Thread 42541716

I think that post Faust mlp was fundamentally directionless compared to Lauren Faust era mlp (s1 up to but not including Canterlot wedding) and this all comes down to the meta-narrative reason why Lauren Faust created FiM in the first place. It being her ultimate critique and commentary on the cartoon industry and the state of children’s media.
That reason for the show’s existence dies very quickly after she left. There is no big meta-narrative driving the show after she leaves. There are many examples of such critiques stemming from this big, driving meta-narrative vision that she had.
The running joke of no-pony liking pinkies singing in episodes such as part 2 of the premiere, over a barrel and baby cakes was satire, beautiful satire and a great commentary on all the overproduced, unnecessary midi music that plagues so much of children’s movies and shows.
A dog and pony show, being another beautiful critique on the trope of the “fight girl” in so much of children’s media by positing the opposite, that women don’t have to become more masculine in order to be strong and it does that beautifully, having rarity use her wits to get out of her situation all the while never changing anything about herself.
And then there’s of course the most overarching one which I think is best explained in this quote from a Craig McCracken interview from 2013. “When she (Lauren Faust) grew up, everything that was made for her was never good and everything that was made for her brothers was really high-quality. Why can’t shows for girls be good?”.
Why shouldn’t kids media force children to grow mentally and emotionally if they want to be entertained rather than jingling meaningless eye candy in front of kid’s faces and rehashing simple inoffensive themes/morals over and over again, you know? It’s that bitter nourishing rhubarb onto the sugarcoated crust of childhood pie that sits something of a premium these days and is lost in post Faust mlp.
The meaningless eye candy jingling of the Tirek fight, the transformations, the castle and practically everything else in the s4 finale and the non-existent character writing with 0 accompanying setup and therefore 0 accompanying payoff of the s3 finale ( the same is true for almost all of s3/4), is a stark contrast to the combined skillful use of discord’s powerful yet self-destructive arrogance and a setup of the entire 1st season to weave together a story with real payoff from real setup by real characters in a real story and this is done constantly throughout Faust era mlp, with most episodes being used to set up other episodes creating a cohesive narrative where everything feeds into everything else rather than contradicting each other, narrative-wise.
post Faust mlp basically turned into a parody of itself and exactly the kind of cartoon that she was criticizing, commenting on and poking fun at.

>>42541716 (OP)
Even if there are episodes that do this post Faust (like cutie map and amending fences), they’re usually self-contained to the episode and don’t fix the problem that there was no more big, meta-narrative ideal guiding the show in one direction anymore and thus, struggled to do much that didn’t fit into 23 minutes. It’s basically a different show, set in the same universe.

and don’t even get me started on post Larson and going into Haber era mlp. like multiply what i said above by 50. the only meta thing he manages to do is complain about bronies.

I think you're basically correct about this, although I'd place the roots of this particular species of rot squarely in S4. That's where you start getting the real mad-libs episode concepts (what if they were superheroes, what if Fluttershy turned into a bat, etcetera) and where the characters and the world as a whole come apart at the seams that were sewn together in the Faust seasons. Plus, that's where the obnoxious self-aware humour and self-referential writing start to rear their heads in earnest. It's the fanfic season. S3 holds up the Faustian spirit surprisingly well, up until the Twilicorn incident.

>>42541773
I think by magical mystery cure, the change was already apparent. if MMC was more or less the same but S3 was spent setting it up, much like how the gala episode was very well set up in S1 and how return harmony's setup was basically all of S1, then it would have been pretty good. The driving idea that led to Faust era mlp being as much of a cohesive narrative as it was, was already gone by S3, because of canterlot wedding.

This Antony c vid explains my opinion of canterlot wedding far better than I ever could, and if you look into it, most of the same shortcomings of canterlot wedding are present in S3.

https://youtu.be/y36UT2tOvkI?feature=shared

>>42541800
So far as I can tell, the reason S3 manages to give off the superficial appearance of aligning with the Faust seasons is because it largely stays character-focused. What it lacks is character interplay. The dynamic of the Faust seasons is based around setting up strong, contrasting personalities for each of the Manes, then writing episodes that highlight those contrasts and how they negotiate them. S3 is more of a series of individual character studies. We still get to explore those strongly-defined characters, but there's much less of them playing off one another and demonstrating how their friendship overcomes their differences. It's not quite the same, but it's still miles ahead of the nonsense that started in S4. Also, yes, FiM didn't truly die until Twilicorn, but it was admitted to the hospice at around the point in ACW where Celly and Chryssi had an anime beam struggle.

>>42541830
>S3 is more of a series of individual character studies
I wonder how much of that comes down to the fact that it's a half-length season. If they had a full 26 I feel like we would've gotten more pairing/group episodes, the fact that they did two dedicated Spike episodes says to me the original plan was that and they got told about the shorter season mid-production.

>>42541840
I've never gotten why spike episodes exist, he's very clearly written to play off of the mane 6 and especially twilight. Almost every episode where he's left to his own devices, makes up some personality that's then forgotten by the end of the episode ( thankfully, because if they stuck, then spoke would have been a way worse character) because his, much like applejack's, personality is based on the ponies he interacts with and THATS written very well. His ambiguous relationship between twilight was my favourite running joke of the series. In great episodes like winter wrap up, one minute they could act like friends, another they could act in a caring mother and son way, and in another they could act like passive aggressive, bratty siblings. It was one of my favourite dynamics of the show.

Spike should have never had his own episodes, the only one that I can remember that actually stuck the landing is gauntlet of fire, but that one's more of the exception to the rule than anything else.

>>42541855
I don't mind the idea of him having an episode, but I think a duo episode's a far better idea for the reason you say. By himself he's just a dipshit kid, and one dipshit kid by himself is far less entertaining than the trio of dipshit kids.

>>42541716 (OP)
There is no difference between Season 2 and everything after Season 2. Vogelfag was right. It's just the same. You can watch a Season 2 episode and the right after watch a Season 9 episode and you get the same experience. Different chefs, same meal. The exception is the RoH of Harmony, which feels more like Season 1. Imagine calling Season 2 of Faust's narrative when they demystified dragons into bully teenagers and actually Nightmare Moon was not an obscure pony's tale that nopony recognised when she came back, but actually everypony knew her and she now has a national holiday. LOL.

>>42541936
>the entire town gasps when they hear her name
>obscure pony's tale
Eh, you're gonna struggle with that one. Them not immediately recognizing her is a little strange but the statue in that episode does look a little off, it's within the realm of being explainable. I do agree there's a big tonal shift between season 1 and season 2 but I don't think season 2 directly contradicts season 1, it just gets more openly fan pander-y and very aware of its own success.

>>42541855
>why spike episodes exist
It's very clearly just a writer seeing spike and deciding he deserves to take a episode slot.

>>42541936
I never expected much from dragons in the first place tbdesu. They didn't exactly set them up for novelty when the first non-Spike example we see is living in a cave and hoarding gold.

>>42541716 (OP)
Not reading that

>>42541955
They have Nightmare Moon iconography during Nightmare Night. They know what she looks like. There is more evidence supporting that almost nopony knew about her than her being a national icon like Pinkie Pie trying to guess her name and Twilight crossreferencing different sources to find out more about the legend.

Yeah I'm not reading all that

>>42541980
How insightful.

>>42541936
You just had to mention the beast. It's too bad the writefag side of the fandom never interacted with the reviewer side of the fandom and vice versa to actually create something or at least for the reviewfags to see how incompetent they are at analyzing storytelling.

>>42543145
The beast?

>>42542281
I'm flabbergasted

>>42544018
Don't be.

>>42541716 (OP)
can I get a TLDR

>>42545534
no

>>42546305
please?

>>42546660
Read the fucking subject of the thread!

>>42547131
Ok :(

>>42541716 (OP)
faustfags lost
haber won

>>42545534
Tldr: stop being a faggot.

>>42548553
it's not bait

>>42541716 (OP)
>The running joke of no-pony liking pinkies singing in episodes such as part 2 of the premiere, over a barrel and baby cakes was satire, beautiful satire and a great commentary on all the overproduced, unnecessary midi music that plagues so much of children’s movies and shows.
what about the smile song?

>>42549571
It IS.

you mean if I make shitty threads, I too, can get (You)s?

>>42550021
You made a shitty reply, so yes.

