Zestanor

She was the most Mary Sue-like in season 1, in which, even though she was the frame for every episode, she didn’t get much characterization. In Season 2, this changed though. Cadance is a “Mary Sue,” but this is five because she’s only a lesser supporting character.

Btw this YouTuber is the one behind Friendship Is Witchcraft, which a great parody/abridged version of FIM.

I hope they shelve the G4 Mane 6 entirely. It’s not fair for G5 to keep itself in the shadow of G4 by retaining the same names for the main characters. Since they’re making G5 immediately after G4, which has been successful through its entire run, it would be very confusing to use the same names. This isn’t something like Transformers, where there has always been a tradition of different continuities using the same characters. (Every iteration of Optimus Prime is essentially the same person, just in different possible universes.) The main characters of the G5 show are going to be substantially different from the Mane 6 of G4 (unlike Optimus and Megatron, who are always just about the same), so they should use different names.

A lot of young people move out of their family’s home at around age 18. Starlight is naturally gifted in magic; she probably taught herself. Apple Bloom and the others are not teenagers, because we’ve seen teenaged ponies. The Mane 6 should all be about the same age, since in flashbacks they all look the same size. The CMCs are basically in elementary school. Good catch; this gels with my math. Fluttershy said she is only a year older than Pinkie in the show. The CMCs have been pretty consistently portrayed as grade schoolers, not middle schoolers. Increasing Apple Bloom’s age actually makes the Apple parents even older, as well as the Cake parents, which at some point becomes questionable. Applejack said she was “late” getting her cutie mark, just like Apple Bloom. If AJ was in her teens (say 13 years old) when she got her cutie mark, then the difference between her age and Apple Bloom’s is even greater, shifting their parents’ and their parents’ friends’ ages up as well, two times (once for older AJ, once for older AB). It’s not impossible that the Cakes have their child in their mid forties, but the show doesn’t portray the Cakes as close to middle age. The problem with making Apple Bloom start out that old is that it makes the Cakes unreasonably old.

“The Perfect Pear” all but confirms it.

Playing with the ages of the characters Granny Smith is at the edges of her "prime" when the Bright Mac and Pear Butter are very young, though they can talk (about three years old). Exactly 15 years later, they marry clandestinely and Buttercup joins the Apple family. Assume that they have Big Macintosh immediately. Applejack and Big Mac can be pretty close in age, say three years apart. Apple Bloom is born much later. Big Mac hasn't aged visibly between "Where the Apple Lies" and the first episode. Let's say he's 18 in WTAL and AJ is 15. Assuming Apple Bloom is born very soon after this episode, then she is 15 years younger than AJ, and 18 younger than Mac, and her parents were 36 when they had her. Then they died, I guess. Now assume Apple Bloom is six at the start of the first episode (five year old Sweetie Belle looks a little younger, so six is probably the youngest that would make sense). That puts the meeting of Applejack's parents 39 years in the past. Assuming Granny smith was in her early thirties at that point, now she's 70. Mrs. Cake, if she were the same age as the Apple parents, would be 42 now, but keeping this number low seems necessary. We can let he be two years younger than Pear butter. This number is controlled by basically every number previously mentioned, so they have to be kept low too. As an aside, the Cakes seem to be masterful at raising an infant, so it's possible they had a previous child who has since moved out. This is possible if they had an earlier child at around 20. Mayor Mare can be the same age as the parents. So if everyone were alive at the start of the show, the ages would be: Granny Smith: 70 ( = 6 + 18 + 15 + 31) Mayor Mare: 42 ( = 6 + 18 + 15 + 3) Bright Mac: 42 ( = 6 + 18 + 15 + 3) Pear Butter: 42 ( = 6 + 18 + 15 + 3) Mrs. Cake: 40 ( = 6 + 18 + 15 + 3 - 2) Big Mac: 24 ( = 6 + 18) Applejack: 21 (= 6 + 15) Apple Bloom: 6 Wow, that sounds about right actually. Applejack says she was late in getting her cutie mark, so she can be older than the rest. AJ and Fluttershy: 21 The rest: 20. Spike hatched when Twilight was about six, so he's 14 at the start of the series. I like the idea of Starlight being younger than the Mane 6, since her Father treats her like a child, and she acts out in immature ways. I don't think she had her village for that long, say one year, or else someone would have called the authorities. The season 5 premiere happens a little more than a year after the first episode. Assuming she started the village at age 17 (having skipped a grade or something) with other impressionable young adults and ruled it for one year, that would make her 18 on her first appearance, and 17 at the start of the series (off screen). Making Trixie the same age also makes sense. Starlight: 17 Trixie: 17 What do you think?

