Re: MLP:FiM Season Four: Discussion, Speculation, Interpretation, find it all here. [SPOILERS]

Jason Shadow Tue Jan 29, 2013 11:21 pm

Spoiler:

The Warrior of Many Faces Tue Jan 29, 2013 11:24 pm

Why is everypony talking in spoilers:

AProcrastinatingWriter Wed Jan 30, 2013 12:12 am

Probably somewhere in between the two, as hype/anger lathers to a dull roar and just before things actually happen and everything quiets down again.

It's funny because anyone who doesn't want to be spoiled has no idea what I'm saying in-context. Very Happy

RavenscroftRaven Wed Jan 30, 2013 2:37 am

It's almost a given now, I mean...

not so spoilery:

So I think context is obvious. Personally, I don't care either way, I'm sure it will all be in the same vein of dedication and diligence (and just a bit of snark) that the writers worked with in past things, like the first season finale: Need to "sell" a gala and a prince? Make them horrible, horrible things. Need to "sell" a wedding? Make the bride a shapeshifting monster.

...Need to "sell" this? Well, I hope the trend continues to be something interesting.

SilentBelle Wed Jan 30, 2013 2:40 am

Yeah, I'm not that worried about it. I think their writing team can pull it off, the have a good track record. Besides it give the fanfic writers more material to work with.

**Paper Shadow** Wed Jan 30, 2013 5:47 am

The Warrior of Many Faces wrote:
Why is everypony talking in spoilers:

Hard question to answer. More people will be looking for pony content during the season break, but on the other hand, more people will be making and releasing content during the season break...

A1C Bronymous Sat Feb 02, 2013 4:54 pm

Hey guys. This is the spoilers thread. The whole thread is a

Spoiler:

.

And since I decided I have to talk about this or it will eat at me, here's why I don't like the idea of Twalicorn:

The show runs a very basic, yet very well oiled dynamic. Six friends and their Day to Day adventures in Ponyville, or wherever they visit. Like most shows, episodes tend to resolve so that everything is "back to normal" by the next episode. There's some continuity, but it's mostly just background things (RD reading, the Cake twins, etc.) Yes, the 2-2-2 thing is an issue when it comes to this, but not as much as the implied drastic changes to the SoL, everything works out Status Quo dynamic of the show, that has been like that for three seasons. I can understand Twilight mucking up a spell, and then suddenly she's an Alicorn, and then through a series of wacky misadventures, she fixes her mistake, and everything is "back the normal". But if she is permanently an Alicorn, and a recognized princess no less, then what are the directions that the show would then go in? I have three probables.
1- She is now an Alicorn, woohoo. Nothing else changes. She stays in Ponyville, and when Season 4 starts everything goes on as normal, but she now has wings. This is not a good outcome, because then what is the point of her even being an Alicorn? Given the quality of the writing staff, this is unlikely.
2- She is a princess, and must now go do princess-y things, say in Canterlot. This is easily the most drastic of implications. What happens to the others? Do the Mane 5 now come visit her weekly, and the adventuures continue? What about every other established character and relationship left behind in ponyville? Does the show even continue the day to day adventures, now that she's extra important? If they don't then her friends won't be visiting as often, and the entirety of everything we've watched the last 2 years could get left behind. This possibility hurts to think about, because it could go in so many ways we'd rather not think about, and not many ways we would appreciate.
3- If I was the writing staff, here's where I would take this. Twilight gets her wings and becomes a princess on the Single Episode Season Finale, and she has been more or less confirmed to remain that way. But how long? Remember which show we're dealing with. NMM, Discord, the Crystal Empire, all major events and episodes, all happen on the SEASON PREMIERE. The same can be expected from Season 4, and maybe, whatever happens is important, and so well written, that Twilight gets switched back. If the only reason to make her an Alicorn in the first place is so Hasbro can promote a toy, why bother keeping her for longer than the season break? They'll be on to promoting a different toy soon enough. Furthermore, having her change back would both fulfill the promise that she would remain an alicorn (over the break, a long time), and would maintain the Dynamic of the show, which, after the finale, we would then be back to watching.

Bottom line with this, though, is that I don't think anyone is going to stop watching the show, no matter the outcome. And no one really questions the writing staff. But they dropped this on us, what, a good month before it happened? However they decide to play it, the reason they did that is so we could hype ourselves up for it (or bunker down and get ready for the worst). If they had told us a week in advance, we wouldn't all be having panic attacks about it. We'd just speculate for a bit and then watch the episode.

