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MalimarTheMage — Midnight Sparkle (SPOILERS!)
#evil #fim #friendship #games #girls #midnight #mlp #sparkle #twilight #equestria
Published: 2015-10-02 19:32:06 +0000 UTC; Views: 13792; Favourites: 442; Downloads: 90
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Description
Just some fan art of evil Twilight Sparkle from Equestria Girls: Friendship Games. I didn’t quite get the effect that I had been trying for but whatever.
Since I’ve made it a point to talk about the previous two Equestria Girls films, I’m going to do the same for this one so, warning, spoilers ahead.
While I think Rainbow Rocks was a more successful movie with better pacing and sufficient character development, Friendship Games isn’t far behind. I do feel, however, that Friendship Games is the first film to not need to pander to the fandom to gain and audience, something that the first two films did in abundance. For the most part, the conflict and characters are distanced from the main show and has started to develop its own continuity and lore. Sunset Shimmer is now undoubtedly the main protagonist of the EQG films, coming full circle by taking the role of the hero with Twilight now as the villain.
Even though it basically re-hashes events from the first two films, I don’t mind because, as I just pointed out, it works to further Sunset’s reformation, her appreciation of friendship, and her understanding of the Elements of Harmony that began in EQG #1, giving everything closure. And thanks to Sunset the human-world Twilight is now travelling down this same path to redemption and enlightenment. It’s a lesson that’s preached repeatedly throughout MLP:FIM, but I think it’s a message worth reminding people about.
This brings me to my next point: Twilight Sparkle. For a show that’s officially marketed to young girls, MLP:FIM isn’t afraid to push the envelope present some serious and even intimidating moments, which are steadily becoming more and more frequent as the show continues. Evil Twilight Sparkle (I’ve seen her called Midnight Sparkle) was one of these moments for me. For half a second I legitimately thought human-world Twilight had died when she was engulfed by the magic she had stolen and contained in her pendant, screaming for help with her hair singeing and tears streaming down her face. As a villain, though, I found her to be one of the most intimidating. Not only did she possess immense magical power equal to if not superior to the Elements of Harmony, but her motives weren’t the typical “I want to take over the world because I’m evil” sort of mindset. She was obsessed with understanding magic and was completely apathetic to whatever and whoever got in her way. She wasn’t malicious, mischievous, or cruel but simply cold.
What’s scarier is why she felt this way and how this very conceivably could have happened to Equestria’s Twilight. As has been seen with characters like Princess Luna and Moondancer, feeling isolated or simply isolating yourself from others left them similarly jaded and apathetic. Not feeling appreciated or ignoring appreciation that others may have for you can make you blind to anything but your goals and the need to achieve these goals. It’s very easy to do when you’re passionate about something you enjoy or feel is important. When MLP:FIM first started we were introduced to a Twilight who was just like this, who was on her way to becoming like Moondancer, and who was just like the Twilight in the human world. We have seen before with her confrontation of King Sombra that she has been tempted by darker and unfamiliar forms of magic, and when presented with a similar situation, the human world Twilight also gave into these temptations but with much more negative consequences. I guess we should be thankful that Twilight has had her friends, Spike, and Princess Celestia all to help her through her troubles and become the hero we know and love today.
Did I enjoy Friendship Games? Yes. Is it perfect? No, but I can say the same about the series as a whole. Even though I’m certain we will see Sunset Shimmer and the human world again in the future, I wouldn’t be disappointed if it ended here.
Art © me.
Twilight Sparkle and Equestria Girls: Friendship Games © Hasbro.
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Comments: 37
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I'm getting Maleficent vibes from this for some reason... But still AWESOME!
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TAILS: She shouldn't have opened that magic-sucking thing...I warned her!
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TJ: Uh oh...
(Midnight Sparkle opens her mouth)
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TAILS: Who are you, & what do you want?
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Midnight Sparkle: I WANT TO SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!
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Tails: EEP! B-BUT WHY?
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Midnight Sparkle: SO I CAN RAISE THE DEAD AND BUILD MY OWN ARMY!
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Tails: So what does that have to do with me?!
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Midnight: You have the most attractive of all! I want it to gain attention for those female ponies!
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Tails: Really? Oh, shucks...*blushes*
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Midnight Sparkle: *screams*
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(sorry, I was trying to do something inventive)
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(you want to continue?)
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Amazing! Friendship Games is my favorite movie, I think it's perfect...
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IKR! 
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omg this is a badass drawing amazing job!!!
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Good lord person! Thats a long reply.
You know I was going to say that I was going to lose my mind if I saw anymore of Nightwish Twilight. But then I looked at the side and well.
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Even if you didn't manage to get the full effect you planned for, you still did well. I adore the shading on her and the texture the tools used give everything, from the wings to her various suit parts to her hair and skin. That magic effect on her "glasses" mask thing is divine. Also, bonus points for being the first traditional Midnight I've seen, particular ones for being so freaking good.
