Episode Reviews, part 1 of 208 · 9:01am Apr 3rd, 2018
"Luna Eclipsed" is one of the best episodes of the show.
Even though it's just a silly holiday themed episode about costumes, candy, and games.
Actually, especially because of that.
On a surface level, I appreciate that it's just a slice-of-life that turns into a character-driven problem. I mean that it's not single-mindedly trying to be a Halloween story, it just organically takes place during such a holiday, and makes use of that for its themes. Reminds me of Carl Barks's storytelling; one event keeps leading to another in fun, surprising ways.
And it's also really cute how it manages to be dark and «spooky» for young children, but since there's no threat or danger it's not «scary».
Besides the terrifying threat of Nightmare Night being cancelled forever. NO FUN ALLOWED.
In the end that's all the children viewers want out of this, the fun and games. As Twilight writes in her letter to Celestia, the festival helps the younger ponies to get Luna to open up, and they become friends with her. Yay!
Obviously there's a lot more going on in this episode, with Luna's perspective. But naturally, children aren't going to understand the concept of being out of touch in a new age. Or empathize with regret and guilt over the past. So that's left invisible to them, but they can focus on the idea that a grown princess needs fun and games too.
Why should adult readers pick up kid’s books?
DITERLIZZI: I think the best of them work on many levels. It’s like the lyrics to your favorite song, and how you can take aspects of them and make them applicable to what you are going through. When I return to these books I see an allegorical story through the lens of an adult that I didn’t see as a kid. The Pooh books are great that way. I remember my mom reading them to me and laughing at stuff. I didn’t know what she was laughing at until I read them to my daughter.
This is a bit different from the obvious idea of sneaking in references and jokes that will fly over the kids' heads. Every successful cartoon and animated movie seems to do that now, so it's nothing special anymore. Given enough freedom, everyone working on childrens media don't actually aim it at children, but make something they'd want to watch themselves. I found so many interviews where they all say this exact same thing.
There's one line recapping the whole Nightmare Moon battle, and that's it.
After the parade of redeemed villains constantly needing to hammer home the point in recent seasons, I've finally realized how smart M.A. Larson was back then, for not needing to say it. He trusted the animators to show that perspective. There's so many little details and nuances to make it clear that Luna's not offended over the candy itself. I think the fanfic authors picked up on that, at least.
For that matter, no adult can share in Luna's exact experience here: being over a thousand years old and wielding divine power and having a spooky folk legend based on you. But it's allegorical enough that it can apply to most of us... some small piece on the inside that's full of conflicted regret, but awkward uncertainty on how to start things over.
On a side note, they still haven't used batponies or zebras other than Zecora (Flutterbat doesn't really count). They were a fun piece of the early worldbuilding, and fan-favorites too. Six seasons later there's this school for "every creature" to learn friendship, and they're still nowhere to be seen! 
April Fools! Oh, wait. 
(All your image links are broken)This is legitimately my favorite episode. It's almost disappointing that they haven't managed to top it six seasons later...
As I once noted, the part where the solitary Luna pushes a piece of candy toward her statue right before Twilight's arrival remains the single best half-second of the show. What gorgeous subdued and subtle characterization.
4831971
Luna Eclipsed will always be one of the show's crowning moments, but I think a few others have joined it in the top tier. Amending Fences is quite possibly its equal in terms of the power of its story. Magical Mystery Cure, though it had its problems, has inspired me more. And Crusaders of the Lost Mark and Tanks for the Memories both hit me like emotional sledgehammers.
4831971
Also, since we're talking about MA Larson, did you catch that he outed himself as having written the "Pinkie Pie's Siri" twitter account?
4832053
I should have said "top it for me," really.
4832056
I am so glad you told me this.
We arranged the Vault interview through the Pinkie Pie's Siri account. I've always wondered who else knew/if it ever came out.
4831971
huh, the images load for me, on multiple devices. can anyone else confirm?
I just remembered Larson said he wrote in a scene with batponies in ep 100, but it got cut for time. he truly was the one who cared about the fandom the most
4832168
Oh, maybe it's on my end... I get
when I tried to click through to them.
Edit: They load on my phone so feel free to disregard me, cheers
4832053
I forgot you were the one who observed that, and I didn't want to plagiarize by including it here. but that idea was stuck in the back of my head while writing this, heh heh.
If the show had ended in season 2 or 3, it'd still work beautifully as Luna's moment of redemption. Now it's kind of overshadowed by the more flashy episodes, which is a shame.
4832056
ahhhh, I'm discovering this account for the first time. no one ever showed it to me!
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Images are broken for me too. And when I try to control-click on them to open them in new windows, it tries to download files with garbled names and a ".dms" extension.
I think it's specifically a Safari bug on Macintosh, related to image processing for images without extensions (".jpg"/".gif"/etc). I googled it and found some forum threads complaining about it.
4832218
ah, that explains it, thanks.
these are just episode screenshots, so I don't feel much like fixing these. but I'll remember it for next time.