Princess Lona

Look up the season five episode: Appleoosa's Most Wanted if you haven't seen it yet. It addresses what happens when a pony misinterpreted their cutie mark.

Sometimes I imagine her as a unicorn instead of a Pegasus. With her clumsiness, I wonder what kind of trouble she might cause with magic, and the unique ways she would figure out how to fix the problem.

It's so that they can release a new toy line with each season. With a lot of these kids shows designed to sell toys, Hasbro actually designs the toys first and then leaves it to the writers to write the new toys into the show. That's why Twilight got a castle for this season (Pony Princess Castle!), that's why Cadence and Shining Armour were introduced (Royal Pony Wedding Play Set!), and that's why this season they are traveling to so many different locations (Collect them all!)

I agree with those element assignments. When Minuet first showed up and was acting super hyper and really happy to see her old friend, I immediately thought the episode was going to showcase the ways in which all of Twilight's Canterlot friends COULD have become the elements of harmony, if only Twilight had stuck around to complete the package. But once the others were introduced and I realized they didn't very obviously match the other elements the way Minuet matched Pinkie Pie, I figured that wasn't the direction The episode was going. The writers still could have been giving a subtle indication though.

If Faust got her inspiration from a supernatural source, it had to have been that she made a deal with the devil.

Since the aim of the show is to teach young children about friendship, to encourage them to focus on things that are really important as they grow, and to foster positive self-image, I don't think they would devote an episode to having the Mane Six get all self-conscious about their looks. The Mane Six are good friends and they don't care what the others look like. Even Rarity knows that it doesn't really matter what a pony looks like or what style they choose. When she gives another character a makeover, her focus is on bringing out the best in them, using fashion and style to accentuate what is already beautiful about their personality. Plus, despite what we may think, the Mane Six all seem to like the look of the Rainbow Power. If they could hear the way people responded to it, they would probably shrug and say "Haters gonna hate".

My first thought for anti-laughter was sadness, but then I remembered that sadness is not necessarily a negative emotion. Then I thought of anger because it's similar to laughter in that it is usually expressed loudly and with lots of energy, but again I remembered that being angry is not always a bad thing. I settled on rage because it encompasses all the negative parts of anger but none of the positives. Gloom seems like a good alternative. I suppose I would give it to the Tantabus, since it likes to make ponies feel miserable.

That sounds cool. Deceit (anti-honesty) Selfishness (anti-generosity) Spite (anti-kindness) Betrayal (anti-loyalty) Rage (anti-laughter) Animosity (anti-friendship) And to further this, I would give deceit to Discord (before he was reformed), selfishness to Starlight Glimmer, rage to Nightmare Moon, bettayal to Tirek, spite to Queen Chrysalis, and Animosity to...Sombra? He doesn't have much character development, but based on his deeds he seems like the ultimate evil.

I'm 30 years old and the show has impacted me because I'm able to compare it to the shows I watched as a kid. I know there is a lot in FIM for teens and adults to get excited about, and I do allow myself to just sit back and enjoy it on that level, but I am also constantly evaluating it's worth as a children's show and I am tickled pink thinking about the effect it is having on a whole generation of kids who will be growing up very soon. Don't get me wrong, the cartoons of my childhood weren't all bad, (Warner Bros was golden in the mid nineties) but so many of them were insultingly simple. I like MLP because it presents the children watching it with more complex problems to solve and the characters have so much more depth. They are nuanced and they have flaws. Watching these characters grow and solve problems will have a huge impact on the way kids move through their own lives and they will be way better at solving the world's problems than any generation that came before. TL;DR The show gives me hope for the future of human kind.

Although I have never read it, it sounds pretty canon to me from your description. If the author took the time to make sure that everything Twilight quotes from the book in the show actually appears in the real published book, then yeah, canon.

I think the hard physical training they do at the academy is just all in the name of doing tricks well. It takes a lot of strength to do acrobatics. It takes core control and stamina. Add to that the fact that these ponies are flying while doing the tricks, which is a huge cardiovascular undertaking, and hard physical training becomes absolutely necessary for the Wonderbolts. But while having a lot of strength and stamina would be helpful in fighting monsters, without combat training or fighting instinct, even the biggest body builder would go down easy. In my opinion, that's why the Wonderbolts are useless in a fight. I completely agree that it's weird that all of the Mane Six would be able to fight monsters without combat training either (with the exception of RD who practices karate), but then again, they were all fated to be the personifications of the Elements of Harmony. Maybe their resolve to fight against evil is just higher than that of most other ponies.

That's a good head canon about the coats of the guards being a requirement, I think I'll use that. But in that case, why does Flash Sentry get to keep his coat colour?

Spitfire does seem like kind of a jerk, but she learned a lesson in Rainbow Falls. In the end she admitted that it was wrong to ditch her friend for the better flyer. She even said that she could learn a few things from Rainbow Dash. The Wonderbolts have shown themselves to be pretty bad at flying in a crisis situation, but Equestria has been a country at peace with its neighbours for a long time, and the Wonder Bolts aren't really a military force anymore. At the academy they weren't doing attack drills or teaching combat. They were just teaching cool stunts. I think when they refer to the Wonderbolts as Equestria's "best flyers", they mean literally that. "Best flyers" doesn't necessarily mean good at rescue missions. They were brave and tried to stop Spike in Secret of my Excess, but they weren't trained for dealing with monters. And as for Rarity knocking them out , that was just for the plot. The Wonderbolts had to be present at the Best Young Flyers competition, and it made sense that they would try to catch Rarity, but Rainbow had to be the one to save the day, so they were knocked out for the plot.

