gingerninja666

I loved both A Kirin Tale (to the point where it almost single handedly carried the episode for me) and A Better Way to be Bad. I'd also hold up all the songs from A Hearthswarming Tail (with Pinkie's Present specifically capturing the sweetness of Pinkie's character in a way that hasn't been done since Smile) Maybe they're not as consistantly good as they used to be, but they can still knock it out of the park.

Parent Map arguably ends better than Glideance does. In Parent Map the parents are definitely, explicitly considered to be at fault.

I think there's a bit of a difference in situations here. Twilight's school is an international boarding school, with students who are politically important in a few cases. The Students actually live there. While there's clearly a lot of trust placed in the students, and they're allowed to ride the train between kingdoms alone, I do think that if anything bad happened to them, it would be on the school. They're essentially the legal guardians of the students, at least until they return home. That's actually a thing that Silverstream brings up. In Starlight's eagerness to always be available, she inadvertantly encouraged the students to come to her with unimportant things. It's one of the implicit benefits of giving herself more concrete hours, it'll force the students to think about whether their issue is important.

I know a lot of people dislike Mud for being very similar to Maud. But I find that he allows Maud to do a different type of joke than she does normally. She doesn't really interact with other deadpan people. So the two of them being utterly deadpan together, in my opinion, is just precious. I felt bad for Starlight in the first half of this episode. Like, I can really relate to being caught between two commitments where no matter what you do you’re letting someone down. Both Star and Trix had valid reasons to do what they did. It’s what makes it feel so awful.

The main thing I want to bring up is, well, I didn't really see a problem with Yona and Sandbar winning the Pony Pals trophy. The way some people did. It's a friendship award at a school of friendship, given out by the presiding principal, and Yona and Sandbar both demonstrated great friendship for one another. Yona went through all that effort just for Sandbar's sake, and when things went badly, Sandbar trekked off to reconcile with her and bring her back. Who else who was attending that party did anything even remotely comparable? Who would you have given the award to?

I feel weird for basically not forgetting any episode of this show. Even the bad ones have something in them I remember.

Weirdly, I'm in the opposite camp. I kinda care far more about the new characters than the original ones at this point. At least in Slice of Life episodes. I just feel like I've seen the mane 6 at this point, and I like them more and more in a supporting capacity. The show just isn't interested in doing a long form arc based story, It never has been. I'm kinda weird in that I've liked basically every new character the show has introduced. Even characters I can't really defend properly I find really charming. Like Cadance.

It's frustrating because I really loved the first real scene she got in this season. Even though it's brief.

I think it's because a lot of the prior finales were written such that they could also act as a series finale if they needed to. It's why "Friends are Always There For You" ends with that slow wide shot of all the characters in ponyville looking at the camera." or Let the Rainbow Remind You ends on that picture of the mane cast. That was potentially the final shot of the series. Starting with Season 6, they've known that they would get another season each time. so they could end on a less final note.

Season 6 is one of those seasons for me. Where it's quality is kind of infamous, but every single time I stop to think, I can't really pinpoint a large amount of episodes I disliked from it. There were some to be sure, and I didn't like Gauntlet as much as others did, but nowhere near enough to ruin the episodes I liked a lot.

Gusty was the hero who defeated Grogar. They were mentioned back in Flurry of Emotions, and Grogar mentioned them again in the premiere.

Can I just say that at points I really love Tara's performance as Harmony. Like at the end of the episode. " Whenever you seek solace, come here. Your friendship, and the friendship of future generations, will always be safe within these walls." the way she says that very very last bit. There's just something about it. There's this kind of aloof warmth to it. Like it's distant but also genuinely sincere.

There's kind of been a thing I’ve liked about Starlight since Shadow Play. She holds Twilight on a pedestal, but not the same kind of pedestal as someone like the two sisters. She can see very clearly the two distinct sides to Twilight, and has a deep respect for the strong willed part of her who fights for what’s right and can save anyone. Even though she learned that she can be a good leader in TWABA, it’s clear that Starlight would still rather be subserviant to Twilight, and thinks that Twilight at her peak is better for such jobs than she could ever be.

I mean, for me personally, I thought the premiere established that the mane 6 don't need the elements anymore. The Student 6 represent the next stage in the expansion of the Tree's ideals. Expansion has been a theme of the show since at least season 4. The Mane 6 pass on their elemental traits during the key episodes, and that led to them being able to unlock the mystery box which gave them a map that led them further out into the world to solve friendship problems. The map expanded to show more areas beyond Equestria, and Twilight created a school with the purpose of spreading the message of friendship to other races. The Student 6 are, in a sense, unique. There is no other group of friends like them in the entire world. Yet They are a collection of a multitude of different races, once evil or isolated or enemies, united by the power of friendship. They represent what Harmony would want in the world.

