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Ages of Show/Fandom


Ganondox

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So far I've divided the progress of the show/fandom into three periods, divided by significant events and general changes in show quality/fandom response for periods of time. 
 

The first age is the Faustian (hurr hurr) Age, so named because Faust had a direct role in it. It's marked by the start of the show, and ends with A Canterlot Wedding (meaning despite being in Season 2). Faust was only the show runner for the first season, but she was still a consultant for the second season and had a large influence on many of the episodes, most notably The Return of Harmony, and it's believed executive meddling with A Canterlot Wedding is part of the reason that she left the show. The introduction of Cadence (a third alicorn, thus breaking previously established canon) and Shining Armor (a brother for Twilight with absolutely new prior introduction) also shocked many fans, and while villain Chrysalis proved to be a fan favorite and many liked the new protagonists as well, many others criticized the execution of the episode and it's moral, leading to the first two parter in the series with mixed reception. The hiatus between Season 1 and 2 is were the golden age of fan content started, and it's hard to measure when it ended, but A Canterlot Wedding marks a point when many people started leaving the fandom as a notable change content was seen with that episode (people noticed differences all throughout season 2, but it was the most obvious with A Canterlot Wedding), and the change was especially pronounced with season 3. 

The second age is the fandom's is the Dark Age, so named due to all the fandom drama over people predicting the demise of the show due to executive intervention and whatnot, and the notable decrease in show quality during this period. It starts with A Canterlot Wedding, and ends with Twilight's Kingdom, which is considered one of the best two parters in the series and addressed many fans fears. The other two parters in the span, the season openers for season 3 and season 4, are known for being particularly mediocre. In addition to the general drop in quality, the two big controversies for the season were Magical Mystery Cure and Equestria Girls. Rumor has that the original draft for MMC was slanted to be the series finale, but the increased popularity of the show left it awkwardly in the middle of the series, and executive meddling ensuring that the wing plot stayed, and that several musical number be included which combined with the lack of screen time due to the only having one episode due to Season 3 having half length of other seasons. The awkwardness of this episode probably negatively effected both the preceding and the previous episodes, as they left the show feeling without direction, and Twilight's Kingdom and it's aftermath succeeded in providing new direction for the show, closing the loose ends introduced by MMC and the Season 4 opener. There was plenty of other fandom drama unrelated to the show as well during this time period, mainly related to conventions and the Ask Princess Molestia tumblr, but the end of the golden age of fan content (which occurred sometime during the dark age) lead to the end up large scale fan drama, and convention drama died down after conventions became established and grew extremely competent with years of experience. Equestria Girls was widely criticized before release due to blatantly being against Faust's wishes, not making any sense with regards to the setting or characters of the show, and after release for it's low quality (akin to that of a mediocre Season 3/4 episode at best despite being a full length movie), but after it was established as it's own series of movies the latter ones where generally better received, and the promise of an in-universe movie in 2017 alleviated the concerns of many fans of the show who were not fans of the spinoff series. 

We are currently in the Glimmer Age, so named because most existing controversy centers around the character of Starlight Glimmer, because she was introduced at around the start of this age, and also because it makes a good pun, like a glimmer of hope after the dark ages. As this is the age we are currently in, it's hard to make distinctions here, but enough time has passed from the Faustian Age and Dark Age to clearly separate them. IMO we've seen a major uptick in quality since season 4, but I've seen other people disagree, though most the disagreements seem to be centered around Starlight Glimmer or new writers. With Starlight, I think it's the best thing the show done since Season 2, as it sets a new direction for the show and allows it to live much longer than it could have if the show focused on just the mane six, but others don't like the direction being taken. One highlight of this age is MA Larson's swansong, Amending Fences, and we've seen numerous other episodes in similar spirit exploring more mature themes. Even aside from being a possible uptick in quality, this makes since as the shows target demographic at the start of the show would now be teenaged or at least pre-teen, so more mature themes would be appropriate for the older demographic. It's really hard to believe it's been so long since the show started, and it still shows no signs of dying. While it's past the golden age, there is still a large amount of fan content being produced and overall I'd call the fandom healthy if aging rather than dying. Most the old greats of fan content are gone, but there are new people taking their place. I predict the next big event in the life of the show will be the movie, as it has the potential to kickstart the fandom again, introducing many new fans and possibly starting a new golden age, or it could start the biggest wave of fan drama we've seen since Equestria Girls was announced. 

