S02:E25+E26 - A Canterlot Wedding

[bloodyfox 65]

I was appalled by Celestia's rudeness. Honestly, and at the end, she never even apologized for being a skeptical jerk.

 

Her tone and facial expression when she said that made me have internal rage. I thought to myself, "How dare you speak to Twilight that way you sun b****!"

 

On top of that the other mane 5 turned their backs on Twilight in favor of comforting "Cadence".

 

I didn't guess what the twist was...

I didn't either and I loved that fact. Usually shows are so cliche you can pretty much see the beginning of a movie and already have a pretty good guess how it will end. The Cadence twist kept me guessing about what was going on. I thought I knew what was going to happen with the Elements of Harmony and then BAM! It totally went another unexpected direction.

[Queen Cassie 3,057]

My Thoughts On "A Canterlot Wedding"

 

First, let me say this: if you ever get the chance to experience watching a new episode with many other people present in the room with you, especially if you can watch it in high definition with extremely good quality sound, do so. It makes the experience of watching a new episode, especially one as momentous as this one, that much better.

 

Prior to this episode premiering, I speculated in a few different ways on how it might turn out based upon the spare bits of information we were initially given. For example, the "clones" were seen in the initial commercial spot, so I was aware of them, but I predicted they would be the result of Discord. I also predicted that Cadance would not turn out to be a villain, but would be entirely innocent of all wrong-doing. Other minor things I predicted included mind control. However, I also spent a good time becoming upset about other parts of it. Shining Armor being Twilight's brother, for one, really upset me at first because it felt like he was being pulled out of nowhere, that he should have been mentioned prior till now. I later realized that was a bit of an unfair statement and that upset simmered down to a mild annoyance and a hope that the show's writers would be able to pull off introducing Shining Armor in a good manner.

 

But what upset me most was seeing all the hype. Frankly, as I've said before, I don't like hype. In fact, something being hyped to me will often have the opposite of the desired effect, due to prior experiences that result in me viewing anything that is hyped as being probable trash. Considering how ridiculous some of the hype got, I went into this episode expecting it to be, at best, a passable episode that would be soon forgotten.

 

Instead? The episode blew me away entirely.

 

I watched the episode a second time, as I usually do, before writing this analysis in order to not only foment better thoughts on it, but also give me a chance to examine the episode more closely and so on. As fun as watching it with other people is, you can't exactly pause and rewind and do all the other things you might want to do in order to check different details. And I needed to do that a LOT during the writing of this analysis, lemme tell you.

 

The episode opens with the typical two parter slower paced scene, rather than the frantic pace that often occupies most episodes. We can see Twilight's desire for neatness on display as she keeps the picnic area clean even as she's reading the letter and announcing everyone's duties. Though on initial viewing this scene felt somewhat fast, in retrospect it makes perfect sense because their duties are ultimately unimportant to the plot of the episode beyond giving the Mane Six a reason to be occupied. Everyone is character too--Dashie's boredom until the Sonic Rainboom is announced was just one amongst many little tidbits of hilarity. Twilight's reaction sells the scene though: not only is she upset as all get out, and rightly so given how she found out about this wedding, she employs that same deliciously cutting sarcasm she used in the pilot, something I've been missing as it hasn't been in the show all that much. (Mr. Sandwich amuses me more than it ought to.) And she expresses the same sentiment we all had when Cadance was first announced: "Princess Mi Amor Cadenza? Who in the hoof is THAT?!" As the scene progresses though, it delves into something that will be present throughout the entire episode, a somewhat...Disney-ish feel. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does color a few scenes. I find the term BBBFF awkward and silly rather than cute, and the PFF term just as bad if not worse. (Though at least the rest of the Mane Six and Spike had the same reaction I did to the term.)

 

I also find it a little frustrating that they did their best to paint a close relationship between Shining Armor and Twilight rather than doing what I was hoping and making them be estranged. For example, Shining Armor could have bullied Twilight throughout most of her childhood, making her resent him and the very idea of friendship, which could potentially give greater strength to the scenes from the pilot in retrospect. I suppose I was hoping for something of a redemption story, where the two would make up for their estrangement and past issues. Instead, we get a close relationship that has me feeling like it harms some of what we saw in the pilot. The pilot seemed to suggest that Twilight had no friends at all, not even with her big brother. And the fact that they had such a close relationship makes it all the weirder that he hasn't been mentioned or seen up until now. Granted, the fact that he wasn't even devised as a character until Season Two makes it difficult to toss him into the one place that would have made sense, Twilight's Cutie Mark story, where he could have been standing in the background. With all of that said, however...I still do appreciate seeing that Twilight cares so much about him, and that she at least knew something of friendship prior to her being tossed to Ponyville. It simultaneously makes her life less tragic and more tragic. Less tragic because she wasn't friendless, but more tragic because she lost that connection after moving away from Canterlot. So ultimately I can accept Shining Armor as he is, even if I might've wanted something differently, because it was still handled extremely well throughout the episode with the premise they decided to run with. Twilight's song is just one example of that. It definitely had a Disney feel--to quote someone I watched the episode with, they said it "Out Disney'd Disney"--but it's not a bad song, and will likely grow on me over repeated listenings.

