledger.jpg)

I only have one question!
Where...IS...LUNA?!?!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 24, 2011, 04:09:30 pm
Well.... So where do we go to start a pettition to bring Discord back?

Anyone know Jayson Theissen's twitter/facebook?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: 489109 on September 24, 2011, 04:16:44 pm
Discord and Luna are playing Horseshoes in some distant and long forgot resort in the EverFree Forest. Zecora is the referee of the game and the Great and Powerful Trixie is playing the winner.

Okay artists, here is your challenge: Draw that scene as described above.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on September 25, 2011, 06:57:53 pm
Finally just got to watch episode 2. Honestly, not one of my favorites. it was rather rushed, and could have had a more creative resolution.

Don't get me wrong, there were parts I enjoyed, and it get get me to chuckle a few times (mostly at the gray ponies not getting along because it's just so out of character). I liked the references back to lessons learned in season 1. Oh, and the whole capturing of RD was awesome (highlight of the episode IMO). I just wish some of the end there weren't quite so rushed.

I look forward to the next episode, where they should be going back to the slice-of-life format that I enjoy so much.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 26, 2011, 09:07:09 pm
The final scene of Episode Two is just so full of win it is almost indescribable. Not going to spoil it for anyone, but I have to say it was beyond all expectations. Everypony is going to love it and if you don't I will be flabbergasted.

Then be glabbergasted. I'm not a fan of Star Wars, so that ending was a bit of a cringe for me. Not really complaining, just had to prove you wrong. :P

I also feel the second part had a rushed feeling, even for not needing to re-introduce everyone.  I will watch it again soon I'm sure, and I'll see if I can put my finger on it. I think it seemed like the whole episode was *gotta go do this... no that... now this other thing... hurry hurry hurry.* So not so much rushed as in getting to the resolution quick, but rushed as in not very many low key points in the episode where the action had a chance to die down. Though I did love how Pinky Pie had to hold off the final attack just a few more seconds so she could get a last drink of chocolate rain. :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 26, 2011, 09:48:45 pm
I agree that it felt rushed, the ending sequence was awesome though. :)

I dunno, I lovedd the episode but I just can't shake the sam feeling everypony haas about it going by so fast.
Maybe we built ourselves up too much?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 26, 2011, 11:34:45 pm
One thing I'd like to address is the return of Celestia's trollish behavior.

Spike getting the letters back.

So Twilight and the others fail to seal away Discord, Spike (the Rainbow Dash replacement) goes back upstairs where he begins getting the letters back, this is about the exact same time that Twilight succumbs and turns grey and begins wandering Ponyville. She returns later on and finds Spike and the letters, reads them and gets her color back. :)

Now, How did Celestia know that Twilight had succumbed? Was she watchin the whole thing? If so why didn't she step in to help? Or step in right then and talk to Twilight and tell her to remember her friendships? Why go back to the castle and start sending letters back through Spike? Or letss say she wasn't watching? How'd she know Twilight succumbed to Discord's power? And if she didn't know then why send the letters back?
If it was only to help Twilight and Celestia was indeed watching her then how come after Twilight getss her color back does Spike keep recieving letters?

Honestly the more I watch the scene it seems more to me like Celestia was just trying to be mean...
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 27, 2011, 03:05:01 am
Reading through you post, I was initially thinking that Cellestia may or may not have been watching. It could work either way. If she was watching, then she figured Twilight reading her own words would be a lot more powerful than anyone else trying to get her to remember (much like how it didn't work when Twilight tried to explain the spell away to the other ponies). She needed something that hit home, like her letters, to break the spell.

After reading to the end of your post and the mention of Spike still burping letters (I felt bad for him. That couldn't have felt good at all after so many) after Twilight was back to normal, I'm now leaning more towards my other line of thinking. Cellestia may not have known what was happening to Twilight. She may have been thinking that Twilight just didn't know how to break the spell over the other ponies. She could have observed the spells starting from the castle while still in the maze, even if she couldn't monitor them in Ponyville through magic or something. So Cellestia figured out what needed to be done and sending all those letters back was the only way she could get Twilight to see that she needed to put those memories back in the other 5 so that she could break the spell. That would explain why the letters kept coming after Twilight's own spell was broke, because Cellestia didn't even know that had happened.

Or, it could have been my original thought, and that last letter was just Cellestia being Trollestia, aka writers throwing it in for a bit of comic relief and not meant to tie into the plot so much. :P

EDIT: WOAH... Now I'm wondering. Did Cellestia know from Season 1 episode 1 that this was going to go down? I remember thinking way back when that making out reports on "the power of friendship" seemed kinda like pointless work. Turns out it served a purpose. Is that why Cellestia made Twilight write them all, so she could use them to break the spell by Discord later? :o
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 27, 2011, 12:59:54 pm
Reading through you post, I was initially thinking that Cellestia may or may not have been watching. It could work either way. If she was watching, then she figured Twilight reading her own words would be a lot more powerful than anyone else trying to get her to remember (much like how it didn't work when Twilight tried to explain the spell away to the other ponies). She needed something that hit home, like her letters, to break the spell.

After reading to the end of your post and the mention of Spike still burping letters (I felt bad for him. That couldn't have felt good at all after so many) after Twilight was back to normal, I'm now leaning more towards my other line of thinking. Cellestia may not have known what was happening to Twilight. She may have been thinking that Twilight just didn't know how to break the spell over the other ponies. She could have observed the spells starting from the castle while still in the maze, even if she couldn't monitor them in Ponyville through magic or something. So Cellestia figured out what needed to be done and sending all those letters back was the only way she could get Twilight to see that she needed to put those memories back in the other 5 so that she could break the spell. That would explain why the letters kept coming after Twilight's own spell was broke, because Cellestia didn't even know that had happened.

Or, it could have been my original thought, and that last letter was just Cellestia being Trollestia, aka writers throwing it in for a bit of comic relief and not meant to tie into the plot so much. :P

EDIT: WOAH... Now I'm wondering. Did Cellestia know from Season 1 episode 1 that this was going to go down? I remember thinking way back when that making out reports on "the power of friendship" seemed kinda like pointless work. Turns out it served a purpose. Is that why Cellestia made Twilight write them all, so she could use them to break the spell by Discord later? :o
Very interesting theories Narei, I've often wondered if everything thats happened thus far was engeneired by Celestia, like Allowing Nightmare to return because she knew Twi and the others had the abilit to purify her and turn her back into Luna, so she let it all happen to get her little sister back. But I never though about the friendship reports thing you just brought up.

Hmm... I dunno... Maybe Celestia isn't quite as bad as we've been led to think? :o

No, it can't be...  (:
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on September 27, 2011, 04:29:15 pm
I was contemplating this very thing this morning on the way to work.

Does Celestia have almost a god-like presence, rather that simply being the princess? (And dangit I wish they would have let her be Queen, because that's basically what she is anyhow, aside from her title itself).

The same scene is what had me wondering. I mean, the letters were first and foremost to un-gray Twilight. If they weren't, that means it was just a stroke of luck that they happened to snap her out of it, or else the whole place would have been stuck in chaos forever. They also were so that she would know how to help her friends, but that could only happen after Twilight learned (or re-learned) her lessons. But from everything that has happened in the show so far, I think luck has little to do with it. That would be far too many lucky coincidences in such a small group of ponies...

With this, and other instances of similar omniscience, I do feel like she's a more god-like figure in the grand scheme of things. She also definitely has the immortal feel to her as well.

But she does the proper thing and never directly interferes with a task. She might assign a task, or help somebody figure something out (usually through indirect means), but she never steps in and uses magic to simply fix things.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 27, 2011, 04:59:02 pm
She also definitely has the immortal feel to her as well.
Geeze, ya think? She's only over a thousand years old. :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 27, 2011, 05:18:15 pm
She also definitely has the immortal feel to her as well.
Geeze, ya think? She's only over a thousand years old. :D
Uses magic to raise both sun and moon. (I still wonder if she's given the moon back to Luna).
Seems to be the biggest Pony in Equestria. Though maybe sh's more of a horse? The Gala episode shows mice turned into HORSES and this makes me wonder if ponies and horses are supposed to be different species in the show. (Yes I know in real life a pony is not a baby horse but simply a smaller breed)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on September 27, 2011, 09:11:47 pm
I was contemplating this very thing this morning on the way to work.

Does Celestia have almost a god-like presence, rather that simply being the princess? (And dangit I wish they would have let her be Queen, because that's basically what she is anyhow, aside from her title itself).

The same scene is what had me wondering. I mean, the letters were first and foremost to un-gray Twilight. If they weren't, that means it was just a stroke of luck that they happened to snap her out of it, or else the whole place would have been stuck in chaos forever. They also were so that she would know how to help her friends, but that could only happen after Twilight learned (or re-learned) her lessons. But from everything that has happened in the show so far, I think luck has little to do with it. That would be far too many lucky coincidences in such a small group of ponies...

With this, and other instances of similar omniscience, I do feel like she's a more god-like figure in the grand scheme of things. She also definitely has the immortal feel to her as well.

But she does the proper thing and never directly interferes with a task. She might assign a task, or help somebody figure something out (usually through indirect means), but she never steps in and uses magic to simply fix things.

Remember it's a little girls show, and they love the princess thing. Also queens
tend to be the bad guys in some kiddie stories.

I kind of wonder where all the hi brow ponies are.   So far I have
only seen them at the Galloping Gala.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 27, 2011, 09:50:28 pm
Also queens tend to be the bad guys in some kiddie stories.
Apparently we have Disney to thank for that according to Lauren Faust. She originally wanted Cellestia to be Queen.

Quote
I kind of wonder where all the hi brow ponies are.   So far I have only seen them at the Galloping Gala.
They all live in Manehatten and Fillydelphia. :P
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on September 27, 2011, 10:45:16 pm

Apparently we have Disney to thank for that according to Lauren Faust. She originally wanted Cellestia to be Queen.

This. In the interview with Faust posted on Equestria Daily, Lauren had planned for Celestia to be queen. But apparently this was nixed by Hasbro because queens tend to be evil for whatever reason. Honestly, she's still filling the role of queen, just with the title of princess. While it's true that Disney tends to portray the queens as evil, there's also usually a queen somewhere when a princess is involved. We have yet to even hear mention of a queen whatsoever.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on September 27, 2011, 11:16:13 pm
It was just awesome. That's all I can really say on the topic.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 28, 2011, 01:25:02 am
Yeah I have to agree with the whole "It's Disney's fault" thing but if you want a "In Canon" reason I have always figured that since Luna and Celestia rule together they decided to be equals and both have the title of "Princess" rather than take the title of "Queen". This would imply that neither one has total or absolute power of the land, tht control is shared.

After Luna turned into NMM and was banished I'd say Celestia kept the title in honor of her sister and their agreement to share power.

Quote from: Celestia
We were meant to rule together little sister.

Anyway thats my explanation.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on September 28, 2011, 10:15:18 am
I was out of town at a vintage computer fair over the weekend, so I didn't get a chance to watch part two of "The Return of Harmony" on my DVR until just a few minutes ago.  I will discuss my feelings about the episode in a moment, but first I want to respond to Kaloyan Alett's reply to my earlier post, since I have been wanting to get a chance to do that for some time.

Well Nightmare Moon didn't actually come about due to her resentment, Lauren Faust has stated several tims that it was due to magic. An outside force (I speculate Discord) turned her into Nightmare Moon.

When I had mentioned in my previous post that I had enjoyed the villain Nightmare Moon because she hadn't started out evil but slowly became evil over time because she let her resentfulness towards her sister consume her, I wasn't speculating on Nightmare Moon's creation, but directly referencing an episode of MIL:FiM itself.  The narrator stated during the opening of the first episode of MLP:FiM, "Friendship is Magic - Part 1,":

"Once upon a time in the magical land of Equestria there were two regal sisters that ruled together and created harmony for all the land.  To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn.  The younger brought out the moon to begin the night.  Thus the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all of the different types of ponies.  But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful.  The ponies relished and played in the day that her sister brought forth but shunned and slept through her beautiful night.  One fateful day the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn.  The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness, Nightmare Moon."

So the show itself stated that the reason why Princess Luna slowly transformed into the evil Nightmare Moon was because she allowed her resentment and bitterness towards her consume her.  Ms. Faust possibly may have said something contradicting what the episode itself stated in some interview later (I don't know personally, since I haven't read any of her interviews), but when it comes to my own personal interpretation of the Nightmare Moon character I am going to stick with the show itself because what actually appears in the show is canon.  If a later episode of MLP:FiM comes along and retcons (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retcon) the Princess Luna character as always being completely good and only becoming evil after being intentionally transformed by some outside evil magical source like you stated then I will go along with it, but until then I will stick to the what has been shown in the episodes that have aired.

Also Discord is the spirit of Chaos itself so its in his nature to be faily evil and cruel seeming...So I'd say in this episode he isn't evil for the sake of it, he's getting revenge for having his kingdom stolen out from under him and being imprisoned for over a millenium.

I will agree that Discord would have some cause for revenge in the current episodes for being locked in stone for thousands of years, but as I mentioned in my previous post in this thread that still doesn't give him any motivation for his past actions of evil.  As Princess Celestia explained to the ponies inside the castle in part 1, Discord kept Equestria in an eternal state of "unrest and unhappiness," and that both her and Princess Luna felt compelled to move against him because of how "miserable" he was making the ponies.  What was Discord's reasons for throwing the ancient land of Equestria into misery like this?  The show gives no motives for his actions, and instead explains that Discord does what he does because he is the "mischievous spirit of disharmony."  Given Discord's past history, I have a feeling that he would have eagerly turned Equestria upside-down like he did in the episode whether he was entrapped in stone by Celestia and Luna beforehand or not.  Because of this, I strongly feel that Discord largely fits the TVTropes.org website's trope for the "Generic Doomsday Villain." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenericDoomsdayVillain)

As a result, just like I mentioned in my last post, I am still underwhelmed by Discord as I have a personal distaste for villains that are evil "just because" since I can't personally relate to them.  To quote part of the article about Generic Doomsday Villains from TVTropes, "...on an In-Universe level — the level on which the audience relates to the story and suspends disbelief — what matters is whether the character is consistent and coherent and has a compelling reason to do what they do. Just like a good hero, a good villain is someone we care about, either because they're someone we empathize with or because they're someone we love to hate. A Generic Doomsday Villain is neither of these things."  I have to agree with this assessment wholeheartedly.  I can't get myself to care about Discord because he gives me no reason to empathize with him, hate him, relate to him, etc.  He is just some ancient "spirit of disharmony" bringing about the destruction of the world through chocolate rain because, well, because that is just what he enjoys doing.  *yawn*  If you happened to love the Discord character that's great-- more power to you.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about him.  I just happened to be very underwhelmed by him myself, and unless future episodes of the show give me some reason to care about him I don't have any interest in ever seeing him make a reappearance in future episodes either.

About part 2 of "The Return of Harmony," there was once again elements that I enjoyed about the episode and elements that I didn't.  To start off with the things that I didn't like, one of the things that I mentioned in my last post that I was concerned about with this story arc was the all-powerful nature of Discord, and how it could possibly force the show's writers to use a "deus ex machina" plot device (the unexpected introduction of a convenient new character, ability, or object) to stop him.  This sort of happened in part 2 with Twilight Sparkle suddenly having a convenient "memory spell" at her disposal that could effortlessly turn each of the other "Mane 6" back to their old normal selves.  Now I realize that Twilight Sparkle is the magician of the group, and that she probably has a lot of spells that we haven't seen in the show yet, but since we have never seen the memory spell up until this point where it is surprisingly convenient, it still comes off as a bit of a deus ex machina.  Had the writers introduced Twilight Sparkle's memory spell as a "Chekov's Gun," (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun?from=Main.ptitlexn9xzsjd5fif) (a literary technique whereby an unimportant element introduced early in the story becomes significant later on), they could have avoided this.

(As a side note, the scrolls that Twilight Sparkle wrote to the princess about the lessons of friendship that she learned during Season 1 is an excellent example of a Chekov's Gun-- throughout season 1 they were used only as a way to sum up the message of each episode, however they became a key plot element in part 2 of "The Return of Harmony."  As a second side note, wasn't Twilight Sparkle's magic shown to be ineffective against Discord's powers when her "fail-safe" spell failed to work in "The Return of Harmony Part 1?"  How come her magic, in the form of her memory spell, was suddenly able to work against the spells that Discord had placed on the rest of the Mane 6?  Is this a possible continuity error?)

The second thing that I really didn't like about this episode was the nearly suicidal overconfidence that Discord showed towards the Mane 6 when he was confronted by them and the Elements of Harmony the second time after Twilight Sparkle had restored her friends back to normal.  Despite the fact that the Mane 6 were no longer under his power, and that they were armed with the same magical artifacts that had defeated him and brought his first reign of chaos to an end thousands of years ago, he shows absolutely no concern about them what-so-ever and even sits, barely interested, yawning in a chair as they blast and defeat him unchallenged.  This really disappointed me because this was supposed to be the *climax* of the story arc, and due to Discord's complete dismissal of his foes it was completely lacking in any sort of tension or excitement.  Or in other words, the climax was anti-climatic.  There was no final struggle and the final battle was completely one-sided.  Where was the danger for the heroes?  Where was the risk to them? The climax is supposed to be the most exciting part of the story, but instead it was overshadowed by the attempt by the heroes to catch and restore Rainbow Dash.  I spent an entire week wondering how the heros were going to defeat an all-powerful villain like Discord, and instead Discord just sat back in a chair and let the ponies defeat him.  How disappointing.

As far as what I enjoyed about the episode goes, like Ziel I very much enjoyed how the ponies acted out-of-character when they were gray.  Some of the antics of gray-Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity were pretty funny.  The funniest moment for me however was the whole scene where Twilight Sparkle finally finds the Elements of Harmony hidden in her book in her Library-- that whole scene is great!  I love how she calls her element the "big crown thingie!"  I love when she hastily promotes Spike to be "the new Rainbow Dash!"  And I also love how she yells "Look out!  Here comes Tom!" when she chucks Rarity's bolder out of the library's window with her magic!  The before-mentioned chase scene where Twilight and her friends were trying to catch and restore the gray-Rainbow Dash was also very very good.  The Star Wars spoof ending was kind of cliche to me, but it didn't really bother me either way.  Overall I did like part 2 much better than I liked part 1, but even so the combined "The Return of Harmony" parts 1 and 2 is still one of my least favorite episodes.  I have to cast this story arc onto the very bottom of my MLP:FiM list along with "A Dog and Pony Show" as my least favorite episodes.  I don't think that any MLP:FiM episode is truly bad mind you-- I just happened to like those less than the rest.

Well.... So where do we go to start a pettition to bring Discord back?

According to part 1, Discord was able to break Luna and Celestia's spell and break free from the statue because Luna and Celestia no longer controlled the Elements of Harmony-- the Mane 6 now control them.  Therefore, it begs to reason that if the Mane 6 ever pass control of the Elements of Harmony onto some other ponies the Mane 6's spell over Discord will break as well, and Discord will escape again.  So there is an open-ended way for Discord to escape.  You're not going to see me signing any petitions to make it happen though.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on September 28, 2011, 12:28:13 pm



I kind of wonder where all the hi brow ponies are.   So far I have only seen them at the Galloping Gala.
They all live in Manehatten and Fillydelphia. :P

Ahh.. makes sense to me.  :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion
Post by: 489109 on September 28, 2011, 02:04:48 pm
After looking at (but not really reading) the previous walls of text I must quote something to everypony from the immortal "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" Show:

Quote from: MST3K
Just repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax'.

To paraphrase; Sit back, Relax and have a homebrewed drink. Y'all are overcomplicating it.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 28, 2011, 04:55:52 pm
After looking at (but not really reading) the previous walls of text I must quote something to everypony from the immortal "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" Show:

Quote from: MST3K
Just repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax'.

To paraphrase; Sit back, Relax and have a homebrewed drink. Y'all are overcomplicating it.
Liedt, I hate to say you're right... So I won't. :)

We're nerds in a nerd debate about a show we enjoy. Walls of text are an inevitability as is taking a childrens' cartoon way more seriously and in depth in detail than it waas ever meant to be taken.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kobuk on September 28, 2011, 05:36:26 pm
I was out of town at a vintage computer fair over the weekend, so I didn't get a chance to watch part two of "The Return of Harmony" on my DVR until just a few minutes ago.  I will discuss my feelings about the episode in a moment, but first I want to respond to Kaloyan Alett's reply to my earlier post, since I have been wanting to get a chance to do that for some time.

Well Nightmare Moon didn't actually come about due to her resentment, Lauren Faust has stated several tims that it was due to magic. An outside force (I speculate Discord) turned her into Nightmare Moon.

When I had mentioned in my previous post that I had enjoyed the villain Nightmare Moon because she hadn't started out evil but slowly became evil over time because she let her resentfulness towards her sister consume her, I wasn't speculating on Nightmare Moon's creation, but directly referencing an episode of MIL:FiM itself.  The narrator stated during the opening of the first episode of MLP:FiM, "Friendship is Magic - Part 1,":

"Once upon a time in the magical land of Equestria there were two regal sisters that ruled together and created harmony for all the land.  To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn.  The younger brought out the moon to begin the night.  Thus the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all of the different types of ponies.  But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful.  The ponies relished and played in the day that her sister brought forth but shunned and slept through her beautiful night.  One fateful day the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn.  The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness, Nightmare Moon."

So the show itself stated that the reason why Princess Luna slowly transformed into the evil Nightmare Moon was because she allowed her resentment and bitterness towards her consume her.  Ms. Faust possibly may have said something contradicting what the episode itself stated in some interview later (I don't know personally, since I haven't read any of her interviews), but when it comes to my own personal interpretation of the Nightmare Moon character I am going to stick with the show itself because what actually appears in the show is canon.  If a later episode of MLP:FiM comes along and retcons (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retcon) the Princess Luna character as always being completely good and only becoming evil after being intentionally transformed by some outside evil magical source like you stated then I will go along with it, but until then I will stick to the what has been shown in the episodes that have aired.

Also Discord is the spirit of Chaos itself so its in his nature to be faily evil and cruel seeming...So I'd say in this episode he isn't evil for the sake of it, he's getting revenge for having his kingdom stolen out from under him and being imprisoned for over a millenium.

I will agree that Discord would have some cause for revenge in the current episodes for being locked in stone for thousands of years, but as I mentioned in my previous post in this thread that still doesn't give him any motivation for his past actions of evil.  As Princess Celestia explained to the ponies inside the castle in part 1, Discord kept Equestria in an eternal state of "unrest and unhappiness," and that both her and Princess Luna felt compelled to move against him because of how "miserable" he was making the ponies.  What was Discord's reasons for throwing the ancient land of Equestria into misery like this?  The show gives no motives for his actions, and instead explains that Discord does what he does because he is the "mischievous spirit of disharmony."  Given Discord's past history, I have a feeling that he would have eagerly turned Equestria upside-down like he did in the episode whether he was entrapped in stone by Celestia and Luna beforehand or not.  Because of this, I strongly feel that Discord largely fits the TVTropes.org website's trope for the "Generic Doomsday Villain." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenericDoomsdayVillain)

As a result, just like I mentioned in my last post, I am still underwhelmed by Discord as I have a personal distaste for villains that are evil "just because" since I can't personally relate to them.  To quote part of the article about Generic Doomsday Villains from TVTropes, "...on an In-Universe level — the level on which the audience relates to the story and suspends disbelief — what matters is whether the character is consistent and coherent and has a compelling reason to do what they do. Just like a good hero, a good villain is someone we care about, either because they're someone we empathize with or because they're someone we love to hate. A Generic Doomsday Villain is neither of these things."  I have to agree with this assessment wholeheartedly.  I can't get myself to care about Discord because he gives me no reason to empathize with him, hate him, relate to him, etc.  He is just some ancient "spirit of disharmony" bringing about the destruction of the world through chocolate rain because, well, because that is just what he enjoys doing.  *yawn*  If you happened to love the Discord character that's great-- more power to you.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about him.  I just happened to be very underwhelmed by him myself, and unless future episodes of the show give me some reason to care about him I don't have any interest in ever seeing him make a reappearance in future episodes either.

About part 2 of "The Return of Harmony," there was once again elements that I enjoyed about the episode and elements that I didn't.  To start off with the things that I didn't like, one of the things that I mentioned in my last post that I was concerned about with this story arc was the all-powerful nature of Discord, and how it could possibly force the show's writers to use a "deus ex machina" plot device (the unexpected introduction of a convenient new character, ability, or object) to stop him.  This sort of happened in part 2 with Twilight Sparkle suddenly having a convenient "memory spell" at her disposal that could effortlessly turn each of the other "Mane 6" back to their old normal selves.  Now I realize that Twilight Sparkle is the magician of the group, and that she probably has a lot of spells that we haven't seen in the show yet, but since we have never seen the memory spell up until this point where it is surprisingly convenient, it still comes off as a bit of a deus ex machina.  Had the writers introduced Twilight Sparkle's memory spell as a "Chekov's Gun," (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun?from=Main.ptitlexn9xzsjd5fif) (a literary technique whereby an unimportant element introduced early in the story becomes significant later on), they could have avoided this.

(As a side note, the scrolls that Twilight Sparkle wrote to the princess about the lessons of friendship that she learned during Season 1 is an excellent example of a Chekov's Gun-- throughout season 1 they were used only as a way to sum up the message of each episode, however they became a key plot element in part 2 of "The Return of Harmony."  As a second side note, wasn't Twilight Sparkle's magic shown to be ineffective against Discord's powers when her "fail-safe" spell failed to work in "The Return of Harmony Part 1?"  How come her magic, in the form of her memory spell, was suddenly able to work against the spells that Discord had placed on the rest of the Mane 6?  Is this a possible continuity error?)

The second thing that I really didn't like about this episode was the nearly suicidal overconfidence that Discord showed towards the Mane 6 when he was confronted by them and the Elements of Harmony the second time after Twilight Sparkle had restored her friends back to normal.  Despite the fact that the Mane 6 were no longer under his power, and that they were armed with the same magical artifacts that had defeated him and brought his first reign of chaos to an end thousands of years ago, he shows absolutely no concern about them what-so-ever and even sits, barely interested, yawning in a chair as they blast and defeat him unchallenged.  This really disappointed me because this was supposed to be the *climax* of the story arc, and due to Discord's complete dismissal of his foes it was completely lacking in any sort of tension or excitement.  Or in other words, the climax was anti-climatic.  There was no final struggle and the final battle was completely one-sided.  Where was the danger for the heroes?  Where was the risk to them? The climax is supposed to be the most exciting part of the story, but instead it was overshadowed by the attempt by the heroes to catch and restore Rainbow Dash.  I spent an entire week wondering how the heros were going to defeat an all-powerful villain like Discord, and instead Discord just sat back in a chair and let the ponies defeat him.  How disappointing.

As far as what I enjoyed about the episode goes, like Ziel I very much enjoyed how the ponies acted out-of-character when they were gray.  Some of the antics of gray-Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity were pretty funny.  The funniest moment for me however was the whole scene where Twilight Sparkle finally finds the Elements of Harmony hidden in her book in her Library-- that whole scene is great!  I love how she calls her element the "big crown thingie!"  I love when she hastily promotes Spike to be "the new Rainbow Dash!"  And I also love how she yells "Look out!  Here comes Tom!" when she chucks Rarity's bolder out of the library's window with her magic!  The before-mentioned chase scene where Twilight and her friends were trying to catch and restore the gray-Rainbow Dash was also very very good.  The Star Wars spoof ending was kind of cliche to me, but it didn't really bother me either way.  Overall I did like part 2 much better than I liked part 1, but even so the combined "The Return of Harmony" parts 1 and 2 is still one of my least favorite episodes.  I have to cast this story arc onto the very bottom of my MLP:FiM list along with "A Dog and Pony Show" as my least favorite episodes.  I don't think that any MLP:FiM episode is truly bad mind you-- I just happened to like those less than the rest.

Well.... So where do we go to start a pettition to bring Discord back?

According to part 1, Discord was able to break Luna and Celestia's spell and break free from the statue because Luna and Celestia no longer controlled the Elements of Harmony-- the Mane 6 now control them.  Therefore, it begs to reason that if the Mane 6 ever pass control of the Elements of Harmony onto some other ponies the Mane 6's spell over Discord will break as well, and Discord will escape again.  So there is an open-ended way for Discord to escape.  You're not going to see me signing any petitions to make it happen though.

TL/DR.  :P  :P  :P
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on September 29, 2011, 01:54:51 am
TL/DR.  :P  :P  :P

It's your loss.  You all need to take after Twilight Sparkle a little more-- reading is good for you!   :P
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on September 29, 2011, 06:44:57 am
I was browsing My Little Brony and happened upon this pic:

(http://chzbronies.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-brony-spikes-solution-to-spam-mail.jpg)

Maybe all those letters weren't for Twilight after all. Cellestia could have just been bored while waiting around for the ponies to win and decided it's a good payback time for when Spike had the hiccups. That it helped Twi and the others get back to normal was just a minor added convenience.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 29, 2011, 04:52:42 pm
Or maybe its this...

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Eau0bB3JL6M/ToRI3WU4McI/AAAAAAAAM8Q/n21r8nwe5YE/s1600/spiked_spike_by_braindps-d4b2vpv.jpg)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on September 29, 2011, 06:31:50 pm
Okay. If you want a subtle pony shirt, this is probably the best I've seen (EQD posted this not long ago).
http://www.fibers.com/shop/design/here-comes-tom.D46355

Put it in this thread cause it seems spoiler-ish.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: 489109 on September 29, 2011, 10:51:34 pm
Here comes Tom!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on September 29, 2011, 11:10:22 pm
Speaking of Tom...
I find it funny that Rarity was the only one that seemed to actually remember much of anything from her gray time. The rest all seemed to just think it was a dream or not recall anything at all. She recognized the boulder as Tom. I guess it could be because she was the only one who actually had a physical object/reminder left over after the whole ordeal?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 29, 2011, 11:20:15 pm
Speaking of Tom...
I find it funny that Rarity was the only one that seemed to actually remember much of anything from her gray time. The rest all seemed to just think it was a dream or not recall anything at all. She recognized the boulder as Tom. I guess it could be because she was the only one who actually had a physical object/reminder left over after the whole ordeal?
That and its funny. But the others did have recollections of the time.

Quote from: AppleJack
I had a vision of us feudin' and fightin'. I couldn't face the truth, so I started tellin' lies.

Quote from: Pinkie Pie
*laughing* I..I turned GREY!!! *more laughing*
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on September 30, 2011, 06:43:29 am
That and its funny. But the others did have recollections of the time.

Quote from: AppleJack
I had a vision of us feudin' and fightin'. I couldn't face the truth, so I started tellin' lies.

Quote from: Pinkie Pie
*laughing* I..I turned GREY!!! *more laughing*

Hmm. I had forgotten about those. Haven't actually watched the episode again yet. I'm waiting for a time where I can watch them back-to-back. Which should be sometime tomorrow.

But you're right. That whole scene with Tom was pretty good. It really had me laughing there.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: 489109 on September 30, 2011, 09:54:45 am
To segue off of Tom, it caused a lot of damage to Twilight Sparkle's home/library when she was dragging it through the doors and walls of the place. I wonder who the Capenter Pony is and if he/she charges by the hour or a flat rate? They do some fantastic work; how often has the library been damaged yet you never see once thing out of place by the next episode. I really need to hire this crew for my own home. (http://i54.tinypic.com/2gtp7o7_th.png)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on September 30, 2011, 11:09:36 am
You ain't memorised them line for line yet? What kinda brony are you?! :D   Just kidding of course.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: 489109 on October 01, 2011, 10:38:37 am
The Hub unveiled its new billboard advertizement for FiM today. Check this out:

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A_Xj7mp28XY/Tobgfn4wGqI/AAAAAAAANC0/1d-0jnfK74E/s640/DAGJh.jpg)

Pinkamina Diane Pie is looking especially creepy in that pose, wouldn't you say?

Everything (c) Hasbro
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on October 01, 2011, 11:07:31 am
Thats just Pinkie Pie. Pinkamena Diane Pie is when she's all depressed, long straight hair, psychotic ticks, occasional psycho derp eyes and has a habit of talking to inanimate objects.

PDP is also sometimes fanonly known to get a little homicidal and "cupcakes" on ponies. Even though in the fic she's actually retaining her bubbly, cheerful demeanor.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on October 01, 2011, 11:25:11 am
Thats just Pinkie Pie. Pinkamena Diane Pie is when she's all depressed, long straight hair, psychotic ticks, occasional psycho derp eyes and has a habit of talking to inanimate objects.

PDP is also sometimes fanonly known to get a little homicidal and "cupcakes" on ponies. Even though in the fic she's actually retaining her bubbly, cheerful demeanor.

Actually, Pinkamena Diane Pie is her full, born name. Pinkie Pie is just a nickname, like how Matthew is sometimes shortened to Matt. It's the fandom that decided to associate her full name with the depressed/psychotic version of her from Party of One.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: 489109 on October 01, 2011, 11:32:52 am
Pinkamena Diane Pie is her real full name actually. Her friends just call her Pinkie Pie for short. It was used long before the infamous Cupcakes fic.

http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Pinkie_Pie & http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cupcakes-my-little-pony-fanfiction#.TocwzXLO98E

Quote from: Wikia
Pinkie Pie, full name Pinkamena Diane Pie, is an earth pony from Ponyville and one of the main characters of the series.

Quote from: Meme
In Episode 25, “Party of One”, Pinkie Pie becomes sad because her friends are avoiding her invitations to parties, making up excuses. As she gains the idea that they don’t want to be her friends anymore, she becomes depressed, her hair going straight and her color tone turning a bit grayer. She then throws a party with many inanimated objects, giving them voices, and displays many insanity tics, including a shot where she’s smiling and her eyes slowly become derped.

Bronies immediately began making connections to Pinkie’s insane state of mind with her role in “Cupcakes”, making it an explanation of its events. From this point, new Cupcakes FanArt usually displays Pinkie with her straight hair, or as many decided to call her, Pinkamena Diane Pie, her real name (as revealed in episode 23).

So just repeat to yourself its just a show, I should really just relax. However, I just don't like being corrected by inaccurate information.  (http://i54.tinypic.com/2gtp7o7_th.png)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on October 01, 2011, 01:49:09 pm
The Hub unveiled its new billboard advertizement for FiM today. Check this out:

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A_Xj7mp28XY/Tobgfn4wGqI/AAAAAAAANC0/1d-0jnfK74E/s640/DAGJh.jpg)

Pinkamina Diane Pie is looking especially creepy in that pose, wouldn't you say?

I'm pretty surprised that The Hub would advertise MLP:FiM that way, because with a promotion like that The Hub is blatantly targeting the show's periphery demographic (ie. us-- the Bronies) as opposed to the show's marketed demographic (young girls) as I doubt that very many really young children have seen the 1982 horror film Poltergeist to get the promotion's reference.

All of this makes me pretty darn curious-- just how does the size of this show's Brony viewership compare to the show's targeted viewership?  Are Bronies a minority of the total number of viewers for this cartoon series, or have we usurped the "young girls" demographic to become the majority of the viewers?  Does anyone know if there are any published numbers or Nielsen Media Research statistics out there on this?  If The Hub is actively promoting the show to the Brony crowd like this then we must have become a large enough group of viewers to become attractive to television advertisers and therefore worth promoting the show to.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on October 01, 2011, 03:32:55 pm

I'm pretty surprised that The Hub would advertise MLP:FiM that way, because with a promotion like that The Hub is blatantly targeting the show's periphery demographic (ie. us-- the Bronies) as opposed to the show's marketed demographic (young girls) as I doubt that very many really young children have seen the 1982 horror film Poltergeist to get the promotion's reference.

All of this makes me pretty darn curious-- just how does the size of this show's Brony viewership compare to the show's targeted viewership?  Are Bronies a minority of the total number of viewers for this cartoon series, or have we usurped the "young girls" demographic to become the majority of the viewers?  Does anyone know if there are any published numbers or Nielsen Media Research statistics out there on this?  If The Hub is actively promoting the show to the Brony crowd like this then we must have become a large enough group of viewers to become attractive to television advertisers and therefore worth promoting the show to.

Not the first brony-targeted billboard (Bridlemaids billboard for example). Sure, only those who have seen the movie will understand the reference, but it's still telling their base demographic about the show, and not going to scare off anybody. It's just like all the references in the show itself that only the older viewers are going to really appreciate.

It's actually very fitting with the show itself to have ads with added meaning for older viewers.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on October 01, 2011, 03:53:47 pm
Yes the Brony movement has usurped the young girls demographic to become one of the main focuses of The HUB aas well as Hasbro, I've heard that Hasbro is in talks about making show accurate G4 pony toys to market to the older crowd as a "Collectors Edition" type of toy set.

Jayson Theissen has even stated that the shout out to Bronies in the "Equestria Girls" song was done without their knowledge and they were surprised to hear about it. The song was also sung by Pinkie Pie's ACTUAL song VA, who they brought in special to do the full version between seasons just for the commercial.

For that network to put so much effort into doing a simple shout out to the fans just floors me. Thats a lot of time and effort and money put into doing something like that.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on October 05, 2011, 05:00:31 am
I only have one question!
Where...IS...LUNA?!?!

Equestria Daily has just posted some news about when Luna may be appearing in Season 2!  If you haven't seen Equestria Daily's article about it yet, you can read it here:

Equestria Daily:  (Rumor?) Luna Episode Synopsis/Date/Title (http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/09/luna-episode-synopsisdatetitle.html)

After reading the episode's synopsis I am very excited about it and am very much looking forward to it!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on October 08, 2011, 12:46:13 pm
I wonder if they plan to keep releasing new episodes twice a month? That
will make for a sloooooooow season.   :'(

Of course that does increase the value of last years episodes for broadcast.  :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: 489109 on October 11, 2011, 11:00:56 am
I wonder if they plan to keep releasing new episodes twice a month?

I couldn't find a reference for the entire Season 2 yet, but I've found the following release dates so far:

Quote from: The Hub
S02 E01: The Return of Harmony - Part 1, Sept 17, 2011
S02 E02: The Return of Harmony - Part 2, September 24, 2011
S02 E03: Lesson Zero, October 15, 2011
S02 E04: Luna Eclipsed, October 22, 2011
S02 E05: Sisterhooves Social, November 5, 2011
S02 E06: The Cutie Pox, November 12, 2011

Source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_My_Little_Pony:_Friendship_Is_Magic_episodes#cite_ref-1)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on October 15, 2011, 10:42:22 am
So now we've had a sonic rainboom and an atomic rainboom.

Not my favorite episode, but it had it's moments. I liked Big Mac actually playing more of a role than just showing up for 2 seconds. And I was straight up laughing both when RD was tearing apart the barn and when Fluttershy was wrestling the bear. One thing is for sure though: there are a lot of memes that will be coming out of that episode.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on October 15, 2011, 11:36:38 am
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
All play and no work makes Twilight a dull pony.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: redyoshi49q on October 15, 2011, 01:32:48 pm
I have a friend who is a furry, a MLP fan, and a train *fanatic*.  In my mind, I can still hear his squeeing from the slightly changed opening from 50 miles away.

Also, I agree with Ziel.  It seems that the authors were almost trying to start memes, particularly with Rarity's dramatic overreactions.  In many ways, they seemed to reference the fandom in this epidose, such as in Big Mac's appearance, the sonic rainboom, and the cupcakes.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on October 15, 2011, 08:01:37 pm
So, I watched it again. I feel like that episode required the second viewing for me. I picked up quite a few things that I didn't catch the first time. Still laughed at most of the spots I laughed before, but even a few more places hit me this time around.

I guess the first time I was feeling a little too much of the psycho-pony vibe, similar to in Party of One, but Twilight doesn't pull it off quite as well because it's almost too realistic that she would get that way. I don't know if it's just that I was expecting it this time around, or if I just looked past that and paid more attention to the other things that were happening, but I really enjoyed the episode this time around.

I could watch the sonic atomic rainboom and entire sequence with Smartypants over and over and it wouldn't get old.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on October 16, 2011, 03:50:38 am
I. Love. This. Episode.

There was so much good stuff here I don't even know where to begin!  Rainbow destroying Applejack's barn?!  ATOMIC RAINBOOM!  Fluttershy SNAPPING A BEAR'S NECK?!  I laughed so hard when Big Macintosh made off with Smartypants at the end of the fight.

The only things I didn't like about this episode were the frequency of Rarity's drama queen moments and the intensity of Twilight's crazy-faces.  For Rarity, it was too much in conjunction with how Twilight was acting, plus annoying at how much time it took every time they made the joke.  For Twilight's expressions, it felt like it was taking over the story.  The faces were good, but even Pinkie didn't look that messed-up in Party of One.  Less is more, after a certain point.

Still, I have nothing but high hopes for the longevity of the series if this is the kind of episode they'll be putting out on a regular basis.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on October 16, 2011, 01:20:34 pm
I think this one became my favorite episode. I kinda agree that Rarity's drama couch verged on being over played, but just the fact that she always keeps it within horn's reach is funny enough to me that the joke isn't likely to get old anytime soon. Atomic Rainboom. Near crazy Fluttershy (I knew she was only doing chiropractic treatments from the get go :P ). Rarity's drama. Spastic Twilight. Big Mcintosh "Eeeeenope!"... I could go on, but I think the writers were having fun and shouting out to the fandom with making this episode. So many good image macro possibilities too.

Oh, and Cellestia! OMG! Anytime I close my eyes, her angry "TWILIGHT SPARKLE!!!" Talk about unexpected. :o
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on October 16, 2011, 01:23:30 pm
I have to agree with Ziel's first impressions about this episode-- it was definitely not one of my favorites, but it had its moments.

Probably the primary reason why I didn't enjoy this episode more than I did is because Twilight Sparkle is usually my least favorite member of the Mane 6.  Sometimes Twilight Sparkle can be hilarious, such as when she did the whole "Here comes Tom!" line and her calling her Element of Harmony the ""big crown thingy" in the episode "The Return of Harmony Part 2".  But in this episode I just found her obsessive compulsiveness a little too annoying to me personally.  Flustered that a 13th cupcake could rub frosting on the other 12?  Really?  She'd probably ought to start looking into seeking medical attention if she is letting herself get all bent out of shape over such a non-consequential detail like that.  She was extremely quick to allow herself to go into a mental downward spiral, and too quick to start hatching an overly zany scheme.  I don't mind the fact that Twilight Sparkle got bent out of shape by the fact that she was running the risk of being late with an assignment because that is in-character, but she mentally devolved so completely over it that she did things that I don't think her friends, Princess Celestia, or the townsfolk of Ponyville would be able to forgive her for so easily.  In fact, she allowed herself to become a kind of character that TVTropes would call "The Unfettered," (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheUnfettered) which in a nutshell is:

"This is the character who can commit themselves to a single goal completely, absolutely, and unflinchingly. In pursuit of a goal they have no limits, inhibitions, or fear. Nothing chains them or holds them back (thus the name). You cannot make them flinch or falter. They cannot be intimidated, blackmailed, coerced, or otherwise convinced to back off from achieving their goal. There is no sacrifice they are unwilling to make or principle they are unwilling to compromise."

In other words, Twilight Sparkle, who is supposed to be one of the main heroes of the series, became so single-mindedly obsessed with reaching her goal of finding a conflict to resolve that she abandoned her own moral code and conscience and decided to create a problem to resolve.  She did this by trying to use magic to coerce three innocent children (the Cutie Mark Crusaders) into turning on one another just so that she could then break up the fight.  Targeting small children like that is a pretty horrible thing to do once you think really about it.  And the chaos that Twilight Sparkle's spell eventually caused once it spread through the townsfolk caused more calamity and disruption than many of the show's actual antagonists have been able to achieve!  Secretly creating a problem only to then act like the hero and try to save the day sounds like something "Syndrome," the super-villain from Pixar's The Incredibles would do-- not a hero like Twilight Sparkle!

While this time Twilight's actions didn't seem to do any permanent harm, it should make the rest of the ponies worry that she will be capable of throwing out conscience in order to obsessively achieve a goal again.  It also makes you pause and wonder just how dangerous Twilight Sparkle could actually be if she ever truly turned evil-- if she caused all of this disruption over turning a letter in on time, imagine what a complete monster she could become if her obsessive goals were far more self-serving and insidious!  I am almost surprised that she wasn't arrested by those flying pegasus royal guard stallions and thrown into pony juvenile hall for using her magic for a selfish end like that!  I mean, if a villain did that sort of thing he/ she probably would have been turned to stone and become yet another lawn-ornament in Princess Celestia's garden of vanquished foes!  By making all of the townsfolk turn on one another and having them fight over "Mr. Smartypants," Twilight Sparkle created far more "discord" than "harmony" in this episode, right?  I was waiting for the visibly upset Celestia to really lay down the law on her!

Unfortunately, I think that this episode might be an example of what TVTropes would call handing a character the "Idiot Ball." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotBall)  Giving a character the "Idiot Ball" means that the story's plot only works because the main character is frankly acting like an idiot.  These kinds of plots can be quickly resolved simply by the main character asking a single intelligent question or performing one rational action, but instead the plot is fueled by the character acting too stupid or obtuse to come up with that reasonable action or question.  For example, the plot for this whole episode could have been resolved quickly at the beginning of the episode if Twilight Sparkle had just written Princess Celestia a letter explaining her situation and asking for a time extension for that week's assignment.  Or Twilight could have directly asked her friends to help her with her assignment.  Instead, Twilight Sparkle makes a whole bunch of crazy assumptions about what punishments will happen to her if her letter to the princess is late, she doesn't directly ask her friends for help, and she ends up causing half the townspeople to tackle each other over an enchanted stuffed animal in a hair-brained attempt to reach her goal herself.

Anyway, enough with my overly thorough analysis of the show's writing, and on to a few things that I liked about the episode:


There were definitely some chuckles to be had in this episode, and the moral presented at the end was a good one.  I can't even tell you how many times I have personally had a problem that was extremely important to me only to have friends, family members, etc. tell me that I was wasting my time over something that they deemed to be unimportant.  That can be a miserable situation to have to deal with because you're forced to deal with it alone without any kind of support from others, and I am sure that I am not the only person here who has ever themselves in that situation.  I only wish that they first didn't have to make Twilight Sparkle do something questionable and was deemed punishable by Celestia, and then too-easily forgive her afterward so that the series could return to its status quo at the end.  The writers probably could have found a way to achieve their moral message that was less damaging to Twilight's character than what they ended up doing.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on October 16, 2011, 02:50:33 pm
That's where you just kinda have to chalk it all up to the pony culture. They don't seem to really hold grudges. They just seem to be a more forgiving bunch overall. If Gilda were to return with an adjusted attitude, they would welcome her back for sure. Same for Trixie. In both cases, it wasn't so much the ponies shunning them, but rather them leaving on their own accord.

Also, Celestia was never going to punish Twilight for what she did. She was just getting to saying tat in her speech to Twi when the other 5 ran in. Her saying that she would 'not punish Twilight' under the condition that they all write letters but only when they learn something, was more tongue-in-cheek than anything. Her wording it that way just helped enforce the lesson learned by all.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on October 16, 2011, 03:34:13 pm
I loved this episode but seriously, I think the creators of the show are definately trying to make memes now. I also think Twilight needs to stop playing therapist aand start seeing one. She clearly has a barnful of neuroses concerning her organisation.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on October 16, 2011, 06:02:06 pm
So, I just watched Winter Wrap Up again and realized something: That episode sets the precedence that the thought of being late is what will cause Twilight to take action. It wasn't until she heard Mayor Mare say that spring would be late that she took charge of keeping everything organized and coordinated.

But she didn't go crazy there because it wasn't something she was passionately invested in. In Lesson Zero, she was going to be late with something related to her studies. And we know that her studies are her real passion/obsession. This being so much closer to her heart caused a much more severe reaction.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on October 17, 2011, 01:11:33 am
*Lots of words about Twilight's breakdown*

I'm surprised with all that, you didn't just say Twilight suffered from "Social Munchausen Syndrome" It's origins are from Munchausen Syndrom by Proxy, where you essentially create a problem (without the others knowing of course), so you can come in and save the day and look like the hero.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on October 17, 2011, 03:38:15 am
You know, I'm worried they may be pushing the boundaries a bit too far at times. The scene of Flutttershy and the bear, I can see some kids not getting that or taking it wrong and next thing you know we get a bunch of angry parents forcing Hasbro to cancel the show. :'(
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on October 17, 2011, 03:39:59 am
Viewing #2 report:

I started seeing some of the flaws more easily that others have posted and there's obviously an animation style difference with Twilight's breakdown compared to the prior ones (I.E. the distorted faces kinda creeped me out this time for some reason). But something else really struck me. Anyone else notice how this played out almost like an old old Loony Toons cartoon? Think Road Runner vs Wile E. Coyote, back when there was no spoken parts and they used exagerated actions and music to tell the story. You could have pretty much removed the entire voice track of this episode and still known what was going on. I hope they don't continue with that style.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on October 17, 2011, 07:45:50 am
I'm surprised with all that, you didn't just say Twilight suffered from "Social Munchausen Syndrome" It's origins are from Munchausen Syndrom by Proxy, where you essentially create a problem (without the others knowing of course), so you can come in and save the day and look like the hero.

I did spend an hour or so trying to try and find a term to describe what I wanted to say, but I wasted my time digging through TVTropes.org and their really cruddy search engine to find it.  I figured that TVTropes would have a term for the situation where a character creates a problem to make themselves look like a hero since I know that I have seen that happen in television shows before (and who knows, there may still be a trope on TVTropes for it that I just didn't find), but after an hour of searching I gave up on searching for it and just wrote everything out.  Your term "Social Munchausen Syndrome" is a new one to me.  Had I known about the term I probably would have used it.  To be fair though, "Social Munchausen Syndrome" seems to be a very obscure term on the web-- if you type it into Google surrounded by quotation marks for an exact phrase match all that Google returns is a measly 4-results.  Google usually returns 100+ results for nearly anything that you can think of typing in.

But something else really struck me. Anyone else notice how this played out almost like an old old Loony Toons cartoon? Think Road Runner vs Wile E. Coyote, back when there was no spoken parts and they used exagerated actions and music to tell the story.

The Wile E. Coyote cartoons that you are referring to were created by the famous animation director Chuck Jones.  Chuck Jones had a very unique visual style in his cartoons, and he *heavily* focused on the use of facial expressions for humor.  Probably the very best example of this is all of the amazing facial expressions that the character "The Grinch" had in Chuck Jones's 1966 Christmas Special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!  You can also see a lot of these kinds of facial expressions used with Tom the cat in the 34 Tom and Jerry animated shorts that Jones directed from 1963-1967.

Personally, I thought that Twilight Sparkle's warped facial expressions after she had cracked were a little more reminiscent of the work pioneered by the outspoken animation director John Kricfalusi of The Ren and Stimpy Show and Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures fame.  Just see John K.'s take on the classic Hanna-Barberra characters Yogi and Boo Boo in the animated short that he created for Cartoon Network called Boo Boo Runs Wild, and you will see what I mean.  It's pretty twisted!  There seem to be *a lot* of cartoons out there these days that like to employ those kinds of warped facial expressions, and it has been a pretty trendy thing to do for several years now.  And while it can be used effectively in the types of cartoons that call for it, I will agree with you that the use of crazy deranged facial expressions should probably be toned back a bit or used with a little more care in a show like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  It's nice to see the show catering to the older male Brony demographic, but they probably shouldn't cater to us too much-- after all, we all absolutely loved how the show was being done before its producers even knew about the Brony-movement's existence, so the way the show is being handled now shouldn't really be altered for our behalf (if that's what the producers are even doing-- it's a little too early into Season 2 to tell).
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on October 17, 2011, 09:13:17 am
I think they were just changing things up a little. Add some variety. I seriously doubt they'd make such a dramatic change permanent.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on October 17, 2011, 10:24:05 pm
The thing that pushed the faces over the edge (for me) was the teeth.  That was just too much for the faces to fall in line with what was previously seen on the show.  Hoagie, you mentioned that it was kind of reminiscent of Ren & Stimpy (or at least work by someone who worked on the show).  Now that I think about it, that sounds about right, and since I strongly dislike that show I also dislike the direction the animators took with Twilight's expressions.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on October 17, 2011, 11:41:47 pm
I'm normally one to give the benefit of the doubt about this kind of thing, but I do feel like this one was verging on trying too hard to cater to the fandom. My two main reasons:

There were a lot of things that looked like attempts at creating a meme (as has already been mentioned several times).

Also, I feel like they were trying to force facial expressions for screenshots and the like. Sure, they are kind of meme-y, but I look at them as slightly different things.

Seriously though, most of the fun screenshots from season 1 were unintentional faces. Transitions between frames and such. And some of the bigger memes came from random lines that might otherwise be overlooked, such as '20% cooler' and '10 seconds flat'.

Don't get me wrong, I did come around to enjoying the episode. I just hope that they will tone it down a tad in future episodes.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on October 18, 2011, 03:29:42 am
There were definitely parts that I really loved about this episode as well, such as the scene where Rainbow Dash is tearing apart Applejack's barn!  There is a clip of just that scene on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmMvqeBv6jM), and I have probably watched it over and over again at least 30-times today because I find that part of the episode to be so completely hilarious!  It is definitely one of the best Rainbow Dash scenes that I have seen so far, and that is saying a lot because Rainbow Dash is always so much fun!  I am definitely not worried about the direction that this show is going yet, especially since I am still extremely excited and counting down the days until I can see Season 2 episodes 4 and 6, which feature Luna and the Cutie Mark Crusaders respectively!  *cheers*
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: 489109 on October 18, 2011, 09:54:42 am
.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: 489109 on October 18, 2011, 11:12:20 am
Some pony out there alreday made a custom 'crazy' Twilight Sparkle with Smarty pants toy. I guess this was on e-bay but I only saw the link to the pic. E-bay is a firewall blocked site so I can't look it up for y'all. However, here is a link to the pic of the set. Its pretty creepy actually. This is linked and not imaged due to size:

Crazy Twilight & Smartypants (http://www.derpyhooves.com/chat/index.php?s_id=t91pJEqI8McryBsgzl9a23DOL1osul9n&b_id=30585&filename=%24(KGrHqEOKicE6YYb1mmYBOnQeNkE%2Cw~~60_12.JPG)



Edit Note: Seems you have to be logged into Derpy Hooves Chat to see the link. Sorry. Just search E-bay to see the pic.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on October 18, 2011, 12:40:25 pm
Link don't work for me.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: 489109 on October 20, 2011, 01:40:25 pm
The MLP Facebook page posted a sneak peek on Saturday's episode.
Here is the link: FB MLP (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=304123879605056&set=a.134316363252476.23944.118429394841173&type=1&theater)

The picture shows Twilight Sparkle dressed in a costume talking to Luna. My first impression was "~yay Twilight is dressed up as the Great and Powerful Trixie!".
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on October 22, 2011, 09:43:05 am
In case anyone needs a link to a live streaming feed of this morning's episode, kicking off at 9 am CST, I'm using this one.

http://www.twitch.tv/dizaster321

It's playing old episodes now
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on October 22, 2011, 10:37:10 am
And for those that haven't seen it yet, I'll just say this. Oh my ~yay~ was that a fun episode!

Without saying too much about Luna yet, I'll say this: Luna, why so serious? :D

Oh, and Zecora came back. That was an awesome surprise and she fit the role perfectly. I'm still grinning ear to ear and watching the repeat already. XD
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on October 22, 2011, 11:30:21 am
Glad to hear you also enjoyed it.

I loved it. I felt like it the show is back to normal. Everypony seemed much more down to earth, aside from Luna who is still socially adjusting. And hey, little bit of a star role for AJ in this one. She was the first pony other than Twilight to actually give Luna a chance, and really did help her start to adjust a bit.

I kinda hope that we get Luna in some more episodes now. She's in the middle of transitioning to modern life away from the moon. They could bring her back now and again to show some of her progress. Even if it's just any time Celestia shows up in Ponyville, Luna should be at her side.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on October 22, 2011, 11:41:48 am
They could bring her back now and again to show some of her progress. Even if it's just any time Celestia shows up in Ponyville, Luna should be at her side.
That's about the one thing that stuck out as odd on this episode. You would think that even if Luna was venturing out on her own by now, Celestia would have come to save the day. You know, being sisters and all. I was pretty surprised that she didn't make an appearance.

Also: Chicken Pie FTW!!! :D She almost stole the spotlight on the show IMHO.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on October 22, 2011, 12:28:50 pm
My thoughts when Luna showed up and started talking...

-----------------------------------------------------------
Luna: I've been away so long, how much has changed sister?

Celestia: Things are still the same Luna, speak in a strong, commanding and powerful voice and be sure to always use the royal "we" in our subjects presence.

Luna: Very well. Thank you big sister. This will be a most enjoyable night.

Celestia: *giggles* "Oh yes Luna. *chuckle* Very fun. Remember, BIG! Commanding! VOICE!

Luna: I'll remember.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on October 22, 2011, 01:11:39 pm
THE FUN HAS BEEN DOUBLED.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13875233/doubled.jpg)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on October 25, 2011, 01:43:58 pm
Woo hoo!  I *finally* got to watch the new episode "Luna Eclipsed" this morning.  I was *so* excited for this episode, to the point where I was literally counting down the days until it aired, and then when Saturday morning finally arrived real-life intervened and I didn't get a chance to watch my recording of the episode until now... and it was a rough wait, let me tell you!  Not only did I have to temporarily boycott visiting both the Furtopia MLP forums and Equestria Daily for the past three days to make sure that I didn't accidentally run across any spoilers, but when I saw Liedt in-person last Saturday afternoon I had to force him to not talk about the new episode as well because he had already seen it.  Oh well, the episode was so good that it was definitely worth the wait!

I was *extremely* curious to see what Princess Luna's character was going to be like, and how the writers of the show were going to play Luna's visit on Nightmare Night out.  Up until now all that we had seen of her was that absolutely adorable small lavender-colored pony with the periwinkle-colored mane who was huddled up, sad, scared, and remorseful, at the end of the episode "Friendship Is Magic - Part 2 (Elements of Harmony)."  As I am sure that you are all well aware, that brief appearance of Luna in Season 1 caused a slough of Luna fan-art to be created in the Brony-community, with much of it showing her being quiet, meek, sad, and sullen, with a personality much like a personified quiet, lonely, and peaceful moonlit night.  I have to admit that I also bought into this fan-developed perception of her-- it was basically just taking how she acted in her brief first appearance in Season 1 and running with it, so it made sense to me.

Going along with Princess Luna's original appearance and demeanor, I expected the episode "Luna Eclipsed" to play out very differently than it did.  Here is how I thought that things were going to happen: I did imagine the Nightmare Night festivities to play out pretty much as they did, with the trick-or-treating, costumes, traditional American Halloween-type games, etc.  However, I imagined Luna secretively sneaking into Ponyville's Nightmare Moon Night festivities while hiding herself underneath a cloak or a costume so that she could silently observe the festivities.  With Luna being so ashamed and remorseful about her Nightmare Moon past, I thought that she would have been shocked and devastated to find all of the ponies celebrating a holiday that was based around her horrible past, and that she would be made extremely upset from seeing all of the effigies of her old Nightmare Moon persona put on display throughout the town.  That revelation to her would be like an emotional stake through her heart-- here she wants nothing more than for everypony to forget about her past and forgive her, but instead the images of her wicked former self are still everywhere, tormenting her.  Around this point some pony, not knowing that the mare in the cloak/costume is Luna, would say something horrible about Nightmare Moon to her/ make her play some kind of degrading game like "pin the tail on the Nightmare Moon" or something along those lines, and that would push Lune to the breaking point where she would throw off her costume, reveal to everypony who she was, and run out of town crying.  Then it would be up to the Mane 6 to find Luna, console her, and convince her that Nightmare Night was a night of fun, laughter, etc., and that she should embrace the fact that even her less than admirable past has been the cause of so much fun and adoration for her.

Wow, I pretty much missed the mark on that one to a large degree.  Instead of a quiet, curled up, and frightened little lavender and periwinkle pony, we got a larger, dark blue-violet-ish pony with thunder, lightning, evil-looking demon-winged pegasi escorts, a booming voice, the ability to create giant spiders, and Nightmare Moon's star-field hair.  Wow, again.  I think Luna's personality changed just as much as her appearance too-- just as with her appearance there are still some elements about her that are still the same, but there is a huge amount about her that is different.  So while the new Luna is not a *complete* 180 from where the original character was heading, it is definitely a significant change in direction!  Now my predictions about the episode weren't entirely wrong-- Luna did end up leaving town all sullen and crushed and then got a lecture about how wonderful Nightmare Night was to convince her to return.  But I would have never foresaw all of the thunder, lightning, yelling, and giant spiders that it took to get the story to that point!  Yeesh, Luna definitely needed to learn how to take it down a notch or two!  In fact, Luna was acting so Nightmare Moon-ish at some parts of this episode that I was almost wondering if the Mane 6 were going to have to once again band together and hit her with their giant orbital rainbow friendship cannon (a.k.a. "The Elements of Harmony") just to tone her down a bit!  You know, like put Princess Luna into a 5-minute time out for bad behavior!   :D

In any case, my feelings are a bit mixed about the new Luna.  I thought that Luna's original design was *very* pretty, so much so that she was probably my favorite character design out of all of the ponies.  While Luna's new design is also pretty, I hate the fact that we will probably have to lose the original Luna design to gain this new one.  To explain what I mean, this kind of reminds me of the whole Coca-cola/New Coke debacle.  I actually liked the "new Coke," but I also always liked the original Coca-cola classic, so I was sad that I had to give up one for the other.  Now, Coca-cola remedied this by making both Coca-Cola Classic and the renamed Coke II both available, so for a few years you could actually enjoy both.  It would be cool, at least to me, if MLP:FiM would do kind of the same thing with Luna.  After all, they established in this episode that Princess Luna can use magic to alter her appearance because they showed her temporarily portraying Nightmare Moon near the end.  As a result, maybe they could do something like have Luna appear as her smaller lavender and periwinkle form when she is away from her subjects and in private, and then have her take on her new blue-violet star-field form when she is out in public and wants to appear more imposing a regal, kind of like how she used her booming voice in public to appear more imposing and regal.  That would make sense to me (and make me happy), and in my opinion it would fit the new-version of Luna's character a bit more than Lauren Faust's personal explanation on Luna's change in appearance (http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/10/lauren-fausts-explanation-on-lunas-new.html).  (I know that it is probably sacrilegious for me to question anything Lauren Faust says and that I will probably become yet another stone garden ornament in Celestia's garden of vanquished foes because of my blatant impudence, but what can I say, I like my idea better and I really wish that there was some way to make it so!  Oh well...)

As far as Luna's new personality goes, well, we only got the tiniest little hint of what Luna was possibly like from the episode "Friendship Is Magic - Part 2 (Elements of Harmony)".  In fact, most of what I thought I knew about the original Luna probably developed based on the fan-made material that I saw of her later.  So I guess I can't argue against the "new" Luna's personality at all, because there really isn't that much of a canon "old" personality to compare her against.  Besides, as the new episode has shown, underneath all of the new Luna's yelling, thunder, and giant death-spiders there is still a sad, quiet, and vulnerable pony who wants to be accepted.  That was the element of the "old" Luna that I liked from her original appearance, and I guess her appearance in this new episode showed that it is still there, only just buried a little more.  I guess I can go along with that.  In any case, I just hope that from now on we see Luna a bit more often!  "New" design or "old," I still think that she is way neater than Celestia!

Some additional random observations:

* Is it just me, or is Luna talking with ye olde-style English a bit of a retcon?  I understand why the writers made her speak that way because they wanted to make her sound regal and out of touch with the times, but both Luna AND Nightmare Moon spoke modern English in their Season 1 debut, so having Luna suddenly talk like it was the year 1600 doesn't really make much sense when her Nightmare Moon counterpart sure didn't.  I suppose you could say that Luna's speaking in Early Modern English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_English) could have all been part of her act that she was putting on to appear regal in front of her subjects, but she also spoke that way when confiding to Twilight Sparkle, which makes it appear that she *always* talks that way.  If that is true, that breaks the precedent of how Luna/ Nightmare Moon spoke in Season 1.

* I absolutely *loved* Rainbow Dash dressing up as a Shadowbolt!  That was such a great idea, and I wish that we could have seen more of her as a Shadowbolt or at least some kind of reaction from Luna from seeing somepony dressed up as one of her old Shadowbolt creations.

* I loved Spike's commenting on the mayor's clown costume throughout the episode!  That really made me chuckle!

* I loved the little pony that was dressed-up as a mouse and was frightened when Luna stomped her hoof right by her head!  So cute!

* Zecora's retelling of the Mare in the Moon story and her associated green smoke illusions of Nightmare Moon were both pretty cool!

* The appearance of Derpy bobbing for apples and then accidentally coming up with the plug of the large basin draining all of the water out was both funny and endearing, however at the same time I can't help but note that Derpy is becoming ever more of a foreground pony instead of just a random background pony.  I think that the Season 1 sport of Derpy-spotting is officially dead-- now she is apparently a full-blown secondary character and is spotlighted in the show front and center.  Not that that is necessarily a bad thing.  Hmmm.  At the current rate that Derpy's appearances are growing in significance, how long do you think it is going to be before Derpy gets her first speaking role and then her first full-blown episode?