I like that idea. I was trying to think of ways the map could tell Spike to go somewhere but all I could imagine was an image of his face floating around the map with the cutie marks. Seems kind of silly. His throne doesn't currently have a symbol on it, but if they just snuck a symbol in without justifying it in writing, I really would not mind, as long as it meant that Spike could have his own "cutie compass".

I like him but lately he has not been getting the respect he once had. In the earlier seasons Twilight relied on his input and opinions more but so far all of his appearances this season have been cheap gags. People used to say that Spike doesn't get enough respect and I disagreed, but now I agree. And with this new cutie map thing, it almost seems like the writers are trying to exclude him. If the map shows who is supposed to go where by presenting a holographic image of their cutie mark, how is Spike, who doesn't have a mark, ever going to get called on any missions? He didn't even come along on the first one.

I am really glad that this episode was made. It was a good episode, but the reason that it makes me happy is that it soothes a problem I had earlier in the season. I thought the season premier was a very, very thinly veiled jab at socialism with a lot of cheering for the competitive nature of capitalism thrown in. I'm not a full socialist myself, but I do see some potential for positive policy change in socialist ideals, so it bothers me when works of fiction like the season five opener present socialism in an oversimplified manner, pointing out only its flaws. I remember at the time it aired I thought that I wouldn't be so bothered by it if they would do an episode that either shows the benefits of socialism, or the negative points of its opposite, capitalism. Cue this week's episode. All the Griffins were selfish, uncaring, and would only help others if they got some money in return. This caused them to become isolated from each other, with each member of the community taking care of only themselves. They were an oversimplified characature of a capitalist society and they illustrated everything that's wrong with capitalism but none of its good points. The dump state of Griffinstone was a result of their inability to cooperate. So I'm relieved to know that the mlp writers are equally critiquing both systems. Now if they would just make episodes showing the positive points of capitalism and socialism.

I was excited when I heard Fluttershy mention her new friend Tree Hugger, but when she was introduced I felt a bit let down because of how stereotypical she seemed. But once she started dealing with the Smooze I began to respect her. She may be a stereotypical hippie, but she obviously isn't a poser. She owns her hippieness and the new age stuff isn't just talk, she actually used a mantra to calm that beast down. The part that sealed it for me was when she told Discord very frankly that she needed a moment before she could hug him authentically. So chill yet firm.

Did anyone else notice that for Discord's first stand up bit he was wearing a Jacket like the one Eddie Murphy wore in "Delirious"? Just another reference in a super referency episode.

Most of the kids (some boys too, surprisingly or not so surprisingly) I have seen wearing mlp merch have been sporting Rainbow Dash.

Over in the TV forum on Somethingawful they actually put it in the rules that you can't make threads or talk about mlp. You will be banned. It's one of the reasons I stopped posting there. Not that I was particularly interested in making an mlp thread in a non-pony forum (duh, that's what this forum is for), but it's just another example of the Somethingawful admin team making their whole community look bad.

I would be okay with a new theme song or not. It doesn't really matter to me. I think in keeping with the tradition of western cartoons they could keep the song but change the opening animation. I know they already have changed it a bit, but they could be more drastic. Add some shots of the CMC or something.

I think that they are still writing for the intended audience, but they are probably creeping these and other forums for inspiration. They wanted to make a show that respects the intelligence of children. They obviously did that since they ended up attracting adults to the stories. But not just any adults. Adults that can appreciate children's programming. Bronies are the perfect group of people to ask for feedback on a kids' show because we have tastes similar to children, but we can articulate our thoughts better than they do. How many forums full of five year olds exist out there? So when we said: "I wish Rainbow Dash would get a solo song", they listened. When they tested the waters of adding a romantic interest for Twilight and most of us (even the ones who like Flash) said "no way", they listened. Twilight is a princess who doesn't wear a crown or act regal because we raged online and reminded them of why she's a likable character in the first place. And you guys, it was totally because of us that Derpy is back and derpier than ever. We're like the man/womanchild consultants for the show.

Happiness is so subjective, I think we can't really say who had the happiest childhood. How happy each of their childhoods were will depend on what each of them required to feel happy. We can however, say who had the most (insert specific trait here) childhood, and how each of those unique childhood traits lead to any happiness they may have experienced. Most secure feeling childhood - Twilight. She was wealthy and from a young age she had the approval of the sovereign of Equestria. Most supported childhood - Rarity. As has been pointed out, she has very different tastes than her parents but that obviously did not stop them from encouraging her to follow her dreams. Most character-building childhood - Applejack. Although the death of her parents is not officially canon, they clearly weren't there for one reason or another. Whatever that reason was, Applejack was able to learn and grow because of it. While this may have made her early childhood a bit difficult, her later childhood would have been made easier in some ways because of her heightened maturity level. Most protected childhood - Pinkie Pie. Being way out there on that rock farm with a loving family would isolate Pinkie from some of the more troublesome things about the world, allowing her to incubate her unique personality without the outside world influencing it too much. Most free-range childhood - Rainbow Dash. We hear and see all these cool stories from her childhood, but we rarely see her parents. Rainbow Dash seems to have had that killer confidence since day one. Being allowed to go out and try things unsupervised fostered that confidence and allowed it to grow into her most notable personality trait. Had the best friend in childhood - Fluttershy. It was tough to think of a positive childhood trait for Fluttershy because everything we hear about her life before the show is negative. I do recall that in Cutie Mark Chronicles, Rainbow Dash specifically says she had to "defend Fluttershy's honour". That's serious friendship. Assuming that Fluttershy had a pretty hard time of it during childhood, we can assume that having a friend like that would have been a light for her in an otherwise dark time. Having such a good friend when everyone else was mean to her would remind her of the importance of kindness and shape her into adulthood.