Second Thoughts: Forgotten Friendship · 8:23pm Feb 19th, 2018
This past weekend we got a special hiatus treat, to while us over the winter months before the new season starts: an Equestria Girls special that was actually really good and filled with interesting things to talk about.
The story: After an unpleasant encounter with a certain student, Sunset arrives for a beach day with her friends to find that they've all forgotten every good memory they had of her, and see her as they did before she was redeemed in the first film. After asking Princess Twilight for help, Sunset discovers that someone has used Equestrian magic to erase their memories, and she has to find out who and reverse it before the effect becomes permanent.
And I sort of have to do this first: Clover the Clever is back in canon! 
Given that nothing was said in show continuity about Clover since Hearth's Warming Eve, and that she wasn't mentioned in Shadow Play, it was almost beginning to look like "Clover the Clever" was just a stock character created for a pageant with no basis in real Equestrian history. But now she's back!
Also she's a stallion now, but nopony's perfect. They become perfect when you learn to accept them for who they are.
Well, clearly there was another mishap in the rule 63 universe, and the Clovers either temporarily switched places again or they swapped records of the incident to gain another level of verification. Because some ponies can work together across the dimensions, Star Swirl 
Clover does his teacher proud by hunting down a sorceress even as his mind is being erased, to retrieve a powerful and dangerous magical artifact. The student of Star Swirl the Bearded obviously isn't going to let something as minor as memory erasure stop him from completing a task and helping others. Having found the artifact, Clover decided to hide it away in the low-magic alternate dimension that his teacher has been known to use for this purpose before. I approve of this entire subplot.
But there are other interesting things going on as well. Not only do we see the return of Clover the Clever, we also finally got to see Sunset reunite with Princess Celestia. Princess Twilight gets to play a major role in the EQG-verse for the first time since Rainbow Rocks. But what I find more interesting is that they've discarded the ensemble model and delivered a story that focuses primarily on Sunset Shimmer alone, giving her a better chance to show us what she's made of. Stripped of her closest friends, Sunset has to overcome this challenge without her usual support network - along the way she finds new friends and shows how much her friends mean to her when she risks falling back into old habits without the humane six to keep her grounded.
This is is a story about growth. About how your past creates your present. The macguffins are a yearbook, an icon of history and remembrance, and the Memory Stone, an artifact that robs people of their memories. The villain is the one person that no-one remembers, and who has no growth except in her plants.
(From off the camera Star Swirl is gesturing and nodding wildly, as if to say "See? SEE?")
It's a good fit for Sunset Shimmer, whose entire character arc revolves around how she's grown out of her troubled past. Wallflower Blush, on the other hand, has magic that has enabled her to avoid having a troubled past entirely. The ending seems to imply that the reason why no-one remembers her is that she removes all those memories, because she never gets past her awkward introductions. She had an easy way out of awkward situations, and was addicted to using it. But because of that she's never learned to cope and grow as a person.
The theme comes out in other ways as well. There is a restricted section of the Canterlot Library, where things are remembered but not by all. Clover the Clever overcomes the sorceress by writing things down. And even though we are dealing with a powerful magical artifact capable of doing tremendous harm, he doesn't destroy it - that's what the sorceress would do - but tries to find someplace safe to preserve it while leaving a written record so that the incident itself won't be lost.
So yeah, I really liked this one. Possibly more than anything EQG since Friendship Games.
What else? Well, Trixie was great. Luna was great. Celestia's jokes were great. I could have lived without the power-up scene at the end, which was the only part of the whole special where it felt like they were just following the series trope blindly. But that's a minor thing in an overall great adventure.
(If not for my crippling insecurity about my writing speed, I would already be writing The Seven Trials of Clover the Clever.)
I'm perfectly willing to sacrifice speed for quality; get cracking on The Seven Trials of Clover the Clever!
But yes, I enjoyed this one after being convinced to watch it. Honestly, I had given up on EQD entirely, and reviews about all the shorts had only reinforced that decision. Glad to know the Pedestrian situation isn't hopeless!
Yeah, this was really good overall, best parts were everything related to Shimmy, and the whole time back in Equestria.
Lowest points were everything around Wallflower. Who, somehow, was justified in resenting Sunset because nobody remembers Wallflower, because she made sure no one remembered her... yeah do no get how the moral was supposed to make sense. First 'redeemable' villain that I have had not one hint of sympathy towards.
And yeah totally thought of the fic when they brought up Clover. Also, anyone else get Long Road to Friendship flashbacks when with Trixie?
Why should you let that stop you? (Also, clearly each Clover did some of his or her trials in the other's universe.)
But yeah, great stuff here.
What's also interesting is that according to the pictures, the sorceress Clover fought is an earth pony.
Oh, and I thought the transformation was not that bad, between the less hideous outfits and Pinkie cutting the exposition short.
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Well... If I tried it, it would be just another in the long line of things I want to do and said I'd do, but that then never happen and instead become just one more thing to feel guilty about
I have actually been trying for weeks now to wrap my head around the next chapter of The Crown of Night, with extremely limited success.
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And I'm busy not writing Daring Do and the Bloodcrystal Dagger and The Sunset Substitute. We're all bozos on this bus, bro!
The only thing that makes me bit confused is this EqG world...
I mean after four films and number of specials... it seems it was actually used as a dump for radioactive and volatile equestrian magic...and creatures
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The awkwardness would also have gotten more likely the more she savescummed. Imagine someone trying to fast forward through an introduction they've already heard eight times from the POV of the introductor.
Sometimes all it takes to get that writing spark back is the right inspiration, so if that mind worm is digging into your brain it might be better to get it out through a new story. I'd never want to give you something that you'd feel guilty about, but I for one (and I think most of us would agree) would love to get Clover's Trials regardless of the pace.
As for the movie, I loved nearly everything about it. Certainly the best EQG since Rainbow Rocks. I think Wallflower herself was really the show's big failing. She had an absolutely terrible arc and they utterly failed at making her sympathetic, a necessity if you're going to "redeem" your villain. EQG seems deathly afraid of having any unredeemed villains in their canon and I think here that worked against them.
It also caused the movies moral to go too far in the process. "It's not enough to not be mean, you have to be actively nice & inclusive to everyone," just goes too far in the other direction. I'm not saying that people shouldn't try to be nice & inclusive to others, but acting like that is a requirement is too much. At some point it is on others to attempt to be included (at which point you should be nice & inclusive) and you can't just sit at the sidelines of life and solely rely on others to invite you to play the game.
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Aren’t the Sirens still Not redeemed?
Also, the failure with Wallflower Blush’s motivation...well, if you made the villain a boy, it would make things worse. But because it’s a girl, we can somehow forgive them?