S02:E25+E26 - A Canterlot Wedding

[Queen Cassie 3,057]

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?

 

Questions are not the same as flaws. And just because I point out something an episode did wrong does mean I automatically dislike the episode. I quite honestly consider A Canterlot Wedding to be one of the best in the series, plain and simple period. But, no episode is perfect, and I do not hold back when it comes to pointing things out.

 

As for how Queen Chrysalis knew what she did, as I said it probably involved a great deal of scouting. Sure, she appeared to be an insect, and most of her fellow Changelings did not show much in the way of sapience, unless you count how the one that Pinkie interacted with reacted to her, but it wouldn't be that difficult to gain information if you can transform into a pony. Gather information at a low level first, figure out who is in power, the general state of affairs, things like that, then move on up. Odds are Chrysalis spent most of the second season infiltrating the castle in one form or another, probably first as a servant, then as a royal guard, and finally moving on up to Cadence herself when she was ready.0

 

Had Twilight not been there with the real Cadence to foil Chrysalis at the wedding, she would have gotten away with the entire ceremony. As I said, I'm not sure how Chrysalis planned on disposing of Celestia and Luna, but if she's able to [perform at the level she was, she probably did have some kind of plan. We'll just never get to know what it was.

 

The caves, again, as I said, are an issue. That's why I mentioned the possibility that Chrysalis wasn't being entirely truthful with Twilight. It's possible the caves were much more well known than Chrysalis said, and that Chrysalis just plain outright lied to Twilight to keep Twilight feeling demotivated and crushed. It's not as if it would be hard for her to lie convincingly, given that she managed to pass as Cadence the whole time.

 

As for the moon...I did notice what appeared to be her flying down from the moon during the episode, but...I'm not sure how seriously I would take that. That is, we might've been misinterpreting something we saw there, because it seems kind of weird to me that Luna would actually live on the moon. It's not as if Celestia lives on the sun, after all.

[Yellow Diamond 7,564]

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.

 

First of all, your analysis is wonderfully appreciated, Kyronea. Always is. Your scrutiny and attention to detail is perhaps unparalleled among the Bronies on this forum. Your wall of text was more than worth reading and reflecting upon.

 

For now, though, I'll just take a small bite rather than diving headlong into your analysis with my own---for now. Instead, I'll share my mild disappointment in not getting a post-credits stinger of some sort. The fate of Chrysalis is (quite literally) up in the air; Discord is potentially on deck for the third season. I believe I admitted in a crude joke that a post-credits stinger would have left me with loose bowels. I'm already excited for what they'll have in store for us next---the possibilities are nearly endless---but some sort of glaring uncertainty would have been icing on the cake.

 

I can't say I'm complaining, though. "A Canterlot Wedding" met the hype, in my mind.

Edited April 23, 2012 by Thereisnospoon303

[RockinRarity 1,605]

Not reading all 27 pages, as awesome as this 2-parter was.

 

My thoughts:

 

At the beginning, I felt like it was really forced to have Twilight singing about how important her brother was to her without us having met him before. I suppose my thoughts will change on that upon a second viewing of the episode because now I know Shining Armor.

 

I really did like her dialogue with Applejack. Being the only other one of the mane 6 who has an older brother, it makes sense, and it was a nice touch.

 

I started really getting into the 2-parter toward the end of the first episode when Twilight was telling everyone that Cadence was evil and how she ran away crying and everyone was yelling at her. Seeing Twilight well up in tears like that made me almost cry.

 

And just then, when Cadence reappears, boom. Plot twist. Didn't see that coming.

 

I was on the edge of my seat for the rest of the episode.

 

The song between the Cadences was magnificent. One of the best this season, up there with the Flim-Flam Brothers' song and May The Best Pet Win.

 

The Changeling Queen was really, really creepy. Her coloring felt extremely off from the rest of the visuals in the animation. The fact that she had holes in her legs just added to it.

 

The fight scene was awesome. So much funny stuff going on, and so much action.

 

Celestia getting beaten was a surprise to me. An even bigger one when I saw her in that cocoon. Again, creepy.

