Magical Learning – cross post from our new subreddit, /r/magicbuilding

Another ‘Brainstorm’ post from our new subreddit, /r/magicbuilding.

A large part of fantasy stories involve wizarding orders and a system of arcane education. It varies from book to book and series to series – Harry Potter is centred on Hogwarts, while Trudi Canavan (The Black Magician) and Jill Murphy (The Worst Witch) also put their stamp on magical school stories. There are apprentices such as Pug in Feist’s Riftwar series (who studies on both Midkemia and Kelewan during Magician), and Twilight Sparkle in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is Celestia’s pupil and representative in Ponyville.

So in what I hope will be an ongoing series of brainstorming threads, here are some ideas to get you thinking:

• What is your established system of learning magic? Does it necessarily involve formal education, or can a young wizard or sorceress learn to manipulate and control magic on their own?
• Is it an open system, with public institutions such as the Unseen University or the Magician’s Guild, or clandestine, a literal ‘flying university’?
• Is magic education open to the general public (anyone who receives an owl from Hogwarts), or restricted by social class or heritage (such as Brandon Sanderson’s allomancy)?
• Are there magical academics? Are there magical scientists engaged in pure research? Are there non-magical people who study magical lore, such as the societies in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell?

Over to you.

Where I Watch – My Little Pony – Episode 12 – Pinkie Pride

And now for something completely PONY! My boyfriend is a huge Weird Al fan, and expressed a desire to see this on his own volition.

Weird Al comes to town. That’s him, observing ponies and their bison friends at what can only be assumed to be Loll-Appe-loosa (the puns in this are very thickly layered).

Cheese Sandwich gave them a party. And he’s coming to Ponyville.

This is an interesting characterisation – Al is riffing on his

After the credits, Pinkie is planning a party, and singing a jaunty song straight off the bat. Pinkie is the party artisan, and has basically wowed Ponyville with her talents.

It’s Rainbow Dash’s birthday. And parties are no picnic. All that fun is SERIOUS BUSINESS, and she makes her a Pinkie Promise that she’ll get a great party. And who’s ready? (I personally get the impression that Pinkie plans their parties spontaneously without needing to be booked. She probably

Cheese Sandwich. The other party planner. The Pree-Mare party planner. (That was my pun :(. I think I need to keeping looking for the day job.)

And we get a free Weird Al Song, which is a little less harmonious than Pinkie’s song but a bit more fun. Far from being a mysterious stallion with no name, he’s actually the male Pinkie. I mean, Pinkie is a female Weird Al anyway, so this is extremely self-referential.

I can foresee either that they get on fabulously or – as has become evident by the end of the song – Pinks gets left out in the cold. I think this is very unfair, actually – with both Weird Al (sorry, Cheese Sandwich) and Pinkie on board the party could reach the dizzy heights of cheesedom. But I think this conflict is manufactured to give us a story. I’m thinking that, because of the ‘self-criticism’ storylines lately, Pinks is going to learn to share. She hasn’t had many lessons throughout the series, so this must be her turn. (Remember, folks, I don’t spoil things before I watch them, so I am experiencing this in real time.) In many other shows, the outsider will go away emptyhanded. In Ponyville, the learning process is reversed. I think learning to share your job is going to trump learning to remember your friends.

On with the show.

The ponies are besotted with Weird Al. RD’s birthday is also the anniversary of her coming to Ponyville, a little like Reddit’s cake days, so there’s a ‘birthaversary’.

Twilight comes to see Pinkie, who is feel left out but trying hard not to succumb to melancholy. If Weird Al is the best, then she’s nowhere.

Which seems like a decent moral to give to people. Just because someone else is good at something, doesn’t mean you have to be nowhere. People can share their talents, or do different things for different people. But Pinks goes into a sad mode – not really a sulk, but just a little deflated.

Pinkamena alert. It will be a bad episode if her alter-ego doesn’t make a

She sees her achievements on the wall in the form of pictures.

I think the song gets a little bit like the Baby Lickety-Split song in the old Movie at some points.

Pinkie decides to try and rival Cheese. Hmmmm. We fade to black on evil eyes. This is definitely a Pinkie-Learning Self-Criticism episode.

Uhoh. Pinkie challenges Cheese to a goof-off.

And he uses the ‘Cheese stands alone’ line. And Al falls for Pinkie’s bait.

The winner gets to headline the Birthaversary. The joke is she wants to do it at high noon, but it’s already 3 o’clock. So three-ten it is.

Goof-off. Twilight has a rulebook for everything.

Singing, dancing, playing, prancing…the funnier, sillier, wilder and …well, OK.

The only thing that matches Pinkie’s anger is Weird Al’s bloody-mindedness too.

This is a great episode. Fun, and it seems to be tending towards a reasonable moral that people should co-operate rather than being divas. The animation lapses into real stock footage of crocodiles

Fun. It’s difficult to recap the goof-off, but it’s Weird Al plus Pinkie Pie. What’s not to like?

But poor RD is a little flustered. Pinks realises RD isn’t enjoying herself, and she hasn’t named a winner. Pinkie forfeits once she realises she’s broken the Pinkie Party Promise that the person will enjoy her offering. Weird Al looks rather surprised too. And Pinkie packs up her troubles in her old party cannon and gets the heck out of Ponyville.

To totally predictable responses from her friends. Awwwwww. C’mon Pinkie. (Hey, I got it right.)

Or maybe not. They apologise for getting carried away by Cheese Sandwich. But then Pinkie says – in the best tradition of the self-criticism gulag – that she got carried away by her own pride, and Cheese will be a great party headliner.

RD explains Cheese is a great guest party planner, but Pinkie is their resident planner. Cheese does the Self-Criticism Shuffle too, for added value to the episode. (I bet he has to do his own letter to Celestia too when he gets home.) He admits to being a shy nerd who left Manehattan for Ponyville and fell in love with the atmosphere there, wanting fame and fortune. And the party Pinkie Pie threw was how Cheese Sandwich got his start.

This is a real return to form. I think I’m going to give it 9 out of 10. Joining forces is the lesson, to give people double the fun from double the people. Pinks learns her lesson, and Al acknowledges his debt to her. And I love the disco beat of the latter song. (There is an album out of official pony songs, but I hope they release this on another one.)

RD is really happy. And Pinkie goes and writes her letter. Al gives Pinkie his rubber chicken Boneless – which is the sparkly artifact for this week. (I’m sorry, but I can’t call him Cheese Sandwich and keep a straight face.)

That was a really pleasing episode. It hit all the right notes in terms of message, and, despite what I’ve commented on above, didn’t have too much of the self-criticism gulag feel of the last few episodes. The writing has got back on form with this one and Weird Al is a great guest star. Al’s well that ends well, in fact.

Where I Watch – My Little Pony – Episode 11 – Three’s A Crowd

Chez Twilight, and the mail’s here — YES! Princess Cadence is coming to visit. Twi gets to spend some quality time with her sister-in-law.

And Fluttershy comes in with an invitation to observe the Breezies, rare and magical Equestrian creatures. And in comes Pinkie with another exciting flyer about used patio furniture.

