Of Ponies and Spirits (Moved from personal journal)
So, the season is over. No new pony for seven months. Which means now is the time to pore over the series so far at length to actually see how things lay.
The first thing I want to touch on is the 'Elements of Harmony', the pilot's Sailor Moon-esque MacGuffins. See, each pony embodied a 'spirit' corresponding to one of those elements, and proved their worth in that respect throughout their actions in the second part of the pilot episode.
But did those ideals stick with the ponies throughout the series? I'm going to be discussing that in detail right here. Obviously, spoilers for most of Season 1, and most notably the finale (Best Night Ever) are within.
Applejack - SPIRIT OF HONESTY
AJ's arguably had the least development out of all the mane cast this season, with one episode exploring her dynamic with Rarity (Look Before You Sleep) and one episode simply being a comedy of errors illustrating her stubborn-as-a-mule nature (Applebuck Season). However, that fits her spirit fairly well. Applejack is all about being honest with yourself and others, and let's be frank here - being totally at peace with yourself and what you are is great, and all, but it doesn't make for compelling television.
Applejack is blunt, Applejack is stubborn, Applejack knows what Applejack wants. More importantly though... as 'honesty', she's her own worst enemy. No person - or no pony, rather - is made of stone, and in turn no pony can be perfectly honest one hundred percent of the time without being a soulless asshole. And it's those hypocrisies that start to break Applejack down into an actual character as opposed to a set piece. She's honest with herself, but that in and of itself conflicts with her 'southern-comfort' momma mare nature, since she realizes that sometimes you need to let things down gently. More importantly, the honesty she holds isn't an honesty she necessarily wants everyone else to hold - cosmicspacefrog on Tumblr gave a far better explanation of the hypocrisy inherent with her dislike of Rarity's OCD, dirtophobe ways.
Finally, AJ most certainly did some downright dishonest things to get customers in Best Night Ever, and seemed to have little to no remorse about it after the fact. This is notable because, really, if she hadn't been dishonest with the hoity-toity Canterlotians, she couldn't tell herself that she'd gave it her all in order to earn money for her family.
Ultimately, that's how Applejack's priorities lay. Honest with herself first, then her family, then friends, and finally everyone else. If there's ever a conflict in her code of honesty, then preference goes to the first on the list and then working its way down.
Rarity - SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY
Rarity's 'spirit' is the one that conflicts the most with her aspirations. She is a business owner, not a charity, so sometimes 'generosity' has to be foregone in lieu of business sense. However, when it's not crucial, she finds herself quite giving - note how little Rarity hesitated to encourage Fluttershy to model in Green Isn't Your Color. She even helps the Diamond Dogs to a degree, despite their antagonistic nature and her ultimate 'defeat' of the 'adversary.
Most telling, though, is when she's put up against her foil - her "what could have been". Blueblood is... well, he lives up to his name, and is absolutely, positively self-centered to the point of 'no wonder Celestia only lets him show up for the Gala'. Note that in every other circumstance, Rarity gives in first -- some assholes might read it as being 'weak' or 'submissive', but really, it's a showing of how she really is. Even if it comes at great sacrifice to herself, eventually she will give when it is needed.
Rainbow Dash - SPIRIT OF LOYALTY
At first glance, aside from her showing in the second episode, Rainbow Dash has shown absolutely no signs of her token spirit. Most notably, she shunned Pinkie Pie in exchange for Gilda in Griffin The Brush Off. In some ways, if one puts thought to it, that's exactly how "loyalty" should act. Gilda is established as a long-time friend of Rainbow's, one that was both closer and longer-lasting than Pinkie Pie at the time. Loyalty, after all, means not abandoning your old friends just because you've made new ones. In addition, notice that Gilda was doing most of the "chasing Pinkie away" after the initial "give me time alone with my lesbian ex former classmate", and that once Gilda was portrayed as, really, a gigantic ass, she defended the friends she felt were "true" friends... and if you ask me, I figure she still tries to keep in touch with the griffin even now, though Gilda very likely doesn't reciprocate.
More blatantly, she is always there for the rest of the cast. She provides a steady source of competition for Applejack, a source of humor and pranking for Pinkie Pie, and a drive for Fluttershy to better herself. Rarity gets the shortest end of the stick in some ways, there, but at the same time, Rarity needs the least help that Rainbow Dash can herself give. More importantly, it's only through the drive to save Rarity's life that Rainbow Dash manages to perform her second Sonic Rainboom.