 

Real Cadence is a wonderful character. I liked seeing the power of her love with Shining Armor be the one to defeat the Queen. I wished I had more context for it though. I like seeing relationships as they are as much as possible, but that's just me. And I know the boring details wouldn't fit into an episode all that well.

 

Spike was really, really funny. How many times was he caught playing with the wedding toppers? And that Bachelor party... lol

 

Overall, awesome, awesome 2-parter. Makes me want to watch the entire second season in one sitting.

[Evilshy 5,089]

I don't know enough profanity to put between "holy" and "shit" to accurately describe how blown away I am right now. And I know a lot of profanity. 

 

Also, I'm not going to read all 500+ posts in this thread, so I'm probably repeating some stuff. I'll stay away from plot related things, as they've probably been talked to death. 

 

 

So... Yeah that was pretty much the best episode ever. It had some ass kicking songs, including A VILLAIN SONG FUCK YEAH!

 

And not only did this villain sing, it was a completely new species. An awesome species. A sort of twisted pony shapeshifter who feeds off of affection? This is awesome. Also, I vote that the cadence changeling be called the Cadeling. That's what I'll be calling her, anyway. 

 

It canonized overtly offensive magic. As in, magic primarily for fighting, not just a normal spell used in an offensive way. As in, twilight has lasers :D

 

And, holy mother of Jesus, is that a fight scene? A legit fight scene? Did the mane six just kick the shit out of a horde of enemies? Did pinkie pie just use twilight as a fucking heavy blaster rifle? Did that just happen? Why yes, it did

 

Rainbow Dash can do a Sonic Rainboom on demand. She has just jumped up several awesomeness tiers. In fact, new tiers had to be created to accommodate this increase in awesome. 

 

Greedy Rarity made a return for a few seconds

 

Pinkie Pie rocked the fucking house alongside Vinyl Scratch. 

 

Cadence and Shining Armor went avatar state through the power of love. Does this mean love is on par with the elements? Both are obviously more powerful than Celestia on her own, but we didn't actually see the elements come out against the changelings, it was only said that they could beat them. 

 

Also, do you think any two lovers could've done that (provided their love was as string), or was it just because of Cadence's love magic combined with Shining's protection magic?

 

 

 

Anyway... Yeah. Best fucking episode ever. What a way to end the season

Edited April 23, 2012 by Evilshy

[Yellow Diamond 7,564]

Let me add that I still get chills listening to "This Day Aria"---especially when I watch the scene itself. Fake Cadence has some awesomely creepy facial expressions.

[Zoop 8,384]

tl;dr

Another amazing, delicious, and utterly delightful wall of text. Very nicely done!

[prettycool 65]

I don't know enough profanity to put between "holy" and "shit" to accurately describe how blown away I am right now. And I know a lot of profanity.

 

Also, I'm not going to read all 500+ posts in this thread, so I'm probably repeating some stuff. I'll stay away from plot related things, as they've probably been talked to death.

 

 

So... Yeah that was pretty much the best episode ever. It had some ass kicking songs, including A VILLAIN SONG FUCK YEAH!

 

And not only did this villain sing, it was a completely new species. An awesome species. A sort of twisted pony shapeshifter who feeds off of affection? This is awesome. Also, I vote that the cadence changeling be called the Cadeling. That's what I'll be calling her, anyway.

 

It canonized overtly offensive magic. As in, magic primarily for fighting, not just a normal spell used in an offensive way. As in, twilight has lasers :D

 

And, holy mother of Jesus, is that a fight scene? A legit fight scene? Did the mane six just kick the shit out of a horde of enemies? Did pinkie pie just use twilight as a fucking heavy blaster rifle? Did that just happen? Why yes, it did

 

Rainbow Dash can do a Sonic Rainboom on demand. She has just jumped up several awesomeness tiers. In fact, new tiers had to be created to accommodate this increase in awesome.

 

Greedy Rarity made a return for a few seconds

 

Pinkie Pie rocked the fucking house alongside Vinyl Scratch.

