I originally intended to wait a while before writing this for spoiler reasons in case anyone reading this site is both interested in MLP and hadn’t already seen it. Then I ended up putting it off and then kinda forgetting I had this blog in the first place. Now that I’ve remembered its existence, it’s time to somewhat belatedly over-analyze a cartoon about pastel colored ponies.
Before I can get into why the season 8 finale struck many fans as…odd, I have to dive into a bit of philosophy of justice. Specifically, the concepts of Retributive and Restorative, justice.
Retributive justice centers around punishment. You cause suffering and must be made to suffer in return. The purpose of prison is to punish people for breaking the law. What led them to a life of crime and whether they come out better or worse people is unimportant as long as they are punished. Your standard eye for an eye approach. It’s pretty easy to grasp because, quotes to making the whole world blind aside, just about everyone innately feels on some level that those who do evil to others should face some form of punishment, whether it comes from society, in an afterlife, or some force of karma. It’s also pretty much the only honest argument for the death penalty (the deterrence arguments has been pretty thoroughly debunked), but that’s probably another post entirely.
Restorative justice, on the other hand, focuses on rehabilitation and repairing damage done by the crime (where possible). Punishment is incidental. It takes a step back to look at criminality as a social ill with an eye to root causes. If an offender is imprisoned, it is out of necessity to keep the rest of society safe, and would be based on their likelihood of re-offending. Even then, the focus remains on rehabilitation, with the hope that the offender will one day be able to rejoin society and make amends through service to the community and restitution to any victims.
I’ll leave discussion of which of these reflect the world in practice to the keen observational abilities of the reader because we’re not going to be talking about the real world. We’re talking about the world of ponies. I think the evidence from 8 seasons is pretty clear that ponies fall pretty heavily to the restorative side of the spectrum, but let’s take a look at how the major villains are treated.
Nightmare Moon (Luna): Tried to violently usurp the throne from her sister and bring about eternal night (pretty clear she was in no state to think through long term consequences). No actual body count or long term damage done, though there almost certainly would have been if she was successful. The comics tried to paint her as being possessed by some evil force, but the show canon pretty strongly implies it was more akin to a nervous breakdown brought on by years (decades? centuries?) of emotional neglect, jealousy, and a festering inferiority complex.
When Celestia failed to talk her down mid-fight she used the Elements of Harmony to banish her sister to the moon for 1000 years of solitary confinement. This is played as a great tragedy born from a lack of options. Celestia certainly didn’t want to do that to her sister, but she was an immediate and serious threat to not only her own life, but the world, and the Elements didn’t exactly have an adjustable setting for “cool off for a few hours so we can resume talking”.
When returning 1000 years later for the pilot episode (solitary confinement probably not having done much for her sanity) the central cast assemble the Elements and blast her with the rainbow laser of “stop being a dick”. She is reverted to her original form, now deeply repentant and ready for a tearful reunion with her sister. Why didn’t this happen the first time? Probably because one bearer (Celestia) wielding the Elements as a weapon against another bearer (Luna) is probably outside their intended use (not exactly a shining example of harmony). That also likely severed their connection to the Elements, hence why they need new bearers in the current age.
She’s welcomed back by everyone with open arms and returns to being co-ruler of Equestria. There’s a few bumps with ponies being frightened of her because of her aesthetic and the fact that she’s been a folk-tale parents scare their children with for the past 1000 years, but the only one thinking she needs any additional punishment is herself. A later episode revealed she intentionally created a spirit to torment her with nightmares every night because she thought she deserved it (yeah, that was pretty unexpectedly dark).
Discord: The spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. This guy is literally the embodiment of the antithesis of everything pony society is built on. For a time, the fandom depicted him as the closest thing the setting had to a Devil. He’s not purely malevolent, just completely unconcerned with the suffering of others in his search for entertainment. Sometimes that’s switching off gravity and throwing some pies, and sometimes that’s sadistic mind games to shatter your sanity. Also, he’s basically a giant homage to Q from Star Trek.
He “unruled” (ruling would be too orderly) Equestria at some point in the distant past before Celestia and Luna used the Elements to turn him to stone. When he eventually broke free and started wreaking havoc, the main characters busted out the rainbow laser and put him back into stone. Again, containment for the safety of the world. Still, in a gamble some might consider completely insane, Celestia later has him thawed out and tasks Fluttershy with his reformation (sidenote: Twilight in this episode makes casual mention of looking for “reformation spells” which is fucking horrifying). This…kind of works. He at least becomes successfully invested enough in having a friend that he’s willing to reign himself in just enough to avoid upsetting her too much. He’s still a huge jerk to everyone else despite being referred to as their friend and frequent source of conflict which he always tries to spin as being a trickster mentor just trying to teach them a valuable lesson (a pretty paper thin excuse). He also refers to himself as “reformed” with palpable air quotes.
Still, he did go from antithesis of everything ponies stand for and the setting’s devil figure to nominal “friend” of the main cast and was even welcomed back after he later betrayed everyone to Tirek because ponies are ridiculously forgiving (and maybe because they lost the ability to put him back in stone when they gave up the elements, so being his friend is really the only form of influence they have over the omnipotent demon).