* When I first saw the statue of Nightmare Moon in the woods when Zecora was telling her story, my first thought was, "Geez, it looks like Luna lost an argument with Celestia again!"  LOL!  Actually, I have to wonder if this is the first time that we have seen a statue that wasn't one of Princess Celestia's past poor hapless dissenters that was turned into stone!

* There is a new tiny colt named "Pipsqueak" with an overly cute British accent?  Just what I needed-- the sickeningly cute character "Lumpy" from the early-2000-era Winnie the Pooh movies in My Little Pony-form.  Argh!  I just hope that we don't get overly-deluged with appearances of him!  That's the kind of character that can develop into a "Scrappy Doo"-like tumor on a show really fast!  Somebody needs to cut that malignant character out of the show and irradiate it before it gets a chance to spread into further episodes-- stat!

* Big Mac giving young ponies hay rides-- LOL!

* No Rarity!  *boos*

* I love how Luna could use her magic to make herself look like Nightmare Moon but still had to place a set of false teeth in her mouth while doing so.  You would think that her magic could take care of that little detail too!   (:

* Up until now I have been fighting the whole "Trollestia" idea that out of Princess Celestia's boredom all she does is sit around and create an endless string of problems for the citizens of Ponyville to solve, but trying to ignore that concept is getting ever more difficult to do.  The whole conflict of this episode could have been resolved before the episode even began if Princess Celestia had just taken 5-minutes out of her day and told Luna the following four points of advice: 1) "We no longer talk like it is the year 1650."  2) "We no longer use an earth-shattering booming voice to terrify our subjects into submission.  I have now turned so many of our subjects into stone for crossing me that I can talk to them in a sweet, soft-spoken, and motherly manner and they still are god-fearing of me and do what I say."  3) "We no longer address ourselves in the third-person," and 4) "Don't cover our pony subjects in giant spiders.  They tend to be fearful of that."  I mean really, has Celestia spent any one-on-one sister-time with Luna since they have reconciled, or did Celestia just set poor Luna up for the prank of the year like Kaloyan Alett mentioned?

* Is it just me, or has Twilight Sparkle's time spent as Princess Celestia's personal student made her have way too much candor when dealing with princesses?  While everyone else bows and is generally awe-struck by the appearance of Celestia, Twilight Sparkle will skip the whole bowing-thing and just walk right on up to her and basically ask her how it's hangin'.  While Twilight might be able to get away with that sort of thing (despite how bad it must look in public) with Princess Celestia because of Twilight Sparkle's special status as Celestia's pupil, I am surprised that Twilight was also able to get away with being so informal with Luna, especially since Luna doesn't know Twilight Sparkle very well and was actually expecting respect and formality from the townsfolk (like how Luna wanted the mayor to kiss her hoof, for instance).  I swear, one of these days Twilight is going to be overly-informal to the wrong member of Equestria royalty and become the royal castle's next stone garden ornament.  I'm just sayin'!   ;)

Anyway, there was *a lot* going on with this episode, and a lot to like about it!  I didn't want to write another massive waterfall of text reviewing this episode like I have in the past, but with all that happened and was shown in this one I just couldn't help myself.  Just like how Pinkie Pie has to eat candy, Rainbow Dash has to prank, and Twilight Sparkle has to lecture, I have to write giant walls of text about MLP.  Apparently, it's what I do!  Anyway, like Ziel said, it seems like MLP:FiM is getting back to its good 'ol fantastic self with this episode, and I sincerely hope that we see more great episodes like this one soon!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on October 27, 2011, 12:14:16 am
The great wall of text

I only barely skimmed over your post, but I caught that you mentioned not having Rarity. 2 things I've heard. One, they did have a scene with Rarity in it (I think making a dress for Luna) but it was cut out according to Faust. Second, The VA for Rarity also does Luna, so she was there in spirit if nothing else. LOL
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on October 27, 2011, 12:13:38 pm
I only barely skimmed over your post, but I caught that you mentioned not having Rarity. 2 things I've heard. One, they did have a scene with Rarity in it (I think making a dress for Luna) but it was cut out according to Faust. Second, The VA for Rarity also does Luna, so she was there in spirit if nothing else. LOL

I had read Lauren Faust's explanation about Rarity being cut from the script due to time constraints as well.  Even though I perfectly understand the production reasons for why Rarity wasn't in the episode, that doesn't mean that I still won't boo her absence!   :D

Also, we have an entire week-and-a-half until the next new episode of MLP:FiM airs, so you have plenty of time to read through my glorious text wall about episode 4 above-- even if you pace yourself and take it only one paragraph a day.  I brought up what I thought were a lot of good discussion points about episode 4 in that post, and I was hoping that some of them may give us all something to chat about while we wait for "Sisterhooves Social" to air.  We still have 9-days to wait, after all.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on October 27, 2011, 03:34:02 pm
You should do some fanfic's of the MLP's Hoagiebot.  You write very
well about the characters and the show.  :orbunny:
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on October 30, 2011, 06:09:51 am
You should do some fanfic's of the MLP's Hoagiebot.  You write very
well about the characters and the show.  :orbunny:

Thank you very much for your kind words about my writing, Old Rabbit-- I very much appreciate it!  I do write, but I tend to be a closet writer, with most of what I have written either never leaving my computer, or being part of much larger and grander projects that never get finished, such as comic book series, video games, comic strips, animated shorts, etc.  For the past few weeks I have been playing around with the idea of maybe trying my hand at writing a MLP:FiM fan-fiction, but I don't know if I will ever actually go through with writing it.  As of right now my brainstorming about a MLP:FiM fan-fiction story has been much more of a mental exercise to divert my mind with during the slower moments of my day rather than the result of my actually wanting to write a fan fiction.  I suppose that if I actually do come up with a story that I feel is good enough to write down I will do it, but I don't feel that I have quite reached that point yet.

As an interesting side note, it was because I working on formulating my fan-fiction story that I was so keenly interested in last week's episode "Luna Eclipsed."  I was thinking of having Princess Luna possibly play a role in my story, but I wanted to see what her actual personality was like first so that I could write her character accurately.  As I had mentioned above, I was kind of expecting a meek, introverted, and very remorseful little princess, and instead I got a proud booming-voiced princess who is quick to display her still frightening-strong powers with thunder, lightning bolts, bats, and giant spiders.  I did *not* see that coming, and it threw a monkey-wrench into how I had wanted to include her in my plot.  Oh well, that's what happens when you start playing in someone else's sandbox, I guess-- there is no stopping them from knocking down your sand castle on you!   :D  Anyway, if I ever do actually end up writing a MLP:FiM fan-fiction of some sort, and it ends up actually leaving the isolated confines of my computer, I will definitely let you know!

----------------------------------------

To get back on topic about discussing what is happening in Season 2, has anyone else here seen the Equestria Daily article (http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/10/rumor-season-2-episode-8-mysterious.html) on the rumored synopsis of season 2, episode 8, "The Mysterious Mare Do Well?"  The idea of a mysterious new masked hero that is "stealing Rainbow Dash's thunder" has really got me stoked!  I can't wait to see who the masked hero turns out to be!  Of course the speculation on who this new masked hero character will turn out to be is really running rampant over at Equestria Daily.  I have seen suggestions that the masked hero could be anyone from Fluttershy, Applejack, Gilda, The Great and Powerful Trixie, Derpy, Scootaloo, Pinkie Pie, a trolling Celestia, etc.  However, in my opinion the most interesting suggestion that I have seen on that website so far has been the one made by the Equestria Daily user "Killsteal Wolf:"

Quote
All we can assume is that, it's probably a Very Fast Pegasus, since that is Rainbow Dashes defining trait(Clears the skies in 10 seconds flat), and to steal her thunder, they have to be as fast as her.  And since Firefly was the original design of Rainbow Dash, I think it would be quite cool if this Masked Pony was Firefly, or at least her Colour Scheme. The Original being the one trying to steal the spotlight would be quite cool.

I, personally, would so be down with the idea that Rainbow Dash gets bested by the Generation 1 pony "Firefly" that her character was partially based on.  However, I was reading that for some reason or another, Hasbro somehow lost the copyrights to a few of their Generation 1 ponies, Firefly included, so if that is true then that makes the appearance of Firefly as the masked hero *much* less likely unless Hasbro has somehow recently reacquired the rights to the character (I know very little about the backstory behind this situation with Hasbro losing the rights to some of their Gen 1 ponies, so if somebody knows more about this please feel free to fill me in).  Despite this, I am still going to root for Firefly to be the masked hero anyway because I just think that the idea is that cool.  Who does everyone else here think that the masked hero might turn out to be?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on November 05, 2011, 10:33:48 am
Just saw the new one. Rarity's parents showed up.

Seems Rarity does indeed live on her own while Sweetie Bell lives with their parents.

OMG Granny Smith finally had lots of lines! :D

Seems a lot of charaters the fandom took as "Daughters" are now shown to be "sisters"

Again I feel the tremors in the force. As of a thousand fan fictions crying out in terror before being silenced...
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on November 05, 2011, 12:56:17 pm
This morning I found myself unable to wait for this new episode to air, and I was going nuts counting the minutes down until 9AM.  I ended up sitting in front of my TV and turning on the HUB channel early, and I caught the last 15-minutes of Strawberry Shortcake by doing so.  While I was sitting in my recliner chair, bored, resting my chin on my hand, and killing time by watching the end of Strawberry Shortcake, I thought to myself how fortunate it was that My Little Pony didn't turn out like that show, and that it had so much more real humor, action, and creativity behind it... except that when Strawberry Shortcake ended and the new episode of MLP:FiM started, well, I still ended up resting my chin in my hand.

You caught what I wrote there correctly-- I hate to say it, but after watching "Sisterhooves Social," I found the episode kind of "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

I even watched the episode a second time through during its encore showing, and I still thought that it was primarily a yawner.

Granted, the episode started out pretty promising.  I actually chuckled a bit when Sweetie Belle attempted to cook Rarity breakfast, and managed to burn the juice.  I also thought Rarity's parents were kind of funny-- here you have Rarity who is this well-mannered, sophisticated, and fashionable socialite, and yet her parents kind of remind me of blue-collar people from Wisconsin.  How does that work out?  I can see Sweetie Belle being related to her parents, but Rarity doesn't really resemble or act like either her parents or her sister.  It makes me almost wonder if Rarity was adopted and has no relation to her other three family members at all!  Anyway, I digress-- after you see Sweetie Belle's comically burned breakfast, the comedy seems to completely shut off for the rest of the episode.  I had a bit of a grin when the sheep told AJ and AB that they "could have asked them" to go into their pen, and I thought that it was kind of funny when Rarity said "As Celestia as my witness!" instead of "As God as my witness" at one point during the episode, but these were very little things, neither of which made me take my chin off of my hand in excitement.

In other words, this episode was wayyyyyyy too "slice of life" and too little funny.  It's as if the writers completely forgot to storyboard some jokes into the plot.  Had this been the only episode of MLP:FiM that I had ever seen in my life I would have labeled it as a "little girl's show" just like the episode of Strawberry Shortcake that I caught the end of before it, and would have probably never felt very inclined to watch MLP:FiM again.  (Luckily, this was not the only episode of MLP:FiM that I have ever seen!)  Despite the fact that the credited writer for this episode, Cindy Morrow, had written some very good episodes for Season 1, this one was so underwhelming that for me this is "strike one" against her in my book.  For whatever reason, this entire season has been dramatically up-and-down with its episodes-- "Lesson Zero" had its funny moments but overall left me cold, "Luna Eclipsed" was an extremely fun episode and one of my all-time favorites, and now "Sisterhooves Social" got so wrapped up in its whole slice of life plot that it completely forgot about the funny and nearly put me to sleep in my chair.  Let's hope that this pattern means that the next episode, "Cutie Pox," will be truly spectacular.

I realize that I have become notorious for writing massively-long deeply-analytical walls of text for every episode of MLP:FiM that I have seen because I am so enthusiastic about the show, but I didn't really care for this episode all that much so this is all of the text that it is getting.  I would much rather have all of you go back a few posts in this thread and read and comment on my very long list of thoughts about the episode "Luna Eclipsed."  With how great that episode was I could easily discuss it for another whole week!     :)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on November 05, 2011, 01:38:33 pm
I really enjoyed this episode!  Far from being the sappy tea party I had feared, the show surprisingly grabbed me by the heart and didn't let go.  There were actually a lot of situations I could relate to as an older brother, but it all came to a head when Rarity found Sweetie Belle's "art project."  Manly tears were shed.

I also loved that there were so many reaction-image-worthy scenes, without the show feeling like a televised tour of the internets.  Sweetie Belle scooting around the floor when she was bored, various Rarity screams/holding in her anger, and the heart-rending sad Sweetie scenes.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on November 05, 2011, 04:21:27 pm
I really enjoyed this episode!  Far from being the sappy tea party I had feared, the show surprisingly grabbed me by the heart and didn't let go.  There were actually a lot of situations I could relate to as an older brother, but it all came to a head when Rarity found Sweetie Belle's "art project."  Manly tears were shed.

I also loved that there were so many reaction-image-worthy scenes, without the show feeling like a televised tour of the internets.  Sweetie Belle scooting around the floor when she was bored, various Rarity screams/holding in her anger, and the heart-rending sad Sweetie scenes.

I completely agree. I loved the ending of the episode, too ;). I really really loved this one.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on November 06, 2011, 02:00:53 am
I also didn't care for this episode. I think the lesson part of the plot was a great one, but was too sappy/serious for my tastes of the show. I did have a good laugh at some parts like Sweetie Bell crawling on the floor and Granny Smith messing up several times, but nothing truely noteworthy. I think this one is going at the bottom of my list. I can't even say the bottom of the list of favorites, just the bottom period. I realized pretty quick the AJ/Rarity switch by her eye color despite the mud at the end, but looking back on it I should have seen that coming a mile away. Oh well. The next episode sounds like it could be interesting.

*EDIT* I was also suprised at the lack of mane ponies, and even side ponies this time around. Side ponies more or less being ones IMHO that have focused camera time such as Granny Smith, the CMC's, etc. with speaking roles but not part of the mane 6.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: redyoshi49q on November 06, 2011, 11:03:52 am
Is it just me, or am I sensing a nearly universal pattern of strong love or strong apathy/distaste (nothing in between) on a person by person basis with respect to these episodes?  Let me break that pattern.  I liked the episode, but it wasn't one of my favorites.  As a (considerably) younger sibling, I was able to sympathize quite a bit with Sweetie Bell in this episode.

I realized pretty quick the AJ/Rarity switch by her eye color despite the mud at the end, but looking back on it I should have seen that coming a mile away.

I *did* see that a mile away.  Well, Rarity said that she knew what she needed to do, and what she needs to do is go to that race...  But where is she?  Wait!  There's a mud covered pony helping her sister!  That *must* be her!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ickyrus on November 06, 2011, 09:46:33 pm
I really liked this episode, mainly because of the bored Sweetie Bell shenanigans because that's generally what I feel like doing all the time. But seeing Rarity's parents and an episode dedicated to Rarity were also good. She's so dramaesque~ It reminds me of myself :'D And there was no Twilight, she just plain irritates me.
Granny Smith was also good to see more of, I think she's my favourite non-mane six pony.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on November 08, 2011, 09:25:45 pm
I finally got to watch this one just now. Here's a brief timeline of my thoughts:

1. Why is Rarity acting as if she hasn't spent any time with Sweetie Belle in recent history? We've seen them interact before and it's never that bad. Though SB does seem to be good at doing things that frustrate Rarity.
2. (after the drawing) Well, I just lost a lot of respect for Rarity.
3. Heck yeah AJ scenes!
4. (as Rarity is having her epiphanies) Karma, Rarity, karma. You should feel bad about yourself.
5. (when we see the drawing) *heart melts a little*
6. (after the race) How the heck did I not realize the pony swap sooner?
7. How did AJ stay in that mud for that long?
8. And how was Rarity able to do all that stuff so well during the race? That was AJ-type stuff, not anything Rarity would just be able to up and do without practice.

Explanation of #6: I was waiting for Rarity to show up right as the race was starting, then kinda forgot that whole part of the plot during the race. I just figured AJ was just messing around by diving into the mud at first.

I'm just not a big Rarity fan, and her behavior in this episode doesn't help, really. Sure, she comes around at the end, but still. Also, it was nice to see AJ have more of a starring role, being pretty involved in helping Rarity and SB out. Maybe people will slowly start to appreciate AJ a bit more. Though I still think she has yet to have her big moment.

Overall, I'm with RY on this. This one's pretty much in the middle of my overall list of episodes. If it weren't for AJ though, it would probably be pretty low. She really saved the episode for me.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on November 09, 2011, 05:26:16 am
Not a Rarity fan here but the scenes with the best pony did save it for me. I didn't notice the swap but I thought it was a good episode overall.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Alerhys on November 09, 2011, 01:31:27 pm
I enjoyed the episode. Then again, I have a little sister.  :D  Rarity as the daughter  with high-class ambition rebelling against her parents' lack of sophistication is totally believable, I had a great time playing spot the background ponies during the race, and I had no trouble with Rarity's athletic prowess; this is the unicorn who face-kicked a manticore and hoisted a huge boulder onto her back without her magic. Heck, her father has three footballs as his cutie mark and does not appear to have any sons; what do you want to bet that Rarity was basically forced to be athletic growing up, probably accounting for some of the reason she is trying so hard not to be like her parents?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on November 09, 2011, 02:27:10 pm
I enjoyed the episode. Then again, I have a little sister.  :D  Rarity as the daughter  with high-class ambition rebelling against her parents' lack of sophistication is totally believable, I had a great time playing spot the background ponies during the race, and I had no trouble with Rarity's athletic prowess; this is the unicorn who face-kicked a manticore and hoisted a huge boulder onto her back without her magic. Heck, her father has three footballs as his cutie mark and does not appear to have any sons; what do you want to bet that Rarity was basically forced to be athletic growing up, probably accounting for some of the reason she is trying so hard not to be like her parents?
I totally believe that. Someone needs to wwrite a fan fic involving Rarity in pee-wee football and getting her first fashion design inspirations by designing new team unifoms. Maybe she gets thrown off the team for being too frou frou? Or OH! OH! IDEA!!

She designs her own uniform for the team and gets tossed off the team because she doesn't want to get her new uniform dirty in the mud while playing!

I'd write it myself but have you been to my DA page lately? I've got enough writing in the works as is, I can't start yet another WIP.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on November 12, 2011, 11:58:58 am
The Cutie Pox

Okay, the show is definitely back in it's stride after those first few episodes.

I'm not really sure what all to say except that I loved this episode. It was pretty darn hilarious through the last half of the episode. I completely lost it when Apple Bloom starting speaking in French.

Yeah. Nothing else to really say. I just thought this was a great episode.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on November 12, 2011, 01:38:59 pm
Okay I just started the episode and this is already THE BEST ONE EVER!!!!

In the bowling alley, there are SOOOOOOOOO many nods to The Big Lebowski that I cannot watch the episode because I'm "squee"-ing too much to pay attention.

Oh god... I'm cracking up....
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on November 12, 2011, 06:33:53 pm
Okay I just started the episode and this is already THE BEST ONE EVER!!!!

In the bowling alley, there are SOOOOOOOOO many nods to The Big Lebowski that I cannot watch the episode because I'm "squee"-ing too much to pay attention.

Oh god... I'm cracking up....

Not gonna lie. Big Lebowski went right over my head.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on November 12, 2011, 08:48:19 pm
Okay I just started the episode and this is already THE BEST ONE EVER!!!!

In the bowling alley, there are SOOOOOOOOO many nods to The Big Lebowski that I cannot watch the episode because I'm "squee"-ing too much to pay attention.

Oh god... I'm cracking up....

Not gonna lie. Big Lebowski went right over my head.
Aw, thats such a shame. That cameo really tied the whole episode together man.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on November 13, 2011, 01:51:57 am
Luna Eclipsed still has its top spot on my list, but I do think Cutie Pox was a very good episode. Top shelf at least. It did start a bit slow (Never watched Big Lebowski either to catch that one), but seemed to escalate pretty well. Seeing the reactions of the other ponies when Spike told them what Applebloom had was hillarious. The screams of terror. The cloud of pony limbs running away. The.... radiation suits??? :o Seriously, how does a no-techology society like Equestria have freakin' nuclear production?

Also, seeing Spike's reaction to Twilight's hair after Applebloom got it with the loop, I think maybe he isn't in love with Rarity after all. He's in love with Rarity's hair style! :P
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on November 13, 2011, 02:46:34 am
Luna Eclipsed still has its top spot on my list, but I do think Cutie Pox was a very good episode. Top shelf at least. It did start a bit slow (Never watched Big Lebowski either to catch that one), but seemed to escalate pretty well. Seeing the reactions of the other ponies when Spike told them what Applebloom had was hillarious. The screams of terror. The cloud of pony limbs running away. The.... radiation suits??? :o Seriously, how does a no-techology society like Equestria have freakin' nuclear production?

Also, seeing Spike's reaction to Twilight's hair after Applebloom got it with the loop, I think maybe he isn't in love with Rarity after all. He's in love with Rarity's hair style! :P

I thought the same thing when it came to Rarity's hair :D!

Overall, I really enjoyed this one.

Slowly, Season 2 is getting better and better for me :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on November 13, 2011, 10:46:35 am
Believe it or not, so far we are actually all in consensus about liking this episode because I really liked "The Cutie Pox" as well!  *cheers!*  How about that!?  Have we all ever agreed on an episode before?  While I didn't quite like this episode as much as I liked "Luna Eclipsed," it is still easily my second most favorite Season 2 episode!

My random thoughts and observations about this episode:


Well, it looks like the rest of November is going to get about 40% cooler because it seems that the next two episodes are devoted to Rainbow Dash!  *cheers!*  Currently I am taking the position that Rainbow Dash is the best pony, so I am *really* hoping that both of these episodes turn out to be absolutely epic-- especially since the Rarity-centric "Sweet and Elite" episode coming after them looks like it will be a generic "friend or idol decision (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FriendOrIdolDecision)" trope-following story with the appropriate moral anvil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anvilicious) being dropped on us in the end.  I just hope that they find some creative spin for the plot of "Sweet and Elite" or storyboard in some entertaining jokes this time around so that the episode doesn't turn out to be another "Sisterhooves Social"-type snorer.  I want fun in my ponies, dang it!  Well that and maybe a little... "plot." (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qe7qaYGOSUQ/TdBZjevF1WI/AAAAAAAAEg0/XH9_WQ42_2c/s1600/13587+-+plot+spitfire.png)  (j/k!)   :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on November 13, 2011, 01:10:43 pm
You can get a chimney-sweeping cutie mark?  Yeah, that sounds like a *fun* talent!  It seems as if some ponies can really get screwed over by their cutie marks-- how would you like to be the pony that gets the "stable cleaner" or "ditch digger" cutie mark to appear on their flank?[/li][/list]
Well, if you can have bubbles for a cutie mark :P..
I'm generally not a huge Pinkie Pie fan, but I thought it was pretty funny when she felt compelled to confess about her lying about how many corncakes that she ate!
And even then, she was lying :D!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on November 13, 2011, 02:21:26 pm
Was browsing DHN (http://derpyhoovesnews.com) again today and spotted this gem in their review of Cutie Pox.

(http://img.ponibooru.org/_images/ea38d7d2005a24d30cb1d1ddebe5fc34/84203%20-%20Berry_Pinch%20Twist%20apple_bloom%20derpy_hooves%20time_paradox.JPG)

Quote from: From Derpy Hooves News
The other chatter from this episode is the appearance of a grey pegasus filly with blonde hair and derpy eyes that appeared at the 8 minute and 33 second mark.

This of course is where the fandom starts to really roll in, outside an obvious and somewhat more random shout out to the fandom, besides Derpy herself garnishing some scenes.  I know there'll be three different fanons created for this, but of course with Derpy (or any fanon really), its all up to what you want inside your head canon.

Some are going for the Doctor Whooves aspect, that it is Derpy as a filly who is time travelling with the good doctor.  Some are probably going to take this as a replacement for Dinky Hooves, due to her appearance in the Sisterhooves Social, or a new character is going to be spawned from this, a sister for Ditzy (or the ultimate head canon of including this grey pegasus along side Dinky & the purple adultish pony from the Social episode).
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on November 17, 2011, 04:40:26 pm
Mini-Spoiler! Just released on FiM's facebook page: Owlicious!

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/391369_319422774741833_118429394841173_1492485_1818364110_n.jpg)

And I must say I'm disapointed in all the people wanting Scootaloo to be RD's pet. That wouldn't follow any of the other types of pets, not to mention it would be wrong. So very very wrong.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on November 18, 2011, 02:50:46 am
*crossing his hooves for a turtle to be picked at the end of the episode*
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on November 18, 2011, 11:53:46 am
Mini-Spoiler! Just released on FiM's facebook page: (snip)
I usually avoid the spoilery stuff ahead of the episodes, but that is still an awesome picture.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on November 19, 2011, 11:58:28 pm
Wow... a tortuous. Who'd have thougt. Only the entire fandom since they realized RD was the only one without a pet. I wonder how much this episode was meant to be fan service. LOL
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on November 20, 2011, 12:08:56 am
Wow... a tortuous. Who'd have thougt. Only the entire fandom since they realized RD was the only one without a pet. I wonder how much this episode was meant to be fan service. LOL

If I didn't know the time scale that it takes to write and produce these, I'd agree!  When we were hanging out and someone mentioned a turtle with a jet pack, you don't know how much willpower it took to keep a big apple-eating grin off my face to prevent spoiling it.  Now I just wonder if the tortoise (is he named?) will never appear again until next season like Winona.

I'm just dreading hearing all about "Oh, it's so predictable! There was too much fanservice!  They were acting out of character!"  I agree with all that to a small extent, but somehow I was still OK with this episode.  You could tell the tortoise was going to have some significant role at the end (if not definitely be the winning pet), but I was still surprised by the rockslide and how the tortoise lifted the rock to free RD.  Whoa, that's like the Incredible Hulk right there!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on November 20, 2011, 12:32:40 am
Wow... a tortuous. Who'd have thougt. Only the entire fandom since they realized RD was the only one without a pet. I wonder how much this episode was meant to be fan service. LOL

If I didn't know the time scale that it takes to write and produce these, I'd agree!  When we were hanging out and someone mentioned a turtle with a jet pack, you don't know how much willpower it took to keep a big apple-eating grin off my face to prevent spoiling it.  Now I just wonder if the tortoise (is he named?) will never appear again until next season like Winona.

I'm just dreading hearing all about "Oh, it's so predictable! There was too much fanservice!  They were acting out of character!"  I agree with all that to a small extent, but somehow I was still OK with this episode.  You could tell the tortoise was going to have some significant role at the end (if not definitely be the winning pet), but I was still surprised by the rockslide and how the tortoise lifted the rock to free RD.  Whoa, that's like the Incredible Hulk right there!

Dashie named him Tank.

Did I see the tortoise winning once RD gave in and let him compete? Yes. Wasn't sure how it was going to end up that way, but I saw it coming the whole time.  And yes, I do hope he'll make some random appearances again. I mean, Angel, Gummy, and Opel all have pretty regular appearances. The other two don't (didn't realize the owl was even still considered Twilight's pet). I was always just taking Spike as her companion.

Overall reaction? Well, I'm a bit biased towards Dashie myself, so I loved that she was the main focus. And while the song caught me a bit off-guard, as I was not expecting the first S2 song to be in an RD episode, I loved that it showed up. And that it was a Flutterdash duet was just icing on the cake. Musically, it was very well put together. It'll take some time to learn it, though, because it's a bit more complex and isn't structured with any sort of real catchy chorus. But I still loved the song.

Not a super-top-tier episode. But it's definitely one I will re-watch quite a bit.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on November 20, 2011, 05:30:01 am
(Reposted from the other thread, these are my thoughts from last night and first viewing:)

I was always dubious about Dash getting a pet...it seems to me out of character for her to even care about wanting one (at least in the way it happens in the episode).

I didn't really like this episode myself.  Dash being my favourite pony, I felt her character in this episode wasn't what I would have wanted from her.  It was kind of like someone took the stereotype Dash most closely resembles and applied it to her.
Fluttershy, also my favourite pony, also didn't live up to my expectations of her.  I know her character's always been the most fragile, but it annoys me that the only points she turns up in this episode she's overly forward and pro-active about stuff (yes to do with animals, and it was kind of like that in the very first episode of the whole thing with Spike, but here I feel that that was all she was reduced to...).  She sounds even more girly than usual to me somehow, too...

I didn't really like the song either; it was very cheesy and wasn't nearly as catchy as most of the other songs they've done.  And those faces. Damn.

It was an extremely simple episode too.  I know it takes a lot of effort to write something intricate and well, but it still kinda bugs me that this kind of episode turned up.  There wasn't really much happening in it.  22~minutes felt like just 10 :/

The turtletortoise annoyed me, I felt it came out of nowhere, and then just stayed.  And then was the whole "point" of the episode...

It bugged me when Dash got her wing trapped under the rock; she's usually determined and level-headed, and confident in her abilities, not to mention independent, but here she just immediately gave up and left her fate to anypony (or tortoise!).

And finally, while the Mane 6 were there, they didn't really do much.  This is my main reason why I disliked The Cutie Pox and Lesson Zero (but loved the whole barn scene), and loved Sisterhooves Social.  Cutie Pox redeemed itself quite a bit after watching it again; although Pinkie Pie was just sort of a throw in, and Applejack was just dropping one-liners all the time, there was some nice interaction between the CMC and their class, and Zecora was also cool throughout.

The animation was kinda weird too; not just the faces during the song, but the eyes were rather far apart quite a lot of the time, particularly noticeable on Fluttershy.

I just didn't feel particularly satisfied with this episode; it went past too quickly and felt rather...flat.  And barren.  The settings didn't help with that.  There just wasn't enough interaction - I don't feel like I've learnt anything about friendship in this, I felt I learnt more about why I've been liking the show instead.

Maybe the kiddies will like it though.


Random: Dun dun duuuun!

It seemed strangely wordy compared to all other episodes.
>"We had initially planned..."
>"...before you humiliate yourself in front of your peers",
>"Sorta speedy! Not speedy. Pretty speedy! Could be more speedy..." etc.

Gesundheit!

I also didn't like her hat.  But oh well...

Bleh.

Maybe after another viewing I'll grow to accept it a bit more... I don't know.  Happened with The Cutie Pox, but that had more going on in it.

(I'll watch it again today in the morning, and see what I think then ^^)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on November 20, 2011, 07:47:27 am
Turtle. Called it months ago when I first heard talk about RD having a pet.

I'm reminded of an old song from Seseme Street called The Alligator King.

One two three four five six seven!
Said the Alligator King to his seven sons,
"I'm feelin' mighty down.
Whichever of you can cheer me up
Will get to wear my crown."

His first son brought seven oyster pearls
From the bottom of the China Sea.

The second gave him seven statues of girls
With clocks where their stomachs should be.

The third son gave him seven rubies
From the sheikdom of Down There Beneath.
The King thought the rubies were cherries,
And he broke off seven of his teeth.

The fourth son tried to cheer him up
With seven lemon drops.
The King said, "I'm sorry son,
Since that ruby episode, I just haven't got the chops."

The fifth son brought the King perfume
In seven fancy silver jars;
The King took a whiff, and he broke out in spots
'Cause it smelled like cheap cigars.

The sixth son gave him seven diamond rings
To wear upon his toes.
The King snagged his foot on the royal red rug
And crumpled up his nose.

The seventh son of the Alligator King
Was a thoughtful little whelp.
He said, "Daddy, appears to me
That you could use a little help."

Said the Alligator King to his seventh son,
"My son, you win the crown.
You didn't bring me diamonds or rubies, but
You helped me up when I was down.
Take the crown; it's yours, my son.
I hope you don't mind the dents.
I got it on sale at a discount store-
Cost me all of seven cents!"
Seven!


The lyrics that come to mind are:

Said the Alligator King to his seventh son,
"My son, you win the crown.
You didn't bring me diamonds or rubies, but
You helped me up when I was down.

This is a good episode with a wonderful song and I laughed hard at Rainbow talking about Twilight being her pet. (Big TwiDash shipping fan here)

I felt it was kinda weak in places though, not the best, not the worst. Kinda bland and predictable for me but I still enjoyed it.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on November 20, 2011, 11:53:06 am
Ok, second watch, and I connected with it more :)  It still felt it was a bit simple and linear, but I could feel more of the awesomeness from it this time :D
Dash was definitely cool.

Rainbow Dash seemed less out of character this time, though Fluttershy was going all sort of hysterical about getting Dash a pet, and she doesn't strike me as a hysterical type :D (maybe it's just animals (: )

I still felt the tortoise came out of no-where though, and then just stayed for no reason (it made the plot a whole lot more obvious).  Dash's disapproval of the tortoise was also rather focused on, which didn't help the whole thing.  Dash should have got the bat!  I'd have been much happier with that.  (A toy bat would have also been 20% cooler ;) rather than the damn "turtle", but bleh, corporations.)

I actually kinda liked the song this time :D  I got more of a humour vibe from it than just cheesy musical singing.  The faces still creeped me out though :o

Not my favourite still overall, but there were some awesome Rainbow Dash moments, and animal moments :)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on November 26, 2011, 09:12:21 am
Hey everypony!  I have been meaning to share my analysis of the last episode, "May the Best Pet Win," for some time now, and I figured that if I was going to do it I had better do it now considering the fact that the next episode is going to air in less than 2-hours!   :D  I am sorry for arriving so late to this discussion-- I was at Midwest Furfest last weekend, and then a combination of my younger siblings being back in town for the holidays, Thanksgiving, and other family events have just kept me from being able to sit in front of my computer long enough to write out my observations and thoughts for this episode.

As much as I wish that I could say that there will be one of my trademark giant walls of text inbound for this episode, the fact of the matter is that you have all pretty much already thoroughly discussed this episode here, so I will reply to all of your observations instead.

I'm just dreading hearing all about "Oh, it's so predictable!

You are dreading hearing people (like me) saying that this episode was too predictable because deep down inside yourself you know the truth: it was.  The foreshadowing (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Foreshadowing) of the tortoise being Rainbow Dash's pet was way too obvious and blatant, and the "anvilicious" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anvilicious) nature of the overly driven-home moral (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnAesop) of this story absolutely demanded that the tortoise win.  As soon as you saw how much the tortoise desperately wanted to be Rainbow Dash's pet, you knew that it would be inevitable that he would be.  The workings of the MLP:FiM universe just wouldn't do it any other way.

They were acting out of character!"  I agree with all that to a small extent, but somehow I was still OK with this episode.  You could tell the tortoise was going to have some significant role at the end (if not definitely be the winning pet), but I was still surprised by the rockslide and how the tortoise lifted the rock to free RD.  Whoa, that's like the Incredible Hulk right there!
It bugged me when Dash got her wing trapped under the rock; she's usually determined and level-headed, and confident in her abilities, not to mention independent, but here she just immediately gave up and left her fate to anypony (or tortoise!).

I too was slightly bothered by a lot of the things mentioned here-- that Rainbow Dash, who seemed more than happy without a pet, suddenly desired one, that she was able to single-handedly destroy an entire freakin' barn in a previous episode kicking and karate-chopping thick wood beams apart and yet she could suddenly not buck a small bolder off of her wing that a small tortoise later lifted, that she was so quick to panic in the face of being trapped when in previous episodes she was shown keeping her cool even when bucking a full-grown dragon in the face, etc. etc.  And as much as I would like to find some kind of fancy complicated in-universe explanations for what I find to be character-inaccuracies in this episode, the fact of the matter is that the reason for why all of these changes were made is probably a simple out-of-universe one: the writer (Charlotte Fullerton in this case) changed the characters through artistic license (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArtisticLicense) to make them fit her plot.  It is as simple as that.  Instead of coming up with a plot that actually fit the characters, Ms. Fullerton instead decided to change the characters to fit her plot.

Normally, when a writer does this, they do it by invoking something like the "Rule of Cool" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool) or the "Rule of Funny" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfFunny), where the elements in the story turn out to be so awesome or so entertaining that the audience is willing to forgive whatever liberties the writer took with the characters to get them there.  However, considering the fact that several of us noticed these inaccuracies with the characters in this episode and are complaining about it, apparently the payoff in the episode resulting from these liberties was not cool enough or funny enough to cause us to overlook them.  As much as I hate to dis this particular writer because she wrote some very good episodes last season, the combination of the over-obvious foreshadowing and all of the artistic license (and even a little bit of past event revising (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Revision)) taken with the characters without a proportionally entertaining payoff at the end makes me feel that this episode was somewhat lazily-written.  I would expect writing like this to be par for the course for most cartoon shows, but most of the writing for MLP:FiM so far as been unbelievably exceptional.  Do I think that this episode was a bad one?  No, I thought that this episode was pretty much O.K.  But considering how many amazing episodes of MLP:FiM there are, running across an episode that is only O.K. really makes this episode stick out.

Dash being my favourite pony, I felt her character in this episode wasn't what I would have wanted from her.  It was kind of like someone took the stereotype Dash most closely resembles and applied it to her.

I too felt that the jerky side of Rainbow Dash's personality was amplified a bit too much in this episode.  Rainbow Dash is always a bit on the arrogant side, and she can have a bit of a mischievous streak (especially when she is pranking), but she usually stops well short of being downright mean.  That's what separates our dear protagonist Rainbow Dash from being an antagonist like Gilda-- Rainbow Dash knows when to stop, and is never so insensitive as to be purposely hurtful towards her friends.  But in this episode Rainbow Dash kind of crossed that line and acted rather bully-like and downright cruel to her pet-candidates.  She was continually verbally abusive to the poor tortoise, darn near gave the monarch butterfly a heart attack, and I don't think PETA would appreciate Rainbow Dash forcing several birds and a bat to have to fly through avalanches and thorn-bushes and darn near get eaten alive by monstrous quarray eels.  We're suppose to excuse these blatant acts of animal cruelty due to the Rule of Funny, but those moments weren't really all that funny so I can't really overlook them.  In the end I can't imagine why any animal in all of Equestria would want to go within 100-feet of Rainbow Dash let alone want to be her pet-- Tank must be a glutton for punishment!

I actually kinda liked the song this time :D  I got more of a humour vibe from it than just cheesy musical singing.

I too wasn't overly impressed with the song the first time around, but I am starting to like it more and more each time I watch the episode so I guess it is really starting to grow on me.

And finally, while the Mane 6 were there, they didn't really do much.

Yeah, the writers are kind of focusing on each character more individually this season, and I don't always like the results of that either.  In season 1 you had a pretty good formula going.  Twilight Sparkle was definitely the main character of the entire series during the first season, and since she was new in Ponyville many of the episodes resulted in her learning something new about her new home, trying to fit in in her new home, etc.  That is why Twilight Sparkle always learned the Aesop-style moral of the story at the end and wrote about it to the princess: the whole first season was largely geared towards Twilight Sparkle personally learning how to be a better person through her interactions with her new friends.  Season 2 has largely broken from this however, to the point where now anypony can be the character learning the episode's aesop and writing to the princess at the end.  This fundamental change allowed the writers more freedom to center their stories around characters other than Twilight, but the results of this break from the pattern aren't always up to expectations.  (For example, my favorite episode of Season 2 so far is still "Luna Eclipsed," which despite being a Season 2 episode still religiously sticks to the Season 1 formula of centering around Twilight Sparkle.)  This also leads to a lot of episodes barely including the entire Mane 6 cast at all, which is a shame because most of my favorite episodes feature the whole group together and the interesting interactions that result from all of their very different dynamics.  While some of the non-Twilight Sparkle-centric Season 2 episodes have been fine, I do find myself hoping that some of the future episodes focus on the entire Mane 6 cast as a whole a bit more.

In any case, I am really looking forward to this morning's episode, "The Mysterious Mare Do Well!"  I am really really curious to see who this mysterious new masked hero in Ponyville is, and how the always cavalier and swaggering Rainbow Dash is going to deal with the new found competition!  This episode has the potential to be as explosive as a water and sodium reaction, and I myself am absolutely dying to see the sparks fly!  As far as who I would like the mysterious new masked hero to turn out to be, I would be as pleased as punch if the hero turned out to be one of the following:


I highly doubt that any of my three picks for the mysterious new masked hero will actually come to pass, but I would be ecstatic if one of them actually did!  Oh boy!  Less than one hour left until the new episode airs now!  I can't wait!!!  Tick... tick... tick...   :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on November 26, 2011, 01:28:06 pm
Okay So I will give a bit of live commentarry as I am just gettting home from work and can see the episode.

0:52 seconds in: :D ha ha ha! Nyan-cat Dash!

2:55 Seriously... They went with the baby carriage thing?

6:20 -_-; ...honestly Rainbow, you're making it hard for me to like you right now... AJ needs to deflate that ego some.

6:30 I want a B&W print like that of RD. That is a beautiful shot of her.

7:00 Hey that pony in the balloon! Cool.

7:02 Darkwing Duck?! Er- ponyfied Darkwing Duck. Darkhoof Horse?  (It's probably actually Applejack)

 8:20 huh... Redoing the train sequence from Spider-Man 2 huh? Well she's stealing his "Friendly Neighborhood" phrase so why not? When does Octavia show up as Doctor Octopus? (Cuz his human name was "Octavius" for those not in the know.)

8:35 Oh, Darkhoof saved them... Cool. Go DH! Lets get friendly! Wait a second... She got to them Mountains fast.... Either Darkhoof is Pinkie Pie or its actually ALL off her friends switching places to seem like only one pony. 

11:20 ...Dash you're an idiot... Also, they have hydro electric dams? This is going to further stuff in the fandom like mad...

12:32 Okay so she has a unicorn horn AND wings? No doubt about it now, Darkhoof is most assuredly all her friends swapping places. I'd bet my horns that Rarity designed the outfits and Twilight came up with the plan.

13:15 ....Do I even have to comment on what her friends just said? They just gave it away! Augh! I wanted the reveal to be at the end... :P oh well.

14:00 oh no... I'm getting flashbacks to Lesson Zero... Don't do it Dashie!

15:25 I got nothing and Dash is an idiot.

16:25 Dash you're an idiot.

17:44 aw crud... Rainbow Dumbass is gonna try and unmask Darkhoof Horse isn't she?

19:02 I forsee thousands of images of this with suggestive themes.

19:30 AJ looks so pretty in that costume with her hood down. <3_<3

20:00 oh by the way, I called it back at 8:35 and should note I did all I could to avoid spoilers for this, even the title.

Credits: They aren't gonna narrate the letter? I mean they did already sum up the episode lesson and all i know but still... Oh well. Gotta say, better than the pet episode.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on November 26, 2011, 02:13:00 pm
I am the terror that trots in the night!
I am that little piece of hay that gets stuck to the roof of your mouth!
I. Am. Darkhoof Horse!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on November 26, 2011, 06:06:01 pm
I just got through watching this and it was enjoyable. I'd say a good mid-tier episode. But really, an alternate title for this episdoe could have been: The Day Ponyville Broke. Seriously, everything is always all hunky dory and then in one day everything's gone CRAZY!!!! Babies and carraiges rolling down hills (they should really block the top of that road off and put a bridge out sign there. :P ), dams breaking, hot air balloons falling out of the sky, penut butter jars that wont open. It's like Murphy* had a field day that day.

*Murphy of the infamous Murphy's Law of course. LOL
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on November 26, 2011, 09:06:38 pm
I actually kinda liked the song this time :D  I got more of a humour vibe from it than just cheesy musical singing.
I too wasn't overly impressed with the song the first time around, but I am starting to like it more and more each time I watch the episode so I guess it is really starting to grow on me.
The only thing that bothers me with it now is how they animated some of the mouths there.

---

So to the new episode:

2:55 Seriously... They went with the baby carriage thing?

6:20 -_-; ...honestly Rainbow, you're making it hard for me to like you right now... AJ needs to deflate that ego some.

11:20 ...Dash you're an idiot... Also, they have hydro electric dams? This is going to further stuff in the fandom like mad...

13:15 ....Do I even have to comment on what her friends just said? They just gave it away! Augh! I wanted the reveal to be at the end... :P oh well.

14:00 oh no... I'm getting flashbacks to Lesson Zero... Don't do it Dashie!

15:25 I got nothing and Dash is an idiot.

16:25 Dash you're an idiot.

20:00 oh by the way, I called it back at 8:35 and should note I did all I could to avoid spoilers for this, even the title.

Credits: They aren't gonna narrate the letter? I mean they did already sum up the episode lesson and all i know but still... Oh well. Gotta say, better than the pet episode.

I agree with a lot of the points in this.  It was a very clichéd kind of episode, for FiM, and was so to the point of exaggerating Dash to the point where I nearly started to cringe.  She usually does stop becoming actually self-centred before it gets that bad (she comes across as such, but isn't really and knows when to be serious), so this episode was kind of like "...why's she being like this?".  I didn't think it was too bad in the beginning, I loved how she was actually rather bashful about it; but then it took a dramatic turn when she suddenly started milking it with the baby (kind of like the dramatic turn with Rarity in Sisterhooves Social, though that didn't matter so much because 1. it was kind of funny, 2. it was Rarity (who had been being a bit overdramatic anyway) and 3. it could easily have been toned down without affecting the plot at all). It makes me cringe horribly when otherwise tempered and capable characters become suddenly overly cocky and yet incapable, or just forlornly desperate like trying to push Granny Smith across the road against her will. Have you suddenly lost the ability to stop and think Dashie?  You're not completely insane like Twilight was that one episode...  Fortunately this was not nearly as bad as in many many cartoons and we still feel some of Rainbow Dash's real personality come through at lesser points in the episode.  

The other Mane 6 seemed a bit funny in their Mare-do-Well costume; although it would have spoiled the plot twist they were trying to create, I would have expected to have seen some characterisation while they were in costume - such as Pinkie Pie prancing about somewhat á-la Tom Bombadil (especially in the crane and the chase scenes), and Fluttershy flying perhaps slower and more gracefully.  In fact I think it could have changed the emphasis of the episode a bit - it would have shown us that her friends were there doing stuff, trying to teach her a lesson; it would have been great if we could have seen this, and Rainbow Dash not have known, because that may have emphasised that they were working together to make her realise her problem.  We've also already had a hidden-then-reveal of this magnitude in Sisterhooves Social; it would make me worry that they might start to rely on it too much.

And yes, Ponyville did seem very strange in this; it felt much bigger and more built up, you rather got the feeling that it was just a small and quiet village, previously, even as late as The Cutie Pox, but here it felt inexplicably much more built up, and was even expanding, with the crane and stuff.  There was even that completely out of place hydroelectric dam...  The premise of the episode is clichéd enough, and then we get the ever-clichéd dam? A hydroelectric one at that?  Why would they even need one?  Faust even stated they used magic for "electric" things (such as Vinyl Scratch's decks)...  It's also completely randomly somewhere near Ponyville in some place which was conveniently un-shown...  It felt nice in other episodes, it felt like we were peering into another, real world, with just a drop-in or two of some familiar stuff to make us connect a bit more and possibly for the ironic humour, like Scratch's decks.  In The Cutie Pox we get a completely fitted out modern bowling alley, although it was at least in a nice traditional-looking building, and (...did anyone notice it?) the bowling balls there had no finger holes :D.  I liked the way they had the construction plot though; the crane was made out of wood, and the building was taking on a seemingly (and wonderfully fitting!) timber-framed design.  Given that it was put in there, it was made nicely in-keeping. (and I don't care if a building that high wouldn't have been possible in wood!)  But the hydroelectric dam kind of brushed all that aside that and it was kind of lazy to put it in the first place. :/  (I really hope they don't do this again, they're dangerously close to making it some kind of Springfield with this episode...)  And what the hell is up with that road?  They could have so easily explained it by a bridge being out or something.  Slight oversight maybe...

Having said all that though, I liked this episode so much more than May the Best Pet Win.  There was much more action, and much more eye candy (background ponies, and Ponyville!) and it just felt more satisfying to watch.  It's important too, that, I think at least, this Dash was much more in-keeping with her personality than she was in MtBPW.  It may have been stretched rather too much in some areas, but overall, I can see this being the sort of thing she'd slip into doing.  I'd like to think she wouldn't be so abrasive with it, and just be caught up in the fun and the thrill of it all, but at least she wasn't being so outright (and clunkily) harsh like she was in MtBPW.  I don't really mind seeing one episode of this for Dash (and after all she is just about the only character they can do it to... or at least the most obvious), although it would have been the sort of thing I would have thought she'd have overcome before Twilight came along.  But then, yeah, there wouldn't have been an episode... (maybe they could have given it more context?)
I will say though, as a cartoon, this really isn't a bad episode.

It didn't completely capture the charm and down-to-earth nature of Season 1 for me like Luna Eclipsed, and particularly Sisterhooves Social (and even some bits of Lesson Zero (RoH doesn't count because it was meant to be weird ;) )), but maybe that's because Ponyville felt so big and busy.  It did a much better job (and it's probably one of the most important things) than May the Best Pet Win did, maybe because it actually had Ponyville and background ponies to compare with previous episodes, and continue that same feeling (which is why it felt slightly weird that Ponyville was so big).
I did like the return of all the funny, derpy background characters, and it was amazing how many lines they got this episode!  The one whose peanut jar Dash was trying to open was amusingly (and perhaps refreshingly?) blunt, and a nice contrast to Dash's overeager urge to help at that point. :D
(Speaking of which... has anyone found Derpy yet...?  Is she even in this episode?)

Scootaloo was wonderful in this episode, firstly her Rainbow Dash Fanclub (seriously one of the best bits of this episode!), then her coming to see Rainbow Dash at the end... many have moaned at how it was completely out of character for her to lose her admiration for Rainbow Dash, but to me it seemed the very fact that she came back to invite her to the Mare-do-Well thank-you parade shows that she hadn't lost her admiration for Rainbow Dash, and still, even if she was at-that-moment idolising Mare-do-Well, deep down she still had a deep affection for Rainbow Dash and was the only one to come back for her when everyone else had forgotten her.  This could really have been picked up on and made more of a point on though, it's really weird and unexplained quite why Dash acted the way she there; I know she was all sulky and confused but seeing Scootaloo could have made her realise that not everyone had forgotten her.  It's touching moments like that could have been that make Season 1 so wonderful.  Whoever wrote Dash in that scene was really missing a good point, and a good opportunity to add some depth to this episode.  (that makes two places now where even I can see that the plot could have been improved upon.)

TL;DR:
I much prefer it to May the Best Pet Win, though I don't claim it to be a perfect episode.  I was initially thinking of this as slightly worse than The Cutie Pox, but after writing all this and watching little bits of it and reflecting on it, I actually think it was somewhat better than that.  It was a bigger episode, there was more happening, and that made it all the more enjoyable to watch.  The Cutie Pox still had a lot happening, and that made it better than May the Best Pet Win.  (I suppose you could argue that there wasn't a lot happening in Sisterhooves Social, but that had some really charming, and wonderfully relatable character-interaction moments, and really played from the characters' established personalities.  It was also a slower pace which added to the charm factor of it, and had some good background character moments (like I love how some background ponies won!).)  Scootaloo was absolutely wonderful in this, and I think where it failed to completely faithfully (though that's up to your interpretation) develop Dash's personality, it wonderfully added to and developed Scootaloo's.
Shame there were lots of missed opportunities with the plot, it could possibly have been an even deeper and more touching episode sorta like Luna Eclipsed was.  Ponyville was weird, and there was a lot of playing up to clichéd things like the runaway bus-carriage, the random baby carriage, and the goddamn hydroelectric dam(n >:() :D

Sometimes, I don't know it it's just me, but I felt a little like I was watching just a typical cartoon at times, although at others I did still feel I was watching MLP: FiM...  I don't know - I'm not sure if it was elements of the plot, the slightly over-the-top and clichéd characterisation (for the sake of the plot) or even, I've been noticing, the new faces, which are slightly overdone I think, and can look a little weird and stereotypical of cartoon faces...  I know it's just a kids programme, but I guess that's precisely what the problem is; they could have settled into that a bit too much - watching the first series I felt a genuine sense of connection to the characters, a genuine sense of mystery, a genuine sense of suspense and (have I said it already?) connection. The morals (though I know they've got to run out of these at some point...) were usually done in such a way I was like "...wow, I never really thought of it like that!" or even if they weren't, I had fun getting there. The characters felt loveable and you really cared what they were doing...  This one I didn't really care for Rainbow Dash when she was being all cocky and proud, and grabbing kids to have pictures with her...  That's kind of stereotypical of the character that is usually portrayed in this kind of story, and almost vain...  And not the fun-loving adventure Dash I knew.

I still prefer it to MtBPW; there's more happening and it felt slightly more complicated.  I just feel it could have been done better... and I can see where it could have been done better.  I guess I can extrapolate and imagine and make my own better story though... but it should have (and could have) been in the episode.  It did though have better characterisation of Rainbow Dash, and funny background ponies, and of course some excellent Scootaloo! And her Rainbow Dash fan-club! :D

(Though now I've had two episodes which just tell me: "disregard moral; just don't get complacent and lose your wits and senses! and you'll be fine!"  Oh Rainbow Dash, being the closest to this particular kind of character traditional story writers have... you never struck me as the kind of pony who would actually need to learn that.  You seemed pretty, well, cool before, all told...)
(Some TL;DR... :D)

What we really need is less of this character-focused stuff; less of this "you're a terrible person, this is what you need to do to improve!"
We need a real interaction episode, kind of like Sisterhooves Social was, but most importantly, a positive moral!  Something really hopeful!  Something that doesn't need a character to have flaws for.  For even Mary Sues should be able to learn from something like that... and that makes it a much more powerful and timeless kind of moral.  But it's easier to just criticise people for their flaws, none moreso than the kind of character Rainbow Dash has been interpreted as :/

I guess next week we'll be able to decide how the exact nature of Season 2 is seeming. :)

(Wow, I never thought I'd be writing so much about a cartoon!  But it was such an awesome cartoon, and didn't really feel like a cartoon, and I want to cling on to that the best I can!...

Enough of my mindless ramblings! Time for bed.


Edit: some thoughts upon waking up in the morning -

I liked the episode, although there were obvious plot flaws.

It could have played to Dash's established personality better, rather than playing up to the stereotype;
It could have utilised the world which had been created better - is Dash still on the Weather Patrol?  Is there still the Weather Patrol? :o It might have been nice to see the Wonderbolts too, they could have been relevant.  It would have been nice for them as well to not have created so much new stuff.

And something that I forgot to put into my huge analysis last night: the point where they stop and laughed would have been an excellent point for them to step in and say something, even if Dash didn't actually take it in (for the sake of the plot).  But no, they just kind of stopped and jeered, like they all did to Twilight before...

The best things were probably Scootaloo, and the background ponies, and the fact that there was more action.  Maybe this is the Feeling Pinkie Keen of Dash, contriving the world a bit to fit the intended moral.  It could have utilised the world better, and that would have given it more of that feeling I feel we liked from the first series.  I also felt it lacked a bit of humour.
But it wasn't too bad, all considered.

Ok, I think that's me over with :)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on November 27, 2011, 09:35:46 am
My short summary of my thoughts for this episode:

I really liked and was very entertained by it, and along with "Luna Eclipsed" and "The Cutie Pox" it is one of my favorite episodes this season so far.

The longer and more-detailed discussion of my thoughts and observations:

For starters, I thought that it was pretty hilarious that Scootaloo has her little Rainbow Dash fan club.  I would probably fit right in there considering the fact that I now own three Rainbow Dash t-shirts myself!  LOL!  I also had a laugh when one of the words that Scootaloo came up with to describe Rainbow Dash with was "bedazzeling!" (https://www.asseenontv.com/bedazzler/detail.php?p=296300)   :D

It was a very clichéd kind of episode, for FiM, and was so to the point of exaggerating Dash to the point where I nearly started to cringe.  She usually does stop becoming actually self-centred before it gets that bad (she comes across as such, but isn't really and knows when to be serious), so this episode was kind of like "...why's she being like this?".

Rainbow Dash is my favorite pony as well, but I think you are putting her on way too high of a pedestal.  I personally thought that Rainbow Dash was acting perfectly in character in this episode.  Rainbow Dash is *extremely* competitive, and gets all bent out of shape if she gets bested at anything.  Just go back and watch the episode "Fall Weather Friends" for example-- Rainbow Dash gets cross over something as small as losing a simple game of horseshoes against Applejack, and that leads her to challenge Applejack in an Iron Pony competition and a rather intense Running of the Leaves race.  And when Rainbow Dash's dominance in the Running of Leaves race became threatened, she was the very first to resort to using shady underhanded tactics, such as whipping a branch into Applejack's face, changing the direction of a road sign, the first to start knocking herself into Applejack when they were running neck and neck, etc.  There is definitely a reason why Rainbow Dash's Element of Harmony is not "honesty!"  And as far as Rainbow Dash's ego goes, it almost knows no bounds.  Once again take a look at "Fall Weather Friends."  Practically every time Rainbow opens her mouth in the entire episode it is to trash-talk Applejack, and she even goes on to make fun of Twilight Sparkle for being an "egghead" as well.  And if that is not enough for you, then check out all of Rainbow Dash's bragging and posturing in the first half of "Sonic Rainboom."  Heck, the very first time we are ever even introduced to Rainbow Dash in the series she is bragging to Twilight about how she can clear Ponyville's skies in "ten seconds flat."  There was even a fan who made a very good argument that Rainbow Dash suffers from Paranoid Personality Disorder (http://cartoonoveranalyzations.com/2011/05/25/pony-personality-disorders/) based on her overly competitive and overly defensive behavior.  Rainbow Dash is so extreme that there is not much to her personality that you could exaggerate, and if it wasn't for the occasional pony such as The Great and Powerful Trixie being somehow even worse, Rainbow Dash would probably have to be played as a minor antagonist in the series.  If it wasn't for Rainbow Dash sometimes reluctantly opening up and showing her frightened and vulnerable side effectively humanizing her and making her more sympathetic, she would be a pretty unlikable jerk.

2:55 Seriously... They went with the baby carriage thing?

I like how the road that the baby carriage was rolling out of control on went all the way down to the end of the cliff as if it was a ski jump!  Geez, there was some very good civic planning there!

7:02 Darkwing Duck?! Er- ponyfied Darkwing Duck. Darkhoof Horse?  (It's probably actually Applejack)

Personally, my first thought was, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of ponies?  Who knows?  The Shadow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow) Pony knows!"   :D

20:00 oh by the way, I called it back at 8:35 and should note I did all I could to avoid spoilers for this, even the title.

My deep-rooted hope that the Mare Do Well would turn out to be The Great and Powerful Trixie blinded my judgment a bit, so I didn't quite catch on to who the Mare Do Well really was as quickly as you did.  I pretty much had the fact that the rest of the Mane 6 was behind everything figured out when I saw Twilight in the Mare Do Well costume use her magic to repair the broken dam (though a small part of me at that point was still hoping that the masked magic-using unicorn was still Trixie).  When Fluttershy did her flyby as the Mare Do Well that finally solidified my suspicions that the entire rest of the Mane 6 was involved, and when all of the Mane 6 were commenting on how great the Mare Do Well was while they were together at Sugarcube Corner that really rubbed it in.

I had been extremely excited about who the Mare Do Well would turn out to be since I first learned about this episode back in October (http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=42340.msg815535#msg815535), so I had a really long time to allow myself to imagine what cool ponies the Mare Do Well could turn out to be.  So in a crazed fanboi Brony sense I was rather disappointed that out of all of the possible ponies that could have been cleverly made into the Mare Do Well that she ended up being the members of the Mane 6, but in a more general sense I thought that what the writers did for this episode worked out really well for what they were trying to accomplish.  Oh well, I guess I actually will have to go back to writing fan fiction if I ever want to see Rainbow Dash finally have that epic showdown against her predecessor, Firefly!

And yes, Ponyville did seem very strange in this; it felt much bigger and more built up, you rather got the feeling that it was just a small and quiet village, previously, even as late as The Cutie Pox, but here it felt inexplicably much more built up, and was even expanding, with the crane and stuff.  There was even that completely out of place hydroelectric dam...  The premise of the episode is clichéd enough, and then we get the ever-clichéd dam? A hydroelectric one at that?  Why would they even need one?  Faust even stated they used magic for "electric" things (such as Vinyl Scratch's decks)...  It's also completely randomly somewhere near Ponyville in some place which was conveniently un-shown...

Don't strain yourself too much by trying to find in-universe explanations for inconsistencies in this show that most likely have out-of-universe causes.  There are some TV shows out there, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation for example, that had very comprehensive, strict, and detailed Writers' Guides, or rules that the show's writers absolutely had to follow when writing new episodes to help maintain the show's in-universe continuity and consistency.  The Writers' Guide for ST:TNG for example described in exhaustive detail how every main character in the show was supposed to act, how every technology on the Enterprise-D was supposed to work, what the entire floor plan of the Enterprise-D was, what the Federation military procedures were in different situations, etc. etc., all in exhaustive detail, ensuring that for every episode the writers would have the same doors lead to the same places, procedures would be standardized, historical dates for past events would always agree, etc.  Everything in the ST:TNG universe was so well-regulated that entire Technical Manuals, Chronology Guides, Encyclopedias, Klingon language dictionaries, etc. were able to be derived based on it with little or no conflicts or inconsistencies.

The more and more that I watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic however, the more that I realize that the writers of this show are restrained by little to none of these kinds of strict rules or guidelines.  It seems as if something is convenient to a writer's plot for a particular episode than it will be added to the episode whether it really makes sense in the greater-MLP:FiM universe or not.  For example, if a plot-line requires a massive gorge with giant eels living in it despite the fact that one has never been mentioned before, it gets it.  If a gag in an episode requires a large multi-story building to be being built in Ponyville, a small village that up until that point pretty much only had small two-story buildings and shops, it gets it.  If an episode's gag needs have a giant hydroelectric dam to break apart despite the fact that the ponies don't really *seem* to use electricity on a daily basis, it gets it.  If you want to have a princess talk all Early Modern Englishly despite the fact that she spoke normally in an earlier appearance, you retcon it, and so on and so on and so on.  It is absolutely apparent that not much is held sacred in this show, and that just about anything can be added, removed, modified, or retconned it if serves that particular writer on that particular day.  I am currently waiting around to see if a future episode shows that the ponies actually have their own space shuttle and a space program.  Hey, at this point, why not?  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that any consistency that we have had thus far is probably only there due to the assorted writers' discretion.  Trying to impose a very strict and draconian ST:TNG-style set of in-universe continuity and rules on this show is really an effort in futility because it is obvious that the show's own writers aren't, and what you thought held true about the universe of the show today can be completely altered by next weekend's new episode.

(Speaking of which... has anyone found Derpy yet...?  Is she even in this episode?)

I personally have not spotted her yet.  Has anyone else found her, or was she left out of this episode?

Anyway, once again I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, and felt that it was well worth the wait.  I also thought that this episode had a good message behind it-- who here hasn't gotten a small taste of recognition for something that they accomplished, and then did everything that they could to extend the length of time that they were in the limelight for desperately find a way to get peoples' recognition once again?  I think that a lot of people can relate to that.  In any case, I am very glad that I liked this episode so much, because as I mentioned in an earlier post (http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=42340.msg817269#msg817269) on this thread I don't have very high expectations for the next one.  Hopefully my lack of enthusiasm for "Sweet and Elite" is misplaced, and that I end up being pleasantly surprised!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on November 27, 2011, 11:57:59 am
Rainbow Dash is my favorite pony as well, but I think you are putting her on way too high of a pedestal.  [[A bunch of other stuff about Rainbow Dash and her ego]]

Maybe.  I definitely felt this was slightly better done than in May the Best Pet Win, if just a bit over the top at times.  The general idea is something I can see happening with Rainbow Dash, although I think they could have handled it slightly better.

Quote
Don't strain yourself too much by trying to find in-universe explanations for inconsistencies in this show that most likely have out-of-universe causes.  There are some TV shows out there, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation for example, that had very comprehensive, strict, and detailed Writers' Guides [...]
The more and more that I watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic however, the more that I realize that the writers of this show are restrained by little to none of these kinds of strict rules or guidelines.

Well, I got the impression they had a rough idea of what the world was like; Ponyville never seems this big even in The Cutie Pox where they introduced the random bowling alley.  It had had a consistent feel at least, and then it's kind of all changed in this episode just to suit the plot.

I feel like I'm coming across as overly harsh on this episode - I kind of liked it, I thought it was on par with The Cutie Pox.  The setting just felt a little too complex, and I felt too much was changed just to fit the much simpler plot, and there still wasn't enough pony-to-pony interaction, but I definitely enjoyed it more than MtBPW (which I also feel I'm coming across as overly harsh on, although I will say it's my least favourite episode so far); although it did still feel a little bit weird.  To me it seems like it was kind of like Lesson Zero; there were some great bits surrounding all the drama of the main plot.  There were some really touching moments with Scootaloo (although I don't feel it was capitalised upon), and the background ponies were very amusing, and there were some wonderful Dash moments.  And I love how the crane was made out of wood.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: redyoshi49q on November 27, 2011, 07:40:33 pm
...I actually *didn't* see the ending of this one a mile away.  I probably should have.