 

Cadence and Shining Armor went avatar state through the power of love. Does this mean love is on par with the elements? Both are obviously more powerful than Celestia on her own, but we didn't actually see the elements come out against the changelings, it was only said that they could beat them.

 

Also, do you think any two lovers could've done that (provided their love was as string), or was it just because of Cadence's love magic combined with Shining's protection magic?

 

 

 

Anyway... Yeah. Best fucking episode ever. What a way to end the season

 

I can not express how much I agree with this post^

[Guest]

I just saw the wedding! I didn't know twilight hada brother!

[Lirael 13]

I loved this post so much I joined to reply to it, lol XP

 

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.)

 

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?

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

 

- To be fair to the mane 6, in "It's about Time" they listened to Twilight's future disaster thing and in the end it turned out to be just Twilight worrying herself for nothing. Plus, in the beginning of "A Canterlot Wedding" we clearly see Twilight is disgruntled about the wedding since her brother didn't tell her about it, so it wouldn't be hard to think Twilight took her anger and her imagination and started seeing what wasn't actually there (Cadance being evil). Of course, this might not be a very good expalnation for their total disregard of Twilight's warnings but it's what I have...

 

-I think Cadance didn't escape because she was tarpped behind a wall Twilight destroyed (not sure though, i'll have to rewatch it)

 

-First: The fact that Celestia was immediately defeated didn't strike me as her being weak. As they said in the episode, Chrysalis at that time was using Shing Armor's love as power. So really, Celestia would have one if it wasn't for that strong love powering up Chrysalis.

 

-Second: the foalsitter thing: my personal theory is that Cadance and Shining Armor already knew each other and were close (but not necesarily in love yet). So Cadance took to foalsitting Twilight as a favour to Shining Armor, who couldn't do it himself since he was probably busy.

 

-Third: I believe Chrysalis knowing about the caves was just due to some good old research. Since she can turn into anyine, getting to secretly kept information wouldn't be too hard.

 

-Fourth: I think she just planned to keep up the ruse until her underlings managed to invade and then Celestia wouldn't have the power to stop them all.

 

-Sixth: it would be interesting to see them come back. Heck, Chrysalis could even team up with Discord somehow: she and her minions could just start infighting between ponies and then when they're no longer friends...BAM, in comes Discord.

[Inkfeather 597]

Unicorn magic in the series has always taken its color from the eye color of the pony casting the magic.

 

Not entirely, as I mentioned in my own post, the aura of Shining Armor is the same color as the hue of Twilight's magic, yet it's no where near his actual color pallette.

 

 

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.

 

My guess on this part is somewhere around the guess that it's something she uncovered from her hypnotized victim, as caption of the royal guard, Shining Armor must be one of the few ponies knowing about this "prison"

That would raise the otherr question about where she had Cadence imprisoned untill she dicovered the caves though, which I can't personally answer.

 

To the question about why they didn't keep the elements at hoof would be out of fear that they might get stolen? As Shining Armor was hypnotized, I don't think it would have been much of a challange to hypnotize any of the Mane 6 either. Rendering one of the Elements useless means the reast of them are, as seen when Spike was stand-in for Rainbow Dash. Though, of course they couldn't have known that the Elements would be in direct danger so your question still stands.

 

 

Overall a very nice analysis, capturing many of the thoughts I had throughout the episodes as well, magnificent to read your thought and questions to the plot as well as your overall opinion on the whole thing! Gogo for the long posts! A big and lovely brohoof you get from me Kyro.

[Sunny Fox 5,929]

Kyronea has a distinct habit of precisely enunciating that which for most of us is merely an ineffable perception. In other words, he tends to hit the nail on the head and explain exactly what is it that we had already realized for ourselves but didn't quite have the words to say.

 

On another note, it is quite instructive to observe that many members here automatically designate the latest oevure from Studio B to be the "best ever." While I certainly enjoyed this triumphant crescendo of the second season of MLP, I would first wish to cogitate on the second season in it's entirety before concluding that this episode is the best of what said second season has to offer.

