On Magical Mystery Cure

Hello everyone. Sorry, no new chapters or fics yet, but I did want to share some thoughts regarding this recent finale episode that you may have heard about XD. Get some popcorn and get comfy; tis a long one.

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Alrighty everypony, here we are. Season finale has been over and done with, and the time has passed to think over just what it is that we have watched. Before I can really get into what I thought of the episode, I do sort of want to address the reaction many of the fandom had prior to the episode. In particular, a lot of the doom and gloom predictions of “Twipocalypse”.

TL;DR Point:Theorizing and judgments come after observation and testing, not before. To do otherwise risks you only looking for things to fit your preconceived notions, and doing that means you risk missing out on a lot of good things.

Full Point:
]As some of you may or may not know, I’m a political scientist, or at least studying to be one. A big part of any training in a science is, of course, the scientific method. But I don’t want to get into all of that, just a small part. One of the most important aspects of scientific knowledge is observation aka actually being able to observe phenomena to study it. And while hypotheses and research questions can guide us, and theories provide a framework of analysis, a good scientist also tries to do their best to not theorize and discuss the results of an experiment before actually performing it. Going into an experiment with a biased mind can, in fact, bias the experiment. You might look for things that support your own view but ignore things that don’t; you might subtly influence data or the experiment in a way that supports you, etc. etc.

But what does this have to do about watching a television show you ask? Well, the same rigor that we use in science can also be applied to analyzing, well, anything really. Sure, it’s fine to speculate, make guesses on what can happen, and to have opinions about the quality of something. That does not mean, however, you should form judgments about what is going to happen; those should be reserved for after you watch an episode. You can be scared, you can worried, but try and go into it with an open mind so as your prior theories and judgments don’t make you shut off your brain. If you’ve convinced yourself that you’re going to absolutely hate an episode, then when actually watching it you’ll become so focused on finding the things that justify that hate you may ignore the good things…or ignore the fact that what you criticized for one episode you may have let slide or even approved of in another.

So now that that is out of the way, let’s move on to my opinion of Magical Mystery Cure.

TL;DR Point:
*Pacing was perfectly fine; the musical numbers served their purpose of condensing the meaning and the feelings behind all the various points of the plot without getting us bogged down by filler.

*This doesn’t make Twilight a Mary Sue Alicorn God! Twilight had a character arc that showed actual development, and the alicorn=god thing is fanon. If anything, this shows the possibility that being an alicorn is possibly more akin to a state of enlightenment than godhood.

*Twilight’s position as a princess opens up a lot of new possibilities for plots and development of not just her but other characters.

*I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Full Point:
I’m going to go ahead and bring it straight to the point: I enjoyed this episode very much. I honestly do not have any real big negatives in regards to this episode, and considering the controversy that it was bringing, I thought it was pulled of nicely. Because of this, I’m going to basically write this as a response to the more negative criticisms I’ve seen than anything else.

1) The Pacing Was Terrible; This Should Have Been A Two-Parter

I’ll be honest, this episode shouldn’t have been one. A lot of people have said it should, saying that the parts of the episode the songs covered should have been shown in scene. But lets’ think about that for a moment. The songs in this episode basically covered:

-Twilight’s good morning
-The cutie marks all mixed up and how the ponies were doing
-Twilight’s depression over making the mistake
-Fixing the mistake
-Celestia congratulating Twilight and telling her how proud she was of her
-A chant introducing Princess Twilight
-Twilight’s optimism about the future

It’s the second to third songs that would be the best points to have split into scenes instead of songs, but that would have meant:
-5 different scenes showing how messed up everyone was
-5 different scenes showing how miserable everyone was
-5 different scenes showing everyone being fixed and back to normal

That’s 15 different scenes that would have needed to been added, and the majority of all of them would have been filler jokes and antics. Look, many plots basically boil down to something like this:

1) Hero is living life
2) Hero is confronted with a problem
3) Hero struggles to fix problem
4) Hero fixes problem
5) Hero is rewarded

Now of course plenty of variations on that, but that’s a basic plot structure right there. Each of those songs basically matched a part of that list (Celestia’s Ballad being in the rewarded part alongside the last two songs). And that’s a good thing; in musicals, musical numbers doing a wonderful job of summing up all the going ons and emotions without a lot of filler. Off the top of my head, I can think of Hakuna Matata from The Lion King; fully expressed the care-free life of no worries that Simba experienced growing up with Timon and Pumba while allowing us to get on with the plot instead of being bogged down by actually showing that life.

