Lucky Shot

Once again the show attempts to, in a single episode, abruptly introduce someone from a main character's past and force me to care about them, and once more it falls flat. Countess "Rara" (a transparent parody of Lady Gaga; I'm still not sure what her actual name is) has absolutely no personality or depth... there simply isn't enough time in one episode to develop a complex sympathetic character, shoehorned in as an old buddy of Applejack's and tied in the narrative to the equally-important bad guy, AND give a dignified viewer a reason to care. The episode's pacing and elegance are abysmal. The villain becomes obvious about 10% into the episode and of course has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, whereas Rara is an ingenue with no consequential character flaws, and no plot twists not seen from six miles away are found. There isn't even an obstacle or puzzle -- Rara instantly recognizes Applejack, hasn't lost any of her "nice girl" traits, and her initial anger at Applejack's pointing out how insultingly obviously her manager is abusing his position vanishes into complete cooperation the very next time they speak. The low point of the episode is thankfully early on. In order to make it clear who Rara is, she performs the world's shortest troll video: about thirty seconds of a Twilight-worthy technically-a-dance with Hard Gay stallions gyrating in spiked black leather, Autotune complete with digital stutter effect -- didn't we already do lipsync in Filli Vanilli?! -- and flipping the entire frame horizontally in time with the music like a Youtube poop. The episode's story builds in fake drama before suddenly crumbling apart with an abrupt stutter into a thoroughly mediocre piano number slash pony power anthem which suffers from the show's trademark godawful lyrics and the increasingly cringeworthy campiness begun in season 5. As is unnervingly common for this show, Rara suffers absolutely no consequences for blowing off a longtime manager, completely changing her theme and musical style, and generally alienating the majority of her fan base. Essentially, "Rara" is a Rarity clone -- even the name is similar -- but with none of her depth or charm. Just like the infamous couturier, Rara is on paper torn between success and generosity, but can still have her cake and eat it too without doing anything more than wanting it a lot. This show used to be far more self-aware than this farce. I wish Rara hadn't gotten lost on her way to Equestria Girls.

Excuse me?! Season 5 is chock full of horrible advice and predatory logic: The Cutie Map: You only have special talents and defining personality traits when someone else allows you to, unless you overpower them with deceit and violence. Princess Spike: If an adult forces a massive responsibility onto you, a small child, and does nothing when you clearly can't handle it, it's your own damn fault for your inevitable failure. Amending Fences: It's your fault if an old friend you slighted or abandoned cuts off contact with every single person she knows just because she's mad at you, whom she never tried to contact despite your being publicly available at any waking hour. Do Princesses Dream Of Magic Sheep?: You can easily escape all your overwhelming guilt by telling yourself you won't feel guilty anymore -- all of your "demons" will just poof out of existence. Canterlot Boutique: You can have your cake and eat it too if only you act entitled enough (every Rarity episode...) Crusaders of the Lost Mark: Young children dependent upon but abused by their families just need to talk back to their parents to be free of the cycle of abuse. What About Discord?: If someone intentionally goes behind your back to exclude you from your group of friends, spends an entire day getting all of them to rub it in your face, and tries yet again to kick you out when you're trying to catch up, it's your fault for getting jealous.

Season 5 so far has been the second-weakest season for me. (Nothing will be quite as bad as season 3.)

No. This can be proven very simply. Hasbro is a toy company. The show is there to sell toys to girls aged 4~7. If bronies were watching the show more than little girls, Hasbro would be making sweeping toy lines for bronies, in addition to or instead of for little girls. That hasn't happened, so bronies are obviously a minority.