...Oh well...
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on November 27, 2011, 07:52:24 pm
...I actually *didn't* see the ending of this one a mile away.  I probably should have.

...Oh well...
Don't worry, it caught me by surprise too. ;)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on November 27, 2011, 11:37:44 pm
...I actually *didn't* see the ending of this one a mile away.  I probably should have.

...Oh well...
Don't worry, it caught me by surprise too. ;)


I found the ends of both of the last two Rainbow Dash episodes easy to predict.  Though, that didn't stop me from enjoying them.  I did feel like her character was perhaps a little off in The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well, but I completely loved the pet episode.  Fluttershy is my favorite pony, and the way that she got all excited about picking out a pet for Rainbow Dash really spoke to me.  I've been known to be that way about convincing people to get pet cats.  I also found the turtle really charming with the way that he was so clearly interested in being Rainbow Dash's pet from the moment she arrived at Fluttershy's cottage.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on November 28, 2011, 06:57:32 pm
I agree, Ryffnah.  I was rooting for that tortoise from the very beginning.  And giving it a second thought,  it's actually kind of moving to see the little guy trying so hard.  You can tell he wants this more than he's wanted anything!

The Mare-do-well episode was only kind of predictable for me.  I guessed it when it showed she had wings as well as a horn.

And can I be the first to say...

PINKIE SENSE IS FINALLY WORKED IN AS A LEGITIMATE PART OF THE PONYVERSE.  :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on November 28, 2011, 07:16:18 pm
I agree, Ryffnah.  I was rooting for that tortoise from the very beginning.  And giving it a second thought,  it's actually kind of moving to see the little guy trying so hard.  You can tell he wants this more than he's wanted anything!

It may have helped that my very first pet was a tortoise.  So, I have a bit of a soft spot for them.  I think this episode was the first time I've ever identified at all with Rainbow Dash -- they way she wanted the tortoise at the end but had to find a way to cover her pride about it.  For me, this episode did for Rainbow Dash what Suited For Success did for Rarity -- took a pony that didn't really speak to me and made her understandable and sympathetic.  It may be my new favorite episode.  Though, to be sure, I'd have to watch both it and Suited For Success a few more times.  Probably back to back.

You know, I think it's time for them to do a Fluttershy centric episode now.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on November 30, 2011, 09:00:49 pm
You know, I think it's time for them to do a Fluttershy centric episode now.
It's always time to do a Fluttershy-centric episode.

(http://gamesprays.com/files/resource_media/preview/fluttershy-2-4911_preview.png)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on December 04, 2011, 04:05:50 am
I am truly shocked that even though today was a new Pony-episode day here I am, at almost 3AM Sunday morning, and I am still the very first person here who is chiming in about the new episode.  How can that be?  I wonder if that is speaking something about this episode?  Is there no love for Rarity around here?

While I feel that I made it abundantly clear that I was not a big fan (http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=42340.msg816326#msg816326) of the last episode that was largely devoted to Rarity, "Sisterhooves Social," this episode I thought was O.K.  The epsisode was definitely a "friend or idol decision (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FriendOrIdolDecision)" trope-following story just like I predicted that it would be, however as much as I wish that I could award myself a gold star for guessing that correctly the short description for this episode that was given by TV programing guide was enough to give that away.  As a result, my guess didn't really require much power of deduction on my part.

The moral dilemma of this episode's story rings true enough for me.  I for one can personally understand the trouble that Rarity was having when it came to introducing her Ponyville friends to her new Canterlot social circle.  For example, I have always been kind of a "Jack of all trades but master of none" kind of person, and my vast array of widely varying interests have allowed me to meet all sorts of people who wouldn't necessarily get along or understand one another.  In fact, I myself will sometimes get dirty looks from one group of people that I am involved with when they find out some of the other interests that I am involved in (which sadly far too often takes the form of X non-furry group finding out that I am also a furry  *sigh*).  As a result, I normally wouldn't ever try to plan some kind of event between groups of friends that wouldn't likely mesh with one another to avoid any trouble, awkwardness, or conflicts that may result from it.  I can also understand Rarity's conflict between wanting to go to Twilight Sparkle's birthday party and wanting to go to the Canterlot Garden Party.  I once missed a very long-time friend's wedding because I was attending and selling artwork in the art show of a Science Fiction convention that same weekend.  And while I bought my friend a very nice wedding gift in an attempt to make up for it, I am probably still the biggest jerk because I chose to miss his wedding instead of the art show and convention.  Sadly, I don't really hear much from that friend anymore.  Luckily for Rarity's sake Twilight Sparkle was unbelievably forgiving when Rarity made the same mistake!

Some of my random thoughts and observations for this episode:


So while the subject matter of this episode wasn't really my cup of tea (I tend to be really more excited about episodes that involve Rainbow Dash bucking a full-grown cave-dwelling dragon in the face for example), the writing, the humor, and the neat little background characters and tidbits that were thrown in were more than enough to make me enjoy this episode anyways.  It was no "Luna Eclipsed" by any means, but it was still a good strong episode.

Hey!  Next week we are going to get to see Spike grow all huge and go all Godzilla-like on Ponyville!  What do you know, I just might get to see Rainbow Dash buck a dragon in the face again soon after all!  Huzzah!!!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on December 04, 2011, 08:10:16 am
I am truly shocked that even though today was a new Pony-episode day here I am, at almost 3AM Sunday morning, and I am still the very first person here who is chiming in about the new episode.  How can that be?  I wonder if that is speaking something about this episode?  Is there no love for Rarity around here?
I personally was preoccupied with adoring this episode on Ponychan...

But yes, this was an excellent episode!

Not much to add to your post really.
Wonderfully maturely written, lots of very subtle things which made it seem well-crafted and enjoyable to watch.
I loved the lesson, it's an important one but not an obvious one!
And particularly the way they got to it too; you would never have got that from the synopsis.

Some have been pointing out how Rarity got away with all her lying, but this is where the subtlety of the writing comes in: I really got the feeling Fancy Pants could tell that Rarity was lying, but also knew all too well what the more snooty ponies would make of her if he called her out; and it's just not gentlemanly to either.  He knew she had harmless intentions.
Really, the whole episode worked because of Fancy Pants, and you really end up feeling and empathising with Rarity that she was fretting over nothing.
There is also the small and wonderful thing of all the secondary morals this episode brings along with it, something which was wonderful about much of season 1.  It showed wonderfully that there will be people who accept you regardless of your background, in lovely complement to the main lesson; and it also echoed the lesson of Party of One in that you should always assume the best of your friends, and also Green is not your Colour in that it's always best to be honest to your friends!  Sticking to their morals there without even seeming to try, which is great. But you could really understand Rarity's position, you really felt like you wouldn't want to do it again (without even doing it a first time!).
It was also wonderful in giving you the feeling that you don't need to choose between your friends and your future, you can balance them and your friends will understand.  That's the kind of positive vibe I had grown to expect from the show.  It speaks about reality in some way.

Other bits:
- It was wonderful to see more of Canterlot, even if it was full of snooty ponies (but that was awesome in it's own way!).  Lots of lovely artwork there.
- Speaking of artwork, all the costumes Rarity wears during the song :D
- And the song, it was very nice, I don't care for it per se, but it fitted it's place perfectly, it was wonderfully refined and sophisticated yet still rather demure!  It didn't try to steal the spotlight at all, it just sort of made everything flow along nicely, while showing Rarity doing lots of social things around Canterlot.  I also like songs which fit into the world; it would be very hard to divorce this song from the world which had been created, what with all the "pony" and "Canterlot" and everything.  Which is why I like say, Winter Wrap Up so much, it really speaks about the world and couldn't really exist without it.  This probably places it for me above Find a Pet, which while it was a nice musical number, it was just about choosing between a lot of animals. (Obviously Pinkie Pie songs are exempt from this (: )
- I loved Celestia in this, wonderfully uncomfortable at all the thanks Rarity was giving, but still empathetic and grateful for it. :D
- I liked seeing all the celebrity ponies make a reappearance, or at least a brief cameo.  It was also interesting that Rarity had to spend some time with Prince Blueblood :D
- And that airship was awesome, simply, I can't describe it, I can now imagine ponies going on great adventures across the land up high up in the clouds :D  Simply amazing!
- And lastly
PARTY CANNON!  Pinkie couldn't have had a more appropriate device to facilitate a party wherever whenever!

My few complaints are that I still don't feel the Mane 6 are getting enough lines when they're not the focus of the episode, all they did here was mass partying.  I don't really feel I got an adequate impression of who they were.  Though I will say, and have to give special mention to, Rainbow Dash was actual in character this episode, subtle things like getting straight to the point and trying to call Rarity out on her true intentions, she just felt much better in this episode which was nice and felt wonderfully different to the thankfully-now-in-the-past previous episode.

My few issues are in the animation actually; I'm worried about all the mouths, they seem to be getting a little too human and the faces are getting a little too rubbery, I mean those HUGE GAPING MOUTHS they have when they lift their heads up, I think they're used a bit too much (it was alright at the end of Find a Pet though as they were belting out huge voices.  Unfortunately those really peculiar faces just before that also turned up a bit this episode too), and there were other places where there were awkward faces (such as when they're all at the door).
Some of the eyes felt a bit weird at times too; they seemed much simpler, I'm gonna go with it being down to time constraints or something.
Most of the issues I have with it actually I could put down to time constraints actually (such as the lack of Spike, which could have added a bit more dynamic to the interaction).
I also thought Twilight might have been a bit too "adorkable" here, though most of that dancing was a reference to something apparently, so I guess I can let it slide ;)  The kind of odd dress might have had an effect too.

But in all, it was a wonderful return to form and I can't wait to see what they pull out next :D

I now compelled to listen to some Abney Park, because, AIRSHIP!  :D :D :D !!!
Wonderful quality episode overall! :)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on December 04, 2011, 11:46:02 am
Okay. I am not, and don't think I ever really can be, a big Rarity fan. And I'd be lying if I said that I didn't let out an audible groan at the very start of the episode because I knew from the get-go that it would be Rarity-centric. And then for it to be set in Canterlot? Ugh, this is gong to be a long episode...

And I was right. At least at first. The first half of the episode just dragged on and on and on with all that high-society, snobby crap. I just can't stand when people, or ponies apparently, are just so shallow that the mere knowledge of where somepony is from, or whether or not they are known by somepony else important, defines all their opinions of that pony.

And then the song... okay, it was catchy (and the melody vaguely reminded me of some other broadway-type song but I can't lay a finger on which one exactly). But I wasn't too fond of the whole singing-about-being-important/popular. I could keep going on about this, but I'll give it a rest.

Once the episode kinda developed a bit further, and Rarity had to start covering for her lies and such, it started to pick up. (I really needed the rest of the cast to jump in to save this episode for me). I will also say that Fancy Pants was refreshing. He's still got that high-society feel, but he's different from the rest of them. As in, he's actually willing to give somepony a chance. We'll call him the crutch that held the episode up until the rest of the mane 6 finally showed up.

But despite all this negativity, I felt like the episode wrapped up very well, and managed to make up for most of the cringing I had to do during the early part of the show. I was actually quite pleased with how they handled the whole thing. The last 5 minutes or so definitely redeemed the episode in my eyes. It probably helps that one of the big take-aways from the episode is a lesson about the very thing that made me cringe through the first half.

I won't put this all that high on my list, but it's definitely an episode worth re-watching now and again. Mostly for the last 5 minutes of it. And also that scene where Rarity told that joke to those high-class ponies and they all had that snooty laugh. I think that was the only time I laughed until the others showed up.

Oh, and one big problem that was never addressed: Rarity had to have introduced Dashie to Fancy Pants at some point. However, she previously claimed that she was the Wonderbolts' trainer. Not sure how she'd get around that one.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on December 04, 2011, 12:32:18 pm
Despite having a ton of elements that I don't normally like in an episode (snobby characters, painfully awkward "thank-you", lying about being at two parties at once, unresolved lies at the end...) I still really enjoyed this one.  I don't know how they did it, but it's a testament to the writers' ability on this show that they managed to play everything off each other to build a great narrative around Rarity.  If some found it predictable, well, I'm not claiming it will go down in the annals of classic literature.  However, it was a good story and a good episode.

Rarisong: hmm, pop song about popularity.  Not sure if want.  Thirty seconds into the song: Want.

And I think  Hoagie mentioned Trollestia: I don't think you live 1000+ years without being something of a Chessmaster.  However, her actions show that she has a genuine love for the ponies under her care, and that's why she does what she does.  She has probably seen the aristocracy and their fashions and trends change dozens of times, if not hundreds, during her reign, so I don't see the down-to-earth side of her personality as out of place--it's just a reaction to seeing how shallow the trends are.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on December 04, 2011, 02:03:42 pm
I agree with a lot of what was said here so far. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed this show. It had a lot of small elements that other, less enjoyable shows had yet these elements were good in their own right. It's like they were all combined to this episode as a whole package and is one I'd recomend to others I think. Maybe not as the first one for someone to watch if they're not sure if they'd like it, but for someone leaning towards the show already. I like the contrast of the "rustic" Mane 6 to the snobby high society of Canterlot when they're all together. Maybe it's because hillarity always insues.

So my additional points of discussion:

-I'm now convinced the animators are playing a game with the Brony community. Who else spotted Derpy this episode? I say this because of HOW she's shown this time.

-Hayseed makes me wonder if the writer is a Jeff Dunham fan

-I wanna know who that lovely filly was hanging on to Fancy Pants! Honestly I think what struck me is she doesn't have the typical body of a pony on the show. After thinking about it, I wonder if she was the model for Rarity's manequin ponies?  :o

-Going back to the Luna Eclipsed episode, I'm now more convinced that it isn't Octavia that was playing the fiddle on stage as everypony else has been saying...

When I saw the violinest on stage with Octavia in Sweet and Elite, I initially thought it was the one from Luna Eclipsed because the fur was the same color. So when I did a side by side comparison, I noticed that the cutie marks weren't the same, so it wasn't her in Luna Eclipsed. BUT(!) I also noticed that while it was the same shape as Octavia's cutie mark, it wasn't the same color. I guess the arguement always was that the fiddler in Luna Eclipsed was wearing a full body costume to change the fur color (which makes some sense with the eye stitch being there), but I didn't see one other single pony that did that and still A) left their cutie mark showing, and/or B) changed the color of their cutie mark. Sure, it may have been possible to dye, paint, or air brush the color change. Given how things seem to work in the Ponyverse, I think that would be too impractical for her to go through all the time and extreme effort it would have to take to re-color such an intricate mark. Anypony else re-thinking who it was on stage in Luna Eclipsed now?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on December 04, 2011, 07:13:03 pm
-I'm now convinced the animators are playing a game with the Brony community. Who else spotted Derpy this episode? I say this because of HOW she's shown this time.

The animators have been purposely playing a Derpy-spotting game with us in many of the episodes.  Remember, Derpy's original creation was completely by accident-- her googly eyes in her first appearance were an accidental animation mistake, and she only appeared in later season 1 episodes like that due solely to the show's creators responding to the wild fan reaction to her.  She has been ending up in weird places all of the time during this season, including briefly as a filly in the schoolyard in the episode "The Cutie Pox," at the entrance of Fluttershy's chicken coop in "May the Best Pet Win," among the crowd cheering after Rainbow Dash saves the old folks falling off the balcony in "The Mysterious Mare Do Well," etc.  The animators are definitely playing the "Derpy Spotting" game with us.  There is no question about it.


-I wanna know who that lovely filly was hanging on to Fancy Pants! Honestly I think what struck me is she doesn't have the typical body of a pony on the show. After thinking about it, I wonder if she was the model for Rarity's manequin ponies?  :o

The discussion on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Wiki is that Fancypants's companion is actually based on the character model used for Princess Luna from her season 1 appearance in the episode "Friendship is Magic Part 2."  I can definitely see the resemblance.  Either way, her body type is definitely modeled more closely after the two princesses than it as after the rest of the mares in the show.  As far as what the character's name is, well, there is no official name yet as far as I know, and the fan community seems to have gone absolutely nuts this time with trying to come up with a name for her themselves.  Just a few of the fan-created names that I have seen for her so far include: Angelic Grace, Arm Candy, Eileen, Elizabeth, Fleur de Lis, Fleur de Lily, Jene sais quoi, Pink Chapeau, Sol, Soleil, Valentine Plots, Fleur De Lizzie, Hangers On, Katie Prance, and Gold Digger.  *facehoof*  It seems that everypony in the whole Brony fandom wants to take a crack at naming this one!  Geesh!

-Going back to the Luna Eclipsed episode, I'm now more convinced that it isn't Octavia that was playing the fiddle on stage as everypony else has been saying...

When I saw the violinest on stage with Octavia in Sweet and Elite, I initially thought it was the one from Luna Eclipsed because the fur was the same color. So when I did a side by side comparison, I noticed that the cutie marks weren't the same, so it wasn't her in Luna Eclipsed. BUT(!) I also noticed that while it was the same shape as Octavia's cutie mark, it wasn't the same color. I guess the argument always was that the fiddler in Luna Eclipsed was wearing a full body costume to change the fur color (which makes some sense with the eye stitch being there), but I didn't see one other single pony that did that and still A) left their cutie mark showing, and/or B) changed the color of their cutie mark. Sure, it may have been possible to dye, paint, or air brush the color change. Given how things seem to work in the Ponyverse, I think that would be too impractical for her to go through all the time and extreme effort it would have to take to re-color such an intricate mark. Anypony else re-thinking who it was on stage in Luna Eclipsed now?

There is a simple out-of-universe explanation for the appearance of the fiddle-playing pony in Luna Eclipsed-- to save both time and money, the animators behind MLP:FiM reuse Flash character models and just swap their palette-colors so that they don't need to go through both the time and the expense of creating a brand new fully original pony design every single time that they need a background character.  While this is a simple and practical solution to a minor production challenge for the producers of the show, for the fans of this show that feel the obsessive need to find an in-universe explanation for everything these little color-swapped background-pony shortcuts are driving them mad and making them have to create a whole new character to add to the MLP:FiM wiki each time a new palette-swapped background pony appears.  The fiddle-playing pony that was featured in the episode "Luna Eclipsed" was a palette-swapped and slightly modified version of Octavia's character model.  In "Sweet or Elite" they brought back both the original cello-playing Octavia and the yellow fiddle-playing mare and had them both playing at the garden party together.  However, since they were now being placed side-by-side, the animators couldn't get away with just making the yellow fiddle-playing mare a simple palette-swap of Octavia again-- it would look too odd.  So this time they based the yellow fiddle-playing mare off of a different character model so that she would look more distinct from Octavia.

What does this mean from a fanboi in-universe perspective?  Well, as you mentioned, there is no consensus about these string-instrument playing mares among the fans in places such as the MLP:FiM Wiki or Equestria Daily.  Was Octavia really the mare playing at the Nightmare Night party?  Is the yellow fiddle-playing mare from the Nightmare Night party the same yellow fiddle-playing mare from the garden party?  Are Octavia, the Nightmare Night fiddle-playing mare, and the garden party fiddle-playing mare three different characters entirely?  Until the show itself resolves these discrepancies, who knows.  All you can do is speculate, really.

Up until the episode "Luna Eclipsed" I was one of those obsessing fanbois that was trying to determinedly find in-universe explanations for every little new detail in the show, and I was particularly taken back by all of the retconning done to Princess Luna at the time.  But as I mentioned in my earlier comments in this thread about last week's episode, "The Mysterious Mare Do Well," it has become painfully obvious that there is not a strict writer's guide or continuity that the writers of this show have to really stick to when developing new episodes.  As a result, they can (hopefully within reason) seemingly change anything and everything about the world of Equestria to fit that week's particular plot, whether it is something as out of place as adding a hydroelectric dam across a river, making a princess start talking like Shakespeare when she hadn't in an earlier appearance, the constant inconsistencies with the level of technology that the ponies have, etc.  Because of this, I have started to give up with trying to make any kind of in-universe sense out of any of the seemingly out-of-place changes that the writers and animators are making from week-to-week.  After seeing that there was already 15+ competing fan names for that new mare companion to Fancypants earlier tonight I have been left feeling kind of a bit incredulous about it all.  I love speculating and talking about the finer details of the show as much as the next pony, but it is becoming *extremely* hard to tell what things the makers of the show are adding in that are meant to be important towards the show's continuity, what things were added in to help an onscreen gag without much thought or care really being given to them, and what stuff was put in to save time and/or money and were never meant to be noticed by the fans.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: redyoshi49q on December 04, 2011, 11:06:05 pm
I'm surprised it took so long for replies to be posted, too.  I looked at this thread late Saturday and could barely believe that it hadn't been posted in yet.

I enjoyed this episode overall.  I was a bit uncomfortable about certain aspects of the episode (namely, that Rarity lied a few times and consistently shied away from her obligations to her friends), but on the other hand, one of the reasons I like this show is *because* there is "real" conflict such as this rather than superficial conflict that is often seen in other children's shows; the possibility of such conflict becoming uncomfortable at times is worth the risk of an overall better show.

I also enjoyed the song for this episode.  I think this is going to be one of the better songs of the season for me.  Its style greatly reminded me of "Art of the Dress"; it almost makes me think that the composer and possibly even the director for these episodes were the same...
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on December 05, 2011, 04:41:35 am
I also enjoyed the song for this episode.  I think this is going to be one of the better songs of the season for me.  Its style greatly reminded me of "Art of the Dress"; it almost makes me think that the composer and possibly even the director for these episodes were the same...

I did some quick research at the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Wiki (http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/My_Little_Pony_Friendship_is_Magic_Wiki) to answer those questions for you.  Believe it or not, Rarity's Dressmaking Song (The Art of the Dress), her latest song (Becoming Popular/The Pony Everypony Should Know), and in fact every other song in the show including the opening theme were actually all composed by the same person: Daniel Ingram (http://www.danielingrammusic.com/songs).  So in other words, you were right in thinking that the two songs had the same composer because as it turns out, they all do!   :D

As far as the directors for the episodes "Suited For Success" and "Sweet or Elite" goes, they were different.  All season 1 episodes were directed by Jayson Thiessen.  In season 2, Jayson Thiessen took over Lauren Faust's former position as "Showrunner," and one of season 1's co-directors, James "Wootie" Wootton, took over as director for all of the season 2 episodes that we have seen thus far.  The writers for the two episodes "Suited for Success" and "Sweet or Elite" were also different.  "Suited For Success" was written by Charlotte Fullerton, who also wrote: "Look Before You Sleep," "A Bird in the Hoof," and "May the Best Pet Win!"  The episode "Sweet or Elite," on the other hand, was written by Meghan McCarthy, who also wrote "Dragonshy," "Call of the Cutie," "Green Isn't Your Color," "Party of One," and "Lesson Zero."

That was probably more crew information than you wanted to know about these two episodes, but hey, that's what your friendly neighborhood Hoagiebot is for!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Old Rabbit on December 05, 2011, 12:02:43 pm
You all should get together and write a couple of scripts for Mlp, and submit them.  :orbunny:
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on December 05, 2011, 07:01:05 pm
You all should get together and write a couple of scripts for Mlp, and submit them.  :orbunny:

I doubt they look at external scripts.  Star Trek used to do that back in the day, but I think even Star Trek stopped doing it (due to legal issues) by the end.

However, you could all write some stories to submit to the Brony Anthology: http://kazkapress.net/submissions/
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on December 05, 2011, 07:17:07 pm
AJ and Rarity are my favorites, so this episode was awesome for me :D.

I was surprised at the ending, and I think I know what you mean, Foxxhoria, with the mouths? It sort of bothers me too.

As for spot the Derpy..I do like it. It's fun, but I hope it doesn't get too out of hand. Episode 3 of this season will always be the episode we look at when we think 'trying too hard.'
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on December 05, 2011, 08:33:00 pm
It does seem like a really valid question:  why doesn't Rarity just move to Canterlot?  It seems like it might be the right move for her career.  She is attached to her friends, but she didn't seem too distraught to be far away from them in this episode.  And they could always stay in touch and visit each other.  Based on what we saw of her relationship with her family in The Sisterhooves Social, it seems like she's already put some distance between herself and them.  So, I'm a bit confused about what would keep Rarity in Ponyville.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on December 05, 2011, 08:52:41 pm
and I think I know what you mean, Hoagieboat, with the mouths? It sort of bothers me too.
I think it was me who said that, and yeah, they're probably experimenting and getting technically better, but from what it sounds like, Faust got the animators to keep them more fitting last season, and this season with the experimenting and aiming for more expressiveness I think they sometimes go a little over the top or end up drifting into easier and simpler and more understandable less pony-styled mouths.  It's kinda disappointing, but won't stop me from enjoying the episodes overall (:


It does seem like a really valid question:  why doesn't Rarity just move to Canterlot?  It seems like it might be the right move for her career.  She is attached to her friends, but she didn't seem too distraught to be far away from them in this episode.  And they could always stay in touch and visit each other.  Based on what we saw of her relationship with her family in The Sisterhooves Social, it seems like she's already put some distance between herself and them.  So, I'm a bit confused about what would keep Rarity in Ponyville.
Her business is in Ponyville!  She was just in Canterlot making important social and business connections.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on December 05, 2011, 10:44:51 pm
You all should get together and write a couple of scripts for Mlp, and submit them.  :orbunny:

I doubt they look at external scripts.  Star Trek used to do that back in the day, but I think even Star Trek stopped doing it (due to legal issues) by the end.

As cool as sending MLP:FiM scripts into Hasbro/Studio B would be, sadly I have to agree with Ryffnah here.  Most companies have very strict no unsolicited submission policies, which generally are along the lines of:

1. Don't send us any unsolicited submissions, period.
2. If you ignore that request and send us an unsolicited submission anyway, then any submission that you send immediately becomes entirely the property of us, and we do not have to acknowledge, compensate, or otherwise recognize you for it.

This borderline-paranoid stance on outside submissions is to help protect companies from what Dreamworks Animation is currently going through right now, where they have not one, but two completely-unrelated separate people both suing Dreamworks because they each claim that Dreamworks stole the idea for Kung Fu Panda from them and their unsolicited submissions!  How two separate outside people can both be simultaneously claiming that the idea behind Kung Fu Panda was stolen from them is beyond me, but hey, that's exactly why corporations today have constantly got their defenses up.

I learned all of this first-hand because when I first started my Project Destiny Studios company several years ago I used to try to send in unsolicited samples of my design work to companies all the time with the hope of having my designs bought or services hired.  When doing that, you learn really quick to pay attention to the submission policies of the targeted companies so that you don't end up either *really* annoying the company's legal staff or inadvertently losing the rights to your own work.

I think I know what you mean, Hoagieboat, with the mouths? It sort of bothers me too.

It was definitely Foxxhoria and not myself who has a problem with how the mouths of the ponies are being animated.  With the sole exception of the way over-the-top John Kricfalusi-like crazy expressions that they gave to Twilight Sparkle when she was going nuts in "Lesson Zero," I have never really had a problem with how the show has been animated.  In fact, I have been rather impressed that Studio B has been able to custom-extend Adobe Flash to the point where it is capable of doing so much.  I was pretty underwhelmed by the results of using Flash for television animation until I saw this show.

It does seem like a really valid question:  why doesn't Rarity just move to Canterlot?  It seems like it might be the right move for her career.  She is attached to her friends, but she didn't seem too distraught to be far away from them in this episode.  And they could always stay in touch and visit each other.  Based on what we saw of her relationship with her family in The Sisterhooves Social, it seems like she's already put some distance between herself and them.  So, I'm a bit confused about what would keep Rarity in Ponyville.

Agreeing with you, as far as I'm concerned based on Rarity's character and desires it makes absolutely no sense that she stays in Ponyville.  With how "rustic" the Ponyville folk are (most of the mares there rarely even wear clothes most of the time let alone fancy dresses), it would make far more business sense for Rarity to have her dressmaking shop in Canterlot.  Add to that what you mentioned, Ryffnah, about how Rarity is somewhat more loosely tied to her friends and family, then the only reason that I can really find for Rarity not living in Canterlot is the out-of-universe one that it would be much harder to write episodes of the show focusing on the entire Mane 6 if you didn't have all of the members of the Mane 6 living right down the street from one another.  Sure, you could still write episodes involving the entire Mane 6 being together if you had Rarity living in Canterlot, but then the writers would find themselves having the same problem that the Star Trek: The Next Generation feature film writers did when for every movie they needed to find some different excuse to get Worf (who was part of the DS9 crew at that point) back on the U.S.S. Enterprise again so that they could then somehow make Worf be part of the Next Generation crew for the duration of the film.  Along those same lines, whenever the MLP:FiM writers would want to have an episode involving Rarity, they would have to either write-in some kind of excuse for her to be in town in Ponyville at the time, or come up with some reason for the rest of the Mane 6 to be in Canterlot with her.  Once again it definitely could be done, but from an out-of-universe perspective it is probably not worth the extra effort or bother.  From a writer's perspective and for the show's "Band of Six" dynamic it is much easier to keep Rarity in Ponyville.  That's my take on it, anyway.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ickyrus on December 05, 2011, 11:40:34 pm
Ohmygosh, I'm not even half-way through and I simply adore this episode! Bring on more Rarity I say~ And Fanciness.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on December 06, 2011, 08:34:28 pm
Agreeing with you, as far as I'm concerned based on Rarity's character and desires it makes absolutely no sense that she stays in Ponyville.  With how "rustic" the Ponyville folk are (most of the mares there rarely even wear clothes most of the time let alone fancy dresses), it would make far more business sense for Rarity to have her dressmaking shop in Canterlot.  Add to that what you mentioned, Ryffnah, about how Rarity is somewhat more loosely tied to her friends and family, then the only reason that I can really find for Rarity not living in Canterlot is the out-of-universe one that it would be much harder to write episodes of the show focusing on the entire Mane 6 if you didn't have all of the members of the Mane 6 living right down the street from one another.  Sure, you could still write episodes involving the entire Mane 6 being together if you had Rarity living in Canterlot, but then the writers would find themselves having the same problem that the Star Trek: The Next Generation feature film writers did when for every movie they needed to find some different excuse to get Worf (who was part of the DS9 crew at that point) back on the U.S.S. Enterprise again so that they could then somehow make Worf be part of the Next Generation crew for the duration of the film.  Along those same lines, whenever the MLP:FiM writers would want to have an episode involving Rarity, they would have to either write-in some kind of excuse for her to be in town in Ponyville at the time, or come up with some reason for the rest of the Mane 6 to be in Canterlot with her.  Once again it definitely could be done, but from an out-of-universe perspective it is probably not worth the extra effort or bother.  From a writer's perspective and for the show's "Band of Six" dynamic it is much easier to keep Rarity in Ponyville.  That's my take on it, anyway.

Actually, we've seen that she's pretty dedicated to her friends in the past. Mostly Fluttershy. They have weekly spa days and such. And I would imagine that Rarity and Twilight get along together quite well. Though I don't think she would mind leaving RD and AJ behind for Canterlot. I don't recall any specific interactions between her and Pinkie...
*waits for people to point out some instance of the two hanging out together and having a good time*

But she also wouldn't be able to pull her drama card as often. I don't think she could get away with that in the Canterlot society. That kind of high drama is too much a part of her. I don't think she could handle it.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: redyoshi49q on December 10, 2011, 10:05:04 pm
........ (*cough cough*)  No post in this thread yet?  Where is everybody?

...

This was another interesting episode, though I do have to say, I think I'm starting to get a *touch* of Rarity overdose.  I think the show writers decided to have more than just a bit of fun with the shippers near the end.

Also, seeing the Wonderbolts in a fetal position was priceless.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on December 11, 2011, 06:49:58 am
I thought it was a very good episode :)

For all the worryingly inevitable clichéd references, it was very well put together!  They managed to use them in a way that didn't seem forced, or at least didn't last very long.  Or were so unashamedly close to the original it was more like a homage :D

It was nice to see some character interaction, and there was an awful lot of continuity nods that make us feel like we're in the same place as we've always been!  And there was an awful lot which furthered our understanding of the world, like Equestrian dragon mechanics! 8) /nerd

I'm a little concerned about the future roles of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie (and possibly Rainbow Dash) in terms of the script, but each writer seems to have their own take on them and so I hope most of them will do their best to be faithful to them.

In all a wonderfully satisfying Season 2 episode!  With all the character interaction, I'd say it's almost equal to to Luna Eclipsed!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on December 11, 2011, 07:16:20 am
........ (*cough cough*)  No post in this thread yet?  Where is everybody?

I was literally up all night last night moving heavy boxes and bins around in my basement to make room to move my spare server rack into storage down there.  As a result, I didn't end up watching the new episode of ponies until right before I went to bed yesterday morning, after which I happily slumbered through the day thinking about it!   :)  Now that it's night time, I'm back up again, and I have watched the episode for a second time, I can write my long-winded and overly-analyzed impressions of it!  *cheers*

For starters, I have to say that I really liked this episode!  While it was still no "Luna Eclipsed," which is still the high-water mark of the season for me, this one does take second place so far, I think!  Perhaps I liked these two episodes so much because they had the same writer (M.A. Larson).  There was so much going on in this episode that I liked that I am not even sure where to start!  I guess I will just have to go through this episode play-by-play style!


This episode is definitely making me wonder why the ponies haven't found a better method of "wireless communication" than magical dragon breath at this point, especially considering the fact that the second you give a dragon something even slightly more exciting than a book as a gift they end up turning into giant building-shattering beast!  Come on ponies!  You've got record turn-tables, modern day construction equipment, and hydroelectric dams, so how come none of you have come up with the idea of "EOL" (Equestria Online) yet?  Or heck, how about building some crystal radio receivers out of wood, wire, razor blades, and pencil leads (you can really do this), and have unicorns use their magical horns as radio spark gap transmitters!  Using a deadly city-flattening dragon as a communication device makes about as much sense as using one of the man-eating Lions of Tsavo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_of_Tsavo) as a mouser!

This episode has also got me wondering about Spike's relationship with Rarity.  I remember reading Lauren Faust state somewhere that the Mane 6 were all pony-equivalent in age to something like human 20-somethings, yet they could still sometimes act more like teenagers if the story required it (like having a slumber party in "Look Before You Sleep," for example).  Twilight Sparkle ended up hatching Spike from an egg when she was a filly, so that makes Spike several years younger than her and most likely several years younger than Rarity.  Spike even acts really young sometimes, such as when he wanted to sleep with his "blankey" in "Winter Wrap Up."  In other words, from what I can see, Spike chasing after Rarity is kind of like a young boy having a crush on a much older hot babysitter or something like that.  While there is definitely nothing remarkable about a crush like that happening I guess, and it has been played up pretty innocently in the show up until now, in this episode you actually saw Rarity acting both aware of it and seemingly encouraging it with the pecks on the cheeks and all.  Now that Rarity actually is acknowledging the crush, it makes me wonder two things: first, as I already mentioned above, I wonder if Rarity is going to use Spike's infatuation with her to her advantage to get him to do endless favors for her.  Secondly, it makes me wonder how far are the writers going to take this relationship between them.  Are the writers going to keep the status quot and have Rarity going back to not acknowledging Spike's crush on her like she did in the past, making it seem like the events in this episode never happened?  Or, now that the writers have had Rarity encourage Spike's crush on her with the pecks on the cheek, are they going to allow the relationship to advance to the point to where Rarity will have to eventually set Spike aside and give him one of those, "You're a nice guy, but I can't date you because you're just a kid!" speeches, or are the writers going to use the fact that the characters' ages have never been officially stated to their advantage and actually let Spike and Rarity have a relationship?  It will probably be the first option where everyone acts as if this episode never happened, but who knows, the writers may always surprise us by going with option two, or if they are really feeling scandalous, option three!   ;)

It seems like next week's episode is going to be a Christmas-special-equivalent type one, so hopefully it will be a real treat like other somewhat holiday-themed episodes like "Winter Wrap Up" or "Luna Eclipsed" were!  Judging by the brief program guide description that I have seen listed for the episode, I am going to make the prediction that since the Mane 6 are being put in charge of a holiday pageant about peace between the pony races, I have a feeling that that they will all become frustrated with one another and start infighting, eventually fracturing into groups based on their own races.  They will then almost ruin the pageant because of their fighting, but then come to the realization just in time that they need to band together and work out their differences to save the pageant just like their ancestors did to found Equestria.  Why do I predict this general story arc for this episode?  Well, it seems like a pretty standard plot straight out of the animated series writer playbook to me, especially since I just saw Po the Panda do something very similar to save a "peace" ceremony in the recent Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness episode, "The Kung Fu Kid."  Call me a jaded watcher of the overly formulaic cartoons of the 80's, but when I see an episode of a cartoon series that looks like it could fit one of the standard 13-plots that Hanna-Barbera, DiC, or Ruby-Spears used to use for everything, I have to assume that the episode will because they almost *always* do.  But hey, the writers of MLP:FiM have shocked me before with the wonderful episode "Luna Eclipsed," so there's always hope that we will see something truly ground-breaking and new here.  I guess that we'll all have to wait and see!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on December 11, 2011, 11:56:35 am
  • 20:36 - Wait a minute... Spike got greedy, amassed a huge pile of stuff by exploiting the Ponyville ponies' generosity and good nature, grew into a giant beast, destroyed a large portion of town, kidnapped Rarity, and assaulted the Wonderbolts, and Rarity is proud of him?
Did people really not get that?   It was a major point of the episode.  Rarity is proud of Spike because of his act of generosity in giving her the gem he was only going to eat.  And she wanted it because she knew it would have a better life with her, immortalised in a piece of jewellery for all to admire, than in Spike's belly where it would only be broken down.  She cares about all gems after all, that is her special talent.  And she could see that it was a real challenge for him to give up that gem, which then ended up saving him, Rarity and the whole of Ponyville, and that's why he was her hero.  An act of generosity which was so big that it saved the whole town!

And while he did start off being given things, his dragon instincts soon took over and he began stealing and hoarding things.  It wasn't Spike controlling himself.  He saved himself in the end!

Quote
This episode is definitely making me wonder why the ponies haven't found a better method of "wireless communication" than magical dragon breath at this point, especially considering the fact that the second you give a dragon something even slightly more exciting than a book as a gift they end up turning into giant building-shattering beast!  Come on ponies!  You've got record turn-tables, modern day construction equipment, and hydroelectric dams, so how come none of you have come up with the idea of "EOL" (Equestria Online) yet?  Or heck, how about building some crystal radio receivers out of wood, wire, razor blades, and pencil leads (you can really do this), and have unicorns use their magical horns as radio spark gap transmitters!  Using a deadly city-flattening dragon as a communication device makes about as much sense as using one of the man-eating Lions of Tsavo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_of_Tsavo) as a mouser!
Personally, I think mostly the schizo-tech is there for a sort of joke.  (...And I think that episode with the electric dam is best forgotten, for many reasons (it's not just for "crimes against canon" mind you).)

Quote
This episode has also got me wondering about Spike's relationship with Rarity. <other stuff>
I think this episode was meant to tie all that up and push it under the rug; she now acknowledges Spike's crush on her, so he'll have to learn to keep it under control.  Not that it was really that serious in the first place, Spike's only a kid :)

And I do hope things remain as good as they've been going, so that next week's so-potentially-clichéd "holiday" episode continues to be fun and interesting :)
As, for all the clichéd elements in this episode, I thought it turned out pretty good.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: redyoshi49q on December 11, 2011, 04:17:19 pm
  • 7:50 - Junebug, eh?  As far as I know, this is the first time that we have seen her, and I don't see any additional appearances listed for her in the MLP:FiM Wiki either.  With all of the background ponies that the Bronies are crazy for and are dying to see in speaking parts, I am actually kind of surprised that they created a brand new never before seen character for this part.  Personally, I would have loved it if one of the ponies that Spike walked up to asking for presents from was Derpy, and that she gave Spike a muffin!  (Besides Spike, what would you do with flowers, anyway?  Now muffins on the other hand, that's a gift that anypony can enjoy!)

I didn't notice that discrepancy.  Mayhaps the writers are attempting to get a chance to attach names to background ponies before the fandom does so for them and/or are looking for extra opportunities to canonically integrate names to background ponies in (relatively) subtle ways?

  • 16:20 -  What the heck is an air raid/tornado/disaster siren doing here in Ponyville, and so oddly placed in the middle of a street no less?  And if that siren was always there, why didn't they sound it when that last big monster trampled through their town (the Ursa Minor)?

They probably built it in response to that event.  I wouldn't imagine that their town was frequently assaulted by giant monsters before that.  Its placing is probably a consequence of the Rule of Funny.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on December 11, 2011, 04:23:06 pm
Quote from: redyoshi49q
  • 16:20 -  What the heck is an air raid/tornado/disaster siren doing here in Ponyville, and so oddly placed in the middle of a street no less?  And if that siren was always there, why didn't they sound it when that last big monster trampled through their town (the Ursa Minor)?

They probably built it in response to that event.  I wouldn't imagine that their town was frequently assaulted by giant monsters before that.  Its placing is probably a consequence of the Rule of Funny.
Which also explains the Hydro-electric damn that was never before seen. It's so they could power the siren. :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on December 11, 2011, 06:48:02 pm
Well, there are a lot of little things the show does for the sake of funny that don't quite fit in with the world of the show. But by the same token, these 'odd' things happen often enough that you could question what 'normal' is in their world. It's shown to be a rather dynamic world. So any time something odd happens, I just kinda chalk it up to that and accept it.
Or, if you are so inclined, just blame Trollestia.

So anyhow...

Development of Spike's character! Yay!

But really, it was nice to see a change to an episode featuring Spike, even if he is going on a greedy rampage through Ponyville. I love the depth of the story they put in this one though. Giving the whole background of 'dragons are greedy by nature' make you really appreciate Spike that much more. He's not a greedy dragon, nor does he want to be one.

It just shows a lot about Spike's character, and how much he really cares about Twilight and the gang *cough*Rarity*/cough*. I'll appreciate Spike's general grounded-ness even more now.

I don't have much more to say on this one. I enjoyed it. Especially better than the last episode. Here's two things I took away from it:

1. Don't bother going to the doctor or the vet. Just go straight to Zecora for any health issues you have.
2. Don't give a dragon gifts. Even the nice ones. Lest you send them into a rampage of greed.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: MressFan on December 11, 2011, 11:05:27 pm


I've been a Brony since June and i'm a straight guy who loves this
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ickyrus on December 11, 2011, 11:25:21 pm
Most of the friends I know that like it are male and straight, same with from what I can see from the other members on the forums that like it. Really, I don't know many girls that like it at all xD

Watching the latest episode again and the one before it, Sweet and Elite remains my favourite.
I did love Pinkie Pie's cake assault though, and as much as I'm loving the Rarityness of all the episodes, I want more Pinkie now!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on December 12, 2011, 04:00:40 pm
Come on ponies!  You've got record turn-tables, modern day construction equipment, and hydroelectric dams, so how come none of you have come up with the idea of "EOL" (Equestria Online) yet?

Yes, because record turn-tables, hydroelectric dams, and the internet were all invented simultaneously in human society.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on December 12, 2011, 04:04:53 pm
The Secret of My Excess = Pinocchio + King Kong

The whole mechanic behind how dragons work in this episode was really odd.  When Spike first turned into a gangly version of himself, I actually wondered if they were going to keep that change and actually have him grow up during the course of the show.  I think they could have done some really interesting stories with that.  However, it's not really surprising that they decided to chose a mechanic for how dragon's age that lets them keep him the manageably-sized baby dragon for the course of the show.

It does kind of make me wonder whether they could start some sort of intervention program where they seek out giant, grown-up dragons and teach them generosity and kindness, turning them back into little, baby dragons.  This seems like a good project for Fluttershy.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on December 12, 2011, 05:19:32 pm
It does kind of make me wonder whether they could start some sort of intervention program where they seek out giant, grown-up dragons and teach them generosity and kindness, turning them back into little, baby dragons.  This seems like a good project for Fluttershy.

I don't think they could do that. the way I interpret the lore, most dragons in their world are, by default, greedy. So they would grow up only knowing greed, and getting consumed by it. Spike, on the other hand, has proven to have a generous nature to him. He only starts getting greedy when he gets a taste of it, and doesn't keep himself in check. It's like Bruce in Finding Nemo. He doesn't want to eat fish, and has sworn them off. But when he got that little smell of blood, he went crazy.

I feel like a very big part of the episode was when Rarity said that he saved them all from... himself. Spike had actually passed the point where anypony could help him. He was the only thing that could snap himself out of his greed spree. And the only reason he was able to do that was because of his unusual nature as a generous dragon. He just needed to remember that. Kind of like how Twilight had to snap out of being discorded.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on December 17, 2011, 10:33:10 am
I just got to watch the new one live on a stream, so I can't say too much about it yet due to the low quality. Two things I can say are:

Is that one heck of a stage, or what!

I can think outside of the box... or inside the chimney.

Oh, and I did spot Derpy on my own for once. HAAIIII!!!!!!! *yoinked away* :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on December 17, 2011, 03:05:05 pm
Good episode but it answered none of my questions about Celestia and Luna and the alicorn race. Oh well, they mentioned Starswirl. Didn't use the title of "The Bearded" like last time. Last time Twilight always used the title. Could it have been set before the beard came? I dunno.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on December 17, 2011, 06:52:40 pm
Being that long ago, it could be that there was only one well known Star Swirl (or Starswirl?) and "The Bearded" was added later to differentiate him from others of the same name that may have become known. That's just a guess though.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on December 18, 2011, 12:45:04 pm
I thought this was, for once, a fun departure from the usual episodes. I liked seeing some of the history of the culture. It explains why there's no real class tension between the different types of ponies. I also thought it was cool that the lesson wasn't really thrown on too thick at all. They didn't re-cap it through a letter or anything. They just let it flow.

I have one big gripe though, and that's with the song. Nothing specific about the song itself, just more with the way it was composed. Usually when there's a big group singing, but the camera zooms in on certain characters, you hear those voices come out just a tad over the rest of the group. So when it was panning across the mane 6, their voices should have stuck out a bit more. Same with when the CMC were featured. It just feels kinda flat without it. The music just doesn't really match what you see.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on December 19, 2011, 03:19:52 pm
Considering this episode was done by the same writer as The Mysterious Mare do Well, it was done very well.  The characters felt a tad off still (outside the play (mainly RD and Pinkie but RD more so with that silly window scene...)), so it was probably the fact that it was both essentially a pre-written story and a play with the mane cast acting out different characters that made it actually work.  It wasn't character driven like a usual MLP: FiM episode so it didn't matter what the writer thought of the characters...

But yeah.  This episode felt kind of like a mini film to me, it was pretty self-contained, it didn't really develop anything in the main "storyline", finished with a song and didn't even have a friendship report at the end.  And it was its own fully-fleshed out, and fantasy, story.
It was a pretty simple story, but told very well, with (though it could have done with being explicitly pointed out) the three leaders forming a triad of leaderial flaws: arrogance, incompetence and uppitiness.  These then shown to be the traits that got them into problems.  Only the three subordinates' friendship allowed them to survive and claim their new land for their people to live in peace in.  It might sound cheesy, but that's exactly what the whole show is about!  So it was a good episode. :)

It was awesome to see Hellenic pegasi and medieval unicorns, Dash and Rarity wore the outfits well :)  Lots of nice screenshots to be had :D  
And now we need an Age of Empires Equestria Edition! :D

The windigoes were awesome too, it's always...nice I guess, to see more serious things in children's cartoons.

In all, yeah, a nice "Christmas" episode :)  It was also nice that it wasn't really Christmas; that Equestria has its very own winter holiday that doesn't directly parallel our own (:
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on December 22, 2011, 05:11:31 am
Ok, I think the animators are testing us. I mentioned already spotting Derpy waving through the curtain before the play, and everyone else I've heard that spotted her mentioned the same scene. I'm now thinking that wasn't supposed to be the "spotting" in this game of cat and mouse. Check out the train ride at the begining. Right around 10 seconds into the episode, you can see a grey pony with yellow hair like her riding in top window of the the first car behind the locomotive (which it seems the "engineer" ponies finally realized it's better to ride in it than pull it now. :D). Even at 1080p on my 17" monitor, it was kinda small to see, but it looks like she has the eyes of her namesake in this shot. If I'm not mistaken, in all the other recent spottings, you only see her for a spit second and it's not much more than her head in view. That's how it is on the train. When she's spotted at the curtain, you see her for several seconds, the camera focuses on her, there's more to her than a simple pose, and you see her whole body. Those animaters are quite cunning, eh?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: redyoshi49q on December 24, 2011, 10:53:16 am
It seems that the new MLP episodes are being delayed until after the holiday season (January 7).  I'll be missing out on two of my pony doses.

That stinks.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on December 24, 2011, 03:00:55 pm
No kidding. Even the podcasts are going on break. I won't even be able to have that pony fix!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on December 29, 2011, 12:12:02 pm
It seems that the new MLP episodes are being delayed until after the holiday season (January 7).  I'll be missing out on two of my pony doses.

That stinks.
No kidding. Even the podcasts are going on break. I won't even be able to have that pony fix!

Well then lucky for you fine gentlecolts I am back from my little hiatus with another magnificent Hoagiebot MLP:FiM episode review text-wall!  *cheers for himself*  Yeah, I have been extremely busy as of late with the holidays and all, so up until now I haven't yet gotten a chance to ring in with my opinions and observations about the last episode, "Hearth's Warming Eve."  But now that's all going to change!   :D

For starters, it was very interesting for the show's producers to choose to have a MLP:FiM episode written by M.A. Larson ("Secret of My Excess") be followed by an episode written by Merriwether Williams ("Hearth's Warming Eve").  Why do I find this interesting?  Because it is an episode written by my absolute favorite season 2 writer being followed by an episode written by my absolute least favorite season 2 writer.  Since it has been so long since I last posted in this thread, I have had a lot of time to think about the most recent episode and the one that came before it, and while reflecting about these episodes I came upon a very interesting observation.  For those of you who have been following my posts here, you have probably noticed that I spend a lot of time reviewing these MLP:FiM season 2 episodes from an out-of-universe perspective, i.e. I tend to explain what I perceive to be a particular episode's weaknesses by speculating about things such as the writers using too much artistic license with the characters to force them to fit their plot instead of fitting the plot to the characters, doing world revisions or retconning to make their plots work, failing at the "Rule of Funny" by making the pay off not be worth the out of place element, etc., instead of me switching into "fanboi mode" and trying to find in-universe explanations for everything.  For a good example of this, go back and re-read my review of "May the Best Pet Win!" (http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=42340.msg818927#msg818927)-- I critiqued that episode largely from an out-of-universe perspective like that.

In contrast, with M.A. Larson's season 2 episodes like "Luna Eclipsed" and "Secret of My Excess", I tend to unconsciously switch into "fanboi mode" and largely start critiquing them from an in-universe perspective-- Instead of writing complaints about the misuse of tropes or lazy universe revising like how I normally do I instead start to write comments about things such as the Wonderbolts and their effectiveness as an air force, the cost-benefit analysis of magic dragon breath for long-distance communication, what the effects of eating a sapphire-studded cupcake would be on the gastrointestinal tract, etc., so much so that at one point redyoshi49q actually tried to explain one of my in-universe gripes about "Secret of My Excess" to me by referencing the out-of-universe trope "The Rule of Funny" to explain it, which is something that I would typically do.  So while I still have my little gripes and complaints about M.A. Larson's episodes, the fact that he makes me start taking an in-universe view on things really says something-- his episodes tend to be that much more engrossing to me, so much so that I start to forget that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is just a television show and start to view it more as an alternate universe-- a universe that I can lose myself in, and maybe even write my own stories about.

That brings me to Merriwether Williams and her episode, "Hearth's Warming Eve."  I am not even quite sure how I want to even start reviewing this one because as far as I am concerned, this episode is afflicted with both in-universe and out-of-universe problems.  I guess I will just have to address both points of perspective as I go along.  Now if the previous 36 episodes of MLP:FiM never existed and "Hearth's Warming Eve" was the very first one, I probably would have been O.K. with its take on ancient pony history.  However, I have seen the last 36 episodes, and as I mentioned above, when the show lets me I like to try to become lost in its world a little bit.  Because of that, I have paid a lot of attention to how the world of Equestria seemingly works, came to be, etc.  With that in mind, I just can't see how the story of Hearth's Warming Eve makes much sense historically.  I mean, the information presented in this episode just doesn't really fit very well with any of the information that we were given before.  In fact, some of the information about the founding of Equestria presented in this episode doesn't even fit with later information presented within the same episode!  Here are some captioned screen captures from the episode thoughtfully posted by someone at bronies.memebase.com that perfectly illustrate my point:

(http://chzbronies.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-brony-the-flag-makes-the-leaders.jpg)

Um, so the story of the very first Hearth's Warming Eve takes place before the rule of Princess Celestia and the different pony tribes are ruling themselves, yet their banner for their new country of Equestria features the two winged-unicorn princesses, Celestia and Luna.  Seriously, someone on the staff, be it the writer or the animators or whomever, just wasn't paying very much attention to detail here.  The out-of-period Equestria banner aside, let us pause for a moment and remember what previous episodes have taught us about ancient pony history.  "Friendship Is Magic - Part 1 (Mare in the Moon)" taught us that 1000-years ago, Nightmare Moon was imprisoned in the moon by Celestia.  The two winged-unicorn Princess sisters also rose the sun and the moon, maintained balance, and ruled over Equestria for an unspecified amount of time before that the whole "Mare in the Moon" incident even happened.  In the later episode "The Return of Harmony - Part 1" we learn that even before the events described in "Friendship Is Magic - Part 1 (Mare in the Moon)" that the two regal sisters, Luna and Celestia, rose up against Discord and ended his reign of chaos and misery across the land.  So if the first Hearth's Warming Eve takes place before the rule of Celestia and Luna, where is Discord?  He's a spirit of chaos and disharmony-- that would tend to indicate that he is a force that is eternal.  Since Hearth's Warming Eve takes place before Luna and Celestia were around to imprison him, shouldn't the ancient pony tribes be drowning in chocolate rain, giraffe-legged rabbits, and popcorn fields?  Princess Celestia told the Mane 6 in "The Return of Harmony - Part 1" that Discord was in charge and making all of the ponies miserable until her and her sister showed up to imprison him.  So barring any other future revisions to ancient pony history, Discord should still be around during the time of "Hearth's Warming Eve."  Where is he?

Even more interesting is the fact that it is mentioned in the episode "Friendship Is Magic - Part 2 (Elements of Harmony)" that the Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters was located in the Everfree Forest-- not Equestria, which would seem to hint that at least at one time Princess Luna and Princess Celestia ruled from the Everfree Forest before the "magical land" of Equestria was even founded, as the Everfree Forest and the ancient castle both lie outside what would later become the magically-controlled land of Equestria.  Speaking of which, the Pegasi controlling the weather in the time before Equestria was founded, as mentioned in "Hearth's Warming Eve," is also kind of fishy, as they can only control the weather from within the magical land Equestria.  It was mentioned in the episode "Bridle Gossip" that in the Everfree Forest outside of Equestria the weather is uncontrollable (Rainbow Dash: "The clouds move all on their own!").  So unless there are other "magical lands" out there that also allow ponies to control the plants, animals, weather, and movement of celestial objects, I would assume that before Equestria was founded all of the land behaved much more like the Everfree Forest, and thus uncontrollable by Pegasi.  In fact, I would argue that the only reason why the Pegasi can both control the weather in Equestria and that Equestria is a magical land at all is because it has the two all-powerful immortal winged-unicorn god-princesses using their almost incomprehensibly powerful magic to make it that way.  While this is my own opinion, I think that Equestria only can exist because of the controlling and harmonizing power of the princesses, and that there was no Equestria or even pony tribes before them.  Throw in the fact that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have referred to their pony subjects diminutively as "my little ponies" and "my children" in the past, and I get the feeling that the two princesses existed before any of the other pony "races" did.

Going back to "Hearth's Warming Eve," in the episode it is mentioned that it was originally the unicorns, not Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, who had the power to raise the sun and the moon.  Going along with the feelings that I stated above, this bit of information doesn't sit very well with me either, since as I stated above it is shown that Nightmare Moon/Princess Luna and Princess Celestia are *extremely* powerful-- they are on a whole different level of power than any normal pony.  The show tends to hint that Twilight Sparkle is one of the most powerful of the magic-using unicorns out there in modern times, and while she has demonstrated that she can move objects as large as a water tower and an Ursa Minor, she has by no means demonstrated that she can move anything close to the size of celestial objects.  And if mere unicorns could ever raise the sun and the moon, than why didn't they use that power to thwart Nightmare Moon's plans in the first two "Friendship is Magic" episodes?  Or, if the unicorns at one time had that power but no longer do, than why would the ruler of the unicorns ever let the two regal winged-unicorn sisters move in and take that power from them?  Why would *any* of the rulers from the Pony tribes let the regal sisters move in and usurp power from them for that matter?  Throw back in the fact that a regal sisters banner was shown at the end of the "Hearth's Warming Eve" pageant and things really start to get pretty questionable.

As I mentioned in earlier posts in this thread, this cartoon series doesn't seem to have any kind of set-in-stone writer's guide or draconian canon. With that in mind and with how general and sparse our knowledge of ancient pony history is, you could revise what was shown about pony history in earlier episodes and say that there was somehow a time before the regal sisters and before Discord where the pony tribes ruled themselves.  The sparse bit of pony history that we know from the episodes before this can kind of sort of be worked around so that the time-period depicted in "Hearth's Warming Eve" can kind of be shoehorned in.  But why should we have to shoehorn this newest bit if incompatible history in?  Why force such sweeping additions to pony history into the episode to make fans of the show such as myself raise doubts and questions about it like the ones that I raised above?  The same basic Hearth's Warming Eve story could have been told without removing Princess Celestia at all.  It has already been suggested on multiple occasions that the ancient Celestia is a bit of a chestmaster character-- that she manipulates everything and everyone from behind the scenes to make everything in Equestria lay out exactly how she wants it to.  You could have had a time in ancient Equestria where the different pony races didn't quite get along, the Windigoes started a blizzard as a result, and a much younger Princess Celestia sent two representatives from each pony race out to try and solve the problem, much like Celestia did by the modern Mane 6 out to deal with the snoring dragon in the episode "Dragonshy."  Naturally, the members of the different races would learn how to stop the Windigoes in the same way as they did in the "Hearth's Warming Eve" episode and from that point on become friends and work together, which of course would turn out to have been Trollestia's secret grand plan all along.  If the story was told that way, I wouldn't be able to raise any of the objections that I did above, and would have been completely fine with it.  But no, instead we got a fairly disruptive pony history re-write.

Most if not all of the MLP:FiM writers are guilty of taking a little bit of artistic liberty every now and then, but in my opinion Merriwether Williams comes unnecessarily close to viewing the show's past established canon as cannon fodder.  I am not the only brony out there who is starting to become a bit put off with Merriwether Williams's particularly liberal world revisions, either.  If you read through the comments about her episodes that were posted by the fans on Equestia Daily, there is a definite presence of fan-backlash against her.  The outcry was so strong against her episode "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" for example, that the site administrator of Equestria Daily, Sethisto, felt compelled to write a special post (http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/12/pre-episode-pony-service-announcement.html) begging the fans to please be more respectful when it came to commenting about future episodes, which I think was a first for him.  While I would never feel enough "nerd rage" to start flaming Ms. Williams disrespectfully on the web, I am starting to wonder if when the Studio B staff hired her to write for this season that she paid close enough attention to the previously made episodes of season 1 before she started writing her episodes for season 2.  I mean seriously, the vast majority of the in-universe problems that I have with her episodes could have been avoided without significantly altering the arc of her stories if she ad just put a little bit more effort into it.

Speaking of story arcs, that leads me to my primary out-of-universe problem with this episode.  The problem is that this episode seems to have two story arcs, and one of them was left awkwardly unresolved.  Going back to screenwriting 101, to quote Wikipedia, "The purpose of a story arc is to move a character or a situation from one state to another; in other words, to effect change."  This can be demonstrated in the second introduced story arc of this episode, the story from within the "Hearth's Warming Eve" pageant. You have your protagonists, the six members of the ancient pony tribes, who have a conflict-- a massive blizzard has struck the land, causing the ponies to starve and fight amongst themselves.  This arc follows the pattern known as "The Hero's Journey."  To once again quote Wikipedia, "Story arcs in contemporary drama often follow the pattern of bringing a character to a low point, removing the structures the character depends on, then forcing the character to find new strength without those structures."  The low point described here is when the 6 ponies are all trapped in the cave and still fighting amongst themselves, causing the leaders to freeze over and the ice to start closing in on the remaining three secretaries.  This forces the secretaries to go through a character transformation-- they stop following the orders of their misguided leaders, and start following their own instincts, which is that they need to band together and work as friends to defeat their common foe.  By working together they vanquish the Windigoes, save their leaders by warming their hearts, and cause their leaders to realize the errors of their ways and become cooperative friends with one another as well.  This is a textbook story arc, and I am absolutely fine with this one.

The problem is that the pageant's story isn't the only story arc going on in this episode.  There is a second arc dealing with the Mane 6 in the theater actually trying to put on the pageant.  Showing the protagonists backstage, we are introduced to our conflict-- Fluttershy is too nervous to perform in front of a large crowd, Rarity's hair is being ruined by the wind rushing through the open window, Rainbow Dash and Applejack are arguing over Rainbow Dash's wanting to steal the show, Pinkie Pie just knocked Twilight Sparkle into a box, nobody is really getting along all that well, and the show is going to go on in 2-minutes.  How are they ever going to pull off putting on the show!?  How will this pageant end up not being an horrific disaster?  Just like with our other arc, our characters are now at their low-point, and need to overcome their obstacles.  How are they going to transform themselves and develop as characters to overcome this challenge?  Well, to put it simply, they don't.  The pageant goes on without a hitch, and we don't even see how they resolved those conflicts to put on the pageant so successfully.  Fluttershy is somehow instantly over her stage fright, Rarity's hair is fixed, Applejack and Rainbow Dash are getting along, and Twilight Sparkle is out of the box that Pinkie pushed her into.  How did this happen?  How did all of this work out?  *shugs*  Who knows?  It was a story-telling opportunity that was completely wasted.  Even worse, the Mane 6 don't even develop as characters by learning from the story of the pageant that they just performed!  To explain, once the pageant performance is over and we see once again see the Mane 6 backstage, the six ponies are still bickering among one another. It becomes apparent that the Mane 6 haven't learned a darn thing about working together, and that they haven't developed at all as characters.  This turns the entire Mane 6, our primary antagonists, into flat characters (http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/glossary/g/flatcharacters.htm)!  It even manages to override the completed story arc of the Hearth's Warming Eve pageant because the bickering in the backstage area is the last thing that we see.  And don't tell me that the Mane 6 have developed as characters because they suddenly decided to stop bickering once they heard the roar of the Windigo at the very end-- that is more of a last-minute example of the Teeth-Clenched Teamwork (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TeethClenchedTeamwork) trope than of any kind of actual character development because an outside element (fear of the windigoes returning) is coercing them into stopping their infighting-- not their own personal growth as a character.

So I am once again sitting here and scratching my head asking myself why this second story arc was left half-heartedly incomplete like this.  If Ms. William's intention was to show the Mane 6 backstage to establish the setting that they were in a theater and putting on a pageant, then all she had to do was show them backstage for 30-seconds, have Spike mention that the show was going on in two minutes, and then have them all wish each other good luck in the performance.  There is no need to start introducing any inter-character conflict here-- if the story is going to be the story of the pageant then stay focused on that-- don't start introducing a subplot of Fluttershy having stage fright, Rainbow Dash being a showboat, Rarity having a wardrobe malfunction, etc., if that sub-plot isn't going to be resolved, then don't introduce it and stay focused on the main plot!!!   If Ms. William's intention was to have a second story arc of the Mane 6's infighting almost ruining the pageant then she should have had them hit a low point by almost trashing everything, but then overcoming their personal grievances with one another by working together to salvage the situation, they then ultimately end up putting on a successful stage show.  This whole having an second unresolved story arc derailing the first is very poor writing, and if the backstage secondary arc was left in only to pad the episode's running length well then it's lazy writing too, because in that case it would have been better to have further fleshed-out the primary arc instead of creating a half-cocked secondary one.

Even with my in-universe grievances against this show seemingly rewriting the history of Equestria I still probably would have rated this episode as being alright, just like how I ended up ultimately rating "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" as being O.K.  There were definitely some things to like about it.  But combine my perceived continuity problems in this episode with the flat secondary arc just sucking the life out of the show's conclusion, and I am left feeling very underwhelmed by it.  Once again I am not saying that this episode was terrible-- just below my usual expectations.  I may have not have a big fan of this season's earlier episode "Lesson Zero" (which before now was my least favorite episode of the new season), but at least it had a completed story arc and character development for each of the Mane 6.  Hopefully the problems with the story structure of this episode are an isolated incident, and that with the upcoming episode "Family Appreciation Day" we will be back on track.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on December 29, 2011, 02:52:56 pm
"Did you know, Brain? Every time your mouth moves, strange sounds come out :o?"