I agree with many summations in the description, though. For me, FG won out over RR precisely because of not being as dependent on syncopated pacing of its different plot threads. That, plus the heavy reliance on its own characters, made it beautifully lifelike for me, which I always love to see. And I also actually like it for the fact that it revisited some things seen before in EQG1 and RR - because it didn't just reiterate them, but essentially updated them, showing their evolution. Things like Sunset going from a vicious alpha b!tch to a genuinely repentant, but still often rejected person who's found her refuge in her new friends and rises to help them and save the day in the end, to a person who's welcomed and liked and appreciated for who she is and what she's done since the end of her vicious streak. It underlines her evolution, indeed. And now she showed that the friendship student has not just learned her lessons, but has truly become the master, in the most dazzling way possible. And it's indeed something I find wonderful to see, both for her as a character and as a development in general.
The repetition of themes also serves to essentially finalize the formation of the EQG world, which has, up until now, been essentially incomplete and relied on pony transfusions to do some crucial things, like magic problem solving. Now the CHS Mane group looks exactly like the S1 Ponyville group, minus the presence of Sunset Shimmer - a new-to-friendship Twilight and her more experienced five friends, as well as Spike in an intelligent helper role; Sunset's presence would help alleviate the more difficult consequences of Twi having been in Crystal Prep for so long and bring her closer to the original pony Twilight from back then, essentially evening out the field. The three movies were necessary to introduce, flesh out and bring it all together, and Sunset's character development arc we've seen throughout them was our guide and reference point throughout their course. Now, indeed, we can say that EQG can stand on its own two human feet, though it thematically and plot-wise remains connected to the main-line Equestria. In essence, though, I'm just adding to what you've already said and not disagreeing with you.
One thing I would add, though, is that Sunset's character journey is not done yet, and therein lies my one substantial disagreement with you - I don't want EQG to end, not just because I love it, but also because Sunset still has some dangling, nagging questions left unresolved. They did not make an appearance in the movie, but the recently revealed animatic for its original version introduced it - the thing here is Sunset's connection to Equestria and what it means to her. While she is currently happy with what she's achieved in CHS since her redemption, it's not exactly unlikely that it remains a plot point with her, since all the prerequisites remain the same - Sunset was planned to essentially parallel Twilight by pining for Equestria and feeling constrained and unfulfilled in the human world, despite the goodness she's found (kind of like Twilight's "It isn't that I'm ungrateful..."), just like human Twi felt the same about Crystal Prep. I felt that this, namely Sunset's origins and how it correlates to her life in the human world, was an unaddressed but important point since EQG1, and I think that the makers are essentially in agreement with me here. Thus, with them already having said that EQG4 will be a thing, I would almost feel safe enough to bet on Sunset starting to miss her old home too much to forget it amid her friendships in the future.
As for Twilight and such scenes - indeed, Twilight's arc in general and her intimidation and victim-role scenes in particular were rather serious and darkly realistic, and as a lover of Twi, it rang all the sharper with me. That one scene in particular was rather hard to watch for me, even if I knew Twilight will be okay by the end, just because of how well-executed it was - and no, I wouldn't change it one bit. What I liked even more about her superpowered villainous mode was not just her lack of evil intent and her danger mostly by proxy as a result of her long-term victimization and obsession, but also that her face felt to me like she was still feeling bewildered and truly scared of what was happening even as she was drunk with power. That's a whole lot of depth and emotional charge for a single, fairly simply-designed animated set of expressions. Indeed, the makers have outdone themselves here. And in making Twilight this way, and with such lifelikeness, they've earned great brownie points from me as well as more of my respect.
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You know guys, after reading these comments, I had come to realize something.
After the Friendship Games premiere, I was excited I got to see it. But then, little by little, I soon found I was unable to cope with the idea of Twilight going to the dark side being made canon. I preferred it when it was just a joke by a few brownies for fan projects. But once Midnight appeared, it was all too real. Made worse by the fact that this Twilight didn't deserve to have this happen to her. But your conversation really got me thinking.
You see, after the movie, I had been wondering, why would Twilight (even if she was mad with power, which she definitely was) destroy her own world and endanger people who cared about her? The answer was pretty simple but I could not see it till now. Because she thought no one did care about her. Crystal Prep, I always knew, was pretty much a school full of jerks who force her to become that demon. There was no denying it. If they had fallen down one of the portals, it wouldn't matter much to me. Especially Cinch. They definitely should of kept that. Though I did like how they reformed and stood up to Cinch.