I kinda hope it turns out like Go! just to weed out people who take cartoon shows for children too seriously. In all seriousness, FiM is like any other fandom. With a new generation comes adjustments. Someone will hate it for changing too much. Someone will hate it for not changing enough. Thus some people will leave, but also, new people will show up. And there will always be loonies who think that everyone else in their chosen fandom is a carbon copy of their individual selves, presume that what they want out of the show is necessarily what everyone else wants / the best for the show in general, and get all flabbergasted every time they find that's simply not the case... I kind of hope Hasbro reboots the show with the same characters but some significant adjustments taken with the presentation level. It's undoubtedly going to remain a young children's show, but Hasbro and the writing team have learned valuable lessons about producing character-driven shows for children that hopefully make it a bit more consistent and stable than this incarnation has been.

Absolutely not. I don't even know when it was other than that the newest episode at the time was Sonic Rainboom.

I just posted that Rainbow Dash is herself a metaphorical rainbow-colored lightning bolt. I don't see how much clearer her mark can get

This bothers me more than it should... Twilight actually cares very little about the health of her books. In several episodes we regularly see her just hurl them all over the place, frequently landing open, on the open side, on the ground, and generally taken poor care of. This is completely consistent with Twilight having OCD. People with OCD are very organized in specific aspects of their lives, but are frequently slobby in general.

This wasn't an especially bad episode per se, but I found it very boring and extremely predictable. Fluttershy's animal book club was cute. Twilight & Fluttershy are the most uninteresting duo in the show -- they are the only pair of the six that have zero dynamic. They never argue, or conflict, or get in each other's way, or even make snide comments at each other; they both just kind of do their own thing, almost like they're ignoring one another. I hated watching their blandness back in the Philomena episode and I hated it here too. The Hooffields and McColts themselves were generally uninteresting characters (the McColt dwarf being the better of the two with a few funny line deliveries), and the various "plot twists" and jokes of their conflict were uncreative and very predictable. Twilight had no particular need to be present. Most of her friendship solution formulae thingies were absolutely no help, except for "look for the root of the problem", which was solved completely by serendipity anyway and likely would have been if she was not there since Fluttershy spent the entire conflict watching out for animals, who told her everything she needed to know. The only real contribution Twilight made was freezing the fight so Fluttershy could speak, but why couldn't Fluttershy have merely lost her temper at the abuse of the animals and commanded everyone to stop with her infamous powers? It would have been just as believable as the literally magic stop and be quiet spell. All in all, the episode may have been suitable for children who were somehow unfamiliar with the basic concept of "two idiots don't even remember why they're fighting and their skills perfectly complement one another so they learn to team up", but it was unfortunately not anything fresh or particularly entertaining for me, and it felt like Twilight was kind of forced into the story, since she was completely useless except for 30 seconds. They weren't naming the families after the specific Hatfield and McCoy family. They were naming them after the figure of speech that rose from that conflict, indicating any bitter feud between two groups.

In the extended canon, Cadance was a little annie orphan pegasus who was abandoned in the forest and beat an evil mean witch, so Gandalfestia showed up and adopted her and poof alicorn.

If Gen 5 changes anything, it'll weed out the whiners and leave people with taste and decency, so I'm totally fine with it.

And yet it took her 3 seasons to get pregnant!

Um excuse me Nightmare Muffin, I'm terribly sorry, I do so hate to interrupt but um, in my pony fiction which doesn't at all follow the canon, if that's okay with you, there are seven Elements of Harmony and Loyalty is split between Rainbow Dash and Spike so I guess in a way there's 8, um I'll be quiet now, it was nothing really... There are only six. And whatever Cadance has. And whatever Sunset has. I'm pretty sure this show isn't really putting a lot of thought into the whole thing...

