S04:E25+26 - Twilight's Kingdom

[Snowfort 6]

Anypony else spotted Discord in the intro sequence to this episode and possibly others?

 

See link (can't figure out how to embed images)

[Bolo the Red 11]

You'll play your part has to be a top 5 song.  Considering how many good ones there have been, this is saying something.

 

"Patience is never easy, I understand wanting more.  I know how hard it is to wait, to spread out your wings and soar!"  Ho lee crap.  1)  I didn't know Tabitha could sing.  I just kind of assuming she couldn't since she didn't sing as Rarity.  Love her voice.  2)  Beautiful sentiment delivered in the most powerful way it could be delivered with this set of characters.

 

The three Princess voices blended together in harmony.  Wow.......

 

The quaver in Britt McKillip's voice on "Soon will come the day it turns around"................ ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME!?  That was incredible!  Can she pull that off every time I wonder?  Or was that serendipity that they had the brilliance to keep in the song?

[Luminance 2,186]

Damn, this episode still give me the feels! The conflict with Tirek was just awesome.

[ScootsRiver 1]

My mom watched this episode... She thought it was stupid... -_-

[Nagisa452 182]

The battle between Twilight and Tirek is by far the battle scene Ive witnessed in a long time. Ive seen a lot of cartoons and anime, but come on so awesome! I imagined "Though the Fire and Flames" by Dragon force playing during that

[Sonic5421 423]

Truth be told, when I heard Celestia, Luna, and Cadance sing during You'll Play Your Part, it was like listening to angels as they sounded so beautiful. That just made it all the more heart-wrenching when they decided to transfer their Alicorn magic to Twilight for protection, then Tirek decided to be the sadistic, cruel, black-hearted monster that he was and send them to suffer in Tartarus like he did.

 

Twilight really let him have it during their battle when she had Celestia, Luna, and Cadance's magic augmenting her own until they reached the stalemate where Tirek pulled out the old "Give me what I want and I'll spare your friends" trick to finally gain the Princesses' magic, but too bad for him, he gets it and keeps it for maybe a few minutes before he ends up losing it when he is struck with Rainbow Power and sent right back to Tartarus.

 

If I was Cerberus, I would've devoured him for what he did to Celestia, Luna, and Cadance. Good riddance.

 

Despite that, everypony got their happy ending, peace is restored, the Royal Family still rule, and Twilight gained her Princess of Friendship title.

 

For me, I give this episode a 9/10. Not bad for a season finale with an resurrected villain from previous My Little Pony generations.

[Tarnation 142]

celestias voice is beautiful. she is now like the best singer in mlp according to me.

 

Discord maybe just a pussy, and get petrified again by Tirek. XD

And dat Mary Poppins styled entrance...

[Sonic5421 423]

celestias voice is beautiful. she is now like the best singer in mlp according to me.

Celestia's voice really is beautiful when she sings. Same goes for Luna and Cadance as well.

[Novaburst 15]

Twilight's Kingdom was one of my favorite episodes.  However,   the battle against Tirek seemed to be long and drawn out.  Also blackmailing Twilight with her friends was something that I didn't actually expect.  Furthermore Tirek draining magic was also something I never saw happening.  This was a wonderful episode in my opinion. 

[MovieLord101 140]

I think I found an easier solution for this whole episode's plot: Celestia should've let Freakazoid loose on him. Then this would've happened and Triek would've begged for mercy (imagine if Jeepers was Tirek instead):

 

Edited April 19, 2016 by MovieLord101

[Sonic5421 423]

Thinking back, why even bother sending the other princesses to Tartarus if they were powerless? And if there was a good reason, why NOT imprison Twilight?

 

As Tirek saw it, he wanted to ensure that his claim to the throne as the new, undisputed, King and God of Equestria was secured. If Celestia, Luna, and Cadance were rotting away in Tartarus, nopony would attempt to rebel against Tirek since the Princesses would not be there to maintain hope in everypony. All he would have to do is bring up what he did to the Princesses, and it would either be serve him or lose their magic. No other option, period.

 

Just look at how small Twily is compared to her blast.

 

Best pony was packin' quite a punch. ^^

 

She did have the power of Celestia, Luna, and Cadance augmenting her own magic. You can clearly see the auras of the other Princesses' magic in Twilight's attack:

• Blue for Luna
• Sky blue for Cadance
• Sunny yellow for Celestia

Their magic was in Twilight, and it made her own attacks 4x as powerful, if not more.

 

[Midnight Seashell 206]

Mlp needs more dragin ball z like battles

[powerpuff-tsubasa 448]

dont remember the episode clearly. but i wish twilight and the three princesses use "explosive" superpowers to take down the villain

[Auditormadness9 61]

One of the (if not the) best finales of the show. Villain. Story. Animation. Everything was awesome! The fight scene and the first song were probably my most favorite parts of the episode, and all the serious FlutterCord shipping wasn't bad either      The only thing I didn't like about this episode was the Rainbow Power designs but the amazing battle scene made up for it. Also Twilight finally is treated like an actual princess! it only took one whole season! Also the continuety from all the way back  and the major character development for Discord are things that I wasn't excepting to see from a mile. Can we even call this a kids show anymore?

nonono Rainbow Power is the best in the series.