 

So everyone hops on the train to Canterlot--notice speed of the plot once again driving how far away Canterlot is--and passes through the shield on the way. When I first watched the episode I didn't realize the shield was already there hovering over Canterlot in the distance prior to their arrival by train--it's visible in every scene Canterlot is visible in, something I failed to notice because I was too busy focusing on Twilight. Seeing it second viewing though, I really like it lends an aura of...tension. It's a nice bit of foreshadowing that something terrible is going to go down. Royal guards are everywhere brandishing spears, the shield casts everything in terrifying glow, Celestia(and later Luna) watching through a telescope, Pinkie is sneezing confetti...the excrement is clearly one step away from hitting the rotary cooling device.

 

Twilight and Shining Armor's confrontation gives us our first real clue: a "threat" has been made against Canterlot. This supposed threat doesn't make much sense in light of what is revealed later in the episode, but I'll explain there rather than skipping ahead. I do like though that Shining Armor is the one casting the spell over the city...it implies that Twilight's whole lineage is composed of powerful sorcerers rather than just her. Though I wonder why Celestia and Luna aren't adding to the spell...my guess is they're keeping their power in reserve in case whatever the threat is shows itself to be powerful enough to break the shield, so they can wipe out said threat in one attack.

 

Once we're introduced to Cadance through Twilight's flashback, Twilight is filled with a sudden enthusiasm that I felt was too quick a turn around, almost giving me whiplash. That of course meant she was going to spin right back around to her original doubts as soon as we met Cadance for the first time, and that's exactly what happened. It was also the point I realized my speculation was at least partially wrong: Cadance is obviously a villain in disguise from the get-go. Various signs pointed to this, from her attitude towards all of the Mane Six, as well as the aura of her magic. Unicorn magic in the series has always taken its color from the eye color of the pony casting the magic. The fact that Cadance's aura was green when her eyes were purple was an excellently subtle way to get this point across. The only question remaining was: what villain? Had we seen her before? Was this Trixie come to wreak her revenge? Was Discord waiting in the wings, preparing to chaotically strike in a new way by attacking Twilight psychologically through her brother?

 

The rest of the first part of the episode proceeds in a fairly predictable manner, though it's still a blast to watch. Cadance continues to act like the Queen Bitch of the Universe towards everyone in sight("If we were celebrating a six year old's birthday party!"), Twilight becomes more and more frustrated, especially when she fails to convince everyone at the dinner table that night that something is wrong. The little things, like Spike with his apparent shipping goggles on--and Pinkie jumping in on that action--kept things from going too dark and allowed the hints to build up in a way that would catch younger viewers by surprise, while simultaneously keeping us older viewers from becoming impatient and saying, "Oh just get on with already!" The evil is revealed when we see the Deceptive Cadance outright hypnotize Shining Armor.

 

Here's where the plot gets slightly confusing though. Rather than going to Celestia or Luna, Twilight speaks to her friends instead. Was she planning on getting the Elements of Harmony? Whatever her intent it doesn't work, because she's instead confronted by some rather gorgeous dresses. Not quite as beautiful as the Gala dresses, but they're definitely fantastic outfits nevertheless. Flustered, Twilight decides to go for the dramatic reveal, as if out of a mystery novel, of shaming Deceptive Cadance in front of everyone at the wedding rehearsal. Of course it fails, and Shining Armor is pissed beyond belief. I have to give credit to his voice actor here: I ALMOST bought his explanation of why everything that was suspicious wasn't actually suspicious, because he came across as that righteously convincing with his anger. It obviously worked on everyone else present because no one wants to listen to what Twilight has to say...which honestly bothers me a little bit. Didn't this already happen once during Lesson Zero? Did you guys forget already what happened the last time you ignored Twilight? Okay, so Princess Cadance was crying her unconvincing crocodile tears and you're all going to be a big part of what's coming up. Big whoop. Twilight is your FRIEND. Why not at least listen to her, instead of going off to comfort someone who you don't even know? (At least in the case of the Mane Six and Spike, since obviously Celestia knows Cadance.) I had hoped a repeated viewing would make me feel better about this scene, but it didn't. If anything it sticks out more sorely in my mind as something forced by the plot, quite possibly the weakest moment of the entire episode. (Though something upcoming will challenge that.)