Tirek: Centaur guy who drains and eats magic, growing larger and stronger the more he does so. Tried to take over Equestria a long ways back and Celestia and Luna tossed his ass into Tartarus because he was crazy dangerous. After his escape, he turned Discord to his side with some flattery, smooth talking, and emotional manipulation, and drained pretty much the entire country (and decided to start smashing up the countryside for some reason) before being blasted with Rainbow 2.0 and sent back to Tartarus. No visible attempts made at reformation, but not exactly any signs of being receptive to such.
Chrysalis and the Changelings: Insectoid shape-shifters and G rated succubi that feed off of love. They either abduct and then impersonate loved ones to feed off their victim’s love for them, or simply drag them back to the hive to cocoon and drain them. Launched an infiltration and poorly planned military invasion of the capital city under the leadership of Queen Chrysalis. The species as a whole got reformed when they discovered that they can share love freely with each other and don’t have to prey upon ponies for it, and all metamorphosed into garish butterfly creatures. Now they’re Equestrian allies (after an uremarked upon bit of nation building in which Celestia just kind of declared the friendly changeling who discovered this fact to be their new king and everyone just rolled with it). This is a pretty lucky development as otherwise we’re faced with the issue of the morality of wiping out an entire sapient species (through extermination or just mass starvation) because of dietary requirements of preying on other sapient species.
The deposed Queen Chrysalis is still at large, having spat in the face of an offer of friendship and redemption and ran off, though nobody really made any effort to stop her. Maybe she’s considered to be harmless without a power base? I’d think a shape-shifter swearing vengeance would be cause for concern, but then again, she is pretty incompetent, so maybe that’s why nobody seems worried?
King Sombra: Tyrannical overlord of the Crystal Empire who practiced dark magic and enslaved the populace. Fond of stairs. Celestia and Luna delivered some royal/divine smiting (without the Elements?) which turned him to mist and sealed him under the arctic ice, but only after he flung the Crystal Empire (more of a city state) 1000-ish years into the future. When he returns as a giant cloud monster, Twilight has to retrieve the Crystal Heart to power the city’s love and hope based defenses which…explodes him. Yeah, Sombra just gets straight up killed. Though he was more of a body-less miasma of evil at that point (who got like two lines) than a person, so…yeah. Though in an alternate timeline it looked like he got his body back and launched a protracted war against the rest of Equestria.
Starlight Glimmer: Rather dramatically overreacted to her childhood friend moving away and decided to blame puberty (cutie marks) for it. Formed a cult out in the middle of nowhere where she magically removed ponies’ cutie marks (and their special talents with them) and replaced them with equal signs so they could all be equal. Captured Twilight and friends, stole their cutie marks, and tried to indoctrinate them into her cult. Flees when it’s revealed she kept her own cutie mark with the rationale that she can’t do the spell to remove marks without it and she’d totally do it to herself last (it seems to be implied that she actually is sincere in her warped ideology, and not just a con-artist). Later seeks revenge by traveling through time to try and stop Twilight and friends from ever meeting, kicking off a series of dark alternate timelines.
Eventually talked down by Twilight once they finally get to the heart of her abandonment issues. Taken on as Twilight’s student, learning the ways of friendship (and how not to resort to magical brainwashing as the go to solution for all problems) and joined the main cast.
Accusations of Mary Sue-ism and being a replacement Twilight aside, a lot of fans were a bit rankled at how easy she seemed to get off. Going from wild ranting and trying to kill the main character to a montage of everyone being best friends with her to credits in the span of about 2-3 minutes. This is, however, perfectly consistent with the restorative justice philosophy embraced by ponies. She’s legitimately sorry for what she did and is actively looking to make amends. No need to wait to jump into rehabilitation training and community service.
Pony of Shadows / Stygian: Embraced vague and undefined dark forces after being rejected by his friends over a misunderstanding to become giant shadow monster. Sealed away outside time in Limbo along with said friends who sacrificed themselves to keep him there. When they all get summoned back to modern day, the plan is to toss him back in (old timey Equestria was really into kicking all their problems through portals to other dimensions) but without sacrificing the others this time. Starlight argues for maybe trying talking first and points out that it worked pretty well for her, convincing Twilight to set aside her hero worship blinders long enough to pull Stygian out of the shadow monster in a bit of inverse exorcism, address the underlying miscommunication, and mediate a reconciliation.
I could go on and include minor antagonists or the spin-off movies (including Twilight’s penchant for collecting students consisting of powerful unicorns with similarly themed names who have tried to kill her) but this is already dragging on and I think you get the point. Ponies are damn forgiving, and to the extent they lock up anyone, it’s due to that person being far too dangerous to let run free, and a lack of better alternatives. Which finally, mercifully, brings us to the Season 8 finale.
Throughout the season, we’ve seen glimpses of a small filly at Twilight’s school for friendship. Between the curls, the wide eyes, and the overly saccharine speech and mannerism, she might as well be wearing a sign that says “secret villain”. She’s basically looks like a pony Darla Dimple. The point is, she doesn’t have any substantial powers (no magic at all really, as she’s a pegasus and not a unicorn). She’s just small, if highly manipulative, child.
