S05:E08 - The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone

[TwistedGear 27]

It's rather remarkable how nearly every episode in season 5 so far has forced me to tweak my fancharacters backstories, Now I have the perfect set up for my villian character but have to either change his apearance to resemble a different species or make his backstory be that he was one of the original griffon kings. But enough about stuff I'll probably never do. Lets talk episode opinions.

I like how the cutie map has finally entered back into the picture. I'm assuming that the relic wasn't made by mage metalbrooke so it's clear that the cutiemap is serving a more general purpose. Loved the new griffon designs, and the "got any bits" line makes me think that the griffons would make a rather amusing sort of NPC in a fantasy RPG. I wasn't expecting the show to get me to like gilda but not only did it do so, Gilda might be my new favorite character if they keep up the personality they had for this episode. Which means that in my top five favorite characters of My little pony, only one or two are actually ponies... Lovely....
Kindof confused about why Gilda even hesitated between the relic and her friends since she kindof made it clear that she didn't think the relic had anything to do with why her hometown was ruined. Maybe she felt the other griffons would be less jerky to her if she brought back their symbol of pride.

Hopefully the series can keep up this quality of episodes, next weeks is the 100th episode so that should be fun..
 

[Luffyiscool 397]

The Griffons this episode might have been a homage to Tolkien's Lonely Mountain dwarves.
 

A rather greedy race finds an artifact which causes them to gain a lot of pride in their kingdom,
a creature comes out of nowhere and steals it, the kingdom falls apart, etc.

[Espurr 449]

What happened? Gilda became nice just like that? What did I miss? I thought I watched the whole episode? Was there some part two episode that I missed that explained what happened to GILDA? WHAT HAPPENED? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

[NotoriousSMALL 1,984]

Apathy is very believable. The entire kingdom is going nowhere, and the griffons have no hope for their future. No bits = not being able to survive.

thats completely irrelevant to helping someone. like i said it'd probably take 5 minutes tops. what will he do in 5 minutes? Walk back to town and try to sell his services to other griffons with no money?

[Dark Qiviut 22,383]

thats completely irrelevant to helping someone. like i said it'd probably take 5 minutes tops. what will he do in 5 minutes? Walk back to town and try to sell his services to other griffons with no money?

I'm tired of repeating myself, but once more, take a look at the environment. It affected every griffon's outlook on how they operate and see both the future and their own world. The greedy griffon who refused to help Dash is no exception. He wasn't going to risk his life in order to live through tomorrow. It's wrong of that griffon, but think about how he has to live. They're not going to think logically because they live in a mentally oppressive kingdom. They're apathetic for their futures beyond through the day and possibly tomorrow. The griffon's lack of logic is very believable.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Dark Qiviut

[Singe 2,111]

What happened? Gilda became nice just like that? What did I miss? I thought I watched the whole episode? Was there some part two episode that I missed that explained what happened to GILDA? WHAT HAPPENED? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

 

I could tell there was something off when Gilda stopped being agitated by constant Pinkie. Probably since Pinkie did business with her. At least Gilda's cooking got revenge on Pinkie Pie.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Singe

[paradoxical 1,735]

I have to admit I was VERY pleasantly surprised.  I had feared that the intro would have been really awkward, and though it was a bit "I am going to be interrupted in baking any moment now, really any moment . . . don't you believe me?"  It was too fun seeing Pinkie baking to be annoyed at the obvious ploy. 

 

Aww, Pinkie and gummy.

 

Poor Twily feeling left out and useless.  First Discord, (then Celestia) and now the map dissing her. 

 

Good Indiana Jones ref with the doodad of awesomeness and the pit. 

 

I need to buy baking powder for some reason.  Right now!

[Dash Holiday 15]

I went back and watched the first episode with Gilda before this one. I was surprised how big the gap is between them. Gilda first appears in S1E5.

 

Well, anyway I did enjoy the episode overall but I'm still not sold on Gilda.. even though she's supposedly good natured now. Going back to the first episode it was weird seeing it not wrapped up in anyway other than saying.. "well, Gilda totally sucks and I guess we're all better now that she's gone." I guess it's nice that they brought some real conclusion to that but I'm not looking forward to more Griffion/Gilda episodes.. 

[Sunny Fox 5,950]

Sorry for the delay, this one took me a while to type and edit.

 

Once more, assess the way the griffons live. They ask for bits because they don't know if they'll survive the next day. They don't think about anything other than money because they're dependent on it. This griffon is no exception. There's no doubt what he said was wrong, but think about it. Like everyone else, he wants to survive. They don't have the resources like Dash, Pinkie, or Ponyville overall. The ponies have affluent lifestyles, but the griffons don't. Their apathy for life is very believable.

