The soapboxes cvontinue! As always, these are the opinions of fandom members, not us here at EQD. If you'd like to submit your own soapbox, hit up this post for infos.
Have some headlines:
- What is Wrong with the official My Little Pony YouTube Channel?!
- Cadence Love!
- FiM and Seasonal Rot: When Did It Start? (Part 2)
- Thoughts after the Season 10 premiere story
And go read them below!
Thoughts after the Season 10 premiere story
By: FlareGun45
WARNING! This post contains spoilers to the season 10 comics!
So after reading the first four comics, it turns out that Zecora's homeland has its own Tree of Harmony, and her and her friends have their own Elements. To be honest, I didn't like the sound of this at first; I didn't know what direction the comic writers were going. That is, until I thought that probably every land that's gonna be visited, such as the Diamond Dogs land and the cat people, and obviously they're gonna have their own trees, right? Plus, in the end of the comic, there were FIVE lights, which means FIVE Trees of Harmony. One was already lit, so that must be Equestria's Tree of Harmony (which is now a Treehouse), then a second one lit, so that's the zebra's tree. So this brings me to my questions.
This show's friendship has a magical "six" number going on - Mane 6, Student 6, Pillar 6, right? Each of the Trees has six elements. Soooooo, why are there only FIVE trees? Sure it could be nothing, but that would seem too easy, wouldn't it? Whoever is keeping watch of these trees, this "commander", knows of its existence, and people might think that the five trees would come together creating five different rainbow blasts, depending on if the commander is a good guy or a bad guy. But the best way EXPECTS five trees, soooooo there's gotta be a hidden sixth tree, right? One that could finish the job? Much like the hidden sixth element "magic" which was hidden away before Twilight discovered it.
Who will bear this sixth one though? We got the Mane 6 of course for the first tree, and the Student 6, and the Pillars; then we got the zebra one: Zecora and her friends, the catland ones: Capper and his friends, the birds: the Captain and her friends, and the Diamond Dogs? Yeah I got nothing for them yet - since Rarity and Mage Meadhowbook are already Elements, and the only ones with them are Big Mac and Maud. Who would bear the sixth one? I think you're aware of who I really want to be included in that sixth tree, but of course, I don't have any evidence that would support that. It would be great to see the importance of those such as Spike, Starlight, Tempest, Stygian, and whoever else if they became Elements due to everything they been through - they pretty much deserve it.
There's one other problem I was wondering about too. Who created the OTHER Trees of Harmony? We know the Pillars made one, but who made the others? Was it the Equestria tree itself that copied itself to other lands? Did the Pillars make other trees first? Or was it somebody else? Season 10 is up to a heavy start right now, so I can't wait to see what's next!
FiM and Seasonal Rot: When Did It Start? (Part 2)
By: Hononoken the Samurai
(Continued directly from the previous part, obviously.)
One's mileage may vary, but for me, the later years of the show's lifespan don't appear to be as well-received as S1-5, mostly because many of the show's arcs (both with individual characters and the overall seasons) felt rushed and not given much time to develop. After Starlight's controversial reformation in "The Cutie Re-Mark", she was made the focus of S6's arc, which split fan opinion on her even further. Either she was a fun and interesting new addition to the cast with good development, or the writers (especially Josh Haber) were going out of their way to make her look good at the expense of other characters. While most of the vitriol against her calmed down in later seasons, the overall division on her character never fully went away.
S7's arc about the Pillars was only given a few episodes in the second half of the season, when an entire season could've been dedicated to hyping up and developing each of the six Pillars. S8 introduced the School of Friendship and the Student Six, both of which were incredibly underutilized and didn't last long because of how late they were introduced. S9's arc had Twilight becoming the new ruler of Equestria, which had divisive plot elements like the return of King Sombra, the destruction of the Tree of Harmony, the Grogar is Discord twist, and the future Equestria in "The Last Problem".
Of course, there's also the massive change in writers. After S5, many classic writers left to work on other projects, and were replaced by writers that were hit or miss when writing the main characters. Depending on the episode, they were either portrayed well in having learned past lessons and becoming better ponies than they were, or their characterizations backtracked, making them look foolish, including "Non-Compete Clause", "No Second Prances", "2, 4, 6, Greaaat", and "Daring Doubt", among others.
Overall, there were a lot of good ideas in the later seasons, but the execution at times wasn't always well-received. Often, it just wasn't as fleshed out as it could have been. I would've preferred more time be spent focusing on the individual Pillars and Student Six, rather than dragging any one of the Mane 6 through the mud or rehashing previous episodes because the writers didn't know what to do with them.
This concludes my thoughts on the show's seasonal "rot". Keep in mind, this is not an analytical view on the series' progression, but rather an opinion piece on it. I understand this is a really broad topic and not everyone will agree with everything I've said here. If you disagree or think that FiM never went through any rot, more power to you. Just keep mind that this is just my perspective on it.
Cadence Love!
By Oddball Tales
Celestia vs. Luna. The debate is as old as the brony fandom itself. Which princess is the "best princess"? But as we approach February 14th, I would like to make a small tribute to the Princess who does not always get much love- that being Princess Cadence.
She certainly has her better, and worse, episodes of friendship Is Magic, but my favorite appearances of her's actually come in the MLP comic book series, issues 67 and 68. (Needless to say, spoilers for the issues ahead!)
In the comics, Tempest Shadow displays much of the same disdain for the princess of love that I have seen from the brony fandom as a whole, and perhaps deservedly so. However, Candence's explanation of her powers opened up my eyes to see her in something of a new light- her power "love" is not exclusively romantic love between two characters. It includes many different kinds of love, such as love of family, or love of friends, etc. She has a great capacity for love which can be used to make herself stronger, but also to strengthen those she cares about. She proves herself to be smarter than one would think, and even helps Tempest reunite with an old friend, not to mention the awesome one liner at the end of the comic. (I won't spoil that here.)
Cadence certainly has flaws and some not so great episodes,(looking at you,'Princess Spike'!) but I believe our Princess of Love deserves some more...well, love!
Wishing you all a Happy Hearts and Hooves day- thanks for reading!
What is Wrong with the official My Little Pony YouTube Channel?!
By: FirePuppy (Tadashi Satoru)
Oh god, when will the My Little Pony Official YouTube channel stop uploading compilation videos over and over again? I mean, ever since we've had COVID-19, they've been doing this repeatedly ever since for almost a whole year. The first one I recall seeing is a compilation of almost 12 minutes of sing-along music videos. But as time went by, starting around May, even more compilation videos popped up on the channel, and before I knew it, eventually, the channel has completely shifted to only uploading compilation videos, most notably all of the Equestria Girls music videos from the first three films, in which they were uploaded at a running time of 43:27, FOURTEEN (14) TIMES!
Honestly, aren't there any guidelines against doing this? It's stated that there's an algorithm that flags same-content videos, and this could be a sign of very big trouble for the MLP channel on YouTube. I just hope that one day, when the pandemic is over, Hasbro will remove all compilation videos from that channel and reinstate any videos that got hidden from the public.
