S08:E15 - The Hearth's Warming Club

[Truffles 2,033]

So if it wasn't clear from my initial comments (and it probably wasn't, lol) I really enjoyed this episode.

While it didn't directly give us the Student 6's origin stories, a lot of what make them tick can be discerned from their stories and interactions as the conflict plays out. Gallus is an obvious exception - the audience can make a pretty accurate inference that he was chosen among all the griffons to be placed at Twilight's school due to his unhappiness at home. Unhappiness stemming directly from all the fighting and arguing griffon's normally do in their day-to-day lives. Grandpa Gruff probably noticed this and figured there might as well be one griffon who doesn't have to be miserable. In a way, under all that crankiness Grandpa Gruff did something really selfless for a griffon by sending his charge to a place where he'd be happy and be able to make friends.

As to why Gabby wasn't the one chosen, it's because she's already good at making friends - one of the few griffons who doesn't expect something in return for all the things she's good at helping with. Plus when she's away from Griffonstone, she's pretty happy already, so like the CMC if she ever did decide to settle in Ponyville she'd make a better tutor at the school than a student.

I'm in the group who had no idea who the culprit was, and didn't even consider it could actually be one of the Student 6. I thought it would turn out to be some third party using magic to make their escape. So I was shocked when it turned out to be Gallus. (Thank goodness I didn't see any spoilers - it was really interesting to not actually know whodunit.) After seeing it a few times, it was more obvious Gallus was the guilty party and was easier to spot the hidden clues that he was upset over the thought of having to return home. I should review the premiere and see if he was the one who suggested the idea of them running away after the school was closed.

One thing I'm confused about is how Twilight, Spike, and Rainbow sussed out that it was Gallus. Obviously they overheard him when he came clean, but I got the impression from their speech they already knew it was him not long after the assembled all of them together and as they said, wanted the guilty party to be honest and come forward on their own. Did he leave feathers behind? Claw or paw prints? Did he spill the powder on himself and Twilight is capable of sensing traces of magic powder during the interviews? Or did they just notice like I did after the fact that he was the only one not happy about hearing they had to leave for home?

Now that we've seen Ocellus' family, it's curious they weren't present when she was dropped off at the school, or when she was about to be pulled out and taken home. You would think they would have wanted to see her off and not have Thorax (who is supposed to be ruling) do that job. The obvious answer is the family hadn't been created yet at the time the season premiere was written, but it is an odd artifact due to those consequences if that's the case.

 

Some misc comments:

Vincent Tong must of had to force himself to sing bad for Sandbar. Even with the fake bad singing, I keep hearing Rumble.

With the winter storm going on outside the school, I suddenly flashed back to being in the courtyard of Skyrim's College of Winterhold when Spike mentioned the student's quarters.

I want to do a whole psych analysis on Spike and why he appeared to be so thoroughly enjoying himself being prosecutorial. He seemed to relish in lording over them. While they are technically lower-ranked as students compared to him being --- well, whatever rank a job of doing a bit of "everything" entails, lol - we know at least a couple of the students are older than him, so it was surprising to see him lay into them like he did.
Rainbow Dash was accusatory as well, but her doing that is a well-established trait of hers so no surprise there.

I wonder if there's any truth to the Scales story? That is, is it based on a legend of something that might have actually happened, or is it like @gingerninja666 suggested and it's a fictional story Ember herself told to the group as a warning to any dragon thinking of overthrowing her that she's not clueless about such possibilities. Or the opposite could be true and it's a story told by a dragon who's unhappy with the current leadership and it won due to other dragons agreeing with its message. A pretty ballsy move, either way, lol.

There's more confirmation Sandbar lives in town, adding to the info "A Matter of Principals" gave us as to his residency.

Ocellus is wrong about changelings never having an traditions/celebrations before the hive was reformed - they have that gourdfest/gorefest thing Thorax mentioned at the beginning of Season 7. I still want to see what that festival is all about!

On 8/5/2018 at 2:26 AM, Music Chart Fan said:

Also, couldn't the culprit be, say, a unicorn with an ability to teleport? Or what if Discord just wanted to cause some more chaos and teleported away? So I wouldn't have been 100% sure that one of the Student Six must have been the culprit.

I too thought there were a few more likely suspects than the students. I guess the episode didn't want to spend time throwing out a bunch of red herrings like Discord and then spend more time having to come up with reasons why it wouldn't be them.