RavenscroftRaven Tue Feb 05, 2013 8:50 am

We would not just speculate one bit on a more restricted timeframe.
In just one day we went from "Hah, fake!" to "I'm leaving the fandom!" to parodies of that. Giving two weeks, maybe three, we will move from our Denial stage to acceptance, but it would probably be still in Anger or Bargaining if it were just one week's notice.

Also, if they un-alicorn Twilight, it better be dealt with carefully. The last thing we want is another family unfriendly aesop like Feeling Pinkie Keen or MMDW (liked the episode, the moral not so much). She can't give up the wings "just" to be with her friends. That is actually a significantly different lesson than S01E01-02: Giving up Canterlot wasn't giving up much other than perhaps a wait staff. The wings are a part of her, the lesson would be "fit in to the status quo. Even if you need to disfigure yourself to do it.", and no one wants that. Now, if they reveal a pony's lifespan and she makes the active choice to remain mortal or something, I'll take it. But they'd be treading thin ice.

I'm well into acceptance since I only watch the show for something to chat about anyways. We will see what they do, and hope they do it well, but if they don't, oh well, they've screwed up before. Now bring back Derpy. Or even Ditzy.

**Paper Shadow** Tue Feb 05, 2013 9:35 am

I think that, if there was an episode which ends with Twilight becoming a unicorn again, it'd be about power abuse. You know the kind. Person gets authority, person abuses power, stuff happens, blah blah blah, person wishes to give away the power and authority, even though their friends say it's okay now that the person has learnt their lesson. Sometimes the power gets revoked, sometimes not, but if Twilight is to ever lose her status as princess, it'd be like that...

Of course, that would cancel out the possible morale with Twilight's whole character; if you are dedicated to your studies, you will be rewarded with the best things in life (although in this case it is being a princess, as opposed to being a doctor or scientist or something)...

Anyway, this next bit isn't about Twilight, but something else which could be spoilerific about the finale, so if you knew about the alicorn business but don't want to find out about this, look away now (since, while this is a thread about spoilers, I think there are different levels of spoilers)...

Spoiler Tags are Cool!:

SilentBelle Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:20 am

RavenscroftRaven wrote:We would not just speculate one bit on a more restricted timeframe.
In just one day we went from "Hah, fake!" to "I'm leaving the fandom!" to parodies of that. Giving two weeks, maybe three, we will move from our Denial stage to acceptance, but it would probably be still in Anger or Bargaining if it were just one week's notice.

Also, if they un-alicorn Twilight, it better be dealt with carefully. The last thing we want is another family unfriendly aesop like Feeling Pinkie Keen or MMDW (liked the episode, the moral not so much). She can't give up the wings "just" to be with her friends. That is actually a significantly different lesson than S01E01-02: Giving up Canterlot wasn't giving up much other than perhaps a wait staff. The wings are a part of her, the lesson would be "fit in to the status quo. Even if you need to disfigure yourself to do it.", and no one wants that. Now, if they reveal a pony's lifespan and she makes the active choice to remain mortal or something, I'll take it. But they'd be treading thin ice.

I'm well into acceptance since I only watch the show for something to chat about anyways. We will see what they do, and hope they do it well, but if they don't, oh well, they've screwed up before. Now bring back Derpy. Or even Ditzy.

In regards to Feeling Pinkie Keen. Now I might be tweaking a nose by saying this, but that was one of my favourite episodes from season 1 and I loved the moral of that story. I interpreted it as: 1) Friends are at least as important as religion. 2) You should be able to maintain good friendships despite their differing viewpoints on the world/religion from your own.

RavenscroftRaven Thu Feb 07, 2013 1:54 am

First off, I'll be the first to say I liked the flow and silliness of the episode. (In fact, in this thread, I was the first to say it!)

To avoid stepping on religious rules here, I'm going to avoid using the unfriendly aesop's immediate comparison of religion and aim for something more Pinkie. It got rather long, so for forum flow I'm spoilering about 3/4 of it.