And that’s what happened in this episode; the musical numbers hit all the main points of the plot, fully expressed what was needed to be understood and felt at each stage of the plot, and did it all without getting us bogged down in the filler and repetition that would have been needed to do those 15 scenes mentioned earlier. So pacing a problem? In my opinion, absolutely not.

2) This made Twilight a Mary Sue Alicorn God!

“Mary Sue” is such an overly used term in fandoms today that it almost has lost all meaning. That’s not to say there aren’t any Mary Sues; it’s just the term itself has been so vague and can be used in so many different ways that it can be thrown around as a derogatory term without really understanding it. And I’m not here to fight the argument of what is a Mary Sue, but for the purpose of this we can sort of just say it’s something to the effect of “a character who is treated as flawless and perfect and usually one who the plot just happens to them instead of them doing something.”

Twilight Sparkle, alicorn or not, doesn’t fit that.

One of the most important traits of a Sue is that they are created perfect and then stay perfect; they are static characters. Twilight, however, developed as a character, and has been developing as a character since episode one. She’s no longer the book-nerd who only cared about studying magic (why do I get the feeling Star-Swirl might have been like that…), she’s grown to truly love and care for all of her friends. She has been there with them for all their victories and defeats, has fought alongside them to defend their home from creatures that wished to bring disharmony and chaos, and is basically willing to do anything with and for them.

That was the point really of Celestia’s Ballad; to reflect and remind us of how much Twilight has grown over the last three seasons. Oh sure we got the talk of her being special and destiny and what not, but that does not make a Mary Sue (otherwise it could be argued every character is a Sue). Sure, her latent magical abilities as seen in Cutie Mark Chronicles might have caught Celestia’s eyes, but it’s those lessons in friendship that are really what made her ready to become an alicorn. If it wasn’t for them, she would have probably been another Star-Swirl the Bearded; sure, she would have been a great and powerful unicorn, but she wouldn’t have the love and good feelings that can only be had in friendship.

And let’s be honest; the whole ‘alicorns are gods!’ thing isn’t canon. It’s fanon; commonly accepted theories about how the universe works that is supported by fan interpretation but is not expressly stated by the canon show. We assumed they were god like beings based on Celestia; that doesn’t mean they are.

In fact, I’m willing to put out a new idea; alicorns aren’t gods but are instead more like enlightened beings. Twilight is able to become an alicorn upon creating new magic based upon the lessons she had learned in Ponyville about friendship and harmony. In short, upon reaching an understanding of the nature of the universe, the Hero moves beyond normal human (or pony) life and ascends to a higher state of being. Now, this is just head canon/fanon too, and we really can’t say anything more until the other parts of this three-parter are shown, but it’s just something to consider.

3) This Should Have Been The End of the Show!

I’m going to keep this section really brief to make up for the other two being long. Yes, this would have in fact been a good series finale since this served as a pretty good wrap up of Twilight’s character arc. That doesn’t mean it has to, however. In fact, this now opens up the possibilities for a lot of things now that Twilight is a princess. Just off the top of my head:

-Learn more about how Equestria works
-Learn about the rest of the world as Twilight serves as an emissary role
-Develop character arcs for other characters, allowing the rest of the Mane 6 to take on more center stages with Twilight being their supporting cast.

Point is, the opportunities ahead are bounded only by the imagination of the writers and the fans. After all, Celestia and Twilight both recognized at the end there was still a lot to learn, but the relationship between them is no longer student-teacher but colleagues. And while the chapter on Twilight’s old life may be over, a new chapter is just beginning.

Conclusion:
So to really sum this massive thing up, I enjoyed this episode. The whole “the end it’s nigh!” sentiment prior to the episode really was unnecessary as any real judgment on the quality should have been saved for after the show, and I’m glad I reserved my judgment. The musical nature of the episode allowed us to get a real feel for the situation without bogging us down in filler scenes. The plot of the episode, and Twilight’s ascension into alicorn-hood served as a nice wrap-up for her character development while still leaving us with brand new opportunities for plots and development as she adjusts to her new life. I honestly can’t wait till the next season to see what the crew comes up with next. But I’ll reserve full judgment till then ;).