 

There are things that one could point to as flaws in this episode - particularly the utter lack of anything in previous episodes that would clue one in that Twilight even has a brother, yet alone that he is such an important a pony in the eyes of society (as Captain of the Guard) or in Twilight's eyes as her BBBFF. The meme "Love your older brother - forget to mention him for 2 whole seasons" just begs to be realized.

 

That said, the premise of the episode was relatively solid, the Changeling Queen was properly menacing, the characters were awesome (Rarity fainting TWICE from sheer passive snobbery, Pinkie telling her opponent to impersonate her and then delivering possibly the funniest line in the entire series, Rainbow Dash proving her mastery of the Sonic Rainboom, and one of the most epic songs yet seen in the show, to whit "This Day Aria") and the plot delivered the twists at just the correct moments, plot holes aside. I'll probably come up with a rationalization of every plot hole in the next week or so, but for now, it is sufficient to say that this episode is probably the best they could have done for a season finale. While not perfect, it certainly did the job that it was intended to do, and I am really glad that I stayed up til 2am (my local time) to watch it.

 

Here's to season 3 - may it be better than all that has come before it.

Edited April 23, 2012 by CandidKid

[Dave247 568]

Kyronea has a distinct habit of precisely enunciating that which for most of us is merely an ineffable perception. In other words, he tends to hit the nail on the head and explain exactly what is it that we had already realized for ourselves but didn't quite have the words to say.

 

On another note, it is quite instructive to observe that many members here automatically designate the latest oevure from Studio B to be the "best ever." While I certainly enjoyed this triumphant crescendo of the second season of MLP, I would first wish to cogitate on the second season in it's entirety before concluding that this episode is the best of what said second season has to offer.

 

There are things that one could point to as flaws in this episode - particularly the utter lack of anything in previous episodes that would clue one in that Twilight even has a brother, yet alone that he is such an important a pony in the eyes of society (as Captain of the Guard) or in Twilight's eyes as her BBBFF. The meme "Love your older brother - forget to mention him for 2 whole seasons" just begs to be realized.

 

That said, the premise of the episode was relatively solid, the Changeling Queen was properly menacing, the characters were awesome (Rarity fainting TWICE from sheer passive snobbery, Pinkie telling her opponent to impersonate her and then delivering possibly the funniest line in the entire series, Rainbow Dash proving her mastery of the Sonic Rainboom, and one of the most epic songs yet seen in the show, to whit "This Day Aria") and the plot delivered the twists at just the correct moments, plot holes aside. I'll probably come up with a rationalization of every plot hole in the next week or so, but for now, it is sufficient to say that this episode is probably the best they could have done for a season finale. While not perfect, it certainly did the job that it was intended to do, and I am really glad that I stayed up til 2am (my local time) to watch it.

 

Here's to season 3 - may it be better than all that has come before it.

 

Most people that have shared their thoughts on the episode bring up the topic of plot holes as something that as bothered them. I'm still very much set upon that can be fixed for the next season if the writers plan adhead what the next few episodes are going to be so that they could have done something like drop hints about Twilight's brother throughout season 2. This also makes the story more interesting because we would get teased with a small new part of information each episode or two and it gives us something to speculate about in the near future.

[Lirael 13]

I wonder what the actual target audience thought of this episode? I would have loved it when i was a little girl since action and adventure were always my thing XP

 

What bothered me the most about the episode was the whole "really close big brother that never appeared before". Sure, there's always the excuse that "oh, she mentioned him offscreen to her friends but there was know need to mention him to the viewers before" but there's just one problem: Twilight's birthday. Surely she should have mentioned a letter or a present sent by Shining Armor or, you know, he could have made an appearence since she went to Canterlot for her birthday party. Or maybe he should have been present when twilight was trying to get in magick school, considering how important that was to her. While Twilight's song was really cute, I had a hard time being emotional about it since I was baffled by this.

 

Even so, it was still and awesome episode and tons better than most children's cartoon so I'm complaining on a full stomach.

 

On another note, I loved those pictures at the end. I wonder if they'll ever mean something?

[Chill Mists (Chilly) 801]

What did I say?

 

DJ Pinkie.

 

Oh my gosh! It's pilot! I love that web comic.