>>42541716 (OP)
>setup of the entire 1st season
>with most episodes being used to set up other episodes creating a cohesive narrative where everything feeds into everything else
would you be able to expand more or give examples on these couple points here anon?
and thank you for being able to put into words that which I cannot

>>42541716 (OP)
>>42550525
really great thread by the way, I fucking CRAVE these kinds of threads

>>42541716 (OP)
>That reason for the show’s existence dies very quickly after she left.
Selling toys?

>>42550585
The meta-narrative reason, not the financial reason.

>>42550529
Yea, 4chan have actual good discussion if you force them too. Turns out the best way to do that is to write a wall of text to disinterest the gooners.

>>42549654
>>42550525
Really the only reason the satire could be abandoned is if the song is more valuable than the satire. This is pretty much the only pinkie song that is more or as valuable as the satire. I can't really name another one?

>>42550525
To answer your second question, feeling pinkie keen introduces us to the idea that twilight obsesses over things she cannot control. This is taken to its extreme in lesson zero and then the idea is further expanded upon in its about time, where the idea is expanded to twilight obsessing over things she cannot control robs her of the ability to think about the things she can control.

https://youtu.be/5QUwiLyTTCQ?feature=shared
Watch this video if you want a great explanation of it's about time. Made by a guy who's great at analysis and critique, you might see in some of his videos that I just copied his script in my post, kek.

This is just one example (but it's my favourite one, lol).

Another one is setting up the characters special talents before we actually hear them in cutie mark chronicles, like in boast busters and dog and pony show.

>and thank you for being able to put into words that which I cannot
Kek, it's usually the other way around for me, I'm glad I could be the one to write down your own opinion better than you could.

As for your first question, I've got college soon and my mobile network blocks 4chan so I fear that this thread might die by the time I go home and answer your question, so I wouldn't mind if you link a discord username or something just in case this thread does before I get home.

>>42550953
@snipergaming1979 btw on discord

>>42541716 (OP)
>this all comes down to the meta-narrative reason why Lauren Faust created FiM in the first place.
if you think that creating something genuinely good requires someone to criticize and deconstruct other media then you're too high on postmodernism

>>42550957
>battard
yikes

>>42550529
same, I need MOAR!

>>42550957
why

>>42552226
Why not?

>>42552941
groomcord...

In our modern world, defined by recursive meditation and the proliferative entropy of signs, FiM, under the creative vision of Lauren Faust, constitutes a metaphysical rapture, a provisional sanctuary against the ontic erosion characteristic of the hyperreality we’ve surrendered ourselves to. The show, exclusively early on, before it was subsumed into a regimen of corporate repetition and thematic sterilization, offered a mode of cultural production that, while operating within the apparatus of commodity animation, suspended the logic of its own instrumentalization. Faust’s vision re-inscribed sincerity and authenticity as a mode of ontological resistance.
The inaugural episodes of FiM do not traffic in the vacuous optimism endemic to children’s programming. Rather, they construct a semiotic architecture grounded in moral realism, wherein the virtues embodied by the central character subvert expectations by refusing a didactic slogan of its own nature, but emerge as internally coherent modalities of being. They are not tools, not functions, not performative facades in the service of consumer empathy. They were, within the diegetic structure, irreducible modes of existence.
The disclosive quality of the early FiM reveals an ontological commitment absent in most contemporary media formations. Twilight Sparkle’s narrative arc, especially within Faust’s framework, unfolds as a paradigmatic gesture of inward transcendence. Her initial orientation, reliant on epistemic certainty, abstraction, and detachment, is not resolved through accumulation of knowledge but through existential surrender to Community, alterity, and the precarity of intersubjective vulnerability. This is not narrative development in the Aristotelian sense, but spiritual metamorphosis: a movement from the hegemony of the logical to the necessity of the faithful, hence “My faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”

>>42553933
Faust’s Equestria is not utopian, despite the many voices on /mlp/ that think so. It is, instead, structured by lack. Conflict, error, moral dissonance, and character deficiency could’ve been used as narrative exigencies, much like other cartoons, but instead they turn these into ontological affirmations. The social fabric of FiM is not presented as seamless, it is wounded, sutured by continual acts of trust, forgiveness, and becoming. In this way, the show institutes a kind of ritual economy that resists commodification, much like its creator refused to commodify something she whimsically created stories with in her infancy. Friendship, within this scheme, is an event, a rupture in the isolated self, opening the subject to responsibility without guarantee.
What follows Faust’s departure is neither evolution nor divergence. It is a collapse, the show, severed from its spiritual telos, begins to replace its own form. Characters cease to grow, instead, they repeat. The ethical stakes dissolve into the aesthetic gloss of brand continuity. Morality is no longer lived but displayed. The later seasons of FiM become the very hyperreal spectacle the early seasons resisted, this simulation, the simulacra of sincerity, with the Real amputated.
This transition parallels the fate of modern religions, wherein the ritual is no longer a gift but a function, the sacred no longer encountered but simulated. The ecclesiological becomes performative, Faith is made marketable. What began as a gesture toward Being, Dasein, ends as the endless reproduction of content. So too with FiM, its early articulation approached the sacred, but its latter phases are indistinguishable from the content-machinery it once punctured.

>>42553933
>>42553963
what do you call this type of autism?

>>42554339
The first one's clearly ai, retard.

>>42554339
clearly you're not a baller

>>42541716 (OP)
I disagree. S1-2 were directionless seasons, they had no cohesive narrative or overarching goal for any the characters, not even the main character. Twilight was just fucking around Ponyville with no plans for her future, she's prized pupil of Celestia and Faust does nothing with that. Faust had no clue how to proceed beyond the setup she lucked into. You speak of Faust's commentary as if she had this grand vision, but none of it is actually reflected in the show itself if you go through it objectively, you're just seeing what you want to see because of your reverence for her. However that blank slate is exactly what the fandom latched onto to create their own lore and stories. Luna is a good example of this phenomenon, a lazily written nonsensical character that got pump and dumped right in the beginning is given a deep backstory by its fans. Equestria was essentially a sandbox for creativity and it's partially because the Faust seasons were directionless, it allowed fans to do whatever they wanted without having to worry about canon since the canon wasn't going anywhere.

>>42541936
I think I agree somewhat, 2 is closer to 9 than to 1. S1 was janky as fuck, the writing all over the place, like each writer seemed to have their own version of Twilight, and random fantasy tropes were thrown around haphazardly without much care for the immersion. That type of soul can only come from a fresh inexperienced team.

>>42554394
Why would I be balling?

>>42555172
Ballers are cool people.

>>42541716 (OP)
>It being her ultimate critique and commentary on the cartoon industry and the state of children’s media.
I think you're just overthinking it a bit too much.

>>42556172
He isn't, Season 1 clearly has that metanarrative once you notice it. Suited For Success, which he hasn't mentioned, is also meant as an allegory for executives fucking with your creative vision. The Mane 6 without Rarity represent the executives and Rarity is supposed to represent an artist. Maybe Lauren was also seething about her Galaxy Girls series being canned while working on Season 1.

>>42541855
Why not?

>>42556194
>>42556827
Nigga, I gave a paragraph and a half on why not. Go back to your tamers and iwtcird threads.

>>42556953
give us a tdlr in 10 words

>>42550866
is this real?

>>42557482
Kys, get ai to do it for you.

>>42556194
There are so many, lol I could barely name them all.

>>42558127
no we need your input

>>42558369
I already did and I'm not shortening it for people with tiktok level attention spans.

>>42541716 (OP)
I wish Lauren Faust had stayed. The writing quality and characterization became formulaic after she left, with good episodes and scenes being mostly (to my knowledge) the result of devoted writers and artists pushing for something more.
I would love to see Lauren Faust's MLP run free unbridled by Hasbro, whose higher-ups act more like the nobles of Canterlot than Ponyville residents.

>>42556194
Also the animal sanctuary episode with Fluttershy in a later season taps into this. Her exasperation that the workers messed with her vision and thought they knew better.

>>42558552
We can only dream now of what could have been.

>>42556953
>Go back to your tamers and iwtcird threads.
>xe compares IWTCIRD with trooners
Anon, I...

>>42558696
IWTCIRD!!!

>>42558696
>>42559072
Zoomers...

>>42558501
Got a suit and tie on today, huh?
But can't quite help it when the real dips show up, can you?

>>42556194
Naw, a bit shallow there. The m6 represent customers, and the thing is that executives are also customers. Your boss is a customer. They purchase your time and effort for the completion of tasks and products.

The fact they are higher up on the ladder doesn't mean they know better than you how to preform the one tiny profession which you occupy. The customer is always right in matters of taste, but they likely don't know shit about how you specifically produce that taste given your tools, and available materials, and time.