So, for discussion. Do you think these are accurate divisions, or would you divide it differently? And what do you think the fandom/show has in store for the future? 

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The Faustian Age was best for the fandom~

The Dark & Glimmer Ages were best for the quality of the show~

Don't worry, I'll post more in-depth and controversial thoughts later but I am cooking atm xD

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Just now, K.Rool Addict said:

The Faustian Age was best for the fandom~

The Dark & Glimmer Ages were best for the quality of the show~

Don't worry, I'll post more in-depth and controversial thoughts later but I am cooking atm xD

I strongly disagree the dark age was the best for quality of the show, but I'd like to see your explanation for such. 

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(edited)
1 hour ago, Ganondox said:

I strongly disagree the dark age was the best for quality of the show, but I'd like to see your explanation for such. 

 

Let's overview the the beginning of the Dark Age. Long hiatus. Fans unsure whether or not we'd even get any more episodes. Then, BAM season 3 (aka the "mini" season) confirmation.

The Crystal Empire Parts 1& 2 was a great step up from the mediocre A Canterlot Wedding, imo. Lots of really awesome fantastical elements, Twilight and Spike interactions, and just generally a really enthralling atmosphere. Was Sombra a good villain? No. Were those boring as hell parts with the rest of Twilight's pesky friends protecting the fake Crystal Heart fun to watch? Hell no. But everything else out of that episode impressed on ALL fronts. I understand this is quite a divisive 2 parter, but, imo, it was only a slight step down from the masterful Return of Harmony. 

Ok, so what happens next? Too Many Pinkie Pies. Yet another episode with a focus on an "other-worldly" atmosphere. Like, where did that magical cave come from? Why did Pinkie Pie not travel there before? Mere plot contrivances and failure on the writers' collective part to properly build up to such a thing? Possibly. But, to me, the viewer, it created an illusion of seemingly endless possibilities within the lore of FiM. How many OTHER whimsical elements like this are just hiding beneath the surface? The thrill of potential discoveries in future FiM episodes is what captivated me so damn much with this episode. Pinkie Pie was actually pretty good in this episode too, which was a breath of fresh air after her horrendous, flanderization in season 2 (unfortunately, this was merely a cock tease as Pinkie's characterizations went to shit immediately after this episode and have continued in almost every single episode to this day Q.Q I won't focus on this too much, as this one little topic resulted in a 500+ post thread on Ponychan a few months ago @_@)

Anyway, One Bad Apple... one bad apple indeed >.> This episode was rather lackluster, I cannot lie. Thankfully, it had one very big redeeming factor which made me completely forget it's shortcomings ---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whl91kKmu5w <--- Probably still the best CMC song to this day. Catchy af, great music video-esque visual sequences, just plain awesome.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't consider season 3 to be all that amazing up until this point. Sure it was solid, with a great 2 parter, intriguing lore/ world building in TMPP, and the best song since Smile. But it didn't quite scream "best season evar1!1!" or anything. But... ohohoho, BUT then came Magic Duel. Oh boy... I just wanna go on record here and say Boast Busters was probably the worst episode of season 1. It introduced 3 awful new characters, in Snips Snails and Trixie, had bad writing in spades, and was just generally a bad episode. But Magic Fucking Duel, HOLY fucking shit. Upon my first watching I immediately concluded "This is the best MLP episode I have ever seen". Never before had an episode evoked such feelings from me. I will stop myself from gushing too much here, as I don't want this post to end up being obscenely long. But man oh MAN, Magic Duel is EVERYTHING I ever wanted from an episode of MLP:FiM. The only thing it was missing was a kickass musical number lol.