My mom watched this episode... She thought it was stupid... -_-

Maybe she didn't watch the whole show like the previous episodes or something. Also, learning about friendship can never be something called "stupid". Shit it.

This was the best episode in the whole series. :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

 

Period. But still, I'm only afraid that no other episode can reach Twilight's Kingdom until Meghan McCarthy writes an episode.

[cmarston1 5,959]

This is my all time favorite premiere and two part episode in general.

Tirek made for a pretty great and intimidating villain.

Discord's story arch of relapsing and finally being truly reformed was also highly enjoyable and interesting.

Both of the songs were some of my favorite of the series.

The fight scene between Twilight and Tirek was well animated and got my adrenaline pumping.

The rainbow connection story arc had a pretty good conclusion.

And because of these reasons and more, not only is this one of my favorite 2 part episodes, but one of my favorite episodes of all time.

[SephiVA 9]

The show blew me away with this episode! It turned into Dragonball Z. Admit it. She was doing the spirit bomb, the kamehameha and Terrak turned into Broly! But hey, it was a BLAST! I had an extreme amount of fun from beginning to end...and I found it crazy how he turned on Discord so easily...Discord, as powerful as he was..fell even to the powerful villian that is Terrak. Either way, I loved these two episodes so much and I may have to talk about it further again sometime! (In a hurry right now so I'll leave it at this for now)

[twiia 1,843]

It was an amazing episode, the plot was nice, and I particularly liked the Twi and Tirek fight scene.

[PlatinumWhiteForge 3]

Personally, I feel like the show should've ended here. I know Hasbro studios is trying to make more money and all, but I feel like at this point they're extending the storyline just for the sake of adding new content. I personally would've liked an ending like this, but it goes on and on and on and on and- you get the idea. Also, like what I did with the sans pic and the font?

Edited July 13, 2016 by PlatinumWhiteForge

[Heavy Magic 19]

This is definitely one of the best episodes on the show.  It had a good plot, and The fight between Twilight and Tirek was just epic

[Prospekt 11,018]

This is definitely one of the best episodes on the show.  It had a good plot, and The fight between Twilight and Tirek was just epic

Twilight's Kingdom is my second favorite episode. Tirek is a perfect villain, the plot is wonderfully written, and this is the final battle is so awesome! Don't let the sweetness of the show fool you; if you wish to do harm to the ideals of friendship, Twilight can pack a punch.

[Sonic5421 423]

Twilight's Kingdom is my second favorite episode. Tirek is a perfect villain, the plot is wonderfully written, and this is the final battle is so awesome! Don't let the sweetness of the show fool you; if you wish to do harm to the ideals of friendship, Twilight can pack a punch.

 

No kidding. It's one thing to mess with Equestria, but mess with friendship, and Twilight will show you no mercy as she sends you to rot in Tartarus for eternity. Tirek learned that the hard way.

 

Twilight: "I may have given you my Alicorn magic, but I still carry the most powerful magic of all!"

(Mane Six blast Tirek with Rainbow Power)

Tirek: (pained groans, then anguished screams as he feels his stolen magic and his own dark magic being drained away, reducing him back to his frail, shriveled, powerless state before being imprisoned in Tartarus, never to escape again)

Cerberus: (low growling as he makes sure Tirek stays in Tartarus this time)

[Flearia Dragondanser 918]

Just re-watched the episode. I do that on specifik episodes at times. And just now realized as I heard the voice. Rolled back and. There is Flash Sentry introducing the ponys ariving!! So Flash is canon for real! Now just waiting fpr Sunset to make an aperance too some day!!

[Thrond 3,263]

"But what is the princess of friendship without her friends?"

 

I'm kinda surprised that this hasn't grown any worse for me on re-watch. If anything, it's grown better - I think I'm finally able to grok with Twilight's internal conflict here. It's not just that she doesn't know what her role as a princess is, but that her life has changed so much since her coronation, to the point that she no longer knows what to do with it. Before, she was a student - but now, everyone's telling her that she's not just become the master, but that she's become a princess of Equestria. But why? What does this mean? She can't go back to her studies and forget about it, as now she has to attend diplomatic functions, and everywhere she goes people look at her differently. She'd probably be happy to return to her old life, but if this is her life now, what does that even mean? Her life has been upended, and the purpose she once found in it is lost. 

 

One thing I've forgotten after S5 strained against its own constraints and S6 has been so low-key and personal is just how high the stakes can get in this show. This episode is almost purely dramatic, with the comedy being the exception rather than the norm, and not only does it grapple with Twilight feeling adrift after life changes, but it also reiterates the show's main themes of friendship through contrasting Twilight with Tirek. Tirek doesn't care about anyone else. All he cares about is making himself more powerful. He doesn't need friends. Twilight, meanwhile, does. She's told not to inform her friends that she holds the power of all four alicorns, but she's also left without a concrete plan to defeat Discord, and keeping her friends out of the loop ultimately does her no good. The alicorn power doesn't help her, and it's only through her friendships that she finally defeats Tirek. Giving up the alicorn power in exchange for her friends is what gives her the final key, and as a result, it's that friendship which is finally able to save Equestria. 

