How was return of The Pony of Shadows so overlooked?

[KH7672 1,604]

Some point to over enthusiasm on Twilight's part bring her character down, some point to character shilling on Starlight's part bringing her character up, and yet it never seems to be fair in the end. Well I am here to look at this occurance from a logical perspective (at least as much logic I can ascertain from fiction magic)

Starting with Twilight's logic: The very first thing she says when learning of the banishing spell is, "Star Swirl and the rest of the Pillars sacrificed themselves to save Equestria" This is the first clue that she does not see them as part of the spell, mearly caught in the power it took to execute it. Then when she talks about the spell her wording is as such:

Twilight: Star Swirl thought the only way to trap the Pony of Shadows in limbo was for the Pillars to take him there.

 Applejack: So they got stuck, too!

Now we're starting to seeing what kind of logical conclusion Twilight has come to with how this spell works. She sees the pillars as key opening a portal and pushing the PoS inside and by going inside they knowingly locked themselves in because of the assumed strength of the Pony of Shadows. However, after the portal is sealed and all has been thrown into limbo, everything there is now it's own seperate entity just out there in a void. So in Twilight's mind it is perfectly logical to reverse-engineer the spell to simply pluck each entity from limbo using a related item.

In a real world sense think of it this way: You have to shove a huge overbearing rug into a closet that is only opened by six keyholes. Once the door opens the keys fall on the ground of the closet, but picking them up would risk the rug falling out, so you must close the door locking everything inside. However, you can easily get the keys out by using a magnet under the door and pulling each out. Now are you going to pull the rug out too by doing this? What Twilight is not considering is that the spell has bound the pillars to the PoS. But why would she? Think about every spell she's encountered, when has the caster ever been tied to the results of said spell, unless of course the spell was on the caster. Which bring us to another character.

Starlight's Logic: I want to point out that Starlight actually never objected to bringing the pillars back because she knew the PoS was going to return as well. She said things like:

"Opening portals between worlds didn't work out well for me. Are you sure it's safe?"

"Unless "the most legendary ponies of all time" knew what they were doing, and we shouldn't mess with it."

She's is drawing from her experiences of messing with a spell. What she's learned is a spell has one purpose and one should not mess with said purpose or else you end up with unforseen consequences you never imagined to begin with. While Twilight is drawing from determination in Starswirl's and her own ability in magic thanks to her completing a spell and earning wings, Starlight is also confident in Starswirl's spell in that he made it for a reason and that reason is final such as one week prior time travel. She describes Twilight as "finishing one of Starswirl's spells" one that had not fulfilled its reason for casting which is good. Starlight however "messed" with a spell that had already fulfilled its casted purposed which is bad. That is all Starlight is pulling from in her cautiousness, she has experienced first hand of the spell backfiring on the caster by messing with it. Why Twilight doesn't pick up on this? There are many lines and reasoning. The aforementioned over confidence in Starswirl's spell, she is reverse engineering it to just pull them out instead of push them in and not manipulating it to fulfill her desires so she views Starlight's case as completely different, along with it being a portal between world instead of a portal through time because as she learned time travel is a messier concept with the ripple effect and all. There are so many ways you can see Twilight easily overlook Starlight's mindset without being out of character.

Finally we have the rest of the Mane 6's Logic: They had none. Now that's not a knock on them because honestly we see they have no grasp on the logic behind this complex of magic. So why wouldn't they follow Twilight's lead. I think it is also important to note that all the previous episodes have built up how much they would love to see each pillar again. All of them (well except maybe Pinkie) have demonstrated in previous episodes how much they owe and look up to these each legend. Why wouldn't they pass up this opportunity to see them again. But still Starlight had her doubts, why didn't they listen to her? I think her section somes it up entirely, her doubt's only spring from HER experiences with such magic. They cannot relate, they've only experienced just as much as Twilight has with them and to them this does seem like a unfortunate thing that just happened once to Starlight but that doesn't mean letting Twilight cast this spell is going to lead to anything other than what she intends for it to do, bring the pillars back. Magic has only backfired when one of them was caught in the crossfire (i.e. Bats) so how would just gathing some items to be the magnet for each pillar be that dangerous? They aren't trying to pull the Pony of Shadows out which I've demonstrated can seem like his own separate entity.

That's how I see the logic of each character in the first part of Shadow Play. Of course us as audience members can see the outcome. We've seen this story before, it just makes sense in our logic of storytelling, but take a moment to look at this situation through the characters and see if the Pony of Shadows really was that easy to overlook. (That is if you read the whole thing Sorry for the length but I've been thinking about this argument for awhile) 

Edited December 16, 2017 by KH7672

[Castle Bleck 19,401]

Given how lame he turned out to be (awesome, Venom-like design aside), I might've overlooked his flank, too.

[Will Guide 21,365]

@KH7672

Can you please write your point in less than 20 words? Because it sounds like you're over-thinking something that was supposed to simply teach the lessons, "Don't let jealousy get the best of you", "Being too prideful can cloud your judgement" and "Sometimes, you just need a friend to remind you of what you already know"

Not trying to discredit you, just asking if you could make your point simple to understand. 

