Twilight, of course, tries to put things right - but Starlight seems to be too strong, or perhaps too evil, for her to defeat her.
And so, we are "treated" to a series of increasingly dark alternate Pony timelines - an Epic Pony War against Sombra. Or a group of ponies having fled to the Everfree forest where, with Zecora's help, they try to hold out against the changelings. Or a world where it's eternal night, because Nightmare Moon was never reformed, and sent her sister to the moon. Or, a glimpse of a world where Discord runs the show. And another one where Tirek is just blasting away at everything. And it culminates in a dry-dust, destroyed world. (Slightly reminiscent to me of Charn from "The Magician's Nephew")
(Interestingly all the "villains" save for the Sirens get their own alternate-timeline to dominate).
Finally, Twilight figures it out: she can't BEAT Starlight, but maybe she can SHOW her the error of her ways (Heh: "Twilight Sparkle used LECTURE. It's super effective!"). So she drags Starlight along....
And we find out Starlight's backstory: she had a friend, a friend who
One of the things another Pony fan mentioned was a comparison between Starlight here, and Moondancer in the episode "Amending Fences." And it strikes me: both of them suffered what they perceived as a rejection, or as a friend somewhat betraying them. But my reaction to the two characters was very different, because of their different ways of reacting to the situation.
Moondancer I felt sorry for (sorry enough to want to make a pony stuffie of her....) Moondancer turned the rejection in on herself. She decided, it seems, she wasn't worthy of having friends, and so she focused instead on her studies and became somewhat of a hermit. (Though Twilight did show her in the end that she had always had SOME friends, and also that the same-age friends she pushed away after her big disappointment really did want to be her friend).
Starlight, however - Starlight turned the rejection outward and either knowingly or unknowingly (being too selfish to see otherwise) hurt other ponies - first, by taking away their talents, and in these episodes, by trying to change the timeline. And.....I can't bring myself to feel sorry for Starlight in her disappointment. Because she lashed out at others and hurt them - she apparently wanted others to hurt as much as she did, or she wanted to fix things so nopony had better friends than she did. (And I admit, I don't fully trust her "rehabilitation" at the end. I wonder if there will be more in season 6. After all, Discord backslid several times.)
That's something I've noticed; different people react differently to sadness/upset/disappointment/betrayal. Some people lash out and wind up hurting a lot of other people; others, tend to turn the disappointment inward and mostly hurt themselves. ("I'm not good enough to have a friend like that, that's why they left me.")
I think I relate to Moondancer a lot better - and frankly, feel angry at Starlight - because I tend to be one of the turn-it-on-myself types.
* At the beginning, Twilight's speech is like many talks I have been to, down to the "Next Slide, Please" and the "gunner" in the front row taking notes. (Moondancer, here)
* Dystopian futures with Ponies make me twitch just as much as dystopian future stories with humans. Even though I figured it HAD to all be made right; the writers and Hasbro would not be that cruel.
But no, I don't like dystopian futures, because I'm too good at thinking of them as something that could actually happen.
* Another thought about Starlight: she reminds me (pre-"redemption") of the Gore Vidal quotation (the only one of his I am familiar with): "It is not enough that I should succeed; others must fail." She strikes me as that sort of pony. And she's willing to see the destruction of Equestria, apparently, in order to thwart Twilight and her little band of friends.
Some have questioned, "How can one childhood event cause that?" Or "She's a grown-(bleep) mare, she shouldn't act like that." I suspect those people have not observed quite as much of human nature as I have; I have met people who were altered irreparably by one event in their lives, and I have know far more than my share of allegedly grown-up people who never quite left grade school behind. And who could throw a crazy tantrum, even to the point of destroying something, because of their hurt feelings.
(I spent much of my childhood being told to get over my hurt feelings, so I admit I feel a certain annoyance when an adult throws a tantrum over them.)
* Butterfly effect reference? Did I see that? Starlight sitting in Fluttershy's spot, and the butterflies on the throne? Surely that's not just chance.
* Spike is actually pretty well written in this one. In some episodes he is, forgive the language, the butt-monkey a little bit. But here, he provides emotional support for Twi and a sounding-board for her plans to try to fix things.
* Do the voice actresses change their voices slightly (Making them "harder") for the dystopian-future Mane 6? It seems that way.
* Even the Epic Pony War is not that violent; at one point one of Sombra's and one of Celestia's soldiers are engaged in what looks more like a slap-fight than anything.
* The timeline where Starlight convinces the bullies not to bully....and Twilight tries to stop her....and gets all confused ("Bullying is bad....wait, if it stops here everything will change...") could it be a nodding reference to "Sometimes the bad stuff in life happens because something worse would happen if it didn't"? Some kind of odd CS Lewis "The Problem of Pain" type of thing? Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.
* The very last shot....it almost looked like a "So long, and thanks for all the fish" but I know there's a season 6 coming, so....(I'd like to see them come up with ideas for a couple more seasons but some have opined that the theatrical movie in 2017 - about the same time as the end of Season 6 - will be The End. I don't know. I think they could do more things - spin off into the CMC and their world, or maybe do more stuff with more regions of Equestria, or even more backstory on the Princesses....)
1 comment:
I think seven seasons will do it.
While I can believe somepony like Starlight Glimmer going permanently ballistic over a school-age event, I can't believe someone didn't try to set her straight -- or bend her muzzle -- long before this "equality" scam of hers.
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