The more I see of Ocellus' adorable dragon form, the more I want an episode with her stuck in the dragon lands for a while.

I'd just like to say that i love Sandbar. He's the world's biggest idiot and it's great. His "nightmare" actually got me.

I’m going to make an obtuse comparison here. Bear with me. The Dresden Files is a series all about master mages, and almost every wizard uses rituals and spells and incantations and has tools made of valuable mystic materials with carved runes. The thing is though, while almost every wizard requires these things, they aren’t inherantly NEEDED to cast the exact same spells. Those items and magic words act as a focus for the wizard. It’s a ritual they associate with a specific effect, which causes their own internal magic to do the rest. Someone could theorhetically perform a ritual with their own mind, envisioning an atom perfect representation of the thing needed to cause a spell to happen, but the effort and discipline required to do it is nigh impossible for a human mind to fathom. I’m kinda thinking of the the Mane 6’s harmony magic as something like that. The elements are a focus, something with their own power, but mainly serves to focus the Magic of Friendship that the Mane 6 already have inside them. And now they’ve learned they don’t need this focus anymore. They can manifest the effect anyway. It would also explain why the elements couldn't fully stop Cozy's ritual, only slow it down, allowing the students to rip it apart. It didn't have the same depth of power that the mane 6 provide.

I actually kinda think that there's more variety to the two parters than you're implying. Mainly because "epic battles" doesn't really come to mind for many of them. Like, until maybe season 9's finale, to me, the scale has never surpassed Twilight's Kingdom. We've never had a villain since who's as powerful as Tirek was in that. Like, in season 5 the premiere was more grounded, it isolated the cast in a remote location far away from any help, and put them up against a villain who was powerful but mainly got by via blindsiding them. In the finale, Starlight is a match for Twilight alone, but the time travel plot side stepped all of Equestria's allies like Discord and the Princesses. The action in those episodes came from the alternate timelines, which existed during periods where Equestria didn't have all it's overpowered resources. It was a way to single out Twilight, and not all of Starlight's methods involved lasers (like I loved the bit where she convinced the bullies to stop harassing Fluttershy and that worked in changing the past). In the end Twilight had to actually talk a villain down. In season 6's premiere, they again isolated the cast, this time in the frozen north, and the situation was incredibly time sensitive. If the cast left the empire to go get the elements, say, then a vast amount of damage would be wrought by the time they got back. They had no time to waste. Not to mention, a large part of that two parter is slice of lifey and character driven. Starlight and Sunburst, Shining freaking over being a dad. A villain wasn't attacking, it was a situational thing. In the finale it was a suicide squad style story and there was focus on Starlight's worries of being a leader. The cast were taken out via a sneak attack by Chrysalis, not through a big battle. There isn't really a big battle, Star's gang spend most of the episode sneaking around. Season 7's premiere is a slice of life story. The only conflict is one in Twilight's head. The finale, even though it has a big villain, the focus isn't really on IF they can beat Stygian, it's more on the WAY they'll do it. It's made clear very early on that they have several ways to beat him lined up, that's not in question, but each one will cost them something, and Twi is kinda caught between her hero worship of Starswirl and her student. Stygian is more of a potential casualty stemming from a mistake Starswirl made long ago, than a villain the episode is trying to make you think can win. Season 8's premiere is more of a political story. It's not about a villain coming to conquer. It's Twi trying to set up a culturally significant school and running afowl of a racist beureucrat who inadvertantly almost causes an international incident.The only real battle is easily won, and exists to show the foreign Students that they were in over their heads, and the teachers they thought were lame are actually heroes. The finale has a villain who's certainly not powerful. She gets ahead through underhanded skullduggery. She uses Equestria's own systems to trap the mane 6. She's not a physical threat. Her danger is in her planning and her ability to sway people into doing things. There's no fights, the students just had to dissassemble Cozy's ritual. After which she was incapable of fighting back. Now, to be clear I'm not saying that all of these are done perfectly or that they don't have plot holes. I guess I just don't agree that they've done the same story over and over, just changing the villain. I think they've tried to make stories about conflict that don't always have to escalate the power levels the way, say, Twilight's Kingdom did. This season is kinda the first time they've done this in a while.

I'm not even a massive Discord fan generally, I just thought he was really well done here. As long as the tree existed and was giving them things, they had reason to hope. When they recieved the box there was this sense of optimism. The box was a mystery, but it was something to work towards. In their darkest hour they could think about the box and hoped it contained the answers they needed. The cutie map is the tree's will guiding them to wherever they're needed, and they believe that the tree picked them for a reason. You're right, they learned this in episode 1. That was what Discord was saying. They'd lost sight of that. They knew all this once, but over the years the tree and ofshoots of it's power became more and more embroiled in their lives. It's not just that they lost the elements. The lost the thing powering the elements too. I guess I just saw them needing to be reminded of an early lesson they lost sight of to be appropriate for the final season.