My side of the debate:

TL;DR: If Copernicus had this moral lesson and took it with the reverence Twilight does, the Heliocentric model (in short, "the earth revolves around the sun") would not exist, because the sun's movements were, until that point, wonderful things you just couldn't explain, to borrow the friendship report's wording. The sun revolves around the earth, lightning is caused by angry gods, witchcraft makes you sick (washing hands is a waste of water), nothing useful will come of this "binary mathematics" system (binary was created long before the computers that now use it), and pregnancy is entirely the woman's side of things, some sort of asexual reproduction. These are all, historically, "wonderful things you just can't explain" with the science they currently had, so why should we get space travel, electricity, the internet, and contraceptives (or the rhythm method, if you prefer that)?

Because that friendship lesson is bogus. We advance because we question what was previously unquestioned or seemingly impossible to explain. As a market researcher, I can tell you that you are much more likely to buy Italian wine if Italian music is playing, French to French as well. I am, functionally to ancient societies, a psychic. Because friends or no friends trying to lead you to blissful ignorance, questioning things is how people advance. "Why do sales of wines wildly fluctuate when I run through my European Travels playlist, but stay mostly the same with my pop songs playlist?" Is it a magic CD, or just science yet to be performed?

SilentBelle Thu Feb 07, 2013 2:16 am

Well, I didn't look at that episode quite so literally. I took the episode as a hyperbole that could be applied to life. As such: Pinkie could be equatable to that friend of yours who tends to say things that don't make sense, and perhaps never do even if you ask them to explain themselves. Yet despite that, you are able to maintain a strong friendship with them.

Perhaps the idea of letting sleeping dogs lay where they are isn't the best moral, but can be useful at times. While unbridled curiosity is it's own double-edged sword. Really, I think the lesson in Feeling Pinkie Keen should be paired with one about pursuing your curiosity to the fullest, giving us the beautiful paradox that is essential to human nature Smile

One of my favourite quotes: 'If it's not paradoxical, it's not true.' Read with a grain of salt Very Happy

AProcrastinatingWriter Thu Feb 07, 2013 3:36 am

RavenscroftRaven wrote:...and pregnancy is entirely the woman's side of things, some sort of asexual reproduction.

Wait, hold on.

This was a thing believed in some ancient cultures?

Like, I get where you're coming from on the rest of the things seeing as these were basically all things as people have been recorded as believing in, but as far as I know humans have always known Slot A + Tab B sometimes = Object C. What ancient people believed this? [/genuinequestion]

Spoiler:

**Paper Shadow** Thu Feb 07, 2013 8:16 am

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:
RavenscroftRaven wrote:...and pregnancy is entirely the woman's side of things, some sort of asexual reproduction.

Wait, hold on.

This was a thing believed in some ancient cultures?

Like, I get where you're coming from on the rest of the things seeing as these were basically all things as people have been recorded as believing in, but as far as I know humans have always known Slot A + Tab B sometimes = Object C. What ancient people believed this? [/genuinequestion]

Spoiler:

According to a Google Search (because you know that's going to be reliable), the first non-forum result says that humans have known there has been some connection since the beginning, stating that "material evidence for this knowledge is thin, but one plaque from the Çatalhöyük archaeological site seems to demonstrate a Neolithic understanding, with two figures embracing on one side and a mother and child depicted on the other". It also goes on to say that anthropologists who went to Australia and New Guinea said that their subjects didn't see a connection between the activity and the result, but later research discovered that these reports where biased and that statement was a half-truth...

Also, here's a thought for all of you. Pinkie Sense doesn't seem to work in a lot of episodes. It worked mainly in Feeling Pinkie Keen, where a ton of accidents happened to Twilight, and The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well, where a ton of some disasters happen to everyone in Ponyville (Pinkie used her sense to detect disasters before they happened), so what if Pinkie Sense isn't foresight into things that are about to happen, but rather the cause of these things?

Dusk Raven Thu Feb 07, 2013 11:04 pm

RavenscroftRaven wrote:Now, lets say in MLP, your friend is precognizant, a form of psychic power that nopony seems to have (except, well, Pinkie). You live in a world where lightning bolts caused by wolf howls blast apples into technicolour displays that maintain the charge in a grounded tree for several days. Where creatures alter their corporeal beings from hard chitin to soft fur and change size and space, mind control others in flash-hypnotism, and convert cerebral biofeedback electrical pulses (or possibly trace hormonal chemicals) into a valid food source for a being several feet tall. Pinkie Sense then might be more realistic to occur, since everything and its pet rabbit seem to be magical. And you can't explain a reforming timber wolf (hivemind stickbugs, I know) or how a hydra doesn't collapse under its own weight due to the square-cube rule, so you know what? She's got a special magic talent too. Sure. Why even test it at this point?