On 8/5/2018 at 2:26 AM, Music Chart Fan said:

When Gallus says that he doesn't have a family, and he's shown outside looking in through a window at Gilda and company "celebrating" the Blue Moon Festival, what's the implication of that? Does Gallus not have a caretaker or any place to live? Is he literally a homeless orphan wandering the streets?

Grandpa Gruff is his legal guardian (or at least as legal as it gets when it comes to the lackadaisical bureaucracy in an unregulated town like Griffonstone). Like I said in my other post, I think he wasn't homeless during the scene where he's watching Gruff, Gilda, Gabby, and the other young griffling. He simply looked in and saw they were miserable and decided he'd rather spend the holiday alone. It was Gruff who sent him to Twilight's school, so he must have some kind of authority over him.

On 8/5/2018 at 2:26 AM, Music Chart Fan said:

Do ponies in Equestria have horror stories like we have about Christmas tree fires and how to avoid them? Or is it like some kind of magical fire that wouldn't burn the tree or nearby flammable materials? The fire does react and get bigger when the goo powder is poured into it, so the fire isn't totally inert.

Is it true that before electricity many Christmas trees were lit by actual actual candles? I seem to remember hearing something like that as a kid. As for the flame, I think it's magic since it burns with an artificial-looking purple flame. If the powder Gallus used was a magic powder, it may have reacted to the magic in the flame. If that's the case and Gallus knew that, then Silverstream was right - he really is secretly paying attention in class, lol.

On 8/5/2018 at 2:26 AM, Music Chart Fan said:

It's nice that Twilight protected herself from the slime with a magical shield, but I kind of wish that she could have protected Spike, too, like she did with her wing back in "What About Discord?",

I liked when she did that. I even brohoofed that comment when I saw it.  Here, I guess she had to react too quickly and didn't think about him, or perhaps she thought he used those new wings and flew clear of the avalanche like Rainbow Dash did. At first I thought it was a dissolving goo and the whole tree and the presents would melt - and Spike would too. I figured his scales would protect him, but it was unnerving for a moment.

I didn't feel too badly for him, though, when it turned out it was just sticky. He's been in a situation like this before when Twilight spilled all the frosting on him while she "equalized" the cupcakes way back in "Lesson Zero." There, he just went all Tasmanian Devil with his tongue and licked himself clean. But this goo may not have been edible (tho hard to say what is and isn't edible for a dragon, lol) or was even too sticky for his tongue to remove.

On 8/5/2018 at 2:26 AM, Music Chart Fan said:

But wasn't Rainbow telling them to pack rather than hanging around earlier in the episode, joking that "if you miss that train, it's a really long walk"? Would they have just all missed their train(s) because they had to stay to clean up?

Perhaps she was just exaggerating because she wanted all of the students out of there so the alcoholic cider taps could be opened?

On 8/5/2018 at 2:26 AM, Music Chart Fan said:

If apparently most of the hippogriffs stay under the sea or on land without going back and forth, then does the Three Days of Freedom Celebration also serve as a check to make sure that all the hippogriffs are still able to both swim as seaponies and walk/fly as hippogriffs?

I was wondering why the third day specifically stated they all come together. Wouldn't they do that on the other two days? It makes me think perhaps not all of them want to change (like Terramar's mom) and seaponies/hippogriffs like them skip the first two days and only come together on the last one?

 

On 8/5/2018 at 2:26 AM, Music Chart Fan said:

Finally, Sandbar seemingly gets suspicious of Smolder and Gallus because they're being "so cool about this" and aren't displaying sufficient anger/upset at the situation. But it's not as though Sandbar has been displaying strong emotions about the situation either.

Seeing Sandbar being so sure Ocellus was guilty reminded me of the recent animatic from the finale featuring the Student 6 where

Spoiler

the suspicions are even greater and it's Sandbar who seems to be untrustworthy member for a moment.

 

[Music Chart Fan 819]

On 8/6/2018 at 12:28 AM, Truffles said:

(Though I really need to go back to Gabby's episode and see if there's any details that might shed light on this since she's the most likely one to be aware of social norms regarding family.)

I looked back at "The Fault In Our Cutie Marks", and I didn't see any obvious references to griffon families. Gabby talks about how she felt different from "the other griffons" and about how she wanted to show her fake cutie mark to "everyone in Griffonstone". Gabby does say that "Most griffons don't pay much attention to each other. And if they do, it's not, y'know, the good kind of attention", though, which could corroborate your idea that not even griffons that are technically related give each other "the good kind of attention".