 

Caring about others does not make us weak. In fact, it makes us stronger. It enables us to make hard decisions, as well as emboldens us to protect those who we car about. Most importantly, it lets us work together, and it's together where we're strongest. Tirek didn't get that - no matter how much power he accumulated on his own, he was defeated by six ponies, whom he had thought defeated, working together. As cheesy as it is, he was defeated by the power of friendship - and, honestly, I think that's kind of powerful, especially given how essential that power of friendship is to the entire show. For all four preceding seasons, Twilight increasingly found strength and even purpose in friendship. What she once didn't even care for has become so important to her that it defines her new direction in life. Without her friends, the Princess of Friendship is highly intelligent, magically adept, and a complete dork. Without her friends, Twilight Sparkle isnt nothing. But while once she might have gotten by without friends, that time is long past, and trying to find her purpose as a princess all on her own leaves herself with nothing. It's not until she works together with her friends to defeat Tirek that she finds the purpose which had eluded her. 

 

Without her friends, the Princess of Friendship is lost. 

 

Anyway, on a less deep note, this is some really well-written stuff. The plotting is tight, the stakes are high, and everything resonates with the depth I've outlined above. It's pretty fun, but at the time it felt like largely unexplored territory for the show. One of season 5's biggest mistakes was to try and push this level of emotional resonance and this kind of climactic tone more often, which ultimately did quite a bit to cheapen the finale. All of the action here, all of the drama - it's purposeful, and it's so damn controlled. After the messiness of the premiere, this is a breath of fresh air. It's also delightful how the show introduces just the right amount of lore to make the villain more compelling without introducing too much for this show to handle. My Little Pony thrives on its fantasy world, but its lore is still the stuff of fairy tales rather than the stuff of epic novels. It's not The Lord of the Rings, and if it tried to expand its lore that far, it would probably collapse under its own weight. What we have is just enough to give the stories flavour, when the characters which inhabit said stories hold much more importance. 

 

A lot of this might have been stretched out over a season of a more serialised show, but somehow this show makes it all work in under an hour - perhaps by scaling back the character development slightly. This isn't the episode to showcase some of the personality which Twilight had sorely lacked in season 4, but she's given enough depth here to offset that, even if it took a while for it to fully click with me even on this watch. If I listen to "You'll Play Your Part" again, I might enjoy it more, as I appreciate the soaring harmonies and finally understand Twilight's internal conflict, but it didn't quite work for me on this rewatch. Took me a while to figure out why I should care about what initially appeared to be (and, admittedly, could still be argued to be) Twilight's first world problems. It's all a bit on the intangible side, as Twilight is more or less having a sort of existential crisis, but I really appreciate how the episode is actually considering how she feels about being a princess after so many episodes in season 4 shoved her into a bland mentor role. 

 

I'd also like to comment on how much I love the role Twilight's friends play here. She couldn't have defeated Tirek without them, and in part that's so satisfying to me because it flies right in the face of the pedestal that "Magical Mystery Cure" and even "Princess Twilight Sparkle" seemed to place her on. After being separated so much from the others, they are finally shown to be just as important, and even get their own thrones in the end. I wonder if that means that they, too, are nobility of a sort. This isn't the organic conclusion of their arcs, but to an extent, neither is it the natural conclusion of Twilight's. It shows how far she's come, but this isn't what she's been working towards, and a large part of her internal conflict here comes from how unprepared she was for becoming a princess. She had never considered the possibility, so she had no idea what she'd do when it happened. 

 

"Twilight's Kingdom" works because it deals with the consequences of Twilight's life changing so much so suddenly, and while it does encapsulate how far Twilight has come - partially because she finds her "purpose" as a princess through friendship - I still think that the beginning of season 5's finale, where she's lecturing about friendship at the magic school in Canterlot, does a much better job of concluding her arc by showing us what she's actually been working towards. She never asked to be a Princess, and while that ultimately worked out, the fact that "Twilight's Kingdom" manages to finally make it feel like an organic part of her character arc is a minor miracle considering how forced and out of place it really is. 

 

Of course, her story is far from done - the feeling I got from this episode wasn't of an ending but of a new beginning. There's a lot of possibilities which the show still hasn't explored for what to do now that Twilight is comfortably a princess, and she still has plenty of room for growth. We haven't seen a lot of it, but if the writers figure out what to do with her - which, as of season 6, they still haven't, particularly - then they have a lot of untapped potential to draw from. 

 

Honestly, being so satisfied with this episode makes me more excited for the season 6 finale. Might actually be interesting. 

[Dawn Darkness 217]

Princess Twilight and Tirek were equal? I'd disagree there. Because friendship is stronger than being alone.

[Spider 1]

I couldn't come up with a better example of a deus ex machina than this episode if I tried. Seemed kinda lazy.