 

Plot issues aside, Twilight is left to cry with a short, beautiful reprise of her earlier song, until Cadance comes out of nowhere to evil up the joint, surround Twilight in flames--making me worry she was about to burn Twilight to death for the briefest of instants--in order to send her down to the bowls of Hell. I mean, the caverns under Canterlot. END PART ONE. (Too bad this wasn't spread out over two weeks, eh? This would have been a fun week ending cliffhanger.)

 

Part Two opens with Twilight stuck somewhere far underneath Canterlot--though the animation on this keeps shifting throughout the episode, making me think for a while that the caverns were just a few feet under the chapel--in a place filled with reflecting gems. These gems, as the Deceptive Cadance explains, are not only convenient mirrors, but also extremely valuable magically speaking, as is proven when Twilight attempts to LASER BEAM THE CRAP OUT OF Cadance. I was really surprised to see such a brutal attack on Twilight's part. It was definitely intended to be lethal too: note how the crater caused by the mere reflection of the beam is not only almost a foot deep, but smokes as though it would have incinerated whatever it touched. Since anything reflected will lose a portion of its strength in the process of reflection, that makes me wonder just how much power Twilight forced into that beam. Anyway, after some taunting on the part of Deceptive Cadance(where I was briefly expecting to see the bones of dead ponies littering the ground, given the overall dark tone everything had suddenly taken) we get to meet the real Cadance, whom Twilight looks about ready to kill before Cadance manages to prove her identity.

 

And then we reach the part where the episode made my jaw drop: A villain song. I'm sure everyone everywhere I'm posting this at has poured over the song in detail, but I have to gush about it too because it is just so DELICIOUS! It's extremely well done, has this wonderful duet between Deceptive Cadance and Authentic Cadance, and just oozes quality goodness. Though, that said, like the previous song it was definitely Disney-ish--I was strongly reminded of The Little Mermaid, as was just about everyone, I assume.

 

Here's where we meet another extremely weak moment of the episode, unfortunately: the escape from the caverns. Not only do we have no idea what happened to the bridesmaids after the bouquet was tossed, there is an obvious exit. But an exit to where? It can't be on the castle grounds, because if it was on the castle grounds, why the hell didn't Cadance escape by herself? It also can't be on the castle grounds because the guards would all know about it and it would be considered a serious security issue, watched over rather than ignored. I'm going to have to chalk this up to the time limits on the episode and say that Twilight and Cadance spent a long time trying to get back into Canterlot after escaping the caves and that the events we see presented are a metaphorical time skip rather than the literal way things occurred. (That, unfortunately, includes the song. No musical magic of Equestria here, to my chagrin.) There's also another question though: Why didn't Twilight just teleport them straight back to the chapel? Well, that could be answered in three ways. One, the gems in the cavern could have reflected her magic enough to prevent teleportation outside the caverns, though she was still able to teleport within. Two, it's possible she drained enough of her power with her angry laser beam of death earlier that she wasn't able to get them out because she lacked enough power. Three, she is unaware of just how much distance there is between her and the castle chapel, so odds are even if she could teleport she wouldn't risk it because of the likelihood they'd end up within solid rock.

 

Whatever the case, they reach the chapel, stop the wedding ceremony, and force Deceptive Cadance to reveal her true form: the leader of the Changelings, Queen Chrysalis. Chrysalis takes a lot of design cues from Nightmare Moon, arguably, especially in terms of body shape, but I don't see that as a flaw. She's clearly quite different. (Funny thing though...was I the only one to be reminded of Ember from Danny Phantom? She sounded an awful lot like her...) Chrysalis reveals her plan: she and the rest of her race are essentially vampires, only instead of feeding upon the blood of the living, they feast upon love and friendship instead. (The hilariously ironic thing is, I was talking to people just the other week about how vampires might be integrated onto the show, and I practically called this. I didn't speculate that they'd look like some weird crazy insect pony race, but I more or less called the concept. Too bad I never posted that online.) Cadance, being an Alicorn that represents Love and Harmony, has such power in her love for Shining Armor that Chrysalis is able to suck this power out of him and use it to give herself the strength needed to secure their power. First they will strip the love from Canterlot, feasting upon everypony in sight, and then they will move on to the rest of Equestria.

 

What struck me as bizarre throughout this whole scene was that Celestia wasn't even in view through most of it, just standing away out of sight, until finally she had enough. Celestia was finally getting off her royal rump and doing something to stop the threat directly...and she is immediately blasted away, her ass thoroughly kicked. I have to say, in retrospect I should have expected that, but when I first saw it, I was flabbergasted beyond belief. Granted, I had never been one to buy into the idea that Celestia and Luna were living goddesses, but I wasn't expecting to see Celestia kicked to the curb like she was a piece of wet tissue paper.

 

Celestia orders the Mane Six to get the Elements of Harmony. Time to bring in the plot device! Except not really, because instead of just running to the Elements and getting them, the Mane Six are surrounded by huge numbers of Changelings, that even go so far as to transform into copies of the Mane Six. Do the Mane Six run and hide? Do they get together with Twilight and teleport past them? Do they scream in terror and panic like the ponies of previous generations would?