1 hour ago, Truffles said:

I should review the premiere and see if he was the one who suggested the idea of them running away after the school was closed.

That's an interesting connection, and it would make a lot of sense in hindsight for Gallus to be the one who most wanted to do that and the one to convince the rest of the Student Six to go along. But I looked back at the first two episodes of this season, and while Smolder and Gallus are the two to suggest skipping class earlier, I didn't see any reference to whose idea it was for the Student Six to run away and hang out together rather than going home after the Friendship School was shut down. Apparently all of the Student Six left notes saying that they were running away. And after the Mane Eight conclude that they should follow Sandbar to find the missing students, the episode cuts to show the Student Six already at the Castle of the Two Sisters, and none of them talks about all of this being anyone's idea in particular.

[Truffles 2,033]

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

But I looked back at the first two episodes of this season, and while Smolder and Gallus are the two to suggest skipping class earlier, I didn't see any reference to whose idea it was for the Student Six to run away

Thanks for checking on that! I suppose the silver lining is if there's no evidence one way or another, we can simply believe it was Gallus who stepped up to try and prevent them from being returned home since it makes the most sense. From the stories the other characters told (aside from Smolder), they all loved their homes so they would be less likely to want to stand up to authority to be returned to places they love. As for Smolder, even if she liked being at a pony-run school by the end of the episode, she was dead-set against being there at the beginning. So Gallus is still a better candidate to push the idea of running away, especially considering how much he fought Grandpa Gruff at the end when he was about to be dragged home after they were all found.

[Misty Shadow 7,842]

This one was a series of highs and lows. The low point of it for me is actually close to the beginning. Twilight's gotten very...accusatory as of late. After what she just went through with jumping to conclusions about the CMC, she looks at the scene with the Young Six and goes, "Welp, it's one of you! Especially in a world where teleportation magic exists, a locked door makes for an open-and-shut case!". I legitimately thought it was going to be an outside party who was guilty before the scene with Gallus, though his scene of opening up is admittedly the high point of the episode for me and the best character development for the students so far. The jokes were a weird kind of self-aware anti-humor, some of them being funny like with Sandbar's "stories", and others being fairly bland, like with Yona's smashing. Overall, it gives me a weird feeling of being underwhelmed and satisfied at the same time somehow.

[MystMane 6]

I'll edit this later since I'm about to watch the episode but I had to ask..

Why do the other creatures celebrate the holiday if it's about pony unity?

[Singe 2,111]

One of the oddest things Twilight said was Gallus had to do friendship lessons alone. It kind of gave off a vibe like she didn't want to bother with his situation until the other students stepped up..

Edited August 12, 2018 by Singe

[Senko 459]

8 hours ago, MystMane said:

I'll edit this later since I'm about to watch the episode but I had to ask..

Why do the other creatures celebrate the holiday if it's about pony unity?

 

Well the changelings were taught by the ponies and the griffons/dragons/yaks are probably just celebrating a holiday in the same season (like winter solstice festivals are common as its just the shortest day of the year and all cultures would know of that) so its not Hearthswarming that they're actually celebrating. The seapony/hippogriffs are a bit odder as you'd think there's would fall on some other random day of the year though.

Edited August 13, 2018 by Senko

[Sh Pie 65]

This was a good Hearth's Warming episode focusing on the Student 6 and their cultural holidays. It's like the difference between Christmas and Hanukkah in real life. I think that's a good analogy. Their holidays may be different but in spirit, they are similar. Except for dragons. It was nice to see the students interact more since I think there's a lot of potential in these characters as a secondary focus group like the CMC and there's a lot we don't know about them.

Gallus' backstory was sad. I thought the Dragonlands were rough but Griffonstone takes it to another level. Granted, at least they're trying with the whole truce thing but it's nothing close to conventional pony style friendship. Gallus has no family, doesn't know what cousins are and lives alone with his not-grandpa Grandpa Gruff who doesn't seem to like him either. Must suck to be a griffon in this world.

I appreciated Twilight sparing him the extra friendship lessons since his honesty and recognition of his wrongdoing surely constitutes as a lesson. It's like the premiere, all the friendship lessons in this school happen out of class, how ironic.

[Allen 1,387]

Another episode based on Hearth's Warming Eve. The prank goes wrong and think that it was Gallus who spilled the purple goo on the Fire of Friendship and spread the goo over the place, he was responsible for that and then he apologized to them, Princess Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash at the end for doing that. Gallus, don't do that again to delay their Hearth's Warming Eve preparations. The truth is they're telling their Hearth's Warming Eve stories and memories, and it was fun.  I'll give a great rating for this episode! 