Can this day get any better? I think Pinks is completely shitting them about her …patio furniture.

The ponies see Fluttershy off on her expedition to observe the Breezies at the station, with Pinkie chasing after her and then getting distracted by – LOOK! Shiny!

With Cadence’s visit, Twilight is determined to stop the inevitabilities of the genre getting in the way of their quality time together. She plans to take her to the Starswirl the Bearded museum. Which the ponies have their specific reservations about that particular choice. But Twilight seems not to be bothered about those reservations.

So far, so innocuous. Enter Cadance, to whom Twilight bows as if she’s not elected royalty any more. As sisters-in-law, standing on ceremony is rather deprecated now.

Oh dear.

As the ponies leave the station, they hear a familiar voice. Discord. In cerulean blue. And he’s protesting that he’s reformed.

He’s also sick, sneezing and fainting, and Pinkie gets him a pile of suitcases to recline against. DC has come to ask the ponies – as sceptical as ever – for help. From his special friend, Fluttershy, who did tell him about her trip to the Breezies.

I like Discord episodes myself. They are perilous enough as they are, but they don’t go over-the-top.

Discord meanwhile demands his new friends help him, selecting AJ and Rarity to be his personal nursemaids and distracting Pinks from her attempt to assist. Keeping him away from Twilight and Cadance is their plan, but of course Discord is curious as to why they consider themselves friends but were never that close during the years prior to Cadance’s marriage. Meanwhile, DC’s flu is highly contagious.

We’re about half-way in and we’re still setting up. I get the feeling this is an Overly Long Gag episode. No problem with that.

Oh dear. Both ponies have contracted his sickness. Who shall Discord turn to? And that glint in his eyes suggests he’s being a little disingenuous.

Twilight is cosplaying at the SSTB museum, and they have a friend drop in on them. With Blue Flu. He accidentally sneezes on them; they put up a magical shield up to prevent his sneezes infecting them. And he begs hospitality from them. Isn’t that what friends do for friends? What would Fluttershy do? And so on. Unless of course – you’re not his friend at all.

Ah. So this is a ‘friends help each other out despite everything’ episode. OK. No problem with that; I actually quite like it when the ponies take pity on someone who has been annoying: it’s about acceptance of people who aren’t always the easiest to live with, but can turn out to be worth the effort expended on them. Better than last week’s debacle. Discord slithers back off to the library and settles in.

Cadance decides that they should be able to help him and get back to the exhibit.

Cue song. This is a fun one, which is rather reminiscent of some of the old Disney movie songs, particularly those from films such as The Sword in the Stone. Cadance is more interested in Discord’s welfare, and Twilight

Discord explains how to cure the blue flu – a magical flower picked at sunset. Discord is too sick to go there. But of course Twily and Caddy are able to go there – pulling Discord in a chariot. Neither princess is really a natural flier, which I think is a nice touch in pony mythos.

They get the top – but there’s no flower. Or it’s rather… large.

They say ‘we can have some time together’, but I suspect they are having time together, helping other people.

Unfortunately picking the flower releases a vast, malevolent worm, putting the ponies in danger. This does seem a little rushed and arbitrary, as if they have run out of ways to put together a convincing plot rather than just stringing random elements right out of an avant-garde anime together in the hope that something sticks. Given we’re now 17 min in, there’s a question mark here now as to what his game is.

Discord was faking. He had a reason. Discord wondered whether Twilight was too big for her boots and so he tried to figure out whether she was truly his friend. Twilight is frustrated, but then this is the same actor who played Q, so we’ve come to expect that Discord is the one who has license to play such tricks on her.

Two pissed off ponies. One slightly sceptical blogger.

Cadance explains that she enjoyed the excitement of the challenges alongside Twilight. She got to spend time with her anyway; she might have had a more relaxing time at the museum, but the challenge of getting the flower and dealing with the worm was far more exciting. And in the end, the worm sneezes over DC and gives him the real flu.

I dunno. This one feels nice and cute, but I think it could have been plotted a bit better. It’s not as bad as last week’s. I’m going to give it 7/10, because it’s not bad, but those three marks came off for the ‘could care a bit more about where this was going’ and ‘took too long to set up, with the result that the expedition and conclusion felt rushed’. A better way to do it would have been to set up the sequence at the library earlier and have the quest for the flower feel a bit more substantial. But given that last week’s plot was rather cringeworthy (I see what its adherents like about it, but it still hit me at a bad time), I think this one does deserve a higher mark simply for approaching an interesting moral – spending time with your friends can take many forms and even a chaotic and unpredictable day can be rewarding.

Then Twilight spoils things by refusing Discord a glass of water.

Oh well.

Next week – Weird Al comes to town!

Where I Watch – My Little Pony – Episode 10 – Rainbow Fall

The fat Pegasus from the pegasus episodes last season has a name: Bolt Biceps. (I guess he must be – gasp! – a horse.) And the ponies are now gearing up for the Equestrian Games in the Aerial Whatevers tryout (relay, as it turns out). RD is, as usual, full of self-aggrandising bluster casually concealed by that little cough-cough gesture whenever she falls into mentioning how much she…I mean Ponyville…wants them to make it to the games. With the Sochi Winter Olympics just around the corner, this episode couldn’t be better timed. (And I still haven’t got around to booking the archery lessons I wanted to take both after the 2008 and 2012 games.)

Fluttershy is in on the game. I can guess the ending already. ‘Hey, you didn’t qualify for the games until Celestia intervened! No problem!’

Pinkie is their cheerleader. I can see this being more irritating than inspiring.

And AJ has brought them apple Brown Betties, which BB, surprisingly un-aerodynamic, has started into.

Don’t forget to breathe. Yup, Celestia is going to have to give these guys a bye.

After the credits, Twilight (whose horn seems to have grown slightly since her apostheosis) gives them a few words of, erm, encouragement. The weak link seems to be BB, but of course AJ and Rarity have tagged along, AJ wanting people to ‘carbo-load’.

The other pegasi are discussing  the internal politics, with the Wonderbolts representing Cloudsdale and happy to have some competition…if you’re lucky. And RD wants more than luck. She needs…practice.

And decent cheerleaders.

RD starts off with the practice.

BB can’t stay afloat, Fluttershy needs to be introduced to the baton before she will take it, and Rarity wants to colour-coordinate the baton (in reality a horseshoe which is evidently magnetic for hooves). Not the best start. But this is going to be a success: otherwise we won’t get to see the actual Games themselves in the show, right? And, despite the tone of the series, you can’t really show an episode saying ‘Hard luck, but not everyone wins all the time! It’s the taking part that counts’, because the usual message is ‘It’s the taking part that counts, but actually, since the ponies are the heroines, we have to make them win.’ It’s slightly fairer this time, because these are tryouts and the first four teams win. So it’s not like there’s only one winner. All must have prizes.

Onwards.

Cloudsdale has the Wonderbolts. Sooo, maybe you can learn something. Please?

From Cloudsdale’s POV, Soarin’ can do better. He falls from the sky, and shakes his wing as if he’s hurt. It seems to have got sprained.