So it is a "executives fuck off" just as much as a "karen fuck off" and even a "fans fuck off."

And you know what, it's a "fans fuck off" that WORKS and doesn't make me stare at a lazy ill-intended bastard for 22 minutes with comically exaggerated negative personality traits. Mistral shows are not satire, and neither is that shit.
It's nice to see that there actually IS a way to represent a group of fools without being hate-filled to the point of undermining your own point.

>>42559663
Fame and misfortune is if suited for success was bad.

>>42559844
unf

>>42541980
Come on now, you can do better than that.

>>42541716 (OP)
>>42559907

No God today, just me.

>>42561082
Vogelschizo...

>>42541716 (OP)
>The meaningless eye candy jingling of the Tirek fight, the transformations, the castle and practically everything else in the s4 finale and the non-existent character writing with 0 accompanying setup and therefore 0 accompanying payoff of the s3 finale ( the same is true for almost all of s3/4), is a stark contrast to the combined skillful use of discord’s powerful yet self-destructive arrogance and a setup of the entire 1st season to weave together a story with real payoff from real setup by real characters in a real story and this is done constantly throughout Faust era mlp, with most episodes being used to set up other episodes creating a cohesive narrative where everything feeds into everything else rather than contradicting each other, narrative-wise.
Man, I wish this was multiple sentences with their own points which eventually build to an equivalent point.

So, what I'm hearing is that you think that season 4's final and opener don't create a cohesive narrative within their season, and that season 2 does not have this problem. Unfortunately, finding a cohesive line of themes is a subjective exercise in creativity and rationalization. You can't say "there isn't meaning" because you'll be wrong the moment someone makes some shit up.You've got to find what the meaning is, and then dunk on that for being shit.

https://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/37491629/#q37492252
https://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/32853823/#q32854193
Here's some of my prior attempts at similar arguments. I'm gonna try to build out from these.

All fiction is a lie. At the beginning of every work of fiction, there is one necessary event. It is an explosion of humor, a singular humoring of the premise dragged from the infinite void of imaginable scenarios. In that moment, everything is possible, and that justifies many subsequent acts of coincidence, since the starting point which set those coincidences up was so chosen.

While these ideas are easily applied to causality, they also apply thematically, and in terms of character development. The basic act of suspension of disbelief doesn't just anchor us in a setting and moment, but in a philosophical starting position, like a shining light, reaching out in all directions.

In s1e1, Twilight has an initial goal. Before her trying to save the world, she is first looking for problems. She's looking for problems because she assumes she is meant to accomplish something. We quickly find that she assumes she must accomplish something because she is the favored and invested-in student of the queen of the sun, and she's right, for exactly that reason. Metanarrativly, the main character must obviously DO something, because she is invested in by the associated corporation and loved by the associated creative vision. Due to the expectations, the path forward and the world around her must manifest, and they do. Thus, the first moment of the show equates the sisters with the forces responsible for the creation of the show.

>>42561896
We overlook the infinite improbability of twilight finding a prophesy in folklore which then actually comes true. We overlook how bad Steve's tail-mostash is, and so does he. We overlook the obvious mental instability of each of the mares and slowly decide to like them anyway. Pinkie tells us, outright, to simply giggle away these concerns of ours. Twilight overlooks AJ bein' a bitch and flings herself from a cliff for no benefit, on the assumption that there must be a reason, a form of faith. In the end, twilight simply overlooks the physical destruction of the elements, assuming victory must be possible, and she's right, and it is because she is loved, on every level. She's loved by the creators and so this moment must have a point. She's loved by celestia and so her success must be possible. She's loved by her friends, she assumes, and so the elements can lie in those connections.

Thus, the assumption that her existence must have a point is made narrativly equivalent to the choice to see value in these 5 crazy mares. That choice to look beyond the surface and find something of value is also equivalent to faust's initial desire for a girl's cartoon that was 'high quality," bot metaphorically and literally. The claim they are worth consideration IS the heart of the show.

And from there, everything in the show is framed as a slow shaving down of that idea, into a super fine point.

Most of season 1 focuses on complications. Winter wrap up and the slumber-party episode both feature a world which is wildly more difficult and complicated than twilight's initial idea. There's a mismatch here, between here initial assumptions and the reality she has to work with. Ticket master turns ever character into such a complication that no right answer can be given, and then reveals that celestia is ALSO more complicated than initially assumed when it turns out more tickets are easily available. While the personal complications offer frustrations which cannot be dealt with on their terms, complications ALSO mean that the assumptions which trap you are ALSO potentially false. There is likely a way out, and it exists, still, because you are loved.

Given this framework, I can rapid-fire S1 examples and expect you to understand them.

Twilight bails AJ out with harvest, Pinkie is rescued from the griffin's humiliation by rainbow, twilight didn't actually need to hide her power in boast busters because the town liked her, fluttershy's terrifying conceptualization of a dragon crumbles the moment that her loved ones need her, Twilight's sleepover book does NOT cover how to fix catty bitches who hate eachother but they get over it for twilight's sake. More specifically, AJ littrally gives a speech about focusing on the "one big thing that actually matters" and swallows her pride enough to say the magic words which cause rarity to instantly cooperate. It's somewhat dissappointing that rarity wasn't swayed by her love of anyone but herself and apologies.

>>42562032
Swarm of the century is directly about twilight's worry over what celestia will think, and so the bugs can be viewed as a metaphor for the chaos which preparation and worry inflict on someone when preparing their home. Note that they leave at the same time as celestia. Either way actually learning what pinkie was on about would have solved the problem completely, simply listening. Similarly, if twilight ever actually listened to celestia, she would know there was absolutely nothing to worry about, just like with the tickets earlier.

Winter wrap up is exactly twilight looking for a catastophy again, just like in episode 1, and for the same reason. She finds it, multiple times, and is tolerated until she has enough information to find something she actually can do.

Call of the cutie is applebloom catastrophic over her assumed place in life and then getting rescued from that worry by her new friends, just like twilight 1 episode before.

Fall weather friends is, finally, a bit off. There's a detail I ignored in episode 1, and that's fluttershy. She does a simple reenactment of "The lion and the mouse", one of Aesop's Fables. AJ and rainbow basically do a twist on "The tortoise and the hare". While Fluttershy can be argued to have seen "value" in the lion, and AJ+rainbow can be said to have fought over something that didn't actually matter and so harm themselves with their squabbling, the show still tends to be less clear-cut in cases where it is clearly taking heavy inspiration from older mythology. That hints at a secondary set of themes which may add something to the primary set of themes, but I don't see how exactly to crystalise that idea yet, and will have to save that for another time. Instead, I will simply note obvious.... I forget what word I want here, but obvious reenactments with a twist.

Suited for success involves the creation of clothes only as an act of affection where endless stress is piled up based on the requests of friends only for those requests to turn out to suck eggs and not be necessary in the first place. Rarity didn't need to bind herself to those expectations just like twilight didn't need to bind herself to the 2 ticket gala limit.

Feeling pinkie keen obviously involves a character worrying unnecessarily when friendship and trust is all that matters, but I would like to focus on the importance of contradiction. Pinkie here presents a complication. In winter wrap-up, and most occasions, the problems brought with complication are solved with the introduction of complication within the premise. More information eventually unravels the problem itself. The problems caused by learning and trying are also solved by learning and trying. Here, that idea is directly contradicted, and that's a good thing. Twilight does not learn a thing which lets her comprehend the pinkie sense. She instead shifts her basic understanding of what comprehension is, the assumptions she started with.

>>42562097
She accepts her lack of information. This appears to fly in the face of all prior episodes, but it does not. It clarifies, sets a boundary, creates a limit to the ideas previously expressed. Drinking water is good. It is not a contradiction to say that drowning is bad. Similarly, while understanding is good, total understanding of all things is neither possible or good, at least from the perspective of a human attempting to live a human life. Some information is, if not harmful, at least too fucking expensive, or at minimum it is too expensive to force at this exact moment.
Thus, the vague light we started with is shaved down a little more.

Sonic rainboom puts rainbow in the place of fluttershy in dragonshy, almost exactly, but also has rarity re-enact Icarus. Both rarity and Rainbow are saved by their connection, in that moment. Again, rarity learns less than the tomboy she shares the episode with.

In stare master, the unreckonable complication IS children, but also a spicy chicken. While she stands up for the kids when the time comes, she also only succeeds because the rage she's directing at the chicken is framed as authoritative, not from power but from shame. She speaks for the good of everyone, and claims a large enough moral authority to advocate for the good of everyone by implication, including the cockatrice.

