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A Royal Problem  

204 users have voted

  1. 1. Like It or Not?

    • Starlight: *spits in barf bag* "Did Tirek bake this cake?!" Celestia: "No. Tiberius." Luna: *facehoof* ("I hate it!" >__<)
      1
    • Starlight: "The princess are A Royal Pain." ("I dislike it.")
      3
    • Luna: "Eh. 'Tis not bad. But I've had better moonshine." ("…meh.")
      7
    • Celestia: "It's cause for a celebration! *Starlight, Luna, Tiberius, Philomena join* ("I like it!")
      25
    • Luna: "This is FABULOUS!" Celestia: *whispers to Starlight* "She and Rarity have girls' night out every Friday." ("I LOVE IT" <3)
      168


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This episode is why I don't read synopsis, the map calling Starlight? She switching the royal sisters' cutie marks? Yeah, I wouldn't have any faith in an episode like that to work out as well as it did, but the writers pulled it off wonderfully. I think this is what "Do Princesses Dream Of Magic Sheep?" should've been, something with a conflict that isn't forced, and that even though it has some obvious fanservice it makes it work in the story. I want to write my thoughts but I feel it'd take me a lot of time and I don't feel up to it at the moment, I'll just say it's a definitive 10/10, best episode of the season and one of the best of the show.

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A bit of an aside, but the poll options are amusing considering the pancake joke at the end of the the episode

 

Starlight: *spits in barf bag* "Did Tirek bake this cake?!" Celestia: "No. Tiberius." Luna: *facehoof* ("I hate it!" >__<)

 

Luna should have blamed Tiberius!

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i really loved this episode! seeing the royal sisters being bitter made me feel kinda happy? like idk made them seem realistic. same joy i got from seeing them bicker at the wedding for the 100th episode. shows us they're not perfect. not to mention OMFG DAYBREAKER!!! WHAT?!!?! 

Image result for daybreaker mlp

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I gotta say, I should've known something was up when the map gave Starlight a solo friendship problem. I mean pretty much her main skill that none of the other mane 6 have is magically altering other ponies' minds and/or cutie marks to solver her problems.

I enjoyed the new expressions we got, Luna had a ton of great ones. And I get the feeling music box Twilight is gonna take off almost as much as the Twicane.

I absolutely loved this episode and put it up with my top episodes overall. It might even get close to contending with Slice of Life for best episode. 12/10

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14 hours ago, Babyyoshi309 said:

Actually, Celestia just raised the moon. She did not help with dreams. In fact, they literally say in the episode that Celestia CAN'T control dreams like Luna can.

Guess I missed that part during my subsequent re-watches of the episode.

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Seeing some Starlight haters now say Starlight could easily defeat Celestia and Luna because of this episode SMH...Smh

 

Anyway, based on an earlier comment, I think it is entirely possible that the "mysterious" alternate timeline from the Cutie Remark was Day Breaker coming and destroying everything that stood in her way.

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See fandom, you got what you wanted *and* Starlight was the key to it all. It's almost like there may be a lesson to learn from that. Hmm...

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(edited)

There's one word to describe this episode: disappointing.

The biggest problem in the entire episode: how Luna and Celestia behaved. Their conflict that triggered Starlight's cutie mark switch was completely out of character. Not by the fact they fought, but by how they behaved in contrast to the continuity of the show. The episode implies that they've been at odds for a long time now and was brewing recently. Unlike Slice of Life, their argument crossed the line into being personal. It wasn't fun reading the Luna/Celestia comic, because they argued and yelled at each other like immature, incompetent brats rather than competent leaders with a millennium of growth, and I hold the same here.

It also doesn't help when continuity was ignored. Both Luna and Celestia dismissed others' hard work as small or meaningless. With the way they acted towards each other, it's as if they never cared for each other at all. Both of them were separated for 1,000 years; wouldn't that result in them attempting to try to get closer and put in the effort to try to not let this happen again?

The side that insulted me the most is Celestia, and not just because Celestia's my favorite princess. Celestia showed grief and remorse for sealing Luna into the moon for a millennium, and they cried when they reunited. While Luna was sealed, Celestia painted a façade to hide her guilt while she performed double duty. Through the animation, they really missed each other. When she insulted Luna's dreamwalking as petty, it made me wonder for a minute whether she genuinely missed her or not.

Rather than trying to solve the problem, both of them were actively being the problem and needed Starlight to tell them directly. When you have characters that old and intelligent, it symbolizes incompetence. If they were that smart, they'd actively fight to fix the problems caused in the first place.