A child with a somewhat warped view of the friendship curriculum at Twilight’s school. She got the friendship = magic part, but added friendship = magic = power (as in political power and authority, which I guess makes sense in that Twilight got made into royalty for being good at friendship). It’s also a zero-sum game in which you “win” at friendship by having the most friends, which thus means you get to be in charge. Her goal is to seize control of the country/world as Empress of Friendship. Whether she thinks becoming popular will lead to gaining the position, or whether obtaining the authority means everyone now becomes her friend is unclear, if she even understands the distinction at all.
Anyway, to the evil plan. It turns out she’s been secretly corresponding via letters with an imprisoned Tirek (how the mail service gets to and from the depths of Tartarus, much less how this is allowed at all is not revealed). With a wealth of arcane knowledge and nothing better to do while rotting in a cell, Tirek tells her about a ritual she can do if she can get her hooves on several powerful magical artifacts. Fortunately for her, Twilight keeps said artifacts just sitting out in an open chest in her office, whose door I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even lock. This is unfortunately in character for her as we’ve already seen her leave books on mind control magic out on the shelves, and once loan a recipe for love potion to three children because they asked.
Artifacts in hoof, this small child with no magical ability sets up a ritual in the basement and tears open a portal and glowy sphere thing that begins to drain all the magic out of Equestria (and presumably the world). When the effects start being noticed, she casually asks “wasn’t there some monster that ate magic? Ti-something or other?” and sends the main cast off to investigate Tartarus, slamming the door closed behind them with no magic to open it. World saving heroes out of the way, she steps up to take control of the chaos at her school created by all the teachers and staff suddenly up and disappearing during a crisis (Starlight got neutralized offscreen, presumably by just being pushed from behind into the big glowy sphere thing) acting as a level head to keep everyone calm and basically being put in charge of the school by her fellow students (with some minor complications butting heads with the racist jerkass from the department of education who shows up to take over).
To summarize her plan so far.
1. Drain magic from the world.
2. Take over the school by displaying levelheaded leadership during crisis.
3. ???
4. Depose the Princesses and seize absolute power.
5. Win at friendship.
Yeah, that’s it. We never get any kind of elaboration on step 3. I guess draining magic is a bit of an equalizer, but the princesses are still like 10 times her size and there’s still the entire Equestrian military (hopelessly ineffective as they often are). But no, she’s the most popular girl in school and acting head-mare, so it’s just a small skip to world domination. This plan is objectively terrible, but again, she’s a deranged child. This plan probably looks great scrawled in crayon. Well, yadda yadda, things happen, plans get foiled, and all major characters plus a battalion of royal guards show up to arrest her. She’s apprehended fairly easily because, once again, she’s a small child with no powers aside from being cute and manipulative.
So here’s where we at last get to what so freaking weird about this episode. What happens to her? Does she get sent to remedial friendship classes and mandatory counseling? Does anyone even attempt to dig into what her damage is? After all, Starlight ran off as an adult and formed a cult with an eventual aim toward toppling the government and stripping ponies of their special talents in the name of equality, because her childhood friend moved away for school 20-something years ago and never wrote. So what is done about this clearly disturbed child?
It turns out Celestia has her stuffed in a cage and tossed into Tartarus.
What?
Are we supposed to believe that this small child with no innate powers (other than being cute and manipulative) is just too dangerous to be contained by anything less drastic? Yeah, she did nearly cause the apocalypse, but that’s much more a sign that you need to re-evaluate your policy of both letting impressionable children be pen pals with ancient evils, and leaving artifacts with the power to cause the apocalypse sitting out in the open.
It’s like if a 7 year old nearly caused nuclear armageddon in order to win a popularity contest and become class president (and then real president). Yeah, a grounding (as well as a talk with the parents and quite a few therapist visits) is certainly in order, but I think there’d be some questions regarding how they got a hold of all the launch codes in the first place. Yeah, the government might be a bit embarrassed and try to play up said child as super-Hitler as a distraction from their own fuckup, but I feel like even the most bloodthirsty among us are gonna raise an eyebrow. It’s even more jarring for ponies, who we’ve already established are heavily slanted toward reform, rehabilitation, and forgiveness in the first place.
Maybe Cozy Glow is fundamentally irredeemable and just plain evil to the core. That doesn’t change the fact that she poses pretty much zero threat to anyone around her once her plans are exposed (hell, they let an unrepentant and much more dangerous Chrysalis run free).
The more I think about it, the more I can only conclude that Celestia IS just super embarrassed about this colossal fuck up of national security, and is piling it on to make her seem more dangerous in order to cover up the gaping vulnerabilities of the system and avoid mass panic/disillusionment with the authorities. Ponies, herd animals that they are, are just credulous enough to buy into it,with the smarter ones unwilling to publicly question the will of the immortal ruler and goddess of the sun. Or maybe it was Luna’s turn for judgement and she was just really down to smite someone.
Science, Politics, and Ponies 