I actually do agree with a lot of this, but..Can't wait until it starts back up again!

Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on December 30, 2011, 04:46:27 am
I hadn't taken the time myself to analyze why I found "Hearth's Warming Eve" so incredibly underwhelming, but I think Hoagiebot's post pretty much captures it.  The complete lack of resolution in the B-plot and the awkward misfit with pre-established history/mythology really interfered with my ability to enjoy it.  I mean, it was okay...  But, I usually MLP:FiM to be better than okay.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on December 30, 2011, 09:58:14 am
Hoagie, that was an interesting set of observations.  I am in complete agreement about the secondary story arc being awkwardly unresolved, but I don't think your in-universe complaints are as much of a problem as you make them out to be.

First, the flag is (in my opinion) of no consequence. There are may historically inaccurate depictions of flags in popular media, both intentional and unintentional.  It's obviously the animators not wanting to do unnecessary work, but in-universe we can say they either didn't know what the ancient flag was like or just wanted it to be recognizable. Either way, I'm not losing sleep over it. 

In other related points, I think Celestia's naming them "my children" is not literal, but an affectionate label of a benevolent ruler.  Chessmaster Celestia was always a secondary aspect of her character for me, but if you think about it, a necessary one for her to remain in power for 1000+ years.  But this is governed by her "benevolent ruler-ness" as you can see in her concern for the feelings of Twilight Sparkle's friends (and to some extent the other ponies in Ponyville).

Second, I think Discord's absence is understandably confusing but not universe-breaking.  We've seen him imprisoned before, so the simple explanation is that previous (pre-historic) ponies managed to trap, banish, or otherwise remove him from the picture, just as Celestia and Luna ended his reign when they rose to power.  Beyond that, Discord is still a physical being with an entire universe to be the Chaos god of.  He could have just been off somewhere tormenting the zebras or something like that.

Finally, while Celestia and Luna are demigod-level powerful, they are still ponies.  I don't see it as much of a stretch that the unicorns were once able to perform their celestial duties.  We don't know the exact mechanism by which the unicorns accomplished it, so for all we know it took a dozen of them each day.  There might also have been some loss of knowledge or ability during the time of Discord so that unicorns are no longer able to do it.

I'm glad you wrote your thoughts down because the part about the secondary plot articulated why this episode isn't top-tier for me.  I also like hearing people voice thoughts about in-universe inconsistencies because it allows me to have a good time thinking about world-building, which I enjoy a LOT!  Naturally, you may not find some of these explanations as easy to accept as I do. That's OK. Your analysis was still more thoughtful than most of the stuff on Ponychan! 
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on December 31, 2011, 03:35:45 am
I'll just add that I noticed at the end of this episode, all the guards around the edge of the room blink at the same time. Now that's a precisioned troop! :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on January 03, 2012, 09:04:58 am
I have similar issues with Hearth's Warming Eve (and the writer) to Hoagiebot after reading his huge post.  The play itself was good imo, and I didn't have so many immediate world-building issues as Hoagiebot (to me it just seemed to conveniently avoid established canon rather than go directly against it), but everything else was pretty much pointless.  It would have been much better to have had Pinkie Pie be supermegahyperexcited about doing it instead of the gingerbread house scene, and instead of the whole window scenes there should have been things like Rainbow Dash finding her costume awesome (instead of that damn thing at the mirror) and Pinkie being hyperactive still.  Fluttershy I think would have had some reservations but would have been fine in the end.  The whole window thing was a bit of a mess though.  And didn't give the whole warm "good friends" vibes which we're used to.
The trouble is, the writer doesn't seem to understand character depth.

But yes, next episode is soon, and it looks like we'll get some good Apple Bloom and Granny Smith action!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on January 08, 2012, 12:07:48 pm
Episode 12: Family Appreciation Day!

It was a very nice episode!  It started off...rather confusingly and slow, but gradually picked up pace, became just a bit weirder and weirder, but then snapped and became awesome, and everything made sense.

I loved Granny Smith, she felt like a convincing old granny; the CMC were awesome and it was great we got to see more of them and some "normal" action with them.  Diamond Tiara was an excellent petty school bully, and her father was even more awesome because he was surprisingly decent.

The zap apples were pretty strange, but somehow I managed to accept them without question.
And wonderful story from Granny Smith at the end, despite it contradiction what was previously assumed to be canon.  But it's just an old lady's tale.  It was very nice though.

After Sisterhooves Social, the writer seems to be very good at writing convincing slice-of-life stuff.

Some points:
APPLEBUNNY
SCOOTABUNNY
Timber wolves! Made of real timber!  (I love all the nasty beasties they have in this show :D)
And Rainbow Dash is no longer in the series, and is now an apple.
(and there was a creepy tubby guy at the end...)

Wonderful episode though.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on January 08, 2012, 06:48:33 pm
The young Granny Smith is very possibly the cutest pony ever.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on January 09, 2012, 04:33:26 pm
Ok, I think the animators are testing us. I mentioned already spotting Derpy waving through the curtain before the play, and everyone else I've heard that spotted her mentioned the same scene. I'm now thinking that wasn't supposed to be the "spotting" in this game of cat and mouse. Check out the train ride at the begining. Right around 10 seconds into the episode, you can see a grey pony with yellow hair like her riding in top window of the the first car behind the locomotive (which it seems the "engineer" ponies finally realized it's better to ride in it than pull it now. :D). Even at 1080p on my 17" monitor, it was kinda small to see, but it looks like she has the eyes of her namesake in this shot. If I'm not mistaken, in all the other recent spottings, you only see her for a spit second and it's not much more than her head in view. That's how it is on the train. When she's spotted at the curtain, you see her for several seconds, the camera focuses on her, there's more to her than a simple pose, and you see her whole body. Those animaters are quite cunning, eh?

At about 5:07 to my eye, in the backround Derpy flies by.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on January 09, 2012, 08:49:30 pm
I absolutely love Family Appreciation Day!  The whole first half had me worried, but at the end my mind was blown.

TIMBER WOLVES

Also, has anyone else thought about the discrepancy between Twilight saying Ponyville has been cleaning up winter without magic for HUNDREDS of years, yet Granny Smith claims to be among the town's first residents?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on January 09, 2012, 09:30:50 pm
All I know is I love Granny's squeaky wheel hips! :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on January 09, 2012, 10:42:32 pm
Also, has anyone else thought about the discrepancy between Twilight saying Ponyville has been cleaning up winter without magic for HUNDREDS of years, yet Granny Smith claims to be among the town's first residents?

Ponies live a really, really long time?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on January 10, 2012, 06:23:32 am
Also, has anyone else thought about the discrepancy between Twilight saying Ponyville has been cleaning up winter without magic for HUNDREDS of years, yet Granny Smith claims to be among the town's first residents?

You either consider that Granny Smith is an old mare and talking to kids, so probably forgot stuff or just wants to make the story sound impressive;
Or you consider that Twilight was somehow wrong
Or that ponies really do live hundreds of years... or at least Granny Smith, somehow.

I personally prefer the former.  A book-nerd, being wrong?!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on January 10, 2012, 11:35:43 am
I think what happened is someone got their facts wrong when talking to Twilight. anypony can make a mistake, it's just that when said mistake is caught "On Camera"  so to speak it instantly becomes "That's how they are all the time!" So maybe Twilight got her facts wrong that one morning, she's allowed to mess up. It's just because that scene hasn't got a follow up of Twilight getting things straight that folks go "She doesn't know how long Ponyville has been around!"
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on January 10, 2012, 12:07:45 pm
For those of you here who don't have the desire to read the text-wall that is inevitably going to follow, the one-word answer to how I felt about the episode "Family Appreciation Day" was "meh."

This episode was written by MLP:FiM regular Cindy Morrow.  I rather enjoyed her work in season 1, as she wrote "Griffon the Brush Off," "The Show Stoppers," "Owl's Well That Ends Well," and one of my all-time favorites, "Winter Wrap Up."  The tone of each of those episodes was fairly varied from one another, and as far as I am concerned that is a pretty strong writer's pedigree to be coming from.  Her writing for the second season however has been very lackluster for me.  The two episodes that she has written for season 2 so far have been "Sisterhooves Social" and last Saturday's "Family Appreciation Day," which, as Foxxhoria mentioned, are very much "slice of life" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slice_of_life) episodes.  I am not a fan of straight up "slice of life" stuff.  I tend to consume fictional media such as cartoons, movies, comic books, etc. to escape my less than amazing mundane existence.  All "slice of life" type stories do is subject me to someone else's less than amazing mundane existence, which does not really serve very well as an escape for me.  I realize that there are people out there who really enjoy this slice of life type stuff, which is why there are so many slice of life-based furry web comics in existence, but honestly that particular storytelling technique does little for me.

With that said, I did like "Family Appreciation Day" much more than I did Ms. Morrow's previous effort, "Sisterhooves Social."  If you recall, when I commented in this forum on the previous episode "Sisterhooves Social" back in November  I wrote, "...this episode was wayyyyyyy too "slice of life" and too little funny.  It's as if the writers completely forgot to storyboard some jokes into the plot."  Luckily, that wasn't quite the case with "Family Appreciation Day," and that is what sort of saved the episode for me-- there was a bit more interesting humor going on in this one, and that helped keep it interesting for me.

Sadly, the plot itself for "Family Appreciation Day" didn't help it for me-- it was very standard childrens' television show fare, the "Amazingly Embarrassing Parents" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents) trope to the letter.  For example, TVTropes.org describes the "Amazingly Embarrassing Parents" trope as:

Quote
Children on TV live in terror of their parents ever getting a chance to interact with the other kids in school. This is for a very good reason - parents on TV seem to be on a quest to humiliate their children in front of their peers.

They always have a thousand and one stories about things their unfortunate offspring did when they were two years old, and they always seem certain that everyone wants to hear about them. They're perfectly right about that, of course, just not for the reasons that they think - the Alpha B*tch (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlphaBitch?from=Main.TheLibby) and her ilk are just dying to hear humiliating childhood stories, because they'll be able to tease the poor protagonist about them for years to come! (...)  ...with the whole thing ending on An Aesop (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnAesop) about not being ashamed of your parents.

To further prove my point, let's see what elements from this trope are present in "Family Appreciation Day:"

I realize that in this day an age nearly every plot that you could possibly conceive of has likely been done before, if not thousands of times before, and that there really is no such thing as a truly original story, but really, this particular episode's plot sticks so close to the formula that it is almost starting to feel like one of those old Hanna-Barberra or Ruby-Spears cartoon shows from the 70's and 80's where they used the same dozen or so generic plots over and over again and only changed the names and the appearances of the characters to fit their licensed property of the week.  In the past I have made predictions for many MLP:FiM episodes before they aired about how they were likely going to fit one generic trope or another based on what I read in their TV listing descriptions, only to then be pleasantly surprised after seeing the episodes to find out that my predictions were wrong and they weren't.  That wasn't the case for this episode however.  As soon as I saw Diamond Tiara start ripping into Granny Smith in front of Applebloom at about the 3:13 mark I realized exactly what was going on and how everything was going to play out.  Fortunately, there was also the secondary "zap apple jam" plot present in "Family Appreciation Day," and that really helped to make this episode feel like a MLP:FiM episode instead of just generic childrens' fare, but still, the very fact that I felt compelled to bring any of these points up indicates that I felt that this plot was a wee bit too close to the stuff that I have seen done dozens of times in dozens of other cartoons/sitcoms before.  I sincerely hope that this is just a one-time fluke-- I don't want MLP:FiM to end up feeling like it is some kind of generic little kids show like um, you know, previous incarnations of My Little Pony.

Also, has anyone else thought about the discrepancy between Twilight saying Ponyville has been cleaning up winter without magic for HUNDREDS of years, yet Granny Smith claims to be among the town's first residents?

I noticed the discrepancy, and so did many of the bronies commenting on the episode over at Equestria Daily.  I don't know which way I really want to go on this issue.  If you want to go with Granny Smith's take on the origins of Ponyville, then Ponyville's origins very much resemble the origins of many Midwestern and Great Plains U.S. towns that were started by farmers and other settlers between 100 and 200 years ago.  For example, the Midwestern village that my war-fleet of evil computers and I currently reside in was started 180-years ago by such settlers.  It even gained it's own railway station in 1862 which boosted its population, similar to how they depicted that also happening to Ponyville later on in Granny's flashback.   That makes Ponyville seem like an older and more established version of Appleloosa, and it also shows that the Apple family are both quite the industrious pioneers and the founders of many far-flung settlements.  In contrast, if you want to take a more European view of a possible founding history of a town like Ponyville then it could actually make more sense if Ponyville was hundreds of years old or older like Twilight Sparkle stated.  Take a look at the city of Nottingham in England for example-- that settlement was founded by the Saxons all the way back in 600A.D., almost 1500 years ago.  The settlement was already hundreds of years old before the Medieval story of Robin Hood even took place there!  As a result, from a European perspective a settlement like Ponyville really could be hundreds of years or older just like Twilight Sparkle said, and that would also seem to fit better with the more European high-fantasy-like appearance of nearby Canterlot Castle, or the abandoned Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters in the Everfree Forest right next door.  Then again, you could also argue that a more American-style origin Ponyville would fit in better with Equestria's Appleloosa and Manehatten, which are very American-influenced instead of being European influenced.  Sadly, there is no good in-universe resolution to this discrepancy because each conflicting piece of information was mentioned in one episode each, in episodes written by the same writer no less.  Most likely the story that Granny Smith told in "Family Appreciation Day" will probably have to be the one that is viewed as canon since it was told in great detail with an accompanying flashback in a later episode, while Twilight's earlier conflicting remark was just that-- a quick remark.  Because of this, Granny Smith's story is probably either an intentional or unintentional "rewrite" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Rewrite) of the continuity on the writer's part to fit what her plot was for that week.

Diamond Tiara was an excellent petty school bully, and her father was even more awesome because he was surprisingly decent.

Diamond Tiara is a cookie-cutter example of the TVTropes.org "Rich B*tch" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RichBitch) trope, and therefore is a very unappealing character to me.  The description of the trope on TVTropes.org even mentions, "Most of the time they're just jewel-encrusted sadists. If there is a Country Mouse (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CountryMouse) in the cast, the Rich B*tch usually targets her for the worst abuse."  I don't know.  Maybe Ms. Morrow was reading TVTropes.org to get her ideas for this episode.  In any case, Diamond Tiara does go way too far in this episode by insulting Granny Smith in front of Cheerilee and the rest of the class, and she finally gets her just deserts because of it, which is a satisfying development in the story at the very least, even though I highly doubt that Diamond Tiara learned anything from the punishment.

As far as Filthy Rich goes, I love how the show continues to poke fun at well-to-do high society types, in this case by having so many of the cast members continue to slip and call him Mr. Filthy instead of Mr. Rich!   :D

The zap apples were pretty strange, but somehow I managed to accept them without question.

Meh.  I didn't really care for the zap apples really.  I have no in-universe reason for not liking them-- they came from the Everfree Forest after all, which is a strange and magical place, so there is no reason why the forest couldn't have electrically charged magic rainbow apples.  I just didn't happen to really be all that fond of them on a personal level.  I keep on thinking that there could have been a much more interesting plot device than "zap apple jam" that they could have used to base the entire founding story of our beloved town of Ponyville around.  Once again, it kind of makes Ponyville mirror the newer settlement of Appleloosa too much, only for Ponyville the founding story was rehashed with the Apple family settlers first growing rainbow apples instead of regular ones and the uncomfortable Native American-influenced buffalo characters were omitted.

Timber wolves! Made of real timber!  (I love all the nasty beasties they have in this show :D)

My enthusiasm over these new magical creatures that we meet each week in this show is often slightly dampened by the fact that so many of them are based on the literal embodiment of puns, such as the Ursa Minor being a bear made of stars, the Quarray Eel being an eel that lives in stone valley (or stone quarry) walls, a plant called "poison joke" that magically plays jokes on people who accidentally brush against it, and now timberwolves that are literally made out of timber.  These are the kinds of gags that tend to make me groan when I am hit with them.  While I don't mind seeing gag-creatures like this some of the time, I sincerely hope that the writers don't start taking this gag too far and start making every new Equestira creature a pun because it can get really old really fast.

And Rainbow Dash is no longer in the series, and is now an apple.

Going with the literal pun naming scheme used for the flora and fauna of Equestria like the above mentioned "Timberwolves" and "Poison Joke," I wanted to start calling the rainbow variety of apple "Appledashes" after the shipping namesake instead of zap apples!   :)

Now on to a few things that I really liked and/or thought was really funny in this episode:


So once again, while this episode of MLP:FiM definitely wasn't one of my favorites, I still found it more entertaining than "Sisterhooves Social," and there was nothing in it that sent me into a fanboi nerd rage like the Merriwether Williams episodes did.  As I stated in my first sentence of this post above, this episode was just "meh" for me.  I didn't hate it.  I didn't adore it.  It didn't get me all excited and inspired me to come up with still more crazy overly thought-out ideas for MLP:FiM-related comics and fanfics, but it didn't completely bore me either.  This was just a very average and somewhat unremarkable episode in what is otherwise a usually outstanding series.

Let's see, next up we have the episode "Baby Cakes", where, according to the episode's description, Pinkie Pie discovers that she is "woefully unprepared" to handle babysitting the Cakes' twin toddlers.  Based on the episode's description it sounds a lot like its plot is going to be a clear-cut example of the "Badly Battered Babysitter" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadlyBatteredBabysitter) trope to me, and considering how largely cookie-cutter "Family Appreciation Day" was that is increasing my confidence that my prediction may turn out to be right.  However, I have been wrong plenty of times before and I sincerely hope that the MLP:FiM writers once again pleasantly surprise me-- when it comes to guessing episode plots I often hate being right!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on January 14, 2012, 11:19:56 am
OK... I'm thinking there have to be two genes which interact to control Pegasus versus Unicorn. One of them, say the Pegasus gene, will act on its own if homozygous; that is, two copies of the Pegasus gene produce a Pegasus. But we don't know what happens with two copies of Pegasus and two copies of Unicorn. It could be they cancel each other out; it could be all Unicorns also have two copies of the Pegasus gene.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on January 14, 2012, 12:59:51 pm
I enjoyed this episode, strangely, being about babies and all.

Pinkie felt wonderfully natural and normal and just like we're all used to; why couldn't Dash get this treatment?  And it's the same writer as MtBPW!

The babies were so much better than that one in The Mysterious Mare do Well, and also can walk (that, the fact that ponies can put the babies in saddlecarriers, and that ponies don't have hands, makes that baby carriage from TMMDW seem pretty ridiculous and unimaginative.  Like the rest of that episode, so yeah).

But how did the foals get so much power in that one part?! And why can't the CMCs use their powers yet?
I'm gonna put this down to Pinkie Pie becoming slightly delusional as one might in the middle of the night under great stress and worry. It's the most sensible explanation.  Power incontinence could be an explanation too (which they do say at the beginning, but it still felt more than just "explosions of power").  I guess "Rule of Funny" might come into it a bit as well, but surely they could have thought of a better way to do that bit without going to such lengths...?

And seeing Dash on screen with new lines always makes me nervous these days, but it wasn't really too bad actually. Perhaps instead of the Wonderbolts though there could have been some huge weather related thing she had to do...? It's a small issue though, she still felt kinda right.

In the end, despite myself not really caring about babies and baby stuff at all whatsoever, I really enjoyed this episode. Mainly because Pinkie Pie felt well done to me, and it was refreshing.

Also: pony genetics.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on January 15, 2012, 05:26:09 am
I'm sure just about any other parent watching this episode can back me up when I say it sometimes feels like that episode isn't far from the truth about taking care of babies.

But how did the foals get so much power in that one part?! And why can't the CMCs use their powers yet?
I'm gonna put this down to Pinkie Pie becoming slightly delusional as one might in the middle of the night under great stress and worry. It's the most sensible explanation.  Power incontinence could be an explanation too (which they do say at the beginning, but it still felt more than just "explosions of power").  I guess "Rule of Funny" might come into it a bit as well, but surely they could have thought of a better way to do that bit without going to such lengths...?
Well, a lot of young animals tend to have natural defenses that they grow out of. Like super sharp claws that dull some as they age. While RL ponies don't have much other than being able to walk right after birth, I can see pegasus and unicorns having similar abilities. I must admit that Pound Cake dragging Pinky Pie around was a bit much. :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on January 15, 2012, 10:27:58 am
Well, a lot of young animals tend to have natural defenses that they grow out of. Like super sharp claws that dull some as they age. While RL ponies don't have much other than being able to walk right after birth, I can see pegasus and unicorns having similar abilities.
Yeah, I can see that too.  And just sort of, responding to primitive desires and stuff.  Still, think of the chaos it could cause...

Quote
I must admit that Pound Cake dragging Pinky Pie around was a bit much. :D
That at least we can put down to cartoon physics :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on January 15, 2012, 11:17:56 am
I eagerly caught the new episode, "Baby Cakes," right after it aired this morning.  If you guy's recall from my comments about last week's episode, "Family Appreciation Day," I made a prediction that this episode was going to be based around the staple comedy trope, "Badly Battered Babysitter." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadlyBatteredBabysitter)  Apparently I was correct, and believe it or not, somebody already listed this episode, along with the season 1 MLP:FiM episode "Stare Master," as being examples of this trope at tvtropes.org.  As much as I wish that I absolutely loved this episode (it has been a while now since I have seen an episode of MLP:FiM that I really adored), unfortunately I have never really been a fan of any kind of TV show, movie, etc. that had to do with plots centered around newborn babies, so that kind of biased me against this episode.  It's definitely nothing personal against MLP:FiM-- the original Hanna-Barbera/MGM Tom and Jerry theatrical animated shorts "Busy Buddies" and "Tot Watchers" were also famous examples of the "Badly Battered Babysitter" trope, and despite my thinking that the Hanna-Barbera/MGM Tom and Jerry shorts of the 1940's and 50's are some of the most genius cartoons ever made overall, I didn't really like those two babysitter-themed cartoons either.  What can I say, babies are whack.

Despite this, I did feel that the episode was very well written, I think it definitely turned on the funny a lot more than "Family Appreciation Day" did, and Pinkie Pie had a very satisfying character development arc in the episode as well.  If I had to choose between this episode and last week's "Family Appreciation Day," "Baby Cakes" is the clear winner, and it didn't even all of those Cheerilee bonus points to help it out like "Family Appreciation Day" did.

Quote
Applejack: "Now how in thunderation is one of them twins a pegasus, and the other one a unicorn?"

Carrot Cake:  "Easy. My great-great-great-great grandfather was a unicorn, and Cup Cake's great aunt's second cousin twice removed was a pegasus. That makes sense, right?"

In other words, this is the MLP:FiM writers' slick way of saying that any pony couple, no matter what combination of pony races that they are made up of, can have children of any pony race that the writers feel like.  Personally, I don't think that the small children watching this show would give much thought to pony genetics, and would probably accept two earth ponies having a pegasus and a unicorn as children without a second thought.  Therefore, it is *extremely* apparent that this line was placed into the episode for the sole purpose of shutting up the bronies on the issue of pony genetics in the show, especially the ones who have been spending the past year writing up elaborate fan fictions to explain why Derpy Hooves's alleged daughter "Dinky Hooves/Dinky Doo" is a unicorn instead of a pegasus.

Where do I side on this somewhat controversial new development?  I don't care really.  Honestly.  If the writers want to have the freedom to have any pony couple produce offspring of any pony race, and then explain it by saying that they had relatives of that race ix generations back, that is fine by me.  I suppose it is a little lazy on the writers' part to do this, because it now instantly resolves what could have been continuity errors caused by having blood relatives of different races in families, and it allows them to make any offspring/relative/sibling any pony race they feel like on a whim without having to worry about genealogy, but if it gives that much extra freedom to the show's real writers than it also grants that same freedom to the fan fiction writers, so I say that the effects are a wash.  I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing some really crazy mixed pony-race families start showing up in fan works really soon.

I realize that I have come down really hard on some of the continuity changes that were introduced into this show's canon in the past, but some of that comes down to the fact that I have been very slowly but surely in my spare time been developing my own series of MLP:FiM fan-fictions.  Pony race genetics plays absolutely no part part in what I am personally up to, so the show's writer's take on it doesn't really bother me because it happens to by chance not have any negative effect on anything that I am up to.  However, my own work is drawing heavily from both the little bit of the history of Equestria that has been presented and the royal pony sisters, so if that gets messed with (like in "Hearth's Warming Eve" and likely the upcoming season 2 finale if it lives up to the rumors) then I start to get a lot more particular and irate about the changes.  Is that attitude a bit self-serving of me?  Sure, but only so far as that as a fan I really really loved how certain writers (a.k.a. Lauren Faust and M. A. Larson) portrayed pony history and the royal pony sisters, and I don't want other staff writers coming along and screwing up some of the stuff that I really liked solely because it fits their plot du jour and they didn't really want to take the time to write their stories to accommodate what had been already established.  (Merriwether Williams, I am looking at you.)  If a writer can find a very compelling, interesting, or entertaining reason to change something, and it has a big enough pay-off (such as M. A. Larson's decision to change Luna's appearance and make her speak in Early-Modern English, for example), then I will most likely come to happily accept it.  However, if a retcon was most likely made solely because the writer couldn't really be bothered to do the research (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DidNotDoTheResearch) and see how something was handled before in an earlier episode and there is no positive pay-off that comes from the change, then I am not as likely to be very forgiving.

The babies were so much better than that one in The Mysterious Mare do Well, and also can walk (that, the fact that ponies can put the babies in saddlecarriers, and that ponies don't have hands, makes that baby carriage from TMMDW seem pretty ridiculous and unimaginative.  Like the rest of that episode, so yeah).

I second that thought, Foxxhoria.

But how did the foals get so much power in that one part?! And why can't the CMCs use their powers yet?

Rainbow Dash's, Twilight Sparkle's, and Rarity's dialog at 1:23 essentially foreshadowed that Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake would be able to use their powers later on in the episode, and the fact that this episode was of the "Badly Battered Babysitter" trope that guaranteed that the newborns' powers were going to be used against Pinkie Pie to make her first babysitting experience overwhelming, and create the low point that she has to overcome to grow as a character.  So it definitely works as far as the formula of the story for this particular episode goes.

As far as how well the magic use by the foals works in the shows' larger continuity goes, it is really hard to say.  First of all, it is hard to determine how much magical power unicorns have on average.  For example, you don't often find Rarity using her unicorn magic to do more than levitate the occasional shopping bag or sewing implement, or finding the occasional gem, yet there were a couple times where I believe that I recall seeing her carrying out small magic acts that I would have thought would have been more in-character with Twilight Sparkle, showing that Rarity can actually perform some other general magical feats if it suits her purpose at that particular point in time.  But besides Celestia, Luna, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and The Great and Powerful Trixie, I don't think that you see many unicorns using magic frequently in the series, which makes it difficult to pin down exactly how much magical power is possessed by an average unicorn as opposed to how much magical power would be possessed by a gifted unicorn, and whether or not Rarity's power can be considered gifted or average.  Whose to say-- Rarity's magic may be more gifted than the average unicorn's too-- we have no way to really know for certain because we don't see too many magic users practicing their craft.

As far as how old a unicorn or a pegasus is before they gain the ability to use magic or fly, I don't think that this has been previously established with any kind of certainty either.  We know from the episode "Cutie Mark Chronicles" that Rainbow Dash was already flying at supersonic speeds when she was young enough to still be in "summer flight camp."  Further more, in the same episode one of the colts that was making fun of the young Fluttershy's weak flying skills made the remark "my baby brother can fly better than you," which, if it wasn't a total lie, could pre-establish that baby pegasi could actually fly.  As far as Unicorns go, Twilight and Rarity were shown to be pretty little when they first started exploring their magical talents, but I don't think that we have ever seen any month-old foal unicorns using magic before now.  However, going on the literary principle of "Schrödinger's Gun" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SchrodingersGun), just because we haven't seen a foal unicorn use magic before now doesn't mean that they weren't always able to.  It just may have never come up before as a plot point.  With nothing else in the canon that we can use to disprove the idea that unicorn foals can use magic, I guess that you can say that this episode is the canon on the issue.

I, on the other hand, am a little more concerned about something else that a foal unicorn was shown to have in this episode when they are born-- a horn.  Based on what I know about how mammals give birth (thank you, Animal Planet!), giving birth to a foal with a rather sizable forehead-horn kind of poses a significant threat to the, um, "internal equipment" of the mother.  That's why in nature even baby rhinos are born without their horns.  In fact, as far as I could find in my research, there is only one animal that is born with their horns, and that is giraffes, but luckily their horns aren't very substantial like say, unicorn horns would be.  My Lord, I sincerely hope that foals in Equestria are born through some magically enhanced process (or at the very least a Caesarean section) and not through the traditional mammalian way or otherwise giving birth to baby unicorns has *really* got to hurt and would probably require an awful lot of stitches!  LOL!

Random observation: 14:11 - *Twilight Sparkle gets the door to the shop slammed into her face by Pinkie Pie*  Yeah!  Take that, Twilight Sparkle!   :D  I am sure that Twilight's heart was actually in the right place, but she needs to get her snoot out of her books and work on her people skills a bit!  She definitely came off as being a bit arrogant right there, and should have probably put a bit more thought into her words.  Maybe Twilight should still be writing the letters to Princess Celestia after all-- it still seems like she has some more to learn about friendship!  :D

The last thing that I wanted to comment on was this episode's apparent spoofing of the kind of scenes found in some horror movies at 16:38.  I always get kind of off-put when MLP:FiM starts to include some dark elements that depart from the tone of the episode like this, as it seems out of place with the rest of the episode, and may be unnecessarily a little off-putting to younger viewers of the show.  Now, the key word there in my last sentence was "unnecessarily."  I am not necessarily against the presence of darker elements in childrens' cartoons if there is a good enough pay-off resulting from the darker element being there.  If the dark element truly adds to telling of the story than I am more than down with it.  But I don't think that the creepy horror film homage with the strange voices, spooky laughter, and dissonant music in the scene when Pound Cake goes missing was exactly necessary just to establish that Pound Cake's wings were working and that he could walk on ceilings.  Now before you all start dog-piling on top of me and shouting things like, "Well Batman: The Animated Series was dark!  Are you telling me that you somehow didn't like Batman: The Animated Series?"  Of course I liked Batman: The Animated Series.  However, Batman was different because its tone was consistently dark.  Its dark tone was so consistent, that when people are often asked to describe the show, "dark" is usually the first thing that they end up saying.  I don't think that that show was ever *not* dark.  Because the show maintained it's gritty noir tone all the time, that's what viewers came to expect, and it worked well.

MLP:FiM is not a dark cartoon however.  It is a lighthearted situational comedy, that sometimes has more of a slice of life theme to it, and sometimes has more of an adventure theme to it.  Whenever the show suddenly strays away from its overall light-hearted theme, it can off-putting.  Just like if you suddenly introduced Cheerilee as a new character into Batman: The Animated Series, that would be off-putting and disruptive for the viewers of that show.  That doesn't mean that MLP:FiM can't have evil villains, or characters that occasionally get sad, or the occasional fire-breathing dragon-- as long as the show's overall tone sticks to its genre of "lighthearted situational comedy."  But once you suddenly slip off into another genre, such as the horror genre, even if it is just a toned down parody version of the horror genre and it was just for a scene, it can be off-putting because it is disruptive to the viewers' emotions.  The episode "Luna Eclipsed" had some creepier elements thrown into it due to the fact that it was a Halloween-themed episode, but it never lost the feeling of always being a comedy.  Sure, the mood of some of the characters in the episode were scared, but the tone and the music of the episode wasn't also trying to make you scared.  In "Baby Cakes" however, the sudden dissonant music wasn't there make Pinkie Pie nervous-- she already was.  It was there to make you, the viewer, nervous, changing the episode's tone.  *That* is the difference.  That is why I didn't like it.  I tend to strongly dislike it when the writers disrupt the tone of the show and the feelings of the viewers like that for the sake of a small joke or parody.  There must have been a dozen ways that they could have had a gag introduce the plot point that Pound Cake could fly and walk on ceilings that would have been as equally effective without resorting to what they did.  They could have even kept the mood, or in other words how Pinkie Pie felt, be nerve-racking as long as they didn't try to make you feel on edge as well.  I realize based on the last time that I brought this kind of complaint up that my opinion about it will probably prove to be pretty unpopular here, but I'm sticking to my guns on it.  I don't think the writers should disruptively change the tone of the show and the emotions of the viewers for a pay-off as small as a short parody gag.  If they are going to do it, there had very well be some crucial important story-telling reason that is so big that justifies it with some kind of pay-off that allows us to suspend our disbelief enough to accept it.

Anyway, enough with my critiquing.  With these last three episodes out of the way, I am really looking forward to next week's episode, "The Last Roundup."  It sounds like it may have more of an adventure feel to it, which hopefully means it will have some more exciting pacing and be right up my alley.  After a couple "slice of life" type episodes in a row I could really use something a little bit more excitement to it!  I need something that will start making me think of all of the adventures that can be had in the wider world of Equestria again!  *crosses fingers!*
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on January 15, 2012, 11:26:36 pm
Well, Hoagiebot, I mostly agree with you (and good catch on the full-grown horns :P ) but I'm surprised you were satisfied with the character development. As one person over at Equestria Daily put it, this was exactly the sort of plot Lauren Faust said she wanted to avoid: one where the protagonist succeeds in the end by crying about her problems.

I really expected to see Twilight Sparkle show up in the last scene, up until the last ten seconds or so even. As the episode stands the babies just eventually relented their shenanigans; which isn't exactly what one calls a plot.

(The episode was plenty entertaining for all its lack of plot though.)

Regarding the horror flick moment:

I realize based on the last time that I brought this kind of complaint up that my opinion about it will probably prove to be pretty unpopular here, but I'm sticking to my guns on it.  I don't think the writers should disruptively change the tone of the show and the emotions of the viewers for a pay-off as small as a short parody gag.

I disagree here because for me the music didn't do anything but display Pinkie's (ridiculous) view of the situation. It didn't feel like a dark moment to me. I can see how it might be an unacceptable mood change for some people though, depending on the way you sympathise with or interpret Pinkie or the music.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on January 16, 2012, 08:55:47 am
Well, Hoagiebot, I mostly agree with you (and good catch on the full-grown horns :P ) but I'm surprised you were satisfied with the character development. As one person over at Equestria Daily put it, this was exactly the sort of plot Lauren Faust said she wanted to avoid: one where the protagonist succeeds in the end by crying about her problems.

I really expected to see Twilight Sparkle show up in the last scene, up until the last ten seconds or so even. As the episode stands the babies just eventually relented their shenanigans; which isn't exactly what one calls a plot.

I can definitely see what you are getting at, but I still don't think that I necessarily agree with you.  There was definitely a plot with a three-act structure in this episode, but the third act is missing a real climax, which would seem to hobble it if you were expecting a traditional happy ending where the hero completely triumphs in the end.  For there to be a strong climax at the beginning of the third act, we would need to Pinkie pull herself together, show that she has learned from her previous flaw of not taking responsibility and take charge of the situation, and overcome the babies' magical powers in order to restore order and put them to bed.  That is what I am sure that both you and the guy at Equestria Daily were expecting.  However, we didn't see that.  The challenge that the foals' magic and flight powers posed to Pinkie were insurmountable, and Pinkie Pie became overwhelmed and cried.  The conflict instead becomes resolved when the antagonists become sympathetic to the protagonist and cease their resistance to her like you said.  That definitely does provide a second turning point to the story, which is what the beginning of the third act is supposed to do, but it is a bittersweet one because the protagonist, Pinkie Pie, didn't overcome the obstacle preventing her from her goal of proving that she is a responsible babysitter that can handle the two foals on her own.  Instead the obstacle just kind of moved out of the way of her path for her.  So I can definitely see how that could leave viewers dissatisfied if they felt that the protagonist must always triumph in the end.

However, the third act of the episode still has a strong final plot point, or "resolution"-- When Pinkie Pie voices over her letter to Princess Celestia, she admits to the Princess that "today I learned that sometimes our desire for responsibility can outrun our actual ability to handle it."  So she actually admits to the Princess that she didn't achieve her goal of being able to handle the responsibilities of being a babysitter on her own.  This does show us that Pinkie Pie's character developed-- she has learned that she really needs to think through what taking on a responsibility entails fully before she accepts it.  At this point Mr. and Mrs. Cake come home to find the kitchen sparkling clean, the babies in bed, and everything as it should be.  As far as they are concerned, Pinkie Pie proved to them that she can actually be a capable babysitter.  This episode has what the screenwriting website "Scribe Meets World" (http://scribemeetsworld.com/2011/screenplay-writing/how-to-write-a-script-outline-the-8-major-plot-points/) would call a "more European Ending," where, "the resolution is bittersweet for your hero. She might not have accomplished her goal, but somehow she’s still in a better place than when she began her journey."  This may not be the kind of resolution to a "hero's journey" type plot that we're typically used to, but it does work since Pinkie Pie admits to Princess Celestia that "her desire for responsibility was outrun by her ability to handle it."  If Pinkie had not admitted this, and instead acted as if she had succeeded in her goal completely, then I would agree with you that there was a plot-hole in this story.  But the very fact that she does admit in the end that she was overwhelmed ties that up-- the lesson here wasn't so much that raising children takes responsibility as much as it was that you shouldn't take on more responsibility than you can handle.  If you keep that in mind then the plot works.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on January 16, 2012, 04:10:34 pm
It was a cute, feel-good episode for me. Another one that I wouldn't really put in as one of my all-time favorites, but I can see myself watching this one quite a bit. It was funny and it made me happy. When I'm in the mood to just laugh, this could be one that I'll pick to watch.

I don't really look at is as 'Pinkie cried and got her way'. She broke down when she learned her lesson. She came to an understanding with the kids (in one of the more touching moments of the series, IMO), and then showed more responsibility than we've seen out of her in the past.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on January 16, 2012, 04:20:58 pm
I don't really look at is as 'Pinkie cried and got her way'. She broke down when she learned her lesson. She came to an understanding with the kids (in one of the more touching moments of the series, IMO), and then showed more responsibility than we've seen out of her in the past.
Agreed 100%
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on January 17, 2012, 02:58:29 pm
In the question of whether Pinkie Pie succeeded at being a responsible baby-sitter or just gave up and got what she wanted from crying, I think it's worth noting that the way the twins gave in to her was by imitating the very strategy she'd been using to cheer up them.  This means they'd been paying attention to her hard work and were learning from her.  She was modelling good behavior for them.  And, really, with raising children, you don't so much win as continue to survive from day to day.  So, no, Pinkie Pie never proved her superiority over the situation.  But, she did work really hard through the whole episode, striving as best she could to handle the twins.  That's actually about the best that any caretaker of a small child can do.

To quote the hilarious 80s comedy "Adventures in Babysitting":  "You’ve gotten the kids this far.  You’re still alive.  It could be a lot worse."
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on January 17, 2012, 11:33:06 pm
In the question of whether Pinkie Pie succeeded at being a responsible baby-sitter or just gave up and got what she wanted from crying, I think it's worth noting that the way the twins gave in to her was by imitating the very strategy she'd been using to cheer up them.  This means they'd been paying attention to her hard work and were learning from her.  She was modelling good behavior for them.  And, really, with raising children, you don't so much win as continue to survive from day to day.  So, no, Pinkie Pie never proved her superiority over the situation.  But, she did work really hard through the whole episode, striving as best she could to handle the twins.  That's actually about the best that any caretaker of a small child can do.

To quote the hilarious 80s comedy "Adventures in Babysitting":  "You’ve gotten the kids this far.  You’re still alive.  It could be a lot worse."

I could agree, except that Pinkie did show more responsibility than I would have ever given her credit for at the very end of the episode. After coming to an understanding with the babies, she actually cleaned up all that mess. Seriously, Pinkie throws all those parties and we've never seen her clean up after herself once.

This is separate from the babies themselves, and a direct result of Pinkie feeling responsible for making sure the house wasn't a mess when the Cakes returned.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on January 21, 2012, 04:09:53 pm
The Last Roundup!

Obviously the most important thing about this episode is that it once and for all establishes Derpy Hooves' name and gives her a voice. DERPY IS BEST PONY &c. &c. Her obsession with muffins and her being Ponyville's mail carrier are not canon though.

What just happened is amazing. I cannot help but envision a future where the most popular cartoons are half composed of popular fancharacters. But Derpy is such an unsubtle character, the glorious screw-up. I wonder, will she become a deeper character (will she even get more speaking roles)?

As for the rest of the episode, Applejack's secret was way obvious but that didn't ruin anything. I was hoping for musical numbers in this one though!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on January 21, 2012, 04:26:42 pm
I was actually fairly surprised by the reveal. I totally didn't see it coming that she'd come in other places but first. I was surprised. However I think thats mostly because I was focused so strongly on the AppleDash segments. This episode was strong on the friendship between AJ and RD and I loved it.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on January 21, 2012, 06:16:35 pm
Well, I don't have 5 or 6 hours right now to type out one of my usually long and thorough reviews since I have to go somewhere both tonight and tomorrow morning, and yet I am way too excited about this new episode to wait until tomorrow evening to review it fully.  I guess I will just have to bang out as much of a review as I can in the time that I have now, and if I have to add more to my thoughts and impressions about this new episode tomorrow then so be it!

So, my thoughts and impressions about "The Last Roundup" by Amy Keating Rogers...

Derpy spoke!!!

As a Brony, did you ever think that you would hear Derpy given any real dialog?  Up until now, all we have allegedly heard Derpy say was the single word "Muffins," and that may not have even been her because there was another mare or two whose mouths also synced up with that line.  And now all of a sudden we get Derpy Hooves and Rainbow Dash pretty much holding on an entire conversation!  And as much as I wish that I could say that hearing Derpy speak like that was the most epic moment during my time as a Brony ever, I have to sadly say that I was very let down.  Why?  Because they made Derpy actually sound "derpy."  What's wrong with that you ask?  Well, the first thing that I thought of when I heard Derpy's new voice was how it reminded me very strongly of the voice of Chris Griffin's girlfriend in the Family Guy season 8 episode, "Extra Large Medium."  You know the girlfriend that I am talking about-- the one that Stewie Griffin sang the song about called "Down's Syndrome Girl."  The fact that Derpy actually came across to me as being actually mentally challenged, instead of just a well-meaning but hapless ditz, kind of sucked the fun out of the moment for me.  It kind of made me start to feel a little *guilty* for laughing at her and all of her antics over these past several months.  Even worse, I now have a bad feeling that Hasbro and Studio B just might have just set themselves up for some real backlash over this, because I am sure that if I interpreted Derpy as acting a little literally mentally challenged than I am probably not the only one who notuced.  While I am by no means a stickler for political correctness, there are a lot of people out there that may take some serious offense to that.  Because of this, I am interested to see what the public at large's reaction to Derpy's new speaking part is, and how everything ends up playing out in the fandom.

On a more personal note, since Derpy was essentially a background character that we all knew almost nothing about, I am sure that many of you were like me and had your own unique idea of what you thought she would be like.  I myself saw her as a sympathetic and sweet ditsy airhead character who always meant well, but nothing that she tried to do ever turned out quite right for her.  In other words, I saw her as more hapless and somewhat oblivious than downright stupid.  Her blond mane and "bubbles" cutie mark kind of re-enforced that image for me, and made me kind of think of her as the "air-headed blond" of Ponyville.  (You see-- I told you that I wasn't overly politically correct-- I have no misgivings about having "blond" stereotypes in my cartoon characters.  :D )  Normally it would be expected for me to be a little disappointed with how Derpy turned out just because she didn't end up fitting my own personal image of what I thought she would be like.  Thinking back, I was originally a little disappointed at first with how Princess Luna turned out in "Luna Eclipsed" after I saw that episode for the first time, but then after my initial impressions wore off I quickly grew to love the new Luna.  But the fact that Derpy ended up reminding me of Chris Griffin's "Down's Syndrome Girl" girlfriend is going to be a connection that is going to be extremely hard for me to shake.  As a result, the price of Derpy's shares on the "Hoagiebot-Jones Industrial Pony Stock Index" (a.k.a. the "HJIPSI") just took an unfortunate and tragic dive... like a fallen angel... so sad.   :'(  I still love the character, but now I am going to have to say that I love my own personal take on the character more than the new canon one.  I have a whole bunch of Derpy fan art that I want to draw, and to keep myself enthusiastic about it I am just going to have to pretend that the scene where she is helping Rainbow Dash decorate the town hall just didn't happen for now!

That brings me to the next star of the show, everybody's favorite farm pony, Applejack.  I felt so bad for Applejack in this episode.  As soon as I saw her leg hit that hurdle at 0:21 I knew that that was foreshadowing that something bad was going to happen to her later on.  By about 3:22 when the mayor started really laying it on thick on how Applejack was going to be donating her future prize money to the town I already figured out what was up-- that Applejack wasn't going to win any money, and that was why she wasn't going to return home.  I really know how Applejack feels here-- I used to compete in a lot of different events in both high school and college, and it seems that no matter how hard that I tried the the best that I could ever seem to do was fourth place.  In the 2000 Illinois Science Olympiad I got fourth place in Astronomy in the regional competition, and then went on to also take fourth place at the state-level (http://hoagiebot.furrynet.com/profile/webdan13.jpg).  At the Association of Information Technology Professionals I ended up taking fourth place in the country in the Computer Hardware Trouble Shooting event.  At that competition, third place and up got to actually take home prize money, so just like Applejack I returned home with none.  So I feel her pain-- I really do.  And I understand completely why she didn't want to return home until she had made enough money to pay for the repairs to the town hall of Ponyville.  But seeing how sad that she made Big McIntosh and the rest of her family when she didn't come home, well, she should have known better.  She should have really known that her not coming home to Ponyville was going to hurt her family and friends a lot more than her showing up without prize money would.  Now I realize that that is the lesson that Applejack ultimately learns by the end of the episode, but knowing what I do about her character from previous episodes I still think that she should have really known better to begin with-- she made Big McIntosh cry for Celestia's sake!  Oh, and Applejack once again demonstrated that she is an absolutely terrible liar.  I know that she is the Element of Honesty and all, but jeez, Rarity really needs to give her some lessons in the area of white lies and deception, because Applejack was fooling nopony.

Some other random things that I noticed:


Despite the fact that I had a good sense about what was going to happen in this episode early on, and despite the little Derpy mis-step, I still enjoyed this episode immensely.  Amy Keating Rogers was for the most part one of my more well-liked writers from the first season, and this episode definitely reminded me why!  If the next episode, "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" is only half as good as this one was then we will all be in for a real treat!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Sheeta on January 21, 2012, 09:13:28 pm
Quote
Yellow-colored cherries, eh?  Well, I guess we have rainbow-colored zap apples so why not.

Never heard of Rainier cherries?  They're a yellow to red-yellow type.  Very delicious!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on January 22, 2012, 02:11:40 pm
they made Derpy actually sound "derpy."

Yeah, Derpy probably would be more interesting as an average or even smart character who simply messes up a lot. (rather than a dumb blond :P )

knowing what I do about her character from previous episodes I still think that she should have really known better to begin with-- she made Big McIntosh cry for Celestia's sake!

I feel like there's practically a requirement of one out-of-character decision per episode. At least to me, it doesn't feel like Rarity would really feel the need to lie about a party, like Twilight would try to instigate a 'friendship lesson' (when she can just write summaries of previous letters like a boss :D ) &c. &c. Well thinking back on it maybe only about a quarter of the episodes have what I think of as really out-of-character moments instigating the conflict.

Oh also. This aspect of the show reminded me of Band Exhibition in high school; we got a red 2nd division ribbon instead of our usual 1st division blue one year and I was the only one willing to wear it. "We're Reed City. We don't wear red ribbons." We had a new band director and to me at least, treating 2nd division like a loss seemed an awful lot like blaming him.

  • 5:53 - Well I guess that Derpy isn't the official mail carrier of Ponyville, because there is a mail carrier right there.  *sigh*  Why couldn't have this have been Derpy's moment in the episode instead of that over-the-top scene in the beginning?  At least Pinkie gave the birthday boy some cake!

Wow that is an astute observation! And it would be a good Derpy moment for her to think it was her birthday party. It almost seems like this scene was originally meant for her!someone should fanimate her into this scene

  • 8:18 - Pinke Pie: "I don't know how I'll make it to the next stop!"  LOL!
  • 8:56 - Pinkie Pie: "I found her !  I found her!  I found her!  I found her... be right back!"  LOL again!   :D

Yeah Pinkie really was well written in this episode. If Derpy hadn't stolen the show Pinkie would've, poor Applejack!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ickyrus on January 22, 2012, 11:10:52 pm
I LOVED this episode!
It finally had all the mane 6 back in together. As nice as it is to have feature episodes, I missed seeing them all interacting. Pinkie Pie was brilliant as usual, but even more with her rage-attack and being used as the pony secret weapon. Big Mac was also golden in this, I liked how emotional he got about AJ being missing and when she came back, it was adorable! And it seems AJ still has a bit of ol' discord's message hanging around in her when she chose to hide the truth to save her friendships. Although running away from them isn't the best way to go about that, since you lose them anyhow. She's wavering on her honesty element methinks.
The only thing I didn't like about this episode was: THE FANS.
Seriously, you people complain so muuuuch. The creators of a show decide to throw in one of your characters, so everyone WHINES about it. I liked how she was, and I don't think being the typical bimbo ditz would've worked, or been a good influence on a show for little girls. One thing that I've liked about this series is that they have had really brilliant female personalities and haven't had to resort into the typical, ditzy stereotype. Not to mention that she's grey, and no ditz that I know would ever be caught dead with a coat that colour. I didn't get "Down syndrome" from her at all, and really liked her voice. It reminded me of the old days of Ed, Edd and Eddy, in that she's more like them in the way she fails everything than a clueless blonde that gets everywhere with her looks (She has the same mane style as RD, clearly she doesn't care about her appearance xP) And as for the mail carrier scene, I don't think Derpy fit there at all. He wasn't a ponyville pony, obviously, since they don't have those taller ponies anywhere and the letter would not have been from ponyville.
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, THEY CALLED HER DERPY, DON'T COMPLAIN THAT SHE ACTUALLY IS DERPY.
People should know the ponies resemble their names, so having her contrast that would be weird in this ponyverse.
Like having Pinkie Pie being emo or something, it just wouldn't be right. If I was the creator seeing all this, I'd be pretty disappointed by the ungratefulness of the fans, probably remove Derpy altogether or go back to calling her ditzy doo, and NEVER try to interact with the fans or incorporate anything brony again. Clearly they'll never be happy, no matter how much they try.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on January 23, 2012, 12:04:21 am
Oh

You are correct Saloonka.

Or well, there are some nuances to be had but in the mane you are absolutely right. While for some it may be clear that the context of any discussion of the "imperfections" in Derpy Hooves' triumphant scene is that of, having already rejoiced plentifully, calming down and deciding to discuss the other end of things so to speak—critical dissection, after all, knows no limits—it certainly could be taken out of context as more purely complaint over a gift, and that is something which should be kept in mind.

I mean, intellectually speaking it's easy enough to understand that there are tens of thousands of bronies out there, and any conceivable opinion is bound to be expressed, and things like 'happy' or 'disgruntled' don't apply in the same way to huge crowds because someone is always going to be one or the other, how (if I may wax philosophical (as if I ever stop doing so)) peering into the discussion threads that make up a fandom is more like peering into a friends brain, where one might discover hidden doubts and discomforts and ugly thoughts than it is like actually speaking to a friend, who sorts through their inner turmoil to present a reasonable whole. Intellectually speaking an artist can tell themselves "it's the INTERNET, people are going to criticize the work no matter what, I can handle that"; but in actual practice it hurts to see one's work criticized, and it's difficult for almost everyone to get used to. So as much as the modern Internet may be spontaneously turning into a brain unto itself with all its hidden twisty thoughts, we should nonetheless work to be a façade, an actual coherent presentation of beliefs, which means that when discussing Derpy in forums, we should consider writing just like if we were talking to the FiM artists.

Like I said Saloonka you make some other points somewhat worth discussing but I gotta stop typing now. (http://d.facdn.net/art/aspect/1326350445.thumbnail.aspect_smilie.jpg)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on January 23, 2012, 04:44:36 pm
The only thing I didn't like about this episode was: THE FANS.
Seriously, you people complain so muuuuch. The creators of a show decide to throw in one of your characters, so everyone WHINES about it.  If I was the creator seeing all this, I'd be pretty disappointed by the ungratefulness of the fans, probably remove Derpy altogether or go back to calling her ditzy doo, and NEVER try to interact with the fans or incorporate anything brony again. Clearly they'll never be happy, no matter how much they try.

I hate to break it to you, but as soon as an artist shows or distributes a work to the public at large, people are going to form opinions about it.  The whole point of art is to create something that effects people who experience it.  It doesn't matter what form of art it is-- it could be a sculpture, a theater play, a book, a movie, a television show, a painting, anything.  And it doesn't matter how famous the artist is either-- it could be young person who just uploaded their first piece of artwork to DeviantArt or it could be Francis Ford Coppola.  As soon as you let other people see your work you're letting the genie out of the bottle, and you're going to get feedback.  And the feedback that your artwork receives is not always going to be what you want to hear.  Do you think that every single member of the cast and crew that worked on the relatively recently released movie New Year's Eve enjoyed the fact that their movie only received an absolutely dismal rating of 7% out of 100% for their efforts on the movie review website Rotten Tomatoes? (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/new_years_eve_2011/)  I highly doubt it, but if you're going to be a professional artist of any type, you're going to have to learn how to deal with negative criticism like that.  It's part of the business, and the direct result of having your work get seen.  In fact, there are people who have made entire professions out of critiquing other peoples' work (i.e. professional film critics, book critics, music critics, etc.).  So I'm sorry, but the whole idea that fans need to always praise a show and never say what their true reaction to something is in order to avoid hurting the feelings of the creative team behind a show is such a load of garbage.  If the people making these shows are professionals (and they want to stay respected professionals), they need to learn how to deal with adverse reactions to their work and either move on or grow from it.  Besides, negative reviews and adverse fan reactions are a side effect of having people actually caring about what you are doing, so Hasbro and Studio B should both be pleased that they actually have an active fanbase that gives them feedback at all.  It's when there is no one that cares enough to comment on your work that you should really be worried.

It reminded me of the old days of Ed, Edd and Eddy, in that she's more like them in the way she fails everything than a clueless blonde that gets everywhere with her looks

I never said that I thought that Derpy was the kind of character that flaunts her sex appeal to get ahead.  To use TVTropes.org terms, I always personally viewed Derpy as a general "ditz" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDitz) as opposed to a "brainless beauty" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrainlessBeauty?from=Main.TheBrainlessBeauty).  To quote the first two sentences of the article on TVTropes.org for the "Ditz," "The Ditz is a character whose defining characteristic is profound stupidity. Female ditzes tend to be sweet and naive..."  That about sums up my feelings about her.  If you want to go along with your argument that ponies always resemble their names, then the earlier possible canon name for her of "Ditzy Doo" would have been perfectly fine with me, because she has always come across to me as being more "ditzy" than "derpy" anyway.  I only personally called her "Derpy" because that has been the most prevalent fan-name for her in the fandom.  I wanted people to know who I was talking about, so I called her what most people knew her as.

Personally, I never clamored for Derpy to have a major speaking part.  Up until now Derpy was always a background character, and one that was always used for what TVTropes calls a "Slapstick Knows No Gender" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SlapstickKnowsNoGender)-type role, or a female character that was primarily used for physical comedy.  I actually really liked the fact that she never really spoke, because it made her style of cartoon physical comedy kind of remind me of the style used by Harpo Marx, or most of the time with the character Wile E. Coyote.  Like Wile E. and Harpo, Derpy didn't need to speak-- you knew how she was feeling after things went wrong for her based on her facial expressions and pantomime.  Her apple-bobbing scene in the episode "Luna Eclipsed" was her defining moment for me-- she was so excited when she thought that she had pulled up a red apple out of the water, and then became so disappointed when she realized that she had pulled out the red plug for the giant tub of water that she was in.  I actually thought that that look of disappointment on her face was pretty touching, and it kind of "woobie-ized" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWoobie) her character a bit for me.

It has been historically dangerous to make these "voiceless" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheVoiceless) characters speak, as it has *always* lead to mixed fan reactions.  For example, Harpo Marx once spoke some ad-libbed lines during a Vaudeville performance early in his career, and when he later read the review about his performance, the reviewer wrote that his speaking those few lines ruined the excellent pantomime performance that he had given up to that point in the show.  As a result, Harpo never spoke during a performance or in a film again and stuck to simply being a voiceless pantomime character, which is what he eventually became extremely famous for.  I personally felt that this should have also been the comedic treatment for Derpy.  Excuse the pun, but she's a one-trick pony-- you know that when you see her that she is going to screw something up.  This is best left for short unexpected gags, such as her accidentally draining the before-mentioned apple tub, or accidentally dropping objects from a moving truck onto Twilight from above.  Her scene in "The Last Roundup" was just way over-gratuitous to be funny.  First she's singeing Rainbow Dash's tail with lightning, then she's blowing holes into the roof of the town hall, then she's shocking herself with the storm cloud, then she's knocking down a pillar, then she's breaking through the floor with her butt... I mean enough is enough!  I get it already!  I already know that Derpy's a living disaster!  But when the show just drives that point home again and again repeatedly in quick succession like that it just isn't funny.  If the episode had just chosen to use one of those gags for Derpy at that moment instead of sequentially running through all of them, it probably would have been great.  Instead, it just felt really forced to me.  It was "shotgun" comedic timing gone wrong.  Add in the fact that I interpreted her new voice as sounding mentally challenged instead of just ditzy, and now I feel guilty for laughing at her during the course of the series, like I am now cruelly laughing at some special education student for screwing up even though they were doing the best that they could.  Since Derpy is intended to be a comic relief character, this is not how I should be feeling about her.  I know that that is my own personal interpretation of Derpy's new voice, and that not everyone is going to interpret her new voice in the same way, but since I have interpreted her new voice in that way I am just going to try and forget that I ever heard Derpy speak.  I want to think that I am laughing at a hapless but well-meaning ditzy voiceless (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheVoiceless) cartoon character and not at someone who sounds like they have a genuine disability that I really shouldn't be laughing at.  If you can get by with her new voice and not feel as I do, then more power to you.

And as for the mail carrier scene, I don't think Derpy fit there at all. He wasn't a ponyville pony, obviously, since they don't have those taller ponies anywhere and the letter would not have been from ponyville.

There are two major flaws with your deduction that the mail carrier could not have come from Ponyville.  First of all, your statement that they have never shown any other tall ponies in Ponyville is false.  Two quick examples of taller ponies that were seen in Ponyville before this last episode that come to my mind are Stinking Rich (http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/5/52/StinkingRich_ID.png) and the mare from the bowling alley (http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/0/0c/Allie_Way.png).  Your second reason, that the mail carrier couldn't have come from Ponyville because the letter he was delivering didn't come from Ponyville, makes no sense if Equestria's postal system acts in any way like modern postal systems the world over.  I don't know how mail delivery works in your neck of the woods, but I have the same mailman delivering my mail to me day after day no matter where the individual letters in my mail are coming from.  I don't all of a sudden have a delivery person from Japan come to my door when I buy something from Japan, or a Canadian delivery person come to my door when I have received something from Canada.  Instead I get the same old mailman, UPS truck driver, or FedEx truck driver, going through their local routes.  So while I can't say for certain that the pony mail carrier shown in this episode was from Ponyville, at the same time you certainly can't say for sure that he wasn't.  And I have to agree with Aspect when it comes to this scene-- I would have much rather had Derpy deliver the letter and think that the surprise party was for her birthday rather than this generic mail-carrier pony.  Having her in this scene would have been far more endearing and clever than what the writer had her do earlier on in the episode.

Never heard of Rainier cherries?  They're a yellow to red-yellow type.  Very delicious!

You got me there.  I was familiar with red cherries of course, and black cherries, and those dyed-green maraschino cherries, but I had never heard of yellow Rainier cherries before you mentioned them.  It looks like I have learned something new today!   :)
(http://cl.ly/4Bbt/the%20more%20you%20know.gif)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ickyrus on January 23, 2012, 09:17:23 pm
I wasn't saying that the negativity about the show in general was the problem, but the negativity about something they put in for the fans. Like a present that people then go and whine about because it wasn't ~quite~ right. I get what you're saying though about giving voices to characters that shouldn't have them, personally I was never that much into Derpy to care what they did to her. But I gather that many people wanted her to have a line or two, then were disappointed and lashed out. Maybe they should've just gone with RD referring to her as "Derpy" as a shout out instead of going above and beyond expectations in an attempt to please. But what is done is done.
Also I wouldn't dismiss her as anything yet at all anyway, she only got one scene for her character development with a voice, so she may still have some redeeming qualities that fanfic writers can fantasise about. Maybe the others made her write a letter to Celestia and she learned not to be seen and not heard, and not touch anything.

I also don't imagine the postal system for ponies to be anything like our modern system. But there's no showing of how it works, nor do I think it's important enough to put into an episode. They don't have the population of we humans, and they're ponies, so I can't imagine it'd be too hard to have a pony or two as the "Canterlot to Ponyville" couriers and such. Still, I liked the postmanchap as he was, and that Pinkie was the only nice pony. And who knows, maybe Derpy was fired from her mailing position.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on January 24, 2012, 01:03:26 am
Like a present that people then go and whine about because it wasn't ~quite~ right.
Obviously we should ask Rarity about this.
...But I gather that many people wanted her to have a line or two, then were disappointed and lashed out.
What I think the hardcore Derpy fans wanted was an entire episode about her.

Also I wouldn't dismiss her as anything yet at all anyway, she only got one scene for her character development with a voice, so she may still have some redeeming qualities that fanfic writers can fantasise about. Maybe the others made her write a letter to Celestia and she learned not to be seen and not heard, and not touch anything.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ickyrus on January 24, 2012, 01:47:36 am
Haha! Have we learnt nothing from our little ponies?!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on January 24, 2012, 02:53:53 am
*Takes a deep breath and recites to calm down from the Derpy debates...*

Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on January 24, 2012, 11:06:34 am
*Takes a deep breath and recites to calm down from the Derpy debates...*

Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
*Duct tapes his muzzle shut*
Please stop or I will hurt you. :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on January 24, 2012, 11:48:08 am
*Takes a deep breath and recites to calm down from the Derpy debates...*

Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
*Duct tapes his muzzle shut*
Please stop or I will hurt you. :D
Awwww, ok..... kumquat kumquat kumquat kumquat kumquat  :D

Oh, and did anyone else think that the mayor is rather greedy after this episode?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on January 24, 2012, 01:10:56 pm
I love how Pinkie Pie is genuinely annoying, to te point where other cast members will avoid her, but she has enough redeeming qualities that everyone still likes her.

Seems like she's had more Element of Loyalty moments than Rainbow Dash, if we count "FOREVER" and Pinkie Promises and everything.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on January 24, 2012, 04:38:02 pm
*Takes a deep breath and recites to calm down from the Derpy debates...*

Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
*Duct tapes his muzzle shut*
Please stop or I will hurt you. :D
Awwww, ok..... kumquat kumquat kumquat kumquat kumquat  :D

Oh, and did anyone else think that the mayor is rather greedy after this episode?
Actually I was paying more attention to how she kept staring at AJ's rump and then looked away anytime AJ looked her direction. Seriously, watch again and pay attention to the Mayor.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on January 24, 2012, 05:05:53 pm
Well to me, the mayor always has "that look" when another pony gets her attention.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: redyoshi49q on January 26, 2012, 01:49:05 am
What surprised me was the fact that Hasbro used a fan nickname in the series.  I'm surprised their lawyers didn' t throw a fit about using fanon material in the show, no matter how small.

...I approve of this immensely.  The Hasbro/brony relationship should be a little more interesting from here on out (not that it wasn't already interesting).


This was a particularly good episode in my eyes.  I had guessed the plot even before Appledash left for Canterlot, but it took me a little longer than that bot be 100% sure about it.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on January 26, 2012, 08:51:49 pm
What surprised me was the fact that Hasbro used a fan nickname in the series.  I'm surprised their lawyers didn' t throw a fit about using fanon material in the show, no matter how small.

...I approve of this immensely.  The Hasbro/brony relationship should be a little more interesting from here on out (not that it wasn't already interesting).


This was a particularly good episode in my eyes.  I had guessed the plot even before Appledash left for Canterlot, but it took me a little longer than that bot be 100% sure about it.

I do think it's pretty cool that they did it. Sure, having a mention of us in a promo song was cool. And letting the VA's go out to our conventions was awesome. Then there's just how connected the show staff has been with us to this point. But to put a direct reference in an episode to something that came specifically from the community... it's the biggest thing they've done for the community, by a long shot. It means that some higher-ups have realized what is going on, and they were willing to give the blessing to put it in.