>show stoppers
nooo, I don't want to think about that. Why did I set myself up for this, fuck fuck fuck

>>42562129
Turns out show stoppers is the introduction of the clubhouse, and they initially see it as garbage which they have to give some TLC. That's the first scene, which conveniently implies the episode was about that to some degree.
The treehouse is fixed by applebloom alone almost instantly. A talent is hinted for all 3.

Up until 8 minutes, they badly fail at cutiemark hunting, ignoring the talents they started the episode with. It's bad enough that cheeralee steps in and suggests a talent show, which is maybe similar to what AJ did at the start of the episode, at least in that the suggestions of an adult failed to make the basis for the passion of these foal's lives. This could be taken as foreshadowing that their marks would NOT be these particular talents.

Up until 14, they are practicing a musical play and doing terribly. their initial mistake is selecting the responsibilities which sound like fun while shying away from more obvious talents. This is the feeling of watching someone own-fault over and over.
The talent show lasts up to 18:50, unfortunately.

After that the ponies assume their performance was a comedy. During the awards, the audience stomps their hooves instead of clapping, which was a real treat after... that. Then, something important happens.

The cutiemark crusaders revise their starting assumption. They have fallen upon the humor and love of the community and discovered their own stupidity and over-complications, and come to a completely wrong conclusion. They follow every pattern up until this point, and fail, even in their happy ending. Directly after stare master, where fluttershy successfully occupies every posture of both giving and receiving love at the same time while working within the limitations of her own ignorance, the crusaders not only fail to build on the philosophy which has been built up to this point but strike it down at its base, only still allowed to try again.

This episode was also twilight's failure in everything but that, as she and AJ and cheeralee were all invested in the development of these kids. Community, the force which twilight has been learning and wielding up until this point, does not complete the job here. It can only give patience, and she gives patience with it, and you, hopefully, withhold your judgment until the implied counter-argument of the next few episodes is complete.

That also means that this episode is, by nature, incomplete, on top of being intentionally cringe. Too bad.

>>42562287
Dog+pony show uses cringe as a weapon and warps patience into stubbornness. It follows nicely from show-stoppers. There's no particular sign of her needing and having faith in a rescue, but one does come. This also isn't the first time rarity was allowed an exception from full participation in the love-solves-all themes.

She does use a secondary talent, gem-hunting, in service of her regular talent, and the episode is partially about her NOT getting tied down by her talent when it would drag her away from her real destiny. That part follows well from show-stoppers.

Spike is rewarded for his patience with a gem. Specifically, he is patiently NOT taking the fruits of rarity's labor for himself, which can be viewed as similar to twilight's decision not to try to force the kids to follow what she thinks their talents are. That also paid off, in that the talent they eventually get turns out way more valuable.

Meanwhile, the diamond dogs attempt to force rarity into labor in a way which gets in the way of her artistic endeavors. This can be viewed as the tendency of money-focused business-people to force art-creators into stifling constraints, and is here framed as the exact opposite of love or patience, and the cause of inefficiency and conflict.

Perhaps it is important that spike and the m5 each are lost in their own imaginings of rarity and their rescue, which turn out to be wrong. That part is certainly a theme so far, and leads directly into the finale. The dogs, also, are wrong about their assumptions about what will happen, and it is specifically because they do not bother to understand rarity, who is helpful at first.

There is a moment between twilight and spike, in which he breaks a stalactite for use as a lance and yells a command to charge. Twilight questions him, until he says please, and she relents. This is a more ideal version of the bad arrangement between rarity and the dogs. The message is very simple. People function better when you treat them as a person. What would be a nightmare BECOMES valuable because you chose to value them.

Maybe rarity is being used to represent self-love. She's clearly the most self-insert girl-power of the bunch in a show where god is a woman. Maybe that excuses the contradiction in the sleepover episode of having AJ apologize just to feed her ego and get her to cooperate while rarity got to be stubborn and prideful. That also makes some sense of using her as a beauty-based Icarus, a clear marking of the limits and downfall of her pride.

Actually, rarity DOES expect a rescue. At the end, she sets up a wagon full of gems for every one of her friends to drag home. Her faith in each friend translates directly into 1 wagon of gems value each.

>>42562374
>green isn't your color
Fluttershy does fashion for rarity despite not liking it. Early on, spike serves as a pincushion and says there is no pain that would stop him from helping rarity (the pins don't hurt though). So, he and fluttershy share the same motive here. Due to personal connection, fluttershy is motivated to do her best for photofinish, for rarity. This builds directly from the prior episode, where the dog-employers were completely disinterested in the motives of their worker. This time, though photofinish still isn't interested in knowing fluttershy, rarity is the beloved friend who convinces fluttershy to preform in an unfulfilling task. The personal connection forces both of them to perpetuate this farce until rarity eventually just can't take it anymore and chooses to be honest.

There's a sub-plot where twilight keeps secrets. It follows directly from the patience she showed in show-stoppers, but again fails to actually solve any particular problem other than allowing the natural course of events to play out. It is unclear from this if she's making a good decision, but it is now a direct in-story expression of suspension of disbelief allowing the story to occur, and it's straining. There is growing difficulty in ignoring the flaws which were ignored so far, and rarity solves the episode specifically by admitting such a flaw.

>Over a Barrel"
There is no love between the bufallo and ponies, or very little. Applejack has a love of bloomberg, the apple tree, and her family in apaloosa. Rainbow gets to know the bufaloo, and so forms a connection with them. This means that the decision to love and value has now lead directly to conflict between former friends. What's more, the solutions and efforts of the main characters exclusively worsen the larger conflict. Honesty does not stop the growing hostilities, at least not when these random mares stick their noses into the buisness of this town.

The conflict ends not because the mares are friends or because the chief's daughter appeals to him or because pinkie sings a song where she outright tells them the answer, but because the chief tastes a pie and decides he wants that. Since he now personally values the pie, he now personally values the apple trees. Since he values the trees, he seeks to minimize the damage of his stampede, and instantly thinks of only removing a small passage in the orchard instead of destroying the orchard. The choice to value is on the part of the one in conflict, not on the heros that want to solve things. It also applies to pie, and apple trees, and even Indians.

>>42562473
>a bird in the hoof
Such a direct application of the themes that it doesn't really need an explanation.
Assumed bird could die. Assumed celestia would be mad. Didn't learn about the bird properly. Learned they were wrong and were bailed bout by simple benevolence.
Feels like a step back in terms of narrative progression, but it is good to reinforce the basics on occasion. Maybe this should have been earlier in the season, or not.

>The Cutie Mark Chronicles
Scotaloo spends the whole episode searching for something while actively ignoring it, and even by the end she still doesn't really get it. She starts with a basic misunderstanding of what motivates people and what is good, and keeps chasing that macho image. She does not choose to value it, or come to understand it, but is hugged and tolerated all the same, and given time and patience.

>Owl's Well That Ends Well
Spike starts with the assumption that he must complete a task in order to live up to his love and investment, and unlike twilight, he's wrong. While the completion of those tasks would be nice, it turns out that his place is not based on that. The love is not conditional, and neither was twilight's. While twilight has an idea of how he can help, it's fine if an owl does it.

By implication, while celestia absolutely had a plan for how twilight could help with nightmare moon, twilight's value was not actually contingent on that.

>Party of One
Lastly, the limits of patience. If someone is being willfully blind and sinking into their own mental shortcomings, and you think you can get away with it, you drag them by force and throw them before proof they are loved. Maybe assault won't often so perfectly solve your problems in real life, but at minimum there is a time for action instead of patience, some form of action. Not everything will actually solve itself, and not everyone will maintain the faith needed to find out for themselves.

>>42562494
And that's the end of season 1, aside from the finale.

>best night ever
This sits in direct apparent contradiction to the start of the season, but in that contradiction the whole is found. Where the start was the great bursting of potential and humoring of flaw, this is the great gaping maw of fact and face.

Again we come with all our ill-formed ideas and giggle away what concerns may exists, only to harm all those around us in our ignorance and arrogance. In total faith and imagined value they are blind. They may even think they are patient, but they are patient in service to ideas they decided on long ago, very impatiently. They see a whole castle full of people who haven't chosen to value them, and pull out force to make them see, but they don't see, themselves. They assume there must be a reason, an opportunity, and so imagine one into existence, and that is a mistake, here, because this world doesn't love them.

And in the end, they take shelter in a smaller world which does.