I should note that a good number of those phenomena are from the Everfree Forest, and it and everything within are pretty much considered aberrations of nature by ponykind in general.

Even so, a lot of the magic (to use a broad term) that Twilight deals with has rules, and it's possible to find out how it works, at least in some sense. I think Twilight's problem with Pinkie Sense is that there wasn't any. Sense, that is.

Just my two random bits.

Zarhon Sat Feb 09, 2013 3:35 pm

New episode, "games ponies play", is up!

My thoughts? A solid episode, though not especially exciting. Provides the usual tropes of the "incoming inspector" that can be seen from a mile away (mistaken identity, catering to wrong pony...).

I was a bit biased this episode, expecting Twilight to go... well, nuts, but surprisingly, she developed character/meditation techniques and *didn't*. It was RD that goes nuts over sillyness instead (and a bit of focus goes to her, as well as most of the character development).

Rarity also pulls through as opposed to making a colossal mess... She just needs time, apparently, to pull miracles.

And for a somewhat different twist, the mistaken "inspector" doesn't abuse/realize the situation, and actively fixes the whole deal. It seemed as though that a lot of the elements of the claustrophobic "chicken pony" was intended to be extra gags (I fully expected her to go into full panic, or to be accidentally lead into a confined space, then encountering the inspector), that didn't fit into the whole episode.

We also get a solid connection/continuation to the previous episode, connecting the two into a whole, and a brief cameo of Rainbow Dad/Dashed. Pegasi confirmed for having parents at last. Very Happy

Also, RD needs to stop kidnapping foals.

SilentBelle Sun Feb 10, 2013 12:11 am

I enjoyed this episode. Very solid. I do think that it would have been better if this episode and the previous were swapped in viewing order. I would have found that far more intriguing Very Happy

Aside from that though, I guess I liked seeing the crystal ponies with that neat glow-y effect. It's pretty cool. Though, I guess this means that Princess Cadence is in charge of the Crystal Empire, kind of strange how that worked out...

AProcrastinatingWriter Sun Feb 10, 2013 2:11 am

Nothing in this episode was particularly earth-shattering, but it had some excellent character-bits and subtleties to it, and I like seeing that kind of thing. Plus it's good to see Twilight growing into her leadery persona, as 'twere.

A1C Bronymous Mon Feb 11, 2013 6:25 am

Games Ponies Play aka The One Everyone Saw Before Me

You all saw what happened. Nothing really interesting or earth shattering. I briefly thought that they were putting Twilight into Princess Mode ahead of schedule, but then I remembered I'd already seen the ending a week ago.

Rainbow Dash had a dad at one point, Shining Armor made a face, Pinkie tried to force a meme.

That's all. But the fact that they played this and last as parallel episodes points to definite importance of the event. Ponympics will probably be framing Twilight Spocalypse.

**LoganAura** Tue Feb 12, 2013 5:21 am

WARNINGWARNINGWARNING FINAL EPISODE SPOILERS INCOMING
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Now, something has been leaked on EQD. Not what you think of, but something else.
A song. The longest song in the show. ever, if sources are correct.

Spoiler:

AProcrastinatingWriter Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:21 pm

*ahem*

Wat,

**Paper Shadow** Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:27 pm

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:*ahem*

Wat,

Wat successfully transferred and copied...

I guess all that anthro pony art had some part in this. But if MLP has taught me anything, always wait before jumping to conclusions. We shall see if this show is good enough, or burn a good half of the fandom, or something...

elfowlgirl Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:34 pm

Spin-off doesn't look terrible...

...but I may be slightly biased as those outfits are adorable /shot

Those are some pretty weird looking proportions, though.

AProcrastinatingWriter Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:42 pm

IN THEIR DEFENSE

Discord looked pretty off too in the pre-season-two-premiere screenshots, but ended up looking pretty smooth in motion.

IN THEIR OFFENSE

This whole thing sounds like a really bad idea, to be blunt.

IN THEIR DEFENSE AGAIN

Then again, lots of things that sound like bad ideas ended up being good ideas, including perhaps My Little Pony itself, so perhaps it's best to just take a neutral stance on this for the time being and wait until the alleged show premieres before making any judgements on its quality. Like Paper Shadow said, I suppose.

tygerburningbright Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:56 pm

... I-I hm er until we see more I can not form a coherent thought on this other than please let this be something like My Little Mages only official.

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