As for the legal thing. For one, it's still their character, and there's not really anybody that can specifically claim the 'Derpy' name. Also, even if it had a legal leg to stand on, I'd say there's a fairly mutual understanding between the two communities. I mean, they've let us get away with a lot more than just taking a character's name.

What I find most exciting about it, is that I feel like it's a positive sign for a third season. I've heard rumors both ways about Season 3. At BroNYcon, the VA's did say that season 3 was 'looking good'. But I've also heard a few rumblings in the other direction. But between the fact that the VA's are a bit more reliable a source than a few internet rumors, and the inclusion of Derpy, I'm pretty optimistic now.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on January 26, 2012, 10:57:42 pm
Derpy. This was amazing.

I have to say, this was probably my favorite episode of the season.

"Fine. Raritycatchme!"
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on January 28, 2012, 08:40:17 pm
Hey hey hey!  Today was new pony day!  And with today's episode being an M.A. Larson episode, you can bet on two things:

A.) I *really* liked it, and
B.) it's going to suck my in, successfully suspend my disbelief, and cause me to comment about it largely from an in-universe perspective!  Yay! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLTZctTG6cE)

When I was watching this episode actually I got as excited as the ponies from Ponyville did by the appearance of the Flim-Flam Brothers!  Did anybody else end up (at least initially) rooting for them as the rightful heroes of this episode?  I mean finally, some proper (albeit fairly steampunk) ponies of SCIENCE* were finally going to come to Ponyville and school those simple savages-- for SCIENCE!  For a few moments I could almost imagine a far better Equestria, filled with endless rooms of arcane equipment.  There would be vacuum tubes, spark gaps, antenna radials, internal combustion engines, giant concrete skyscrapers, hydroelectric dams (only for a reason this time!), mighty Zeppelins, and Maxim guns!  It would be wondrous in a quaint Louisiana Purchase Exposition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase_Exposition) sort of way!   :)

Besides, the Apple Family really needs to be taught a lesson in simple economics.  First, in the episode "Family Appreciation Day," we see the Apple Family selling their zap apple jam to the Rich family at a price which apparently must have been below market levels, as it allowed the Rich family to then sell it at a markup and build a retail empire as a result.  Now in this episode we have the Apple family blissfully ignoring the law of supply and demand, and allowing a huge swathe of potential customers go without product.  If they are constantly running out of their supply of apple cider, and they are refusing to increase that supply due to wanting to keep quality control standards high, then obviously they aren't charging enough for their product.  They should learn a lesson from that other Apple family (http://www.apple.com/), you know, the one that makes computers, phones, and music players, and start charging a premium for their high-end goods, which would allow them to make more money from that limited and very heavily sought-after supply.  The Apple Family was basically begging for some more business-savvy entrepreneurs like the Flim-Flam brothers to move in on their turf, and I was hoping that the Flim-Flam brother's automated process allowing them to create large amounts of cider in scale would teach those Apple Family Luddites a lesson in how business is supposed to work.

Instead, that's not what happened.  Typical of M.A. Larson villains such as Discord, the Flim-Flam brothers became blindly overconfident in their own superiority and of their own success, causing them to make a stupid mistake and lose out in the end as a result of it.  In TVTropes.org terms, they sort of acted as the villain type known as the "smug snake (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SmugSnake):"

Quote
A key character trait common to Smug Snakes is overconfidence. The Smug Snake is usually too arrogant to be rattled. Most often, they will think themselves to be the Magnificent Bastard. While they may believe that they have the situation under control (whether they do so through blackmail, coercion, or simply being in a position of authority), there will usually be a hole in that plan that they failed to consider. Perhaps they underestimated their opponents' abilities and claimed themselves unbeatable, or maybe they made a really stupid mistake along the way.
...
Most of the time, a writer will purposely introduce a Smug Snake as a target for audience hate by making them Kick the Dog (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KickTheDog) or bend the rules to get their way and come out smelling like a rose.

As much as I was cheering the Flim-Flam brothers on initially, at around 17:37 these characters sadly let their true colors come out, and crossed the moral event horizon (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralEventHorizon) making them irredeemably into the antagonists of this episode by showing them throwing all of their previous commitment to product quality into the wind just so that they could produce the most product and win the contest.  So in other words, when the Flim-Flam brothers were confronted with true adversity, their smug snaky-ness came out-- first they were far too overconfident in their own success making them underestimate their opponents, then they made the stupid mistake of allowing the rest of the Mane 6 assist the Apple family with their cider making causing the Apple family to be able to outpace them in production.  Then, when the Flim-Flam brothers were caught off guard by their sudden reversal in fortunes they completely lost their cool and got desperate, still winning the battle but losing the war when it turned out that they had cut their corners too greatly and their cider was now undrinkable.  It was such a shame too-- while Applejack may have smugly not learned anything about friendship in this episode, she didn't learn anything about economics either.  I am rather disappointed that the Flim-Flam brothers essentially sabotaged themselves when instead they should have given the Sweet Apple Acres clan a thorough beating through economy of scale.  *sigh*

Oh well.  It's not the first time a My Little Pony villain has let me down.  They can't all be Tirek (http://img.ponibooru.org/_images/6e91b9f76cda6465b78bc2c01a27374d/48605%20-%20g1%20Rescue_From_Midnight_Castle%20tirek.jpg), Lord of all that is Awesome and Bad@ss.  Anyway, some random observations about this episode:


In any case, that last tiny little gripe aside, I really really liked this episode!  It still doesn't beat out "Luna Eclipsed" for my favorite episode of the second season, but it easily makes it into my top five!  For next week we have the new episode "Read it and Weep," which is already getting me all excited because its episode description is reminding me of this show (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6j8EiWIVZs)!  I highly doubt that I am the only brony who has noticed this, so I bet that the "Reading Rainbow" memes will be flying after this episode airs!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on January 28, 2012, 09:49:13 pm
The biggest thing about the episode is the REALLY AWESOME VAUDEVILLIAN SONG OF EPIC LENGTH! (Royal Canterlot Voice required)
Like seriously, that thing went on for two more full verses after I already thought the song was lasting a long time.

Also, two episodes in a row where RD has tears in her eyes. For different reasons obviously, but still. RD has emotions. Who knew?

I thought AJ would have a bit more of a starring role in this one. But while Dashie kinda steals the spotlight a bit, she did have decent impact on the episode. And her letter to the princess was the best so far, bar none.

One last thing: A LOT of Derpy flying around in the background for this one.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on January 28, 2012, 11:21:31 pm
I loved how the Flim Flam brothers were straight out of The Music Man.  I loved the way that their cider squeezey looked like Willy Wonka's weird car thing that runs on foam.  I loved the really long song.  (Finally!  It's been too long since the last real song.)  And I loved AJ's letter to Princess Celestia.  This was a great episode.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on January 29, 2012, 03:11:11 am
I really enjoyed this episode and I think the song was one of the best. I think it's currently tied for the #1 spot on my list with The Gala song. Gala got it for being such a well orchestrated piece, but I absolutely loved the bouncy yet advertising feel of this song. Creative use of steering mob mentality, and I've now got apple cider on my list next time I go shopping. Hmmm... I wonder if cider sales are about to make a noticable jump... :D Oh, and that bow legged bounce during the song had me mezmerized for some reason. lol

Speaking of the Gala, Hoagie, they do show money in that episode at least twice. Once of course during AJ's part of the song where she's standing on a big pile of coins, but I'm not sure if you'd count that. At 9:20 in the episode, they show Soran(SP?) tossing 2 coins into AJ's bucket for a pie.

Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on January 29, 2012, 03:22:02 am
The minute I saw the machine, I thought "Sometimes I sit down with myself and I ask..Onceler? Why are you a Onceler?"
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ickyrus on January 29, 2012, 05:49:35 am
The Flimflam brothers are officially my favourite characters, better than Discord even. And finally a song that I liked, and like it muchly, I did!
And the message was terrific xD
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on January 29, 2012, 10:42:52 am
Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on January 29, 2012, 11:16:47 am
Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail.

Yeah, saw that video. It did match up rather well.
Also, posting so I'm not sitting at 666 posts anymore O.O
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on January 29, 2012, 03:49:45 pm
I've been thinking about the economics in this episode and Hoagiebot's complaints about the Apple Family making poor business decisions.  I do think that AJ should have tried haggling over the 75/25 split of the profits that Flim and Flam offered.  However, this isn't really about technological progress versus doing things the traditional way -- it's about unicorn magic versus earth pony legwork.  'Cause the Flim Flam brothers have to use their magic to run the machine the entire time.  It's a different way to do things -- and it does seem to mean that two unicorns can do the work of four earth ponies in a fraction of the time.  (Though, it's worth noting that one of those earth ponies is quite young and the other quite old.)  However, it's not actually a straightforward upgrade.  Working with the Flim Flam brothers would involve... well, working with the Flim Flam brothers.  Letting skeezy outsiders into the family business is a cost in and of itself.

Furthermore, when it comes to the question of whether the Apple family could be charging more for the cider or making more by cutting the middle man out of selling zap apple jam, I'm willing to give the Apples the benefit of the doubt.  It's possible that they're actually getting a higher price for their cider by keeping it a limited commodity that's in high demand.  It could be that if they charged more the customer base would jump from everypony wanting it directly to everypony turning their noses up because it's too expensive.  And, in the case of the zap apple jam, the Apple family is farm workers.  Filthy Rich may really be contributing significant value by distributing and marketing the zap apple jam.  I know that I was personally really, really, really happy to offer a cut of profits from my novel to FurPlanet for having them take over distributing it to furry cons for me.  That's simply something that they're better set up to do than I am.  So, while the zap apple jam may be really valuable, it's possible that they simply can't reach enough of a customer base without having a third party distributor.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on January 29, 2012, 03:57:10 pm
This episode was great!  It was fun  to see all the parts of the episode tied in with each other--that isn't always the case.  I don't know how well the economic logic holds up (I've seen no fewer than three threads on Ponychan overanalyzing Equestrian economics), but the story was great.  SSCS6k reminded me a lot of an old musical called The Music Man.  "Oh, we got trouble! Right here in River City!"  :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on January 29, 2012, 04:26:26 pm
Furthermore, when it comes to the question of whether the Apple family could be charging more for the cider or making more by cutting the middle man out of selling zap apple jam, I'm willing to give the Apples the benefit of the doubt.  It's possible that they're actually getting a higher price for their cider by keeping it a limited commodity that's in high demand.  It could be that if they charged more the customer base would jump from everypony wanting it directly to everypony turning their noses up because it's too expensive.  And, in the case of the zap apple jam, the Apple family is farm workers.  Filthy Rich may really be contributing significant value by distributing and marketing the zap apple jam.  I know that I was personally really, really, really happy to offer a cut of profits from my novel to FurPlanet for having them take over distributing it to furry cons for me.  That's simply something that they're better set up to do than I am.  So, while the zap apple jam may be really valuable, it's possible that they simply can't reach enough of a customer base without having a third party distributor.
Putting my trucking and logistics hat on, I 100% agree with this. Go find any family run farm today, and at best, they will only have a small road side stand or farmers market for direct to the public sales.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on January 29, 2012, 05:29:12 pm
The biggest problem with this episode is that I don't have any apple cider.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on January 31, 2012, 03:02:14 pm
This was a really awesome episode; awesome song, awesome machine, awesome new characters and awesome letter!
Not much to say really :D

The only thing I didn't like about it was... all those squidgy hooves! *eck*
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on February 03, 2012, 10:55:04 pm
Oh yeah. Forgot to mention that in addition to thinking of the Lorax, the Music Man came to mind first ;). LOVE that musical!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on February 03, 2012, 11:19:45 pm
This was a really awesome episode; awesome song, awesome machine, awesome new characters and awesome letter!
Not much to say really :D

The only thing I didn't like about it was... all those squidgy hooves! *eck*

I agree. I did find the wobbling leg movements unnatural and a bit... disturbing.

Well, new episode tomorrow morning! Looking forward to it.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on February 04, 2012, 12:00:15 pm
Meh, new episode; I feel there was potential there, but no, it was just your typical "Reading ain't so bad!" episode.
But then, Cindy Morrow seems to just take existing storylines and just put them to ponies, at least this season.

Where has Rainbow Dash gone this series?  She's just being used to mop up the episodes that deal with attitude (mostly by saying it's BAD -_-).  Attitude and stuff was never her thing...she was "awesome" and liked things to be awesome, but she was all about skill and competence rather than attitude and coolness.  We had Gilda for a character always concerned with being "cool".  Not that they'd have been able to do these plots with her, since she, y'know, left, but these episodes weren't really Rainbow Dash ones...

She had much more potential than that, and it's so sad to see it so horribly squandered.

Also, I might add, this episode was way too human.  No interest to me...

Edit:
And I might just add, since it's an interesting point, that we haven't had three Rainbow Dash episodes, we've had two Scootaloo ones (and one which failed on too many fronts to really count for much).
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on February 04, 2012, 01:05:33 pm
I felt like I was watching an old Loony Toons cartoon with the background music in today's episode. Didn't help that only the 480p version was online when I watched it, making the colors dull and looking like it was something from the 80's to boot. LOL. I'd say this would be 3rd tier for me, nothing too exciting. But really... a barking pony?! And that little kitty! :D Anyway, time for me to get to work or I'd maybe say more about this episode.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on February 04, 2012, 07:21:12 pm
I swear the barking pony looked like Trixie to me.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on February 05, 2012, 12:39:03 pm
Meh, new episode; I feel there was potential there, but no, it was just your typical "Reading ain't so bad!" episode.
But then, Cindy Morrow seems to just take existing storylines and just put them to ponies, at least this season.

Where has Rainbow Dash gone this series?  She's just being used to mop up the episodes that deal with attitude (mostly by saying it's BAD -_-).  Attitude and stuff was never her thing...she was "awesome" and liked things to be awesome, but she was all about skill and competence rather than attitude and coolness.  We had Gilda for a character always concerned with being "cool".  Not that they'd have been able to do these plots with her, since she, y'know, left, but these episodes weren't really Rainbow Dash ones...

She had much more potential than that, and it's so sad to see it so horribly squandered.

Also, I might add, this episode was way too human.  No interest to me...

Edit:
And I might just add, since it's an interesting point, that we haven't had three Rainbow Dash episodes, we've had two Scootaloo ones (and one which failed on too many fronts to really count for much).

Not every episode has to be super deep, with some additional meaning behind the basic lesson presented.

If they wanted to do that with this episode, they could have taken it in a completely different direction. After seeing Twi grab the book (even before RD's reaction to it) I thought of two possible story lines here. The first being what actually happened. The second being that we would learn that RD actually didn't know how to read, and was trying to hide it from her friends. Frankly, I'm glad the episode went the direction that it did.

It may just be my love for Dashie showing, but I enjoyed the episode because it was basically Rainbow Dash reading me Indiana Jones.

I also liked that you could tell that Dash was truly putting herself into the book. Daring Do had RD's tail/mane, but in grayscale, and their eyes were the same.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on February 06, 2012, 08:20:50 am
Hmm.  I am actually really surprised by the comments that I am reading for this episode so far.  For Cindy Morrow's previous two episodes this season, "Sisterhooves Social" and "Family Appreciation Day," I found myself feeling that they were fairly lackluster at best while most of you here really seem to have adored them.  Now, with "Read It and Weep," we have a season 2 Cindy Morrow episode that I really really liked, and now most of the comments that I am reading here about it seem to be far more negative than positive.  Zeil seems to have enjoyed this episode along with me, but based on what I am reading it looks like both Foxxhoria and Narei are giving it the thumbs down.  As I said, I am actually quite surprised by this, because I sincerely thought that I was going to open this forum thread here on Furtopia and find everybody here raving about it!

As much as I found myself enjoying this episode, I do have to admit that it really started out with a whimper instead of with a bang.  The show's opening sequence right before the theme song was a *huge* missed opportunity for a visual sight gag of how Rainbow Dash injured herself.  Showing Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight Sparkle just standing there and moving their heads to watch Rainbow Dash, without showing Rainbow Dash herself, was a massive animation cop-out.  It is so blatant that it makes me wonder if there was an out-of-universe reason for it, such as the animators ran out of time or money to make a better more involved scene, or if this scene was reworked at the very last-minute due to some kind of executive meddling causing the original animation for this scene to be rejected.  This is one of those instances where I have to get up onto my animation soapbox and remind the animators that they are working with a visual medium here.  Because television is a visual medium, you absolutely must take advantage of the visuals when telling your story as much as possible, or you are just plain wasting the medium's potential.  This opening scene barely utilized the visual nature of television at all-- if you don't believe me, perform this little test: listen to this opening sequence with your eyes closed.  You lose almost nothing.  All of the information that you need to understand this scene is presented in the audio track, as if it was a radio play.  You hear Rainbow Dash zooming around, so you know that she is performing tricks, or at the very least flying extremely fast.  You know that the characters are watching Rainbow Dash, because Pinkie Pie actually says that they are out loud.  You know that Rainbow Dash does something particularly dangerous and then crashes because you hear the crash and then you hear the watching ponies go, "Oooo!"  The only little thing that you miss by keeping your eyes closed during the entire scene is the very small sight-gag where Pinkie Pie twists her neck around and then needs to comically unwind it, but that doesn't present any information needed to understand the scene.  With television and movies, you should never establish important things with dialog that can be more effectively shown-- for example, in STAR WARS Episode IV: A New Hope, you never need to be told through any sort of complex lengthy dialog that the Rebels are totally outclassed and in a desperate struggle against the Galactic Empire.  Instead, you are shown it through the visuals of the opening shot when the absolutely massive Imperial ship overruns the minuscule Rebel ship.  That is how a visual medium is effectively used-- you learn all you need to know about the two sides from the visuals alone.  I swear, the professional animators who wrote all of the animation instruction books that I have ever read over the years would all cringe if they saw this waste of a good 40-seconds, and the 40-seconds that are the inciting incident of the story no less.

If I was the pre-production storyboard artist for this show (boy, wouldn't that be a cool job!), I would have opened this scene in a fashion that is similar to Rainbow Dash's early aerial practice run that you see at the 1:16 mark in the season 1 episode 16, "Sonic Rainboom (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J79sl1GO1aU)."  You know, actually *show* Rainbow Dash performing some amazing tricks at high speed followed up by her getting injured in some kind of cartoony comedic fashion.  You could show her performing high speed outside loops, whifferdill turns, and other aerobatic maneuvers, and then after being successful she can start hotdogging and waving to her friends below, all while no longer really paying attention to where she is going... and then unexpectedly smack!  She runs into the side of the tower of town hall, or a billboard sign, or a random large bird, or my personal favorite, into an oblivious and hapless Derpy who was just innocently doing her job and trying to fly a letter to deliver to somewhere!  If done well this kind of visual gag can be extremely funny, just like when Wile E. Coyote suddenly slammed into the side of a canyon while flying with his batsuit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i7G4pojdUM).  More importantly, it fully takes full advantage of the visual medium that is television. 

I also liked that you could tell that Dash was truly putting herself into the book. Daring Do had RD's tail/mane, but in grayscale, and their eyes were the same.

While there is absolutely no denying that the character design of Daring-Do is a recolored Rainbow Dash, there is an in-universe reason why she cannot be an example of Rainbow Dash visualizing herself as the book character like you suggest.  To quote the MLP:FiM Wiki:

Quote
While it may look like that, as the visual imagery is imagined by Rainbow Dash, Daring-Do's similar mane may have been Dash imagining herself as the heroine, the cover of the book clearly shows Daring-Do as having that exact mane. (http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/0/03/Rd_holding_daring_do_book.png)

In other words, I doubt that Rainbow Dash was using her imagination to make herself look like the depiction of Daring-Do on the cover of all of the copies of the book as well.

Speaking of Daring-Do, I absolutely loved this character!  As I know that I have mentioned in past posts in this thread, I am an absolute sucker when it comes to brash tomboy characters, which is why ponies such as Spitfire and Rainbow Dash constantly top my HJIPSI* charts!  Daring-Do is this and more-- I love her design, I love her speaking voice (which according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiara_Zanni) was provided by voice actress Chiara Zanni), I love her costume, heck, I love everything about her!  She can enter my forbidden temple and grab my idol any time!   :D  While I am probably still feeling the overwhelming effects of seeing her for the first time, she may even edge out Spitfire as the pony that I'm personally the most smitten for!  I guess that I will have to see how I feel a couple weeks from now once Daring-Do's novelty has had a chance to wear off!  :)  So, much like what Ziel was saying, it was the Daring-Do action sequences that really carried this episode for me-- I loved how colorful they were, I loved how over the top that they were, and I love how well-done that they were.  They managed to spoof, and sometimes subvert both Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade without feeling too worn out or boring.  In other words, they were just original enough to keep things entertaining and exciting!

Here are some random observations thrown in:


I swear the barking pony looked like Trixie to me.

The barking pony at 18:23 was an Earth pony, not a unicorn, and had a screw as a cutie mark.

I thought of two possible story lines here. The first being what actually happened. The second being that we would learn that RD actually didn't know how to read, and was trying to hide it from her friends. Frankly, I'm glad the episode went the direction that it did.

As I alluded to above, I thought that Rainbow Dash's hospital roommate could have potentially been given a greater role in the story.  As you know, the roommate was in the hospital room the entire time that Rainbow Dash was reading the Daring-Do book out loud, and knew Rainbow Dash's secret that she had started to enjoy reading.  I think that it would have been an interesting twist of the roommate had healed and gotten his/her bandages taken off, turned out to be someone Rainbow Dash knew (but maybe didn't like), and threatened Rainbow Dash that he/she would tell Rainbow Dash's friends that Rainbow Dash had become an egghead that enjoyed reading.  Then Rainbow Dash could have spent the tail-end of the episode being put in more and more outlandish situations throughout town trying to stop the roommate from talking.  I am not saying that this alternative direction that the episode's plot could have taken is better than what they did by any means (because overall I really liked what they did in this episode)-- instead, I am just saying that this was another way that things could have gone.

Anyway, as I said above I had a lot of fun with this episode, and I liked the world of Daring-Do that I was exposed to so much that I think that she may have actually inspired another future project for me to do that I can add to my ever-expanding project database!  Apparently I was not the only one inspired by Daring-Do either-- while I haven't read any of these personally, I saw in one of my Google searches earlier this morning that there already was two Daring-Do MLP:FiM fan-fictions that were in the works: Daring-Do and the Ruby Knight, and Daring-Do and the Crimson Catalyst.  That is absolutely crazy, since it hasn't even been 48-hours yet since the episode "Read It and Weep" first aired!  Hopefully I can get my own project idea done before some other brony thinks of it and gets it done first-- in a fandom of this size that is this active, pretty much anything that you can think of has been already thought up and done by some other brony-- it's pretty insane!

For next week it looks like we have a St. Valentine's Day-themed episode called "Hearts and Hooves Day," where amazingly the actual MLP:FiM writers themselves are finally presenting us with an official shipping fiction-- according to the episode's program guide description, those little rascals the Cutie Mark Crusaders are going to be slipping both Big McIntosh and Cheerilee a love potion with the hopes of hooking them up, which ends up having some unexpected consequences.  While generally my Valentine's Day-themed cartoon watching doesn't get much further than the television special, Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_My_Valentine,_Charlie_Brown) (Charlie Brown, I feel your pain, brother!), I think that I will make an exception in this case because of how much I absolutely adore Cheerilee.  Hmmm, it looks like I will have to try to live through the character of Big McIntosh for this upcoming episode!  Yeah!   ;)


* HJIPSI - "Hoagiebot-Jones Industrial Pony Stock Index"
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on February 08, 2012, 03:57:36 pm
Hmm.  I am actually really surprised by the comments that I am reading for this episode so far.  For Cindy Morrow's previous two episodes this season, "Sisterhooves Social" and "Family Appreciation Day," I found myself feeling that they were fairly lackluster at best while most of you here really seem to have adored them.  Now, with "Read It and Weep," we have a season 2 Cindy Morrow episode that I really really liked, and now most of the comments that I am reading here about it seem to be far more negative than positive.  Zeil seems to have enjoyed this episode along with me, but based on what I am reading it looks like both Foxxhoria and Narei are giving it the thumbs down.  As I said, I am actually quite surprised by this, because I sincerely thought that I was going to open this forum thread here on Furtopia and find everybody here raving about it!

I don't know, it just felt like another compressed vice episode for Rainbow Dash, and they're really starting to bug me.
I don't like characters who worry about being "cool" all the time, I don't relate with them at all and they're too tied down by their own concerns.  Rainbow Dash always seemed like she was too busy enjoying life to care about being "cool"; she just simply liked all the exciting things in life.  And I liked that.

She could be out achieving things in her life like the others, and learning along the way, but instead she's kind of being told the things she does are wrong, even though they weren't things she even did or problems with her in the first place...

I want to see her out doing things; she's a doing pony anyway who lives for competition and challenge, and the closest they got to actually using this was May the Best Pet Win.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on February 08, 2012, 11:07:57 pm
I also liked that you could tell that Dash was truly putting herself into the book. Daring Do had RD's tail/mane, but in grayscale, and their eyes were the same.

While there is absolutely no denying that the character design of Daring-Do is a recolored Rainbow Dash, there is an in-universe reason why she cannot be an example of Rainbow Dash visualizing herself as the book character like you suggest.  To quote the MLP:FiM Wiki:

Quote
While it may look like that, as the visual imagery is imagined by Rainbow Dash, Daring-Do's similar mane may have been Dash imagining herself as the heroine, the cover of the book clearly shows Daring-Do as having that exact mane. (http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/0/03/Rd_holding_daring_do_book.png)

In other words, I doubt that Rainbow Dash was using her imagination to make herself look like the depiction of Daring-Do on the cover of all of the copies of the book as well.
* HJIPSI - "Hoagiebot-Jones Industrial Pony Stock Index"

It is in times like this that I get a little frustrated that people take the show canon to be a completely literal interpretation of everything that goes on (this isn't directed at you, Hoagie, but more toward the wiki itself). Minor technicalities like this shouldn't be presented as hard fact.

I could just as easily argue that another technicality actually proves RD placing herself into the story. The best example would be when the voices in RD's hospital room end up merging with the Daring Do scenes (like when the monster thing had the voice of one of the other ponies*). That would certainly indicate that RD had herself and her surroundings mentally projected into the story. There are also the times when the Daring Do scenes show a head shot of DD and it fades out to RD with the eyes remaining completely the same.

Bottom line is that it is completely up to which details you notice and/or care about when you watch it. I would tend to chalk the design on the cover up to the show trying to maintain a sort of consistency with the Daring Do character. I give a lot more merit to the emotions of Dash as she was reading it.

Heck, it's more of a stretch, but maybe we were seeing the Daring Do character on the cover through Dash's eyes the whole time.

So yeah... things like that shouldn't be shown as 'fact' or 'canon' when there are a lot of other ways they can be looked at.

/rant

*I'm at a hotel in Arizona atm, I can't remember which voice it was, and can't really look it up on this rather awful free wifi
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on February 09, 2012, 02:15:03 am
I don't know what to think these days. Given that I grinned all the way through the episode I cannot very well claim I didn't enjoy it. There were lots of great bits. Yet I do think it was a little ... trite, that is, I suppose just like my reaction to Baby Cakes I didn't feel like it had a strong plot.

Oh and also, I've found if I watch FiM with, well, non-bronies, I'm more likely to see it as a kid's show and not get as into it. :P So overall my love of the ponies is a complicated thing.

Hopefully I can get my own project idea done before some other brony thinks of it and gets it done first-- in a fandom of this size that is this active, pretty much anything that you can think of has been already thought up and done by some other brony-- it's pretty insane!

Infinity is the best number. And fortunately the Internet is pretty close to infinite; more worthwhile material has been published on it today than could be read in a lifetime*. So I don't think "it's been done before" is ever a reason not to write something; you'll probably have your own perspective on it anyway.

It is in times like this that I get a little frustrated that people take the show canon to be a completely literal interpretation of everything that goes on (this isn't directed at you, Hoagie, but more toward the wiki itself). Minor technicalities like this shouldn't be presented as hard fact.

This is a point I really like, because myself I tend to take what's displayed on the screen of any television show fairly loosely. For example conversations in fiction are usually more dramatic and to-the-point than in real life, so I generally think of it as a condensed version of what "really happened" rather than figuring fictional characters more literally always know what to say.

*and 90% of statistics are made up
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on February 09, 2012, 04:34:09 pm
Apparently Hearts and Hooves was leaked. Has anyone seen it yet?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on February 09, 2012, 05:11:12 pm
Apparently Hearts and Hooves was leaked. Has anyone seen it yet?
I have.

Spoiler: show
Big Mac's voice is way too deep these days.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on February 09, 2012, 08:50:39 pm
Welp, looks like one more (sub)forum to avoid for a few days...
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: redyoshi49q on February 11, 2012, 06:07:47 pm
This episode had a pony obcessed with jam and a prominent (if brief) showing of Dr. Whooves.  It also had a very healthy dosage of Big Macintosh (I loved the scene where he bobbed his head "yes" to any piece of jewelry offered to him in sale), and a pony in a wedding dress on a mattress in a hole.  The episode was quite entertaining, to say the least.

I have a feeling that Hoagiebot is going to go ballistic on account of Cherilee's prominence in this episode, though I'm not entirely sure if it's going to be a good kind of ballistic or a bad kind of ballistic.  (*waits for him to post in order to find out*)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on February 11, 2012, 09:57:12 pm
Oh my. All that sugary sweet sappy lovey dovey talk. Bleh! :D

May have more to say after a second viewing and can pay more attention. Had the kids watching with me the first time.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on February 12, 2012, 03:19:52 am
I really want to watch "Hearts and Hooves Day" -- but, I was busy all day, until it was time to put my four-year-old daughter to bed.  It doesn't seem right to watch it without her though, so now I have to wait until tomorrow.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on February 12, 2012, 01:28:37 pm
Apparently Hearts and Hooves was leaked. Has anyone seen it yet?

I did obtain the iTunes version of the episode the day it was leaked and had fully intended to watch the episode early while laughing fiendishly, but in a tragic story of woe that seems to be typical for a Hoagiebot such as myself, forces beyond my control moved against me and the earliest that I could watch the episode was when it first aired on HUB yesterday morning.  I suppose that was for the best, at least where My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's television advertisers are concerned, but it took all of the fun out of having possession of an early leaked video.  *grumbles*  As for what happened to cause my delay with watching the episode, let's just say that a certain uncooperative family member's hair drier and my computer equipment had a pitched battle, and my computers lost.  The circuit breaker tripped, my Vista box went down hard, and when it came back up the primary drive's NTFS file system had a bad segment in its USN Journal.  That lead to corruption in the Windows Indexing Service's index amongst other weird things, and after a day or so of putting out small metaphorical fires, investigating weird behaviors, and fixing small problems as I came across them, things still aren't working quite right.  Eh, I will eventually get everything sorted out.  Anyway, $300 (that I couldn't really afford to spend) and two brand new APC 1250VA Uninterrupted Power Supplies later and my diabolical computerized reign of terror is now Sealed-Lead-Acid Battery backed.

Anyway, I digress...

I have a feeling that Hoagiebot is going to go ballistic on account of Cherilee's prominence in this episode, though I'm not entirely sure if it's going to be a good kind of ballistic or a bad kind of ballistic.  (*waits for him to post in order to find out*)

(http://www.telephonics.com/img/Standard_Missile_III_SM-3_RIM-161_test_launch_04017005-s.jpg)
* Hoagiebot Goes Ballistic! *  (Film at eleven!!! (http://catb.org/jargon/html/F/film-at-11.html))

Yes!  I absolutely did go ballistic over this episode!  In fact, I went straight into orbit!  But now to answer redyoshi49q's question-- was it the good kind of ballistic or the bad kind of ballistic?  Well, to answer that, lets see where the Hoagiebot-Jones Industrial Pony Stock Index closed at the end of the trading session yesterday:

Saturday's high volume traded stocks on the HJIPSE:  CHRLE ^^^^^   SWTBL ^^^   APLBM =   SCTLO ^   TSPKL =   BGMAC =

Hmmm.  It looks like the market had a rally!  Cheerilee's stock value shot through the roof!  :D  In any case, redyoshi49q is right-- I have made it pretty obvious that I have a bit of thing for Ponyville's magenta-colored school teacher!  As I mentioned in the "Furry Crush" thread (http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=42855.msg822093#msg822093) in this forum about a month and a half ago, arguably my first and longest cartoon character crush was on "Duchess," the mother cat from the Disney animated feature The Aristocats. Cheerilee kind of has that same kind of overall super kind and patient almost super sweet motherly personality, which makes her kind of the "equivalent" character for me in this show.  That is what probably made me take so much notice of her as far back as "The Cutie Pox."  (Actually, what first made me take notice of her was what a terrible school teacher that I thought that she was because she let all of her students watch Apple Bloom twirl her hoop-de-loops instead of making them go back inside the school house and study, but what can I say, Cheerilee has really grown on me since then!)  I don't know what my liking that kind of character (especially in the form of a "My Little Pony") says about my psyche, but I am sure that sometime in the far future it will give some Psychologist a fascinating topic to write a peer review journal article about after some super hero/British secret agent/my own mad science creation gone wrong finally defeats me and I get locked away in an asylum just like my personal role model, the Fringe character "Dr. Walter Bishop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Walter_Bishop)" did before me.  But until that day inevitably comes, I am just going to keep <3'ing Cheerilee!  *squee!*

As you all have probably guessed by now, I absolutely loved this episode of ponies!  In fact, "Hearts and Hooves Day" officially takes the spot as my second most favorite episode of this season thus far!  ("Luna Eclipsed" still just barely beats it out, though!)  I loved the episode so much that I was absolutely shocked when I found out later that it was written by MLP"FiM staff writer Meghan McCarthy.  Why?  Well, she hasn't exactly been my most favorite of MLP:FiM writers this season.  "Sweet and Elite" was alright, but I was not a fan of "Lesson Zero."  So my absolutely adoring this episode by her really surprised me, and she gets a gold star in my book for it!  You know, for a while there early on this season's episodes seemed to be pretty hit or miss.  There would be one that would air that I kind of liked, followed by one that would air that I kind of didn't, and so on.  But now with "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000," "Read it and Weep," and "Hearts and Hooves Day" we have had three absolutely awesome top notch MLP:FiM episodes in a row!  This show is definitely on a roll, and I am absolutely elated about it!  *cheers!*

Discussing my thoughts, reactions, and observations about this episode is going to be a tough one for me this time around because I am no doubt viewing everything through a pair of beautiful Cheerilee-colored glasses, but for the sake of scientific integrity I will try to be as clinical and impartial as possible...  Aw who am I kidding!  This episode had Cheerilee in it!  Biased opinions and skewed perceptions it is!   :D


Oh my. All that sugary sweet sappy lovey dovey talk. Bleh! :D

For Cheerilee, she can call me whatever she wants!  If being her "smoopy doopy pony pie" is what floats her boat, then so be it.  Besides, it's a lot better than the things that girls usually end up saying to me, which more or less sum up to, "Go get bent."


So there you have it!  Well, as much as I would love to write something profound like I usually do about how this episode overuses this trope or that trope or violates the "8 essential plot points" of screenplay writing or something like that, the fact is:

1. I don't think that I noticed any major problems.  I loved this episode!  *cheers!*
2. I have already been working on this post for the lion's share of 8-straight hours (which I think is a record), and just want to be done with it at this point and go to bed.
3. It's keeping me from dreaming about Cheerilee.  See the last part of reason #2.

So let this be an important lesson to all of the current and aspiring My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic staff writers out there:  If you don't want me picking apart the writing of your episodes in excruciating detail then you need to throw me a bone in the form a large amount of screen time featuring Spitfire or Cheerilee, just like you would throw a porterhouse steak at a guard dog before you break into someplace!  Then I will um... look the other way.  You see, everypony has their price, and mine just happens to be large amounts of Cheerilee!   :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on February 12, 2012, 02:58:06 pm
Hoagie seems to have covered a lot of the real highlights of the episode, but I have to add...

SCOOTA-GLIDE! :D

I really want that filly to get her own episode.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on February 12, 2012, 03:38:40 pm
2. I have already been working on this post for the lion's share of 8-straight hours (which I think is a record), and just want to be done with it at this point and go to bed.

Well wow! We all appreciate what you do Hoagiebot. :) And I mean the mad science as well as the episode reviews of course.

Speaking of which, it sounds like there is a mad science episode coming up, doesn't it? Twilight Sparkle invents time travel and goes back in time to warn herself about something, slated for March 10th! Gee I should finish my own 'mad science sparkle' fic(s) before then shouldn't I??

Anyway about the episode. I too very much enjoyed it. "LOVE POISON!?" seems like a great concept to me, though of course it wasn't originally invented as a poison. There's also this general sense of science gone wrong to the whole thing, though of course on the big issue of whether love potion is inherently wrong to meddle with it came down somewhat on the Luddite side.

I was also very happy to see Cheerilee go on a date with BM at the end too, even if they did wink about it. I don't know why but I'm always very satisfied by little things like 'since you're doing his chores now he's free to go on a picnic' I mean, it makes it more like the CMC unintentionally-yet-intentionally got Cheerilee a boyfriend. *shrug* maybe someone who knows more about fiction can tell me why I seek such little puzzle-pieces-falling-together moments.

Speaking of which Hoagiebot's general inability to criticise this episode is a good example of one of my little pet theories about fiction, namely that obviously no literature (let's call FiM literature for the moment) is actually perfect (ie uncriticiseable), but all a piece has to do is fill some quota of desirable elements (let's use the technical term "neat things") for the individual viewer to be satisfied with it overall. In the early days of video, just showing interesting scenes onscreen was enough, so plot demand was minimal, for example. Modern action movies are sometimes the equivalent of this, trying to string together a certain amount of dramatic scenes using whatever plot comes to hand. Fanfics naturally have a different set of "neat things" at their disposal, such as doing a good job portraying a specific character, bringing out an aspect of the show which isn't focused on in the canon, or simply making good use of a gag from the show.

OK enough rambling, I excitedly await next week and hope there is more singing again :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on February 12, 2012, 06:53:30 pm
The upcoming time-travel Twilight episode sounds fantastic.  I'm also really looking forward to a Fluttershy episode.  It's about time!

As for Hearts & Hooves Day, I agree with the general trend here:  great episode with many things to like.  I especially liked that they left it completely ambiguous at the end as to whether Cheerilee and Big Mac were actually going on a date or just messing with the CMC.  I also liked that Cheerilee really did sound completely okay with spending Hearts & Hooves Day without a "very special somepony."  I've always liked Valentine's Day -- it's a celebration of chocolate and hearts and pink and red and flowers.  But I know a lot of people get really upset about how it leaves out single people.  I liked that Hearts & Hooves Day was presented more the way that I see Valentine's Day -- a celebration of heart shaped cards and silly party games at the school.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on February 12, 2012, 11:01:20 pm
I was gone all weekend (and week), so I haven't gotten to watch it yet. It's difficult to avoid spoilers entirely, though. Especially when one still wants to check EQD to see if I missed any news in the last week. Oh well, I've heard good things about it, so I can't wait to get to it tomorrow after work.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on February 15, 2012, 12:48:02 pm
Well wow! We all appreciate what you do Hoagiebot. :) And I mean the mad science as well as the episode reviews of course.

I really do appreciate your saying that, Aspect.  I don't know why it took me so much longer than usual to write my episode analysis post this last time around.  Taking 5 or 6-hours to type out a MLP:FiM analysis is pretty typical for me, but 8-hours is pretty extreme.  Maybe it was because I was still all aflutter from a Cheerilee episode induced hangover, or maybe it was because I was exhausted at the time that I wrote the post because I did it after moving computer equipment around all night (let that be a lesson to all of you aspiring mad scientists out there-- do not stack over 700-lbs. of computing equipment in front of the electrical outlet that you need to get to.  It may seem like a great place to stack three columns of Sun workstations 4-feet high at the time, but believe me, you'll eventually live to regret it when you need to plug something new in!).  Either way, my mind was just not as focused as a result.  

Speaking of which Hoagiebot's general inability to criticise this episode is a good example of one of my little pet theories about fiction, namely that obviously no literature (let's call FiM literature for the moment) is actually perfect (ie uncriticiseable), but all a piece has to do is fill some quota of desirable elements (let's use the technical term "neat things") for the individual viewer to be satisfied with it overall.

I was actually joking when I said, "If you don't want me picking apart the writing of your episodes in excruciating detail then you need to throw me a bone in the form a large amount of screen time featuring Spitfire or Cheerilee, just like you would throw a porterhouse steak at a guard dog before you break into someplace!  Then I will um... look the other way."  I didn't criticize the episode "Hearts and Hooves Day" because there really wasn't much of anything that I personally noticed that could be criticized.  I will agree with you that nothing can be perfect, but this episode was still extremely strong.  I seriously can't really find anything in the episode that I would want to complain about.  The episode's opening gag before the theme song was cute, the episode had a very good musical number with the song "The Perfect Stallion," its story worked extremely well, it didn't ruin the character of Cheerilee for me (in fact it made me like her that much more), and as I mentioned in my previous post, it used the visual medium of television to portray information very effectively during several scenes, such as the scene where Apple Bloom is envisioning a Ponyville where Big McIntosh and Cheerilee were shirking their responsibilities, which I found to be notable.  The animation for this episode was also very good, with some very funny character animations and some very good "camera work."  And I don't think that I am the only person here who was pleased with this episode-- most of the other comments here about "Hearts and Hooves Day" have been overwhelmingly positive as well.  But if you want me to try to break this episode down a bit further, I can try to oblige you.  I could use the further practice at studying how television screenplays are written, anyway.

Anyway about the episode. I too very much enjoyed it. "LOVE POISON!?" seems like a great concept to me, though of course it wasn't originally invented as a poison. There's also this general sense of science gone wrong to the whole thing, though of course on the big issue of whether love potion is inherently wrong to meddle with it came down somewhat on the Luddite side.

As enjoyable as this episode is, the "love potion" plot that it revolved around wasn't necessarily profound or groundbreaking by any means.  TVTropes.org has a trope for it, called conveniently enough, "Love Potion (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovePotion)."  The first sentence for the trope reads as follows:

Quote
Ah, the Love Potion. Not since the Eskimo Freezer was patented has there ever been such a useless invention. Not that love potions are ineffective, mind you; it's just that they rarely ever work as intended, to the point where one wonders why a character would even bother to use them at all. When you see someone employ a Love Potion these days, you almost expect it to fail. It should be a Discredited Trope (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DiscreditedTrope) by this time, but for some reason, even the most Genre Savvy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreSavvy) of characters continue to use Love Potions, with said potions continuing to cause far more trouble than they're worth.

That is exactly what the central conflict for this for this episode was in a nutshell: a love potion that didn't work out as intended.  This isn't a complaint on my part, however.  As TVTropes itself states, "tropes are not bad (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools?from=Main.TropesAreNotBad)."  Tropes are just storytelling tools, and like any tool they can be used for good, such as using a hammer to build a house, or they can be used for bad, such as using that same hammer to hit someone in the back of the head with.  Tropes when employed in stories can end up helping or hurting as well: you can build a solid story with them when they are used in a thought out and creative way, or they can detract from your story if they are used improperly or carelessly.  As I mentioned, I thought that this episode was absolutely great, so I am of the opinion that the "Love Potion" trope was employed extremely well in "Hearts and Hooves Day."

If you want me to analyze this episode even further, I can break the story of "Hearts and Hooves Day" into its major plot points under Syd Field's Paradigm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenwriting#Syd_Field.27s_Paradigm).  When you do this, you you get something along the lines of:


So as you can see, all of the major plot points typically found in screen plays are there, which is probably yet another reason why the story of this episode seemed so satisfying.  The third act also employed a "Race Against the Clock (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RaceAgainstTheClock)" trope, which added greatly to the tension and made the third act really exciting.  So it really wasn't just the large amount of screen time for the charming Cheerilee that made me love this episode (though that certainly didn't hurt it)--  this episode was also extremely well-written, well animated, and had a great musical score as well.  As far as I am concerned, everyone from the writers to the voice actors to the animators were at the top of their game with this one-- I couldn't ask for any better than this in any cartoon, and I hope that if I ever get a chance to make an animated short myself someday that it ends up being even half as good as "Hearts and Hooves Day."

I also liked that Cheerilee really did sound completely okay with spending Hearts & Hooves Day without a "very special somepony."

I am going to have to disagree with you here, Ryffnah.  While Cheerilee may have made it sound like she was O.K. when she said, "It's alright Sweetie Belle.  I have lots of good friends and wonderful students who care about me very much.  I am going to have an absolutely terrific Hearts and Hooves Day!", that was just her being a responsible teacher and not wanting to reveal anything about her personal life to her young students.  Just look at Cheerilee's facial expression when Sweetie Belle says, "How could somepony as amazing as you not have a special somepony on Hearts and Hooves Day?":

(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120211200610/mlp/images/thumb/f/f9/Cheerilee_Annoyed_S2_E17.png/640px-Cheerilee_Annoyed_S2_E17.png)
That is not the face of someone who is happy to be reminded that they are alone and don't have a special someone.  Cheerilee may be able to put on a good facade for the children, but on the inside she is not happy about being alone on "Hearts and Hooves Day", and that facial reaction of hers is a brief reflection of her true feelings.


Speaking of which, it sounds like there is a mad science episode coming up, doesn't it? Twilight Sparkle invents time travel and goes back in time to warn herself about something, slated for March 10th!

I too am very much looking forward to the upcoming Twilight Sparkle time travel episode, "It's About Time."  Ever since I first saw the Back to the Future film trilogy as a kid I have been a huge fan of time travel... and flying DeLoreans... but mostly time travel.  In fact, my favorite fiction book has long been The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, and my favorite movie of all-time, The Terminator, also features time travel prominently as part of its plot along with one of my favorite hero tropes, the "Future Bad*ss (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FutureBadass)."  (Note to the moderator: that is TVTropes.org's name for that type of character, not mine.)  Since I doubt that there is going to be any "future bad*ss" characters in My Little Pony (though it would be absolutely awesome if their were-- could you imagine a hardcore battle-hardened Rainbow Dash from the future wearing grungy black armor, being covered in scars, and having one robotic eye?  My main man Tirek (http://img.ponibooru.org/_images/6e91b9f76cda6465b78bc2c01a27374d/48605%20-%20g1%20Rescue_From_Midnight_Castle%20tirek.jpg) could easily provide the bad future (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadFuture) for that Rainbow Dash to come back in time from!), this upcoming episode is probably going to be an example of the trope, "Set Right What Once Went Wrong (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong?from=Main.SetRightWhatOnceWasWrong)."  TVTropes.org describes this trope as:

Quote
The character receives foreknowledge of what will happen (or, if Time Travel (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeTravel) is involved, Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RippleEffectProofMemory) will allow them to remember what happened "the first time around") and has to correct it (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RubberBandHistory).

That's all well and good-- Twilight Sparkle receiving a warning from her future self could lead to a great story.  There was one thing that was mentioned in the TV Listing episode summary for this episode that worries me however: "Twilight receives a warning from her future self and drives herself crazy with worry".  I want to see Twilight Sparkle acting on the information that she receives from her future self and actively trying to change future events.  I don't want to see her just sitting around and going crazy worrying about what could come to pass.  I saw enough of Twilight Sparkle going crazy in "Lesson Zero" to last a lifetime as far as I'm concerned.  As a result, I sincerely hope that the TV listing episode summary is just describing the first act of the episode, and not the entire episode.  If Twilight only worries during the first act, then at the beginning of the second act she can resolve to change her fate, then at the mid-point she can discover that she only succeeded at making everything worse through her attempted changes, and then for the third act she can discover one last crazy dangerous way to make everything better again, only to just barely successfully resolve things in the end.  If the events play out like that, then this episode can be really good.  In any case, we have more than two weeks yet before we find out, so I have plenty of time to speculate about what the episode will be like until then!  In the meantime, I sincerely hope that this Saturday's upcoming episode, "A Friend in Deed," is going to be good, because I don't want MLP:FiM's current three-episode winning streak of absolutely excellent episodes to be broken.  Instead, I want moar!   :D

Well, that was another 5-hours spent writing about ponies.  I really need to get a life!   :D  But hey, if any MLP:FiM episode deserved two giant text walls instead of one, it was definitely "Hearts and Hooves Day!"
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on February 15, 2012, 04:51:13 pm
I also liked that Cheerilee really did sound completely okay with spending Hearts & Hooves Day without a "very special somepony."

I am going to have to disagree with you here, Ryffnah.  While Cheerilee may have made it sound like she was O.K. when she said, "It's alright Sweetie Belle.  I have lots of good friends and wonderful students who care about me very much.  I am going to have an absolutely terrific Hearts and Hooves Day!", that was just her being a responsible teacher and not wanting to reveal anything about her personal life to her young students.  Just look at Cheerilee's facial expression when Sweetie Belle says, "How could somepony as amazing as you not have a special somepony on Hearts and Hooves Day?":

(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120211200610/mlp/images/thumb/f/f9/Cheerilee_Annoyed_S2_E17.png/640px-Cheerilee_Annoyed_S2_E17.png)
That is not the face of someone who is happy to be reminded that they are alone and don't have a special someone.  Cheerilee may be able to put on a good facade for the children, but on the inside she is not happy about being alone on "Hearts and Hooves Day", and that facial reaction of hers is a brief reflection of her true feelings.

You are probably right in your assessment, but it could also be her just being fed up with people asking her when she'll be getting a special somepony. (This other view of the situation brought to you by personal experience and my own detestation for the question of when I'll get a girlfriend).

But yeah, that's probably not really what it was. As it stands, if you view it as her true feelings about the day coming out a bit, it kinda does serve to make the CMC's efforts that much more endearing.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on February 15, 2012, 05:04:45 pm
Yeah, while I found this episode kind of boring imo, I noticed I didn't have anything bad to say about it, unlike other episodes I didn't enjoy so much.
I don't dislike this episode at all, I guess I just didn't find it so immediately amazing as others.  It can sit comfortably in my season 2 folder.

One thing I will say though is, what happened to Scootaloo being the sappiness-detesting tomboy of the group?  Applebloom was more disgusted by their shows of romance than Scootaloo was! But I think that's just due to the nature of the plot; Scootaloo wouldn't be a very good part if she was rejecting it all all the time.  So I guess ditching that part of her character for an episode was a necessary sacrifice...
But along with Big Mac not really getting a great deal of characterisation (how far can you get with just "eyup" and "nope"?) and his voice being too deep nowadays (all compared to back when he was a character, back in Applebuck Season), that's my only criticism of this episode really.

Edit:
I will add though, I really like the song for some reason!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on February 15, 2012, 11:15:05 pm
I also liked that Cheerilee really did sound completely okay with spending Hearts & Hooves Day without a "very special somepony."

I am going to have to disagree with you here, Ryffnah.  While Cheerilee may have made it sound like she was O.K. when she said, "It's alright Sweetie Belle.  I have lots of good friends and wonderful students who care about me very much.  I am going to have an absolutely terrific Hearts and Hooves Day!", that was just her being a responsible teacher and not wanting to reveal anything about her personal life to her young students.  Just look at Cheerilee's facial expression when Sweetie Belle says, "How could somepony as amazing as you not have a special somepony on Hearts and Hooves Day?":

(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120211200610/mlp/images/thumb/f/f9/Cheerilee_Annoyed_S2_E17.png/640px-Cheerilee_Annoyed_S2_E17.png)
That is not the face of someone who is happy to be reminded that they are alone and don't have a special someone.  Cheerilee may be able to put on a good facade for the children, but on the inside she is not happy about being alone on "Hearts and Hooves Day", and that facial reaction of hers is a brief reflection of her true feelings.

You are probably right in your assessment, but it could also be her just being fed up with people asking her when she'll be getting a special somepony. (This other view of the situation brought to you by personal experience and my own detestation for the question of when I'll get a girlfriend).

But yeah, that's probably not really what it was. As it stands, if you view it as her true feelings about the day coming out a bit, it kinda does serve to make the CMC's efforts that much more endearing.

I've watched that short segment several times in a row now -- and I stand by my original assessment.  I believe that particular expression (the one pictured) is the look of an adult who's having to deal with a small child bugging her.  Sweetie Belle is being really annoying right there, turning a perfectly enjoyable holiday into a chance to raise drama.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on February 15, 2012, 11:28:21 pm
Now I'm gonna have to watch that scene to add my vote to either side of this argument. Lol :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on February 15, 2012, 11:36:13 pm
I'm pretty sure most people will see that scene in light of projecting their own feelings onto Cheerilee (intentionally or not).  Just sayin'.

The one thing in this episode that kind of stood out to me as weird (besides the awkward comedy--I just don't like awkward comedy all that much because I empathize with those characters too easily) was in the song where the CMC's... I dunno, are they skipping?  The animation just made me go "wut."  But it was a really good song, so that made things better :)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on February 16, 2012, 03:53:09 am
I'm pretty sure most people will see that scene in light of projecting their own feelings onto Cheerilee (intentionally or not).  Just sayin'.

True.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on February 16, 2012, 03:57:19 am
And, actually, walking the line carefully enough that Cheerilee's emotions can be left up to interpretation like this is a pretty neat feature of the episode.  Very much in line with the ambiguity at the end which I enjoyed so much.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on February 16, 2012, 10:02:24 am
I'm gonna have to go with Cheerilee is just frustrated at being pestered about not having a special somepony. When she makes the face in Hoagiebot's pic, you'll notice that it's just that. A frown. There isn't that tail tail sigh of someone that seems to be longing for a mate when the subject is brought up. If she were supposed to be frowning because she was sad that she didn't have somepony, then it would have included more of a pause and long sigh as if reflecting a bit on that thought before turning around. I'm actually surprised Hoagiebot didn't catch that with all those tropes he points out. Granted, the sighing pause may not be a trope per se, but it is one of those things that is ALWAYS represented when someone is supposively longing for a mate secretely before facing the person they're about to address. It's also another way to kind of mentally prepare yourself and steady your nerves a bit to put on that happy face when you're actually saddened.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on February 16, 2012, 10:36:49 am
I'm actually surprised Hoagiebot didn't catch that with all those tropes he points out.

I don't think that I "didn't catch" something in regards to this, as you put it.  I'm sticking with my original assessment of Cheerilee's reaction.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on February 16, 2012, 12:55:46 pm
I agree that Cheerilee is mostly annoyed not sad; I interpret it as an eye-roll meaning she thinks the idea that you need somepony special to share h&h day with is kind of silly, almost implying this is not the first time she's had to respond to this particular line of conversation. The expression is a little ambiguous, I'll give it that, but the whole scene works better for me thinking the crusaders are off to try and find a date for somepony who doesn't even think it's important.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on February 16, 2012, 04:06:40 pm
I agree that Cheerilee is mostly annoyed not sad; I interpret it as an eye-roll meaning she thinks the idea that you need somepony special to share h&h day with is kind of silly, almost implying this is not the first time she's had to respond to this particular line of conversation. The expression is a little ambiguous, I'll give it that, but the whole scene works better for me thinking the crusaders are off to try and find a date for somepony who doesn't even think it's important.

From the perspective of a parent who actually has a member of the target demographic in the house watching this episode repeatedly, it's certainly preferable for the show to send the message that it's "kind of silly" to make such a big deal of sharing the day with a very special somepony.  The show really doesn't need to be working five-year-old girls up about the importance of having a boyfriend on Valentine's Day, and I was glad (but not surprised) to see that it really doesn't.  I'll be interested to see how they handle the up-coming wedding story in that regard.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on February 18, 2012, 11:53:58 am
Pinkie Pie episode!

It was pretty awesome.
Pinkie's hyperness and randomness was ramped up just a bit, but there was a point to it unlike in The Last Roundup, where she was just like that just because (except of course when she was annoying AJ).

Cranky-Doodle Donkey was an awesome character, and it's wonderful they addressed a character like this.

There were so many songs!
The Smile(!) song, most notably.  I'd avoided it until it came up in an episode, and while I felt Pinkie sounded kinda weird singing it, it was still an amazing song!
And the others were pretty awesome too.

And there was SO MUCH CONTINUITY!
Too much to go over.

I'm kind of in two minds about how I feel about Dash reading again lol, but, I guess, it is good that the sporty type is shown reading without having to have an episode which rotates around a sudden concern with being "uncool"!

But this was Pinkie Pie doing what she does naturally, and singing all about it!  This episode could only come from Pinkie Pie, and it celebrates Pinkie for who she is while telling her that there are sometimes times she needs to be aware of what she's doing.  It doesn't give her any extra baggage in the episode just to give her a lesson to learn; it comes directly from who she is and what she lives for.

So in all, this was an excellent episode.

And it made me smile lots and lots and lots! :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on February 18, 2012, 05:41:43 pm
Jolly good episode all around I'd say. Exemplifies the silliness and joy MLP has always stood for.

(http://www.hostthenpost.org/uploads/cbeda53b4d1a8184703a30aa633c5dc7.gif)

(I'm sure someone could make a better gif than I did, that's Twilight nodding along behind Pinkie.)

I'd love it if someone made 5 second youtube videos of all the great little clips, such as Pinkie Pie saying "this is serious business everypony!" standing on the flagpole with the megaphone. Well youtube being what it is I'm sure this will happen automatically.

I noticed Dr. Whooves in this episode but he was standing next to somepony who looks similar to Derpy but who is not Derpy (click for bigger):

(http://www.hostthenpost.org/uploads/ef9da8c74f9f94d6034307b77878085d_thumb.png) (http://www.hostthenpost.org/uploads/ef9da8c74f9f94d6034307b77878085d.png)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on February 18, 2012, 06:49:57 pm
Ah, her name on mlp.wikia.com is Cloud Kicker.

I also kind of like this background pony. :P
(http://hostthenpost.com/uploads/60da83ba4de84caf4fdd0cc3cbb6b929_thumb.png) (http://hostthenpost.com/uploads/60da83ba4de84caf4fdd0cc3cbb6b929.png)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on February 18, 2012, 10:21:25 pm
I don't have time for a Hoagiebot-length analysis right now, but I really liked this episode.  The story was pretty good, and Pinkie was better than some of the "LOL Randumb" moments we've had this season, but the true gem in this one is of course the music.  I've got Smile Smile Smile on repeat as we speak, and when someone extracts the background music I'm adding that to my MLP Official Music playlist.

The felt animation was fantastic, and I was surprised to read on EqD that Jayson did that in his basement on his own time!  That dedication makes me love these guys even more, and gives me great hope for future episodes.  Hey, a couple months ago there were a bunch of people saying something about the show going downhill... Did anybody see where they went? I want to show them this awesome song!  ;)

Cranky was a good character, and I loved/hated seeing Pinkie wreck his life--unintentionally, of course!

End credits song... LOL!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on February 19, 2012, 12:19:38 am
I decided to learn to make simple youtube videos, so brought to you by the command line tool "melt":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4kMr7HEUzw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4kMr7HEUzw)

And then I decided to do the Cheerilee expression from last week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR_qGTfyeSY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR_qGTfyeSY)

And then I just got silly and did more Twilight nodding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZspIpCQ6QQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZspIpCQ6QQ)

If anyone knows how to properly convert the Twilight nodding sequence to a gif on the command line I'd be pleased to hear. I used a couple variations of

Code: [Select]
ffmpeg -i twinodcropped.mp4 -b 1000 -r 10 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop_output 0 twinodcropped.gif -r 10

but the result looked terrible terrible terrible.

EDIT: I have mastered the art of the animated gif. Or creating them on the commandline anyway. (mplayer to extract frames, "convert" to put them back together is apparently the way to go.)

(http://hostthenpost.com/uploads/9f4df0224e301755b5957bd9a7f64762.gif)

I look forward to creating more gifs next week(https://d.facdn.net/art/aspect/1326350445.thumbnail.aspect_smilie.jpg).
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on February 19, 2012, 12:40:45 am
WHOA, I just spotted Derpy!  Tell me if you guys freak out, too, when you see it!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on February 19, 2012, 10:09:07 am
Before "A Friend in Deed" premiered this morning, we had just come off of three incredibly strong MLP:FiM episodes in a row: "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000," "Read it and Weep," and "Hearts and Hooves Day."  I enjoyed those three episodes immensely, and I was really looking forward to the streak of excellent episodes continuing.  As a result, I started watching this morning's episode with extremely high hopes.  Unfortunately, by about one-minute and thirteen-seconds into "A Friend in Deed" I was already starting to feel that this episode was going to miss the high bar that those other three episodes had set.  To explain, the teaser scene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_open) before the opening credits had nothing directly to do with the plot of the rest of the episode.  This is a missed opportunity, as the teaser scene is supposed to provide some exposition and lead you into the episode's story.  Some of the best MLP:FiM episodes' teaser scenes have done exactly this, such as the Cutie Mark Crusaders making Miss Cheerilee a Hearts and Hooves Day card in "Hearts and Hooves Day," or Rainbow Dash pulling Fluttershy out of bed to get in line for apple cider in "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000."  If you don't use your teaser scene to help with setting up the episode's plot, then it is literally a throw-away scene.

I am sure that at this point there are already a few of you here who are reading this that are already warming up their keyboard fingers to type out how strongly you disagree with with what I just wrote.  However, before you do, ask yourself this question:  How did showing Pinkie Pie putting on a 1980's aerobics workout suit, exercising her tongue, practicing facial expressions, and sitting on toy jacks have anything to do with establishing how she was every single pony's friend in Ponyville?  The answer is that it doesn't, and as a result the first act of the plot doesn't actually start until after the opening theme song has played.  This wastes a whole 6% of the episode's running time, which may not seem like a big deal at first, but keep in mind the fact that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episodes are only 22-minutes long to begin with, and as a result there really isn't much time for irrelevant material.  The writers really need to adhere to the Law of Conservation of Detail (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfConservationOfDetail?from=Main.LawOfConservationOfDetail) with such a short running time to make as much time available for the plot as possible, and here right off the bat the writer, Amy Keating Rogers, did not.  This will become a huge problem for this episode later on, as I will explain.

To help illustrate the points that I am about to make, here are the main plot points of "A Friend in Deed" according to Syd Field's Paradigm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenwriting#Syd_Field.27s_Paradigm):


Based on all of your comments about this episode thus far it seems like I may have been the only person to have had a problem with this next thing, but there was a very important piece of information that was missing from the exposition in Act I, which forces Amy Keating Rogers to reveal a plot-critical detail in the Resolution of Act III.  This causes what TVTropes .org colorfully calls an "*ss Pull:" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AssPull)

Quote
An *ss Pull is a moment when the writers pull something out of thin air in a less-than-graceful narrative development, violating the Law of Conservation of Detail (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawOfConservationOfDetail) by dropping a plot-critical (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Plot) detail in the middle, or near the end of their narrative without Foreshadowing (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Foreshadowing) or dropping a Chekhov's Gun (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun) earlier on.

In this case, the plot-critical object that was not properly introduced at the beginning of the story and instead was abruptly introduced at the end was the existence of Matilda's Scrapbook.  It was bad enough that Matilda, a  "Chekhov's Gunman (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGunman)" character unique to this episode to begin with, turned out to be Cranky Doodle Donkey's long lost love interest in Act III.  This causes Contrived Coincidence (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContrivedCoincidence), or "a highly improbable occurrence in a story which is required by the plot, but which has absolutely no outward justification."  In other words, in the whole wide land of Equestria, how likely is it that Cranky Doodle Donkey would suddenly decide to retire in the very same small town that his love interest that he has been searching his entire life for happened to be living in all along?  Add to that the fact that the existence of Matilda's Scrapbook and what was contained in it was never properly introduced early on in the story, and that turns her scrapbook into almost a surprise Deus Ex Machina (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeusExMachina) and adds even more contrived coincidence into the plot-- for example, isn't it convenient that Matilda had let Pinkie Pie see her private scrapbook at some point (off-screen no less) so that Pinkie Pie could later use that knowledge to solve the mystery of who Cranky Doodle Donkey was searching for?  Or how likely is it that Matilda would keep the exact same things in her scrapbook that Cranky did, or that Pinkie Pie would get the chance to see those particular items in Cranky's scrapbook in the few moments that she had with it before she accidentally set it on fire?  With how the episode is currently written the audience is supposed to except all of these amazing coincidences and the unseen established close relationship between Pinkie and Matilda, and just move on (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BellisariosMaxim).  I'm sorry, but with a show as typically outstanding as My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic tends to be, I expect *much* better plot development from it than that.