That's a very sad way to say it, but it is what happens. A better philosophy would be able to understand what the gala was and treat it according the the opportunities it actually presents. A better show might take this setup and use it to slowly wrestle the wider apathetic world into some kind of livable environment. Maybe the characters could become less arrogant, less filled with notions and bias, and more adaptable. However, we all know, that isn't what happened. This shaved-down point, this bright edge we see at the end of this season, with it's solid core somewhere in there, will one day shave away that good single point, and miss it's mark.

In the good world, this core, this shelter and sanctuary, is used as a fallback, a base from which all neurosis may be postponed and lessened, so that the world at-large can be dealt with with a calmer hoof or hand.
In a sick world, filly-Luna never stops sobbing in Celestia's arms, and twilight never stops eating doughnuts with her friends while ignoring the outside world, and calling that patience.

And that's it for season 1. Season 2 tomorrow, maybe, or the next day.

>>42541716 (OP)
I learned a lot today.

>>42562032
>AJ littrally gives a speech about focusing on the "one big thing that actually matters" and swallows her pride enough to say the magic words which cause rarity to instantly cooperate. It's somewhat dissappointing that rarity wasn't swayed by her love of anyone but herself and apologies.
Yea, it's a bit backwards how the episode tries to say 'both sides have a point' and have AJ literally say that Rarity was right, while in terms of actual execution, it's really just AJ who's in the right and Rarity's methods were completely wrong all the way through. Rarity's 'attention to detail' doesn't really solve anything here, it only causes her to ignore the actual problems at hand in favor of wasting her attention on things that don't actually fix anything. I don't know why the writers were so averse to just admitting Applejack has a point sometimes and the other character can actually be wrong, but apparently she simply must be stated to be wrong even in circumstances where her solution is the correct one.
>>42562473
>>Over a Barrel"
You know, there's interesting moral hypocrisies in this episode, especially on the part of the buffalo, that the show and the fanbase both unfortunately often completely overlook. I feel like people usually side with the buffalo just due to historical bias, but in terms of actions, they actually have way less of a moral high ground than the settler ponies do.

>>42563085
>I feel like people usually side with the buffalo just due to historical bias, but in terms of actions, they actually have way less of a moral high ground than the settler ponies do.
this
>ownership comes from labor put in natural resources
>buffalos literally do nothing with the land they pass through
>p0nies farm on it
>somehow buffalos owned it

>>42563104
>>buffalos literally do nothing with the land they pass through
This is the part that gets me most of all. They don't even live on the land, they just stampede through it once in a while. That;s like going to war with someone for building a house along a path that you commute on. Besides that, the episode also kind of glossed over the fact that the buffalo's attack, kidnap, and steal property from ponies who have nothing to do with the conflict with the settlers. Like, the buffalo's straight up steal Bloomberg, and while Applejack may have relatives who are settlers, she herself has nothing to do with their feud, so the buffalo attacking their train and stealing her property really diminishes any moral high ground they could have, since their just as guilty of the thing they accuse the settlers of. You could argue they're actually worse in fact, since they're knowingly stealing someones property, where as the settlers didn't even know about the buffalo when they first arrived, since you know, they didn't actually inhabit the land they lay claim to.

>>42563104
That's a very idealistic view of ownership, to the point where it just doesn't function.

At the highest level, ownership comes from a man with a gun. Reduced to the animal level, ownership is territorial integrity and comes from reputation made by claw and roar.

Somewhere in the middle, ownership comes from the payment of tribute in the form of taxes and purchase.

In all three cases, interest parties make a sacrifice which translates into manpower in order to secure that resource, which is outside of the labor put into the development of that resource. You put money, which is manpower, into the ownership of the land because of your interest, and your interest is generally the exploitation of that land for your own good and peace.

So, if there were a speices which absolutely required a particular mountain pass to be clear every year 2 times a year or they would all die, the would be right to go to war over that land just so they could make their yearly trips in time. When survival is the difference, your interest is high, and so your sacrifice in blood can be worth making. There's nothing hypocritical or petty about that.

Too bad the buffalo were full of shit and valued the well being of others less than yearly baked goods.
Not only that, they valued their own sacrificed lives less than baked goods, or valued their own stubbornness itself less than pie.
Probably, they thought of it as freedom and a birthright, and again they traded it for flaky crust.

>>42563196
>That's a very idealistic view of ownership, to the point where it just doesn't function.
literally the only moral and logical way for ownership to work is to define in as extension of one's labor. Ownership by force/"might makes right" is inhuman and just animal
You do need "violent" force to protect your property, but it's not a requirement for its existence (just for long-term continuous existence)
>In all three cases, interest parties make a sacrifice which translates into manpower in order to secure that resource, which is outside of the labor put into the development of that resource
Securing resources is an act of putting labor into s aid resources. A simple fence already establishes that you own a plot of land
>So, if there were a speices which absolutely required a particular mountain pass to be clear every year 2 times a year or they would all die, the would be right to go to war over that land just so they could make their yearly trips in time
a intelligent species would put a fucking border over the territory
>Probably, they thought of it as freedom and a birthright, and again they traded it for flaky crust.
just like real American Indians kek
let's stop /mlpol/ b4 thread derails into off-topic garbage

up

>>42561082
>vogel deleted on sight by mods
Maybe the mods do the bare minimum after all.

>>42563196
i seems contradictory to fight for ownership and safety you cant fight for peace.

>>42564763
SUP BRA. WHAT'S GOOD, BRO? Talking smack? Behind my back? Ready to ack? on this cock?
Do you need an adult?

>>42564880
Well, we'll see how long you'll last before the janitor sweeps up your shit.

>>42565322
If this post stays up till this thread 404 then you owe me $10 (in crypto).

>>42565348
Well get to vogeling then, make some of your vogel posts on the catalog.

>>42562523
So, metanarrativly, in season 1 we had twilight sparkle being blessed by the benevolence of celestia, which is equated to the artist/corpos blessing the show. These blessing came with the assumption that there must be a point behind it, and so that there must be a plan or expectation in need of fulfilling.

As such, the assumption that there must be a point enables the assumption that the old mare's tale has any deeper meaning, the assumption that hope is not lost when facing nmm, the assumption that the elements were inside, and so the assumption that these mares are worth anything, which is equivalent to the assumption that a girls cartoon can be worth anything.

Twililght stays in ponyville, and does this specifically to learn about being friends, which is to say she is there to learn how to value these insane hicks and find her place. Initially, she's hyper aggressive in attempting to help applejack, though rainbow prompts twilight in that case. Eventually, she simply stands by and waits patiently in the cmc's case and in "green isn't your color," as the show has repeatedly punished neurotic behavior and rewarded the discarding of assumption.

Finally, at the gala, the m6 are exposed to an audience that fundamentally is not invested in them, and cannot force themselves down this audience's throat. The initial assumption that they are loved itself becomes a neurotic assumption, and so the methods that have been learned about finding your place do not apply. The solution, in the moment, is to retreat to the smaller circle of people who actually like you.

Irl, this is equivalent to the show finally being released into the world. Some people will like it. Some people won't. No matter how high-quality this little girl's cartoon is, it can't actually force people to like it. As such, this isn't a tiny circle just for these 6, it's a small circle just for us.

And that's nice, if dangerous.

MLP is clearly a show with themes of day and night, involving the meeting of extremes. It starts with sun and moon. On one end of the season, it metaphorically is created. On the other, it metaphorically is published. Twiliight is in her nature a sheltered higher-class scholar autist and she spend all her time trying to reach down and help people from on high. That's how she starts, at least, and almost immediately finds she has to actually know people to help them.

So, in season 1 they were born and defined. That was the task.

>>42566178
Season 2 opens with discord. It's his name, and it's what wakes him up from stone when the cmc fight next to him. Following directly from the gala, this is a direct answer to that solution. Even in your tiny circle, there will still be strife. The whole episode follows this idea, in that the characters personalities warp and deform and they fight, and then they are reminded by a set of scrolls that they have been friends and that was better than this.

Taking the magic out of the situation, people aren't the most rational things. Our perspectives and observations are imperfect, as is our decision making. Given nothing but time, we may come to resent those near us simply because we're having and off day ourselves, or because we simply aren't good enough to interpret events without negativity on a consistent basis, and so these imaginary or minor problems may stack up until they feel important.

If our perspectives on other people may shift so easily, naturally, like a force of nature, then some amount of actual effort has to be made to center ourselves and remember who we and who others are. Nostalgic memories are an excellent balm for that affliction. Note that, in remembering who others are, the characters also remember themselves, and so form their identities.