[Crystal Sparkle 344]

That...was...the BEST. EPISODE(S). EVER!!!!! It was sheer perfection!!! The suspense, that kick-ass fight scene, the romance, the return of Luna and Vinyl (both only for a short while) And let's not forget the best part of the episodes (for me):

 

Twilight sung by herself...THREE TIMES!!!!!

 

I swear I started screaming like a belieber when she started singing! I was screaming at the top of my lungs, "I love you Twilight!" (My family assumed I was talking about the movie) I even kissed her on my TV...several times...especially when she cried.

 

Anyway, I have to admit, I was wrong about her brother. When I heard that Twilight had a big bro, I thought he was going to be like every other big bro, rude, always picking on their little sis and driving them crazy! I was pleasantly surprised to hear that she actually had shared a real bond with him (Looooooooove the nickname Twiley!). Cadence was super adorbs (well, the REAL Cadence) and I L.O.V.E. the color scheme. The villain, I'll admit, was pretty damn awesome (though she was kinda hard to look at). I cannot believe how pissed I was at how oblivious people were about the evil Cadence and that they didn't believe Twi.

 

Overall, it was an amazing way to end an amazing second season. I enjoyed everything, especially Twi's angelic singing. Oooooh, the way she ended her first song...*Twi-gasms*

 

 

Soooooooooo dreeeeeeeeeeeamy!!!

Edited April 23, 2012 by Crystal Sparkle

[Nordica 179]

Definitely up there with my favorites, but the episode brought up more questions than answers, even though it was a 2-parter!

 

 

Hasbro, y u no release a movie already?!

 

*text*

 

 

....

 

 

Never leave this forum!

Edited April 23, 2012 by Nordica

[Cosmic Charlie 129]

When Celestia woke up in the cocoon thing, I immediately thought she must have been thinking "Still not the weirdest place I've woken up."

[Prince Midnight 817]

XD, ill have to agree with that one cosmic, although the look on her face was priceless

[Radiance64 7,051]

Just saw 'em again, even better the second time! Especially the songs(any official names released for those yet, btw?).

[Forlong 1,725]

I just saw the wedding! I didn't know twilight hada brother!

 

Neither did Faust, apparently.

 

I swear I started screaming like a belieber when she started singing! I was screaming at the top of my lungs, "I love you Twilight!" (My family assumed I was talking about the movie) I even kissed her on my TV...several times...especially when she cried.

Okay, a little to much information there.

[Jibbs93 64]

I have proof as to who the mare in the photo with Applejack is!

 

 

 

 

She is Apple Fritter, she was introduced to Twilight in the first episode, she's part of the Apple family!

 

 

 

[Sunny Fox 5,929]

I have proof as to who the mare in the photo with Applejack is!

 

 

 

 

She is Apple Fritter, she was introduced to Twilight in the first episode, she's part of the Apple family!

 

 

 

 

Well spotted! Apple Fritter was also in the kitchen helping Applejack cook when Deceptive Cadence came to check on them.

[Crystal Sparkle 344]

 

Okay, a little to much information there.

 

Sorry, I got a little too excited there...teehee...

[Avneercell 67]

Sorry, I got a little too excited there...teehee...

 

XD

[Yellow Diamond 7,564]

I have decided to take up the challenge of responding to some of Kyronea's inquiries. After all, my shorter response was conditional.

 

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.

Celestia may have anticipated Twilight's importance prior to the magic test which eventually landed her in the position of Princess Celestia's pupil. I am more inclined to believe that, as you said, Twilight's family already held some prominence within the Canterlot community and the royal court. By the time Twilight took her entrance exam, Shining Armor was likely already in training for the Royal Guard. His fairly potent magic further suggests that such power runs in the family. It is completely unclear what their parents do (or did) for a living, but I would venture to guess they are relatively renowned for their magical powers.

 

If Celestia and Twilight's family were already close, then Cadence foalsitting Twilight is not out of the question. Shining Armor went off to train with the Royal Guard, and his responsibilities gradually increased. And it seems quite plausible that Cadence received subtle training by having to look after a brainy, young unicorn. "Baby Cakes" implied that young unicorns can be a hoof full.