This is where that before mentioned wasted 6% of the episode time, the 1:15-long teaser scene, could have been put to some very good use.  It could have been used to show something like Pinkie Pie and Matilda flipping through Matilda's scrapbook together, establishing both Pinkie Pie's unseen tight relationship with Matilda, and the existence of her scrapbook.  They wouldn't even have to make the foreshadowing of the future importance of the scrapbook too blatant and ruin the plot's surprise revelation at the end, either.  For example, they wouldn't have to mention that the scrapbook contained any photos of a long lost male donkey, or anything about a "special friend."  That would make things too obvious.  But they could have briefly mentioned how the scrapbook contained a very old ticket, photos, and a menu from a long-past Grand Galloping Gala.  (i.e. "Oh wow, Matilda!  That gown that you wore to the Grand Galloping Gala in that photograph looks so beautiful!")  That would establish the both the scrapbook and the Gala keepsakes as Chekhov's Guns.  Then later on, near Plot Point 2 when Pinkie picks up Cranky Doodle's book, instead of her saying "Huh!  Would you look at that!" when she opens it, she could have said something along the lines of, "Hey, it's an old Gala ticket!" before she accidentally sets the book on fire.  That way, when Pinkie Pie reveals at the end how she put "two and two and two together" and figured out who the "special friend" Cranky Doodle Donkey was looking for was based on what she saw in his scrapbook, the existence of Matilda's scrapbook and the fact that they both contained souvenirs from a past Grand Galloping Gala would be pre-established in the story instead of being the before-mentioned "*ss pulls (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AssPull)" that they were.

While I may have personally found the plot of this episode less than perfect, luckily both the animation and the music for this episode were both absolutely fantastic!  Once again the animators and the composers brought out their "A" game in spades.  I too was very impressed by the extremely well done stop-motion animation segment that was present in this episode, and thought that it raised the perceived production value of this show immensely.  All four Pinkie Pie songs sung in the episode were also very well done and catchy, especially "Smile, Smile, Smile."  In addition, here are some other quick little things that I noticed:


So in the end I ended up just finding this episode to be average.  Not mind-blowingly awesome, but not bad either.  It was just O.K.  As I mentioned above, both the music and the animation for this episode were absolutely spectacular, but the resolution to the story was kind of anti-climatic, out-of-thin-air, and unsatisfying, and that somewhat hobbled the episode for me as a whole and kept me from rating it as one of the great ones like the last three episodes that we had before it.  In any case, it looks like next Saturday we actually don't have a new episode of Pony scheduled, so next weekend you might finally be spared from reading one of my massive eye-blurring text-walls, and I might actually have to do some real work during my Saturday night/ Sunday morning for a change instead of spending 8-hours deeply analyzing and writing about cute little technicolor cartoon ponies.  Perish the thought!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on February 19, 2012, 11:31:21 am
I am sure that at this point there are already a few of you here who are reading this that are already warming up their keyboard fingers to type out how strongly you disagree with with what I just wrote.  However, before you do, ask yourself this question:  How did showing Pinkie Pie putting on a 1980's aerobics workout suit, exercising her tongue, practicing facial expressions, and sitting on toy jacks have anything to do with establishing how she was every single pony's friend in Ponyville?

It was establishing the lengths she goes to to cheer others up; in this case the babies.
And how even after accidentally sitting on those jacks, she's still unrelentingly happy and ready for the day.
It does what you want it to pretty well actually.

I guess there could have been a small comment about Matilda's scrapbook at some point, but I don't know, I don't see it as as huge of a problem as you seem to.
It would have made it seem even more obvious to have introduced it in such detail as you seem to would like, and we'd be like "oh".
And also, the episode was about Pinkie struggling with a character who doesn't want her friendship, not how she brought two long-lost-lovers back together...
And why would Pinkie be bothered about it when it wasn't relevant?  It becomes relevant at the end, when she's putting two and two together, which we can already do because she's the only donkey that's introduced in the episode.  The scrapbook just provides the in-world justification for it.
*ponyshrug*
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on February 19, 2012, 01:22:40 pm
While I agree that the out-of-nowhere nature of the ending is something of a weakness, I felt like it was ok since it was at least connected back to the exposition: Pinkie was able to find Cranky's lost love unlike him because of the very personality trait that brought her into conflict with him, ie being everypony's friend. This gives me this nice image of Pinkie functioning as a ... oh I forget the sociological term, anyway a 'hub' of information flow in the ponyville community.

Anyway it's only natural that Pinkie Pie would mention a new donkey moving in to Matilda, and Matilda would be able to recognise his name and tell Pinkie she knows him. Having seen Matilda's scrapbook is somewhat unnecessary, but gives an excuse for this to happen sooner rather than later. Any I enjoyed the timing with Crankey locking up his door and then Pinkie showing up with Matilda, so though the ending was a bit hastily pulled together I kind of see the justification for it and like the way it was done.

Now regarding Pinkie's "ramped up hyperness," I definitely think of this as the way Pinkie is more often than not. I mean sure, not that many episodes get to spend time on it, but all Pinkie's friends are used to just... not even trying to figure out what Pinkie Pie is up to half the time. And she's a genuinely annoying person who gets overenthusiastic enough to make mistakes and wreck things like she did in this episode. The thing is that she's also got lots of redeeming qualities, like knowing everyone and being so well-intentioned all the time. ..I feel I've probably written this all before, so I'll cut myself short but the point is I'm willing to accept a pretty wide range of behavior as 'in-character' for Pinkie.

All the birthdays at the beginning were neat, and it was great that they threw in Pinkie Pie's own birthdate later. If only we could be sure what date the episode itself happened on! Though I've seen people just assuming it took place Feb. 18th and calculating everything from that.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on February 19, 2012, 05:44:32 pm
"A Friend in Deed" was a cute enough episode, but I do agree with Hoagiebot that it's a little irritating that they brought in so much convenient information at the end.  I'm mostly willing to give that a pass...  However, I am bothered by the way that Pinkie's part in bringing Matilda back to Cranky Doodle is treated as any sort of remedy for her earlier erratic behavior that led to the destruction of Cranky's treasured scrapbook.  I mean...  seriously... living in a small town like Ponyville, Cranky Doodle and Matilda could hardly avoid running into each other within the next few days.  So, not only is it a complete coincidence that Cranky's long lost love is nearby but Pinkie's part in reuniting them is incredibly minor, expediting the matter by perhaps a day or two at most.  So, basically, she spent the entire episode annoying someone who wanted to be left alone, destroyed one of his treasured objects, and then was rewarded with his friendship because of something that had nothing to do with her at all.  On top of that, her letter to Princess Celestia completely fails to display any real knowledge -- I mean, right after telling Celestia that some people just want to be left alone, she pops up and annoys Cranky Doodle yet again.  Applejack may have bragged about learning nothing, but Pinkie Pie demonstrates having learned nothing.

I don't know.  Pinkie Pie is an amusing character, but I think I'd be terrified to have her as a friend.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on February 19, 2012, 06:49:50 pm
right after telling Celestia that some people just want to be left alone, she pops up and annoys Cranky Doodle yet again.  Applejack may have bragged about learning nothing, but Pinkie Pie demonstrates having learned nothing.

Just to let you know, that wasn't the friendship letter at all - I know Twilight said it, but she was just pointing out a logical possibility, kind of like she does to Pinkie (again) in Griffon the Brush Off when she says to Pinkie that she might be jumping to conclusions with Gilda.
It was a secondary lesson though they brought out of the turn of events, while they were there. 

The actual lesson, the one Pinkie does write to Celestia, is that there are different types of friendship -

"Dear Princess Celestia,

There are many different kinds of friends, and many different ways to express friendship.  Some friends like to run and laugh and play together, but others just like to be left alone, and that's fine too.
But the best thing about friendship, is being able to make your friends smile."

Which I think is a wonderful lesson to cover.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on February 19, 2012, 07:10:03 pm
right after telling Celestia that some people just want to be left alone, she pops up and annoys Cranky Doodle yet again.  Applejack may have bragged about learning nothing, but Pinkie Pie demonstrates having learned nothing.

Just to let you know, that wasn't the friendship letter at all - I know Twilight said it, but she was just pointing out a logical possibility, kind of like she does to Pinkie (again) in Griffon the Brush Off when she says to Pinkie that she might be jumping to conclusions with Gilda.
It was a secondary lesson though they brought out of the turn of events, while they were there.  

The actual lesson, the one Pinkie does write to Celestia, is that there are different types of friendship -

"Dear Princess Celestia,

There are many different kinds of friends, and many different ways to express friendship.  Some friends like to run and laugh and play together, but others just like to be left alone, and that's fine too.
But the best thing about friendship, is being able to make your friends smile."

Which I think is a wonderful lesson to cover.

I've bolded the part of the letter where Pinkie claims to have learned that some people just want to be left alone.

After voicing that letter, Pinkie starts singing again, pops up in Cranky's window interrupting a kiss, and both donkeys have to yell at her to make her go away.  Lesson learned?  Not so much.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on February 19, 2012, 07:50:08 pm
After voicing that letter, Pinkie starts singing again, pops up in Cranky's window interrupting a kiss, and both donkeys have to yell at her to make her go away.  Lesson learned?  Not so much.

She does, she's like "Whoops, privacy, sorry!"

She just forgot herself for a moment.  Innocent mistake to make.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on February 19, 2012, 07:52:29 pm
After voicing that letter, Pinkie starts singing again, pops up in Cranky's window interrupting a kiss, and both donkeys have to yell at her to make her go away.  Lesson learned?  Not so much.

She does, she's like "Whoops, privacy, sorry!"

She just forgot herself for a moment.  Innocent mistake to make.

Pinkie seems to forget herself for a lot of moments.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on February 19, 2012, 07:56:10 pm
Pinkie seems to forget herself for a lot of moments.

It's what she does... she's just the hyperactive sort.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on February 19, 2012, 11:43:30 pm
I didn't think the episode plot was particularly strong, but I think it accomplished its most important tasks: Pinkie was funny and sang an awesome song.  That's enough for me to overlook any contrivances at the end of the episode.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on February 20, 2012, 03:39:52 am
I do love the Smile, Smile, Smile song.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on February 20, 2012, 07:30:57 pm
So, I've been following along in this thread to read the reactions people gave to the episode, but I don't think I actually put my own thoughts in yet! I've been busy with other things every time I've looked in, I guess, and just never had time to sit and write anything.

My first thought is that this has simply been a very strong season so far. It had a few hiccups, but overall I have liked pretty much every episode so far (seems like a lot of people feel it floundered for a few episodes there, but picked back up). I can honestly say that I feel like the team has definitely responded to the show's popularity, and has upped the (already high) bar in their production efforts.

That said, this season is kind of muddying together in a large pool of episodes. Not in a bad way at all, it's actually a good pool. But it makes it difficult for me to pick that one stand-out episode that seems to shine above the rest for me. They all just float around in that 'I liked/really liked' that episode' state.  So I found this one to be pretty average by this season's standards. Which still means that I liked the episode overall.

I had two main gripes with it.

1. I agree that the song just didn't seem to fit Pinkie. The lyrics did, but the execution of the song, not so much. By that, I mean it was just too organized/thought out for Pinkie. Her songs are usually short and somewhat random. You Gotta Share is probably the best example of a more full piece from Pinkie prior to this one. And frankly, it was still rather random, especially with the choreography of the song itself. The way it was set up, it just suits Pinkie better than Smile Smile Smile.  It was also a little overly-bubbly or something (I don't want to say 'girly' but... maybe childish? Did I just complain that something was possibly girly and/or childish in My Little Pony?). And given all that, it did seem to go on a bit longer than I would have liked. We've had some songs that were longer, but those have usually been songs that I just like better in general, so the length doesn't bother me.

2. No surprise here, but the ending of the episode was pretty blatantly obvious once Pinkie started to get Cranky to talk. I guess I should just get used to that, because it's not like I should expect some sort of huge, mind-blowing story-line twists in a show like this.

But there was plenty to enjoy in this episode, too. And plenty of moments that had me laughing. And I still had that warm and happy feeling after the episode that I've come to expect from my ponies at this point. A few of the highlights:
 - Hey everyone! This donkey here is REALLY, REALLY bald!
 - Pinkie thinks in felt!
 - Cranky's new toupee - the Dreamboat Special. I feel like this is a reference to something, which is going right over my head.
 - Continuity everywhere! The baby Cakes were there, RD was still obsessing over the Daring Do books. I have little doubt that these sorts of things were thrown in because of the feedback from the fandom. They could have just as easily left those little details out.
 - Pinkie meets Pinkie during her song. I was actually terrified for a brief moment at the possible implications thereof.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Kay Alett on February 20, 2012, 09:08:04 pm
Cranky's toupe was the same hairdo as the sea serpent in episode 2 of season one. Steven Magnet.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on February 20, 2012, 11:46:36 pm
1. I agree that the song just didn't seem to fit Pinkie. The lyrics did, but the execution of the song, not so much. By that, I mean it was just too organized/thought out for Pinkie. Her songs are usually short and somewhat random.

I don't think this one was meant to be a "Pinkie Song" so much as it was a song featuring Pinkie Pie.  To me it was more significant that she was basically singing about her life's mission.  Honestly, I have been sort of waving her off as a main character until this song, but it helped me understand her motivations on a deeper level.

Aside from that, I like to think this is what Pinkie sees in her head EVERY time she sings a song! :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on February 21, 2012, 12:07:30 am
Aside from that, I like to think this is what Pinkie sees in her head EVERY time she sings a song! :D

Ha, exactly what I was going to say! The song is sort of all in her head, especially the part where she helps herself up from the shadows. (I was sort of disappointed she didn't have straight hair when depressed. :) )

The toupeé is perhaps a Jhonny Bravo reference.

The fact that there is no new episode next week caused be to go back and look at old ones, and I'd really forgotten season one was as excellent as the recent ones (despite having just first watched them in January :P ) Besides, I've found even the 1080p episodes on Youtube play much higher quality if I download them first (using a utility like youtube-dl) and watch them on my computer, which also never hesitates during playback. So it's much more pleasant!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: redyoshi49q on February 21, 2012, 01:12:52 am
The song "Smile Smile Smile" was awesome.  I've just watched the episode, and I've already listened to the song four times.  It was also the first time the show gave me a prolonged, ear-to-ear grin.

...Yeah, it takes a *lot* to get me that happy.

I also managed to spot Derpy without any assistance this episode.  A *very* random placement, I do have to say.

Also, it seems that the song "Smile Smile Smile" had been leaked before this episode on Equestria Daily, according to several Youtube videos featuring that song well before the release of the most recent episode.

(*edit*) By the way, did anybody else notice that this episode had a different ending theme song to it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2pjwu0ds-w&feature=related)?


It was also a little overly-bubbly or something (I don't want to say 'girly' but... maybe childish? Did I just complain that something was possibly girly and/or childish in My Little Pony?).

This literally had me laughing out loud.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on February 21, 2012, 02:14:46 am
(*edit*) By the way, did anybody else notice that this episode had a different ending theme song to it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2pjwu0ds-w&feature=related)?

Aaaaaaaugh!  I finally had that out of my head before I made the mistake of clicking on your link.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on February 21, 2012, 04:30:44 pm
I am sure that at this point there are already a few of you here who are reading this that are already warming up their keyboard fingers to type out how strongly you disagree with with what I just wrote.  However, before you do, ask yourself this question:  How did showing Pinkie Pie putting on a 1980's aerobics workout suit, exercising her tongue, practicing facial expressions, and sitting on toy jacks have anything to do with establishing how she was every single pony's friend in Ponyville?

It was establishing the lengths she goes to to cheer others up; in this case the babies.
And how even after accidentally sitting on those jacks, she's still unrelentingly happy and ready for the day.
It does what you want it to pretty well actually.

The teaser scene doesn't contribute anything meaningful to the exposition of the story, and here's why:

Just to reiterate, the story of this episode in a nutshell is that Pinkie Pie is the friend of every single resident of Ponyville until she runs into Cranky Doodle Donkey.  When he spurns her friendship, she then spends the rest of the episode trying everything that she can to make him her friend.  For this story to work, we have to first establish that Pinkie Pie is friends with everyone in Ponyville.  This was done in the episode between 1:50 and 6:18 in the most literal of ways, by actually showing Pinkie Pie being friends with everyone in Ponyville.  This is accomplished by showing Pinkie Pie remembering everyone's birthdays, remembering customer's food orders, complimenting others on their flowers and clothes, and literally singing and playing merrily with every single pony in the entire town.  This is the setup of the character interrelationships right here.  When you're dealing with a medium that limits your episode running time to less than 22-minutes, you just don't have the time to symbolic or figurative with how you go about establishing the setting, main character, dramatic premise, and dramatic situation of the episode.  How can we show that Pinkie Pie is friends with everyone in the whole town?  Show her talking, singing, and playing with everyone in the whole town!  Done!  Mission accomplished!

The teaser scene, in contrast, does not have anything directly related to the entire rest of the episode's plot contained within it.  If you removed the teaser scene from "A Friend in Deed" it would not harm the episode's plot in any meaningful way at all.  If you got to your TV late last Saturday morning and missed the teaser scene when it aired it wouldn't have effected your ability to understand the rest of the episode in any way.  You could also add the teaser scene from "A Friend in Deed" to the beginning of any MLP:FiM episode that occurs chronologically after "Baby Cakes," and the scene would still make sense.  This is why it is the textbook example of a throwaway gag, because it is literally not tied to anything else that is going on in the plot of "A Friend in Deed."  Now if Pinkie Pie's aerobics routine, the two baby Cake twins, or the toy jacks somehow played some kind of a direct role at the end of "A Friend in Deed" by helping Pinkie Pie befriend Cranky Doodle Donkey in some way then you would have an argument on how the teaser scene is important to the main plot, but since none of the things from the teaser scene are ever seen or mentioned again in the rest of the episode the scene could easily have been lopped off with no consequence.

With that said, please keep in mind that the only reason why I became fixated on the teaser scene at all is not because I didn't think that it was cute, but because I thought that its screen time could have been better used to shore up the weaknesses that are present in the third act of the episode.  As I mentioned in my last post, the object that allowed Pinkie Pie to be able to "put two and two and two" together to reintroduce Cranky with Matilda in this episode, Matilda's scrapbook, *literally* came out of nowhere and was mentioned at the last-second.  It was never mentioned nor seen in the episode up until that point when it suddenly became crucial to resolving the conflict in the plot.  Such sudden introductions of important elements right before they are needed to resolve a situation can be jarring and make it seem like the character just pulled the solution out of their butt, which is why TVTropes.org calls this sort of occurrence an "*ss pull." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AssPull)  To avoid these *ss pull-type moments from happening in a story, you need to give any important character, skill, or item that is critical to resolving the plot some kind of subtle presence in the story before it is used.  That way, when that character, skill, or item does show up unexpectedly later at a critical moment to save the day it has been pre-established as always have been there, so it becomes a creative use of something that was available instead of hastily making up something that wasn't.  Two great examples of how plot-important things were subtly introduced into an episode before they were used include the shovels that were shown leaning against a wall before Sweetie Belle uses them to dig the pit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGIrUs26LFE&feature=player_detailpage#t=1071s) in "Hearts and Hooves Day," and how in "A Friend in Deed" we were briefly introduced to Matilda at the beginning of the episode so that it was pre-established that she was a resident of the town before it was revealed that she was Cranky's long lost love at the end.

As far as why the teaser scene attracts my attention as part of the episode that could have been altered to improve the third act, since Pinkie Pie was already busy trying to make Cranky her friend in the second act, the only place that we could pre-establish the existence of Matilda's scrapbook would be in the first act when we introduced Matilda herself.  Unfortunately, this is where the extreme time constraints of the medium really come into play.  As I mentioned above, the inciting incident in the first act starts at 6:19, which means that you would have to find the time to establish the existence of Matilda's scrapbook before that point.  However, you don't have all of that 6:19 available to you.  35-seconds of it goes to the show's opening credits.  Another 1:16 of it gets used up by the current throwaway teaser scene.  And you lose yet another 3:21 to the song, "Smile, Smile, Smile."  That only leaves you with only 1-minute and 7-seconds of time left available to you for the rest of your exposition, which is barely enough time to accomplish anything, especially when all of it is currently being used to show Pinkie greeting Daisy Jo, Rose, Mr. Waddle, Cheerilee, Zecora, and Matilda.  It is that reason right there that explains why I look at that teaser scene with such greedy eyes.  It is a whole extra minute and sixteen seconds that could have been so much more effectively utilized to setup the episode's exposition with.  If you are going to use extra time to establish the existence of Matilda's scrapbook you need to grab that time from somewhere, and your two main options are either to replace the teaser scene, or eliminate the song "Smile, Smile, Smile."  And since "Smile, Smile, Smile" actually provides some very beneficial character interrelationship establishment by showing Pinkie Pie cheering up and singing with the entire town during it, I would say keep the song and replace the teaser scene.  That is why I directed so much of my attention towards that teaser-- I felt that in the case of this particular episode its time could have been better used.

Anyway it's only natural that Pinkie Pie would mention a new donkey moving in to Matilda, and Matilda would be able to recognise his name and tell Pinkie she knows him. Having seen Matilda's scrapbook is somewhat unnecessary, but gives an excuse for this to happen sooner rather than later.

If the episode actually showed Pinkie Pie talking to Matilda and mentioning the new donkey in town to her (or at the very least explaining that something like that had happened after the fact), then you would be onto something.  However, the episode shows or mentions no such thing.  There is no indication that Pinkie ever spoke to Matilda a second time between when Pinkie Pie first met Cranky at 6:19 and when she went to go fetch Matilda at 17:03 after figuring everything out.  Just assuming that a character would do a certain thing off-screen despite it never being seen nor mentioned in the episode itself is pure speculation on your part.  All that can be proven or disproven is what appears or is mentioned in the story itself.  This further illustrates the importance of pre-establishing all of the important information and relationships that are relevant to the story on-screen-- if everything that the audience needs to know to understand the plot of a story is actually present in the story, then the audience doesn't have to put themselves through wild mass guessing to fill in the holes for themselves.

2. No surprise here, but the ending of the episode was pretty blatantly obvious once Pinkie started to get Cranky to talk. I guess I should just get used to that, because it's not like I should expect some sort of huge, mind-blowing story-line twists in a show like this.

In some of my past posts in this thread I have agreed with your sentiment and felt somewhat disappointed when I was able to guess how an episode was going to play out, sometimes even before I watched the episode in question.  However, at the same time I have also started to try to take into account the running time-constraint that the writers have to deal with when they are writing episodes that are less than 22-minutes long.  In those 22-minutes you have to do absolutely everything, from setting up your story and characters, to having some sort of quest, journey, or confrontation, to having a satisfying resolution.  That gives the writers very little time to try to throw misleading information at the audience to misdirect them and lead them down multiple paths in order to surprise them later.  In hour-long prime-time television detective shows, such as CSI: Miami or Hawaii Five-O, the writers have a lot more time available to try to lead you astray before showing you the who real culprit is.  In a show that is half as long you have that much less opportunity to do the same.  That doesn't mean that I no longer think that the writers of MLP:FiM's should be doing their absolute best to try to keep the plots innovative and satisfying-- quite on the contrary.  Instead, all I am saying is that you have to keep in perspective how long of a running time that the writers had to work with to do what they were trying to do, and then judge them by how well they were able to tell that story in the limited amount of time that they had to do it in.

(*edit*) By the way, did anybody else notice that this episode had a different ending theme song to it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2pjwu0ds-w&feature=related)?

This isn't the first time that there has been a different ending theme song for a MLP:FiM episode.  "The Return of Harmony - Part 2" also had a different ending theme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYiJEPTUhQE&feature=player_detailpage#t=1286s).
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on February 23, 2012, 05:33:25 am
I didn't get to see the episode until a couple days ago, and then was home and offline until now for the most part. Since this discussion has just gone way to long on this episode for me to contribute much without a lot of digging, I'll just leave it at it was a good episode. Mid tier maybe, which I may revise upon second viewing when I don't have a 2.5 year old toddler to contend with while watching. :D

Oh, and here's my take on the lesson really learned from the episode: If people don't want to be your friend, it's ok to stalk them relentlessly until they give in. :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on February 25, 2012, 12:57:56 am
I didn't get to see the episode until a couple days ago, and then was home and offline until now for the most part. Since this discussion has just gone way to long on this episode for me to contribute much without a lot of digging, I'll just leave it at it was a good episode. Mid tier maybe, which I may revise upon second viewing when I don't have a 2.5 year old toddler to contend with while watching. :D

Oh, and here's my take on the lesson really learned from the episode: If people don't want to be your friend, it's ok to stalk them relentlessly until they give in. :D

I like the lesson that you took away from this episode-- I got a chuckle out of it!   :)  While I can't speak for anyone else here, I personally don't mind if you decided that you still wanted to discuss your full thoughts on this episode.  If there was anything else that you really wanted to contribute, feel free.  As I am sure you already know, we don't have a new episode of ponies airing tomorrow morning (http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=40722.msg832981#msg832981), so you wouldn't really be digging since you would still be discussing the the most recent one.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on February 25, 2012, 10:57:46 am
True, but I think most everything I'd say would have been said already, and then debated by someone else who thought otherwise. So the point is moot IMHO, and the excitement to post has already worn off. :P It's no big deal to me. ;)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on March 05, 2012, 04:11:35 pm
Episode 19 was this weekend. Thoughts, anybody?

I'm torn about this episode. I mean, they've kinda already done the whole Discorded Fluttershy thing once already. But setting that aside, I did feel like this was a pretty strong episode. It had a handful of fun references in it, some of which had us* laughing pretty hard.

My only real gripe goes back to the first part of my comment. It was as if they completely forget what had happened with Discord, and Fluttershy had to re-learn that all over again. Just the way she snapped out of it and everything, was just so reminiscent of all that from before.

I think what I loved most was the trio of ponies featured in the episode. We haven't seen much in terms of the relationship between those three as a set. But they do seem like a realistic sub-group that would form within the group of 6. Come to think of it, AJ and RD have enough similarities that I can see them hanging out a lot outside the main group (and we've seen examples of that in the show as well). Leaving Twilight to just kinda... be there. Poor Twilight. At least she has her books. And Spike.

*Sidenote: I've been meeting up with a small group of local bronies to watch the episodes. Watching with a few other people just makes it that much better.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on March 05, 2012, 04:16:31 pm
I can't believe I'm actually the first person to post here about "Putting Your Hoof Down," especially since I was busy all weekend and didn't get around to watching it until today.  I was looking forward to reading other people's posts and was hoping to find something to like about this episode from them.  As it is...  I was really disappointed.  I'd been excited for there to be a new Fluttershy episode, but this episode felt like utter fail.  I mean, at the beginning of the season when the arch villain Dischord tried to turn Fluttershy evil, she was the only pony who's nature was so true that she didn't fall for his tricks.  Yet, a quick seminar from a minotaur, and she's suddenly beating people up and saying mean things?  I kept hoping that it would turn out that the minotaur had cast some sort of magic on her...  Although, I still would have felt like it stretched credibility for a random minotaur to have an easier time magically turning Fluttershy evil than Dischord did.

I guess I did enjoy the classic gag with Pinkie Pie switching roles mid-argument to trick her opponent into giving her what she wants.  And the idea of Angel being such a picky eater was cute.  But I can't help but feel like this episode was a horrible betrayal of Fluttershy's nature.  It started out by claiming she was too much of a pushover (plausible), followed that up with turning her really mean with a little bit of assertiveness training (a terrible contradiction of her personality as established in the rest of the show), and concluded by claiming that, actually, she was perfectly capable of standing up for herself when it really mattered all along (a confusing contradiction of the beginning of the episode) or else that the assertiveness training really had helped? (which would mean that she was refusing to pay the minotaur even though he really had helped her...).  The moral heart of this story was a sad mixed-up mish mash, and the character arc was either non-existent (the ability to stand up for herself was inside Fluttershy all along) or kind of troubling (assertiveness can make you evil, but you should go ahead and get it and then blame the person who gave it to you for turning you evil, even though, in the end, he really helped you out?).

Ug.

[Edit:  when I started writing this, no one else had posted yet.  That doesn't seem to be true now that I've finished.]
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on March 05, 2012, 04:21:06 pm
I think what I loved most was the trio of ponies featured in the episode. We haven't seen much in terms of the relationship between those three as a set. But they do seem like a realistic sub-group that would form within the group of 6. Come to think of it, AJ and RD have enough similarities that I can see them hanging out a lot outside the main group (and we've seen examples of that in the show as well). Leaving Twilight to just kinda... be there. Poor Twilight. At least she has her books. And Spike.

I did enjoy the way that they paired Rarity and Pinkie Pie in this episode.

I'm not too worried about Twilight though.  We've seen her being friends with each of the others individually before, perhaps especially Rarity.  It is neat to see how the different sets of ponies have different kinds of friendships.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on March 05, 2012, 04:55:48 pm
I can't believe I'm actually the first person to post here about "Putting Your Hoof Down," especially since I was busy all weekend and didn't get around to watching it until today.  I was looking forward to reading other people's posts and was hoping to find something to like about this episode from them.  As it is...  I was really disappointed.  I'd been excited for there to be a new Fluttershy episode, but this episode felt like utter fail.  I mean, at the beginning of the season when the arch villain Dischord tried to turn Fluttershy evil, she was the only pony who's nature was so true that she didn't fall for his tricks.  Yet, a quick seminar from a minotaur, and she's suddenly beating people up and saying mean things?  I kept hoping that it would turn out that the minotaur had cast some sort of magic on her...  Although, I still would have felt like it stretched credibility for a random minotaur to have an easier time magically turning Fluttershy evil than Dischord did.

I guess I did enjoy the classic gag with Pinkie Pie switching roles mid-argument to trick her opponent into giving her what she wants.  And the idea of Angel being such a picky eater was cute.  But I can't help but feel like this episode was a horrible betrayal of Fluttershy's nature.  It started out by claiming she was too much of a pushover (plausible), followed that up with turning her really mean with a little bit of assertiveness training (a terrible contradiction of her personality as established in the rest of the show), and concluded by claiming that, actually, she was perfectly capable of standing up for herself when it really mattered all along (a confusing contradiction of the beginning of the episode) or else that the assertiveness training really had helped? (which would mean that she was refusing to pay the minotaur even though he really had helped her...).  The moral heart of this story was a sad mixed-up mish mash, and the character arc was either non-existent (the ability to stand up for herself was inside Fluttershy all along) or kind of troubling (assertiveness can make you evil, but you should go ahead and get it and then blame the person who gave it to you for turning you evil, even though, in the end, he really helped you out?).

Ug.

[Edit:  when I started writing this, no one else had posted yet.  That doesn't seem to be true now that I've finished.]

Don't mind me. I'm just doing my requisite Forum Ninja duties :P

I've heard a handful of people who found the lessons a bit troublesome/misleading. I guess I just watched it through a different lens, because I didn't really get much of that. I saw something more along the lines of 'When you know you are in the right, it is okay to hold your ground, but don't get carried away'. Granted, this could get dangerous if a kid tries to use this against their parents.

I didn't really see it advocating assertiveness to the point of bullying. On the contrary, it was shown to really hurt Fluttershy, to the point where she was going to shut herself away from the world entirely. In the end, she was able to stand up for herself without changing who she was.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Landrav on March 05, 2012, 07:43:38 pm
I agree, I don't think the episode promoted any negative lessons at all.  It clearly showed that Fluttershy hurt her friends, and when she realized it, it hurt her, too.  I don't think it was SO out of character for Fluttershy because it was more of that "power is intoxicating" feeling than really being a full personality change.  Someone on Ponychan went through an explanation of each incident where she used a catchphrase and it was pretty much an escalation caused by positive reinforcement (getting her way).  Of course, I'm giving a generous allowance for the simple fact that it's a cartoon, and a lot of what they do with the show pretty much HAS to be exaggerated. This is especially true because of the very short time limit the creators have to work with.  I don't deduct any points for something that's outside their control.

Last night I watched this episode maybe 6 times on loop while I did other stuff on the internet.  Then I watched Hearth's Warming Eve while I fell asleep on the couch.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on March 05, 2012, 09:29:16 pm
I didn't say that it promoted negative lessons.  I'm not concerned that it's telling kids to go beat people up.  I'm simply disappointed by what felt like an unclear, out-of-character character arc.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on March 05, 2012, 11:12:49 pm
Well, I gave it the old college try to be the first poster for this episode.  I originally thought that I wouldn't be able to watch the new MLP:FiM episode, "Putting Your Hoof Down," on Saturday because of the show's new time-slot being during the afternoon when I am usually asleep, but one of the other occupants in my house decided that Saturday afternoon was a splendid time to hammer some nails into a wall near my bedroom, so what do you know, I was awake to watch 'Ponies on Saturday after all.  *grumbles*  After watching the new episode on Saturday I did sit down in front of my computer and put 5-straight hours into writing my review of it, but that just wasn't enough time and had to go to bed leaving it unfinished because I had a Software Development Community meeting to go to the next day.  I had originally hoped to finish my review on Sunday night after my meeting was over, but on my way home I had an unbelievably close brush with almost being in a high-speed car wreck when some maniac going at least 10-or-15MPH over this road's 55MPH speed limit decided to cut me off without clearing my car first.  Had I not emergency slammed on the brakes he would have careened right into me, sending me into a concrete barrier.  But that was not where the incident ended-- naturally there was another car following too close behind me, and while that driver saw me braking and also slammed on the brakes, seeing his headlights in the review mirror it became apparent that there was a really good chance that the other driver would not be able to slow down in time and smash into me from the rear.  So immediately after the maniac in front of me just barely, somehow, cleared the nose of my car while passing into my lane I laid off the brakes and hit the accelerator again to regain some speed and help maintain the gap between myself and the driver behind me.  That lead me to somehow also narrowly escape from being hit from behind.  All of that took place in only about 2-seconds worth of time, and I still don't know how I got out of it without getting completely totaled.  After being severely shaken by that, once I got home I got myself a hot bowl of soup, a hot shower, and then just went to bed.  So now I find myself on Monday sitting back in front of my PC and putting another 4-hours in to finish up the rather lengthy review that I originally started on Saturday...

Now, when I watch new episodes of MLP:FiM I make it a point to make sure that I don't know who wrote the episode until after I have finished watching it.  I do this to try to keep at least my initial thoughts and reactions about the episode unbiased by my preexisting preconceptions about each MLP:FiM writer.  That way I won't feel that an episode is better than it really is just because it was written by my favorite MLP:FiM writer, M.A. Larson or worse than it really is just because it was written by my least favorite MLP:FiM writer, Merriwether Williams.  With that said, when I was watching this episode something about it just felt a little off to me.  So much so that my very first thought about the episode after I had finished watching it was, "Whoa, that was a weird one."  So after watching the episode I decided to go down to my evil subterranean lair, fire up one of my many computer minions, and look up who this episode's writer was on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Wiki (http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/My_Little_Pony_Friendship_is_Magic_Wiki).  The answer of course was that the credited writer for the episode was Merriwether Williams.  I should have known.   Oddly, another additional story credit was given to Charlotte Fullerton for this episode.  That makes it trickier to figure out who is exactly responsible for what, but since Merriwether Williams is credited as the episode's actual writer, I am going to have to assume that she was the primary creative influence at work here.

While there was a lot about this episode that didn't seem quite right to me, my number one complaint about it has to be the behavior of both Pinkie Pie and Rarity early on in the episode when they try to demonstrate to Fluttershy how to stand up for herself at the marketplace.  Now I would expect Fluttershy's behavior to initially not set a good example for the viewers in the first two acts of this episode because she is the character that need's to learn the episode's aesop (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnAesop) by the end, and her losing her way only to find her way back again is her character's development arc in the plot, after all.  The problem is that when Rarity and Pinkie Pie first tried to teach Fluttershy to be assertive I don't think that *their* so-called "assertive behavior" set a very good example either, and that's not right because they were supposed to be Fluttershy's positive influences in this episode!  To explain, when Rarity wanted to show Fluttershy how to get what she wants, she does it by going up to that oblivious and socially awkward stallion and basically threw herself at him, using her feminine wiles and flirtatious behavior to basically seduce the stallion into giving her what she wanted.  That's not right!  What a great example to show to this show's primary demographic, young girls!  Hey little girl, does that guy have an item that you want?  Well then flirt with him and make advances towards him until you wheedle him into giving it to you!  Rarity says that it's O.K!  Man, and to think that I was originally all upset that somehow Derpy's fannon name and voice made it through the editorial review process at DHX Media/Hasbro Studios in "The Last Roundup."  As far as I am concerned, that was just a small unintentional weiner-up compared to what we have got going on here!  The fact that Rarity's actions here somehow made it through all of the network's E.I. executives and was green-lit is unbelievable!  I know that I have mentioned this a bunch of times already in pasts posts here, but during the first season of MLP:FiM the Educational and Informational Department at Hasbro was so strict with the show's writers that the term "egghead" was barely allowed to get through.  Where the heck are those super-strict E.I. Department people now?  Asleep at the wheel!?

Then you have Pinkie Pie try to teach Fluttershy how to be assertive with the tomato-selling mare, and her method of doing so wasn't much better than Rarity's.  First of all, since when is it wrong for a seller to decide to raise the selling-price of their product, as long as it is not intentional gouging?  Maybe half of this mare's tomato crop recently got destroyed by tomato hornworms (http://coopext.colostate.edu/4dmg/Pests/tomato.htm), which caused a halving of her tomato supply and thus a doubling of her price from the week before?  Anyway, Pinkie Pie's solution to this was to essentially trick the mare into giving her what she wanted by confusing her through a Bugs Bunny-ripped off wordplay routine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-k5J4RxQdE).  That's not right!  There is nothing wrong with haggling on a price for something if the seller wants to.  I haggle all of the time when I am trying to purchase all of the wonderful treasures that I find at local hamfests (http://hoagiebot.furrynet.com/blogs/index.php?blog=6&title=another_successful_expedition_to_the_wcr&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1).  But what we saw here at this particular moment in the episode wasn't haggling.  It was swindling instead.  The tomato seller did not want to sell her tomatoes for less than two bits, and Pinkie Pie intentionally tricked her through a word game into accepting only one.  Hey kids, it's O.K. to pull a fast one on people because Pinkie Pie says so!  Aye yai yai does Merriwether Williams (and possibly also Charlotte Fullerton?) have a crooked sense of morals or what!?

That leads me to my next major gripe, which is the fact that in two of Merriwether Williams episodes now it feels like I am watching a Fringe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_(TV_series))-like slightly different alternate universe version of Ponyville instead of Ponyville itself.  In "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well" for example, our calm relatively flat town of Ponyville is suddenly turned into a mountainous small city of chaos, where tall building are being built, roads wind down mountainsides and end suddenly at cliffs like ski jumps, and everypony all of a sudden needs saving.  Now all of a sudden in "Putting Your Hoof Down" the vast majority of Ponyville's residents have suddenly turned into inconsiderate jerks.  Do you remember in the first season episode "Boast Busters" how contrasting The Great and Powerful Trixie's self-centered behavior was compared to the rest of Ponyville's residents, making her a clear antagonist?  Now we have an entire town acting like Trixie!  I realize that this mass character behavioral shift conveniently serves this particular episode's plot, but geez, there is no way that this is the same Ponyville whose residents were happily bounding from the town's rooftops and singing "Smile, Smile, Smile" with Pinkie Pie just one episode ago!  Based on what I saw today, if Spike had accidentally bumped into Cheerilee and spilled her groceries on his birthday in Merriwether Williams's Ponyville, Cheerilee probably would have probably responded by kicking the tar out of him and leaving him for dead along the roadside instead of giving him that really cool feathered hat!  The random townsfolk in today's episode seem almost that mean to me!  I don't know, maybe Ponyville in today's episode was flooded by visiting ponies from the mean streets of Manehatten?  *shrugs*

Still another thing that kind of bothered me about this episode was the lack of an appearance by the rest of the Mane Six.  I do have a pretty good out-of-universe guess as to why they weren't there-- they were probably omitted due to the Law of Conservation of Detail (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfConservationOfDetail) since they weren't essential to the story, but still, I think that might have been an overly extreme application of the law.  I am not saying that I feel that Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle should have served any kind of major role in the story because there just wasn't enough episode running time for that, but they could have made some sort of small cameo appearance somewhere during the marketplace or Sugarcube Corner scenes or something.  With the episode how it was I started to get the gut feeling that the production team was trying to pinch pennies with it, as if the other main characters were left out to save money on voice actresses.  That may or may not actually have been a factor-- I really have no idea, but whether it was or wasn't that was still the impression that I got.  

For those of you who are interested, when you break down the plot of "Putting Your Hoof Down" with Syd Field's Paradigm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenwriting#Syd_Field.27s_Paradigm) you get:


Some other things in this episode that I noticed:


As for my final thoughts on this episode, it did have some funny and entertaining moments, especially Iron Will tossing Pinkie Pie into the mud, the contents of the garbage carts being dumped onto Bon Bon and Cherry Berry, and poor Derpy missing out on buying her asparagus.  In fact, Iron Will and his goat cohorts were entertaining, period.  But even those elements couldn't save this episode from its many apparent weaknesses-- an inappropriately behaving Rarity and Pinkie Pie manipulating other ponies in the marketplace, mixed sometimes broken moral messages, a plot that feels rehashed from other episodes where Fluttershy has to overcome her meekness, such as "Dragonshy," the suddenly overly self-centered and inconsiderate residents of Ponyville (which kind of ruined the mood of the place), a very aggressively trimmed-back cast of main characters, etc., so overall I am going to have to rank this one in the lower echelons of the second-season MLP:FiM episodes.  As I said above, the whole entire episode just seemed a bit "off" in one way or another.

While I don't think any of the regular MLP:FiM writers have a perfectly spotless track record with me, Merriwether Williams is the only writer that I really truly wish that they would stop commissioning screenplays from.  While her episodes definitely aren't the worst things that I have ever seen on television or anything like that, at the same time she just doesn't seem to be a very good fit for MLP:FiM.  None of her episodes have really captured the same essence of what MLP:FiM is about that the other writers have bought to us, and no one can write episodes that divide the opinion among all of the bronies as sharply as she can.  Couldn't they just commission the writing of a couple of more episodes from M.A. Larson, Meghan McCarthy, Amy Keating Rogers, and/or Cindy Morrow and just call it a day?  They don't need her services that badly, do they?

In any case, at least next week we finally get to see the time travel episode of MLP:FiM that I have been eagerly waiting for!  I have my annual SKYWARN Advanced-Level Severe Weather Spotter Training Seminar going on next Saturday, so unfortunately I won't be able to watch the episode as it airs, but maybe I will be able to catch it afterward before I have to go to my Lake Area Furry Friends monthly bowling meet.  Let's hope!   :)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on March 06, 2012, 12:32:09 am
Yes, I was troubled by Rarity taking advantage of the nerdy pony too.  And I also thought it odd that Pinkie Pie wouldn't allow the tomato vendor to raise her prices.  At first, I thought the tomato vendor was gouging Fluttershy (as the cherry vendor later did), but the "two tomatoes = two bits" sign showed that wasn't the case.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on March 10, 2012, 08:16:05 pm
MLP: FIM "It's About Time" -- I liked the ice cream house.  I liked the way that Twilight went to the trouble of sneaking around even though all the ponies who ran into her (the guard, the princess) didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about her being there.  I liked how Pinkie Pie bounced everywhere they went.  And I loved the way that Pinkie had balls and eye patches stashed all over Ponyville.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on March 10, 2012, 10:19:28 pm
I went somewhere for Spring Break for once, so I found myself stuck in Puerto Rico studying rocks with a bunch of geologists rather than watching "Putting your Hoof Down." I made an effort to see it in the hotel but the internet was spotty and I only got to see the first half until last night.

Since the new episode is out now I won't dwell too much on the cuteness of Fluttershy &c. &c., but:

0:06 - Fluttershy: "Lunch time!  Who's hungry?  Plenty for everypony!"  Why did Fluttershy say "everypony" here?  What pony?  I see squirrels, mice, birds, ferrets, and rabbits, but no other ponies.  I wonder if saying "everypony" here was an in-universe slip of the character, or an out-of-universe slip of the writer.

"Everypony" is just the MLP word for "everyone". Though there are many other sentient species in Equestria (and beyond? is there a beyond?) ponies are common enough that "pony" can be understood as synonymous with "person" the same way we might conflate "humanity" with "personhood". (This is somewhat rare, but it's possible to google up examples, such as "could a robot be considered human".)

I guess I'd also just say, I really found the Rarity/Pinkie dynamic a neat little aspect of that episode too, and I think it makes sense to leave the other mane 6 out for an episode. They all had friends before Twilight came to Ponyville and brought them all specifically together; in my "headcanon" they all interact with their other friends in between episodes.

But anyway, back to more recent things! or should I say, back to the future! "It's About Time" has a lot going for it: Twilight using lots of magic, good Pinkie Pie gags, plenty of Spike and even Spike with Rarity, monsters and (somewhat offscreen) epic adventure, a Mad Science Twilight scene. Continuity references galore: Starswirl the Bearded was one I personally hoped would show up again, along with Pinkie's sixth sense; we also had Fluttershy taming a beast, Spike enjoying his sleep perhaps overmuch, and Twilight being good at taking charge and giving orders. And at the very end, Celestia even showed up, which I suppose isn't a big deal but I was really hoping for. (Really, Twilight should have contacted Celestia first thing rather than organising the whole disaster-preparation effort herself...)

I liked Twilight constantly using telekinesis and teleporting around because I feel like a background thread in MLP has been Twilight constantly getting better at magic, to the point where it's almost a danger to herself and others. (I started thinking this when she accidentally teleported herself and Spike back in "Ticket Master".) Naturally this idea is at the core of every fanfic I've thought up including the one lying unfinished in this very forum. This episode fits perfectly into that overarching plot as it shows Twilight's magical abilities starting to cause serious trouble. Of course, the spell turned out to be one-time-use, which keeps the time-obsessed Twilight from completely breaking reality later as we all know she would. Hmm is there a tvtropes page about the habit authors have of not breaking reality? ie, super powerful abilities are not controllable or disappear after they are used, cool technologies can't be used with each other (in Star Trek, replicator and transporter technologies don't work on the same principles since replicators can't make living things, which means transporter buffers don't serve as backup copies of people and usually individuality is conserved).

But I digress. (And use a lot of parentheses.) Another thing I liked was the whole future self / past self thing. But probably the reason I liked it was because of its extensive use in the webcomic MS Paint Adventures; I almost felt like it was a reference, though it probably wasn't. MSPA involves a lot of time travel (and other awesome things) and several of the characters have odd relationships with their past and/or future selves. (Karkat the Troll, for example, simply hates and thoroughly distrusts both his past and future selves, and constantly argues with them or tries to avoid them.)  This episode repeated a couple of times the theme that you should remember you really are your future self. This is a curious moral since as far as I know nopony actually has this problem.

It's pretty funny how at the end Twilight is frustrated that "now I'm gonna spend a week worrying about a disaster that doesn't even exist!" but then Pinkie reminds her that that's past Twilight's problem not hers. The problematic future tense here as well as the moral dilemma of whether to feel guilty about causing suffering which is in the past are just funny to me.

On to a few things I didn't like about the episode. Toward the end Twilight makes a lot of dumb mistakes, which is because she's too worried about trying to follow her future self's wishes and avoid disaster. Her not even seeing the Starswirl wing is a little weird but probably realistic. But the very last mistake, of precisely duplicating her previously-experienced conversation, is a bit of a stretch, especially since she seemingly had already calmed down and realised there was nothing to worry about. But, fiction always has trouble depicting stable time loops containing characters trying to destabilise them; it's just a very counter-intuitive thing to try to design. So this isn't a real criticism. Nor is my second complaint: I don't like the way the ninja outfits look. :P I guess my only real complaint is that we didn't get to see any of the undoubtedly awesome adventure of saving Equestria from the monsters of Tartarus, and instead valuable screen time was used repeating one admittedly well-done scene twice.

Lastly, I didn't spot Derpy in this episode! Did anyone else??
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on March 11, 2012, 09:33:02 pm
A few more points about the latest episode, after rewatching it.

1) There is a lucky horseshoe in Madame Pinkie's tent. Later there is one in Twilight's library!

2) I really like how Pinkie says "..hope she still isn't mad" right before we get the reveal that Twilight has set up a mad science lab in her library. I do not know if this was an intentional pun!

3) I have come to the conclusion that Pinkie Pie was behind everything.

Pinkie directly gives Twilight the eyepatch. Pinkie indirectly gives Twilight the headband. Most significantly, Pinkie is the one who actually finds the time-travel spell in the first place. I say "in the first place" because well... inside a stable time loop any event could be considered the "first" event since the rest of the loop's events happen after it. But what if Pinkie Pie really orchestrated the whole thing? Clearly her goal in doing so was just to have fun. Note that she is the first to react when Cerberus shows up, using it as an excuse to do more yelling and running around; this time getting everypony to join in unlike before.

4) "from fillydelphia to los pegasus..." Is Equestria shaped like America, with punny versions of major American cities?

5) Fixing up the dam during the checklist montage was also a nod to continuity. Didn't catch that the first time through! :P

EDIT: Here is an explanation of how Pinkie Pie could have 'caused' the whole episode. I posted this originally in the EQDaily comments and lengthened it slightly for here.

In a back-to-the-future style time theory where paradoxes must be consciously avoided, there is something like 'meta-time' so that we label the individual timelines a, b, c, et cetera, in the order they 'occurred' in meta-time. Regarding ordinary time there are stable objects like rocks which last over time and unstable objects like fire or ripples which eventually dissipate. In meta-time, the unstable objects are time travel events which create paradoxes; these are wiped out the next timeline, or perhaps they just disappear outright. The stable objects in metatime are stretches of time which never get interfered with via time travel, as well as time travel events which do not uncause themselves.

Sometimes an initially unstable time travel event can resolve itself into a stable time loop, just like stable ash can only occur after unstable fire. The idea would be: Pinkie Pie initially finds the time travel spell and gets Twilight to use it, probably to make time for scheduling time to schedule! The next time around Pinkie plans to have Twilight travel through time but discovers she has 'already' done so. Past Twilight talks about how Future Twilight asked Past Twilight to make the plans so that Future Twilight wouldn't have to. But then Past Twilight ends up not making the plans (perhaps because of Pinkie Pie's party) and has to try to travel back in time in order to reprimand herself. Pinkie comes along with Twilight to make sure she finds the time travel scroll. Twilight spends the next timeline shirking her other responsibilities in order to make a detailed schedule, since that timeline will 'be destroyed' anyway and the schedule can be passed on in a stable time loop. But this is not truly stable because Pinkie Pie is still in the background trying to exploit the time loop.  This time around may be the first time Pinkie releases Cerberus; because Twilight is spending her time scheduling, she isn't present to realise Cerberus has to be returned in order to keep Equestria from being overrun by monsters.

So then Twilight, for the first time, goes back in time mainly for the purpose of warning herself of impending danger. But if she successfully warns herself the loop is unstable. Fortunately for the time loop, Twilight gets a papercut after saving Equestria and this distracts the next Twilight from getting the specifics of the warning. However, Twilight is not yet pinned down by fate; she is ready for Past Twilight's distractability and manages to stubbornly get the message through. The loop happens a couple different ways after this until Pinkie Pie randomly happens to give Twilight an eyepatch, which again makes the loop more stable by distracting Twilight. But not yet stable enough...

Highly stable time loops can take a lot of meta-time to form because of things like Twilight not usually making the exact same speech she heard in the first place. Over iteration after iteration they would build up defense mechanisms to keep themselves from being changed by their participants; in this episode the defense mechanisms were the "signs," which kept future Twilight from relaying the message by distracting past Twilight. This makes the time loop more deterministic since it's mostly caused by Past Twilight's reaction rather than Future Twilight's message.

After an infinite amount of meta-time passes we arrive at a timeline from whose point of view time travel cannot change the past, like in the episode.

Probably I should write this meta-time progression as a fanfic since I've got it mostly planned out. ;)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on March 12, 2012, 02:04:57 am
3:45 - Guess Fluttershy didn't learn her lesson afterall from last week.

4:20 - Twilight has impecable balance for being on 2 hooves

4:30 - "And I raaaannnn. I ran so far a-wayayayayay...."

5:15 - I want a rag that can clean cement from my hair!

6:10 - Just WHERE is she sticking that parchment when she finishes her list?  :o

6:47 - Cerberus was about to mark that building! (Speaking of which, anyone else think it odd that their equivalent of the gates of Hell sounds like nothing more than some random hole in the ground outside of Ponyville?)

8:40 - Don't worry about the floor. It's a tree. It'll grow back. :P

11:40 - Epic crystal ball face

14:03 - I'd never trust a medic that stashes supplies in a fireplace.

15:10 (and others) - Is it just me or do those stealth uniforms seem awfully shiny? Like they're made out of latex or vinyl. And Pinky Pie thought they were wearing them for fun?!?! That's all I'm saying about that.

16:40 - Yes, how DID she miss that? lol

18:40 - I dunno, I think I like that look on her.

19:15 - Again, where is she putting those parchments???

19:30 - Animators get lazy, simply copy/paste early scene into the end. :D

20:35 - I can't believe she didn't realize that's what was going to happen and either not go back in time at all, or try a different tactic with her past self. Hence why I don't get in to time travel discussions. Too many questions.*

21:00 - Past Twilight, Future Twilight. Past Spike, future Spike. Last week was Old Fluttershy and New Fluttershy. What's next I wonder.

*Like here's the problem with your scenario, Aspect. The only way Pinky Pie could find the time spell was because Future Twilight and told Past Twilight about the location of said spells and Pinky Pie had went along with her. So how would you explain Pinky Pie finding the spell in an earlier "loop" to kickstart the whole thing if Twighlight wasn't with her? Granted, she is the master at breaking the 4th wall, but I don't think she's that good. Then again, she did help herself up a cliff in Friend Indeed. Hmmm...
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on March 12, 2012, 03:49:41 pm
*Like here's the problem with your scenario, Aspect. The only way Pinky Pie could find the time spell was because Future Twilight and told Past Twilight about the location of said spells and Pinky Pie had went along with her. So how would you explain Pinky Pie finding the spell in an earlier "loop" to kickstart the whole thing if Twighlight wasn't with her? Granted, she is the master at breaking the 4th wall, but I don't think she's that good. Then again, she did help herself up a cliff in Friend Indeed. Hmmm...

Pinkie clearly has sufficient powers, she just usually isn't organised enough to use them for the plot. She's like one of those cartoon characters who can summon hammers from thin air to beat people up... except when it would actually be useful to do so.

But anyway, my intent was that Pinkie explores the Canterlot library on her own a little before the episode begins and discovers the time travel scroll; or becomes informed of its exact location in some other way. Pinkie being some sort of uncaused cause is funnier though.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on March 14, 2012, 05:43:11 am
Well, it once again looks like I am arriving very late to this party, and that many of you have already discussed many aspects about the new episode, "It's About Time," that I otherwise would have touched upon in my own post.  As for why my post has been so delayed, there are actually a couple of reasons.  First of all, I had a pretty busy weekend last weekend, and had to refresh my Advanced-Level SKYWARN (http://skywarn.org/about/) Severe Weather Spotter certification on Saturday morning/afternoon, I had furry LAFF Furry Bowling (http://www.lafflist.org/wiki/Bowling) Saturday evening into early Sunday morning, and then I had a Software Development Community seminar about Apache Cordova (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhoneGap) on Sunday afternoon.  Because of that, I just wasn't able to watch the new episode on Saturday afternoon when it originally aired even though I had desperately wanted to.  Secondly, I was also holding off on writing my post until I heard back from my friendly watchdog here on the forum, Admin Alexandre, about whether or not I could include a questionable word in my post.  To explain, there is a hero-character trope used in this episode that is rather central to this episode's plot.  Since I love to discuss what tropes are used in MLP:FiM episodes, I was planning on both naming the trope and linking to it.  Unfortunately, TVTropes.org gave this particular trope a name which I suppose isn't quite TV-Y7 rated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_content_rating_systems#United_States), so I wasn't sure whether or not I could get away with addressing it by its given name here in the forum.  In the past during borderline cases like I would have been satisfied with just replacing the vowel in the questionable portion of the word with a strategically placed asterisk, but I recently found out the hard way through a moderated post that that is no longer considered acceptable Furtopian behavior either.  All is not lost however, because luckily I have been given permission from Alexandre to be able to link to the trope's page, so I will do just that (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FutureBadass).  However, instead of using TVTropes.org's given name for the fashionably scarred, goatee-sporting, longcoat-wearing, tough version of a hero from the future, I am going to have to have to come up with my own name for the trope.  I think that I'll go with "hardcore future self."  Believe me, I like TVTropes,org's original name for the trope better too, but rules are rules so you'll have to bear with me here!

About the new episode, as some of you may remember, I am a huge fan of time travel stories, and I was really excited to watch this episode ever since I first learned about it back in February.  So much so in fact that I have been blabbing about what I hoped that I would see in this episode in posts here since the middle of last February.  One of the things that I wrote back then was this:

In fact, my favorite fiction book has long been The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, and my favorite movie of all-time, The Terminator, also features time travel prominently as part of its plot along with one of my favorite hero tropes, the "hardcore future self (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FutureBadass)."  [...]  Since I doubt that there are going to be any "hardcore future self" characters in My Little Pony (though it would be absolutely awesome if their were-- could you imagine a hardcore battle-hardened Rainbow Dash from the future wearing grungy black armor, being covered in scars, and having one robotic eye?  My main man Tirek (http://img.ponibooru.org/_images/6e91b9f76cda6465b78bc2c01a27374d/48605%20-%20g1%20Rescue_From_Midnight_Castle%20tirek.jpg) could easily provide the bad future (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadFuture) for that Rainbow Dash to come back in time from!)

Well what do you know, we actually did get a "hardcore future self" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FutureBadass) character in MLP:FiM!  And while it may not have been a robotic-eye enhanced Rainbow Dash like I first joked about, we did get the rest with Twilight Sparkle-- grungy black clothes, facial scars, a "Mad Max"-style hairdo, and even one eye-patched eye!  And what can I say, I loved every moment of it!  In fact, I loved having a "hardcore future self" Twlilight Sparkle so much that I am almost tempted to say forget the magic of friendship, forget cute little adorkable Twlilight trying to fit-in with everypony, and forget having the meanest typical protagonist being a magic-using blue mare who boasts a little bit too much about herself-- lets have a war-torn shattered Discord-ruled future, a Princess Celestia turned to stone, a Canterlot reduced to rubble, and this battle-hardened won't-take-any-crap-from-nopony future Twilight Sparkle ripping Discord's tongue out of his throat and feeding it back to him to this guy's heavy metal music!!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zSVBcm_BZRs#t=98s)  It would be awesome!  Once again maybe not TV-Y7 appropriate, but awesome none the less!  Hey, a similar dark future freedom fighter theme once worked for the otherwise adorable character Sonic the Hedgehog, right? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ2RdImvSwg)

Some other hopes and predictions for this episode that I had back in February included:

This upcoming episode is probably going to be an example of the trope, "Set Right What Once Went Wrong (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong?from=Main.SetRightWhatOnceWasWrong)."  TVTropes.org describes this trope as:

Quote
The character receives foreknowledge of what will happen (or, if Time Travel (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeTravel) is involved, Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RippleEffectProofMemory) will allow them to remember what happened "the first time around") and has to correct it (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RubberBandHistory).

That's all well and good-- Twilight Sparkle receiving a warning from her future self could lead to a great story.  There was one thing that was mentioned in the TV Listing episode summary for this episode that worries me however: "Twilight receives a warning from her future self and drives herself crazy with worry".  I want to see Twilight Sparkle acting on the information that she receives from her future self and actively trying to change future events.  I don't want to see her just sitting around and going crazy worrying about what could come to pass.  I saw enough of Twilight Sparkle going crazy in "Lesson Zero" to last a lifetime as far as I'm concerned.  As a result, I sincerely hope that the TV listing episode summary is just describing the first act of the episode, and not the entire episode.  If Twilight only worries during the first act, then at the beginning of the second act she can resolve to change her fate, then at the mid-point she can discover that she only succeeded at making everything worse through her attempted changes, and then for the third act she can discover one last crazy dangerous way to make everything better again, only to just barely successfully resolve things in the end.  If the events play out like that, then this episode can be really good.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a time travel episode centered around the trope, "Set Right What Once Went Wrong (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong?from=Main.SetRightWhatOnceWasWrong)" like I was hoping for.  Instead, as Aspect mentioned, this episode was centered around the time travel trope, "Stable Time Loop (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StableTimeLoop)," along with a hefty dose of the trope, "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SelfFulfillingProphecy)."  In other words, just as I had feared, this episode revolved entirely around Twilight Sparkle worrying about what was going to happen and through her actions bringing it about instead of something more action-packed, such as learning about some forthcoming disaster, trying to stop it but making it worse, and then doing something last-ditch and crazy at the climax to barely avert it at the end.  This was a bit of a let down, because the very second that I saw "hardcore future" Twilight zap into the room at the beginning of the episode I got my hopes up that there would be something terrible that Twilight would have to avert, but instead all of the horrible dark future (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadFuture) kind of stuff that I was hoping for all I got to see was a paper-cut, some dragon-belched hair, a bump on the head caused by a falling flower pot, and a burned retina from glancing at the sun through a telescope.  *sigh*  And while I suppose that you could argue that wanting some nail-biting action in my ponies is being a bit unreasonable for a show whose primary demographic is young girls, we have had some good adventure episodes in the past such as "Friendship is Magic" parts 1 and 2 and "Dragonshy," so it's is not like MLP:FiM hasn't taken the occasional more action-oriented turn.

Also, as a personal side note, while I am a huge time travel fiction fan, unlike Aspect I have no love at all for such unnecessarily stodgy time travel concepts in my fiction as stable time loops, the Novikov self-consistency principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle), or nasty Temporal Paradoxes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TemporalParadox) that would make your reason for time traveling either unnecessary or impossible.  Luckily, there is a way to have your time travel in fiction and not have to worry about such things, and you don't even have to write confusing text-walls like Aspect did in an attempt to get around them using explanations such as "meta-time."  It's called the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation), and was originally formulated by American Physicist Hugh Everett in 1957.  To quote Wikipedia:

Quote
The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics in which a universal wavefunction obeys the same deterministic, reversible laws at all times; in particular there is no (indeterministic and irreversible) wavefunction collapse associated with measurement. The phenomena associated with measurement are claimed to be explained by decoherence, which occurs when states interact with the environment producing entanglement, repeatedly splitting the universe into mutually unobservable alternate histories—distinct universes within a greater multiverse.
[...]
Many-worlds implies that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe").

To understand how this would work with time travel, first consider the concept of one-dimensional time, i.e. a "timeline."  That timeline represents the linear procession of all of the events that have occurred, both past and future, in your universe.  Now imagine an infinite number of universe, each with a slight difference from one another.  This difference could be as small as one electron in one atom somewhere in the universe being in a slightly different position, to as large as a universe where humans never evolved, whales rule the earth, and we have five moons.  With an infinite number of universes, there is a universe for every possibility and with any change that you make you are actually just instantly and unobservably switching (or "branching") to the universe where that change is true instead of altering the universe that you started from.  To once again quote Wikipedia:

Quote
The many-worlds interpretation [when applied to time travel] could be one possible way to resolve the paradoxes that one would expect to arise if time travel turns out to be permitted by physics (permitting closed timelike curves and thus violating causality). Entering the past would itself be a quantum event causing branching, and therefore the timeline accessed by the time traveler simply would be another timeline of many. In that sense, it would make the Novikov self-consistency principle unnecessary.

So in other words, if you base the effects of your time traveling on the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics you actually *can* go back in time a kill your own grandfather and yet still happily exist yourself because the moment that you did so your personal reality branched into an alternate universe where your killing your own grandfather was always true.  And while the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics isn't the most popular of the many interpretations of quantum mechanics that are out there these days, it also as of yet can't be disproved, so as much as those Einstein General Relativity masochists will hate your Many Worlds Interpretation-based time travel stories, they won't be able to completely hand-wave them off either!  Ha ha!  In addition, because of its inherent flexibility, the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics works great for fictional storytelling.  When you write stories, you need to first and foremost focus on the actual story and make sure that it is both compelling and entertaining.  When you start getting caught up in stricter more General-Relativity-based ideas of time travel that becomes extremely difficult because at best you run into the Novikov self-consistency principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle) which seriously limits what you can do in your story and can cause plot holes and temporal paradoxes that can make forum commenters like Aspect start writing posts about things meta-time, objects taking the slow-path to the future, what is stable and not stable in a timeline, etc.  But if you use the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Physics all bets are off, and you can create pretty much any crazy adventure through time that you can think of, and throw the explanation of Quantum Mechanics at any angry nerds out there that start ranting in online forums against you.  It's a win-win scenario as far as I'm concerned, because you can both write the interesting story that you want and fend off the nerds with a real philosophy of Physics at the same time!

Anyway, I digress.  For those of you who are interested in the structure of MLP:FiM's screenplays, "It's About Time" breaks down with Syd Field's Paradigm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenwriting#Syd_Field.27s_Paradigm) as follows:


"It's About Time" was written by M.A. Larson, who also wrote the episodes "Swarm of the Century," "Sonic Rainboom," "The Cutie Mark Chronicles," "The Return of Harmony Part 1 and 2," "Luna Eclipsed," "Secret of My Excess," and "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000."  He is also the MLP:FiM writer that I generally credit as being my most favorite this season, but to be honest, I didn't feel that this episode was one of his better efforts.  "It's About Time" basically reminded me of my least favorite episode of the season, "Lesson Zero," only with a "Stable Time Loop" trope thrown in to spice it up a bit.  Spice it up it did, but that still doesn't cover up the fact that this plot is basically Twilight Sparkle once again over-worrying about something, going to complete irrational lengths to rectify it, and then only learning that she was obsessing over nothing after her ever increasing attempts to rectify it have spectacularly backfired.  At least Twilight Sparkle didn't brainwash three innocent fillies into fighting over a ratty old stuffed animal with her magic as part of her solution this time around.