This is MLP all over. He praises RD for scooping

BB seems to be a dumb jock character.

Could RD fly with the Wonderbolts? She was brought up in Cloudsdale after all. In order to qualify for Ponyville, she has to be OK to qualify with them. The WBs hint that she was so good at the Academy last season (if you haven’t seen that episode, go and dig it up, because it’s how to do a military episode without actually involving Equestria in World War P) that she could do it.

However, for once, RD is actually being loyal to her team-mates when presented with something a bit better than her …mediocre team.

The WBs are, actually, a little sinister in this episode. Under normal circumstances, Spitfire, who calls her decision wise, should be a little bit more honourable than that, no?

Awesome. RD is not only able to keep up with the WBs, she’s become one of their team.

Twilight, still trying to figure out cheerleading in theory and practice, is a bit perplexed by RD’s desertion.

BB and Fluttershy  are struggling, carboloading, and basically goofing off. They don’t know she’s practising with the team.

I think I know where this is going. I’m not sure I like the contrivance involved in getting there (Ponyville must have more suitable athletes than Fluttershy and Bolt Biceps, even if they made sure everyone else was mysteriously doing other events), but so be it. It’s easier to tell a story, particularly for kids, if you demonstrate the extremes of the situation, rather than the middle range.

Twi tells her that one of the teams needs more help than the others. Ponyville can still qualify, because she can fly fast enough to make up the difference. Then there’s another proposal from the WBs – join our team properly.

The WBs are pointing out the obvious. Even with you on their team, they’re still a bit stymied by the poor potential in both FS and BB. Hmmmmm. These guys are already being made out to be trying lure her with promises of …well, not cake exactly, but the way they’re portrayed is interesting.

So RD’s ego has been stroked. But Twilight tries to guilt her into refusing. Now there is another moral involved: it’s OK to cut down a tall poppy through the 100m extreme guilt tripping sprint. Nice.

RD wants to be the best. The way the other episode with Rarity went, was that the guilt trip kinda worked, but the ponies acquiesced in her scheme despite wanting to do something else. They put Rarity’s success first, and helped her to achieve something, for which Rarity went through hell but won out and was generous in return.

And immediately, we see RD’s way out of the dilemma. She appears in a wheel chair dressed in bandages. (I do hope we’re not lapsing back into G3’s anthropomorphic ponies. G4 has been very good at keeping the characters’ action and worldbuilding consistent with equine anatomy.)

She tripped on a …foam hoof, and landed on a fhfhfhfhfhaasseeeer…

OOOOOOOOOOOH! RD’s illness is so fake.

Fluttershy offers to take care of her. Or somepony will. Or a medic. ERM!

They realise she’s faking it.

Shame, it would have been a pretty decent thing to do, actually. Particularly in response to a rather obnoxious guilt trip, which is meant to be sympathetic but comes out all wrong, as if my correct response, when offered a job, with a couple of unemployed friends, would be to turn it down because my other friends don’t have jobs.

They have a replacement. The Pony Who Shall Not Be Named. (Oh dear. I have avoided pony spoilers all week, not very difficult now I’ve taken a break from tumblr, but…this is going to cause a little bit of outrage, although to be fair, this is putting a bit of faith in The Pony Who Shall Not Be Named.)

Twilight is still on the obnoxious guilt trip. Give over, Twily. I think RD has done an honourable thing, particularly since the WBs invited her to train/fly with them, she qualified for their team and under normal circumstances in athletics Bolt Biceps would be in the weightlifting team. I think the episode is a bit contrived in favour of a ‘look after your friends at your expense’. Having friends is nice, but friends don’t often begrudge another friend their own success, particularly not when most other episodes featuring RD have been promoting her and pushing her to succeed on her own terms. Twilight may be in the right as concerns the show’s overall theme, but she’s being a jackass. When I got a temping job the other month people didn’t say I shouldn’t take it just because some of my friends don’t have jobs and I got one. They were, y’know, happy for me, because they knew being employed, even if only for a few days, was important for me.

Fluttershy tries to stem some of the frustration by promising RD the gold medal if they win it.

Soarin’ is upset his friends haven’t been to see him. It turns out the Spitfire and Fleetfoot believes that he’s not 100% and they were going with somepony else.

Oh, how convenient. So the WBs are also jackasses.

This is a frustrating episode. It seems to be forcing the story into ‘tall poppy BAD, ambition BAD’ syndrome. It’s not the sequence of events, it’s how the ‘sympathetic’ character is behaving, and how convenient for the story that the best flyers, who want to be 100%, are being accused of abandoning a friend who might not be 100%, so RD will go back to the Ponyville team.

There are other, nicer ways to push this message. I’m going to persevere, but the way this is written grates on me like Feeling Pinkie Keen did on atheists and sceptics (so I know how people feel about that episode now). Sports is about competition and being the best. They could put this message across a lot better by using a different milieu, and to push RD to be the best she can in Ponyville while now trying to rein her in because oops! she might abandon her friends! is a little unfair. I get that RD might have had to have this episode, and they had to have a story about a tryout before we got to the EGs, but this is ‘settle for mediocrity in personal achievement because FRIENDSHIP!’ – I don’t like it at all. Twilight could become a princess without incident. Why can’t RD be a Wonderbolt?

It’s worse than ‘Celestia will make it so you can win’.

Oh and now we get RD realising she’s missing her friends.

And the huge guilt trip begins, and the self-criticism session begins.

Fluttershy steps forward.

Really?

And Spitfire accepts RD’s capitulation (after having a moustache-twirling moment which seems VERY out-of-character) and invites Soarin’ to rejoin them. It’s not a bad resolution – Spitfire reacts with pretty damn decent magnanimity – but this just feels like a contrived story to teach a specific ‘tall poppies get hurt’ message rather than anything particularly in character.

And they qualify.

I’ll give this 5/10. It’s a nicely put together episode, and quite exciting and with a bit more action than the last one, which was as dull as ditchwater and shied away from any particular argument. The message and contrivance leaves a bad taste in my mouth. ‘As much as I love winning…’ – why couldn’t she both win and have friends? Like, for example, Rarity, who won off the back of a pony sweatshop and her friends magnanimously sacrificed their own personal entertainment for her victory? Or Twilight herself? ‘Don’t want to do well for myself because friends.’ ‘My friends will savagely guilt trip me because I dare to want to be good at something?’

Why not ‘Want to do well for myself because friends?’ ‘My friends will help me do well for myself and I’ll help them do well for themselves too?’

The way it’s put together is shoddy for the message, shoddy for RD’s self-image, and that’s the second time we’ve seen a peer-pressure self-criticism session rather than a Today I Learned.