So, season 1 formed the characters and their place in the world, and season 2 immediately challenged that.

>lesson zero
In some ways, this is somehow more on the nose. Twilight assumes that she must complete a task which would justify the blessings afforded to her, and she's wrong. The stress of searching for that task when it doesn't reasonably exist at this time drives her away from patience and stability and her normal persona and directly into neurosis. The shelter of her friend group doesn't prevent the issue, though they do forcefully come solve it afterwords.
She also deforms the personalities of those around her with the want-it-need-it doll.
Other characters carry the burden here, and that extends to the task of writing letters to celestia. The growth which twilight experienced is being spread to others too, instead of kept to herself along with all the pressure.

>Luna Eclipsed
She isn't who we thought she was and persoanlly does not understand her place in culture or the meaning of her associated holiday. Pinkie tells her. Notably, the holiday is about wearing costumes, the identity of others.

>Sisterhooves Social
Sweetie spends the start of the episode failing to be useful at home and eventually gets mad about all the rejection which results. Rarity mopes and copes until she finds a piece of paper which reminds her of their bond, exactly the the scrolls against discord. Rarity then uses mud to pretend to be AJ and compete in the sisterhooves social, and so get back in sweetie's good graces by temporarrally shedding her identity. While the more direct use of identity here is odd, it is basically exactly the discord episode but without the magical parts.

>>42566260
>The Cutie Pox
Literal symbol of identity twisted by magic curse. The solution is to speak the truth, which would mean sincerely expressing yourself, and so expressing an actual true identity metaphorically.
>May the Best Pet Win!
Rainbow things she wants one thing, but actually wants another. Eventually, she figures it out and speaks the truth. The turtle is sincere to the point of being strange the whole time.
>The Mysterious Mare Do Well
A fucked up episode, but the themes are clear at least. Rainbow lives for adulation when was she really wants is companionship. Her companions pull their companionship away from her and kick her in the teeth until she breaks down and admits what she actually wants while pouting alone. Notably, rainbow doesn't actually learn her lesson about what really matters to her, and instead is told to be less of a braggart, so maybe she deserved suffering.
>sweet and elite
Rarity lies about who she is and who here friends are and then eventually admits who she is and who her friends are.
>Secret of My Excess
Spike's physical body and personality deform while he semi-lies in order to hoard gifts. Eventually, he makes a direct choice between what he wants and what he needs, and chooses to remember rarity by way of a sparkly red heart-gem, and so becomes himself again.
>Hearth's Warming Eve
The cast is cast in a play as a group of dead ponies from history. This historic event involves ponies choosing peace over war through personal connection, and this bit of history is like scroll which reminds their whole civilization who they are every year. Your history is also part of the information you use to ground your identity.
>Family Appreciation Day
Your grandmother's life is also full of memories that ground and justify the shape of your own life. Who she is is part of who you are.
>Baby Cakes
fuck

>>42566286
Well, there's the not-your-babies implication, but that's kind of ignored, which is basically the answer in that case. That, or abandon. Put up or shut up. Pick one. He picks fatherhood.

Repeatedly, pinkie incorrectly interfaces with the babies and is frustrated. She makes noise in the hospital, is impatient while the kids are being changed, and doesn't know she needs to burp them. There's a tiny amount of "identity" theme here, in that she's trying to initially find a place in their lives, but that's not the same as the episodes so far.

This is an introduction, and so it seems like it belongs more in the previous season than this one, but she's in the authoritative position instead of the youth position and the people she's getting to know are babies. As an adult, she's trying carefully not to fuck everything up, and the infinite benevolence of the babies won't rescue her from any real mistake she might make.

Twilight arrives halfway trhough the episode and says she thought pinkie might need help. Pinkie gets prideful about it instantly and pushes twilight out, meaning that pinkie has defined part of her self worth by her ability to complete this task, which is the exact mistake of 90% of the other episodes, just from a fresh perspective. At this point in adulthood, it really does matter if you're capable or not, though you could always just accept your inability. Those are the two acceptable actions: put up or shut up.

Pinkie chooses to force compliance through strict demands with no feedback, which appears to work momentarily, but doesn't. The tighter she attempts to hold the kids, the stronger they resist and the more she gets hurt for her efforts.

Pinkie breaks down and bawls, and the kids stop what they are doing and dump flower on themselves to make her feel better. This is... insane if taken directly as a lesson we are supposed to learn. It's not completely metaphorically wrong, but it is still depending on the benevolence of babies while refusing help from twilight.

In her letter to celestia, she directly says she wasn't actually ready, so we can interpret this as a total failure on her part if we wish. However, the babies still say her name, and so show some affection for her, and that causes her to agree to try again.

So, we can take that as the less-magical version of "babies suddenly caring about your feelings and doing something for you," which is not reasonable to expect. Instead, the thing which gets you through your frustration at your own failure is your own value of those babies and/or their affection they return to you.

This one seems thematically strange now, in terms of its place in this season, but it may make more sense after looking at the rest of the season.

>>42566343
>The Last Roundup
Aj is so crushed by pride and shame that she runs away after failing a competition and not living up to her self-image. Her friends have to come basically force her to be truthful, and then they go home, despite the lack of prize-money, because nobody actually cared about the money.
>The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000
While less direly tied to identity than most of S2, it still is tied directly to pride based on skill, and so isn't far from the last roundup. Also, dash is driven to eat dirt for cider. In the end, the main reason the flimflam brothers leave is that public opinion shifts against them, which means that your actual quality of output and level of responsability DOES matter when people don't like you, or else you're just fucked if people don't already like you for you.
Applejacks's note is ALWAYS worth mentioning, particularly now.
> I wanted to share my thoughts with you. [clears throat] I didn't learn anythin'! Ha! I was right all along! If you take your time to do things the right way, your work will speak for itself. Sure I could tell you I learned something about how my friends are always there to help me, and I can count on them no matter what, but truth is, I knew that already too.
It approaches perfection, aside from the arrogance. Patience has been reinforced over and over and over. The possitve version of the lesson of "best night ever" is that you've always got your bonds to fall back on, and can rest your mind on that to maintain the calm needed to act with care and purpose, or patience. Any number of mistakes may be forgiven when you're what matters

Yet, there also is the flaw. She fucked up, and then said she learned nothing. She changed nothing. When one makes a mistake, they should learn how to avoid it, or at least get a little closer to learning that. There is, here, a hint of stagnation, and this is supposed to be a mare nation.

>>42541716 (OP)
This thread's gone to shit.

>>42566433
Don't worry, after I'm done briefly mentioning all 221 epsidoes and putting forward a theory as to the narrative of every season, I'll give the thread back.

>>42566426
>Read it and weep
On top of pretending not to like what she likes, rainbow dash is also clearly self-inserting as daring do, in the way which we all do. She admits it, eventually. Simple.
There may be something to say about the relationship between the irl audience and these dumb ponies, about how we live better by admitting our enjoyments, and define ourselves in relation to purple smart, but not much. It's just been awhile since the show touched on the meta narrative directly.

>hears and hooves day
They drink potions that force them to become different people for a bit.
Paired with the next episode, it draws a very clear line between playing matchmaker, which is bad I guess, and bringing to lovers together, which is good I guess.

>a friend in deed
Opens with pinkie entertaining the kids, hinting that this episode is about more competently attempting the adult role of the binary as defined above.
Sure enough, she immediately shows detailed knowledge of many characters and uses that knowledge to improve their lives. It's not the "searching for your place" of the first season. It's not the "just force it" which failed over and over. Her own identity is already fairly secure. All she's doing here is showing off, and cranky doodle donkey is just another challenge she WILL figure out. And she does.

Notably, pinkie retreats to get advice from multiple friends at once, which may be the first scene like that. and is a pretty direct expression of best night ever's lesson.

Successful attempts involve asking questions and listening to the answer, so long as we ignore that he says he wants her to go away... which I think he doesn't technically say until the end. When she acts against that, she brings matilda with her, which I think is enough to qualify for the exception from party of one, and without having to assault anyone.