I'd like to challenge that assumption.

 

While the houses are in a state of disrepair, the griffons themselves seem rather too well dressed for paupers on the verge of starvation. Hats, scarves, etc.

The store that Dash enters is pretty well stocked. The stuff is old, but there's a lot of it. Again, doesn’t scream “starving and desperate” to me.

Grandpa Gruff's expression... actually, seeing it again, that could be anything from "Thank the Great Griffon Gods I can eat tomorrow" to "my preciousssss", so 50/50 there.

Remember, the griffons are known for HOARDING their bits. You can’t hoard something you don’t have in the first place. It’s possible that the griffons have heaps of bits lying around in their houses. The fact that the city looks like a dump may just mean that none of the griffons are willing to spend their own bits to fix it up. There are people in real life who are super rich, but live in what looks like poverty because they simply don’t want to spend any of their money.

 

Griffon society is basically a society of misers. It’s easy to see how a society of people who are individually wealthy but not willing to use that money for the betterment of their society could result in exactly the sort of thing we see in this episode. They don’t have to be starving and desperate for their city to become a dump. They just have to be greedy. They are explicitly compared to dragons, and the dragons we’ve seen have been loaded (apart from during the migration in Dragon Quest.)

 

 

And another point: when Pinkie comes to save Rainbow, she finds a rope.

Rainbow Dash: [in distance] Can you throw down a rope or something?

Pinkie Pie: [in distance] Lemme look!

[beat]

Pinkie Pie: One rope coming up!

The implication here is that the griffon guide left the rope behind. If every bit counts, why would the guide leave behind a perfectly good rope that they could sell, or have to replace later? And no, it's not the broken rope from before, neither end is frayed.

 

All in all, there's a lot to challenge the firsthand impression of poverty.

 

Secondly, even assuming the griffons are all as destitute as you imply, that sort of justification only works until the point where there is no longer any possibility of squeezing any more bits out of Dash. She had no more to give. The guide leaving her to die is in no way going to help him (actually her, eyelashes and all) get any more bits, saving Dash's life is not going to cost him any bits. The motivation of more money is off the table. At that point, there are three options: help Dash for free; agree to help in exchange for the promise of more money later (credit); leave her to die. I think any decent person would consider the order of these choices to be one of decreasing morality. The griffon guide chose the most evil choice available. It's not the asking for bits I mind, its the action after the answer is found to be negative.

 

And if we're talking about bad morals for kids to learn, I submit "It's okay to let someone die if you can't benefit (monetarily) from saving them" would have to be worse than "friendship solves all your problems", dire straits notwithstanding. Finally (due to the edit) believable =/= justifiable. The villain killing the hero's loved ones is entirely believable. That doesn't make it justified.

 

 

Blind optimism is just as bad as being completely cynical. Optimism is a great thing to have, but you also need to treat optimism with some level of respect. The problem here is how they treat Griffonstone's solution as the solution. That once they all become friends, it'll all go away. That's beyond blind optimism. It's teaching kids a lie. If the lesson was how they can help recreate their community to try to build a better future, then it would work. But that's not what the episode implied nor stated. Instead, they said the reason why Griffonstone spiraled out of control is because they're not friends. In other words, if they're friends, the problems will go away. That's bullshit.

 

Leaving aside the desirability or not of the upbeat tone of the series, I disagree with your interpretation of the episode’s moral. Is that really what the episode is saying? “All you need is love / friendship”? No.

Let’s look at the whole episode. At the beginning, Twilight relates the early history of Griffonstone:

“In ancient times, griffons were known to be as greedy as dragons, always hoarding their bits and other treasures. But all that changed when King Grover found the mysterious golden Idol of Boreas. Legend says the Idol of Boreas was made from the dust of golden sunsets, blown across the mountains by the north winds. Possessing the Idol of Boreas filled the griffons' hearts with pride. [1] It's said that that one great treasure is responsible for turning Griffonstone into the most majestic kingdom of all the land.” [2]

“No, no, if the map wanted me to go to the coolest kingdom in all of Equestria and tour the palace and see the actual idol that unites an entire species [3], which would be super amazing, I'm sure it would've said so. You two can handle whatever the issue is just fine. I'll stay here and do important princessy things. I guess.”