All in all, she probably is the least in sync with her 'spirit'... to... a degree I'll get to later. At the same time, nothing is inherently wrong with her.
Pinkie Pie - SPIRIT OF LAUGHTER
CRAZYPONY #1. Pinkie Pie takes her 'spirit' and doesn't just embrace it, she exists as it. Laughter and happiness are her reason for being, her lifeblood, her existance. It's that desire to cause laughter that turns her into something not quite the same as your normal earth pony, managing an uncanny amount of medium awareness and cartoon physics with regular enough frequency that she can ONLY be doing it because she knows the audience watching her life wants to be amused.
At the same time, it is all she is. In Party Of One, Pinkie Pie seems to lose, in one fell swoop, both the knowledge that she's creating laughter in her friends and the feeling that she has friends at all. To cap off the iceberg, her purpose in life - parties, as evidenced by her cutie mark - is treated as if it's no longer important. Thus, she completely goes off the deep end into Psycho level insanity. Sir Lintcelot would like to have you excused from the party, good sir. It's only when she's proven wrong that she manages to snap back into good old-fashioned Pinkie craziness as opposed to the Norman Bates style.
Twilight Sparkle - SPIRIT OF MAGIC
CRAZYPONY #2. Twilight is the spirit of Magic, and on that quality she'll NEVER fail to embody her 'spirit'. On the other hand, remember that the show is called Friendship is Magic, and in turn she becomes the by-proxy Spirit of Friendship as well. The problem there is that Twilight is still learning. She's the pony equivalent of a neckbeard, someone so socially retarded that she doesn't seem to know what to do with friends. She takes her tips from books, and most importantly, she seems compelled to do everything herself whether or not she can actually manage it.
And that's when cracks start forming. Twilight does not hold up under pressure, and the more down-to-earth life in Ponyville is nothing like the more upper-crust academia of Canterlot. She tries to take on tasks that simply aren't SUITED for a single pony, and ends up just burning her candle at both ends and getting nothing done.
However, as Twilight is the "main" protagonist, her evolution is going to be a subtle, show-wide thing - something we're not expected to see the forward progress in until we look back. In fact, she seems to be backsliding here and there under repeated pressure - giving Fluttershy fears of being banished and then put in a dungeon in the place where she's banished to, not considering Spike's or Pinkie's feelings in Owl's Well That Ends Well and Party of One... at this rate she needs a Twi-focused episode like Feeling Pinkie Keen again when Season 2 starts or else she may well keep backsliding.
Fluttershy - SPIRIT OF YANDEREKINDNESS
Ohhhboy. I SAVED THIS FOR LAST FOR A REASON. Everything that Pinkie represents regarding Laughter, Fluttershy represents regarding Kindness. However, there's a bit of an odd over-synchronicity there - Fluttershy is perfectly capable of giving kindness at nearly every time, but she needs to be shown it in return. She can take a surprising amount of abuse, and only retreats further and further into her own shyness - note that if we take the airing order as 'canonical' order, Fluttershy managed to be torn down by Gilda and almost totally vanished in the next episode (Boast Busters)... only to come back afraid of her own shadow in Dragonshy - but she absolutely has no tolerance to those not showing kindness to her friends or animals. The first time it happens, she manages to conquer every last fear in her body (in Dragonshy) and literally MOM-LECTURE A DRAGON INTO COWERING. The second time, we're alerted to "The Stare" and she manages to beat a cockatrice in a staring contest in order to protect the little girls she was caring for at the time.
After that, the issue isn't touched again... until Best Night Ever. There, she looks to befriend the animals of Canterlot, animals that likely have their own caretaker in the way that Fluttershy cares for the fauna of Ponyville. (It's possible or even probable that the caretaker was that grizzled old stallion that showed up once or twice when in her attempts, but that's unrelated.) However, she doesn't take into consideration that she's not their keeper, she's a strange foreigner that nobody has met. The animals react to her in a way that she's only experienced in those last two circumstances... they fear her.
Similar to Pinkie Pie above, Fluttershy flips her shit and goes totally Galadriel. ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR. Unable to feel kindness from others, she's left to try to take it by force... in other words, she goes totally fucking yandere. It's hard to say how much of this was done for comedic impact, but at the same time, it paints Fluttershy as a bit of an unstable, Bruce Banner-like case that is so afraid of her other half that she does her best to keep it in at all times.
You wouldn't like her when she's angry.