Now, in the fashion of keeping this post shorter than an 15 page essay, I will cover the majority of the remaining episodes briefly. 

Sleepless in Ponyville - freaking awesome episode albeit a tad overrated

Wonderbolts Academy - insanely good episode with next to no flaws for me whatsoever

Just For Sidekicks - surprisingly great episode ( cream of the crop when it comes to Spike & CMC episodes)

Apple Family Reunion - bleh

Spike at you Service - https://youtu.be/H07zYvkNYL8?t=3s

^ So three really good episodes, one mediocre, and one atrociously bad. Then we had Keep Calm and Flutter On... what an odd episode. I have overall very positive impressions of it, but this was really something else. Once again, I loved the whimsical elements mostly exclusive to Discord's shenanigans here. I loved how the episode started with such a serious concept, something I wouldn't expect from anything but a two parter. Some of the characterizations / writing were a bit iffy, admittedly, but I feel like that was made up for with the abundance of positive elements here.

Games Ponies Play was kinda "meh" but still entertaining enough.

 

Now we get to the juicy stuff 

dr_wily__s_morning_exercises__by_camac-d

 

Magical Mystery Cure was absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, an IMMACULATELY-conceived work of art!

 

 

 

^Every damn song here. Every damn song is at bare minimum a 9/10 in my book. Season 3 had a lack of quality musical numbers? Well let's just cram them all into this one episode for the viewers' collective convenience. This episode had NO brakes. Just constant entertainment, second after second. By far the most "dense" episode of MLP yet. And if all that wasn't enough to satisfy us long time viewers, we also got the single best piece character development in the entire franchise!

 

Twilight_Sparkle.png

 

 

^Bask in her magnificence you filthy peasants!

 

From this point onward, Twilight Sparkle became more and more and MORE likable to me. I loved how Twilight finally achieved her "SSJ form" after all those years of painstaking work under Celestia. I loved her newfound uncertainty over fulfilling her princess role. I loved how she developed this weird sort of awkward quirkiness to her sense of humor. I loved the adorable and inconceivably fluffy wings <3 *flap flap*

Basically, this WAS the defining factor for the "Dark Ages" for me, as well as the rest of the brony community. Others hated it, but I absolutely LOVED it \(^o^)/

 

(So, I think I will break this post into segments, as covering season 4 will take quite a bit of time and effort, and I don't want to just gloss over it here lol. General reception of season 4 was pretty damn good though, so I don't know if it will even be required :o )

 

 

 

Edited by K.Rool Addict
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(edited)
2 hours ago, K.Rool Addict said:

 

Let's overview the the beginning of the Dark Age. Long hiatus. Fans unsure whether or not we'd even get any more episodes. Then, BAM season 3 (aka the "mini" season) confirmation.

The Crystal Empire Parts 1& 2 was a great step up from the mediocre A Canterlot Wedding, imo. Lots of really awesome fantastical elements, Twilight and Spike interactions, and just generally a really enthralling atmosphere. Was Sombra a good villain? No. Were those boring as hell parts with the rest of Twilight's pesky friends protecting the fake Crystal Heart fun to watch? Hell no. But everything else out of that episode impressed on ALL fronts. I understand this is quite a divisive 2 parter, but, imo, it was only a slight step down from the masterful Return of Harmony. 

Ok, so what happens next? Too Many Pinkie Pies. Yet another episode with a focus on an "other-worldly" atmosphere. Like, where did that magical cave come from? Why did Pinkie Pie not travel there before? Mere plot contrivances and failure on the writers' collective part to properly build up to such a thing? Possibly. But, to me, the viewer, it created an illusion of seemingly endless possibilities within the lore of FiM. How many OTHER whimsical elements like this are just hiding beneath the surface? The thrill of potential discoveries in future FiM episodes is what captivated me so damn much with this episode. Pinkie Pie was actually pretty good in this episode too, which was a breath of fresh air after her horrendous, flanderization in season 2 (unfortunately, this was merely a cock tease as Pinkie's characterizations went to shit immediately after this episode and have continued in almost every single episode to this day Q.Q I won't focus on this too much, as this one little topic resulted in a 500+ post thread on Ponychan a few months ago @_@)