 

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.

Night Mare Moon as a salient threat had been forgotten by most ponies until she reappeared. There may have been archived information on the caverns. Chrysalis might also have discovered them by mistake or explored alternate routes into Canterlot. If she had a grand offensive planned, then knowing the pathways to bypass the defendes would be a must to ensure success. The caverns most certainly could have been explored in more detail with respect to their history and geography. The fact that there are caves beneath Canterlot raises a number of questions.

 

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.

Queen Chrysalis showed herself to be both cunning and myopic: she could easily manipulate the ponies around her with just her wits and ability to mimic the physical appearance of other creatures, yet she was completely obsessed with the wedding. In truth, Chrysalis might have thought that once the wedding was complete and Shining Armor was totally under her power, overwhelming the defenses of Canterlot would be relatively simple. Of course, she was also outed far sooner than expected, it seems. Had Twilight and Cadence not returned, the Changeling army could have completely swamped Canterlot.

 

Given her uncertainty and surprise in successfully confronting and defeating Celestia, I doubt Queen Chrysalis desired a direct confrontation. A lot of it might have become a hit and run fight, with Chrysalis feeding off of other ponies until she became strong enough to worry about Frieza---er, I mean Celestia. If I had to guess, Chrysalis expected her army to be on hoof once she revealed her true form and sought to depose Celestia and Luna once and for all.

 

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.

Celestia or Luna might have sensed a plot to attack Canterlot, though that seems to be highly unlikely. I don't know how the Changelings would have delivered a formal threat without being uncovered. The nature of the threat was opaque; nobody knew what to expect, so they erected a giant barrier and placed more guards on patrol. Even without the details, I still believe her plan was pretty darn clever. Even if the writers avoided elaborating on the nature of executing Queen Chrysalis's master plan, I like that they incorporated a relatively clever villain who didn't immediately open the can of worms in front of everypony. If a few pieces had fallen the right way, Chrysalis might have won.

 

Of course, she didn't anticipate the Mane Six or, really, Twilight's vigilance. Chrysalis was rather poor at Speed Chess, even if her Batman Gambit effectively succeeded.

 

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.

The hitch here is that Twilight broke everypony's trust by accusing Doppelganger Cadence of being evil. Twilight had been socially ostracized from the wedding, so introducing the Elements of Harmony on stand-by would have been pointless given her absence. The Elements are also the last-ditch weapons for handling enormous threats. It might have been viewed as overkill, akin to telling Tony Stark to wear his Iron Man suit at the wedding. Since they are already in the castle, grabbing the Elements of Harmony in an emergency would not appear to be too difficult.

 

Unfortunately, things got out of hoof very quickly.

 

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.

I'm completely in favor of Queen Chrysalis returning for revenge. She has the magic and the smarts to be a truly formidable foe. As cool as Discord is, it's hard to imagine him being a recurring villain given his ridiculous amount of power. It would be difficult to keep interesting the Mane Six repeatedly facing off against the Dr. Manhattan of chaos. Chrysalis is vulnerable enough yet most definitely a threat to return without too much trouble.

 

Queen Chrysalis's fate is left unclear: she was knocked into the horizon a long distance away, so her absence would not be glaring. On the other hoof, she could just as easily return down the road with her Changeling army in tow. The writers did a nice job of not writing themselves into a corner.

 

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.

"You don't watch the news very often, do you, Princess Luna?"

 

It's bizarre that Luna didn't attend the wedding, even if it was held in the daytime. I prefer the Batman solution: she was handling the threat off-screen and then returned, behaving aloof about the situation.

 

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.

They have definitely gotten tougher. It's likely a product of the writers being liberated from the strict confines of the first season's "infotainment" stipulation. In universe, however, it more than likely represents the Mane Six's distinct advantage when fighting alongside one another. When they undertake challenges as a team, they tend to be stronger than when wrestling with matters as individual ponies. It definitely harkens back to "The Return of Harmony".

Edited April 24, 2012 by Thereisnospoon303