In my timeline, Buckball Season is before the third on screen Fall season, and this new episode is during the fifth on screen Fall season. so this isn't unusual. If it's two years apart, and Buckball took some time to get popular, one record in a Hall of Fame sounds about right.

A lot of people are missing from the Apple family. Where is Granny Smith's husband?

I thought "either he left her, or he's dead." And I think Hasbro has certain restrictions on discussing divorce, which made me doubt immediately that it was that. Only 10 minutes left... I wonder how this will resolve.

Dead dad. The episode got real.

I like the standards: Discord (Living Tombstone's mix), The Moon Rises and Lullaby for A {Princess (Ponyphonic).

This would have worked well as a series finale. The way that everyone turns on the Mane makes me recall the series finale for Seinfeld. Except instead of the Mane 6 in jail, they hide out in the castle.

Her bad delivery is a reference to classical Latin oratory, I think, which emphasizes long and short vowel sounds at the expense of sounding like the language as it was actually spoken. 'In Equestria' in classical Latin is identical in spelling and meaning to the English, but the 'a' vowel on the end of Equestria would be long, because of the ablative case. In this episode Celestia actually hints at stepping down from her job at the end. I think this was a hint that we all missed. If she's actually that awful of an actor/liar, then why was her claim that she'd be giving up her crown so convincing? Also the part where Starlight says that Twilight is not a 'princess princess': this episode definitely was written after the premise of season 9 was created, because there is a lot of foreshadowing. We also see Celestia in the most vulnerable yet. She was actually clearly offended, embarrassed, and upset to learn she was a bad actor, and wished they had told her sooner and spared her the embarrassment. Now that we know that she intended to quit soon, it makes sense that she's trying to enjoy her last days.

I'm expecting mid season, but I hope they do it sooner.

It was her choice to jump ship. I doubt she's kept up with the show since she left, so she wouldn't be qualified. She only wrote the pilot. She's got a credit on Ticket Master, but the script was heavily adapted from Faust's original, which was for an eleven minute episode she pitched at one point.

I don’t think it’s because of quality. The business model for seasons 1 and 2 was in many ways far superior to everything following, since it ran like a regular prime time TV show, airing during the year and taking a break in the summer. Season 3’s brevity throttled the momentum, and through season 4 picked it up again, the year long wait between seasons 4 and 5 destroyed the influx of new fans. Now the seasons air over the summer, or are sent in syndication to other countries before airing live in the NA. Whatever reason it was that they started season five in April 2015 instead of October 2014, it was a blunder.

I've heard her roll-out was rocky because different sides (especially Hasbro people) disagreed about her prominence in the show. The showrunners wanted her to be equal to the Mane 6 in terms of billing and screen time. Those who don't work on the show disagreed. She's a very interesting character who could be explored in her own set of stories, but there were already several such characters. There's a lot left to the imagination with her. In that sense she is underutilized, but then so are all of the Mane 6 sans Twilight.

Dying isn't the right word, unless you mean we're aging and actually losing people because we're dying. A lot of people lost interest (myself included for a while), but they aren't dead to the fandom. They will always remember.

Starting in season 4 Celestia has become less saintlike and more fallible, and they’ve played this up especially in season 7. I like Celestia but she is manipulative. I don’t think this is “bad writing” I think the writers decided that perfect Celestia wasn’t as interesting, and have given her some less flattering traits.

From what I gathered, she cleaned up most everything during her previous visit. She left a significant number of books in the study for Moondancer. Celestia just mailed her the rest of her personal items that she accidentally missed.

That's really interesting. Maybe that old aura is an asset associated with the short, wingless model of Twilight that they used for the flashback.

I was impressed by the attention to detail/continuity in this episode.

I think it's off to a good start, compared to season 8, which put several weaker episodes near the beginning of the season.

Sometimes "overthinking" is obviously incorrect. If you're trying to predict a future event in the show, then "overthinking" is wrong when you focus on tiny details that are clearly unintentional. So only when it's poorly thought out is it considered bad.

All except Luna, who wants nothing to do with it. She seems to think it's all ridiculous, and though she respects Shining Armor, she clearly thinks she could have done a better job.