 

Of course not. They start kicking ass! It was like I was suddenly watching an episode of The Powerpuff Girls, complete with freeze frame gobsmacking. I'm not sure what was my most favorite part about that sequence: Fluttershy faking out her clones, Pinkie's "Eh, I've seen better" line, the brief almost kiss between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, Pinkie wielding Twilight as if she were freaking Gatling Gun, Pinkie's party cannon...so much goodness that I could probably watch this sequence alone over and over again and never tire of it. This was a level of action we've never seen in the show up until now. It was one thing to see Rarity kick a Manticore in the face in the pilot, and another thing to watch Twilight mow down hordes of Changelings with her magical laser beams. Of course, let's not forget what Cadance said: the Changelings take the form of those that others love and gain power from that...something that adds to my long standing belief that the bonds of friendship between the Mane Six are an incredibly strong form of love, and aren't just your typical bonds at all. (Of course it also lends a bit of fuel to omnishipping...)

 

Unfortunately, the Mane Six end up captured. Like with the caverns, I like to think some things weren't seen on screen due to time limitations...primarily because I prefer to believe that the Mane Six went down fighting and were beaten into submission, rather than just giving up when faced with all the Changelings. I do have to wonder though, in retrospect, how Twilight was planning to unlock the Element door, given that it required Celestia's horn in the past.

 

The Mane Six are delivered to Chrysalis. Just as it looks like she's won, Twilight takes advantage of a distraction in the form of a beautifully dark reprise of the previous song to allow Cadance to speak to Shining Armor. As so often happens in fantasy, love proves to be the most powerful magic of all, as the love shared between Shining Armor and Cadance is not only stripped back from Queen Chrsysalis but is then used to banish the Changelings. Queen Chrysalis was blasting off again!

 

With the day finally won, we have the wedding we've been waiting for, along with a lot of nice, lovely scenes that really speak for themselves, so I won't try to cover them in detail. They were full of laughs, had some interesting side jokes and possible nods--we see Rarity dancing with Fancy Pants, for example--and overall allowed the episode to end on an extremely good high note, including another song.

 

A few questions remain. First, why was Cadance Twilight's foalsitter at all? The lack of a Cutie Mark on Twilight's flank during those flashbacks means she was foalsitting Twilight before Twilight had become Celestia's student. I have a number of answers to this question, most of which I shall refrain from speaking for now as they will play into my revised analysis on Twilight, but I will say this: it strongly implies Twilight was important long before her test. Alongside Shining Armor's duties as Captain of the Royal Guard, it also implies her family was important amongst the Canterlot nobility. After all, Cadance was a Princess, and an Alicorn to boot.

 

Second, how did Queen Chrysalis know about those caverns underneath Canterlot? She makes it obvious throughout the episode that the Changelings were unaware of Equestria until very recently. I would say that she found out through some scouting prior to enacting her grand plan to take over Equestria, except she also states that the caverns were forgotten by most ponies, which means that she would have either had to delve deeply into the Royal Archives, or speak directly to the Princesses or some other figure about them. This seems a bit implausible to me...but it's not as much of a stretch as what happened during the caverns segment, so I am willing to give the episode the benefit of the doubt here and chalk it up to Queen Chrysalis not being entirely truthful about the caverns.

 

Third, how the hell was Queen Chrysalis planning to handle Celestia and Luna? She's obviously surprised when she gobsmacks Celestia, meaning she didn't realize how powerful she'd become. Given that we see the Changelings smacking their faces into the shield at the same time as she reveals herself--did they start doing that before she revealed herself, I wonder?--it makes me suspect she didn't quite think things through as much as she appears to have. It's as though she has mixed levels of competence. On the one hand she can sneak in, thoroughly take control of the situation, fool everyone into believing she is Cadance, mind control Shining Armor and generally get away with everything, but at the same time apparently forgot to plan for one of the most obvious issues she needed to deal with? Maybe she was planning on assassinating Celestia and Luna in their sleep or something. We'll probably never know.

 

Fourth, why did Canterlot know about the Changeling threat, even in the vague terms it was presented in earlier? It would seem like the height of foolishness for Queen Chrysalis to outright threaten Canterlot, so they must have found out another way, some way that allowed them to guess that Canterlot was in danger without revealing the nature of that danger. After all, if they'd known about the Changeling threat in any detail, such as by capturing a Changeling scout, the security procedures would have been much different, with everyone being checked constantly to prove they weren't Changellings. The only way I can explain this is that there was some sort of divination involved, possibly a Unicorn with a spell that performs precognition similar to Pinkie's Pinkie Sense: a vague uncertainty that something is going to happen, something horrible, but what it is? Unknown. Unfortunately that carries with it all kinds of plot holes in and of itself since the divination would have to be awfully unspecific to avoid giving away plot details while simultaneously being just helpful enough to put everyone on guard. It also begs the question as to why this didn't happen with past threats, such as Nightmare Moon or Discord. I don't think we're going to come up with a good answer here.