So, this episode is like stare master, in that it is more about a character perfectly representing the philosophy that has been displayed so far in practice, more than a character really learning. This is also s2e18, where that was s1e17

>>42566458
>putting your hoof down
No matter how you cut it, this degree of shyness is about being seen. It doesn't exist where there are no other people. Maybe it isn't always about "how others see you," but it is about public appearance. In this case, there's clearly a difference between how she sees herself and how she is, and she eventually excersizes enough self control to be better, by finding a functional middle point between how she once was and how she behaved without inhibition.
>it's about time
Literally a character fails to recognize themselves properly and experiences existential dread until realizing everything was fine.
>dragon quest
Teen goes to his genetic people to learn about himself and discoveres that his real home made him who he is.
>hurricane fluttershy
Not that different from putting your hoof down. Flying seems to require not just commitment and awareness, but calm cofort in your own skin. While she doesn't necessarily get that far, she figures out how to fly as a performance.
>ponyville confidential
Public perception is turned into a weapon, or really is just abused with total apathy.
While perception has been tied into identity in the last few episodes, this is less personal of an angle. It's like they took all of the personal attention which pinkie mastered in 'a friend in deed' and used it for personal gain instead of keeping it secret and using it only for the good of that person. They also form an actual secret identity, and that identity is soon hated for its works. If taken as part of the adult side of the coin, this can be a limit placed on being nosy, even when people willingly answer your questions. Is solved by honestly publishing their mistakes.

>MMMystery on the Friendship Express"
End of the season. Pinkie is explicitly given an important task, a responsibility. She gets assistance from her friends immediately.
While she's very modivated, she doesn't seem to place her self-worth on the task. Determining the identity of the cake-thief isn't quite the same kind of identity-issue from early in the season.

Halfway through the epsisode, pinkei and twilight switch hats and roles, meaning that pinkie's methods failed. Pinkie's method was to assume it was each competitor and then come up with a method they could have used. Twilight's method was to interview pinkie for information and observe objects for physical evidence. Twilight's version worked. The lesson's pretty clear, and while the identity theming is present, it's not really primary. This is just a strict mystery, and it hamers home the way to avoid the mistake of assumption which exists in basically every episode prior. it says it directly: bother to actually ask and pay attention, and adjust your ideas accordingly instead of being stubborn. And if you can't, then make twilight do it. That's fine.

>>42566515
>a canterlot wedding
I have SO much to say about a canterlot wedding, but this isn't a canterlot wedding review. It's a season 2 review inside of a whole-series review.

So, what SHOULD I say here? Should I point out that twilight isn't who we thought she was? Should I point out that shining's bride isn't who twilight thought she was? Should I point out that said bride then turned out to be a different person AGAIN, this time a bug? Should I point out that changelings are shapeshifters in general? Should I point out that celestia gave up on twilight and misunderstood her? Should I point out that every character is taking the adult position and bending over backwards for fake cadence while exercising an abundance of patience and witholding their assumptions?

No, I should keep it narrow.

In general, most characters exercise every part of every lesson up until this point. Twilight isn't, by the end, wrong or making assumptions. She has gathered more information than others and seen her brother abused with her own eyes. That's not the point of failure in this system.

She fails when even her own tiny circle finally fails as a sanctuary. She's found the limit, the point at which they won't chase her down and bring her back. She's left screaming in rage in the dark, hardly a trace of herself left. And then, cadence reaches out a hoof.

Metaphorically, this appears to make no sense. If this is "the dark savage place people go when they are isolated and lose their identity", then why would cadence be here?

Well, we don't know chrysalis yet. We know "fake cadence." From our perspective, there are two potential cadences, and this can be taken more directly, metaphorically. When you hear that someone has gotten romantically involved with your loved one, the obvious worry is "ok well is this person fucking terrible or not???" You're wondering what attitude they are bringing into your family. Maybe they are a possessive freak driven by instinct who's infesting your lives like a parasite and controlling people through force and other physical persuasion. Maybe they are cool. Cadence is cool. Bug-queen is a freak

After this meeting in the cave, twilight and cadence emerge and cadence takes her place by her new husband. In other words, the effect of this meeting is that cadence replaces chrysalis in the real world and chrysalis is ejected from existence, nearly. So, this meeting took place in the heart. Cadence chooses to appeal to twilight using the nostalgic "ladybug" dance, meaning that it is cadence who chooses to reach out and appeal to twilight, just like twilight reached out to her friends using the friendship letters in s2e2. We have moved to the opposite side of the arrangement. What we did for others, someone has done for us, and that's what it really took to save cadence. To save cadence, we had to let cadence choose to save us instead

And in doing that, she became the real cadence, and we regained our reputation as the real twilight

>>42566286
>>Baby Cakes
>fuck
Kek. Seems like a lot of people usually gloss over this one in favor of MMDW when talking about shitty episodes.
>>42566426
>Yet, there also is the flaw. She fucked up, and then said she learned nothing. She changed nothing. When one makes a mistake, they should learn how to avoid it, or at least get a little closer to learning that. There is, here, a hint of stagnation, and this is supposed to be a mare nation.
I think you're being a little overly dramatic here. Every character had an episode where they were right and didn't learn any thing. In fact, AJ was the last pony of the mane 6 to receive such an episode. Difference between her and the rest of them is that they had their episodes in season 1, where they weren't the ones writing the letter, and in subsequent seasons, where there were no more letters. AJ actually has the least amount of "I was right" episodes compared to everyone else, as this is basically her first and only episode of that nature. If this is supposed to be evidence of stagnation, then the other characters are all far more stagnant, and have been since season 1.
Plus, what exactly is her grievous fuck up here she needed to learn from anyway? She isn't the one that bet the farm stupidly, granny did that. Applejack was pretty sensible the whole way through.

>>42566619
"there is a flaw" is not an extreme statement. "She fucked up", while more vulgar, is also not that impactful of a claim. "There is a hint of" is the far opposite of overly dramatic, it's a downplay.

"grievous" is exactly dramatic, for effect. That's what it is. That's the point.

Anyway, I was mostly running on the assumption that if one makes no mistakes, then they generally don't end up in extremely stupid situations like this, particularly in moral-based kids cartoons.

>on rewatching the episode
Aj makes two mistakes, basically, which are both one mistake, in essense.

While her family huddles to discuss their next move, her only contribution is "I don't know" and "we've done it like this till now", which are inactive and uncertain responses. When Applebloom and grannie are busy getting trolled and baited by flim and flam until they accept an unfavorable challenge, initially grannie attempts to keep applebloom calm. AJ does not do the same favor for grannie, or attempt to. She, instead, sweats a lot and looks worried. She is consumed with uncertainty and unwilling to move off of tradition or take any action which will alter the course of things. What happens, she just lets happen.

More importantly, she and her family are simply failing as suppliers. There are enough apples that the apple family parts with whole sections of the orchard for free. By the end of the episode, on account of the competition, there's more than enough barrels to sell some to everyone. The sales of cider represent enough money that apparently the business would be doomed without them, and the apples can make a significant change in the supply just by trying a bit harder, and simply don't want to, and won't ask for help without strange circumstances, and won't hire a guy to run on a treadmill.

These would be changes, they would have to be made proactively under normal circumstances in order to adapt to the demand for their supply. They don't.

Aj's version of tradition at this time IS stagnation, fear and unwillingness to grapple with the slightest hint of uncertainty, to the point where they could have rightfully lost an effective monopoly. Even going forward, there are changes to their buisness model they should make, and they won't.

Grievous, minor, it doesn't matter. There's a business mistake which pretends to be a traditionalist philosophy mistake, but is actually an emotional weakness, and she doesn't fix it, or account for it. She embraces it, and then chooses to write the queen about it.

>>42566619
When pinkie was in the right, in swarm, pinkie WAS in the right. She didn't make a mistake. She didn't spend the whole episode making up for the mistake. She cleaned up the messes of others. Pinkie did the bailing. It would be better if she communicated more clearly, but nobody was interested, she may be neurologically incapable, and most importantly she didn't need their help. She legitimately had this handled, just as well as it could be handled, even with others making it worse.

And lastly, if I should accept that the thematic tendency towards resting on the good will of others has at this point lead to AJ's current willingness to cling to her traditions, then the stagnation which is currently just a hint DOES flow through every episode by implication, and is exactly equivalent to knowing that one is loved enough to be forgiven for whatever goes wrong

It would be an unfortunate conclusion, but thankfully would only be a retroactive change in meaning not fully represented in earlier episodes.

>fuck
mmdw is fun, a good time, plenty enjoyable. The ending is just a slap. It's objectionable, somewhat disgusting.

Babycakes, meanwhile, is just loud. It's just.... so loud and dumb and misses a lot of what makes the show good by only having one intelligent character on screen for the most part, and having that character be pinkie. I like pinkie, just, maybe I don't like it when she acts in a way poorly designed to entertain a baby. But, it isn't disgusting.

They are totally unrelated kinds of bad.