Anyway, One Bad Apple... one bad apple indeed >.> This episode was rather lackluster, I cannot lie. Thankfully, it had one very big redeeming factor which made me completely forget it's shortcomings ---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whl91kKmu5w <--- Probably still the best CMC song to this day. Catchy af, great music video-esque visual sequences, just plain awesome.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't consider season 3 to be all that amazing up until this point. Sure it was solid, with a great 2 parter, intriguing lore/ world building in TMPP, and the best song since Smile. But it didn't quite scream "best season evar1!1!" or anything. But... ohohoho, BUT then came Magic Duel. Oh boy... I just wanna go on record here and say Boast Busters was probably the worst episode of season 1. It introduced 3 awful new characters, in Snips Snails and Trixie, had bad writing in spades, and was just generally a bad episode. But Magic Fucking Duel, HOLY fucking shit. Upon my first watching I immediately concluded "This is the best MLP episode I have ever seen". Never before had an episode evoked such feelings from me. I will stop myself from gushing too much here, as I don't want this post to end up being obscenely long. But man oh MAN, Magic Duel is EVERYTHING I ever wanted from an episode of MLP:FiM. The only thing it was missing was a kickass musical number lol.

Now, in the fashion of keeping this post shorter than an 15 page essay, I will cover the majority of the remaining episodes briefly. 

Sleepless in Ponyville - freaking awesome episode albeit a tad overrated

Wonderbolts Academy - insanely good episode with next to no flaws for me whatsoever

Just For Sidekicks - surprisingly great episode ( cream of the crop when it comes to Spike & CMC episodes)

Apple Family Reunion - bleh

Spike at you Service - https://youtu.be/H07zYvkNYL8?t=3s

^ So three really good episodes, one mediocre, and one atrociously bad. Then we had Keep Calm and Flutter On... what an odd episode. I have overall very positive impressions of it, but this was really something else. Once again, I loved the whimsical elements mostly exclusive to Discord's shenanigans here. I loved how the episode started with such a serious concept, something I wouldn't expect from anything but a two parter. Some of the characterizations / writing were a bit iffy, admittedly, but I feel like that was made up for with the abundance of positive elements here.

Games Ponies Play was kinda "meh" but still entertaining enough.

 

Now we get to the juicy stuff 

dr_wily__s_morning_exercises__by_camac-d

 

Magical Mystery Cure was absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, an IMMACULATELY-conceived work of art!

 

 

 

^Every damn song here. Every damn song is at bare minimum a 9/10 in my book. Season 3 had a lack of quality musical numbers? Well let's just cram them all into this one episode for the viewers' collective convenience. This episode had NO brakes. Just constant entertainment, second after second. By far the most "dense" episode of MLP yet. And if all that wasn't enough to satisfy us long time viewers, we also got the single best piece character development in the entire franchise!

 

Twilight_Sparkle.png

 

 

^Bask in her magnificence you filthy peasants!

 

From this point onward, Twilight Sparkle became more and more and MORE likable to me. I loved how Twilight finally achieved her "SSJ form" after all those years of painstaking work under Celestia. I loved her newfound uncertainty over fulfilling her princess role. I loved how she developed this weird sort of awkward quirkiness to her sense of humor. I loved the adorable and inconceivably fluffy wings <3 *flap flap*

Basically, this WAS the defining factor for the "Dark Ages" for me, as well as the rest of the brony community. Others hated it, but I absolutely LOVED it \(^o^)/

 

(So, I think I will break this post into segments, as covering season 4 will take quite a bit of time and effort, and I don't want to just gloss over it here lol. General reception of season 4 was pretty damn good though, so I don't know if it will even be required :o )

 

 

 

First off, just pointing out you shouldn't confuse personal enjoyment with quality. For example, I agree MMC has great songs (the everything is going to be fine bit at the end made it very clear MA Larson was very aware at how the episode was going to be received when he wrote the lyrics so in retrospect now that everything is fine I really appreciate it), but objectivity it's plot is awful (despite what you may have been told, to some extent a plot can be objectivity deemed good or bad), it's the worst pacing we've ever seen in the series, and doesn't make much sense all things considered. Even aside from objective measures of quality, general enjoyment is a better measure of quality than individual enjoyment. In general, I think fan sentiments were pretty low during Season 3, with a few exceptions. What's left is a bit biased because those who hated season 3 the most already jumped ship. 