At the end of the episode Discord HIMSELF is mad that he wasted time on such an overdramatic scene. That's part of why I liked the scene so much and why I consider it a character moment. I think for the people who don't like it, their main question is "what's the purpose of this?" when to me I like it just because it's a tour de force showcasing the sides of Discord's character. In the climax and resolution of the episode we see him range from snarky to sincere, to intensely manipulative to halfheartedly manipulative to pissy in an incredibly petty way. Seeing his performance come together is just satisfying for me. As I've said elsewhere, I knew for a fact before even watching the episode that Discord was faking it, and it still made me a bit emotional because of the performance and because even through the act Discord honestly meant it. Discord is the standout character in the episode by a mile. Yes, but they weren't in the middle of a crisis situation when they gave up the elements. Or rather, them choosing to give up the elements immediately ended the crisis situation. And then they instantly got the box. The tree was still giving them stuff to use. It was still a presense. The elements were even still there to be taken out again in a dire situation, which they did in Shadow Play. When I think back on all the situations the cast have had to deal with, they've never had to deal with something like Sombra with absolutely nothing since the very first episode. With every villain they've faced since they've either had the elements (ROH, Shadow Play,), had the tree (Princess Twilight Sparkle, Twilight's Kingdom, School Raze), had an artifact or magic immediately available that worked like the tree (Canterlot Wedding, Crystalling, Crystal Empire, To Where and Back Again), or the vilain just wasn't that powerful (Cutie Map, Cutie Remark). I personally find that losing the elements AND the tree in the face of a being like Sombra immediately in your face is a significant enough escalation to make someone who's mind is already frazzled lose some kind of hope. I thought that Luna ruining the funding for the school children was played mostly serious. Like, I remember it making her genuinely sad, and I don't really remember there being many jokes in that scene. She doesn't suffer consequences for it, but only because she pawns all the consequences she was starting to amass onto Celestia. She leaves it up to her to fix it. So there are things that can go wrong in Celestia's line of work.

It's weird because the speech hit me even though I knew beforehand that he was faking it. So I guess it's partly a performance thing. De lancie really sells the speech. If the cast believe that he's really badly hurt, then I think they would totally buy a speech like the one he gave. Discord genuinely cares about the cast. We saw that in Twilight's Kingdom, and I think the cast know that. Their problems with him always stem from when he's healthy and messing around.

If I remember those maps of equestria right, Canterlot really isn't that far away. You can see it from Ponyville and vice versa. They're right next to each other.

I think you misunderstood this scene. I got the impression that it was Starswirl and the pillars who originally held the forest at bay, not the sisters. But anyway, the reason the forest scene happened was because they needed to get rid of Celestia and Luna so that Twilight could save the day. Now, they could either get rid of her by having the villain beat her up or they could have her stuck doing something else. Which is what they went with. The whole Discord thing was mainly a character moment for him. He has an interesting push and pull relationship with Twilight. He believes that Twilight would make a great leader, but Twilight herself was spiralling into a mess of self doubt, so Discord does what he often does, he tries to help her in a massively manipulative and dickish way. You mentioned not liking the Princess Twilight Sparkle premiere and that kinda makes sense because Discord did a very similar thing in that episode too. I preferred it in this episode honestly. His speech was better. It shows how much he gets the mane cast. And how much he genuinely has their best interests at heart deep down. We saw in Royal Problem that Celestia often has so much to do that she barely gets any sleep. All that time dealing with socialites and appointments and meetings. Luna underestimated how tiring that stuff can be and it wrecked her. She seems to rule Equestria for the good of her people, not because she enjoys the power. The Rainbow Power went back into the box at the end of Twilight's Kingdom, and then went on to become the castle and the map, unless I'm misremembering how that episode went. Fans always seemed to just assume that the cast still had the Rainbow power despite never using it again. But anyway, the idea of the episode was that Twilight had lost sight of things in her panic. Discord even says that. She put too much stock on needing the elements, needing the tree, to deal with massive threats like Sombra, when the power of friendship was in her the whole time. Like, yes the elements have been destroyed before, but not the entire tree the elements came from. Twi and Starswirl both say that they felt a disturbance in their very essences when the tree fell. It's not the same.

I think it perfectly fits for Discord to want to help the cast in his own dickish way. Like, this is more or less a less malevolent version of him trying to help Twilight in Princess Twilight Sparkle or What About Discord. He heard from the PRincesses that Twilight is going to become Equestria's ruler, and he genuinely believes that she can do it. So he tries to prod her into doing what he thinks is right. The speech he gives is intentionally broad and inspirational because he made it up. He contrived a situation where he would appear mortally wounded so that it would make slightly more sense for him to give that kind of speech. He even mentions that it was a brilliant speech when complaining at the end. He prepared it and was proud of it.