Quote

Celestia: Moon raised. It's even easier than raising the sun. *chuckle*

This quote by Celestia, in particular her conceited behavior, symbolizes the problem in a nutshell. Celestia raised and set both the sun and moon for 1,000 years, yet she acted like she never did it before. This is in direct contradiction to the continuity that Twilight referenced in Act 1.

The saving grace in this entire episode is Starlight. Given how immature they were behaving, it's understandable why Starlight rushed to perform that act of magic. But what helped make it work is the episode really showed the consequences of Starlight's reckless action. Twilight was absolutely right to chew her out for it, and it was clear how much Starlight regretted it, both immediately and over the course of the episode. The lack of conceit really puts her in a sympathetic light.

One other problem I had is at the end when Luna and Celestia told Starlight that "going with her gut" was the right course of action. @Kyoshi has a strong point why that line's a problem from a moral side. I have a very different problem with it, this time from the technical side.

Starlight underwent so much stress in this episode, particularly the climax, that she actually needed comfort. When they said she did the right thing, all of the guilt she suffered throughout not only felt pointless, but was treated like it was a minor deal. What happened wasn't minor. Grief, in particular self-inflicted, isn't something to be taken for granted. Her pain isn't taken seriously. Please treat it with respect.

Edited by Dark Qiviut
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2 hours ago, Ganondorf8 said:

Guess I missed that part during my subsequent re-watches of the episode.

It's implied heavily throughout, and all but confirmed by Luna's dialog with Celestia regarding defeating Daybreaker. 

44 minutes ago, Dark Qiviut said:

Her pain isn't taken seriously. Please treat it with respect.

I can see where you may feel that the passion of the dialog may fall short, but it was there in the two places it needed to be, and in fact the writer cut that off at the past.

Luna specifically, and with a sense of desperate urgency, pleads with Celestia to use the dream magic to defeat Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon before Starlight's mental health is irreparably damaged. Hell, it was so panicked that it made me believe that Pony Nightmares may actually be dangerous. 

I'd say that sufficiently counts as telling the audience that they care and are treating Starlight's pain with respect. They also close the scene off telling her that she need not apologize as she basically made the right call. 

This isn't a technical writing issue. It was legitimately addressed. It sounds like your complaint has more to do with the style that the writer chose to communicate it. 

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(edited)
1 hour ago, Jeric said:

I'd say that sufficiently counts as telling the audience that they care and are treating Starlight's pain with respect. They also close the scene off telling her that she need not apologize as she basically made the right call. 

That's the problem. Starlight's reckless abandon wasn't the right call. Her decision caused massive problems not only around her, but also herself. To say it's the right call treats what happened leading up to the resolution as no big deal when it nearly mentally hurt her. Better, more careful wording would've helped.

Edited by Dark Qiviut
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(edited)

I absolutely loved this episode. I liked how Starlight was called by the map to see the Princesses. I was surprised as well because I thought only Twilight and the others could be called. I guess this means there will be more ponies that can be called by the map. Spike's idea of what the problem was about had me laughing. I guess he broke the fourth wall, or something along those lines. I like how Twilight was the ballerina music box in Starlight's room. It reminded me of the haycart spell used in "Amending Fences." I feel that every time I saw Twilight, I imagine that's the reaction the audience had. I liked how we got to see both sides of the Princesses stories, so we could see what was troubling them. I was surprised how Celestia's and Luna's marks were switched, but it was interesting on them living a day in each other's shoes. It's cool we get to see what Celestia does in Luna's perspective. Since we don't see most of Celestia's daily activities of being a princess. It's cool we get to see Celestia go to the dream realm. I especially loved that we got to see Celestia have character in this episode. While it was good to see her get character in "Celestial Advice." It was even greater to see her get more development in this episode. It was also great to see Celestia and Luna acting like ponies. While they acted like princess and regally in front of other ponies. It was nice to see that they acted like themselves, or something along those lines. I found it humorous when it came to Celestia and Luna admitted to talking to themselves. I tend to do that from time to time, so I guess I could relate to that bad habit. The dreams were especially cool and pretty random, but otherwise amazing. Day Breaker was really cool and an interesting dark side to Celestia. I'm glad the sisters were able to understand one another and fix their friendship problems. All in all, I liked the moral and the episode was amazing. This is probably one of my favorite episodes this season, so far. I hope we get to see more ponies use the cutie map later on this season. I especially hope we get more episodes that help develop Celestia and Luna more as characters. :) 

Edited by Dynamo Pad
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I really hate the fact that Starlight can magically alter a however many millenia's old sentient thing like the Tree of Harmony, to have its map call her on a friendship mission. No doubt its from her meddling with the damn thing from the cutie Re-mark, meaning it's NOT fixed, but still, she shouldn't be allowed to go on map missions, when she uses her magic impulsively, or even uses magic to solve friendship problems at all.