Edited December 15, 2017 by WiiGuy2014

[KH7672 1,604]

7 hours ago, WiiGuy2014 said:

@KH7672

Can you please write your point in less than 20 words? Because it sounds like you're over-thinking something that was supposed to simply teach the lessons, "Don't let jealousy get the best of you", "Being too prideful can cloud your judgement" and "Sometimes, you just need a friend to remind you of what you already know"

Not trying to discredit you, just asking if you could make your point simple to understand. 

Well, there was no lesson I was trying to examine but I'll be concise with the whole point.

It's just a detailed character study on the actions and mindsets of the Twilight, Starlight, and the rest when it came to bringing the pillars back and not realizing this would bring the Pony of Shadows, hence his return was overlooked. (I guess I'll change the title)

[Will Guide 21,365]

Just now, KH7672 said:

Well, there was no lesson I was trying to examine but I'll be concise with the whole point.

It's just a detailed character study on the actions and mindsets of the Twilight, Starlight, and the rest when it came to bringing the pillars back and not realizing this would bring the Pony of Shadows, hence his return was overlooked. (I guess I'll change the title)

Now I got you! Thanks for clearing that up.

[Thrond 3,265]

23 hours ago, KH7672 said:

Twilight: Star Swirl thought the only way to trap the Pony of Shadows in limbo was for the Pillars to take him there.

 Applejack: So they got stuck, too!

This pretty clearly registers to me as the same spell bringing both the Pillars and the Pony of Shadows to limbo. I'm still not sure how you could interpret it otherwise. 

23 hours ago, KH7672 said:

Now we're starting to seeing what kind of logical conclusion Twilight has come to with how this spell works. She sees the pillars as key opening a portal and pushing the PoS inside and by going inside they knowingly locked themselves in because of the assumed strength of the Pony of Shadows. However, after the portal is sealed and all has been thrown into limbo, everything there is now it's own seperate entity just out there in a void. So in Twilight's mind it is perfectly logical to reverse-engineer the spell to simply pluck each entity from limbo using a related item.

Did she not do any research on the spell used? Did Starlight just not jot anything down about that? Did he, in his supposed wisdom, not think it might be important to clarify exactly what he was doing?

23 hours ago, KH7672 said:

"Unless "the most legendary ponies of all time" knew what they were doing, and we shouldn't mess with it."

That's sound reasoning. Wouldn't it be logical for Twilight to at least give this due consideration?

23 hours ago, KH7672 said:

She's is drawing from her experiences of messing with a spell. What she's learned is a spell has one purpose and one should not mess with said purpose or else you end up with unforseen consequences you never imagined to begin with. While Twilight is drawing from determination in Starswirl's and her own ability in magic thanks to her completing a spell and earning wings, Starlight is also confident in Starswirl's spell in that he made it for a reason and that reason is final such as one week prior time travel. She describes Twilight as "finishing one of Starswirl's spells" one that had not fulfilled its reason for casting which is good. Starlight however "messed" with a spell that had already fulfilled its casted purposed which is bad. That is all Starlight is pulling from in her cautiousness, she has experienced first hand of the spell backfiring on the caster by messing with it. Why Twilight doesn't pick up on this? There are many lines and reasoning. The aforementioned over confidence in Starswirl's spell, she is reverse engineering it to just pull them out instead of push them in and not manipulating it to fulfill her desires so she views Starlight's case as completely different, along with it being a portal between world instead of a portal through time because as she learned time travel is a messier concept with the ripple effect and all. There are so many ways you can see Twilight easily overlook Starlight's mindset without being out of character.

This is all ignoring the fact that Twilight is likely to have researched spells beyond what we see her use in the show, including spells by Starswirl. If spells like the one Starswirl used to access limbo exist, then surely that sort of formula must have emerged elsewhere in the long period of time since Starswirl disappeared, and if so, wouldn't Twilight have encountered at least one in her studies? Altogether, I see no reason why Twilight would believe spells only work one way. 

23 hours ago, KH7672 said:

I think her section somes it up entirely, her doubt's only spring from HER experiences with such magic. They cannot relate, they've only experienced just as much as Twilight has with them and to them this does seem like a unfortunate thing that just happened once to Starlight but that doesn't mean letting Twilight cast this spell is going to lead to anything other than what she intends for it to do, bring the pillars back. Magic has only backfired when one of them was caught in the crossfire (i.e. Bats) so how would just gathing some items to be the magnet for each pillar be that dangerous? They aren't trying to pull the Pony of Shadows out which I've demonstrated can seem like his own separate entity.

As I've said before, I don't find this very convincing. Starlight's reasoning made perfect sense to me, and I've not seen much other than what the mane six have seen. If it were that easy to get the Pillars out of Limbo on their own, don't you think they would have considered that and organized some way to do it?