 

Fifth, why did Celestia not give the Elements of Harmony to the Mane Six to begin with? They wouldn't have stood out during the ceremony all that much either, since they're really pretty gems. Sure, Twilight would have looked a bit pretentious with her Element of Magic, but given that such a threat was present, wouldn't it be prudent to keep the Elements on hoof? It'd be like a military base being on alert, except instead of having all the weaponry on hand ready to go, it was all locked away behind two sealed armory doors laden with far too many security measures. Anything powerful enough to require the kind of shielding that Canterlot was employing isn't going to be stopped by a few Royal Guards with spears and basic magic. Unfortunately I don't have a good in universe answer for this. Out of universe I'm actually rather glad it didn't happen, because it would have ended the episode too early and in a fairly boring way...we don't need to see rainbows to the face everytime we have a mighty foe to defeat, after all. But as I said, there's no good answer for it in universe...maybe Celestia figured having the Mane Six nearby was enough and that they could get to the Elements no problem. Hopefully she learned her lesson on that one.

 

Sixth, is it possible we will see Queen Chrysalis again in the future? Pokemon jokes aside, it does appear as though she's simply banished to some place far away from Equestria, rather than being outright slain or sealed in stone as happened to Nightmare Moon and Discord. Granted, I wouldn't just want to see a repeat of what we've already seen, but I do think there's enough potential there for Queen Chrysalis to return.

 

Seventh, what the crap, Princess Luna? Where were you that whole time? Everyone's been joking about it, I know, but I seriously wonder why she was gone. She must've been sleeping: it's the only good explanation I have. Perhaps she was sealed within a cocoon like Celestia was, only in her sleep, and she didn't wake up during this process, and then it was banished when the Changelings were and she continued to sleep peacefully. Luna must be the deepest sleeper in all of Equestria.

 

Eighth: Is it just me, or are all the Mane Six getting overall stronger as time goes on? Notice the Sonic Rainboom Dashie pulls off at the end. In the past she had achieved those requiring a much longer distance to travel in order to get up to speed as well as requiring the assistance of gravity, but here she pulls one while flying straight UP, and over a short distance too. Plus, let's not forget just how much everyone, with the exception of Fluttershy, was dealing damage during the fight sequence. They're not slacking on their exercise, that's for sure.

 

Overall, that episode was phenomenal. It had some flaws, a few minor issues here and there, but this episode just keeps getting better every time I see it, apart from the one or two moments I already mentioned. Shining Armor and Cadance are two fantastic characters, the Queen was probably one of the most frightening villains seeing as how she was actually causing physical harm to a lot of ponies, we saw action on a level I never thought we'd ever see on the show, and we got a number of great songs and even a little bit of fanservice in the form of Luna appearing, Vinyl Scratch showing up at the end, and all the other wonderful goodness. This is how you end a season, for certain.

 

One last little thing I'd hoped we'd see that we didn't: a post-credits sequence, with Discord...not even necessarily him appearing directly, but just a little cackle, a little laugh, something to say "I'll be back..." But ah well.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Kyronea
Fixing the spelling of Cadance's name

[Iris Melody 90]

LOVED IT! Sure, there were definitely some areas for improvement, but I loved that the Power of Love saved the day instead of the Elements of Harmony. Elements of Harmony, meet the Power of Love!!!

 

I really hope this is a sign that in season 3 male ponies will become "more common," regularly interact with the mane six and hopefully make some MALE friends! I believe it's time for MLP to bridge the gap between genders on friendship. That would make me so very happy. I don't care if none of the mane 6 ever "fall in love" in canon, but to see good, healthy, decent friendships across gender lines would be amazing. That is my dearest wish for the series atm.

 

Also, Cadence's song, I... I am in love with it. The talent of the voice actress, the lyric writer, the composer... now THAT is talent, THAT is REAL music!!! Of course, MLP FiM has given us much of beautiful, amazing music. That song really took my breath away, though.

 

BBBFF was so cute, so heart touching, especially to those whose BBBFFs have died.

[Akemi Homura 7,680]

 

Shining Armor gettin' it in.

[Strafe 594]

Shining Armor gettin' it in.

 

Like a bau5.

[Akemi Homura 7,680]

Eighth: Is it just me, or are all the Mane Six getting overall stronger as time goes on? Notice the Sonic Rainboom Dashie pulls off at the end. In the past she had achieved those requiring a much longer distance to travel in order to get up to speed as well as requiring the assistance of gravity, but here she pulls one while flying straight UP, and over a short distance too.