[Varrack 1,080]

Sad backstory, but good episode. It's a reminder that the ponies' concept of friendship is a unique one -- the other creatures either have some kind of equivalent or none at all. I totally get Gallus not wanting to return to Griffonstone, and I don't know if he'll ever want to again after spending enough time at the school of friendship...

It was interesting to hear about the other creatures' holidays. It gives some insight into their cultures and ways of life.

[BlinkZ 1,151]

Yes a very cute episode. Good Gallus. Seems Griffins don't have families. I mean Babby? Gilda? nope all griffins just dont fomr familes...harsh

[MLPFanatic34 3,234]

I liked this episode and it really made me feel sad for Gallus. Seeing how every other member of the Young Six celebrates Hearth's Warming Eve was cute and I loved Ocellus's the most. Am I the only one who thought that Cozy Glow was behind the prank in the beginning of the episode though?  9/10.

[Dabmanz 2,139]

On 10/2/2018 at 11:39 AM, MLPFanatic34 said:

I liked this episode and it really made me feel sad for Gallus. Seeing how every other member of the Young Six celebrates Hearth's Warming Eve was cute and I loved Ocellus's the most. Am I the only one who thought that Cozy Glow was behind the prank in the beginning of the episode though?  9/10.

Yeah I was thinking either Cozy Glow or Ocellus.

[qwerE 96]

I liked the ending of the episode. It makes me happy that for the first time, Gallus won't have to be alone for the holidays thanks to his friends.

However, despite the moving ending, this episode as a whole wasn't my taste. Everything except the ending was pretty boring, including the student six's stories. Twilight's actions like threatening to rip the student six of their vacation were questionable and a bit frustrating to watch. She didn't even have a proper evidence that the culprit was among them! All she had was a split second view of someone seemingly going into the dorm. Plus, even if she did have proof, suspending 6 innocent students just because one of them is guilty, seems plain wrong. Throughout the episode, I was actually genuinely hoping the culprit was one of the students, because of how Twi would look if it weren't. Perhaps Twi should be a bit more careful about her accusations. 

Edited December 23, 2018 by qwerE

[Senko 459]

To be fair she is still learning how to be a headmistress and how to run a friendship accademy. Still that whole punish them all for the actions of a possible one seemed a bit out of character for her to me. Then again considering her panics over displeasing Celestia maybe her school day's did involve some nasty off camera punishments growing up.

[Thrond 3,263]

Shout out to Gallus calling Ocellus a nerd. Is she the Twilight of the group? What does that make the others? Then again, her shyness is more like Fluttershy...

Sandbar is a real square. He never quite became interesting on his own the way all of the others did. That said, the idea of Hearth's Warming dolls is adorable. 

Really? The yaks don't smash the moss at all? Not even a little bit? I mean, that's fine, it's really cute that they dress it up as a holiday symbol, but it sure does look very smashable. Anyway, yaks are best non-ponies. Also, Silverstream's attempt to smash a bucket is adorable. 

Dragon holidays probably are about arguing, aren't they. Also, shout out to Smolder almost not caring at the end. What, did she have anything better to do? It didn't seem like she was that invested in the dragon holiday. 

The mane six fit in really well as adult authority figures, to the extent that I wish this show could have told their focus episodes from that perspective instead of having them regress in bizarre ways. I think "The Washouts" was the only episode to really double down on that, though "Horse Play" finds a really nice balance. 

This season is just so... blunt. In the past the show would dance around darker ideas like this, but here we are, in season 8, with a character just outright saying "I don't have a family." Even in "The Perfect Pear," nobody says out loud that the Apple parents are gone. In many ways, season 8 was worse than the show had ever been before - but in moments like this, it was also much better. 

Edited April 14, 2020 by AlexanderThrond

[Moony the Cat 3,702]

I enjoyed this Episode, specially because of my 2 new favorite characters Ocellus and Smolder. 

Also the story was emotional, i liked it.

[Rosy Moonlight 369]

I really enjoyed this episode because it not only gave Gallus depth, but it also covered the concept of lonely orphans, or the equivalent, something I thought the show would never cover.

Gallus's being the equivalent of a lonely orphan is very fitting for the current society of griffins. That fits the plot more so than the headcannon of Scootaloo's being a disabled and impoverished orphan.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Rosy Moonlight

[Antiyonder 1,085]

The episode is present on this compilation of episodes:

A solo video will be posted when uploaded.