I’m not down on the show; it’s just this one episode that feels wrong in the way they plotted the story to deliberately drag someone who was getting too ‘above herself’ down. There’s obviously nothing wrong with sticking to your roots or having friends, but the previous WBs episode, where RD was genuinely dealing with an obnoxious bully was much better from a point of view of an inspiring message. In an age where we want little girls to aspire to better things, to tell them that they can go all the way to the top, a ‘I won’t win at any cost, I’ll stay with my friends and not want to do better’ episode is really out of place. As I’ve said, Twilight got her wings; of all the people who have aimed high and achieved what they got through their own hard work and being the protégé of a demigod, she should be the last person to succumb to ‘cut down the tall poppy’ syndrome, and should see clearly that aiming high doesn’t mean having to abandon your mates. But the way the story is set up, there’s no other option for RD but for her to be sent to the Friendship Gulag.

Maybe it’s time to let Rainbow Dash have her wings properly and not always have her have to learn a lesson about humility.

Not keen at all; not as a lesson for little girls who need to know that aspiration shouldn’t have to mean leaving your friends or your roots behind, and that your friends can be happy if you have something they don’t. Must try harder.

Where I Watch – My Little Pony – Episode 9 – Pinkie Apple Pie

THIS…IS…PONY! Season 5 has just been announced, according to people on tumblr and dA.

We open on a stranger to the new season, relatively speaking: Twilight Sparkle doing some genealogical research, only be to disturbed by Pinkie Pie. Who finds a very interesting relationship. The MOST AMAZING THING EVER.

She’s related to Applejack. Who doesn’t appear entirely happy at the news.

Roll credits – and something has happened to improve AJ’s impression of PP being a cousin, because she’s happier, as is Applebloom. Big Mac and Granny Smith look a little bemused. AJ does, however, caution PP against spreading such an ‘awesome’ rumour. No doubt the ‘awesomeness’ has begun to cloud over even since the end of the credits.

We get a glimpse of the family’s talents, and GS’ cool rocking chair.

Pinkie Pie goes on a few zany antics including the crash of a dustbin lid. AJ consults the documentation and doesn’t see anything about the relationship, stemming from a certain Applesauce. But the key words are smudged, and so AJ tries to squelch the other ponies’ enthusiasm for PP by insisting on better proof. Contacting Goldie Delicious might be a good idea.

FAMILY ROAD TRIP.

AJ takes the opportunity of PP going home to pack for the trip of asking them to show PP the ‘best version’ of the Apple Family. This is…interesting. The Apple Family are probably a couple of the most down-to-earth characters in the show. So if the writers are handing them the idiot ball, this is going to be an odd episode. Big Mac is strong enough to haul everything, including four other equines, as well as dance to the bouncy tune of Apples to the Core.

This song is a return to the better songwriting from earlier in the series, except for Granny Smith’s verse, which is probably intentionally off-key.

And at the end of the song, the wagon collapses.

AJ is trying to impress Pinkie that the Apples don’t blame each other, but she lays into BM anyway. They now want to go on a river trip, but they don’t have a raft. So, naturally, the ‘jalopy’ will serve as a raft. Only pack the necessities. (Pinkie has already started a scrapbook.)

This is a cute episode. It’s slice-of-life, but on the strength of a few of the previous episodes, it’s going to have some relevance to the arc. A map falls in the water, leaving them at the mercy of GS’ faulty memory, as she steers them through ‘the scariest cave in Equestria’.

Ooooh. Ponies go in, but they never come out. This is getting more interesting than the first half. GS takes them into the cave.

Which lasts about twenty seconds, leaving Pinkie immune to fear (I’ve got it! Pinks is part kender!) and the Apples terrified. But they’ve come out. Missed opportunity for peril, but I get the impression this is about friendship rather than danger. There’s a short argument about the incompetencies on the journey, leading Applejack to launch a coup, declare herself in charge and break the steering wheel off the boat in the ensuing fight.

Then Pinkie hits them with the line ‘I can’t wait to make a page in the scrapbook about the amazing waterfall we all went down!’ (Well, it was inevitable.)

AAAAAAARGH.

EEEEEEEEEEEEE

Pinks is totally flustered. Forget kender in her background, she is one. The raft has been held together just long enough for GS to say ‘I know it would hold together’.

They end up at a cottage, presumably belonging to Goldir Delicious, who has gone ‘out’ to ‘run some errands’ leaving a suspiciously derelict house behind her. Pinkie bounces off to get more scrapbook paper, and AJ is disappointed that the family fell apart in the time it took them to get to GD’s house. (Maybe if AJ hadn’t been so…assertive? Maybe if she’d believed Pinkie in the first place? However, I think she’s being set up for the lesson once again here, having learned one only two weeks ago. It’s a good job we have 26 episodes this season, since we’ve now done AJ twice in three shows.)

The ponies each submit to self-criticism in the best Soviet communist party meeting, and decide to admit their failings to Chairman Pinks so she can send them to the Friendship Gulag.

Or something like that.

Pinks disagrees, because she points out that everyone is owning up to what went wrong. You aren’t just family – you’re best friends. And I want to be one too.

Goldie Delicious returns from her long errand and AJ asks her for help. She’s a crazy cat pony. And a hoarder.

Pinkie returns from vandalising a mirror and GD finds her book of family tree has been smudged. So Pinkie doesn’t get to find out. But AJ knows for sure that Pinkie has put up with them, and has proved herself an Apple to the Core, which suggests a reprise of the song.

So Pinkie doesn’t need to learn the lesson, and the Apples, provided with another cart, and another verse of Apples to the Core.

This is a 5/10 episode. It’s a cute show, but it’s Pony by Numbers. Being a good family isn’t about being perfect but being forgiving and acknowledging close friends can become family even if they aren’t directly related. And they continue to demonstrate that point.

There’s no particular flash on an item, unless I missed it, which suggests this is filler rather than arc. I do enjoy watching pony, but this is one for the kids. Well, sometimes they have to be. Nothing wrong with that. It’s the other episodes which have been better, rather than this one that has been bad.

Where I Watch – My Little Pony – Episode 8 – Rarity Takes Manehattan

We haven’t had too much Rarity for a while, so it’s off to Manehattan, with Spike in tow, still starstruck by her. The other Mane 6 are going with her to support her during Fashion Week. And the ponies are all going to the Hinny of the Hills musical on…Bridleway. They’re staying in Manefair.

No. Please. Make it stop. Make the puns stop. Now.

The ponies got the tickets through favours and favouritism. This is ramping up to be a dead disappointment, because of the law of carefully-laid plans. Rainbow Dash doesn’t like musicals because of random singing, which just calls for a song.

Not a great song, but they can’t all be awesome. It’s a bit cheesy and, well, like something out of a musical. It’s all about doing favours for people. Be kind without a fuss – Generosity.

I wrote a story entitled Generosity once. I had a specific naming theme and…well, later.

Now we’re on…a famous shopping street without a puntiful name.

Rarity has been working on a new fabric and needs to go and set up — by 2 in the afternoon, which is ten minutes from now, and she needs to find a cab to get there. Despite all the fuss about generosity and friendship, Manehattanites are not happy with .

The dresses aren’t there. Rarity has collapsed in panic before the bellhop brings out the dresses. Because she did people favours. During the song. Cute.

We then meet Prim Hemline, with a very strong British accent, who is angry at Rarity’s tardiness, and who explains the rules of the competition – win an audience with the best MHC designers.