 

There's no doubt in my mind that Rainbow Dash has gotten much faster and more adept at flying since season 1, but some of the characters are developing "slower" than others, if you will. The combination of utter talent and skill on Rainbow's part makes her quite the lightning fast and elite flyer, and having performed the Sonic Rainboom not only once (the first being in her FILLYHOOD, mind you), but twice gives the viewer the vibe that her flying prowess and her overall skill is something that is only felt/witnessed once in a lifetime.

[Key Gear 6,663]

Hello Kyronea, I have been waiting forever to read your massive wall of text analysis! You do not disappoint. That was a fantastic post. It was quite insightful. There is just one thing though.

 

I do have to wonder though, in retrospect, how Twilight was planning to unlock the Element door, given that it required Celestia's horn in the past.

 

This seems simple enough to me. Celestia probably just changed from a password-based spell to a spell that used secure ssh keys.

 

[bloodyfox 65]

Wonder if they considered renaming the next season "My Little Pony: Love is Power"?

[Tteok 16]

Aw, I wish I got The Hub so I could see this.

[Akemi Homura 7,680]

A few questions remain. First, why was Cadence Twilight's foalsitter at all? The lack of a Cutie Mark on Twilight's flank during those flashbacks means she was foalsitting Twilight before Twilight had become Celestia's student. I have a number of answers to this question, most of which I shall refrain from speaking for now as they will play into my revised analysis on Twilight, but I will say this: it strongly implies Twilight was important long before her test. Alongside Shining Armor's duties as Captain of the Royal Guard, it also implies her family was important amongst the Canterlot nobility. After all, Cadence was a Princess, and an Alicorn to boot.

 

First of all, I'm heavily inclined to believe that a princess such as Cadence herself isn't obliged to follow standard Alicorn protocol, despite being the niece of a solar goddess. Second of all, I'm also inclined to believe that despite being such a high-ranking pony, she has her own set of liberties and thus doesn't need to uphold the duties of her aunt Celestia, since the flashback implied she wasn't immortal as it would seem, taking up the physical feature of a rather young pony and all. As for your answer, I'd agree with you here but I honestly believe it's more of a coincidence that Cadence took up Twilight as her foal sitter, maybe for volunteer work or paying work. What would she be at that time, 17 years old or so? Of course, as the show's already stated lots of times, everypony has a special bond with another before they've even met them, or at least discovered what that bond will mean in the future.

 

Fifth, why did Celestia not give the Elements of Harmony to the Mane Six to begin with? They wouldn't have stood out during the ceremony all that much either, since they're really pretty gems. Sure, Twilight would have looked a bit pretentious with her Element of Magic, but given that such a threat was present, wouldn't it be prudent to keep the Elements on hoof? It'd be like a military base being on alert, except instead of having all the weaponry on hand ready to go, it was all locked away behind two sealed armory doors laden with far too many security measures. Anything powerful enough to require the kind of shielding that Canterlot was employing isn't going to be stopped by a few Royal Guards with spears and basic magic. Unfortunately I don't have a good in universe answer for this. Out of universe I'm actually rather glad it didn't happen, because it would have ended the episode too early and in a fairly boring way...we don't need to see rainbows to the face everytime we have a mighty foe to defeat, after all. But as I said, there's no good answer for it in universe...maybe Celestia figured having the Mane Six nearby was enough and that they could get to the Elements no problem. Hopefully she learned her lesson on that one.

 

Here, I must say that the Elements in this scenario would be too much of an overkill to fight off a simple vague threat (which obviously turned out to be a godforsaken invasion of sorts), as they didn't really know what was going to happen, so in this regard, the force field is just a large precautionary measure as they easily could have been wrong with the whole "danger upon Canterlot" thing. To give you a better idea of what I'm saying, think of starships in Star Trek and how they can enable yellow alert instead of going to full red alert, as it would be strange to arm yourselves right away if no present threat is visible. This is the case here, IMHO. Rather than taking up full combat positions, the royal army was ordered to merely stand their ground and "raise shields".

[Eenohay 318]

texty

 

Lol, those are many flaws! It's weird that you actually said you liked it!

 

Well, I thought many of the same things too. Why the hell would a princess be foalsitting? My awnser is: she wanted to. She seems to be a pony similar to Pinkie, who likes spreading love all around... aaaand of course she and Shining Armor were getting it on when Twilight went to bed.

 

About how did the Queen know about the caves, well, watching the finale again a lot of things don't make sense. How does an insect Queen now how to behave as a pony princess who's getting married? How did she know how a wedding works? It's obvious that if she was gonna fool everypony she needed to know how before. I simply can't understand that.

 

Oh, and I believe Luna was supposed to be at the moon during the whole ordeal, as it is now canon that she actualy lives on the moon during the day. Yeah, can you believe it?

[Radiance64 7,053]

Wonder if they considered renaming the next season "My Little Pony: Love is Power"?

