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Gots a question!

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And that's just FLUTTERSHY. Don't even get me started on Rainbow Dash, who literally "made the impossible possible".

First time drawing Twilight. I'm not one to usually draw non humans, so it was a fun challenge. I think her back leg is a bit derped, though. :P

So... The alicorn thing. I felt a need to say something. I'm not very active in the fanbase, so I suppose my opinion doesn't have much of a meaning. I'm honestly not against her becoming an alicorn. I'm against the execution, and the timing.

I'm a storyteller. I've been writing for years, so I have this habit of dissecting plots. I know this is a kid's show, and I know that it shouldn't be taken seriously, but lazy writing is lazy writing.

I'm not going to elaborate on the length of the episode, but it was horrendous. It should have been a two parter--AT LEAST. Magic duel, same song and dance, blah blah blah.

Episode was basically this:

Twilight: Oh no! I accidentally cast a spell that made my friends switch jobs!
Girls: We are miserable and unable to cope.
Twilight: Here, put on the elements. They'll help. Also, these are your real jobs.
Girls: Oh, we're alright now.
Twilight: Awesome. Let's cast that spell again.
All: Elements, do your thing!
Girls: Oh no, we exploded Twilight.
Twilight: I seem to be in space.
Celestia: Hi Twilight. Welcome to my Netflix Account. You finished that spell. No one's done it before, so I'm making you a Princess.
Twilight: After all the stuff I've done for you, THIS is the thing that gets me a promotion?
Celestia: That's the gist of it, yeah.
Girls: Oh, Twilight's alive, and she's a Princess!
Twilight: Yay, I'm a Princess!
Celestia: Yay, you're a Princess!
All: Let's sing and wear dresses and stuff!
Twilight: I learned how to fly off screen!

Blegh.

So aside from... That... What's my real problem?

Alicorn Twilight is not foreshadowed AT ALL. Forget the commercials, forget the rumors, forget the stickerbook. She comes right the hell out of nowhere. Now yes, it could be argued that everyone always knew she was significant since she's essentially the Sailor Moon of this party, but nowhere was it written down--or foreshadowed--that unicorns who are awesome enough become alicorns.

It would have been simple to drop some hint of this during the 11 episodes. Twilight could be reading a book, for example, that talks about the process. Simple. She's an egg head. She'd be fascinated by this. Heck, it would have been somewhat interesting if the spell she ended up borking in MMC was one that she had written herself SPECIFICALLY to test out the theory. It throws reality out of wack, she has to come to the rescue, and the wings stay. Now she has physical reminders of both her greatest blunder, and her greatest triumph. She has to come to terms with her new body, and what it means for her.

Simple. Oh so simple. You keep the status quo of her being a librarian, but you add a new level of intrigue to it. No one in living history has transformed like this. No one knows what to make of it--or what it means. What are the ramifications of ponies having the ability to transform their bodies to whatever they please? There could be some good lessons in there about body issues for the kiddies.

I even felt like the HYPE it was getting was coming out of nowhere. The hell, people? It felt like after Christmas suddenly there was talk of this "Princess Coronation". Flash forward to February and they've got Miss America introducing the episode (way to go on that body image thing, Hasbro. Seriously). They treated it like it was this HUGE event that they'd been working up to the whole series. "OMG! Twilight's gonna be a princess! Weee!"

Except when you just watch the show and again--ignore the commercials--there's nothing in the show that even confirms that Twilight WANTED to be a princess in the first place. If anything, Rarity was the one who wanted that title! But no, Twilight just wanted to be a great magus. That's why she dressed up as Starswirl the bearded for Nightmare Night and NOT Celestia (or Luna, though that would have been awkward...). No, she dressed up as some ancient nerd that no one recognized except Luna, who knew the guy in the flesh. In fact, Twilight was SO dedicated to this costume that it was accurate enough for Luna to realize who she was dressed up as immediately.

I took that to mean she wanted to be the next Starswirl the Bearded.

People argue that they may fix it with Season 4, but the point is that they shouldn't need to. They had all of Season 3 to do this. They could have spent nine episodes building it, and three on the actual event. Kids would have gone crazy, and I bet that some of us who are shaking our heads would be able to accept the change more if it had at least been in character (or even made sense IN UNIVERSE.)

Why does she scare me? Because if they put so little effort in her genesis, then do you really think they'll put effort in after the fact? I'm afraid not.

Yes, it's a kid's show. Yes, I'm not in the target demo, and yes, 6 year old girls loved it. But you know what? When I was 6, I loved the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. Yyyyyyup. Captain N? Seemed badass back then. The Rainbow Brite movie was the coolest thing in the world to me back then.

Kids. Will. Like. Anything. They're too young to even know they need to have higher expectations. I remember seeing Batman the Animated Series and Sonic Sat AM for the first time as a kid, and they blew my mind. Clever, well written stories in a CARTOON? It was like my eyes were opened, and that was when I turned away from what I used to accept. There's no reason why something "made for kids" should suck, or should be done in a lazy way. Make it quality. A good quality, cleverly written, well paced, engaging piece of entertainment is a hell of a lot more educational than something that sings at you for 30 minutes. It's going to teach the skills of narrative to kids. It'll teach them to how to build plot and character. It'll teach them to ask for more from their entertainment than 30 minutes of bright, shiny colors.

Kids entertainment should be the highest quality entertainment of all.
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DragonOfEvil's avatar
Ok so we have 2 ponies that were born alicorns, :iconlunamlpplz: :iconprincesscelestiaplz: a pegasus that became an alicorn, :iconprincesscadenceplz: and now a unicorn that become an alicorn. :iconprincesstwilightplz: We need an earth pony that will become an alicorn. It would make things complete imo.