Does anypony know why Faust is no longer with the show? You’d think that after having pulled something like that, Hasbro would want her onboard again and so would she.
Only an hour and a half to go 'til Season 2!
For those of you without The Hub, you can watch the stream on Bronystate.
P minus 30 minutes and counting!
Discord is a much more menacing villain than NightMareMoon. He totally messed with their minds
I can’t get it to work as of 9:56AM EST. When is it supposed to be available?
Wow, that was way way better than the first season premiere.
Fluttershy was amazing.
New episode:
Halfway into it, Pinkie Pie looks like a 5th column for Discord.
This is her future: http://cdn.dailypainters.com/paintings/creamy_pink_cupcake_2fe5a2a4c4c9f1819892261e9c88b68b.jpg
I LOVED it, but it scared the crap out of my kid when she watched it this morning.
Daughter has made a WWRDD bracelet to replace her WWDTD bracelet. When you have converted from the Church of David Tennant to the Church of Rainbow Dash, something is up.
Here are some ponies in a Doctor Who vein…
Wow, that was pretty fantastic. I had high hopes but tempered expectations as I’ve ruined shows for myself in the past by expecting too much of new seasons.
-Discord is an effing awesome baddie. And he’s Q!!! I kept expecting him to call Celestia “Mon Capitaine.”
-Damn, did they go dark (especially for what is ostensibly a kid’s show). Those balloons taunting Pinkie were downright scary. And the long-legged bunnies may haunt my dreams.
-I’m really glad that the new episode, despite introducing an “epic” plotline the likes of which we haven’t seen since, well, the season 1 premiere, stayed character-focused.
-Speaking of characters, it was cool to see Celestia discomfitted for the first time.
-Selfish Rarity is hilarious. Tabitha St. Germaine remains a VO goddess.
BTW, for those who haven’t seen the new season premiere yet, you can find YouTube links here.
I hear it’s slightly over stated, Faust leaving. Apparently she’s mostly just leaving the “do everything” portion, she still has minor writing and directing privileges, though how much she’ll exercise them is unknown.
I also imagine that with such a runaway hit, it looks REALLY good on her resume, and I suspect that a merchandise driven cartoon doesn’t pay as much as it should for someone with her talent. I imagine networks who use the cartoons to attract commercials and keep the networks afloat (rather than sell toys) would pay much more than networks that use their shows as glorified commercials.
I felt that Discord’s magic cut a lot of the strength out of the episode. Superficially, the only one one he actually turned was Fluttershy, but once he did, it completely eliminated any tension from the others. If there was never any chance of the ponies successfully evading his manipulations then why should I care? Plus, you know, an avatar of discord laying down game rules? Do any of the ponies actually think if they followed the rules, he’d give them the elements? I felt as though Twilight’s being relatively obtuse this episode.
Personally, I didn’t care for Princess Celestia’s attitude this episode. It seemed out of character. She doesn’t really seem like a fate of the world is in your hands zomg!11! type of person. I’d have preferred a small chuckle as she set them loose on Discord.
(I had to go back and watch part of the first episode because I was under the impression that Celestia found the elements specifically to deal with Nightmare Moon/Luna and was confused when she talked about using them with Luna to stop Discord. You’d think Luna would have been prepared for Celestia to attack her with them when she became Nightmare Moon in that case but apparently not.
I think that actually made it a little creepier - Discord doesn’t have to play mind games or lay down rules for a game. He wants to let them think they have a chance.
Also, I never thought this would be a sentence I would ever type, but My Little Pony is making me rewatch Star Trek.
Well, yeah. What’s bothering me is that none of the ponies, but especially Twilight seem to be taking his statements at face value. (Also, where’d Spike go? I hope he shows up in the second half to knock some sense into monochromatic ponies.)
Sorry, all not none of the ponies.
It’s an interesting point, but when you’re dealing with a nigh-omnipotent god of mischief, you generally don’t have much choice other than to do what they want. The old “only way to win is not to play” chestnut doesn’t really apply when dealing with a character like Discord, because if you refuse to participate, then he tends to get outright angry rather than just mischievous, and really bad shit tends to start going down. Better to play along and try to outsmart him from within his game.
Picard learned this the hard way on several occasions. One could make the (admittedly fanwanky) argument that Twilight and Celestia, by bypassing the “Fuck you, Q, we’re not playing your game!” part, are showing more genre savvy than your usual protagonists. 