 

Later, the old griffin gives us more information:

Grampa Gruff: The first griffon king, King Grover, united our kind like we've never been united before or since! And he did it all with that incredible Idol of Boreas. [3]

Pinkie Pie: [stifled giggling]

Grampa Gruff: That idol brought pride to the heart of every griffon that saw it! [1] From one king to the next, Griffonstone had our golden idol. We were the envy of all other species. [narrating] It held us together – it gave us an identity – right up until the reign of King Guto. [2]

 

Grampa Gruff: [narrating] They say when our treasure fell into the Abysmal Abyss, our pride went with it. [4] King Guto was the last king of Griffonstone, and we all lived miserably ever after. The end!

(Emphasis mine)

The parts I put in italics corroborate what Twilight mentions, the bold parts explain what the idol actually did for the griffons: pride in the idol [1] united them [3], gave them something bigger than the individuals to care about (an identity as a species), and all that let them build a great kingdom [2]. True, we don’t know what resources that ancient kingdom had before they found the idol, but things clearly improved once the griffons started working together rather than hording bits individually. It follows from this that Griffonstone is in such a bad way because the griffons are currently not united, have no pride [4], and so don’t care about anything. The implication of the episode is that friendship could do more to unite them than pride, and with that they have the hope of rebuilding the kingdom. And it is only a hope.

 

Pinkie Pie: That's because you don't have friendship! If you can learn to care about each other again, Griffonstone could be a mightier kingdom than it ever was before! And you don't need some golden idol to do that. You just need each other.

 

The moral of this episode is not "blindly" optimistic. It’s not so much “friendship solves everything” as “in unity lies strength”, which is in fact a good moral, entirely true, and as far away from “bullshit” as it can be. The fact that their cutie marks give Dash and Pinkie the “mission accomplished” signal also doesn’t imply that everything is just somehow “fixed”. It may be that there’s no more they can do there right now, and the griffons, having been given the chance to build unity through friendship, will have to work together to eventually rebuild Griffonstone on their own. And perhaps the ponies are needed elsewhere. A farmer doesn’t sow seeds in one field and stand around until the crops grow. The farmer goes to the next field and sows more seeds. And that's leaving aside the third interpretation, which I will probably talk about in the review.

 

The episode didn’t imply that all the problems in Griffonstone are now gone, any more than the ending of the premier implied that the four ponies who are now friends know everything about each other, aren’t going to fall apart or disagree or have their friendship tested. Baby steps are implied in both cases. You have to stop the bleeding before you can treat the patient.

 

Instead, they said the reason why Griffonstone spiraled out of control is because they're not friends. In other words, if they're friends, the problems will go away.

 

These are not equivalent statements. “You have lung cancer because you smoke” is not another way of saying “If you stop smoking, lung cancer goes away”. But you do have to stop smoking so your health can improve. The reason Griffonstone spiraled out of control is because the griffons weren’t united by pride in the Idol of Boreas any more. Unite them by some other means, specifically friendship, and they have a chance to return to their glory days.

 

 

The Cutie Map directly implied that these problems weren't going to go away. They know their community's changing, and they know they can start refurbishing the town to build a better future. Baby steps are needed, but they also have some resources, particularly the food and infrastructure, to help jumpstart their rebuilding process. Griffonstone's situation is one hundred times worse.

 

I wasn’t talking about the town / community from the premiere, just those four ponies, but I’ll answer this point. Griffonstone’s situation is worse (and maybe not even that, assuming the griffons are hoarding rather than lacking bits) but it’s not hopeless. And really, what does the episode end with? Two griffons who are friends who weren't before. It has to start somewhere, but what happens after is still open ended. So I would call it less “blind optimism” and more “plain optimism”.

 

Sorry for all the weird analogies, my mind is just like that. I await your response to my alternate interpretation of events.

[Luffyiscool 397]

“You have lung cancer because you smoke” is not another way of saying “If you stop smoking, lung cancer goes away”. But you do have to stop smoking so your health can improve. The reason Griffonstone spiraled out of control is because the griffons weren’t united by pride in the Idol of Boreas any more. Unite them by some other means, specifically friendship, and they have a chance to return to their glory days.

Exactly. I thought the resolution was fitting and made perfect sense. 

Being united is the first baby step any kingdom needs to get back on its feet.

[Pone 141]

Is it just me or did anypony else think that this episode ended kind of suddenly? I really hope that there is a sequal to this episode sometime this series because I REALLY wanna see how Griffonstone turns out (I think its now one of my favorite locations in Equestria).

If there is no sequal to this episode hasbro might get some rather angry correspondence

[Trixio 443]

I liked this episode. It 'was fun to see Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash together.

And above all, this episode gave way to discover other aspects of the character of Gilda. She is not only an "ordinary" arrogant bully. Maybe she have something more in herself. This episode has made her more "respectable" in my eyes.