>>42566433
>implying it wasn';t at the start

>>42566746
>pinkie WAS in the right. She didn't make a mistake.
She wasn't though. She spent the entire episode refusing to explain her intentions even when the other characters asked her. The entire episode would have been over in a few minutes if she had just explained the situation when Twilight asked her to at the beginning.
>It would be better if she communicated more clearly, but nobody was interested
They were interested, she just walked off.
Besides that, the thing with the apples is that their production is fine. They can make cider plenty fast, that isn't their bottleneck. The bottleneck in their production is the quality controls they have in place. Realistically, it probably isn't worth the money to hire a bunch of extra ponies to only increase production by a little bit. Her friends can't always be there to provide free labor. The episode does a pretty good job of showing the error in the attitudes of the townsponies. At first, they want more cider, and that's it. There's not enough cider, and they just want more. Flim and Flam then serve as a sort of 'be careful what you wish for' element, as their practices easily produce enough cider for everyone, but a large portion of it is low quality and no where near what the ponies actually want to drink. Everyone can always work harder for something, you can always put in more effort, so I just find it a bit unrealistic to say the apples just need to work harder and provide more product that, frankly, is a luxury. Cider isn't a vital product, the town ponies aren't owed cider, it isn't really the Apple's responsibility to make sure there's tons of cider for everyone to have.

>>42568308
Here's the dialogue btw. Pinkie was asked and had an opportunity to explain, and she refused. The whole episode happens the way id does because she didn't stop to explain the situation to Twilight when she asked her what a parasprite was right here. That is an error on her part.

>>42566433
Might just make new threads on different analysisfag topics. I ain't reading all that and it's cluttering everything up.

>>42568308
>and most importantly, she didn't need their help
The rest, fine, sure.

>harder
While "they could" appeals to infinite possibilities and would be meaningless on my part, the issue here is "they did" and we saw it make a significant difference instantly.

>more
In less than 30 minutes they duplicated their production line. Quality control is, currently, an old woman, and her skill, also, is duplicated by rarity within 2 minutes of learning or less.

>it isn't the apples responsibility
It is exactly that. They took competition to be a threat. Both the apples and the flimflams had sufficient greed to squabble over exclusive rights to sell in ponyville. The fact they desire that monopoly and depend on it means they have a responsibility to maintain it, and that means keeping that market cornered, for their own selfish sake. Economically, they are showing a weakness which created this conflict. Sure, they aren't slaves, but that doesn't make all their free actions good ideas.

You can say the town is retarded, and that's true. They shouldn't be giving the right of production away without direct agreements constituting contracts. It should be more like village bread makers back in the day, where not doing your job would piss off like everyone, and your job was made pretty clear and objective.

The difference which makes the apples better than flimflam, is that when the pressure came and they had to produce faster, flim and flam sacrificed quality, and the apples didn't, because the apples cared about the quality of what they were selling. That's the good thing which the apples believed in, and which they did not have to learn a lesson about.

>>42568359
There's not shit to clutter, nobody else is posting, basically.

>>42566594
So season 1 had characters repeatedly being wrong and learning the limitations of the kinds of assumptions which could be justified. Similarly, the characters themselves were created and clarified, given their defined personalities in the first place. It involved the creation of and discovery of these characters and their surrounding world, and ended on a movement from a benevolent environment into a new and apathetic environment which they could not handle yet.

Season 2 has characters directly confronting versions of themselves and dealing with tasks which were far less forgiving of failure. In moving from the "benevolent" to the "real", they were perpetually stressed to the point that it tested and bent their sense of self. (AJ, despite her passivity, DID completely resist this primary challenge which the season presented to everyone) What season 1 constructed, season 2 deconstructed, and hopefully made a bit stronger. Also, twilight and pinkie litterally exchanging hats repeatedly while pinkie gets better at being a detective is a pretty direct visual metaphor.

Season 3 is weird, cause it is short. The opener is about negativity. The end has twilight use the bonds between her friends to remind them what their jobs are supposed to be, which feels now like a repeat of the identity-vs-nostalgia ideas of season 2. Somewhere between, there must be some connective tissue

>>42543145
What do you guys think of HIM, his review style compared to others? I think The Beast's style is very direct and simple. He doesn't go full metaphor and he only goes full technical when he says "scene by scene analysis". Also it really goes to show how interested the fandom is in understanding a little kids show better or improving their own discussion over TV Shows which is zero. He said he's reviewing other shows too.
https://desuarchive.org/mlp/thread/42559907
https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/150263796

>>42569036
this.

internet shat itself for hours and now I'm sleepy
so, first day missed

>>42570722
many such cases

>>42570722
>first day missed
What did you miss?

>>42569369
>crystal empire
3 things of note. The m5 distracting the crystal ponies with a fake heart DID work, just not forever.
Twilight and spike at the fear-door both failed to overcome it They just woke eachother up and then twilight magic-ed the door away.
Twilight won by letting spike take the heart without her, and accepting that she would therefore fail celestia's test.

So.. what the fuck does this mean?

Accepting help from a friend to overcome your own neurotic nonsense seems to fit with the prior lessons about nostalgia and memory, but just without any nostalgia or memories involved. It's rainbow using force in party of one, except we didn't need to drag the characters off to see proof of anything. In isolation it's the simplistic thing in the world, but in the context of this show it seems lacking. Perhaps that's the point? I could say that the characters are being given the chance to willingly choose their reactions, instead of being forced, but if that were the case then twilght would have broken out of the illusion alone.

The crystal ponies are being turned from their depressive state by the likeness of the crystal heart, but not the real one. However, the problem isn't fully solved until the real one shows up. Where does this fit into the previous narratives? What's a fake reminder? What would a fake friendship-scroll be? What's a real friendship-scroll, then?

When twilight let spike take the heart, that required that she looked directly into the face of her fears and accepted that they would certainly come to pass. She didn't actually make a choice of self-sacrifice, because she had no option to succeed on the terms celestia gave her. She lost. Her victory was in salvaging what good she could from the situation in spite of being upset. She was trapped by her fears again, and she simply lived in the fears, which is a completely different answer from the door answer earlier.

Why was it required that cadence showed up with a real artifact? Why are we suddenly focusing on authenticity in direct opposition to sincerity? Isn't the power in you all along? Taken as a depressive episode suffered by the whole kingdom, why would authenticity OR sincerity solve this problem? Interpreted that way, suddenly twilight's answer fits much better, in that she just lived within the "depression" and made reasonable choices within that framework, but the metaphor is exactly backwards for the crystal ponies, who lived in total denial of the problems until someone else arrived with the solution.

In the literary tradition of the holy grail, the kingdom becomes sick when the king becomes sick, and is cured when the king is cured. The king is cured when the correct words are spoken to him, and those correct words generally represent in some way a philosophical counterpoint to the narrative ill which the work primarily discusses. The grail then appears as the kingdom is healed, and so represents hat fictional country's bright future.

>>42572742
So, what would it mean that twilight supplied the answer "simply accept the depression" and everyone in the kingdom implemented this answer by becoming not-depressed.

You could squint super-hard and say that the crystal ponies implemented this answer by finding out that the heart they were using was fake, but that wasn't their choice and did not help solve the problem, instead making everything worse.

Given all this, we can say that twilight's confrontation with the door was a sample and she used an incomplete answer. It's purpose was maybe to define very clearly what her fear was so that it would be easily recognised as the very thing she accepts later. While twilight and spike are initially able to rescue each other from unhappy thoughts through a simple nudge, twilight makes the decision to accept and engage in unhappy thoughts while sparing spike and everyone else.

And on top of that, the ponies mistake cadence for "the crystal princess", who's long dead by now, and so their princess is still sincere instead of authentic, while the heart is both.

The messaging is horrendously confused, and that is also true for celestia. Because celestia wanted to test twilight for "some reason", she suddenly commands twilight to save the empire basically alone. This wasn't a mistake. It wasn't a clever ploy, or at least that is never stated Celestia legitimately said that dumb shit and then walked it back later when she realized that twilight had done the right thing.

It's an episode about a hypocrisy, and the great sadness which twilight accepts, she learns was false. In return, she instead learns that celestia is wrong. This is the moment when she proved she was worthy to rule, and that worthiness came with the knowledge that those in charge are frauds.

With that in mind, the storyline with the crystal ponies can be taken as them getting a glimpse at the same truth, and then reinstating the myth of authority. Note that the heart appeared before them at the same time as a heroic and somewhat theatrical cadence. The mythical artifact symbol which channels the joy of the masses into a productive output is equated to the worship of the elite, to the idea of a noble noble.