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12 minutes ago, Nightmare Muffin said:

I really hate the fact that Starlight can magically alter a however many millenia's old sentient thing like the Tree of Harmony, to have its map call her on a friendship mission. No doubt its from her meddling with the damn thing from the cutie Re-mark, meaning it's NOT fixed, but still, she shouldn't be allowed to go on map missions, when she uses her magic impulsively, or even uses magic to solve friendship problems at all.

I don't think she messed with the map, and her impulsive use of magic is quite clearly the exact reason why the map called her in the first place. The map has never been explained to us, so worrying about its rules being broken is just silly. Who's to say what its rules even are? The show's never told us! 

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Did anyone else notice that Celestia and Luna's magic horn glow was different after the cutie mark switch? Could that mean that the cutie mark determines what color your horn glow is?

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On 5/20/2017 at 9:03 PM, AlexanderThrond said:

Or Twilight's, for that matter! "Lesson Zero" aside, of course. 

Well.. If you count Sci-Twi... We have seen evil Twilight. Midnight Sparkle.

 

Also on a sidenote... I really want evil Cadence to have mind control powers... make everyone love her. So... Basically evil cadence would just be Queen Cheese Legs only better at the job.

Also as a side note...

Tyrant Celestial Confirmed....

Really... Darkbreaker was just.. wow... I have a new Wifu.

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hOLY CRAP. JUST. HOLY FREAKIN CRAP!!! This episode was absolutely PHENOMENAL!!! I honestly don't think there are enough words to describe just HOW MUCH I LOOOVE this episode!!

Not only do we get a better look at the princesses but also Starlight in a leading & important role?? JUST YESS!!!

Aaaah I don't even know where to begin with this. Hmm perhaps with the premise & plot? I'll be honest, at first, by synopsis only, I wasn't too blown away with the idea. I mean, the characters involved? Yes that was exciting! But the whole idea over all sounded kinda bland if I'm honest. But MAAAN was the delivery wonderful! Sure it's a bit on the nose with the moral, the grass is greener n all that, but it's a 20 minute episode, and they jammed a lot in there, so I can let it slide. Thus, the pacing of the episode did come off as a little fast. But it didn't really bother me, so much was going on and I loved it all!

But I did like how the focal point of the episode had a gradual shift from Starlight to the princesses. We go from Starlight taking on an important task, as designated by the map, to figuring out and trying to solve the problem, and eventually shifting to her working with the princesses, and then finally focusing on the princesses as they solve their friendship problem. To me, this had a nice smooth flow to the narrative, and worked really well, with Starlight being both a character and a device for forwarding the story.

Now onto the characters, starting with Celestia and Luna. I thought this episode did a STELLAR job at really grounding them as characters. For most of the show, they've come across as these lofty, god-like beings, with (at least to me) little by way of personalities. This easily cemented them in reality, and gave a better idea of who they are. The problem they faced, lack of communication, was also one that one that was really mundane, which I felt made the episode all the more better. Anyone can fall into that dilemma where they don't completely convey their feelings, and it leads to a problem between people. Also, the show clearly showed Celestia and Luna as an extrovert and introvert respectively which I liked c: 

And then there's Starlight!!! AAAH I love her so much, and I think she did a great job handling the task here! Sure the cutie mark switch was impulsive, but I'll get to that in a bit. I liked how the showed her tackling the problem, figuring it out, and then confronting the problem, by talking about it with the princesses. And when her plan didn't work, she went with her gut and did what she thought was right, by having the two live a day in each other's life. Was it an impulsive switch? Yes. But was it malicious, which most of you seem to be implying it was? No, absolutely not. It was an instinctive move she did, to try and do what was right. Celestia even says later, that Starlight made the right choice by going with her gut, even if it didn't seem the best choice at the time. Basically saying, trust your instincts. Besides gotta force that freaky friday scenario somehow  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also her conversations and reaction to music box Twilight were hilarious! Speaking of Twi, she really felt like an expy for the brony fandom in this ep. She flat out admits her bias and is appalled at the idea of the princesses not being the best at something X') Plus her constant need to like, BE THERE was just hilarious!

