Sunday, Pony Sunday: Thoughts on "Princess Twilight Sparkle"

Needless to say, there will be spoilers here. If you haven't seen the Season 4 opener yet, go and watch it now.





Now that we have that over with, some idle (bridle?) thoughts:

• I like how the writers aren't just glossing over the whole Princess thing with "Sure, she's royalty, but nothing has changed!"  Things HAVE changed for Twilight, from her duties to how her closest friends treat her. I don't know if this will be reinforced in later episodes, but it should be. I want to see a struggle between "You're a princess!" and "Yes, but I wasn't always one! I'm not used to be being treated this way!"

• Side note:  I still think Celestia is grooming Twilight to be her ultimate successor. What we are seeing here, hopefully, is the evolution of a Princess not just for the ponies, but of them as well.  From what I've seen, I get the opinion that Celestia is tired of being revered (and Luna is definitely sick of being feared), and part of that is due to the fact that the Princesses are seen as goddesses. Twilight is more like "girl next door makes it big" -- she's approachable, and while deserving of respect certainly isn't getting the same amount of awe and reverence C and L do.  Of course, given a thousand years, that's likely to change...

• Any episode involving Discord is always a good one.
  
• Did you notice how Twi used the Sombra power to transmogrify the potion?
  
• Insights into the mysterious past of Equestria are always welcome!  This is pretty clearly a Deep Mythology episode. 

• Was it just me, or did anyone else notice that when Luna became Nightmare Moon at the 20:28 mark, she looks a bit surprised? Like maybe there's a part of her that doesn't realize what's going on? Perhaps her corruption into NMM was also the result of Discord's plunder seeds.
  
• Why does NMM have a colt's square jaw in some of these shots?
  
• It's kind of funny that her voice is still Luna's, and not that of NMM from the series opener. I guess we can attribute that to "maturity of power" or something -- or perhaps the Discord-induced NMM persona grew dominant.
  
• As The_Jack pointed out, NMM's beams of destruction look a lot like the cutting beams from Babylon 5's Shadow vessels. 

• And Celestia using the Elements of Harmony looks a bit like the Excalibur. 

• The Elements of Harmony are from the Harmony Tree. This jibes nicely with my hypothesis that the Elements are semi-sentient, much like the Pattern in the Amber Chronicles.
  
• Anyone else getting a Kabbalistic Tree of Life vibe from this? No? Just me? Okay.
  
• Oh look, the symbol for All Magic matches Twilight's cutie mark. She really IS the Harry Potter of Equestria. But why were Cel and Luna's marks there, too?
  
• Why does Applejack seem to think saving a tree is weird?  She practically doted on Bloomberg.
   
• One thing I've noticed about the Everfree Forest is that lots of the creatures are very elemental. Timber Wolves are, naturally, wolves made out of (animated?) wood. And while I'm pretty sure AJ calls it a crocodile, given its coloration and the sound effects it makes, it really should be a rockadile.
  
• Speaking of this, and of Discord, does this mean all the weirdness of the Everfree Forest is the result of Discord? Considering that everything else in Equestria is tightly regulated (even the weather is made by ponies), a place where things grow wild without help is pretty chaotic.
  
• Heh. Discord did a good deed and was so subtle about it that nopony noticed. I'm taking this to mean that he really IS reformed. Well, semi-reformed. As reformed as an incarnation of chaos can be, at any rate.
  
• And now we have a MacGuffin that will require an epic quest to unlock. I bet it will take the entire season to find all six keys. So much for the original command of  "every episode needs to be able to be seen in any order," eh?  Of course that kinda went out the window with Princess Twilight.
  
• My guess? Inside the box is a seed for a new Tree.
  
• Fluttershy's raw power continues to terrify me. They've admitted to Discord  that the Elements of Harmony are gone, and that they no longer possess the power to contain an Avatar of Raw Chaos -- and yet a little yellow pony can give him the stink-eye and guilt him into helping clean up because, if he doesn't, she'll be disappointed with him.
  
• I, for one, welcome our soft-spoken, yellow-coated overlords.
  
• Huh. Twilight has a new crown.
  
• We need a name for that maneuver of hers. Twilight Sparkboom?

And that's about it. Did I miss anything noteworthy?