"It Ain't Easy Being Breezies" Comments: Paradise Is Spreading · 4:43pm Mar 1st, 2014
Very briefly:
This was a lesson Fluttershy very much needed to learn. Namely, that sometimes it is cruel to be excessively kind, and one must be firm to be truly kind. This relates both directly to her mastery of her Element, Kindness, and to the mastery of her psychic powers. Fluttershy, incidentally, was able in this episode to use The Stare at differing levels of intensity, when she needed to, with little preparation, and exactly as appropriate to the situation.
Her realization means she will probably not be going all Nightmare Whisper over everyone any time soon. Since I really like Fluttershy and she suffers a lot in that story arc, this makes me glad.
It's very significant that Twilight Sparkle is learning magic from the archives of the Castle of the Two Royal Pony Sisters. Specifically, what she's learned is Transformation magic -- related to some of the really powerful spells that Trixie was able to cast with the Alicorn Amulet in "Magic Duel." It may be highly-relevant to the possibility of her friends achieving Ascension, though I don't know if this is how the writers mean it, and even if they do, I don't know if Twilight Sparkle realizes yet that this is possible. ("Shall not outlive her friends" indeed!)
For me, there was an utterly astonishing moment at the end, though.
You see, the Breezies are G3 creatures. They come from what Alex Warlorn theorizes was a timeline that the Cosmics had to destroy because its continuance would have crashed causality on a Universal scale. "The World That Was Not," which in my fanon was run by a sapient self-sustaining magical vortex derived from the computer control systems that ran the great Engines that powered the Wish.
Which called itself ... Paradise. And is the sire of the Daughters of Paradise, including Claire and Pinkie Pie.
And what does Rainbow call the Breezies' world?
A "mini-paradise." An appropriate description, of course, but still the coincidence was eerie.
Looks to me as if Paradise has already begun reconstructing its world. Or at least part of it.
I thought it was Rainbow Dash who called it paradise... but I could be wrong.
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Thank you. I know I want to watch it again, especially the last 10 minutes (which is also when Fluttershy came to her realization).
This was a Fluttershy rather than Rainbow Dash episode, but Rainbow's two best friends in canon are Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. Did you also notice the cute little part at the end where RD wanted to be turned into a Griffon? I'm thinking that she has long wished she could have the sheer strength of one of her former best friends -- who I'd like to see do a return episode. Namely, Gilda.
1883850 The bit at the end with the griffon was funny, but it struck me as 'Twilight could so abuse this spell so we'll have to make her reluctant to cast it for no good reason to keep it from being the swiss army knife that everyone will wonder why she isn't using in all future episodes'.
Although I guess in character the thought of Rainbow Dash as a griffon going around pranking ponies might not have appealed to her much. Because you know that's the first thing she'd do.
...I really didn't like this episode much, though.
There was another part of the lesson, which is that if you start out being firm and angry no one will listen to you. That's what Fluttershy taught Seabreeze. Which continues the theme of needing to teach your element to somepony else to get the glittery thing, although the flower didn't glitter like the rest of the thingies did.
The thought of the breezies being from paradise is cute, especially since they're so helpless in the 'real world'. The whole "Pegasus magic needed to carry the pollen safely" is reminiscent of the bizarre requirements of the rainbows in G3, too (you had to have four selected unicorns cast a cooperative spell or there'd be no rainbows for the next year).
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Well ... Transformation magic strikes me as inherently dangerous. It might be that if you transform too often into a form your mind might start to change into that form, and you might be stuck in that form. It's a fairly high-level magic, in canon we've only ever see Luna and the Changelings do it: and Luna only did it on-screen as Nightmare Moon, while for the Changelings it is a natural ability and hence their minds are presumably better-adapted to maintaining control of their selves through various morphs. So Twilight probably only wants to cast it when she's had a chance to +research it properly, and only then when she or her friends really need to do this. Not to let Rainbow Dash prank Ponyville, or Gilda, or whomever she was planning to use this on.
That's an important point -- that kindness requires firmness and pliance at the appropriate times. Fluttershy must master firmness to truly master Kindness -- and note that in canon her power is double-edged. She can befriend creatures like the manticore or even mad gods like Discord, or she can Stare other creatures into submission. She has both what amount to a charisma enhancer and out-and-out mind control, and it takes wisdom to use powers like these safely.
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My thought is that Paradise has already started reconstructing part of the World That Was Lost, in another dimension, and that its long-term plan is to reconstruct the whole thing, using its hard-won wisdom regarding the need to conserve causality to avoid damaging the Cosmos this time round, and open a permanent large-scale portal to our world to allow traffic between the realities. Operating that portal will probably be the job of Claire "Least Noticeable" Quartz Pie.
Well, in my fanon, anyway.
1885013 Well ... Transformation magic strikes me as inherently dangerous. It might be that if you transform too often into a form your mind might start to change into that form, and you might be stuck in that form. It's a fairly high-level magic, in canon we've only ever see Luna and the Changelings do it: and Luna only did it on-screen as Nightmare Moon, while for the Changelings it is a natural ability and hence their minds are presumably better-adapted to maintaining control of their selves through various morphs. So Twilight probably only wants to cast it when she's had a chance to +research it properly, and only then when she or her friends really need to do this. Not to let Rainbow Dash prank Ponyville, or Gilda, or whomever she was planning to use this on.
Heh, this makes me reconsider my own ideas along those lines in 'Wolf In Pony's Clothing'. Maybe the chance of losing one's 'self' to a transformation is why Twilight and Rarity worked on that experimental ponysuit; it's more of an all-senses illusion covering the wearer than an actual transformation, and thus far less dangerous to the pony it's used on. Even though Ardi still managed to get into more than his share of trouble while wearing it!
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That makes sense -- changing what a thing looks like sounds inherently less dangerous than changing what it is.