Okay, so that was less "analysis" and more "rambling".
I suck at serious writing nowdays.
The first thing I want to touch on is the 'Elements of Harmony', the pilot's Sailor Moon-esque MacGuffins. See, each pony embodied a 'spirit' corresponding to one of those elements, and proved their worth in that respect throughout their actions in the second part of the pilot episode.
But did those ideals stick with the ponies throughout the series? I'm going to be discussing that in detail right here. Obviously, spoilers for most of Season 1, and most notably the finale (Best Night Ever) are within.
Applejack - SPIRIT OF HONESTY
AJ's arguably had the least development out of all the mane cast this season, with one episode exploring her dynamic with Rarity (Look Before You Sleep) and one episode simply being a comedy of errors illustrating her stubborn-as-a-mule nature (Applebuck Season). However, that fits her spirit fairly well. Applejack is all about being honest with yourself and others, and let's be frank here - being totally at peace with yourself and what you are is great, and all, but it doesn't make for compelling television.
Applejack is blunt, Applejack is stubborn, Applejack knows what Applejack wants. More importantly though... as 'honesty', she's her own worst enemy. No person - or no pony, rather - is made of stone, and in turn no pony can be perfectly honest one hundred percent of the time without being a soulless asshole. And it's those hypocrisies that start to break Applejack down into an actual character as opposed to a set piece. She's honest with herself, but that in and of itself conflicts with her 'southern-comfort' momma mare nature, since she realizes that sometimes you need to let things down gently. More importantly, the honesty she holds isn't an honesty she necessarily wants everyone else to hold - cosmicspacefrog on Tumblr gave a far better explanation of the hypocrisy inherent with her dislike of Rarity's OCD, dirtophobe ways.
Finally, AJ most certainly did some downright dishonest things to get customers in Best Night Ever, and seemed to have little to no remorse about it after the fact. This is notable because, really, if she hadn't been dishonest with the hoity-toity Canterlotians, she couldn't tell herself that she'd gave it her all in order to earn money for her family.
Ultimately, that's how Applejack's priorities lay. Honest with herself first, then her family, then friends, and finally everyone else. If there's ever a conflict in her code of honesty, then preference goes to the first on the list and then working its way down.
Rarity - SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY
Rarity's 'spirit' is the one that conflicts the most with her aspirations. She is a business owner, not a charity, so sometimes 'generosity' has to be foregone in lieu of business sense. However, when it's not crucial, she finds herself quite giving - note how little Rarity hesitated to encourage Fluttershy to model in Green Isn't Your Color. She even helps the Diamond Dogs to a degree, despite their antagonistic nature and her ultimate 'defeat' of the 'adversary.
Most telling, though, is when she's put up against her foil - her "what could have been". Blueblood is... well, he lives up to his name, and is absolutely, positively self-centered to the point of 'no wonder Celestia only lets him show up for the Gala'. Note that in every other circumstance, Rarity gives in first -- some assholes might read it as being 'weak' or 'submissive', but really, it's a showing of how she really is. Even if it comes at great sacrifice to herself, eventually she will give when it is needed.
Rainbow Dash - SPIRIT OF LOYALTY
At first glance, aside from her showing in the second episode, Rainbow Dash has shown absolutely no signs of her token spirit. Most notably, she shunned Pinkie Pie in exchange for Gilda in Griffin The Brush Off. In some ways, if one puts thought to it, that's exactly how "loyalty" should act. Gilda is established as a long-time friend of Rainbow's, one that was both closer and longer-lasting than Pinkie Pie at the time. Loyalty, after all, means not abandoning your old friends just because you've made new ones. In addition, notice that Gilda was doing most of the "chasing Pinkie away" after the initial "give me time alone with my lesbian ex former classmate", and that once Gilda was portrayed as, really, a gigantic ass, she defended the friends she felt were "true" friends... and if you ask me, I figure she still tries to keep in touch with the griffin even now, though Gilda very likely doesn't reciprocate.
More blatantly, she is always there for the rest of the cast. She provides a steady source of competition for Applejack, a source of humor and pranking for Pinkie Pie, and a drive for Fluttershy to better herself. Rarity gets the shortest end of the stick in some ways, there, but at the same time, Rarity needs the least help that Rainbow Dash can herself give. More importantly, it's only through the drive to save Rarity's life that Rainbow Dash manages to perform her second Sonic Rainboom.