Rarity meets a friend from the Ponyville Knitters’ Circle, Suri Poloneck, who moved to Manehattan to make it in the big city. The animation of the dresses is reminiscent of something from the Pink Panther. Poloneck wants a swatch and Rarity generously gives her friend a sample; and she promptly disappeared.

Now Rarity is early, and the reception pony compliments her on her clothes – only to find out that Poloneck has somehow stolen her designs. Rarity is obviously rather angry. At this point we’re half-way through the cartoon. Poloneck reminds Rarity that Rarity gave her the material so she could add accents. She just happened to have less an accent on her work than a whole other language. She points out her put-upon assistant, Coco Pommel (as in saddles – no, that one wasn’t too bad), and behaves pretty crappily towards Coco’s complaints. Ah, so we have another villain on our hooves now…

Poloneck slyly tells Rarity she’s only a rube who fell for a big city trick. Then she bullies Coco a bit more and prances off.

And Rarity comes back in, crying over her humiliation. The other Mane 5 listen to her bawling about being a sap and her generosity going wrong, but Twilight assures her – with a little unease in her voice – that they’re all here to help her out. All they need is fabric, right guys? Right?

Hotel bedspreads give her some inspiration. (Hang on, what happened to her appointment in half an hour?)

The Mane 6 set up an assembly line. The ponies want dinner, and it’s not very long until Hinny of the Hills. But she starts getting cross over them abandoning her. Obsessed with the fashion show, and the ‘Every Pony For Herself’ mantra, she abandons them without even a thank you. And they don’t walk out on her either, not even to go to the show.

Poloneck has a few digs at her over her ‘copycat fashion’, but ‘Hotel Chic’ seems to amaze the audience. Rarity can’t wait to celebrate with her friends…but in the process of creating her sensation, she’s lost her friendship. She can see the adoring crowds, but not her friends.

Who are gone.

Gone.

Back to Ponyville – she realises her mistake, their hard work, her winning collection, and her ingratitude.

Reprise of the musical song earlier on. It really doesn’t have the same clout as other songs this season, particularly Hearts as Strong as Horses, but to give them the benefit of the doubt, they’re trying to ape the sung musical style. Which is fine…just not my sort of thing, so I’ll pass.

But the Mane 6 overslept and missed the show. Rarity apparently lost (well, according to Poloneck). So we get a kind of strange and anti-climactic ‘ending’; a personal performance of Hinny of the Hill and a consolation. How did they agree? The costume designer gave her a costume-making gig in Manehattan. She takes her opportunity.

Cloak and dagger to the last, Poloneck and Coco have deluded Rarity into thinking she lost. Actually she won. (Did anyone NOT see that coming?) Coco is given a few lines to say that Poloneck had convinced her that ‘every pony for herself’ was a valid tactic; however, she. Rarity gives her the costume gig, enabling her to return to Ponyville.

The lesson is obviously not to take advantage of the giving nature of friends.

I think I’m going to give this episode 6/10. The story is enjoyable. I think Coco’s character, with such a significant role at the end, could have been better developed over the course of the show; it seems like a bit of an ass pull. The song wasn’t as strong as others. The adult in me could see a lot of plot coming a mile off; whether kids would see these things is debatable, and again and again we remind ourselves that MLP is for seven year-olds, but frankly, the rest of the season has been better than this. It’s a fashion show story — the usual fashion show tropes apply. After the first couple of times they need to get a different handle on it, I think. I did like the twist that it was enough for Rarity to think the Mane 5 had abandoned her, rather than just overslept because of all the work they put in. They might also have fixed the plot hole about Rarity being half-an-hour early for her appointment and apparently not showing anything to the other ponies beforehand. I didn’t quite follow that part and it might have been better writing to have her see Poloneck’s collection elsewhere.

But a cute, loveable episode, not as exciting as I judged from the trailer last week, but certainly charming and a worthwhile inclusion.

Where I Watch – My Little Pony – Episode 7 – Bats!

Now that all the festivities are over, I can get back to MLP without distraction.

We open on Applejack on Apple-Bucking day; we haven’t seen her for a while.

But her apples seem to lack the usual firm consistency.

They’re back. And we see the titular animals squeaking about in the trees.

So it’s another AJ-gets-a-li’l-help-from-her-friends episode? If this season is anything to go by, the bats will have a musical number and giant hairdryers with which to wage WAR! on the ponies. Unfortunately, her apples have fallen victim to malicious vampire fruit bats, different from the more benign bats elsewhere on the farm. AJ has a magnificent apple, impossibly huge and luscious, and she’s afraid the bats might try to hollow it out while she’s not looking. Fluttershy, sweet-natured to the last, says ‘of course, they might leave it alone if you ask them nicely enough…’

We know enough about Ponyville pests to know that’s hopelessly naïve. More like: if she goes and tells them there’s a REALLY BIG APPLE…? And Fluttershy gets offended a AJ calling them monsters.

Cue music.

AJ and Fluttershy have a duet on the disregard of the bats for the needs of others, despite Fluttershy protesting that they have both familial responsibilities and help the trees to grow and pollinate. The Mane 6 join in as a chorus on AJ’s side. It’s pretty creepy when they start chanting ‘Stop the BATS! Stop the BATS! Make them go and not come back.”

What about a bat sanctuary? Since they spit out the seeds, they would be welcome residents and confining them to a single part would be more advantageous in the long run.

So this is a kind of property versus environment lesson. But apparently the previous time there was an infestation there was apple rationing – and no CIDER! The rest of the Apple Family are conveniently away in Appleloosa.

So Twily has a spell, which requires Fluts to use a stare on the bats. She pulls a ‘dire circumstances’ rule out of her ass to stop them from using her to take away the thing that makes the vampire bats vampires.

So who has more right to the apples? The bats, or the ponies? I can kind of see where this is going. We’ve had the ‘wild untameable nature’ thing before, but the ponies seem to co-exist with it in the end. So whilst there’s an even chance that both AJ and Fluttershy will be proved right, I’m leaning more towards the ponies coming round to Fluts’ point of view sooner or later. Twilight’s spells tend to be only effective part of the time – at other points they seem to be not the cure-all she’d hoped for, and the only thing that works is co-operation.

Fluttershy eventually accedes to using her stare. The bats come in, except for one old codger who threatens Rarity, and a few curmudgeons.

They really are pretty nasty looking. It turns out that there’s not an awfully large number: and the Stare seems to work to hypnotise the bats.

We’re about halfway in, so I doubt this will be successful. Ponies tend not to be very good at brute-force tactics. But for the moment it’s seems to be working…until Fluts’ notices something odd about one apple.

AJ goes out bucking, to be met with a nice, juicy…splat.

Time for more EXTREME measures. Girls, the record of brute force … no. Luckily for the bats, it doesn’t appear to be their fault that the apples are being tampered with. So they finally decide to do reconnaissance. It seems Fluts has been a little …hungry lately.

Pinkie has prehensile hair now, in which she can carry a ‘pony signal’, a nice visual joke, one of the first in the episode. And she notices Fluts’ hunger.

Open mouth. Tiny little fangs.