In addition to this, I also had a very hard time connecting with the episode's protagonist (Twilight Sparkle) and caring about what was going to happen to her, keeping me from becoming engaged with this episode.  The reason for this is because the episode lacks a clear obstacle for the protagonist to overcome, which removes most of the tension from the plot.  Sure, the episode tries to make us feel tense by having Twilight Sparkle repeatedly tell us how an impending future disaster is going to befall Equestria, but we are never shown or even told what that impending disaster is going to be, which makes it very hard for us to care whether this so called disaster actually happens or not.  This isn't true for other adventure-themed MLP:FiM episodes.  For example, in the first season episode, "Friendship is Magic Part 1" we are told that on the one-thousandth year of her imprisonment Nightmare Moon will return and bring endless night.  We can understand why that is bad and why it has to be stopped, and that provides that episode's plot with the needed tension.  For another example, in the episode "Hearts and Hooves Day," Apple Bloom shows us what would happen if Big McIntosh and Cheerilee became forever lost in one another by visualizing the schoolhouse falling to pieces and the unharvested apples rotting on the trees.  But here we have Twilight worrying about some unspecified possibly non-existent event, which could actually be nothing at all.  That is something that is hard enough to become engaged with as it is, but with Spike and later Rainbow Dash not even taking the situation even the slightest bit seriously, it becomes pretty hard for me as an audience member to take the situation seriously as well.  Let's face it-- if I don't care about what is going to happen to Twilight Sparkle if she doesn't succeed in overcoming the story's obstacle, then why am I bothering to watch her try to overcome the obstacle?  I realize that this episode's entire inciting incident revolved around Twilight Sparkle not knowing what was going to happen in the future-- it's not that I don't get that.  What I am saying is that the entire premise is flawed-- a story should be written about something that's consequential, not inconsequential, so that the audience has something to really care about.

Because of the inconsequential-nature of obstacle that Twilight Sparkle needs to overcome, several plot points in this episode were also very weak.  In all of the other MLP:FiM episodes that I have broken down with Syd Field's Paradigm thus far the plot points in them were really pretty clear-- the plot changes direction at the turning points between the acts, the midpoint is truly an important scene for the plot, the protagonists often find themselves at their lowest points where "all is lost" before they are drawn into the last desperate climax, etc.  With this episode, many of these plot points are very "wishy-washy."  To explain what I mean, lets compare the some of the later plot points of this episode to a very good example of a well-written screenplay, "Hearts and Hooves Day."  In "Hearts and Hooves Day," your first plot point, which changed the entire direction of the story, is when the defeated Cutie Mark Crusaders learn of the existence of a love potion from Twilight Sparkle.  Up to that point the Cutie Mark Crusader's method of using a staged romantic picnic to bring Cheerilee and Big McIntosh together had completely failed, and they were essentially out of options.  However, their learning about the love potion changed all of that, and sends them off into the whole new direction of creating and using the potion.  In "It's About Time" we have a confident-feeling Twilight Sparkle think that all of her disaster preparedness work has averted disaster, only for her to receive a strategic paper-cut showing her that nothing she has done has changed anything thus far.  O.K., that works.

But things don't correlate so well once we get into the second act, starting with the Midpoint scene.  The midpoint is supposed to be a very important scene in the story where it looks it looks like the protagonist actually has a chance at succeeding.  In "Hearts and Hooves Day," this is where Cheerilee and Big McIntosh first drink the love potion, and it looks like everything is going according to the Cutie Mark Crusaders' plan to the point where they start gleefully dancing around Big McIntosh and Cheerilee.  To use yet another example, in "A Friend In Deed" Pinkie Pie gives Cranky a spa treatment and a new "Dreamboat Special" toupee as a gift, and he warms up to her a little bit.  Compare this to the midpoint in "It's About Time," where we get Madame Pinkie Pie claiming that she can predict the future, which, as any regular watcher of the show will know, has no chance of working at all because "it's Pinkie Pie."  In other words, we never get that dramatic little twist in the story in the middle where it looks like the protagonist is going to succeed, only to have things unexpectedly fall apart on them.  With Twilight Sparkle, nothing is really going right for her throughout the entire second act.

The second plot point for this episode between Act II and Act III also has absolutely no moxie behind it.  In "Hearts and Hooves Day," this second plot reversal comes when the Cutie Mark Crusaders feel that "all is lost," and that Cheerilee and Big McIntosh will be gripped by the power of the love poison forever, only for Sweetie Belle to suddenly discover that all is not lost and that there is an antidote.  Do you see how that changes the direction of the story right there?  It's pretty much a textbook example of a turning point!  In "It's About Time," on the other hand, we have a sleep deprived Twilight Sparkle burn her eye with a telescope and then suddenly decide that the only way to stop her imagined disaster from happening is to go through the dramatic action of stopping all time itself.  Since there are no concrete reasons given for why suddenly stopping all time is the only way for Twilight Sparkle to succeed, this doesn't really change the direction of the story.  It is just upping the ante of Twilight's ridiculous behavior.

Because there is a feeling throughout the episode that nothing is really at stake, the final climax of this episode is also very weak.  We're supposed to get sucked into the tension of the climax's "Race Against the Clock" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RaceAgainstTheClock) situation, but it completely falls flat because with Pinkie Pie happily bouncing around and having fun and Spike lazily wisecracking and licking an ice cream cone how dire could the situation really be?  Pinkie Pie herself sums up the confused mood of this approaching climax at 17:18 when she responds to Twilight's worried ranting by asking, "And that's bad, right?"  What a great way to convince the audience that the ponies are entering the story's point of maximum tension right there-- one of the main characters themselves don't even know that they are.  In the end Twilight doesn't overcome *anything,* and the sun rises.  Boy, I am so glad that Twilight was able to battle her way through that challenge.  *yawn*.  For crying out loud, if you are going to make your plot revolve around trying to prevent some nebulous possibly horrible unknown event, at least make the audience feel like the event really should have to be stopped.  If everypony, including Spike, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie, were acting as panicked as Twilight was throughout the entire episode, then maybe there would have been some real tension and this episode could have worked.  But instead we have Pinkie Pie joyfully hopping around Canterlot and not even knowing why, Rainbow Dash playing pranks and laughing at Twilight's expense, and Spike gleefully eating ice cream by the gallon.  Yeah, that puts me on the edge of my seat for sure.  *sigh*

So in the end, while I really loved the fact that we had an appearance of a "hardcore future" Twilight in this episode and the introduction of time spells, unfortunately the story that they were part of was in itself a very flaccid and unenthralling one.  

Some random thoughts and observations that either I or Narei Mooncatt haven't already covered:


6:10 - Just WHERE is she sticking that parchment when she finishes her list?  :o
Hmmm.  That is a darn good question!   :D


To quickly answer Aspect's questions:

Lastly, I didn't spot Derpy in this episode! Did anyone else??

I didn't spot Derpy either, and according to the "Derpy" article on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Wiki (http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Derpy#Appearances) she didn't appear in this episode.  This isn't the first time that she hasn't appeared in an episode by any means, so her lack of an appearance here could very well be just by chance, but at the same time this does make me worry a bit that we might have finally hit the stage of the show's production schedule where if any marching orders were given to remove her permanently from the series by the executives on high weeks ago we might actually be seeing those changes now.  Only time will tell if this is actually the case or not, and I am crossing my fingers that Derpy will be back next week!

Hmm is there a tvtropes page about the habit authors have of not breaking reality?

See the trope "Status Quo is God." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StatusQuoIsGod)

ie, super powerful abilities are not controllable or disappear after they are used

Look into both of the tropes, "Strong as they Need to Be" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StrongAsTheyNeedToBe) and especially "Story Breaker Power." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StoryBreakerPower)

in Star Trek, replicator and transporter technologies don't work on the same principles

I don't know where you are getting your information from, but according to Memory Alpha (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Portal:Main), the Star Trek wiki, "A replicator was a device that used transporter technology to dematerialize quantities of matter and then rematerialize that matter in another form. It was also capable of inverting its function, thus disposing of leftovers and dishes and storing the bulk material again. (DS9: 'Hard Time', 'The Ascent'; VOY: 'Year of Hell', 'Memorial')"  You are correct in saying that Federation replicators at least aren't capable of creating living things (with the possible exception of the virus in the ST:DS9 episode "Babel" if you are on the side of the debate that considers viruses to be alive), but this is not due to the replicator technology in and of itself, but because of the large amounts of data storage that would be needed to store the patterns of living things.  To quote Wikipedia:

Quote
This process requires the destructive conversion of bulk matter into energy and its subsequent reformation into a pre-scanned matter pattern. In principle, this is similar to the transporter, but on a smaller scale. However, unlike transporters, which duplicate matter at the quantum level, replicators must be capable of a large number of different materials on demand. If patterns were to be stored at the quantum level, an impossible amount of data storage (or a set of original copies of the materials) would be required. To resolve this, patterns are stored in memory at the molecular level.  The drawback of doing so is that it is impossible to replicate objects with complicated quantum structures, such as living beings, dilithium, gold, or latinum. (However, in the TNG episode "Allegiance", aliens used their version of replicators to create a Picard impostor.)

transporter buffers don't serve as backup copies of people

A transporter can store a copy of a person for an extended length of time.  In the ST:TNG episode "Relics," Captain Montgomery Scott was able to store his pattern in the transporter's pattern buffer for 75 years after his ship, the USS Jenolan, crash-landed on a Dyson Sphere.  You also have a couple instances where a transporter turned one person into two copies of themselves, such as the ST:TNG episode "Second Chances" where this happens to Riker, and the ST:TOS episode "The Enemy Within" where this happens to Kirk.


*Whew!*  Gee whiz, I think this is the longest forum post on any topic ever that I have ever written in my entire life!  I didn't know that I had it in me!  I'm going to need a few-day vacation from posting anything anywhere after this one!  Anyway, next Saturday we have the brand new episode "Dragon Quest."  I don't know exactly know why, but for whatever reason I just don't have very high expectations for this one.  I don't have any inside information on the episode or anything like that-- instead, I just read the episode's TV Listing Summary and went, "Meh, this one sounds like it's going to be sub-par."  I sincerely hope that I am completely wrong about that, because naturally I want every episode of Ponies that I see to be better than the last!  Eh, I don't know, maybe my disappointment from "It's About Time" just turned me into a bit of a "Gloomy Gus."  In any case, I guess that we'll soon see!  Well, 'till next time everypony-- I really need to stop typing before I wear my computer keyboard keys down to their springs!   :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on March 14, 2012, 12:03:07 pm
There was an aweful lot of "unlike Aspect..." in that post. :) Thanks v much for the Star Trek lore by the way. All I really meant with replicators being a different technology was the molecule-versus-quantum thing, but with transporter buffers I didn't realize anyone had ever gotten an *extra* copy of themselves that way. (I assumed *quantum* information couldn't do that.)

Also thanks for the TVtropes links!

Quote from: Hoagiebot
And while the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics isn't the most popular of the many interpretations of quantum mechanics that are out there these days, it also as of yet can't be disproved, so as much as those Einstein General Relativity masochists will hate your Many Worlds Interpretation-based time travel stories, they won't be able to completely hand-wave them off either!  Ha ha!

I think Many Worlds is definitely becoming more popular, if it hasn't already taken that spot, for important reasons. The physicist David Deutsch argues that almost all other interpretations are not rationalist; they allow the uncertainty principle to undermine the all-important concept that there's an objective reality out there that we're measuring. In Many Worlds interpretation, the waveforms are the objective reality, and concepts like location or speed become just a sometimes-convenient way of talking about physical reality.

While I'm on the topic I'd also like to repeat the interesting point that the many worlds interpretation is reversible, so while timelines split, they also can rejoin! And this can be done locally or globally. And Many Worlds also allows timelines to interact in other, more mysterious ways; so while the exact physics is unknown to me (for the time being), it isn't very implausible for the different timelines to communicate directly with each other in a work of fiction. This means you're not necessarily stranded away from re-entering Timeline A once you've travelled back in time and created the 'branch' timeline B.

But, Hoagiebot, I'm not entirely sure what quantum jiggery you're proposing in order to actually perform "many-worlds travel"; it seems like the actual time travel would still be based on relativity (like Günter Nimtz' quantum-tunneling experiments which arguably sent information back in time by exceeding light speed). If what you want is for a split to occur with one universe having the time travellers arrive and the other not... well, that is already happening all the time, we don't have to build a time machine! Every person who's ever been born has suddenly appeared in Hitler's dining room in one timeline or another. That doesn't exactly feel like time travel to me.

Lastly! Meta-time is still super useful for analysing quantum many-worlds time travel (however it's accomplished). My whole little meta-time tale would be equally plausible in this interpretation; each time Twilight Sparkle travels back in time there's a new branching, and meta-time 'passes' as these branches build up. I guess that just underscores the fact that many-worlds has something for everyone's time travel tastes.

(However, it might be possible to travel back in meta-time.)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on March 18, 2012, 06:55:02 am
Heh, I felt Merriweather actually managed to pull Rainbow Dash off better than Rarity this episode.  There were still definitely parts that were off (calling something as awesome as dragons lame?!  That's not Rainbow Dash! And I feel the part with the nuttiness and the "we know", and the part with the fire in her face, were just an attempt at humour at the expense of Rainbow Dash; I mean, I'm not opposed to that, but it felt unnecessary), but Rarity was all "I'm fabulous!" and "Spikey-Wikey" and not much more...and it got annoying.  There was none of the subtlety and depth of Sweet and Elite and Green isn't your Color, or even Secret of my Excess, but then again Merriweather's never been good at subtlety...

I also found this episode similarly mean-spirited to her other episodes, but I guess at least that was the intention of the dragons.  Still, I didn't go away with a happy, satisfied feeling like I expect from FiM.  I was kind of just rattled around and then it suddenly came to an end.
It's a kind of empty feeling at the end...even if the phoenix was cute (but what of the mother?!).
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on March 18, 2012, 11:52:52 am
I didn't care much for this week's episode. Not because of the way it was made, but because I'm not much into dragons. Two things did stick out to me, though.

In the scenes that had dragons flying over the horizon, anyone else feel like they were out of an Atari game? The were changing directions instantly, not the sweeping curves you'd expect of a big dragon. Also, Rarity. Since when is she so cutesy wootsy with Spike? I can't tell of she was treating him more like a baby or starting to reciprocate his feelings for her, but it seemed out of character for her.

Oh, and her comment, "Who says camouflage has to be drab." :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on March 19, 2012, 08:13:49 pm
I enjoyed this episode! I laughed through most of it. And it was nice for them to go to a distant part of Equestria for a change. Also I thought the moral was good since Spike's mistake early on of thinking he needs to be like other dragons was corrected. (Heh, but he decided to be a pony instead! :P Can't he just be himself? I think now we need an episode where Spike tries to be more of a pony and fails.) But a quest for self-discovery is never all that epic of a quest, so those looking for more adventure-style episodes will probably still not be satisfied. It seems MLP is firmly about internal conflict.

Also despite this being a Spike episode I felt like I didn't learn that much about what makes him tick. I suppose he spent most of the episode trying to conform to dragon standards of behavior rather than his own.

Where the most characterization came in was in the relationship between Spike and Rarity. It seems Rarity is more affectionate of Spike than she used to be but treats him as a child. Well, isn't he much younger than her? He probably doesn't have much chance of changing her view.

...calling something as awesome as dragons lame?!  That's not Rainbow Dash!

I think Rainbow Dash simply believes she's the best flyer in Equestria, even as compared to dragons. Naturally dragons are huge and can't do the same tricks as a little pony. Since Dashie is so competitive she wanted to upstage the dragons to her friends. The way I see it, it was a pretty in-character line!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on March 21, 2012, 12:32:43 pm
For any of you who were actually able to make it all the way through reading that absolutely mind-numbingly huge text-all that I wrote about the episode "It's About Time" last week, you might recall that I had some foreboding even back then over this week's episode, "Dragon Quest":

I don't know exactly know why, but for whatever reason I just don't have very high expectations for this one.  I don't have any inside information on the episode or anything like that-- instead, I just read the episode's TV Listing Summary and went, "Meh, this one sounds like it's going to be sub-par."

Now that I have seen this episode, I am very sorry to say that it pretty much lived up to my expectations for it-- I found "Dragon Quest" to be nothing particularly special, and I didn't really find myself getting as involved or as invested with it as I normally do with most MLP:FiM episodes.  While no episode of MLP:FiM has ever really been anywhere close to bad by any means, and all of the episodes including this one have had their strong points, some episodes in this series have definitely been better than others.  "Dragon Quest" has not been one of the better ones, and it will be another one of those episodes where I find myself in the future saying, "Well yeah it was O.K., but could we please watch another MLP:FiM episode instead?"

Unsurprisingly, this less than magical episode was written by none other than Merriwether Williams, and I think that I made it pretty clear at the very end of my post about the episode "Putting Your Hoof Down" how I tend to feel about this particular MLP:FiM writer (http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=42340.msg834153#msg834153).  Unfortunately, "Dragon Quest" is a pretty typical offering from her, and as a result it shares many of the same common characteristics as the rest of her episodes, such as tending to be a bit more mean spirited than what we're accustomed to and just not seeming to really "fit in" within the greater MLP:FiM universe that the other MLP:FiM writers have pre-established.  Sure, this episode desperately tries to fit in with the other writers' episodes, but it attempts to do this through throwing in excessive continuity nods (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContinuityNod) galore.  But this being Merriwether Williams, not all of the continuity nods are made in places where they always make sense, and a couple of them were so out of place-feeling that they made me start to wonder about when this particular episode could have taken place chronologically to make sense.  As a result, I truly have to wonder whether or not some of these continuity nods were actually unintentional continuity snarls (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContinuitySnarl), and if Merriwether Williams bothered to do the research (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DidNotDoTheResearch) before she started throwing these continuity nods to other previous episodes in.

To sidetrack for a moment, this particular continuity situation with "Dragon Quest" actually reminded me of a conversation that I had with another local brony a little over a week ago.  We were discussing the very loose continuity of the MLP:FiM series overall, and he mentioned to me that he had read that when the MLP:FiM series was first being made, the Hasbro executives from up on high dictated that all MLP:FiM episodes should strictly follow the "Status Quo is God" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StatusQuoIsGod) trope, or in other words that the series should have no overarching conflict, that every episode should be able to stand-alone by itself, and that no matter what happens during the plot of each episode that everything should be resolved and back to the "status quo" by the end of it.  Now, I have never come across such a documented edict from Hasbro myself, so I can't say whether or not such a demand was actually made by them, but at the same time I wouldn't be at all surprised if this alleged demand from Hasbro turned out to be true.  This is due to the age demographic that this animated series was originally targeted at, and because it is actually a very common demand from television executives because it makes a cartoon series more marketable for later syndication.  To quote TVTropes.org, "This trope (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StatusQuoIsGod) is especially true for cartoons, where networks want to be free to broadcast reruns in any convenient order or lack thereof."

With that said, despite any alleged edict for stand-alone episodes from Hasbro, MLP:FiM has still over time seen more and more of what TVTropes.org calls "Continuity Creep" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContinuityCreep) seeping into its episodes.  To explain the term, according to TVTropes.org, "Continuity Creep" is:

Quote
Continuity Creep (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContinuityCreep) is the tendency of a TV show or comic book that starts off with an episodic Sitcom (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Sitcom), Adventure Town (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdventureTowns), or Monster of the Week (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MonsterOfTheWeek) format, which then begins to accumulate more and more Continuity Nods (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContinuityNod) and ongoing storylines. Or if it starts off with each episode containing a single self-contained story, and ends up with sprawling plots that span multiple episodes, it has undergone continuity creep.

Many of the episodes of season 1 were in fact very self-contained, and most could be watched in any order with losing little to anything at all.  However, very small continuity nods began to appear in the show even back then, but they tended to be unobtrusive things that really made a lot of sense to include such as repeat appearances of Rarity's grand galloping gala dresses between the episodes, "Suited For Success" and "The Best Night Ever" for example.  Just compare that to a season 2 episode like "A Friend in Deed" where there were continuity nods galore, even during the teaser scene where we see Pinkie Pie with the baby Cakes twins from the episode "Baby Cakes" again.

Now just to make this perfectly clear, I normally see continuity nods as being a good thing.  I, like many long-time fans of a series, absolutely love it when I see things, characters, and events from previous episodes ingeniously worked into the plots of later ones to good effect.  Catching continuity nods are almost like little fun rewards for being a loyal watcher.  So I have no complaint about the use of continuity nods in MLP:FiM in general.  I mean heck, the mere fact that we used to get to see Derpy show up again and again in episodes when she was originally just an uncaught animation error was a fantastic continuity nod and a wonderful shout-out to the fans.  But as I said before, in the episode "Dragon Quest," we have some continuity nods present that just don't seem to fit into the episode quite right, and it almost makes me wonder if MLP:FiM is possibly beginning to stray a little bit too far away from its original more stand-alone oriented formula, and if perhaps the writers/animation staff involved (or at the very least Merriwether Williams) should become a bit more cautious about what continuity nods that they throw into their episodes in each week.

What bothers me the most about "Dragon Quest" is that this whole entire episode seems like one giant rewrite (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Rewrite) of the all of the dragon-related canon that was established in the episode, "The Secret of My Excess", or at the very least "Dragon Quest" must somehow take place before the events of that episode happened to make any kind of sense at all.  To explain, in "Secret of My Excess," we learn from Zecora that dragons get more mature and grow larger when they act like dragons-- the more stuff that they hoard, the bigger, meaner, and more monstrous that they get.  This is then clearly demonstrated in the episode, as Spike grows to Godzilla-like proportions, kidnaps Rarity, obliterates half of Ponyville, and then puts the beat down on the Wonderbolts for good measure.  Now with "Dragon Quest" all of that pre-established information is thrown on its head.  Now you have dragons seemingly growing up gradually over time like most animals.  This is hinted at by Spike finding teenage dragons during the great dragon migration and the teenage dragons poking fun at Spike for still being a baby.  In contrast, if a dragon's size and age were still determined by how greedy it was like in the episode "Secret of My Excess," I don't think that the teenage dragons would have been as quick as they were to poke fun at Spike because they would have been already well aware that Spike, just like any dragon, could be capable of becoming both ferocious and absolutely huge in size practically overnight by just swiping and hoarding some stuff.  In addition, all of the Mane 6 at the beginning of "Dragon Quest" also didn't seem to act like Spike had ever acted like a real dragon before even though he tore up the whole town in a rampage in "Secret of my Excess."  Instead, they poke fun at him for being sweet, meek, and for wearing an apron.  I have a feeling that if they had remembered Spike wrecking half of Ponyville and using Rarity as a war club to knock Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy out of the sky with, they wouldn't have been so quick to start teasing and laughing at him.  It would be pretty hard to forget the devastation that Spike had caused, and I doubt that even Rainbow Dash would call Spike "lame" after he pummeled her out of the air with his tail like that.  There seems to be even more forgetfulness of the events from "Secret of My Excess" in "Dragon Quest" when Twilight Sparkle was trying to help Spike find out more about his kind by doing some "late night research" with all of her books in her library.  Had she remembered, Zecora in "Secret of My Excess" seemed to a lot about dragons, and probably could have answered a lot of Twilight's and Spike's questions.

All of this "forgetfulness" of the past events of "Secrets of My Excess" seems to point to the idea that "Dragon Quest" actually takes place before "Secret of my Excess" and not after, but this is where the very oddly placed continuity nod to "The Secret of My Excess" in "Dragon Quest" completely messes that possibility up.  In his post about this episode above, Narei Mooncatt asked, "Since when is [Rarity] so cutesy wootsy with Spike? I can't tell of she was treating him more like a baby or starting to reciprocate his feelings for her, but it seemed out of character for her."  Well, this is actually not out of character for Rarity, at least not after the events that took place in "Secret of My Excess."  If you recall, during the climax scene of "Secret of My Excess" at 19:55 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om6lG73P09c&feature=player_detailpage#t=1195s) when Spike and Rarity are plummeting to their deaths, Spike reveals to her for the first time that he has always had a crush on her.  She stops him from speaking, and then smiles at him and begins to cry.  Suddenly, they are both saved when Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy swoop in and catch them, and they are set safely onto the ground.  Rarity then walks up to Spike, tells him about how she's proud of him, and then tells him, "You're my hero, Spikey-Wikey!"  So all of Rarity's baby talk, pet names, and coddling of Spike are actually all a big continuity nod to this major moment from "Secret of my Excess."  We all made a very big deal over this scene from "Secret of My Excess" at the time, so I am very surprised that Mr. Mooncatt no longer remembers it.  Anyway, once again I wouldn't mind a continuity nod like this under most circumstances, but considering the fact that all other signs in "Dragon Quest" seem to point to it taking place before "Secret of My Excess," this continuity nod really screws things up.

Also, I don't know if anyone else here noticed, but this episode also has another weird continuity nod at 7:47 when Spike is shown on a raft with Cranky Doodle Donkey.  This is obviously a pre-"A Friend in Deed" Cranky Doodle Donkey since he is still wearing his original toupee that Pinkie Pie later destroys during the events of that episode.  This would seem to point to the idea that "Dragon Quest" takes place before "A Friend in Deed" did, and while that wouldn't be a story breaker by any means, it is still odd for a current episode to be showing events that only could have happened if it took place before that previous episode had aired.  With all of this craziness and confusion in mind, are you starting to see my point about what happens when a writer seemingly becomes a little too careless with their continuity nods here?  I have never really had to devote this much time to thinking about when a MLP:FiM had to have taken place chronologically like this before, and much of this is due to some oddly chosen continuity nods that really didn't really have to be there rather than the actual story itself.  Other writers, such as M.A. Larson and Amy Keating Rogers also often fill their episodes with lots of continuity nods, but at least they seem to be disciplined (or skilled?) enough to choose nods that while fun also won't needlessly snarl (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContinuitySnarl) up their episodes like this!

Moving on to this episode's story structure, when you break down the plot of "Dragon Quest" with Syd Field's Paradigm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenwriting#Syd_Field.27s_Paradigm) you get:


Some other interesting things that I observed in the episode or really liked:


As a side note, this is the second episode in a row without any appearance what-so-ever from our beloved Derpy, which is kind of disconcerting.

To quickly reply to one previously made comment:

...calling something as awesome as dragons lame?!  That's not Rainbow Dash!

I think Rainbow Dash simply believes she's the best flyer in Equestria, even as compared to dragons. Naturally dragons are huge and can't do the same tricks as a little pony. Since Dashie is so competitive she wanted to upstage the dragons to her friends. The way I see it, it was a pretty in-character line!

I have to wholeheartedly agree with Aspect's comments about Rainbow Dash's behavior here.  Rainbow Dash is both cavalier and competitive to a fault, so I have no doubt that she would feel the need to show off and brag about how much better her flying skills are than the dragons.  She is little miss "10-seconds flat" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2sX-IpAmZs) after all.  How about that Aspect-- I can agree with you in posts too!   :D

Next week we have the episode "Hurricane Fluttershy," which according to the "U-Verse Channel Guide Summary" (http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Hurricane_Fluttershy#U-verse_Channel_Guide_summary) involves Fluttershy helping the other pegasi create a tornado powerful enough to suck up all of the water needed for the rainy season.  As a SKYWARN Severe Weather Spotter I find this kind of ironic since this episode will be airing during the U.S.'s actual tornado season, but oh well.  I don't know why, but Fluttershy-centric episodes seem to keep on falling into a pattern of:

1. Fluttershy is too meek/shy/scared/self-conscious to try or do something
2. Some external force, be it Iron Will or the Mane 6, try to get Fluttershy to do it anyway
3. Fluttershy does it, but goes too far
4. A cosmic reset button (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ResetButton) is pressed, and Fluttershy becomes meek/shy/scared/self-conscious again

We see this kind of thing in "Dragonshy" and "Putting Your Hoof Down," and to a lesser degree in "The Stare Master" and "Green Isn't Your Color," and I have a feeling that "Hurricane Fluttershy" is going to center around this theme as well.  Hopefully I am wrong about this, because I *want* to see something that is creatively different that truly wows me, but I won't hold my breath.  In any case, since making this massive tornado seems to have to involve all of the pegasi, maybe, just maybe, I will get one of my most cherished wishes granted, and we will get to see a scene with a Spitfire (http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111205053630/mlp/images/7/70/Spitfire_id.png) speaking part again!  I mean she is a pegasus, after all, so hopefully they'll need her!  *crosses fingers!*  Until next week, everypony!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on March 21, 2012, 07:40:54 pm
Rainbow Dash is both cavalier and competitive to a fault, so I have no doubt that she would feel the need to show off and brag about how much better her flying skills are than the dragons.

Yeah, but Rainbow Dash is the sort who would only say something like that if she could prove it there and then.
(I doubt she'd use a word like lame though)

Otherwise she'd just admire their awesomeness, or perhaps try and fly along side them and then maybe realise that that's not actually a great idea.

But her characterisation's not exactly been great this season, particularly not coming from Merriwether...
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on March 24, 2012, 11:01:00 pm
I had to watch todays episode on my phone since I wasn't in great coverage for my air card (different carriers), so kinda hard to go back and point out any specific highlights other than some of the more promenent points. I'll admit that the theme of Fluttershy being too meek at the begining of an episode and having a revelation that allows her to be overly strong at the end is kinda getting old. That being said, I did really enjoy this episode and is likely the best IMHO at doing her character development if you want to pick just one. Or maybe tie with Dragonshy. Just goes to show you, you can solve anything with an 80's music montage! :D

Anypony else find their hearts breaking when she ran off to the forest and was crying? I was like "Oh, poor little thing!" But then I couldn't help but giggle when the squirrel tried to offer up an acorn that was in its mouth. Hmmm... other notible points:

I wonder if they ever debated making Derpy the one to drop the notices in the begining. It makes sense that RD would do it because she was leading the cause, but... DERPY. MESSENGER BAG!
Fluttertree anypony?
Wing high fives and pushups
Some new animations (Loved the reel to reel movie! And also when Fluttershy was surrounded by the eyes)
RD hitting the tree so hard that her eyes POPPED THROUGH IT! XD
Hoagiebot should be happy that his beloved Spitfire made an appearance
Fluttershy LOOSING in tug of war with a BUTTERFLY?! LOL
I found myself thinking 1.21 gigawatts of power at the end

I'm sure there's other moments, but I can't think of them right now. And YAY! I'm the first this time to post about an episode.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on March 25, 2012, 02:02:55 am
The Fluttertree reference was perfect. Showing RD knowing exactly where she was hiding implies that everypony is used to Fluttershy's tree obsession by now.

Fluttershy's faking sick is exceptional as well, I like how she tries to sort of collapse against the door frame.

At 13:07 "do I look like I speak squirrel?" is a nice touch. :)

In the end Dash didn't live up to her "nopony's getting sick on my watch" claims. Hmm I wonder why! She took no efforts toward preventing a factor potentially devastating to her plans; or perhaps she genuinely thought her public stance against ponies getting sick would actually keep them from doing so! She should have avoided gathering everyone together for the training sessions and given those who seemed sick opportunity to rest up before the big event. I guess the reason I'm making a point here is that the episode does very little to encourage rationalism, when rational thought is obviously a quite important tool for solving one's problems and achieving goals. Keeping a positive attitude is important too, but is absolutely no substitute.

There were a lot of new pegasi characters in this episode! Which is to be expected I suppose. But I would have liked a little more concentration on ponies who have been in the background a long time, like Cloud Kicker and Medley (names grabbed from mlp.wikia.com), rather than characters like Thunderlane and Blossomforth. I guess this is probably just a consequence of how the show is written; since background ponies are inherently created by the animators and foreground ones by the writers, the two worlds can be a bit disconnected.

Lastly, in both this episode and Dragon Quest, a lot of characters accidentally rammed through trees! I find myself picturing Equestrian trees as very spongy!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on March 25, 2012, 11:17:17 am
Well, that was the best episode ever.

The biggest thing to note is the characterisation - having been...rather misrepresented nearly the whole season, both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy finally got an appearance they deserve.  Rainbow Dash actually had feelings and emotions, never mind for others, and Fluttershy's issues and development was subtle and realistic and relatable.

The environment was really nice as well; particularly in Fluttershy's training montage.  That was wonderful scenery.
And awesome background music.
Not to mention some of her adorable expressions...

And finally the new characters; Cloudchaser, Flitter and Blossomforth are all awesome characters.
(I despised the muscly...thing though).

And I guess to clear up some potential logic issues - Spitfire was the judge for the competition, much like someone from Guinness World Records, so wasn't supposed to help; 1000 was the wingpower they were capable of if they all got up to 10.0 wingpower, which they were unlikely to all do really; add to that the 8 missing and it's not so surprising that they couldn't reach 800.

I guess the only things I can find to dislike about this episode are the muscly pony, some of the visual gags (like eyes through the tree...) and...the fact that Spitfire's voice is a bit different and she didn't speak nearly enough.

In all, an amazing episode, and among my favourite of this season.  And if the next two episodes are pretty crap (which it looks like they probably will be...), this episode has left me satisfied me enough!

...Until the wedding at least!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on March 25, 2012, 12:01:22 pm
Both my faithful lap-cat Merlin and I just finished watching the new episode "Hurricane Fluttershy."  (My cat Merlin actually gets all excited when he hears the MLP:FiM theme song playing on the TV because he knows that it means that I will be sitting down to watch it, and that he can jump in my lap and get his neck scratched for about 30-minutes!  :) )  As much as the weather nerd in me gets absolutely killed on the inside by the magic pegasi-controlled weather of Equestria (Tornadoes made by pegasi wing power!?  That's all wrong!  Where's my meso-cyclones!  My hook echos!  My rear-flank down drafts!  My clear slots!  My rain-free base!  Arrrrgggh!), I promise that every time that I start to get overly upset by it that I will close my eyes, breath in deeply, count to ten, and then repeat to myself, "I got to see Spitfire.  I got to see Spitfire.  I got to see Spitfire." until I calm down.  LOL!

My play-by-play for the episode:


Here's how "Hurricane Fluttershy" breaks down with Syd Field's Paradigm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenwriting#Syd_Field.27s_Paradigm):



Hoagiebot should be happy that his beloved Spitfire made an appearance

Oh I definitely was, but I do wish that she made a little bit better of a showing of herself.  When she last had a speaking part in the season 1 episode "The Best Night Ever" and we really got to meet her for the first time, she seemed:


Add to that her saucy name and her sharp yellow and orange fiery coloration, and what can I say?  I like her!  As a result, I did get really excited when I saw that she was going to be part of this episode.  But in this episode she really didn't do anything particularly endearing or noteworthy.  You get to see her wave to her fans, look at her watch like she really doesn't want to be there, and then just kind of stand idly by while the Ponyville pegasi darn near fly themselves to pieces while trying to form the first tornado without lifting a hoof to help them.  I mean, none of this is really enough to paint Spitfire in an overly negative light by any means, as you could probably form reasonable speculations on why she acted the way she did.  But her behavior in this episode didn't really score any points with me either, leaving me feeling not as ecstatic about seeing her as I thought that I would be.

Oh well, I still do love my Spitfire (so much so that I recently tried to win an 18"-tall one-of-a-kind fan-made plush of her on eBay, but tragically lost), so I sincerely hope that she gets featured in the show again, maybe at the royal wedding or in a season 3 episode perhaps, and that she is given a role where we can actually learn a bit more about her and what makes her tick.  I realize that asking for more Spitfire could turn out to be a double-edged sword (just look what they did to poor Derpy in "The Last Roundup" for example), but at the very same time the writers have also managed to make me like Cheerilee more and more every time that I have seen her, so it's not like I'm completely impossible to please!

Getting back to "Hurricane Fluttershy," this episode was pretty middle of the road for me.  I like it a lot more than the last two episodes that I saw, but I still didn't like it as much as my all-time favorites.  I don't really have any real complaints about this episode or anything.-- it was a strong effort, but at the same time it didn't blow my mind and "wow" me.  If I had to give it a letter grade it would be a "B" or a "B+," which I am sure you will all agree is a pretty good grade.  Also, as I have mentioned in previous posts, I don't let myself see who wrote the episode until after I have finished watching it because I don't want my feelings about a particular writer to taint my reaction to the episode.  After I finished watching this one, I originally felt that it was written by the same writer who wrote "Winter Wrap-up," (Cindy Morrow), but then I changed my mind and decided that it was probably Meghan McCarthy of "Dragon Shy" and "Lesson Zero" who wrote it.  As it turns out I should have stayed with my first reaction, since it was really Cindy Morrow who wrote this one.  Oh well, I guess that I just don't have as good of a bead on these MLP:FiM writers as I would like to think that I do!   :P

Next week we have the episode "Ponyville Confidential," featuring our favorite power trio (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PowerTrio), The Cutie Mark Crusaders!  I have to say that I am pretty stoked for this episode.  For whatever reason, the Cutie Mark Crusader episodes never seem to disappoint.  In fact, they seem to have a far more entertaining group dynamic going on than even the Mane 6!  After seeing the preview commercial for it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwstZ0OIj_I) on the HUB while watching "Hurricane Fluttershy" I have nothing but good premonitions about it, and I can't wait!  To share my thoughts about a preview scene shown in the commercial:

Spoiler: show
I sincerely hope that when Spike belches fire and burns up the newspaper (http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120324192934/mlp/images/0/07/Spike_burning_paper1_S02E23.png) that he accidentally sends the Gabby Gums column to Princess Celestia with something embarrassing written about her in it!  That would be so epically hilarious!   :D  :D  :D


Until next week!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on March 29, 2012, 07:15:03 pm
I know I'm a few days late on this, but, I just saw the promotional material for the wedding season finalé and
Spoiler: show
magically cloned ponies!! It seems like one by one my fanfic ideas are actually happening! Now I just await magic-based computers being taken over by Twilight-created AI!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on March 29, 2012, 07:58:32 pm
I know I'm a few days late on this, but, I just saw the promotional material for the wedding season finalé and
Spoiler: show
magically cloned ponies!! It seems like one by one my fanfic ideas are actually happening! Now I just await magic-based computers being taken over by Twilight-created AI!


WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on March 29, 2012, 11:22:45 pm
WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT.

Remain calm, there will prolly not actually be killer AI's! Just loads of evil pinkie pies! (https://a.furaffinity.net/aspect.gif)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on April 01, 2012, 12:30:23 pm
Oh Cheerilee, I could just get lost in your opalescent green eyes.  I absolutely adore everything about you: your sweet, patient, and always cheerful disposition, your melodic voice, your amazing generosity, the fact that you seem to have a total disregard to the responsibilities of your job by allowing your grade-school class's newspaper to be run by a child sociopath (http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html) and distribute scandalous slander while completely unsupervised... Oh my little shmoopy-doopy sweetie-weety pony pie, where have you been all my life?

...wait, this isn't my shipping fic that I'm typing in!  It's, it's... ah well never mind.  You all better start buying up more "CHRLE" stock on the HJIPSE index, because we just had a new episode of ponies, and as one might expect the share price of CHRLE, SWTBL, SCTLO, APLBM, and even RBDSH are all having a rally!  *cheers!*

As I mentioned last week, considering the fact that yesterday's episode, "Ponyville Confidential," featured the Cutie Mark Crusaders, I was extremely excited about it and I absolutely couldn't wait to see it!  There were a couple of reasons for why I was so ecstatic about finally seeing this episode: First of all, where ever there are the Cutie Mark Crusaders Cheerilee tends to not be too far away.  While I don't find Cheerilee's character design and color-scheme to be as sharp or as visually striking as my main mare Spitfire (and it's hard for me to put somepony with that much pink and magenta in her on my computer's desktop), there is just something about her personality that I find to be absolutely captivating.  On one hand, she seems like she would be the absolute best grade school teacher on earth.  I mean, she is so darn cheerful to a fault that her name is "Cheerilee" for crying out loud.  And just look at how happily her students respond to her ever-present sweetness and thoughtful words of encouragement:

(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120401005852/mlp/images/4/46/Sweetie_Belle_pleased_with_herself_S2E23.png)

That is one satisfied student right there.  But then on the flipside you have Cheerilee seemingly shirking her responsibility of actually teaching anything or acting as authority figure at nearly every opportunity, whether it be to cancel the day's lesson to watch Applebloom spin hoop-de-loops out in the school yard to the most recent incident of her "advising" her students on how to run their student newspaper by calling out to them "have fun!" and then quickly skipping out the door as quickly as she could.  Cheerilee had so little involvement with the student newspaper in fact that even when the paper suddenly explosively and unprecedentedly started expanding beyond its original student readership to Ponyville at large and then later even to Cloudsdale she apparently took no notice, or at the very least took no action.  I personally started wondering what the heck she actually was doing that entire time-- my own theory involves her sitting by herself in the teacher's lounge while drinking from a flask a la Mrs. Krabappel from The Simpsons, but I am open to alternative suggestions.

The second reason why I was so excited about seeing this episode was the Cutie Mark Crusaders themselves.  I'm sorry, but they are just so much more interesting, funny, and fun to watch than the Mane 6 are most of the time!  In addition, their motivations are always clear, and it is their unending determined quest to procure their cutie marks that lead them on the most wild of adventures and perform the most zany of antics.  What other characters could ever possibly get away with doing everything from zip-lining, rock-climbing, skin diving, taffy-making, putting on a rock ballad stage show, dosing their grade school teacher with a love potion, making enormous Hearts and Hooves Day cards, and unleashing Discord the ancient Spirit of Disharmony upon all of Equestria?  Nopony, that's who!  The Cutie Mark Crusaders rock!

This episode was written by one of my favorite MLP:FiM writers, M.A. Larson, and true to his form this episode was one of the stronger shows of this season in my opinion and was genuinely funny throughout.  It also had a lot of awesome little continuity nods (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContinuityNod) throughout the episode that were all well placed and really fun to catch.  Continuity nods such as Spike saying how one of the Gabby Gums headlines was "The Amazing Trixie's Secrets Revealed" and the "scandalous" photo of Big McIntosh with the "Smarty Pants" plushie (http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120401015639/mlp/images/b/b5/Big_Macintosh_and_Smarty_Pants_photo_S2E23.png) were not only great shout-outs to long-time watchers of the show, but were also very funny and gave me a real chuckle.  This is in stark contrast to the episode "Dragon Quest" that aired two weeks ago when the continuity nods that were shoehorned into that story by Merriwether Williams were so out of place and chronologically confused that they actually took me out of the story and instead distracted me to the point where I started wondering when the episode could have possibly taken place in relation to all of the others.  While the Merriwether Williams episode actually made me start to question whether or not all of the continuity creep (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContinuityCreep) that was seeping into MLP:FiM was starting to go a bit too far and was becoming detrimental, I absolutely had none of those concerns at all with all of the continuity nods in this episode, and that has shown to me once and for all that it is not continuity creep that's the problem for MLP:FiM, but particular writers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merriwether_Williams) who don't bother to do the research (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DidNotDoTheResearch) or use continuity nods carefully that are the problem.  Merriwether Williams should really take the time and study how M.A. Larson does things more closely-- he seems to be able to pull off selectively using continuity nods to enhance the story of an episode like a boss!

With that said, there was definitely one thing in this episode that just didn't feel right to me, and that was the behavior of the ponies in town after it was revealed that "Gabby Gums" was really the three fillies Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo.  Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and especially Big McIntosh are all supposed to all be responsible *adults* and trusted mentors to the fillies, but the way that they treated Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo after they found out that they were Gabby Gums was truly unacceptable adult behavior.  Blocking the children with force fields, dumping rain on them, giving them the silent treatment, and angrily telling them to "go away" is just not the way that adults should be reacting to small children.  While I can understand all of those adult ponies being upset that their secrets were revealed and that they were embarrassed in public, that is still no excuse for their treatment of the children.  These adult ponies are supposed to be role models to these children, and instead they were acting like petty children as well.  While I am generally not a huge fan of Rarity or her behavior, in this case she really shined, at least when compared to the other adult ponies anyway.  She was angry about having her secrets published in the student newspaper as well, but instead of dumping water on poor Sweetie Belle, giving her the silent treatment, or telling her to go away, she instead explained to Sweetie Belle about how what she did was wrong, and how it made her and the other ponies feel bad.  Sure, in the grand scheme of things Rarity is a hypocrite because she was enjoying reading the "Gabby Gums" gossip column more than anyone, but at least when things went too far she didn't shun the children, block them out, or run them off.  Instead, Rarity confronted Sweetie Belle, explained to her about why what she did was wrong and then attempted to guide her into the right direction.  In other words, she acted just like how a big sister should act, and I commend her for it.  Applejack should really take some lessons from Rarity in this regard.  I usually only accuse Merriwether Williams of writing MLP:FiM episodes that seem mean spirited, but truth be told in the third act of this M.A. Larson episode I thought that the adult ponies were acting a bit too mean spirited (and in addition irresponsible) as well.

I tried my best to break down this episode's story with Syd Field's Paradigm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenwriting#Syd_Field.27s_Paradigm), but I had a bit more difficulty with this episode than I normally do, so I am not completely confident that I got the timing of each plot point quite right.  I was having the most trouble determining exactly where Plot Point 1 was in the screenplay, so if anyone begs to differ with how I broke this episode down I am open to suggestions-- I may later decide to edit my breakdown should I realize that I identified a plot point incorrectly.  Anyway, here it goes:


I would love to discuss my final thoughts on this episode and maybe list out some of my play-by-play reactions to all of the absolutely hilarious things that happened in it, but its getting late and I am starting to get a bit bleary-eyed from sitting in front of a computer screen for so long.  As a result, I am going to call it a day (I'm nocturnal) and probably finish my thoughts about this episode in a follow-up post tonight.  In the meantime I would absolutely love to hear about what all of your reactions to the episode were so far, and I'll catch you all later!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on April 01, 2012, 03:44:23 pm
 As a result, I am going to call it a day (I'm nocturnal) and probably finish my thoughts about this episode in a follow-up post tonight.  In the meantime I would absolutely love to hear about what all of your reactions to the episode were so far, and I'll catch you all later!

Sounds just about perfect.

But then on the flipside you have Cheerilee seemingly shirking her responsibility of actually teaching anything or acting as authority figure at nearly every opportunity, whether it be to cancel the day's lesson to watch Applebloom spin hoop-de-loops out in the school yard to the most recent incident of her "advising" her students on how to run their student newspaper by calling out to them "have fun!" and then quickly skipping out the door as quickly as she could.

I really enjoyed the animation at that moment, with Cheerilee bending her hoof around to close the door as she left. It looked pretty difficult and I sort of like it when the show makes me think about what it would be like to try and do stuff with pony limbs.

Anyway, my opinion of Cheerilee's carefree attitude is that she's a kid's ideal teacher, not an adult's. She's willing to suspend her own idea of what's important and engage the kids at their level. Which makes me wonder what she actually teaches them:

(http://s15.postimage.org/l6nivck5z/board1.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/l6nivck5z/)
(http://s16.postimage.org/sfnymujap/board2.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/sfnymujap/)

As you can hopefully see in these images, the chalkboard has had the same vaguely physics-y equation on it for quite a while. My feeling is that Cheerilee left it up because she was impressed enough with it that she didn't want to erase it.

The second reason why I was so excited about seeing this episode was the Cutie Mark Crusaders themselves.  I'm sorry, but they are just so much more interesting, funny, and fun to watch than the Mane 6 are most of the time!  In addition, their motivations are always clear, and it is their unending determined quest to procure their cutie marks that lead them on the most wild of adventures and perform the most zany of antics.

While I agree that their motivation and episodes are good, the CMC do not have as interesting a dynamic for me as the 6. I mean, they don't have a Pinkie Pie interrupting things with zany enthusiasm, a Twilight getting obsessed with research or trying to braak out of her sometimes antisocial shell, a Rainbow Dash keepin' it real... they don't even have a Spike.

It's also funny how they never learn the central lesson, that earning your cutie mark is about finding something you really care about, not just something you, I dunno, happen to be good at or whatever.

The whole symbolism cutie mark thing ... is interesting. I mean, how many of us actually find one single purpose in life we'd be willing to wear tatooed for all to see? And how many of us do so during childhood? Yet it *is* a big part of our culture that we're supposed to find some sort of a calling. ...I can see I'm about to google a bunch of sociology stuff and make this into a big rant, but I think I'll cut myself off. I have to be somewhere at 4 and I'd rather have this posted than not.

... there was definitely one thing in this episode that just didn't feel right to me, and that was the behavior of the ponies in town after it was revealed that "Gabby Gums" was really the three fillies Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo.  Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and especially Big McIntosh are all supposed to all be responsible *adults* and trusted mentors to the fillies, but the way that they treated Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo after they found out that they were Gabby Gums was truly unacceptable adult behavior.  Blocking the children with force fields, dumping rain on them, giving them the silent treatment, and angrily telling them to "go away" is just not the way that adults should be reacting to small children.

You have to admit the force field thing was awesome. Back in Boast Busters Twilight Sparkle knew 25 spells; I what the count is like now? And I bet the force field was selective against the CMC, too!

But yeah, overall I totally agree on that particular montage. The way everyone automatically forgave them upon even seeing their picture in the newspaper was equally troubling, since really apologising doesn't necessarily make everytihng better; they should have also admitted the articles were mostly lies.

The Rainbow Dash/ raincloud thing was also pretty funny but a little too mean.

I'll have to write the rest of what I have to say later. Some quick points: 1) There's a Rainbow Dash doll in the CMC clubhouse! I don't know whether we've seen that before. 2) I think Plot Point 1 would be when Sweetie Belle notices Snail and Snips stuck together with gum. There's even the sort of dramatic music before it to set it up as an important moment. 3) Yay Celestia was in this episode!

Later Bronies!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on April 05, 2012, 06:22:30 pm
CMC episodes are win.

That's about all there is to say.        :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on April 07, 2012, 05:44:08 pm
Sorry for the double post, but this one starts discussion of today's episode, MMMystery on the Friendship Express.

First, puns-a-plenty. My favorite was probably Mulia Mild. Then you have the other nods and references to other things, including Anything Goes (DeLovely), classic silent films, and James Bond.

But beyond that, the episode felt incredibly flat to me. There was nothing especially funny about it at all. And the resolution wasn't right. It's not like Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy to do something like eating that cake. Particularly Rarity and Fluttershy. And I find it even less believable that any of them would go as far as tricking/deceiving Pinkie Pie just to get a bite of cake that they know they shouldn't touch. And that they'll get to sample the following day anyhow.

And in the opening scene, why didn't they just have Twilight carry the cake with magic, or teleport it to the train?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on April 07, 2012, 06:18:13 pm
And in the opening scene, why didn't they just have Twilight carry the cake with magic, or teleport it to the train?

In 'Putting Your Hoof Down', why didn't Fluttershy just FLY OVER THINGS?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on April 09, 2012, 03:09:34 am
I loved all the puns and references too, but I also think the overall plot was lacking. I don't know if they were trying to overcompensate by using all the one off gags, or if the whole point of the show was for the gags with a little plot thrown in for a story. I must say that I liked Rarity's hair over her eye.  :-[

Not a lot else I can say about this episode right now. Been a long day and it's bed time for me.  (:
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on April 21, 2012, 10:20:13 am
The Hoagiebot is back... with a vengeance!   :D

Well, here we are on the eve of what has probably had to have been the most hyped My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic event ever, the Canterlot royal wedding.  So monumental is this event going to be in fact that it has even forced me to finally re-emerge from my dark computer-laden cave to type out a post after a 20-day-long absence from this thread.  Why am I finally making a re-appearance now after all of this time?  Well, I have been actually been simmering and stewing over this upcoming royal wedding season finale for a very long time.  Ever since I first learned about the upcoming royal wedding season finale, Princess Cadance, and Shining Armor from an Equestria Daily post that was made way back on December 13, 2011 (http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/12/shining-armor-confirmed.html), I have been secretly nerd-raging about the whole darn thing.  I had been wanting to discuss my thoughts and concerns about the upcoming two-part special season finale here ever since that time, but I held myself back for two reasons.  First of all, even though this is a spoiler-friendly thread, I have perceived over time that the prevailing sentiment amongst the regular posters here is that the majority of everyone here doesn't really want to discuss things that are happening more than a few days in advance.  There were posts here about members wanting to steer clear of this forum for a few days to avoid accidentally reading spoilers when the episode "Hearts and Hooves Day" was accidentally leaked onto iTunes days before it was supposed to air, for example.  An even more pertinent reason for why I haven't fanboi-ranted about the upcoming Canterlot Royal Wedding before now was because I was already far too involved with writing my exhaustive text-walls on all of the other new episodes that premiered this season.  With my episode review posts taking more and more hours to write, with some of them having to be written across several days because of that fact, I just didn't have the drive left in me to then go ahead and start writing a second massive text-wall about this upcoming season finale once I had finished one of those posts.  And while I definitely would have preferred to have written my concerns about this upcoming 2-part event well before now so that we all could have had some time to discuss them, I unfortunately just couldn't find the time to do it.  Since many of you will have probably seen the new "A Canterlot Wedding" episodes before you ever read this post anyway, I guess you will just have to see how many of my predicted misgivings turn out to be correct and how many of them turn out to be completely unfounded, and then precede to tell me how right or wrong that I was.

Now, before I begin ranting let me say that I know next-to-nothing about these upcoming episodes other than having seen a few of the leaked and promotional tidbits about them that have been posted on Equestria Daily.  In fact, I may even know less about these upcoming episodes than some of you might, because I haven't been following the new 'Pony developments as much as I should have been over the past few weeks, and apparently there were some exclusive preview clips of the upcoming episode that were released that I never got to see before they were taken down.  However, I have seen and heard enough about this upcoming two-part episode to get my fanboi nerdiness in a twist about some things anyway, which can pretty much be summed up in three main points:

I. Princess Cadance is a Winged-Unicorn

As those of you who have read my previous posts in this thread probably remember, there is one central subject of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic continuity that is sure to switch me from out-of-universe story-structure analysis mode into in-universe ranting fanboi mode whenever it gets screwed with, and that is the continuity that was established by the very simple "Mare in the Moon" story that was told in the opening minutes of the very first episode of season 1, "Friendship is Magic Part 1".  I really liked that story, and I felt that it setup the magical land of Equestria beautifully.  According to the story, you had two magical regal winged-unicorn sisters, one who controlled the sun and created the day, and the other who controlled the moon and created the night.  Together they kept the Kingdom of Equestria in balance and harmony, and watched over all of the unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies that were their loyal subjects for at least a thousand years.  While this backstory is fairly simple, I have still always really liked it as a strong base foundation for this show.  It has a very nice yin-yang kind of balance about it (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SiblingYinYang), and it has a very magical and legendary feel to it.  It established that there were two regal winged unicorn sisters, that they were each at least 1,000 years old and possibly even immortal, that they had magical powers that rival gods, and that they treat their pony subjects as if they were their protective charges, almost as if all of the ponies of Equestria were like their children.  For me it worked really well.  But it seems that as soon as Lauren Faust left he Executive Producer role after the wrap-up of the first season that many of the staff writers decided that this backstory was just too simple and elegant for their tastes, and that they just had to add to it and complicate things.

The first change to this simple and elegant backstory was the addition of the villain Discord at the beginning of the second season.  While I was never really a huge fan of Discord as a villain (I always kind of thought of Discord as being too much of a generic doomsday-style villain (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenericDoomsdayVillain) and almost suicidally overconfident), the writer M.A. Larson did a pretty good job of working Discord in so that he really didn't disrupt the original backstory of Equestria as portrayed by "Friendship is Magic Part 1."  After all, it was never really touched upon in "Friendship is Magic Part 1" about what Equestria was like before the two winged-unicorn sisters appeared and introduced order to the world.  Who is to say that before Celestia and Luna could use their magic to establish balance that they didn't have to combat an ancient spirit of disharmony first?  While up to that point I kind of viewed the two sisters as kind of the "creators" of Equestria, who is to say that when they brought order to chaos that chaos wasn't actually a personified being?  So in that case, my nerd rage was pretty much averted since the "Return of Harmony" episodes were so thoughtfully done.

But then a less than careful writer came along, and also decided to take a crack at retconning (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retcon) Equestria's ancient past: Merriwether Williams.  Her episode, "Hearth's Warming Eve," was borderline blasphemous as far as I am concerned, and put me in a nerd rage at right around Christmas time when I should have instead been filled with the spirit of love, giving, and goodwill.  According to Ms. Williams's tale, the ponies no longer needed any god-like winged-unicorns to establish Equestria, control the sun and the moon, or maintain balance and harmony.  Now the regular old unicorns could raise the sun and the moon by themselves.  Now I don't know about you, but it has been fairly well established that Twilight Sparkle is one of the most gifted magical unicorns that Equestria has ever seen, and thus far we haven't seen her as being capable of moving anything that is much larger than a Ursa Minor or a water tower around with her unicorn magic.  While those are impressive feats in their own right, that is nowhere near moving something as large as moving the sun or the moon.  So the idea that unicorns can control celestial objects all on their own without the help of a pair of winged-unicorn living-gods doesn't sit too well with me.  In addition, if the unicorns did have this ability all along, than the villain Nightmare Moon would have ceased being such a serious threat as the unicorns could have stood up to her and possibly raised the sun anyway.  Instead you see or hear about no such possibility-- the unicorns seem to be as helpless against Nightmare Moon as everyone else.  In addition, if the ponies were already ruling themselves before the regal sisters came, then why would the pony kingdoms willingly submit to Celestia and Luna's rule?  It makes Celestia and Luna suddenly appear to be almost like mafia bosses or gangsters, moving in on the separate rulers of the earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn rulers' respective turfs, muscling them out with their more powerful magic, and then extorting the three kingdoms for their "protection."  You know, kind of like how Saddam Hussein maintained control over the three separate Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish territories in Iraq through his strong-arm tactics, or how Tito held together the various Socialist Republics that made up the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.  And to make Hearth Warming Eve's rewrite of Equestria's ancient history even more aggravating, they then decided to carelessly show a banner for the new unified pony kingdoms that had the regal pony sisters displayed on it even though the Hearth's Warming Eve story was stated to take place before the reign of the regal pony sisters.  *sigh*

Now, with the upcoming Canterlot royal wedding we have another potential wrench being thrown in the works through the introduction of Princess Cadance.  It's not that I don't like her because she is a princess-- we were previously introduced the the unicorn Prince Blueblood during season 1 after all.  Instead, Princess Cadance raises my ire because she is a third winged-unicorn.  You see, winged-unicorns are not exactly your typical mill-of-the-run ponies. They're special, and up until now there have only been two of them, and they have been the foundation of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's entire universe.  Based on what we already know about winged-unicorns from previous MLP:FiM episodes, three things can be said about them:

1. They can live thousands of years
2. They have absolutely immensely powerful, almost god-like if not god-like magical abilities
3. They have a tendency to be in charge of controlling something, such as absolutely massive celestial bodies

The fact that the writers decided to throw precedent to the wind and make Princess Celestia's newly invented niece another winged-unicorn forces me to now have to ask the following tough questions:

1. How old is Princess Cadance?  Is she thousands of years old like Celestia and Luna?  Are we going to have a similar situation with her marrying a regular old mortal unicorn like we did in The Lord of the Rings trilogy when an immortal elf fell in love with a mortal human, as in will Shining Armor live his life, grow old, and die while his bride seemingly doesn't age a day?  And, since Cadence is possibly immortal or practically so, has she married mortals before?  Shining Armor could potentially be just one in a long line of stallions that she has married and outlived in an endless cycle stretching thousands of years.  In fact, for all we know that could actually be the shocking "dark secret" about Cadance that Twilight Sparkle discovers and then has to warn her older brother about.  If that actually somehow does turn out to be the case, the plot will be an example of what TVTropes.org calls, "A Bride with a Past (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheBrideWithAPast)."

2. Does Princess Cadance have god-like magical powers like every other winged-unicorn princess that we have previously seen?  While Princess Celestia seems to be fairly subdued when it comes to flexing her unimaginably powerful magical muscle, her younger sister, Luna, has never been so restrained.  From her we can see that winged-unicorns can move immense celestial objects, shapeshift into several separate sentient entities at one time (The Shadowbolts), create mist, storm clouds, thunder, and lightning, repel royal guards with said lightning, make cliffs collapse underneath other ponies' feet, turn into mist herself, make inanimate objects come to life (the toy spiders from the Nightmare Night carnival game), and other such terrifying feats.  How much of this kind of immense power does Cadance have?  If her dark secret is that she is some kind of an antagonist, would she end up using her powers?  It seems that in the teaser scenes that the HUB has been showing that Cadance is going to be played off as some kind of manipulative character, such as TVTrope's "The Vamp (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheVamp)."  However, how will she react when she gets backed into a corner?  Will she continue to attempt to manipulate those around her by pulling off something like a "Wounded Gazelle Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WoundedGazelleGambit)," or will she resort to using her god-like magic to such a degree that only the Elements of Harmony could have a chance at slowing her down?  Hmm, maybe that's were all of the doppelgangers of the Mane 6 that I saw in a teaser clip of this episode came from...

3. Does Princess Cadance have control over any kind of celestial object?  As I stated above, I always like the simple yin-yang sort of quality that Celestia and Luna had controlling the sun and the moon.  How is the presence of a third winged-unicorn going to disrupt this?  Will she control only a minor celestial object, like shooting stars or Venus or something, or will she have no celestial object-controlling responsibilities at all?

4. What the heck is Cadance a princess of, exactly?  Trottingham?  Las Pegasus?  Some other kind of rival pony kingdom that lies outside of Equestria?  Inquiring skeptical Hoagiebots want to know!

All I can say is that if the MLP:FiM writers are going to do something as potentially world-shattering as making Princess Cadance a full-blown winged-unicorn, in my opinion they had better have a darn good plot-crucial reason for doing so.  And that reason better be something more significant than to give Hasbro's merchandising arm a new princess pony to sell.  Winged-unicorns are significant characters that underpin the backstory of the entire MLP:FiM series.  In my opinion, the writers shouldn't take messing around with them lightly, and the Rule of Cool (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool) better apply to their inclusion.  Oh, that and Merriwether Williams should have a legal restraining order against her ever being able to create a new one.  With that said, as much as I try to never let myself know who wrote a MLP:FiM episode before I get to watch it, somewhere it came out that Meghan McCarthy wrote " A Canterlot Wedding" parts 1 and 2, and I accidentally read it.  :-[  While I would much rather have M.A. Larson be responsible for the handling of new princess winged-unicorns due to the really good job that he did with expanding the character of Princess Luna, hopefully Meghan McCarthy will do alright.  On one hand she has written some pretty good episodes in the past such as "Dragonshy," but on the other hand she is also credited with helping Merriwether Williams with the story for "Hearts and Hooves Day," which is too few degrees of separation between Megan McCarthy and the mess that is Merriwether Williams/"Hearts and Hooves Day" for my comfort.  I guess that we will just have to wait and see how well all of this gets handled.

II. Twilight Sparkle has a Previously Unmentioned Older Brother

I absolutely hate it when a show suddenly introduces a new never before seen or ever even mentioned sibling or parent character into a plot.  It is a form of the trope, "Remember the New Guy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RememberTheNewGuy)," and it absolutely aggravates me to no end, especially if the character doesn't have some absolutely massive "Rule of Cool (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool)" appeal or massive importance to a plot that is entertaining enough that it causes me to forgive the transgression.  We are now 50-episodes into the show, and never once has Twilight Sparkle been seen with an older brother, even in flashbacks or photographs, or even mentioned the existence of an older brother.  In fact, due to her lack of socialization skills with other ponies her age early on in season 1 (she had to look up a book on how to have a slumber party for crying out loud), you would be hard-pressed to convince me that she has been anything other than an only child let alone a younger sibling that could have benefited from watching her older brother experience things first while growing up.

Even more damaging however is the level of importance that her older brother has been said to have-- according the the MLP:FiM Wiki, he is the Captain of Celestia's entire Royal Guard!  At the very least, this new revelation could potentially throw the first two episodes of season 1, "Friendship is Magic" parts 1 and 2, on their head!  Why?  Well, if Princess Celestia didn't believe Twilight's warning about the Mare of the Moon escaping, then why didn't Twilight then proceed to warn her older brother?  He is the Captain of the Royal Guard, Princess Celestia's bodyguards, after all, and he could have still taken precautions to protect the princess whether Celestia believed in the potential threat or not.  And being Twilight Sparkle's brother, he would have been potentially more likely to have taken her warnings seriously.  And where was he when it actually came time to protect Celestia from Nightmare Moon?  Why wasn't he attempting to engage Nightmare Moon with his troops?  Then there are all of those times when Twilight was thrown in potential conflict with the Royal Guards, such as when Fluttershy bird-napped Philomena, when Twilight was trying to sneak into the "Starswirl the Bearded" wing of the Canterlot archives, etc.  If Twilight always had a direct line to the Captain of the guards, then you would think that she might have a bit more influence over them, or be able to ask her brother for a favor to help her and her friends get out of their binds with them.