We haven’t seen Celestia face a threat of this magnitude on-screen before. Remember, she was spirited away by Nightmare Moon when the latter returned, so we never saw how she would’ve reacted to Nightmare Moon directly. And her orders to Twilight and crew in “Dragonshy” were given via letter, since the mountain near Ponyville anyway. So this is the first time we’ve seen how Celestia deals directly with Equestria-threatening adversity.
I think a chuckle would’ve actually been rather out of character. We’ve seen Celestia have a bit of fun in previous episodes, but those were all relatively benign situations - poking fun at the Cake family’s deference or trying to spice up the Gala. Showing levity at something as genuinely dangerous as Discord would’ve come off as a a ruler’s frightening disregard for her realm, IMO. And despite the internet’s obsession with the idea of “Trollestia” as a fascist autocrat, I don’t think that fits the actual character as depicted in the show, which is that of the ultimate benevolent dictator, emphasis on “benevolent.”
That being said, there is that one tiny moment when the writers appear to throw a bone to the “Trollestia” folks, when Discord points out that even he never turned his enemies to stone for eternity. Hmmmmm…
Yeah, true, although that’s more of a plot hole from the first season pilot. Nightmare Moon was defeated using the Elements of Harmony a thousand years ago, and yet her immediate action upon her return is NOT to secure their power for herself. Maybe Nightmare Moon just wasn’t that bright. 
First season Celestia gave me the strong impression that she let Nightmare Moon spirit her away because she felt Twilight and Company needed the opportunity to bond with each other and in that respect this episode is very similar to that in format. She’s ruled Equestria for, as far as we know, a thousand years by herself and with Luna before that for lord only know how long, she’s one of two known ponies to be both a pegasus and a unicorn pony and she’s familiar with the use and behavior of the elements of harmony. This is clearly a very strong pony. Her freakout bothered me a lot because it doesn’t seem to fit in my opinion. (Plus, yeah, the whole turning enemies into statues to decorate her garden is, frankly, disturbing no matter how rainbowy she gets.) I also felt that if, indeed, Discord is THAT dangerous, her reaction wasn’t strong enough. He’s fucking around in her castle, popping in and out of windows and turns her maze into his private playground. If he’s so strong he can override her protections and wards like that then she should be going absolutely nuts and not foisting it off on her student. But if it’s not that bad that she needs to be personally involved then, I don’t get her behavior.
As far as genre savviness goes, well, I don’t really see him saying, good show, Twilight, got me on a technicality, see you in another 1000 years. He’ll just be pissed off angry force of malevolence so why not just jump right to that point and save everyone the time? And S1 established that the elements will still work when broken so I wouldn’t be surprised if Twilight and Co. found that when the chips are down they can simply call on their power from anywhere. You know, one of those the magic was inside of you all along sort of messages.
Perhaps I’m simply being contrarian. I just got lynched in a mafia game and it’s really put me out of sorts.
This is explained in the episode by the fact that Celestia and Luna no longer control the Elements of Harmony. I personally found her blase attitude towards the return of Nightmare Moon a lot more disturbing, in that she clearly knew NM was returning and sends her pupil out to take care of the problem, for little apparent reason. In the Discord storyline, it’s already established that Twilight Sparkle and her friends are the only ponies who can use the Elements of Harmony now. They are not merely the natural choice for this mission because of their courage and pluck - they are, in fact, the only possible choice because nobody else can wield the tools needed to defeat Discord. Not even Celestia herself.
And I’d argue that Celestia’s reaction to Discord’s return was the equivalent of “going absolutely nuts,” for her. It’s literally the first time we ever see her give any hint of anger or nervousness, and she doesn’t really hold back. Sure, she’s not beside herself with rage or quivering with fear, but I doubt even a complete apocalypse would get that kind of reaction from Celestia. But we do see shock in her eyes at the missing Elements, and a LOT of subdued anger at Discord. Her direct repartee with window-Discord, in particular, has a bitter tone we’ve never really seen from any character on the show, much less the all-powerful princess.
That, I think we’ll have to wait for part 2 to find out. From a storytelling standpoint, though, it’s clear that the Discord plot is as much about finding out the “flip side” of each pony’s personality as it is about a terrible threat to Equestria. I’m personally OK if the plot has a few minor holes if it gets us great scenes like bitchy Fluttershy, “derp-eyed liar” Applejack and “my destiny really IS a dumb rock” Rarity. YMMV.
Understandable.
So what happens if a unicorn mates with a pegasus or an earth pony? Is their offspring still capable of magic? Will it have wings?