And it’s PONY SIGNAL TIME!

This is what you get for brute forcing nature rather than playing it at its own game or finding a – gasp – compromise with it.

This is actually a well-constructed episode. I have done my best to avoid spoilers, but there have been one or two pictures of vamp!Fluts on tumblr, so I was wondering what the pictures of Flutterbat were about.

It’s really quite unfair that the one pony who was in favour of compromise has been hexed. Rarity was being an ass earlier on – why not her? But never mind. I’m sure we’ll find out ASAP.

Pinkie is really quite nervous. Maybe vampire ponies eat…PONIES!

Twily takes a leaf out of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy to calm down the other Mane 6 with a PLAN. AJ wants her friend back, suggesting that the disagreement earlier on was in the realms of friendly  banter rather than hostile. It maybe needs to be said that people can disagree over some things and still get along; friendship is not all or nothing. But that’s a more mature message that the show usually takes as a given.

They come up with a specific plan to do…something, using the Appleloosa State Fair apple that AJ was going to enter. (The law of conservation of detail usually dictates that a plan that is meticulously spelled out in advance usually fails.) Sacrifice for a friendship. Yup, a mirror to channel her stare into her, while Twilight unhexes her. This reminds me a bit of the very early Escape from Midnight Castle episode.

I liked this episode. 8/10 – nice visual gags that weren’t too intrusive, a continuation of the slice-of-life plot but with some heady magics, and a lesson about compromise, where the bats’ role in long-term seed-spreading is acknowledged, and that you shouldn’t let people bully you into doing something that you don’t want to do. AJ 0, FS 2.

And a silly gag from Pinkie at the end, like last week.

Nice. The only real peril was to the orchard, but on the other hand I think there was quite a cute way of mixing one theme of the series – magical transformation – with the slice-of-life plots which can sometimes seem a bit trivial in comparison (although are usually nice stories in their own right, particularly for the proper demographic).

Tomorrow’s episode is trailed as something more epic, however…

Where I Watch – My Little Pony – Episode 5 – Flight to the Finish

I’ve been pony this week – a little ho(a)rse 😉 – so apologies for the delay again. Over the holiday period weekends get chewed up and spat out like gum so I hope to be a little bit more timely after the round of endless trips to the cinema and landing a job on Crossrail for two months next year and so on.

This episode opens in school, so it’s a CMC episode. I like the CMC, they’re cute, although with Twilight Sparkle gaining her wings (that was a heavy night on the Red Bull for her), I’d like to see the episode where the CMC get their cutie marks.

Enter Miss Horsewhinney and Rainbow Dash as an advocate for the Equestria Games, which are about to open, and they need a flag-carrier for Ponyville.

Horsewhinney is a little tired of ‘Ms Dash’’s overenthusiasm, and to be honest, it’s hard not to be, when she keeps interrupting the advocate, who gets really quite angry. Really angry. Like, you’re off the team if you’re not Professional. The way Mizz DAAAASH drips off Horsewhinney’s lips, in quite a good display of a reasonable reaction to RD. (Although I suspect the writers don’t agree with this assessment.)

The CMC are go! And they haven’t mentioned their cutie marks …yet. Their aim is to show Ponyville’s diversity – hearts as strong as horses. (This raises a question: where do horses fit in in Equestria? Are Celestia and Luna horses themselves? I know a pony is not necessarily anything different to a horse except in size, but there is no explanation for this in canon. Maybe they are comparing themselves to an ancient race, or maybe the princess ponies/alicorns are horses ruling over a race of what to them are dwarfs. In this regard, I am expecting Twilight to grow to horse size like Cadence has.)

Song – hearts as strong as horses :D. I really want the showrunners to release a songs album.

During the song we see that fat Pegasus from season 3. Which is nice, but not as good as having a certain Ms D Hooves back. That S2 gaffe cost Hasbro pretty dear, which is unfortunate: while I’m not really offended by the ‘D’ word, I am very strong on not using things that could be construed as slurs in children’s television. Apropos of something else, I did some research into the BBFC rating system and found out that what they look for in children’s media is not just the absence of sex and violence, it’s the presence of uplifting themes and correct moral attitudes. While morals can be relative, I don’t think a Mane 6 protagonist making fun of a pony widely regarded by the fans as being disabled was a good idea, and although you could call the BBFC system censorship, I think kids need to grow up with a lot of diversity and respect for difference in their media diet, and they do a good job trying to cultivate those attitudes in the media to which children are normally exposed. MLP is generally pretty good on that score, particularly having a mane 😉 protagonist who could be taken for non-white, and giving little girls a range of role models. So that’s just my take. We mustn’t forget – not like I did a few weeks ago – that this is still a children’s show. 4chan and what is acceptable in South Park, which is generally regarded as merciless satire for adults, shouldn’t be calling the shots.

Anyway, enter Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. And I mean CRUSH. And here it goes – the three CMCs are still blank-flanks, who won’t be chosen. The bullying gets nasty here: this is perhaps why I find CMC episodes a little tedious, because unlike with Twilight and her friends, the story never progresses. The three CMCs and these two obnoxious twits are locked in a never-ending catfight.

OK. The two bullies watch the CMC routine, ‘The Town Where Friendship Reigns’, speculating on how bad it’s going to be.

Dashie is ‘happy’ with it. But RD has to remain professional. Keep the emotions in check. So her enthusiasm has to be curbed. The bullies are trying to find a new way to get under their skin… or wings.

They walk onto the stage try being saccharine-sweet, and let loose with the ableism on Scootaloo. They tell her that Horsewhinney will never choose a Pegasus to represent Ponyville who can’t fly. With obvious and predictable results. (Now THAT is the way to portray being nasty to someone who is disabled. Make it an obviously villainous character, and direct it at a protagonist who is thus probably bullied into showing those two little trashcakes she can stand up for herself, without the use of slurs related to that disability. I know blank-flank is a slur too, but it’s a fantastical one with no real cognate in reality. Kids are cruel, but you need to make c)

So Scoots is desperate to fly. Back to practise, and offscreen tumble. It’s unclear here, actually whether she’s unable to learn to fly, or whether she is simply physically incapable of it. Either way, it seems to be a

And she tires them out. With obvious results.

Oh dear.

Why do they not just tell RD or whoever what the trashcakes said and have them deal with them? I know it wouldn’t make for an entertaining show , and I know some people are cynical about the way schools deal with bullies, but the secret I suppose is to show why they can’t just circumvent this issue, much like the initial The Hobbit film left out the crucial explanation as to why the eagles couldn’t just whisk them away to the Lonely Mountain (in the book it’s explained that they don’t fly near lands occupied by people fearful for their sheep, lest they get shot, which is a pretty damn convincing reaction, all things considered), therefore spawning a lot of internet arguments normally ending in ‘quit complaining about me complaining about you complaining!’. In this case, however, without any external canon to go on, it would be nice to show them at least attempt to complain about the bullying and get rebuffed, particularly because it hits on a physical characteristic relating to Scootaloo’s wings and is therefore probably likely to be taken a lot more seriously in ‘The Town Where Friendship and, like, you know, Diversity and Cake and other nice things Rei(g)n wink wink nudge nudge say no more about that horrible, horrible pun I just inserted into the title of their song, mind you a rein is probably a horrific instrument of torture in Equestria so forget I said that’.