Like with my comments about the writers adding a new winged-unicorn princess above, adding a previously unmentioned sibling of the series's primary antagonist is a pretty dramatic and sweeping change, and it better not have been made lightly.  As with all big troubling changes to continuity, it can be made to be worth it if its contribution to the story is entertaining enough.  However, the bigger the alteration to the show's established continuity the bigger that the addition has to pay off to be considered to have been worth it, and giving Twilight Sparkle a "Remember the New Guy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RememberTheNewGuy)" brother is a pretty tall order to make pay off.  The introduction of Shining Armor as Twilight Sparkle's brother better be absolutely essential for an totally awesome plot, because if the only reason that he is there is to provide a convenient excuse to get the various members of the Mane 6 involved in the wedding party and nothing more then you're going to have a very upset Hoagiebot on your hands.   >:(

III. They are Taking Way to Much Imagery from Prince William and Kate Middleton's Real-Life Royal Wedding

Shining Armor's uniform (http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2011/specials/royal-wedding/news/prince-william-04-300.jpg).  The ridiculous wedding hats (http://www.brides.com/blogs/aisle-say/royal-wedding-hats.jpg).  The newlyweds having the traditional first wave and kiss in front of their adoring royal subjects. (http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120420203303/mlp/images/b/bd/Shinin_and_Cadance_in_the_Publin_in_the_Wedding.jpg)  The fact that there is going to be a royal wedding at all.  All of this reeks of an episode plot that has been "ripped from the headlines."  I expect this sort of thing from cop shows such as "Law & Order" or "Criminal Minds," but I hate it when it appears in animated fantasy works.  While all fiction is inspired in one way or another by a writer's past experiences, since MLP:FiM is supposed to be "fantasy," I don't exactly want to find it mirroring the recent current events of the modern world.  I am watching fantasy shows to try to escape from reality, at least briefly for 22-minutes, so I don't want to see any references to current events in the real world suddenly reminding me of what it is that I am trying to escape from.  While I suppose that I can maybe be made to swallow the fact that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is having a royal wedding less than a year after a member of the British royal family had one, I wish that they didn't use so much imagery from the recent British royal wedding in it or to promote it.  Equestria is a mythical fantasy land of magic-wielding ponies for crying out loud, so they should be able to do so much more amazing fantastical over-the-top stuff with their weddings than any real-world counterpart could ever hope to achieve.  Let's have magical shape-shifting dresses, gryphon-pulled coaches, floating alters in the sky, amazing magic powered-firework light shows, and other amazing magical displays that would put Gandolf the Grey from The Lord of the Rings to shame.  This is a royal Canterlot wedding after all, so lets turn the spectacle to Great and Powerful Trixie levels times 1000!  But instead, from what I have seen from teaser screenshots of the upcoming episodes anyway, it all seems to look way too much like last year's real royal wedding did, and that is both very lazy and a shame.  In a land as magical as Canterlot the ponies should be capable of so much more.  In any case, since I haven't seen more than a few seconds of footage from this episode I could definitely be wrong and there could actually be some amazing visual wonders in store for us, and I am absolutely hoping that that turns out to be the case.  But so far this royal wedding is turning out to look fairly mundane to me, and if that turns out to be true it would be such a waste of potential.

As a bonus rant:  While this isn't one of my three primary concerns about the upcoming "A Canterlot Wedding" episodes, there is one very important character that I have yet to see in any of the promotional screenshots or clips that I have seen thus far: Princess Luna.  It seems that with the sole exception of the "Luna Eclipsed" episode, poor Princess Luna has been completely given the shaft by the writers ever since the Mane 6 saved her from her evil path with the Elements of Harmony way back in the second episode of the first season.  I am starting to wonder if Princess Luna even lives anywhere near Canterlot, or if she has her own castle somewhere else hidden on the other side of the planet or something, because we never see her, not even at large events where her sister is present.  She wasn't even around for the huge Grand Galloping Gala!  Hmm-- Maybe she lives on the moon... or, maybe her evil sister Trollestia re-imprisoned her on the moon or something and that's why we never see her...  Anyway, I digress-- All I can say is that with this being a massive royal wedding and all, and with Princess Luna possibly being Princess Cadance's aunt (or maybe even more), she had better be there at the wedding.  I pray that Megan McCarthy gave Princess Luna some kind of role in this wedding plot or at the very least some kind of a bit speaking part somewhere during the course of this two-part story.  And if Princess Luna doesn't end up at least appearing in the episode, even if only just in the background, well, that would be an unforgivable sin.  So I pray that poor Princess Luna isn't given the shaft once again, and that she finally gets to take her rightful place along side her sister, because it would be a crying shame if this show pulled a "Chuck Cunningham Syndrome (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChuckCunninghamSyndrome)" trope on a full-blown princess, and an absolutely awesome princess to boot!

Well, those are my fanboi nerd-rage concerns that I have been carrying around since last December for this absolutely massive upcoming MLP:FiM event.  With the premier of these episodes now only a little less than three hours away, D-Day is upon us, and H-Hour is growing near.  Hopefully all of the misgivings that I mentioned above turn out to be completed unfounded, and that the "A Canterlot Wedding" episodes turn out to be the most epic MLP:FiM episodes that we have ever seen in our entire existences.  After all, according to Sethisto from Equestria Daily, who got to actually watch a screening of these episodes early:

Quote
I'm sure you are all curious about the actual screening of the episode though!  For the sake of spoilers, the only thing  I can say is that it is seriously the most epic two part we have received so far.  Back to back, it feels like a Lion King style high budget Disney movie.

Man, saying that the "A Canterlot Wedding" episodes are like Disney's The Lion King in any kind of capacity is one heck of an endorsement, so these episodes may really be something if they live up to the hype.  And while I highly doubt that there will be a Lion King-esque Elton John-sung "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" love scene with Spitfire laying on her back in the grass to make this hopeless-romantic Hoagiebot's dreams come true, with 44-minutes to work with this episode definitely has plenty of running time with which to pull off something truly amazing.  We'll just have to wait and see what happens, and you can bet that afterward there will be a massive Hoagiebot text-wall review of the whole shindig coming over the next few days once I get a chance to knuckle down and write one!   :)

Until then!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on April 21, 2012, 01:38:56 pm
My reaction after part 1 so far?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKWpGJ4Xhw8

:D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on April 21, 2012, 02:01:58 pm
Ok, just finished watching it live for once. YAY! Sooooooo much to say about this that I'm not even gonna start. Other than to simply say I was worried that they were going to use the old "Elements of Harmony" trick again but nice job on the resolution. That and the best pony came back. Vinyl Scratch!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Shim on April 21, 2012, 02:31:26 pm
I'm currently watching part 1, and this is interesting to me because I completely understand what Twilight is going through.

I have an older sister getting married in a few months :P! (No worries! He's an awesome, amazing guy!)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on April 22, 2012, 12:47:28 am
Good episode! I felt like the beginning was kind of slow, maybe because I didn't sympathise with it like others might (if Twilight hasn't heard her brother is getting married, it's probably because Twilight never leaves the library or writes to anypony but Celestia). But as soon as I found out Cadance had a love spell she started to seem sinister and the wedding seemed very suspicious! Of course it turned out her love spell wasn't manipulative at all, but it still hooked my interest and things seemed that way for a while.

Shining Armor did appear in the FiM world out of the blue but I guess I just don't expect as high of levels of continuity as Hoagiebot does. :) I liked that he had some abilities similar to Twilight's.

Cadance herself was... just a random alicorn (also a princess I guess!), which means Luna and Celestia are goddesses who happen to be alicorns. (I can't help but use the term alicorn for winged unicorn.) This vaguely opens up the possibility that there are many other alicorns, which I certainly don't mind so long as none of them are goddesses. Also "Princess" seems to be a pretty generic title in Equestria :P I guess I can accept that.

Of course, the changelings are the most interesting addition to the setting. I guess they're some sort of pony-shaped insect? They're pretty cool looking and I'm sure they'll make good external threats in fanfic. :) I wonder if there are any other odd pony-shaped magical creatures out there?

The first song didn't catch my interest all that much but I really liked the "this day is going to be perfect" piece! Especially the animation at the beginning of it.

One thing that bothered me was, despite Luna and Celestia both being in the episode I really didn't feel like anything was done with them. Luna's lines were so odd and irrelevant. -"Rest, my sister. As always, I will guide the night." She just needed to point out she doesn't spend her time at another castle as Hoagiebot suggested. -"Who goes there? Stay indoors, Twilight Sparkle!" didn't make much sense to me actually; was there a curfew or something Twilight was disobeying? Didn't seem like it! -"Hello everypony, did I miss anything?" seems like another 'remember Luna still exists!' sort of line. I guess Luna's thoroughly nocturnal but I still would have liked her lines to actually mean something.

As for Celestia, she had more of a part in the plot, and a few good moments (for example Twilight didn't cry until Celestia reprimanded her for calling Cadance evil, which makes sense given how much Twilight respects Celestia), but she just turned back into the all-too-perfect ruler at the end. She clearly needed to apologize to Twilight, which would have been interesting given that Twilight would have difficulty conceiving of the fact that Celestia might ever need to apologize for anything.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Foxxhoria on April 22, 2012, 10:47:46 am
Holy hay that was an awesome episode.

The first part was a bit slow but it set everything up nicely; I didn't really like the brother song, it was a bit cheesy for me, but that was just a part of the episode. The cliffhanger was kind of awesomely out of nowhere and was when you knew things were about to take a turn for the awesome.

And they did; the caves, the villain song, the changelings, and then the awesome battle.
The ending was kind of abrupt, but I had a fun enough time.

It was a bit disappointing that there was so little mane 6 action; it was definitely a Twilight episode, though I guess that does kind of make sense considering it revolved around her brother and all. Still it could have done with more...
But what bits they did do were awesome and fully appropriate to their characters - it was awesome that Rainbow Dash got to do what she loved and pull of another sonic rainboom at the end. After all she had thrown at her this season, it was a refreshing return to what made her Dash. I could just feel her enjoyment!
Despite their lack of screentime, they were all wonderfully in-character.

This was a very epic way to end a...rather interesting season.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on April 22, 2012, 11:12:09 pm
I enjoyed this finale a lot, though I feel like all the hype had my expectations a little too high.  I'm definitely curious to see Hoagibot's take on it.  I'm not sure it will fare well stacked against the concerns he had going into it.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on April 23, 2012, 04:53:22 pm
I actually felt like the quality definitely lived up to the hype they put into it. I've discussed this with Shim quite a bit, and we seem to agree that these two episodes combined have easily been the high point of season 2, and may be some of the best writing we've seen in the show over both seasons. Frankly, it was 2/3rds of the way to being a legit movie. And I feel like they could have easily slowed down the second episode to show a little more detail in certain spots.

That said, if you were expecting 'just a two-part wedding episode', you would have been in for quite a surprise. I could see Twilight's (Twilee's :D ) disapproval of the wedding coming pretty early. And it was quite obvious fairly early that the first Cadence you meet is fake. But I can't fault the show for being predictable or a bit transparent and/or overly obvious with the foreshadowing. I mean, it is made for kids after all, and they need to be able to pick up on these things, too.

I've read complaints by some people (other places) that called the finale 'too Disney'. And sure, it does feel very Disney, but it was still awesome. I grew up watching Disney movies, so seeing a cartoon like this mimic the formula (successfully, I might add), brought back some memories.

So, yes, I would put these two as a pair as my personal high point for this season. I still say it's hard to compare anything from season 1 to season 2, though.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on April 23, 2012, 05:40:26 pm
I just watched (most of...) it again and I do have a couple of small complaints. In the beginning, Twilee was talking about how close her and her brother was and that *AFTER* she moved to ponyville, they saw less and less of each other. You'd think if that was true, we should have seen, or at least heard about him, in the begining. Granted, the writers then wouldn't have likely known this finale would happen. Instead, they should have had a different story that didn't make it seem like he should have been in prior episodes. 

...

...

...

Crud. I forgot what my other complaint was already. XD
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on April 23, 2012, 09:38:54 pm
I rewatched the episode too and there were two important things I didn't notice last time:

1) Princess Luna is actually still living on the moon! She doesn't just wake up at night; she was shown coming down out of the sky at night! Seeing as Celestia doesn't go sleep on the sun as far as I know, I feel this is a little unfair. :)

2) Twilight shrugged in response to Rarity's "...not only a princess, but a captain of the Royal Guard?" right after the first song. Seeing as Shrugpony (http://gyropedia.wikia.com/wiki/Pony_Shrug) is probably the most famous pony image (well, pony "reaction image") there is I can't help but think this was a deliberate nod. But Twilight's shrug looked pretty awkward compared to the standard shrugpony pose! She was holding her hoofs facing down instead of up. Maybe I'm misinterpreting the pose?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on April 23, 2012, 09:45:19 pm
I don't really have any complaints against this finale.  Like I said, I really enjoyed it.  However, it didn't blow me away the way that the season opener with Dischord did.  The songs didn't impress me like Fluttershy's song in "May the Best Pet Win" or the super-brilliant Music Man parody in the Super Cider Squeezey episode.

The changelings did look really neat, but the concept of changelings isn't a new one in any way.  I suppose that Dischord -- chaos personified -- isn't that new of an idea either, but I felt like they did a really excellent job with him.  All the weird things he created really felt amazingly chaotic, and the way that he turned each of the ponies against their fundamental nature was really, really entertaining to see.  Whereas, when the changelings all attacked, they didn't seem to do anything particularly surprising or clever -- they just turned into sort of clone armies.  Which was, admittedly, entertaining, but it didn't end up being essential to the plot at all, since the main six basically failed.  The final solution -- Cadence breaking the spell on Shining Armor with love -- was actually completely disconnected from the clone army antics.  At least, that's what I remember.

I should probably watch it again.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on April 23, 2012, 10:56:03 pm

The changelings did look really neat, but the concept of changelings isn't a new one in any way.  I suppose that Dischord -- chaos personified -- isn't that new of an idea either, but I felt like they did a really excellent job with him.  All the weird things he created really felt amazingly chaotic, and the way that he turned each of the ponies against their fundamental nature was really, really entertaining to see.  Whereas, when the changelings all attacked, they didn't seem to do anything particularly surprising or clever -- they just turned into sort of clone armies.  Which was, admittedly, entertaining, but it didn't end up being essential to the plot at all, since the main six basically failed.  The final solution -- Cadence breaking the spell on Shining Armor with love -- was actually completely disconnected from the clone army antics.  At least, that's what I remember.

I should probably watch it again.

I wouldn't say they were entirely disconnected. The 6 went for the elements to defeat Chrysalis. Had they gotten them, I firmly believe they would have been powerful enough to take her out. However, they couldn't get to them because there were simply too many changelings. They got surrounded and just had no way past them to the elements. So the changeling army brought them back to their queen as prisoners. This is the key to the whole thing. The real Cadence was stuck and couldn't get to Shining Armor in order for their combined magic to work. Twilight needed to be brought back after they failed in order to let her out to get him.

It's a small connection, but it did fit (and was necessary). And it certainly was better than 'oh, they got the elements of harmony, game over' again.

What I thought was interesting was that Chrysalis was feeding off Cadence's love for Shining Armor, but ultimately it was their love that ended up defeating her.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on April 24, 2012, 12:09:43 am
I wouldn't say they were entirely disconnected. The 6 went for the elements to defeat Chrysalis. Had they gotten them, I firmly believe they would have been powerful enough to take her out. However, they couldn't get to them because there were simply too many changelings. They got surrounded and just had no way past them to the elements. So the changeling army brought them back to their queen as prisoners. This is the key to the whole thing. The real Cadence was stuck and couldn't get to Shining Armor in order for their combined magic to work. Twilight needed to be brought back after they failed in order to let her out to get him.

It's a small connection, but it did fit (and was necessary). And it certainly was better than 'oh, they got the elements of harmony, game over' again.

What I thought was interesting was that Chrysalis was feeding off Cadence's love for Shining Armor, but ultimately it was their love that ended up defeating her.

Wouldn't it have been easier to just let Queen Chrysalis (such a great name, by the way) catch them in the first place?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on April 24, 2012, 02:36:12 am
I think this comic does a decent job of capturing why I think that Dischord is a better villain than Queen Chrysalis (again, despite the excellent name):  http://discorderlyconduct.tumblr.com/post/21566911691/discord-is-best-queen
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on April 24, 2012, 07:14:37 am
Wouldn't it have been easier to just let Queen Chrysalis (such a great name, by the way) catch them in the first place?

I think you're missing the point. That's kind of like saying about any movie "why did they go through all the plot development instead of just defeating the bad guy to start with". I suppose it would make all movies take about 15 minutes to watch.

The thing is, they didn't know Cadence and Shining Armor would have such a strong power of love that they could do what they did. But the elements of harmony are a known power. And as I said before, I fully believe that they would have defeated her had they gotten to them. They didn't know they were going to run into such a large changeling army. They fought their best, but just got outnumbered too hard. What's better, giving it your all and fighting for it even if you fail, or saying from the start 'eh, there might be a big army out there that'll capture us if we go, so we'll just chill here and see what happens'?

Was this part of the episode rushed? Yes, quite. I'll give you that. They could have easily put another 10 minutes into that part of the episode to convey some things a little better. But unfortunately they didn't have time.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on April 24, 2012, 12:16:58 pm
This weekend I didn't get a chance to watch the two-part MLP:FiM "A Canterlot Wedding" season finale until very late on Saturday night/Sunday morning after I got back from my monthly "Lake Area Furry Friends" bowling meet.  Luckily, out of my two brony friends that were also at the meet, one of them hadn't yet seen the new episodes yet either (in fact we both actually greeted each other by saying how we hadn't seen them yet and to not spoil anything for one another), and the other brony friend, who had watched the new episodes, was smart enough not to say anything beyond telling me that Luna did end up making an appearance in the episodes, and that I would end up hating Tori Spelling before the night was over.  Naturally, he was right on both accounts!   :)

When I did finally get to watch the episodes, I made as big of an event out of it as I could-- I made sure that the rest of the family was long in bed so that I would have no distractions, I proudly wore my Derpy Hooves t-shirt while I watched, I had a bag of steaming-hot Taco Bell by my side so I could enjoy one of my favorite guilty-pleasure meals while I was watching, and I had my faithful lap-cat Merlin comfortably curled up in my lap.  As Iron Will would say, I was ready to rock!   :)  As you all know, I have had a lot of concerns for a long time about this upcoming season finale.  And one of the very first things that I noticed while watching the season finale was how the writers/production crew of this episode seemed to at least attempt to address some of them.  In fact, I very much got the impression that somewhere along the line during the production of this episode that there must have been some sort of big powwow by all of the production staff where they all gathered around and had a discussion about what they should do about all of the backstory revisions (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Revision) that they were making, and I have a feeling that this conversation went somewhere along the lines of this:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Production Person #1: "Hey, um, the writer wants to invent a new older brother for our show's main character, Twilight Sparkle."

Production Person #2: "Seriously?  But we have already produced 50-straight episodes of this show where Twilight Sparkle has acted like an only child.  In 1,100-minutes of running time we have never even hinted at her ever having a sibling-- we have only ever showed her with her parents!  Creating a new older brother now would be creating a "Remember the New Guy" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RememberTheNewGuy) trope, and one that is related to our show's main character no less!  All of the 20 and 30-somethings that live in basements and complain endlessly on Internet forums about this show are going to roast our butts over this for sure!"

Production Person #1: "I know I know, but the writer doesn't want to have to come up with a more creative way to involve the entire Mane 6 in her royal wedding plot.  If she makes the wedding involve a family member of Twilight's, then that provides a convenient way for both Twilight and her friends to be invited to the wedding and get involved."

Production Person #2: "I get it, but what are we going to do about those 20 and 30-something fans that have no lives and live in basements?"

Production Person #1: "I know what we should do!  We can introduce our backstory revisions (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Revision) through song!  We will just have Twilight Sparkle sing about how much she loves her older brother and how close they are, while at the same time showing a flashback montage or something!  Everybody loves Daniel Ingram's songs!  Even those godforsaken 20-something Internet know-it-alls, who are the bane of our very existence, can't badmouth a Daniel Ingram song!  It would be almost like blasphemy for them to do so!  That will shut up those whining over-analyzing fanbois!  I'm telling you that it will work!  It's genius!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While naturally I have absolutely no idea if such a conversation ever took place, I am going to tell you right now that introducing the Shining Armor backstory revision through song didn't really work for me, and that I am still going to whine about it!  I pretty much have to!  I live in a basement and have no life, so what else better do I have to do?   :D

Anyway, let's go through all of the concerns that I had before these episodes aired, and lets see where my fears were founded, unfounded, and addressed.  This means that I will get to quote a lot of stuff that was written by my absolute most favorite person on these forums, myself, and that you will all get to be treated to some real hardcore Hoagiebot on Hoagiebot action!   :D

II. Twilight Sparkle has a Previously Unmentioned Older Brother

While I am addressing my concerns out of order, since I already brought up Shining Armor I guess that I will start off with him.  To be completely honest, I am actually feeling a bit divided on how hard I should tear into his introduction into the series.  On one hand, as an amateur writer myself I have always felt that telling an entertaining story should always be a writer's primary priority, and that if a writer needs to make some additions, revisions, or outright retcons to a pre-established continuity as a necessity to pull that off then they should do so.  Or in other words, the ends can sometimes justify the means.  At the same time however, messing with continuity can be a dangerous thing, and even if you do have an awesome story idea in mind you should mess with continuity as little and as respectfully as possible.

To explain further, I am going to reference some ideas that were mentioned by Eric Burns in his absolutely awesome essay on story retconning, "Retconning: Just Another Day Like All The Others." (http://www.websnark.com/archives/2008/01/retconning_just_1.html)  In the essay, Eric Burns writes:

Quote
[Retconning] is a tool, in other words, but it is one that should be used very, very, very rarely, because it deliberately breaks the emotional investment your fans have in your core product: your story. You take a significant risk that your fans will not then reinvest every time you do it. Which means you'll lose some of your fans every time you do it.

It's also a tool to be used sparingly because the retcon will always feel like fiat, whereas the continuity it replaced was organic. It grew and built over the course of months or years or decades. The resulting patches will be weaker, and won't take the strain the original would.

And it is a tool to be used sparingly because once you start to retcon, you start wanting to do more. It's a rare writer or editor who does what he feels is a necessary retcon who won't then throw in a bunch of flourishes just because they thought it would be cool. And even if the retcon could have worked all right, the flourishes inevitably cause destruction and lay waste to all they touch.

Shining Armor is an example of what Eric Burns calls a "Category One Retcon," or a "Now Revealed! A Lost Tale of the Hero!" type of retcon.  Category One retcons are generally the least damaging and least likely to be poorly received by longtime fans because they are not actually contradicting anything that has already been established over the course of the show, but are instead adding to the established history of the show by shoehorning additional history or backstory in.  These retcons tend to take the form of, "while we never explicitly showed you or told you about X before now, he/she/it actually existed all along!"  In other words, it tends to work only because the writers never explicitly said at some point that X wasn't there or couldn't happen.  Often times such a small addition to a show's in-universe history can be done well, and can be well received by fans.  But just as Eric Burns warned, once a writer starts to retcon, it can become very easy for the writer to forget that they should be changing things as little as possible, and they start adding "cool" flourishes to their retcon which further complicates things, adds additional strain to their long-time viewers' emotional involvement with the fictional world and the characters, and increases the risk of ruining things and alienating fans.

I think that it is all of the flourishing that Megan McCarthy did with Shining Armor really ruins it for me in this case.  In "A Canterlot Wedding," she introduces him as Twilight Sparkle's older brother.  O.K., that's bad enough, especially since as I mentioned above, Twilight Sparkle is essentially this show's main protagonist.  But then we are told that Shining Armor and Twilight have always been extremely close, and that he is the best and closest friend that Twilight Sparkle has ever had in her entire life, even though she has never mentioned him before.  O.K., that's a lot worse.  But *then* the writer has Twilight Sparkle mention that she has still been seeing him this entire time, albeit less than she used to, while she has been living in Ponyville.  O.K., that's even worse still!  But then the writer goes even further, and says that Twilight's brother has an extremely prominent and super-important job as the Captain of the entire Royal Guard, a group that we have encountered quite often over the course the series!  For crying out loud!  Enough flourishing already!!!  Holy cow, it was bad enough that they were introducing a never-before-mentioned older brother, but why did the writer have to then go ahead and embellish Shining Armor's past involvement in Twilight's life, and his current involvement in Equestria now, and lay it on thicker and thicker and thicker and thicker!

If you think of a retcon as an unpleasant pill that you as a long-time fan have to swallow, the writer just kept on making the Shining Armor pill bigger and bigger and bigger and then covered it with shards of glass!  I mean seriously, did they have to shoehorn all of that into MLP:FiM's continuity?  Couldn't they have still made this episode's plot work with less?  Maybe the story could have still worked if Mister Captain of the Royal Guard Shining Armor was actually just a close first cousin of Twilight's so that we wouldn't have to swallow that Twilight had a prominent older brother that we just never knew about before now.  Some cousins can grow up together and be really close friends, you know.  It could happen!  Or how about explaining her older brothers' absence by saying that he was in Celestia's Royal Guard, but that we hadn't seen him or heard about him before now because he has been stationed at a far-away outpost for all of these years, and has been since Twilight was a filly.  That might have been made to work too.  I am sure that there are plenty of ways that the writer could have decreased the amount of all-out revisionism that she had to introduce to shoehorn in Shining Armor.  The point is that in my opinion, when the writer should have been doing everything in her power to minimize the amount of retconning that she had to do to make her story work, she instead seemed as if she was doing everything possible to increase it as if having Shining Armor as a prominent figure in the show was her own personal crusade or something!  I still think the overall story could have still worked if they didn't build up his prominence in Equestria and Twilight's past so much, making his sudden addition so darn glaring!

I. Princess Cadance is a Winged-Unicorn

Cadance herself was... just a random alicorn (also a princess I guess!), which means Luna and Celestia are goddesses who happen to be alicorns.

I too noticed that despite being a winged-unicorn, Princess Cadance didn't seem to have anything along the lines of some kind of over-the-top winged-unicorn magical powers.  She showed none of the terrifying and overwhelming magical might of Princess Luna, she didn't seem to have any kind of royal responsibilities over some kind of celestial object in the sky, and since we saw a young Cadance in the flashback of her being Twilight Sparkle's foal-sitter, apparently she isn't thousands of years old either.  All of this leads me to ask why she was made to be a winged-unicorn to begin with.  Having her be a member of this extremely rare and exclusive super-race of ponies adds absolutely nothing to the story, and it isn't touched upon much in the story if at all.  Princess Cadance could have been portrayed as a regular old standard unicorn with a talent for love spells, and the change wouldn't have effected the outcome of anything!  So once again, a change was made to the universe of MLP:FiM that was probably a bit more "flourished" than necessary.  I just wish that I knew who was responsible for this particular decision so that I knew who to blame-- is Cadance as a winged-unicorn an invention of Megan McCarthy, or is Cadance as a winged-unicorn an invention of Hasbro's toy-line and then shoehorned by the Hasbro executives into the show?  The fact that I read that "Cadance" was actually named after a Hasbro executive's daughter makes me start to wonder if the latter group is to blame, but still, there is nothing that I saw with Cadance that justified breaking the two winged-unicorn regal sisters yin-yang that the writers had going in Eqestria up until now.  They could have just as easily made her a unicorn like they did previously with Prince Blueblood.

It seems that in the teaser scenes that the HUB has been showing that Cadance is going to be played off as some kind of manipulative character, such as TVTrope's "The Vamp (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheVamp)."  However, how will she react when she gets backed into a corner?  Will she continue to attempt to manipulate those around her by pulling off something like a "Wounded Gazelle Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WoundedGazelleGambit)," or will she resort to using her god-like magic to such a degree that only the Elements of Harmony could have a chance at slowing her down?

To pat myself on the back a bit, I so nailed that one!  The "Queen of the Changelings" Princess Cadance was definitely an example of "The Vamp (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheVamp)" character trope, so much so that she was literally feeding off of the love of Shining Armor!  And I was also correct in predicting how she would react when she got backed into a corner, in this case by Twilight Sparkle.  Just like I figured, the evil changeling Cadance pulled the "Wounded Gazelle Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WoundedGazelleGambit)" when Twilight Sparkle confronted her-- not once (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO1DQ6uzfz8&feature=player_detailpage#t=1128s), but twice (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO1DQ6uzfz8&feature=player_detailpage#t=1596s)!  And when the evil Cadance was finally confronted by the real Cadance and could pull off her manipulative charade no longer, she finally did reveal her true form, bust out her god-like magical powers, and throw down!  Apparently, I had this character's number!

Speaking of the Queen of the Changelings resorting to using her god-like magical powers when being backed into a corner, that lead to the most disappointing confrontation that I have ever seen in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in my entire life.  It was so disappointing in fact, that for me at least it overshadows all of my other complaints about this two-part episode.  In fact, it may be the biggest let down that MLP:FiM has ever done to me.  Of course I am talking about the (anti-)climatic confrontation between Princess Celestia and the Queen of the Changelings.  To understand the root cause of my massive disappointment with this confrontation, we will have to take a step back to some of the comments that I made during the beginning of Season 2 when I was still fairly new at being a brony.  During that time I went on and on in these forums complaining about how I was let down by the villain Discord in the season premier because to me he was just an over-glorified "Generic Doomsday Villain." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenericDoomsdayVillain)  My discontentment over Discord however did inspire me to at least attempt to put my money where my mouth was, and try to come up with a MLP:FiM villain that was better, and didn't share any of the problems that I saw with Discord.  I brainstormed for months coming up with ways that a villain could threaten both Equestria and the Mane 6, and do it without having to resort to using generic doomsday villain-style overwhelming might, anti-magic, or other such over-the-top "story breaker powers." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StoryBreakerPower)  And believe me, it turned out to not be the easiest of mental exercises because if you really sit down and think about it, the villains of this show have the entire deck of cards stacked against them.

To explain, the first obstacle that any MLP:FiM super-villain on an Equestria-threatening scale would have to deal with is the godlike powers of the regal winged-unicorn sisters, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.  As I mentioned in my last post, Princess Luna has shown us a few times over the course of this series that the two regal winged-unicorn sisters are pretty much incomprehensibly powerful and able to perform incredible magical feats such as moving immense celestial objects, shapeshifting into multiple separate sentient entities simultaneously, creating severe weather events, making cliffs collapse from beneath other ponies' feet, attacking with lightning, turning into clouds of mist to travel, attack, and evade, making inanimate objects come to life, and so on and so on.  Now think for just a second about just how difficult it can be for a writer to come up with a villain that can somehow stand a chance at being a credible threat to an all-powerful being like that without said-villain being incinerated into his/her component molecules by Celestia or Luna almost instantly.  It's like trying to find a way to have a villain stand up to the all-powerful Old Testament Hebrew God and somehow survive-- just ask the Ancient Egyptians of the Exodus story about how well that worked out for them!

And to be honest, I don't think that the MLP:FiM writers ever did a good job with creating a large-scale villain that could take on Celestia and Luna.  To explain what I mean, in the past the MLP:FiM writers overcame this almost insurmountable challenge in two ways, both of which were basically cheating.  First, they decided to make Celestia's mind-boggling magical powers put in check by having her being challenged by an equally-powerful Nightmare Moon.  While having two evenly-matched opponents lock horns in battle could have lead to some interesting results, in a cheap move we were never really shown how Nightmare Moon overpowered and captured Celestia in the "Friendship is Magic" season 1 premier episodes.  Instead, that event happened off-screen, and was left as a mystery to the audience.  However, since Nightmare Moon was another all-powerful winged-unicorn, we could at least take some satisfaction in the fact that if anything could take out an all-powerful living god it would be another all-powerful living god.

For the beginning of the second season, the question of "How in the heck can we have a villain somehow still be threatening with that darn all-powerful Princess Celestia around?" was answered by making the new villain, Discord, the living embodiment of just about every single story breaker power (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StoryBreakerPower) known in existence.  I mean seriously, look at the powers and abilities that Discord had that are also listed on the TVTropes.org "Story Breaker Power" list:


Dodging the "how do we get an all-powerful Celestia" out of the way by giving the villain special reality-warping and Celestia-magic nullifying powers is sooooo cheap.  It doesn't take any real thought or ingenuity at all.  And then having this insanely powerful villain essentially only get defeated because of his own stupidity and suicidal overconfidence is even worse!  And that, in a nutshell, is why I have never liked Discord...

Moving on, even if you do find a way to get the all-powerful and almost godlike regal pony sisters out of the equation, you still have to have your villain deal with the Mane 6, who are pretty formidably powerful in their own right.  First, lets take a look at Twilight Sparkle.  She is capable of performing powerful magical feats herself, such as telekinetically moving water towers, creating force fields large enough to surround a building, teleportation, and her most powerful form of magic of all, creating mustaches.  Throughout the entire series she has always been a force to be reckoned with, and ever since the Merriwether Williams episode "Dragon Quest," Twilight Sparkle's powers have been leveled-up even further, and we have been shown that Twilight Sparkle now has the ability of being able to teleport herself and several of her friends long distances and out of danger at pretty much anytime.  (Having Twilight Sparkle be able to instantly teleport herself and others long-distances and out of danger is of course a complete story-breaker power (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StoryBreakerPower) as well, and one of the reasons why I can't stand Merriwether Williams's writing.)  In fact, after "Dragon Quest," pretty much the only way that you can have Twilight Sparkle not ruin every story is by having her conveniently forget (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForgotAboutHisPowers) that she can teleport her and others long distances as a whim.  In part 2 of "A Canterlot Wedding" for example, when Twilight Sparkle got trapped inside the crystal caves beneath Canterlot castle by the Queen of the Shapeshifters, all I could think to myself was, "How is this even remotely a problem?  Thanks to Merriwether Williams, Twilight Sparkle can teleport where ever the heck that she wants whenever she wants.  This might slow her down for I don't know, maybe a couple seconds or something."  But, for the convenience of the plot, Twilight Sparkle's teleportation abilities seemed to have taken a serious downgrade in power from what we saw in "Dragon Quest."  In "A Canterlot Wedding," it appeared as if she could only teleport somewhere if she could physically see it, such as across a room or up onto a ledge.  Since I hated the fact that Merriwether Williams upgraded Twilight Sparkle's teleportation powers to story-breaker levels to begin with, this little de-powering (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Depower) of Twilight Sparkle didn't bother me as much as it otherwise would have because in the long run I tend to want to forget about just about every single thing that Merriwether Williams has ever done.  However, at the same time, it's not like I still didn't notice..

Moving onto the rest of the Mane 6, any villain that you write for the show also has to contend with the very capable Rainbow Dash.  While Rainbow Dash isn't quite as much of an obstacle as Twilight, she is still extremely formidable in her own right.  She can fly so fast that she can use her speed to punch rainbow-colored holes in the sky in the form of sonic rainbooms.  Should she perform her sonic rainboom near a ground structure, she can obliterate the structure with a rainbow-colored mushroom cloud.  And if that wasn't intimidating enough, Rainbow Dash has been shown to be a practitioner of the martial arts, and has punched, kicked, and bitten her way through heavy wood beams and the occasional cave-dwelling dragon's face.  In fact, if it wasn't for the fragility of her wings, she would almost be the kind of superhero that TVTropes.org calls, "The Flying Brick." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlyingBrick)  Then there's Applejack, an amazing athlete in her own right, and could probably kick the skeleton straight out of just about any villain's skin with her two back legs, "Bucky McGillycuddy" and "Kicks McGee"-- and that's if she hasn't already hogtied you with her lasso first.  Rarity, including in this latest episode, has shown that she too can really put the hurt on in a brawl, and even shy little Fluttershy has shown that she can be a force to be reckoned with as long as she has listened to some Iron Will assertiveness seminars first.  And don't forget Pinkie Pie with her "Pinkie Sense" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MySignificanceSenseIsTingling) and Bugs Bunny-like reality-warping powers of her own.  In other words, it is not exactly easy to write a villain that can take on the entire Mane 6 and have a hope of winning, let alone take on Princess Luna and Princess Celestia too!

However, as I wrote above, I pretty much made it one of my own little side-hobbies to come up with ways to have a villain be able to believably become a threat to the Mane 6 and Equestria, without necessarily resorting to cheap tricks and story-breaker powers to get there.  Because of my extreme fascination with this sort of thing, I was *extremely* interested in seeing how Megan McCarthy was planning on having her villain take on Princess Celestia and survive.  In fact, I was actually on the edge of my seat when the Queen of the Changelings actually decided to reveal herself right in front of Celestia, in her own castle no less!  I even started yelling at my TV when the Queen of the Changelings, now transformed into her true form, went on a 2-minute-long villainous monologue (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilGloating) without Princess Celestia butting in and putting and end to it.  "Where in the heck was Celestia!?", I exclaimed to my poor startled lap cat.  "Did they conveniently decide to 'remove' her from this scene!?"  But then all of a sudden I heard Celestia yell "No!" and I became excited once again-- it looked like it was going to be on like Donkey Kong, and that the epic battle that I was waiting for between Celestia and the Changeling Queen was finally going to take place!  And then...  And then...

(http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120422031350/mlp/images/b/ba/S02E26_Celestia_defeated.png)

What the heck just happened!?  That's it!?  That's how easy it is to take out Princess Celestia?  Where is all of her magical lightning, wind, and thunder?  Where's her ability to transform into mist?  Where is her ability to stomp her hooves and make the ground suddenly crumble beneath her opponent!?  Where's her ability to shapeshift into multiple sentient entities!?  Heck, her energy beam stand-off with the Queen of the Changelings wasn't even very impressive!  (If you want to see an impressive energy beam stand-off, this is how it's done (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ56qui7EJk&feature=related)!)  I spent all of these months straining my brain about how to defeat a winged-unicorn living god, and in the end all she is is some kind of giant white paper tiger!  What is she made of?  Marshmallow!?  Heck, from the looks of this episode, all some pony needs to do is sneeze and she'll fall over!  No wonder they never showed how Nightmare Moon was able to take down Celestia in season one-- it was probably almost instantaneous and boring!  From the looks of this, all it takes to topple over Celestia's regime is a stiff breeze or something!  Arrgh!  Why did I ever waste my time coming up with clever ways to take Celestia out!  This episode makes it all for not!  No one will ever believe my fan fictions if I ever write them now, as I made Pincess Celestia too tough in them!  Newborn kittens can threaten Equestria from the looks of it!  You'll have to excuse me, because now all I want to do is bang my head against my keyboard for the next several minutes!

*BANG!*  *BANG!*  *BANG!*  *BANG!*  *BANG!*

Speaking of "bang my head against my keyboard" moments, we have had yet another MLP:FiM super-villain get defeated because she was as thick-as-a-board stupid again!  In fact, I am having a hard time deciding if our Queen of the Changelings is even stupider than Discord was.  At 29:43, right after the Queen of the Changelings burns Celestia's precious little horn and then rips through her like a wet paper bag, she happily discovers that Shining Armor's love for Princess Cadance was so strong that it was even stronger than Celestia's magic, and yet, only five minutes later the Queen of the Changelings disregards the power of Shining Armor and Princess Cadance's love as only being a "worthless sentiment."  Really, Queen of the Changelings?  You are now disregarding the same power that you *just used* to gain the upper hand as now being only a "worthless sentiment?"  *Tactical Facepalm!* (http://bluntobject.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/tactical-facepalm.jpg?w=655)  If anyone should have known the power of that couple's love it should have been the Queen since she was only feeding off of it for God knows how long!  I mean really, is it soooo much to ask to finally have a villain that isn't a complete moron for a change?  I can't believe that I am saying this, but I can't wait for Diamond Tiara to grow up, because so far that little school-aged sociopath has proven to be the only evil force in all of Equestria that isn't also as dumb as a brick.  In fact, I bet you anything that in 20-some-years-time from now that Diamond Tiara will actually conquer Princess Celestia and destroy Canterlot, only instead of accomplishing this feat through some kind of evil magical means it will be because Princess Celestia defaulted on Canterlot Castle's mortgage and Diamond Tiara bulldozes it to put up luxury condominiums.  I realize that that is not as flashy as making the sun never rise again or something like that, but hey, Diamond Tiara is a villain that actually gets things done!

One thing that bothered me was, despite Luna and Celestia both being in the episode I really didn't feel like anything was done with them. Luna's lines were so odd and irrelevant. -"Rest, my sister. As always, I will guide the night." She just needed to point out she doesn't spend her time at another castle as Hoagiebot suggested. -"Who goes there? Stay indoors, Twilight Sparkle!" didn't make much sense to me actually; was there a curfew or something Twilight was disobeying? Didn't seem like it! -"Hello everypony, did I miss anything?" seems like another 'remember Luna still exists!' sort of line. I guess Luna's thoroughly nocturnal but I still would have liked her lines to actually mean something.

I couldn't agree more, Aspect.  In fact, the whole awkward inclusion of Princess Luna made me imagine yet another imaginary conversation that may or may not have actually happened amongst the show's production staff during the creation of this episode:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Production Person #1: "Hey, um, all of those mouth-breathing still-live-with-their-parents brony fans are wondering if Princess Luna is going to be in this episode."

Production Person #2: "Who?"

Production Person #1: "You know, Princess Luna.  Princess Celestia's sister."

Production Person #2: "Who?"

Production Person #1: "You know, the pony with the star-field hair that M.A. Larson put into his episode, 'Luna Eclipsed?'"

Production Person #2: "Wha?  I thought that star-field chick was just some one-shot pony that that writer had made up for that episode."

Production Person #1: "No, she's canon.  That and the fans really want to see her."

Production Person #2: "But we all ready have this episode 98% animated!  It's too late!  She's not going to be in there!"

Production Person #1: "But she's a princess!  She really ought to be at a royal wedding, don't you think?"

Production Person #2: "No."

Production Person #1: "But all of those 20 and 30-somethings are going to write angry blogs about this!  And I can't stand to read any more angry blogs-- they make my spirits fall faster than Princess Celestia does in a magic fight!"

Production Person #2: "Whoa, that's fast!  Grrrr!  Fine!  We have like 30-seconds worth of footage that we haven't animated yet.  Maybe we can shoehorn this so-called Luna character in there somehow..."
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Once again I have absolutely no idea what-so-ever if a conversation like this ever actually took place.  However, in my brain it certainly did because that's what Luna's inclusion felt like to me while I was watching these episodes-- like her inclusion was some sort of last-second afterthought.  I mean, I know as well as anyone that Princess Celestia is supposed to be the princess that is responsible for the day, and that Princess Luna is supposed to be the princess that is responsible for the night.  However, since when does that have to mean that Luna can never appear during the daytime?  We have seen Princess Celestia after the sun as gone down before, after all.  For example, during the Grand Galloping Gala Princess Luna didn't suddenly enter the castle, tag Princess Celestia, and then say, "I am taking over since the sun has gone down."  No, instead we saw Princess Celestia and only Princess Celestia during the entire gala.  So really, why couldn't they have had Princess Luna standing along side Princess Celestia up at the alter during the royal wedding?  Is Cadance not Luna's niece too?  I see no canon reason for why Luna couldn't have also been there.  Add that to the fact that since Luna, as Aspect mentioned, was given no role with any kind of importance during this episode's plot, and I really think that she truly was only added as an afterthought, just like she was in my imaginary conversation above.

And while I am still on the subject of the princesses, what the heck is up with this:
(http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120422065815/mlp/images/a/a9/Princess_Celestia_guarding_Canterlot_S2E25.png)

Seriously?  Is that how the princesses really "guard" all of Equestria?  And how well did it work out for them?
(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120422185649/mlp/images/a/a5/View_of_canterlot.JPG)

Oh.

I guess no one was around to man the telescope during the wedding itself to see those thousands of changelings repeatedly slamming themselves against the force field, huh?  Now don't get me wrong.  It's not that I expected to see a phased-array RADAR up on that castle tower protecting Canterlot or anything, but this is a land of magic after all, so I figured that Celestia and Luna would have something better than just a plain old telescope to watch over Equestria with.  I mean seriously, the Wicked Witch of the West had a magic crystal ball to see potential threats.  In Snow White the evil queen had a magic mirror.  In ThunderCats, Mum-ra the Ever-Living had some kind of magic pool that allows him to spy on everything from afar.  And in The Black Cauldron there was some kind of magical oracle pig that had the ability to reveal hidden information.  A pig!  So you see, there are plenty of magical options out there people!  Is a telescope really the best that they could have done?  *sigh*  And at the very least, could they have at least had some royal guards watching through the telescope or something while the wedding was going on?  I mean you would think that thousands of changelings suddenly surrounding the castle would be kind of hard to miss!

And that reminds me about an unexplained loose end in this episode hat has really been bugging me.  We are told at about 7:40 or so into part 1 by Shining Armor himself that the reason why the security around the castle has been heightened so much is because an anonymous "threat has been made against Canterlot."  Um, O.K., there is something that is seriously out of place that is going on here.  Who in the heck made this anonymous threat against Canterlot, forcing them to dramatically increase their security measures?  It certainly wouldn't make any sense if it was the Queen of the Changelings who made the threat.  Her ultimate goal was to have her changelings invade Canterlot.  While one of the potential reasons why the Queen of the Changelings chose Shining Armor to feed off of was so that she could use her powers to weaken his force field spell and ultimately cause it to fail, at the same time, wouldn't it have just been easier for her to invade Canterlot if there was no force field around the city at all?  So there is absolutely no advantage what so ever to the Queen making the threat, as it only adds an additional obstacle for her.  And if it wasn't her who made the threat, then who?  The Queen's plans of masquerading as a pony princess relied completely upon secrecy for it to work, so I would think that if there was somepony else out there who was tipping off Princess Celestia about her plans that the queen would be desperately trying to find out who.  It also starts to lead me to wonder if there is a bit of a chicken and the egg problem that is happening here, as in what happened first?  Did Canterlot get tipped off about the upcoming ominous threat first, causing Shining Armor to "raise the shields," which then forced the queen to have to feed off of him to neutralize him?  Or did the queen choose to feed off of Shining Armor first, and when he had to "raise the shields" to respond to the unknown threat later on it had just so happened that the queen conveniently had already chosen to feed off of the one pony that could create those shields?  I dunno, but it was a loose end that I really wished that they had tied up.

III. They are Taking Way to Much Imagery from Prince William and Kate Middleton's Real-Life Royal Wedding

Luckily, this fear of mine turned out to be pretty much unfounded.  Most of the imagery showing the ponies emulating clothing and scenes from last year's British royal wedding pretty much only showed up in the promotional material for the season finale, and not in the season finale itself.  However, there was definitely one case where I saw some truth in television (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TruthInTelevision)-- the manipulative evil Cadance actually reminded me very much of my last business partner!   :D

Luckily, my post about this episode isn't going to be entirely made up of my griping.  It will be mostly made up of my griping, since all I have pretty much done is gripe so far and at this point I am getting really tired of typing, but there was definitely a lot to like about this episode as well, and I will try to mention as much of it as I can before I wear down completely and pass out at my keyboard.

First of all, I would like to say that as always, I found the episode to be very well done.  The animation was for the most part pretty exquisite as usual, the music was very good (especially the song "This Day Aria"), and the story, my nerd rage and nitpicking aside, was fairly pleasant.  I really liked some of the gags in this episode, such as Spike constantly playing with the figurines of the bride and the groom, how he wanted to throw a bachelor party, etc.  Probably my favorite joke of all was when Princess Cadance and Twilight Sparkle were trying to escape from the crystal caves and were confronted by the evil bride's maids.  The fact that they got by the bride's maids by throwing a bouquet made me laugh out loud, and is probably yet another example of "truth in television!" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TruthInTelevision)   :)  To make a side comment, I personally could think of worse ways to die than at the hands of three cute unicorn bride's maids (http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120423063919/mlp/images/8/8a/Minuette%2C_Lyra_Heartstrings_and_Twinkleshine_brainwashed_1_S2E26.png)!  In fact, they just may become my new Windows destop background!  :D  Seeing Princess Celestia wake up in a giant butterfly chrysalis was somewhat satisfying, especially after she had so disappointed me with her weak efforts to save her kingdom earlier.  The only thing that would have made Princess Celestia's capture even more satisfying is if the changelings had laid eggs in her chest leading to this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chest_burster#Chestburster), but I doubt that they would have shown that in a children's program so I'll take what I can get.  I also saw one piece of MLP:FiM continuity in this episode that never seems to get contradicted, and that is that the royal guards are *still* completely useless (http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120423082124/mlp/images/4/48/S2E26_-_Captured_Guards.PNG).  I swear, I don't know why Celestia even keeps them around.  (Well O.K., I do have an idea, but I would need to start a thread in Furtopia's adult forum to explain it.  :) )

And how about those photos that they showed from the wedding reception, eh?
(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120423060220/mlp/images/1/11/Soarin%27_and_Rainbow_Dash_S02E26.png)
This one ought to throw a wrench into the ideas of all of those Appledash, Twi-dash, Raridash, Spitfire-dash, and all of those other <<insert a mare's name here>>-dash shippers out there!  And as a side benefit to me, it might also throw a wrench into the works of all of those Spitfire-Soarin' shippers out there!  Spitfire's all mine do you hear me?  MINE!  :D

And how about this scene from the reception:
(http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120423060057/mlp/images/9/9c/Spike_and_Sweetie_Belle_partying_S2E26.png)
It makes me wonder if this is the start of Spike falling into what TVTropes.org calls a "Settle for Sibling" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SettleForSibling) romance trope!   :)

So anyway, once again there was really a lot to like in this episode, and it was a pretty decent season finale.  Despite my nitpicking, I definitely liked this episode a whole heck of a lot more than I didn't.

I've read complaints by some people (other places) that called the finale 'too Disney'. And sure, it does feel very Disney, but it was still awesome. I grew up watching Disney movies, so seeing a cartoon like this mimic the formula (successfully, I might add), brought back some memories.

If the complaints about this season finale "being too Disney-like" revolved around the fact that its plot was very reminiscent of the second act of Disney's The Little Mermaid were both Ariel and a shape-shifted Ursula are both vying for the Prince Eric's hand in marriage, then yes I can see where they are coming from, since there are definitely some similarities between the two.  If the complaints are more about the "style" of this episode being too "Disneyesque," then I would personally take that as a compliment.  Walt Disney Feature Animation was the world leader in animated feature films for several straight decades for a reason, and that reason was that they were at the leading edge of their craft.  Personally, I can't think of any other animation house that I would want to be compared to more.  So if there are actually people out there that are complaining about how MLP:FiM have actually upped their game to the point of being comparable to Disney, then I don't know what the heck that they want out of the show.  Do they want MLP:FiM to be more like South Park perhaps, because if they do maybe they're watching the wrong show!  Geez, there is just no pleasing some people, and that's coming from me!   :D

Speaking of Disney...

Man, saying that the "A Canterlot Wedding" episodes are like Disney's The Lion King in any kind of capacity is one heck of an endorsement, so these episodes may really be something if they live up to the hype.  And while I highly doubt that there will be a Lion King-esque Elton John-sung "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" love scene with Spitfire laying on her back in the grass to make this hopeless-romantic Hoagiebot's dreams come true...
(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120422024605/mlp/images/2/26/S02E25_Rarity_in_bliss.png)
Well what do you know.  It's not Spitfire laying on her back in the grass, but what the heck!  I'll take it!!!   :D

And on that bombshell, I'll think I'll end my post here!  I've already put 14-work hours across three days into typing this thing, so despite the fact that there is still more that I could comment on I think that I will give my typing fingers and your reading eyes a break!   :D
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on April 24, 2012, 05:29:27 pm
I too noticed that despite being a winged-unicorn, Princess Cadance didn't seem to have anything along the lines of some kind of over-the-top winged-unicorn magical powers.  She showed none of the terrifying and overwhelming magical might of Princess Luna, she didn't seem to have any kind of royal responsibilities over some kind of celestial object in the sky, and since we saw a young Cadance in the flashback of her being Twilight Sparkle's foal-sitter, apparently she isn't thousands of years old either.  All of this leads me to ask why she was made to be a winged-unicorn to begin with.  Having her be a member of this extremely rare and exclusive super-race of ponies adds absolutely nothing to the story, and it isn't touched upon much in the story if at all.  Princess Cadance could have been portrayed as a regular old standard unicorn with a talent for love spells, and the change wouldn't have effected the outcome of anything!  So once again, a change was made to the universe of MLP:FiM that was probably a bit more "flourished" than necessary.  I just wish that I knew who was responsible for this particular decision so that I knew who to blame-- is Cadance as a winged-unicorn an invention of Megan McCarthy, or is Cadance as a winged-unicorn an invention of Hasbro's toy-line and then shoehorned by the Hasbro executives into the show?  The fact that I read that "Cadance" was actually named after a Hasbro executive's daughter makes me start to wonder if the latter group is to blame, but still, there is nothing that I saw with Cadance that justified breaking the two winged-unicorn regal sisters yin-yang that the writers had going in Eqestria up until now.  They could have just as easily made her a unicorn like they did previously with Prince Blueblood.

But what she has is a very rare ability, and the show has made this clear in the past. We've been shown that there is no spell for love. But Cadence has the ability to spread love through magic. This is extremely powerful, and rare, which would be fitting of a royal or pseudo-royal position. I mean, it was her ability that ended up saving the day. She was just very weak and needed the extra spark of power from Shining Armor to pull it off. The only valid complaint I could see here would be that she has the ability to do something which was previously said to be impossible.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on April 24, 2012, 07:25:00 pm
It may not be that she can make people love each other, but that she can some how enhance love that's already there.  It may be a rare ability, but way different than actually creating love. The only two times we see her use that power, it's on a couple that's already in love but just not showing it at the moment.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Hoagiebot on April 25, 2012, 07:33:02 am
But Cadence has the ability to spread love through magic. This is extremely powerful, and rare, which would be fitting of a royal or pseudo-royal position.

Stating that Cadance's powers are what makes her fitting to be royalty is backwards.  Princesses get their titles through one of three ways-- conquest (as in if you conquer a nation you can pretty much give yourself any title that you want), genetics (i.e. being born into a royal family), or by marrying into a royal family.  Genetics is how Cadance became a princess-- we were told in the episode that she was Princess Celestia's niece, which means that she is the daughter of one of Princess Celestia's siblings, whoever that may be.  (I would have speculated Luna, because that's the only other sibling of Princess Celestia that we currently know about, however she was imprisoned on the moon during Twilight Sparkle's childhood so unless they allowed conjugal visits on the moon there must be yet another royal sibling of Celestia and Luna that's out there.)  Because Cadance is genetically a princess, she would still be a princess whether she had the god-like powers that other winged-unicorns have been shown to have, or no powers at all.  It is the bloodline that makes her a princess, not her powers, even if they are allegedly unique.

And I say "allegedly" unique because in the "A Canterlot Wedding" episode you basis for that assumption comes from Twilight Sparkle's line, "How many unicorns can just spread one where ever they go?  I only know of one."  This could mean that Cadance is fairly unique, but it could also mean that she's not and that Twilight Sparkle just doesn't happen to personally know of another pony with her powers.

But what she has is a very rare ability, and the show has made this clear in the past. We've been shown that there is no spell for love.

Also, I am not quite sure how the show has "made it clear in the past" that there are no "love spells" in MLP:FiM.  I say this because we have had two other episodes in season 2 alone that involved love spell-like magic.  First of all, the 800-lb. Gorilla in the room is that the entire plot of the episode "Hearts and Hooves Day" revolves around the "Love Potion" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovePotion) trope.  I suppose that you could try to fight with me over semantics and say that a love potion/poison is not technically a "spell," but at the same time Apple Bloom herself actually calls the love poison a spell during the episode at the 18:50 mark (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7zpFNIkDAwQ#t=1126s), and that is convincing enough evidence that it counts as a spell to me.  In addition, in the episode "Lesson Zero," Twilight Sparkle places a "want it need it" spell on her stuffed animal, "Smarty Pants," (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fVAd0E0_5Wc#t=911s) to get the Cutie Mark Crusaders to fall in love over the stuffed animal and fight over it.  There are even little pink hearts floating off of Twilight Sparkle's horn while she is casting it, hearts floating off of the stuffed animal after it gets enchanted, and hearts in the eyes of everypony that looks upon the stuffed animal, causing them all to desperately want it.  I suppose you could once again try to argue with me over semantics and say that the spell wasn't specifically called a "love" spell, but with all of the heart-related imagery involved with it I don't think that I am going out too far on a limb by saying that it seemed kind of like a love spell to me.  So at least in season 2 seems to indicate that casting love spells is not out of the question.

And if that is still not enough to illustrate to you that the show has definitely not made it clear that you can't have love-related magic in the show, I will also refer you to the article on "Magic" on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic wiki (http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Magic).  It lists every single spell and rule of magic that has been shown or mentioned in the series thus far, and makes no mention of their being any kind of rule against love spells.  If the show has mentioned specifically somewhere that love spells can't be done you are going to have to provide a link to where it does for me, because it appears pretty clear from what I have seen thus far that the prevailing precedent thus indicates otherwise (and I have taken the time to link to sources that back up my position).
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ryffnah on April 25, 2012, 03:25:20 pm
I think the idea that there aren't love spells in Equestria actually comes from the very two love spells that you site, Hoagiebot.  Both of those spells went horribly wrong and wouldn't have been used in the first place by a wise, clear-thinking pony.  So, that suggests that -- perhaps other than for Cadence -- there aren't useful, successful love spells in Equestria.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on April 25, 2012, 05:32:41 pm
I think the idea that there aren't love spells in Equestria actually comes from the very two love spells that you site, Hoagiebot.  Both of those spells went horribly wrong and wouldn't have been used in the first place by a wise, clear-thinking pony.  So, that suggests that -- perhaps other than for Cadence -- there aren't useful, successful love spells in Equestria.

Exactly what I meant. Those other spells weren't love. Heck, one was a potion, not even a spell. The enchantment spell caused anybody who saw Smartypants to lust after it, not love it. There is a huge difference there. The potion was actually a love poison, and the episode quite well displays that it doesn't create real love.

article on "Magic" on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic wiki (http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Magic)
I believe I've mentioned my issues with this site in the past. They have presented various things as hard fact, which were, in reality, conjecture based on how the show was interpreted by a very small group of people.

In Hearts and Hooves day, while the CMC state their lesson, they say "Nopony can force two ponies to be together. It's up to everypony to choose that very special somepony for themselves." From this you could draw the conclusion that nopony has the power to create love (see first half of the quote). And it has just as much evidence from the show to back it up as some other things that wiki states as 'fact'.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: aspect on April 25, 2012, 11:20:45 pm
That was a pretty entertaining review, Hoagiebot! I really like Production Person #1,  though I doubt anyone on the production team is actually sensitive about what bloggers and forum-dwellers say, since I'm sure somepony somewhere tears apart every episode as if they're ruining the series.

As far as retconning goes, I would be okay with it if Shining Armor only effectively existed for this one episode. I prefer to think of Twilight Sparkle as an only child and I don't mind the reality being a little different for one episode; there's a long tradition after all, that movies made of TV shows exist in different continuities; and this episode was certainly something like a movie. Unfortunately such reasoning also allows the other two-parters to be in different continuities, which would explain why there has been little effort to conform to the prehistory given in the season premier.

I really liked your analysis of villainy too. I think Queen Chrysalis (where do we even know her name from? I can't find it in the episode) really was kind of overpowered; besides shapeshifting, love absorption, and apparently magic beam powers, she also had mind control abilities, which she was able to use on at least Armor himself plus her three bridesmaids. It seems like she could have just mind-controlled Twilight and there would have been no problem. And her overconfidence at the end... but anyway my point is that I agree power balance is an important and interesting issue.

Quote from: hoagiebot
It's like trying to find a way to have a villain stand up to the all-powerful Old Testament Hebrew God and somehow survive-- just ask the Ancient Egyptians of the Exodus story about how well that worked out for them!

Well that's a pretty good example of how to maintain some dramatic tension without de-powering the all-powerful being (like they did to Celestia). Have the all-powerful being follow a long plan so that the suspense comes from finding out how it's going to work; essentially, we would want there to be an enemy Celestia does not want to "incinerat into his/her component molecules". Or some limitation on what Celestia's willing to do could be revealed. Celestia is obviously reserved about magic anyway; she doesn't teleport around like Twilight and in fact rarely even flies.

Actually I'm willing to question the idea that Celestia is even very powerful, magically speaking. I mean, she does theoretically have control over the sun, but that really doesn't have to mean that she can lift other objects of the same size. And I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that she has all the same powers as Nightmare Moon either. Nightmare Moon had basically joined the "dark side of the Force" as far as magic goes; it's a common theme that evil magic can be more powerful (though I don't have a handy tvtropes link, "the dark side" and "black magic" not mentioning it explicitly).

Which goes back to this interesting question of overpowered heroes and/or overpowered villains. To me it's a question of preferred worldview. If you think evil is 1) very powerful and 2) of very clear-cut negative ambitions but 3) inevitably stupid, you'll have no problem with villains like Discord and Queen Chrysalis, who come on the scene with all the tools to win but end up losing from overconfidence. And you'll have no trouble writing this sort of villain if you think your audience should be warned that with great power comes great overconfidence, and modesty and goodwill to your fellow pony will keep your head clear and win the day. I tend to prefer villains who at least lose through a more realistic but equally stereotypical fault, having idiotic minions; because one of the chief disadvantages evil faces is getting along with people, so the quality of the average minion willing to go along with evil plans is bound to be low. But there are some good arguments that someone trying to take over all Equestria rather than slowly infiltrating the villages is probably pretty overconfident.

But number (1) is the one I intended to discuss, not (3). See, I happen to think evil is not inevitably physically stronger than good. However, even the weakest of evils can destroy something valuable. The whole world doesn't have to be at risk in every epic storyline; the characters just have to be genuinely invested in preserving whatever is at stake. This, of course, is how some of the other adventure-oriented episodes of FiM have proceeded; in Dragonshy, the only real threat was a dark cloud over Ponyville, and in Dragon Quest the conflict was over Spike's view of his identity. So in my view, the way to make a credible villain in the face of an all-powerful Celestia assisted by an also overpowered crew of ponies wielding the Elements of Harmony is to do a little less than threaten all of Equestria. An equally epic quest could follow from a villain mysteriously kidnapping somepony or eating all Celestia's cake.

I'd better stop trying to brainstorm potential plots though, it leads to a lot of staring at my keyboard.

As for the argument about love magic... "nopony can force two ponies to be together" is certainly predominantly a statement of what's advisable, not what's possible. Given the show's repeatedly loose treatment of continuity, I'd say there's not much point in analyzing whether love magic is supposed to be possible. Besides this, we don't know much about what kinds of spells unicorns tend to have since we haven't seen very many unicorns' special spells. I would say that since Cadance's love ability wasn't specifically shown to be as central and important as presiding over day and night is, it wasn't intended to be on the same level. The main point of Twilight's line about the uniqueness of the ability was to show that Twilight really likes Cadance and the wedding was a good thing after all.

I don't think it was the strength of Cadance's love spell which allowed Shining Armor to defeat the changelings. The love spell broke the mind control, but Cadance's non-magical love strengthened Shining Armor. (No love is really non-magical in a world where Friendship is Magic™.)
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on April 29, 2012, 09:01:54 pm
Okay, with season 2 over WE'RE DOOMED, I mean, we need to find something to do to keep ourselves busy between seasons.

I figure we should start by discussing Season 2 as a whole. Do you find it better or worse than the first one? Best episode of the season? Any changes in favorite characters? Or anything else you can think of.

Go!
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Narei Mooncatt on April 29, 2012, 09:22:14 pm
*sings* Season wrap up! Season wrap up!!! :D

Ok, over all I think it's better, but I also think it's because the creators are more in tune with what works and seem to be stepping up their game knowing that the bronies would be more critical about things such as animation quality and continuity.

Favorite pony is still Vinyl Scratch over all (yay for re-appearance!), and Fluttershy for the mane 6. Fave episode is still Luna Eclipsed. Awesome as the finale was, I don't consider those and premiers for favorite episodes because those are meant to be over the top.

Will be interesting to see what season 3 brings.
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: redyoshi49q on May 03, 2012, 09:20:59 pm
Some of you guys may or may not have noticed my absence for the past couple of weeks.  I've been really busy with school, but I binged episodes 19-26 Wednesday evening.  I had heard a lot of good things about the finale in particular from multiple sources (including a thread on this subforum).  The hype was not disproportionate; those episodes were well worth watching.

I *haven't* read through the past few week's posts in this thread.  I tried, but since I abstained from reading this thread until I had seen the episodes, I didn't have the benefit of reading the thread's contents in weekly chunks, and you guys make *REALLY* long posts.  I think it might have taken me about a full day to actually read all of that.


...Does anybody know if/when Season 3 is coming out?
Title: Re: MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)
Post by: Ziel on May 03, 2012, 11:33:33 pm
...Does anybody know if/when Season 3 is coming out?

October if I recall. 1st or 10th or something like that maybe? I've read it somewhere but can't seem to find it now.