[TwistedGear 27]

Is it just me or did anypony else think that this episode ended kind of suddenly? I really hope that there is a sequal to this episode sometime this series because I REALLY wanna see how Griffonstone turns out (I think its now one of my favorite locations in Equestria).

If there is no sequal to this episode hasbro might get some rather angry correspondence

I'm kindof expecting them to go back and discover that Gilda is the new leader as a result of her being the driving force of their return to glory, bonus points if she's called something other than a princess.

[Pone 141]

@@TwistedGear, Well they had a "king" maybe she will be called queen

But yeah, I really do hope they go back

[TwistedGear 27]

@@TwistedGear, Well they had a "king" maybe she will be called queen

But yeah, I really do hope they go back

In some fantasy cultures "King" can also be a gender neutral role I'd be intrigued if they'd be willing to have that be part of griffon culture, also might be an easy way to work around Hasbro's "No queens" attitude, since Celestia was originally supposed to be called Queen Celestia.

[Pone 141]

 

 

In some fantasy cultures "King" can also be a gender neutral role

You learn something new everyday

 

Yeah, dunno. Guess we'll just have wait and find out  

[Cloud Strife 928]

Well my response to that is I'm glad i am not you. I would love to have a friend like pinkie and I feel sorry for you if you think those traits make pinkie a bad friend. Looks like you are the one who needs a friendship lesson clearly you haven't been watching the show close enough to know that ponies make mistakes and that if mistakes make you a bad friend then I'd hate to be friends with someone who would judge me harshly like that. If anything i rather have a friend like pinkie who screws up because at least she would be there for me when i am sad. When you are friends with someone YOU LOVE AND RESPECT THEM FOR THEM! you don't ask them to change for you ever! If you don't like them for the way they are then why be friends to begin with.  Pardon me for taking this so personally but the way you attack pinkie is insulting. I have friends like pinkie in real life and they helped me a lot in life and you just insulted them. Thank you its good to know being silly  means you are a horrible friend i will tell them that. being silly and stuff makes you a horrible friend. Yeah thats what we all want in a friend a type of person who will insult us and make us feel bad about ourselves for being the way we are.

 

I know this argument is technically done but I wanted to say a few things about this particular block:

 

- I don't think the person in question ever said that Pinkie Pie was a bad friend, just a personality type that they would have trouble connecting with, because their naivety is annoying rather than endearing. That doesn't mean they can't ever have a surface level friendship, but this person would rather have closer friends in the forms of different personality types - and this is not a bad thing to want. I'm even saying this as someone who harbors a lot of the negative traits that they stated in their post.

 

- When someone does something bad to you, you absolutely should not sit back and just let them do it if you're close to them. No, you don't need to drastically alter the personality of someone like Pinkie Pie, but it's absolutely not unreasonable to tell them that certain behaviors of theirs are annoying and/or counterproductive. In fact, depending on how you phrase it, it might even be helpful for their development. People need constructive criticism, after all.

 

- The opposite of Pinkie is not necessarily someone who insults and puts down their friends. Twilight Sparkle is Pinkie Pie's opposite and she never does that, does she? Even then, the whole point of Friendship is Magic is showing off an array of personality types. Rainbow Dash isn't Pinkie's complete opposite but she's certainly quite different from her, isn't she?

 

That being said, despite the fact I don't really like Pinkie Pie as much as I do other characters on the show, I was actually rather impressed by her behavior in this episode. Yeah, she made a stupid mistake when it comes to the rope, but she set out to fix it. If we were all super critical of people for making mistakes, then we'd probably hate every character on the show.

[cider float 2,537]

Lot of good parts in Griffonstone.

 

 

I wonder if the Griffon police will arrest you for that.

 

 

Yes only griffons are allowed to have a song. But you can get out if you bribe them with bits.

Edited May 26, 2015 by cidershield

[Prince Firemane 309]

Pretty good episode overall. It’s more than clear now that AKR writes Pinkie better than most, including McCarthy. I've been waiting for an episode where she saves the day like in Swarm of the Century, so this was a bit of a breath of fresh air, even though it wasn't quite on the same scale.

 

As for negatives,Twilight was unbearably annoying in this episode. Of course we, the audience, have never heard of Griffonstone before, but naturally, she is already well-informed about it, as well as every little facet of its culture.

 

*eyeroll* Okay, whatever. Not sure why I would have expected differently. At least she won’t be accompanying them to save the day and come up with the solution to the issue at hand, right?

 

…right?

 

“Twilight literally wrote a book of what we need to do in Griffonstone.”