Anyway, RD needs to go coach some other ponies and they mustn’t miss the train to the Crystal Empire. The one thing I like in this is that again we see a multi-part – and multi-season – arc relating to a big Equestrian event, just like the Grand Galloping Gala in series one. Given this, I suspect we’ll see the CMCs getting their mark: since there is some continuity and the series isn’t just pressing the reset button or ignoring what was decided in earlier episodes, there’s that chance. I for one would like to see their CMs. It might even be a fitting series finale when Hasbro finally puts the kibosh on the series and moves on.

Scoots is devastated. We have five minutes now to resolve this. On your marks, get set…

…Go!

Applebloom and Sweetie Belle are scared Scoots will miss the train. She’s the weak link, and she’ll fall or flop. Better off without her. Applebloom’s reaction is quite surprising. If she’s gonna quit, WE don’t need her.

And thus we get the Town Where Friendship Argues With Itself. RD is excitable about their routine. And AT LAST! The CMC tell RD about their problem. RD instills them with the fighting spirit to, erm, abandon the train to the trashcakes.

They hook up with Scoots, who makes the proper noises for a few seconds. RD speaks for the others when she explains how diversity actually works. RD was from Cloudsdale

The disability plotline is worked out: we find out about Scoots’ disadvantage in not currently being able to fly, but maybe she will, maybe she won’t – but she’ll still be the best li’l pony in town. And it’s Dashie who is making up for her teasing of D. Hooves in S2. :D. This Asperger’s blogger, who has tried for ten years to get into the position in which she can get and hold down a job, can sympathise with that – Scoots wants to fly, and she’s not going to let anything stop her trying. She’s not just sitting back and saying ‘I can’t, so I won’t’. But at the same time, now the girls have finally approached someone else over this situation, they’ve found it doesn’t really matter, because every person has their own unique talent…yeah, you can see where this is going. The CMC episodes are about ponies – well, people – trying to find their niche in life. This ep has been all the better for not fixating on the blank flank aspect and getting another angle in on the kids finding out what they do best. Scoots is disappointed that she can’t fly, of course, which is another layer to the inspirational message here. Sometimes you can’t do the things that others can do, and that can lead to being bullied. But on the other hand, finding what it is you can do bolsters your confidence in different ways and in time will make you just as good and as valuable as everyone else. This is a message particularly valuable to people held back through handicaps which are no fault of their own, a bit like Scoots’ underdeveloped wings.

Which is better than keeping an animation glitch around for mane protagonists to laugh at.

Cue motivational song and a reprise of Hearts as Strong as Horses.

The inevitable happens when the CMCs are chosen to carry the flag. Even Horsewhinney (Dashie actually says Harshwhinney) is overenthusiastic and Dashie gets in a dig. The trashcakes  look on, going a nice shade of green to clash with their dresses.

And the stinger? They are like totally going to get cutie marks in flag-carrying.

OK, I’m giving this episode 10 out of 10. The standard of writing is amazing, they wrote a decent disability episode to make up for the D. Hooves incident, and the Hearts as Strong as Horses song is just about the best one in all four seasons. I’ve largely gone over what I wanted to say, but this is an episode in the fine tradition of the series, all about ‘you CAN do what you want to do’, with a side order of ‘disability is something you have to adapt to, but it shouldn’t hold you back’, which is what I needed to hear a few months ago when I was struggling to get a job (I now have had a couple of days temping and start a contract job in January) and feeling that my lack of ability in the past to get much more than voluntary work was holding me back. I’ve largely accepted that an academic career is what I’m after in the long run, but I have office skills, and that has got me interim projects to work on.

You CAN do it. Good luck.

Where I Watch – My Little Pony – Episode 4 – Daring Don’t

Apologies for the delay. I have just got a paying job – two, in fact – and had a busy weekend with book club, going to see Catching Fire, and Sunday lunch round my boyfriend’s parents. I’ve been working hard on preparing Brother Wolf for publication, because it’s in need of extensive re-writing to make the story a bit more dynamic than the first few drafts were. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the next review up sooner, but with Christmas imminent normal scheduling goes out the window. In the new year I have a three-day working week, so things might be a little more balanced out.

The break also helped me detox from the excitement of the premiere episodes and get myself back into expecting slice-of-life pony drama – with the obvious twists the writers of this fantastic show always seem to insert.

Anyway, this week’s plot is that Rainbow Dash is excited four months in advance of the new Daring Do book. Note the word ‘book’: Daring Do is a fictional character. Or so I believe on first encounter with this plot. (Bear with me here. I write while I’m watching, so I record my initial reaction to the plot — written after the episode finished and in summing up.)

The other ponies couldn’t be more …apathetic if they tried. RD is a big fan, but the other. Twilight knows the publishing schedules of her favourite novelist… A K Yearling.

A K Yearling. Honestly. I’m not sure whether to groan at the pun or salute the writers on their large and inventive horse vocabulary. (Let’s try working ‘Tesco’s Delicatessen’ into an episode next year.) Yearling has pushed her book release back two months. And the loyal fan RD is obsessed with seeking out Ms Yearling (who writes about a female action hero, a neat touch). Ms Yearling lives in a remote part of Equestria, so the ponies set out to try and find her and ask whether they could help her.

There’s an excellent visual gag. A red line is drawn over a map. Pinkie Pie is actually painting the line along the ground.

Uh-oh. Yearling’s house is abandoned and trashed. Pinkie reckons she’s just a slob, but RD is more concerned that the lack of an author means no more books.

But they finally meet her when she returns, and accuses the Mane 6 of trashing the place. It seems she’s hiding an artifact, a ring of gold. Twilight insists RD leave Yearling alone, but…duh duh duhnnn!

“You should tell that to those guys.” Three ne’er-do-wells (mare do-wells? Well, they’re stallions…)…three intruders are getting in at the upstairs window. They watch as, in a very surprising twist, A K Yearling turns into …DARING-DO!

That’ll learn me to second-guess fan comments on t’interwebz. The intruders seem to be after the ring. After a scrap, it lands on the floor in front of Dr Caballeron, another character from the books. Cue obviously ridiculous Indiana Jones plot, dooming the Valley of Wherever to eight centuries of DOOOOOOOOM.

Okie-dokie-lokey. The moral becomes clear – Daring-Do doesn’t want help. RD wants to help her. The books seem to hold some clue to Twilight’s assessment of her book. I’ve lost track of the various plotlines of the adventure books, but it seems to be instrumental in the arguments as to whether DD needs help or not.

They’ll need a plan. “I’M COMING, DARING-DO!” Uh, that’s not a plan. Just another adventure. RD gets a bit starstruck over working alongside DD and wastes a few minutes beating herself up, with DD a little scathing of her demonstrations of “quick wit and courage”. DD has a few trust issues and “secrets”. This could go one of two ways: DD learning the value of trust, or RD learning to leave people the f… alone.