This is because the original characters were designed under the presumption they would only appeal to young girls who were going to buy brushable pony toys, and would likely not care what the mark symbolized. This is also why older characters tend to have names more blatantly similar to their cutie marks despite that not really making sense. Even then, they're still better marks because the writers improvised -- the marks all bear a plausible relevance to the characters' individual special talents, which was expressly stated to be the entire point of the cutie mark in show lore: Twilight Sparkle: Six points, six Elements of Harmony; despite her teaching she regularly messes up all other magic, but is the only one who can properly wield friendship magic specifically Rarity: her only worthy magical talent is the ability to detect gemstones within the earth, which she uses in all of her dresses Applejack: as a jack of all trades devoted to the Apple way of life and all-around "normal" of the group, her mark is just apples in general Pinkie Pie: is effectively a giant balloon herself, she even deflates when sufficiently sad Fluttershy: gentle and motherly persona; spends most of her time at about the volume, temperament, and flight speed of a butterfly Rainbow Dash: fastest thing in Equestria, i.e. pretty much is a rainbow-colored lightning bolt The Crusaders' marks have only one minor element that separates them from one another as individuals, despite each of them having at least one exclusive (from each other) talent hinted at over the course of the show. Apple Bloom: Herbalism, possibly carpentry -- her shield has a heart inside of an apple, which is not really related to either Sweetie Belle: Good singer, possibly songwriter -- her mark has a note inside of a star, implying she may become an idol, which fits Scootaloo: Stunts, dancing, general choreography -- her mark is a lightning bolt inside of a wing, and unless she makes like Spike and wishes a genie for wings this makes no sense The only reason I can think of that they all have essentially the same mark is to signify unity since that is a founding principle of their stories... the flaw is that this would better be done by giving each them a piece of a full cutie mark which created the entire thing once assembled. To explain: all three copies of the shield bear one color each from all three of them (their hair colors more or less.) I would have removed the extra two colors, so that each filly had only one third of the shield, therefore only together was the design complete.

A friend of mine pointed out that it was impossible for Spike to succeed even if he had acted in full best intentions, that Cadance (a former foalsitter) essentially dropped a highly adult responsibility onto the lap of a kid who couldn't ever have handled it, and that it was a very bad move to solely blame Spike for his failure when a. there was no way he could've succeeded and b. it was Cadance's fault for basically tasking a 10yo boy with the responsibilities of a national leader. Now, a later episode implies that Cadance would have seen Spike as relatively heroic and mature because he helped save the Crystal Empire, but partway through the episode, she clearly catches on that things aren't going as planned. Cadance should have immediately stopped him or said something. Instead, she stays quiet and lets it happen. Even worse, there was no particular reason that Spike specifically needed to do anything. Even without being married to the Captain of the Royal Guard, Cadance alone as a Princess can order any Guard(s) in Equestria to stop anyone from even going up the stairs, let alone attacking the door; and if Princess Twilight had any duties she had to attend to, they could merely have royally authorized any trustworthy castle staff, ministers, advisors, etc. to make those decisions in her stead, since that's pretty much what they did with Spike. Regardless of foresight or no, after everything inevitably descends into chaos, everyone blames Spike... The characters should have recognized Spike as a kid who was in way over his head and, rather than condemning him for failing what he was clearly not at all ready for, Cadance should have taken the blame for dropping something on him that he obviously wasn't fit to handle.

Whoa whoa whoa, don't jinx it, buddy!

I think it's absolutely no question that Hasbro will keep all of the existing characters if at all possible. This is actually a huge reason why FiM took off -- it actually has definitive and beloved characters, something sorely lacking from previous MLP generations. And I know that Hasbro has noticed their recent shows with better characterization have turned a huge profit compared to their shows that didn't.

Sure, but all of the heraldic elements mentioned by Reading Heart barely apply other than with extreme stretching, and even if they were accurate, how's an average kid going to know any of that?? We can make all kinds ofintricate justifications and excuses after the fact for the mark being chosen... the important thing is that it's a very boring mark with little visual distinction between the characters, doesn't match with any of their color schemes very well, and doesn't clearly identify their special talent to an average audience, especially not to kids.

I always presumed that Equestrians were super used to tofu and soy products in place of meat. If they've been dedicated to it for the entirety of Equestria's existence, it might actually taste okay by now!