 

Oh, well, of course she did!  Why wouldn't she expect them to be completely lost and clueless without her?  She apparently doesn’t even trust them to know how to get there themselves.

 

“Oh, thank you so much, Mother Twily! We really appreciate you for holding our hooves through this whole thing since we can barely tell left from right ourselves! Maybe later at lunchtime you can cut the crusts off of our PB&J sandwiches and stick the straws in our juiceboxes! Oh, and after lunch, you can read us a story while you tuck us in bed for a long nap after our very first friendship mission without you!” 

 

*sigh* 

*sigh* leave it to Clover to turn an episode about Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash into a Twilight bash.

[Luffyiscool 397]

Of course we, the audience, have never heard of Griffonstone before, but naturally, she is already well-informed about it, as well as every little facet of its culture.

 

*eyeroll* Okay, whatever.

Twilight has always been well-read, and loves to research stuff like this. How is a surprise at all that she knows about their culture?

There is literally nothing wrong with her knowing so much about it, especially because she has the justification of being inspired by Gilda's visit. 

It ties in nicely and shouldn't cause such a stir.

[Bird Mom 900]

This is, by far, my favorite episode of Season 5. I tell you why. It took about 5 seasons for Gilda to even START to reform into good. And she was a minor antagonist for one episode! ONE. Discord started to reformed in one episode, Nightmare Moon in 2, and Sunset Shimmer in one movie! It wasn't rushed, and when she did start to reform, she wasn't reformed by the cliche 'finding the lost idol and then bringing order to Griffinstone', she was reformed in one of the most unexpected ways, Pinkie Pie. You know, the mare she despised for 5 seasons? That one.

 

And I keep wanting to spell 'Griffin' as 'Gryffin'. Damn you, Harry Potter.

[Jangocoolguy 433]

Congratulations, Gilda fans. After all these years, you finally got another appearance by her, as well as the redemption I've see you talk of wanting. I tip my hat to you!

 

I can't help but think of "Dragon Quest" in that it focused on another species besides ponies, which we seldom see. Luckily, this episode is a LOT better than "Dragon Quest" in that we actually LEARNED something about griffons instead of them being a bunch of one-note stereotypes because the plot called for it. It was also interesting seeing the contrast between species.

 

Also liked seeing an episode without the rest of the Mane 6 in a story they have no place in *coughSeason4cough*, even though Twilight was a little of OOC in her scenes, and even then I thought it was funny seeing her like that.

 

As a bonus, Gummy was the most emotive we've EVER seen him, even if it was just him making good use of his tongue (oh the "fanart" that'll inspire!)

 

PS: in case anyone's curious or confused about Arimaspi (like I was): it was based on creatures from Greek myth that warred wit griffons over gold. They looked like miniature Cyclops. Though the one shown here had was animalized because creatures resembling humans are out of the question (especially after Equestria Girls). (They also appear in Final Fantasy games looking like Mike Warsowski's demonic relatives)

[Time Shield 402]

PS: in case anyone's curious or confused about Arimaspi (like I was): it was based on creatures from Greek myth that warred wit griffons over gold. They looked like miniature Cyclops. Though the one shown here had was animalized because creatures resembling humans are out of the question (especially after Equestria Girls). (They also appear in Final Fantasy games looking like Mike Warsowski's demonic relatives)

 

When I pulled up the Wikipedia article on it, I found a few more references that were made in the episode, particularly in this line:

 

"All tales of their struggles with the gold-guarding griffins in the Hyperborean lands near the cave of Boreas..."

Edited May 26, 2015 by Time Shield

[Cleverclover 1,526]

*sigh* leave it to Clover to turn an episode about Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash into a Twilight bash.

 

Okay, fine. After watching the episode again, I've come to realize that Twilight's manual was not as big a deal as I made it out to be. It still seems like she's attempting to hand-hold them through their mission, but it's not quite the insult to Dash and Pinkie's intelligence that I originally saw it as. 

[Prince Firemane 309]

Okay, fine. After watching the episode again, I've come to realize that Twilight's manual was not as big a deal as I made it out to be. It still seems like she's attempting to hand-hold them through their mission, but it's not quite the insult to Dash and Pinkie's intelligence that I originally saw it as. 

I'll agree with that, I rolled my eyes when I saw Twilight trying to butt into their mission, even providing a voice-over during the montage of their trip to Griffonstone. But I did like how the guide she wrote them was largely ignored after that. She didn't hold their hands through it all, but more importantly, they didn't let her hold their hands through it all. Wow, that felt weird to write given how much I love Twilight.