Side note before I go on, can I just say how much I LOOOVED Starlight's interaction with Luna after the school ponies fiasco? I just really like how she was trying to encourage her to move on, and not dwell on was had already happened. I though this was a great scene, especially when we remember where Starlight was last season finale. Thought short, I thought it was great.

Starlight's dream, when the ep really shifted focus to the princesses, was well done in my opinion. It really forced the two to face their problem head on, and shows how they work well together. Well, Celestia facing them head on with Luna's support, since she couldn't do anything in the dream realm ata this time. Honestly I don't really have much to say about this part. Daybreaker was cooool, and from Celestia's reaction, seems she's the real deal, even though its technically Starlight's dream. Speaking of dream's Luna's was just downright creepy. I'll admit, part of this whole sequence felt a bit gimicky, as it literally FORCED them to confront one another again and admit their wrongs to one another, but perhaps that's just a time sensitive issue. 

I think one of the strong part of the ep were Celestia and Luna's interractions. They fought like sisters, made up like sisters, and by the end, they were joking together just like the sisters they are.

Also, to everyone griping about why Starlight was the one sent in this episode, I raise you this question: why not Starlight? She's plenty strong and talented with magic, and she clearly doesn't have a bias, as Twilight implies, and Celestia acknowledges this, by claiming no other would take the steps she did to try and solve this. I personally thought she was a good choice, showing her stepping out and really taking on a leader role, like was sorta hinted at last season finale. But maybe that's just my bias showing that I think she was a good choice.

Aaaah I don't know what else to day. I rambled WAAAAY more than I wanted to, but I just loved this episode so SO much so I???? It was very well done in my opinion. Time to rewatch it like 10 more times~

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1 hour ago, Eiwly said:

But was it malicious, which most of you seem to be implying it was? No, absolutely not.

I don't think it was malicious so much as thoughtless and potentially harmful. I'm not really sure whether I feel Starlight's doubt counteracts the praise she gets for it. She does only use it as an impulsive last resort under significant pressure, but I don't think many ponies would take it as well as Celestia and Luna did, and I guess I'm tired of Starlight stories revolving around this. 

3 hours ago, blackstarraven said:

Well.. If you count Sci-Twi... We have seen evil Twilight. Midnight Sparkle.

That's true! That's probably not far off from what Princess Twi would be like if she succumbed to darkness. 

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I really enjoyed this episode. It seemed like the princesses were a bit more like they are in the comics, and I think that's a welcome change of pace. My headcanon's become that Starlight's talent lies in cutie mark magic, considering I didn't think anyone but Twilight could swap cutie marks, and she didn't do it on purpose. Then again, Starlight didn't switch their 'true selves', merely the marks and their talents. I also liked how the magic auras changed color when the cutie marks did. Definitely one of my favorite episodes of the season thus far.

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On 5/21/2017 at 8:06 AM, SaburoDaimando said:

Something I wanna add that I thought was fascinating: Daybreaker right now stands as the only villain that none of the Mane 6, be it in Equestria or on Earth, actually even confronted.  It's only Celestia, Luna and Starlight.  Which makes me wonder how Twilight and the others will react to the idea of Daybreaker?

Kinda? First there is the cyclops from the griffon episode, never was technically confronted but still mentioned and still a villain. Second, I don't know if this quite counts, because Daybreaker wasn't real, just a dream. The only harm Daybreaker could actually cause was damaging Starlight Glimmer's psyche, when she originated from Starlight's psych in the first place (apparently). 

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6 minutes ago, Ganondox said:

Kinda? First there is the cyclops from the griffon episode, never was technically confronted but still mentioned and still a villain. Second, I don't know if this quite counts, because Daybreaker wasn't real, just a dream. The only harm Daybreaker could actually cause was damaging Starlight Glimmer's psyche, when she originated from Starlight's psych in the first place (apparently). 

I'm starting to think that "protecting Ponies in their dreams" may be literal. @_@ 

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Just now, Jeric said:

I'm starting to think that "protecting Ponies in their dreams" may be literal. @_@ 

If so, there must have been plague of dream damage during those thousand years. 

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Is anyone else disappointed that we didn't get to see Kibitz, the royal scheduling advisor in this episode? I'm  kinda upset that we saw neither hide nor hair of Kibitz, and that it was all left up to Starlight to tell the Princesses their schedules.

where the bloody buck is Kibitz?!

also- immature sisters act immature for 1000+ year old ponies, and Starlight is a fool. Don't use magic if you second guess yourself, and can't even undo a 24-hour spell you probably made by combining others, yourself! -headdesk-

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