She tags along behind a frustrated and cynical DD, who uses a cheesy ambush idea to lure Caballeron and his henchmen. As Caballeron and DD are sealing the deal, Zodo, mentioned in the original opening sequence, invades the clearing. DD uses a little bit of wit to confront Zodo, who has a “proposal of his own”. RD is a little non-plussed, as you might imagine, and gets in the way during the climactic battle…leading to DD’s capture.

I’m leaning towards my latter moral at this point, with RD learning that moral right now, in fact, so there’s an additional situation. My hero doesn’t need my help. But that doesn’t sound like the usual Rainbow Dash: and she’s put her up on so much of a pedestal RD no longer sees her own worth.

Which is a moral worthy of MLP and really makes the episode. The ponies have battled evil before. So they can confront Zodo. Which is just as well as he is in full-on evil megalomaniac mode, with DD suspended above a crocodile pit. She’s a little snarky at RD’s appearance and a little hostile towards her. RD says, to her snappy, “Have I mentioned yet I work alone?” — “Have I mentioned that I DON’T?”

Classic pony.

DD planned all along to get captured and into the fortress. But she didn’t count on how heavy the various rings were to get off the obelisk, which is where RD comes in. So the spirit of co-operation is upheld, and it’s a nice note to end on. And she’s on the cover of the next DD book. It’s a little less pat than the last episode’s moral, and a little less one-dimensional, because it demonstrates another facet of fandom – that is, be yourself and see your own worth as well as worshipping someone else’s talent. Let’s face it – we’ve probably all been there, and kids need to know that their life is supposed to be for them, not made to be in service to someone else (but often co-operating with others who find out they need assistance).

I’ll give this one 8 out of 10. I’m not bothered that evil exists in Equestria apparently without Celestia knowing about it; Daring Do might well be under Celestia’s orders to handle that aspect of Equestrian life; it also makes Equestria seem like a varied and intelligible place rather than a one-trick ponyville. I also like the idea that DD’s books are memoirs rather than stories.

Where I Watch – My Little Pony – Episode 3 – Castle Mania

NB – spoilers! and I watched this and wrote this at the same time. So double spoilers for both the show and my ultimate reaction.

We open with Twilight developing the theme of the locked box, which I totally overlooked last week and has been playing out on Tumblr and other places for a whole week now.

There seems to be a story arc developing here with the next destination on a mega-quest . And Twily and I have something in common (well, we have a lot in common, such that her story could be mine if you squint hard and turn the picture through 90 degrees). We. Love. Books. THIS PLACE IS PERFECT!

We open with another pony image, resembling The Wicker Man. Applejack and Rainbow Dash are competing in the Most Daring Pony contest by surrounding themselves with bees. The beekeeper pony (could this perhaps be the Transformer Pony Bumblebee?) is wanting his bees back. The contest ends in a tie, and Pinkie Pie bounces off to her next engagement, leaving the two feisty fillies to dare themselves into oblivion.

Fluttershy and Rarity, meanwhile, are going for a walk in the forest. Towards the Castle of the Two Sisters, which has a reputation for its tapestries as well as its ancient magic and Rarity wants inspiration. Retro-ancient-classical inspiration.

This is a little …broken up. It seems a little bit like the comics – a bit too focused on set-pieces as yet. It’s good to see, however, that the ponies haven’t lost their well-written characters. So three ponies are at the castle, and three others…are not.

Except they are, because they came to the castle too, for reasons of finding dark magic originally belonging to Nightmare Moon – The Pony of Shadows.

I think they’re trying a little too hard. In trying to get a tapestry down, Fluttershy is catapulted through a secret door and swings round again, hurting her wing. This is My Little Scooby-Doo at its finest. Rarity is more concerned about tapestries than secret doors.

AJ and RD dare each other to stay in the castle the longest and therefore prove themselves the Most Daring Pony. So we now have all the makings of an interesting climax for about three different episodes, except the writers have seen fit to condense it into one. There better be something to make this come together; we’re already half-way through.

Rarishy find themselves in a secret tunnel looking for Angel the bunny. In a case of mistaken identity, they hook up with RD and AJ but as they are feeling each others’ hooves through a hole in the wall, they don’t realise it.

Twilight’s research has found out that many of these interesting elements are ways in which Celestia and Luna pranked each other. The other ponies are getting freaked out. (Pinkie Pie is absent, by the way. I think she would probably add a little too much levity to the episode.) Rarity and ‘Shy stumble on the throne room with its magnificent tapestries.

‘It’s not like it’s going to come to life or anything,’ says AJ of an old suit of armour – and, to be honest, of this episode. It’s trying very hard to be scary, and I guess it might be for little girls who have never seen Scooby-Doo, but actually, having grown up, it’s not exactly thrilling material. You get the impression that a lot of this stuff is trying too hard to work up a scary atmosphere over some mundane aspects. Three-quarters of the way in now and still no obvious antagonism apart from the furniture. AJ is lost, Rarity is spat out of a chute and left to rage at the ‘ungrateful’ castle, and Fluts is still looking for Angel.

RD is speaking for me when she says: ‘C’mon castle is that all you got?’ Followed by a major scream. The castle is falling apart. Spike is still in the doghouse for holding the chump ball from last episode, so of course Twilight thinks he’s being sarcastic. The rest of the ponies are losing their collective minds over a few collapsing beams. Twilight raises the obvious issue and asks what they’re doing.

The only unexplained event is the creepy organ music. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it. Perhaps it’s the PONY OF SHADOWS?

Three guesses and the first two don’t count. Based on the rest of the episode it’s probably a mundane thing.

Well, OK, it’s Pinkie Pie. Duh!

And she would have got away with it but for those meddling kids.

I think this is a severe waste of a location. I suppose we’ve been spoilt by the previous few episodes continuing the broader series arc, such that a more mundane episode with the moral ‘Don’t let your imagination run away with you!’ and ‘Such and such is helping me cope with being a superprincessgoddesspony!’ has been something we’ve not seen for almost a whole year now.

So the shadowpony is just a myth, like many things.

I’ll give this a 7/10. The moral was fine as a story in its own right, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with reassuring kids that the spider is more afraid of them than they are of it. But after a whizz-bang start to the series, and as an adult fan of fantasy literature where most stories are myth arcs rather than needing to puncture the serious-business aspect for much of a series, it was a bit of a climb-down from recent form. Having said that, sometimes we all need reminded not to let our imaginations run away with us. When there’s big stuff brewing, don’t neglect the little stuff. In that regard, I need to give it a reasonable mark, because I let myself get caught up in the need for action adventure every week while forgetting the reason My Little Pony exists in the first place – to scare the bejeezus out of little kids and then reassure them that everything’s OK; sometimes the shadow on the wall is just a shadow. The suspense lacking for me as an adult would be more intense for the show’s target demographic. In a way, we adult fans sometimes make the show become something it’s not.

It’s not the show’s fault; it’s mine. I think next week I’ll be back to approaching and appreciating the show as a kid’s cartoon rather than something that has recently taken on the import of Lord of the Rings.