I counted A Canterlot Wedding as the start of a the Dark Ages, so Crystal Kingdom being relatively better it says nothing about the overall quality of these episodes. I think you'd agree return The Return of Harmony was the best two parter until at least Twilight's Kingdom. I'd also place the pilot as second best for that time period, and that's probably were you'd disagree. 

There is three episodes from the season I'd consider to be good: Magic Duel, Sleepless in Ponyville, and Keep Calm and Flutter On. Too Many Pinkie Pies and Wonderbolt Academy were also decent, but the rest range from meh at best (unlike most people I really didn't like Just for Sidekicks), to actual worst at worst (looking at you, Magical Mystery Cure, but even aside from that Spike at Your Service majorly sucked). Seasons 1 and 2 meanwhile where much more consistent with their quality, with most the episodes being at least decent. 

Regarding more with MMC, while one of the most common criticisms is the Twilicornification, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. It just was executed very poorly. Let's ignore for now the fact it came about as random from a previously unmentioned spell (or something like that) and consider it's place in the series. Twilight turning into an alicorn after completely her friendship studies would have made a great conclusion for the series, but the series didn't conclude. Instead Twilight was basically still continuing her friendship lessons, only now she was writing in a book rather than sending letters. We need to remember the for the course of Season 4, Twilight being a princess meant nothing beyond her now being able to fly (yet that was hardly even utilized) and presiding over random events, looking pretty and all. Part of the reason Twilight's Kingdom was so great is it finally put purpose into Twilight becoming a princess (as well as the conversion of Discord). So the after effects of MMC were flat. The build-up to it was just as flat, and I think a good way of illustrating that is by comparing and contrasting it with The Return of Harmony. In both episodes, Twilight's friends get messed up, Twilight goes into despair, and then there is a flashback of her previous lessons. Two big differences though. First, in the Return of Harmony, the flashback occurs BEFORE the conflict is resolved, while in Magical Mystery Cure it happened AFTER. Aside from implying that the pace of MMC was quite poor as the conflict was resolved way too early, it leads to the more important second difference. The reason the flashback occurred before the resolution of the conflict in Return of Harmony is because it directly led to said resolution. Twilight being motivated by rereading the letters Celestia sent back to her was probably the single most genius scene in the entire series. In Magical Mystery Cure the flashback was just background details during Celestia's song that had absolutely nothing to do with the actual conflict. That's the real problem with MMC, everything in it is completely disjoint from the rest of the series. It has no build up, it's just a nonsensical spell out of nowhere. If defeating Discord didn't make Twilight an alicorn, why should swapping her friends cutie marks? The only way to interpret it as being at all related is to conclude that Twilight become an alicorn because she knew what her friend's jobs were because that's what the conflict resolution boiled down to, which is even sillier than just interpreting it as being the result of a utterly random spell. So the front end of the episode is as broken as the back end. In conclusion the timing of MMC was incredibly awkward, and the only reason that timeframe was kept was to synchronize the episode with the release of the Twilight with Wings toy. You're absolutely right that it's the defining moment of the dark ages, but IMO that isn't a good thing. 

As four season 4, it had a similar quality mix as season 3 with some good, plenty of meh, and a few bad ones, though it also suffered from a lot of terrible, extremely gimmicky episodes like Power Ponies and Daring Don't which weren't in any of the previous scenes. We've had some gimmicky episodes season 5 onward, but not as much, and they've been executed much better. 

Edited by Ganondox
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