Could happen.

[Queen Cassie 3,057]

First of all, I'm heavily inclined to believe that a princess such as Cadence herself isn't obliged to follow standard Alicorn protocol, despite being the niece of a solar goddess. Second of all, I'm also inclined to believe that despite being such a high-ranking pony, she has her own set of liberties and thus doesn't need to uphold the duties of her aunt Celestia, since the flashback implied she wasn't immortal as it would seem, taking up the physical feature of a rather young pony and all. As for your answer, I'd agree with you here but I honestly believe it's more of a coincidence that Cadence took up Twilight as her foal sitter, maybe for volunteer work or paying work. What would she be at that time, 17 years old or so? Of course, as the show's already stated lots of times, everypony has a special bond with another before they've even met them, or at least discovered what that bond will mean in the future.

 

True, true...however, as I said, I have a number of other actual reasons for why I think Cadence was foalsitting Twilight. I just don't want to go into them because, as I said, I want to save them for my revised Twilight analysis and don't want to spoil prior till then. But let's just say that it plays into a lot of my prior speculations and leave it at that for now.

 

Here, I must say that the Elements in this scenario would be too much of an overkill to fight off a simple vague threat (which obviously turned out to be a godforsaken invasion of sorts), as they didn't really know what was going to happen, so in this regard, the force field is just a large precautionary measure as they easily could have been wrong with the whole "danger upon Canterlot" thing. To give you a better idea of what I'm saying, think of starships in Star Trek and how they can enable yellow alert instead of going to full red alert, as it would be strange to arm yourselves right away if no present threat is visible. This is the case here, IMHO. Rather than taking up full combat positions, the royal army was ordered to merely stand their ground and "raise shields".

 

True, and yet...it just feels a little to me like the Elements should have, if not been kept on hand worn at all times, then at least made more easily accessible. The tower is fine for normal day to day living in Equestria, but during a situation like that where everyone is on high alert, the Elements should be moved to some place where they can be easily armed/equipped, so to speak, so that if in the event they were needed, the Mane Six wouldn't be trying to go get them while fighting off an entire army.

 

Basically all I'm saying is that there are lessons to be learned here for Equestria in the future.

[Akemi Homura 7,680]

True, and yet...it just feels a little to me like the Elements should have, if not been kept on hand worn at all times, then at least made more easily accessible. The tower is fine for normal day to day living in Equestria, but during a situation like that where everyone is on high alert, the Elements should be moved to some place where they can be easily armed/equipped, so to speak, so that if in the event they were needed, the Mane Six wouldn't be trying to go get them while fighting off an entire army.

 

Now that I can understand and agree with, but once again, the vagueness of the situation would in all likelihood ultimately derail such a plan. Another thing! You have to wonder how much detail is put into locking away the Elements in the first place, since they're amazingly powerful, so perhaps your plan wouldn't have worked either way because the original location is the only place safe enough to store the Elements. To put it simply, it would be like comparing a heavily-fortified beach front (with machinegun nests and all that) to that of a jailhouse.

[Jibbs93 64]

Teehee, Applejack's lie face makes me lol. XD

 

 

 

 

And Rarity's psychotic face

 

 

 

 

That picture also made me realise that the party takes place on the street in front of Shining Armor and Cadence's home!

Edited April 23, 2012 by GJB93

[Queen Cassie 3,057]

Now that I can understand and agree with, but once again, the vagueness of the situation would in all likelihood ultimately derail such a plan. Another thing! You have to wonder how much detail is put into locking away the Elements in the first place, since they're amazingly powerful, so perhaps your plan wouldn't have worked either way because the original location is the only place safe enough to store the Elements. To put it simply, it would be like comparing a heavily-fortified beach front (with machinegun nests and all that) to that of a jailhouse.

 

You're not wrong about that. In a way it would be like making a nuclear device available every time a plane buzzed the perimeter of an air base. The Elements of Harmony probably shouldn't be brought out every single time Canterlot is in danger.

 

At the same time, when Canterlot is in danger, it is usually from foes so powerful that the Elements of Harmony, or magic with power similar to them, would be required anyway in order to have a chance to defeat them. Plus, the Elements are something of a useful tool, and if the Mane Six are there, I see it as more of a "why not go ahead and have them on hoof just in case" kind of thing. But then I like to expect the worst to happen.

[Lady Rarity Pony 4,892]

By far my favorite episode (pt.2).

 

That song was amazing. ;___;

[Inactive01 5,299]

The season ending episode was so epic that even Ingram's pieces have so much to analyze musically.

 

With that said, let us begin an analysis into the piece "This Day Aria". I assume you all have watched the piece performed visually and aurally at least once to remember the visual elements. This analysis also assumes the basic understanding of music theory and chordal progressions to delve into Ingram reaching the pinnacle of his musical genius, combining elements of classical music with the Disney musical to form a refreshing piece for the brony community in particular.