All in all, she probably is the least in sync with her 'spirit'... to... a degree I'll get to later. At the same time, nothing is inherently wrong with her.
Pinkie Pie - SPIRIT OF LAUGHTER
CRAZYPONY #1. Pinkie Pie takes her 'spirit' and doesn't just embrace it, she exists as it. Laughter and happiness are her reason for being, her lifeblood, her existance. It's that desire to cause laughter that turns her into something not quite the same as your normal earth pony, managing an uncanny amount of medium awareness and cartoon physics with regular enough frequency that she can ONLY be doing it because she knows the audience watching her life wants to be amused.
At the same time, it is all she is. In Party Of One, Pinkie Pie seems to lose, in one fell swoop, both the knowledge that she's creating laughter in her friends and the feeling that she has friends at all. To cap off the iceberg, her purpose in life - parties, as evidenced by her cutie mark - is treated as if it's no longer important. Thus, she completely goes off the deep end into Psycho level insanity. Sir Lintcelot would like to have you excused from the party, good sir. It's only when she's proven wrong that she manages to snap back into good old-fashioned Pinkie craziness as opposed to the Norman Bates style.
Twilight Sparkle - SPIRIT OF MAGIC
CRAZYPONY #2. Twilight is the spirit of Magic, and on that quality she'll NEVER fail to embody her 'spirit'. On the other hand, remember that the show is called Friendship is Magic, and in turn she becomes the by-proxy Spirit of Friendship as well. The problem there is that Twilight is still learning. She's the pony equivalent of a neckbeard, someone so socially retarded that she doesn't seem to know what to do with friends. She takes her tips from books, and most importantly, she seems compelled to do everything herself whether or not she can actually manage it.
And that's when cracks start forming. Twilight does not hold up under pressure, and the more down-to-earth life in Ponyville is nothing like the more upper-crust academia of Canterlot. She tries to take on tasks that simply aren't SUITED for a single pony, and ends up just burning her candle at both ends and getting nothing done.
However, as Twilight is the "main" protagonist, her evolution is going to be a subtle, show-wide thing - something we're not expected to see the forward progress in until we look back. In fact, she seems to be backsliding here and there under repeated pressure - giving Fluttershy fears of being banished and then put in a dungeon in the place where she's banished to, not considering Spike's or Pinkie's feelings in Owl's Well That Ends Well and Party of One... at this rate she needs a Twi-focused episode like Feeling Pinkie Keen again when Season 2 starts or else she may well keep backsliding.
Fluttershy - SPIRIT OF YANDEREKINDNESS
Ohhhboy. I SAVED THIS FOR LAST FOR A REASON. Everything that Pinkie represents regarding Laughter, Fluttershy represents regarding Kindness. However, there's a bit of an odd over-synchronicity there - Fluttershy is perfectly capable of giving kindness at nearly every time, but she needs to be shown it in return. She can take a surprising amount of abuse, and only retreats further and further into her own shyness - note that if we take the airing order as 'canonical' order, Fluttershy managed to be torn down by Gilda and almost totally vanished in the next episode (Boast Busters)... only to come back afraid of her own shadow in Dragonshy - but she absolutely has no tolerance to those not showing kindness to her friends or animals. The first time it happens, she manages to conquer every last fear in her body (in Dragonshy) and literally MOM-LECTURE A DRAGON INTO COWERING. The second time, we're alerted to "The Stare" and she manages to beat a cockatrice in a staring contest in order to protect the little girls she was caring for at the time.
After that, the issue isn't touched again... until Best Night Ever. There, she looks to befriend the animals of Canterlot, animals that likely have their own caretaker in the way that Fluttershy cares for the fauna of Ponyville. (It's possible or even probable that the caretaker was that grizzled old stallion that showed up once or twice when in her attempts, but that's unrelated.) However, she doesn't take into consideration that she's not their keeper, she's a strange foreigner that nobody has met. The animals react to her in a way that she's only experienced in those last two circumstances... they fear her.
Similar to Pinkie Pie above, Fluttershy flips her shit and goes totally Galadriel. ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR. Unable to feel kindness from others, she's left to try to take it by force... in other words, she goes totally fucking yandere. It's hard to say how much of this was done for comedic impact, but at the same time, it paints Fluttershy as a bit of an unstable, Bruce Banner-like case that is so afraid of her other half that she does her best to keep it in at all times.
You wouldn't like her when she's angry.
Okay, so that was less "analysis" and more "rambling".
I suck at serious writing nowdays.