 

For reference, here is the video clip of the newly loved "This Day Aria".

 

First, the classical musical elements, particularly those of the Early Romantic Era. The scale of the piece is in C sharp minor, but the deception at the beginning makes it seem like it's in C sharp major, the parallel major. However, there is a brief modulation to said scale. This change occurs from 1:28 to 1:53 where the real Cadence expresses her undying love for Shining Armor and rushes to his aid as he is captured by Queen Chrysalis (scripted name), conveying a ray of hope in an increasingly impossible situation. The frequent use of half cadences and prolonging them provides suspense throughout the piece, leaving the listener wondering just how love will triumph will such an evil character on the driver's seat. Some examples appear at 0:59 and 1:06 where she sings her evil diabolical plan. Finally, listen carefully to the instrumentation accompanying the fake and real Cadence. Whenever the evil Cadence sings, the dark tones and timbres from the bass instruments (cello, left hand of piano) and timpani resonate, while the real Cadence is given lighter tones from the treble piano and the higher pitches from the upper strings to portray purity and love. These differences in pitches allow the portrayal of the contrasts between the character's hearts and intentions. Such use of instrumentation is an advanced form of musical painting that began with Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique" and the introduction of the brass and timpani as prominent orchestral instruments.

 

Now for the Disney musical element. When I first watched this piece visualized, I wondered where I last saw such a similar scene. I couldn't put my finger on it until a Youtube comment finally illuminated me. It was the scene where Ursula sings her diabolical plan put into place to the mirror in "The Little Mermaid". Compare the first 30 seconds of this song with Ursula singing to herself in the mirror. You'll see the similarities. This Disney movie was among the successful movies of the Golden Age of the 90s where musical movies and animation innovations were commonplace. Notice how MLP animation has matured so much from the beginning. Fluent movements of the ponies, use of glow to convey magical powers, and colour diversity highlight similar innovations Disney introduced during their glory years. Ingram clearly draws from the glory years to fulfill a longing desire for the old days by creating this piece as a reflection of the Ursula mirror scene.

 

The Season 2 finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was advertised heavily. There were billboards of the finale and newspaper and TV advertisements everywhere. The producers needed something special. This piece was just an element of fulfilling the goal of making this season finale the most memorable of them all. It was by far the most mature of Ingram's musical works in the show, and it clearly shows with the contrasting sections and instrumentation common throughout the Romantic era and the use of Disney's visual and musical elements from its glory days in the 90s. If Season 2's ending was this epic, Season 3 has a lot to do just to meet such an epic level of visual and musical genius.

[Xanderal 23]

I can't beleive I missed it. Now EVERYONE is going to talk about it and I'm going to have to cover my ears every 5 seconds.

[Jibbs93 64]

I can't beleive I missed it. Now EVERYONE is going to talk about it and I'm going to have to cover my ears every 5 seconds.

 

There's a 1080p YouTube video attached to the calendar entry from the 21st. Go watch it there!

 

Sorry, here's a link!

Edited April 23, 2012 by GJB93

[Dave247 568]

Whole post

 

Man, and I thought I make long posts

 

I do agree with most if not all points you have made.

I think if the writers do a bit more planning and think about the future episodes things like the plot holes like with Twilight's brother can be avoided.

Personally I'd very much like it if they do something like in Doctor Who how there's a underlining story that is started at the beginning, continued in the middle and concluded at the end with the episodes in the between them all hinting towards the story it I think it would be a recipe for success and easily top what we've seen here.

 

About Cadence foalsitting Twilight... This is one of the many things I would like to see gone into more detail in season 3. I'm not one to speculate myself but I enjoy reading other peoples opinion's on matters as such.

What happens is that they introduce all this new content to the show but if there's not backstory behind it then it causes a lot fo questions to arise. Maybe they want this though, they want to see what we will come up with and then possibly use it in the show if they like it.

 

About the elements of Harmony... the reason you think what you do because their portrayed as these powerful items that can fix everything with no consequences. Now if they were to do something in the beginning of a episode where they got destroyed because they were brought out and used too early that would probably restore the importance and uniqueness of them in my opinion. Then they could get rebuilt and be used at the end of the episode/s.

[Croaks 251]

What did I say?

 

DJ Pinkie.

[Eenohay 318]

What did I say?

 

DJ Pinkie.

 

The pilot from romantically apocalyptic!

[cntbelevimaBrony 43]

This was the best episode to date in my opinion. Lauren Faust and the whole Hasbro crew really nailed it, it contained all the things i like about this show. Plus we got to see most of the characters from the show, including Luna, which was really cool. This is one episode ill probably watch over and over

[Croaks 251]

 

 

The pilot from romantically apocalyptic!

 

Finall somebody gets it.

 

Anyways, that episode was intense.

It was thuper.