But what about the people who were nice to her? Didn't she care about what would happen to them? That's what I was wondering. I came to the conclusion that after she inadvertently stole their magic and put them in danger, she thought they all hated her, even when she said it was an accident. Especially Sunset, who yelled at her for all that, which is why she was pretty eager in her fight against her. She felt the urge to get back at her. To hurt her like she did her. So, she thought, why should she spare someone who hated her? But when Spike called out to her, she was reminded that there was someone who did care for her, thus temporarily coming to her senses. And I would like to think that even if she won, she would have spared him. In any case, after Sunset beat her, Twilight was obviously afraid she was done for and she figured no one would be sad if she wasn't around. But then Sunset put out her hand in Friendship and Twilight realized someone did care for her and want to be her friend, which beforehand was something Twilight actually wanted but thought she would never get it, making her believe understanding all magic was the the only thing that could make her happy. Upon learning that someone wanted to be her friend, she was overcome with guilt over what she had done and when she took Sunset's hand, the hole she had deep inside began to fill with joy. And when the Rainbooms let her in, in spite of her actions, understanding she never meant to hurt anyone, that hole was completely filled up and she had found the thing in her life she was missing. Hey, she might even be able to pony up and harness the magic of friendship someday.
Personally, I really like sweet little Sci-Twi and I can't wait to see more of her.
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I'm glad that our conversation here was both noticed and helped you resolve this little conundrum!
That's exactly it, indeed. Just like you, I was never, ever comfortable with anyone making Twilight evil or making her suffer in any way - but here in EqG, Human!Twi's case was basically a natural and all too realistic thing. True, it was still painful to see her in the situation she was in, in Crystal Prep, but at the same time it did feel both exactingly realistic and relatable for me, quite unlike sudden trauma dumps and/or villain overrides some "fans" would put her through. This was probably one of the most realistic ways to keep human Twi true to the pre-S1 pony Twilight while in the human world - she was alienated and alone and kept to studying and science, wishing to understand the world even though the people around her wouldn't grant her social interaction and company. And though there was at least one person there who seemed to be nice to her - Cadance, - it still is quite realistic that with all the painful hostility and isolation going on otherwise, this one kind person wouldn't make much of a difference. After all that, getting sudden and very much unexpected friendly and kind reactions from the Rainbooms was indeed new for her - and I believe that without those moments of niceness and kindness by the Rainbooms in general and directed at her in particular, she possibly could have stayed in her Midnight form. But the way her amulet sucked up the Rainbooms' magic, weakened them and caused negative or chaotic events essentially negated the impact of that kindness on her - kind of like startling an animal with a loud noise just as it's approached a human for the first time. It either distracted her and put her into a difficult or awkward situation or downright endangered the others - and Sunset lashing out at her, itself a very natural response, particularly for her intense personality, that I would have had myself were I in her shoes, was just the last link in that chain. If we really think about it, the amulet is the inanimate main villain of the movie - it were the amulet-caused misadventures that set off the entire chain reaction that led to Midnight Sparkle, and were it not for its automatic magic-draining, the moments of kindness and friendship Twilight got from the Rainbooms wouldn't have been ruined and she wouldn't have been left alone and convinced that people are jerks and science and scientifically understanding magic are the only way to make sense of the world.
In this way, indeed, Spike served as a reminder to her that despite all the hurts, there was indeed someone in the world who cared and it wasn't all just a cold hostile place, and it made her hesitate even in her Midnight magic-crazed form. If it wasn't for that, she would've won - Sunset was even less familiar with her "Elements" form than Twilight with her "magic" one. I doubt she could've been able to spare Spike had she won even if she wanted to, what with her world-unraveling magic, or that she would have remembered him had he not called out to her in time - knowing how it feels to be in this kind of role, the events carry you along and you end up in tunnel vision, and it's easy to forget even the most important things. Still, it matters not - indeed, just like Twilight stated quite poetically in her song (which I still find heartbreaking to hear even despite its beauty), she always wanted friendship, and seeing Sunset actually welcoming and forgiving towards her, well, it was enough for her to stop. You can see she was not expecting mercy there - she was scared and seemed to think she would be hurt or killed, and Sunset basically embracing her there instead (metaphorically speaking, as she only extended her hand) unraveled all those hurts she'd gone through before. And again, I happen to find it all quite realistic from the emotional point of view.
Thus, even though Twilight did go "dark" there, even before her Midnight moment, and it was indeed hurtful for me to see, while discomforted, I cannot speak against it or find it bad just because of it, as it brings her over a path of development from a hurt and isolated loner to the role of a happier girl with caring friends and out of the previous toxic environment. It just gets better for her over the course of the movie as, even though it gets worse during it, it finally resolves the longstanding problems she has been having for what seems like all of her conscious life. And this kind of release, well, I'm very happy to see human Twily receive.
As for ponying up, I'm quite sure she will, if Sunset's experience is any indication. Sunset went through the entire spectrum, from a super-evil mode to proper ponying-up in RR to a friendship angel form in FG - and best of all, it all felt very naturally paced with her development and experiences. With Sunset there to guide her and the rest of Humane 6 to share friendships with, I'm sure she'll be there quite soon. I'm looking forward to seeing what human!Twi's ponied-up form will look like.
And indeed, it would be very hard not to like her or not to look forward to more of her.
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Thanks. I actually would have drawn this digitally but due to some recent shoulder pain, and a desire to hone my watercolor skills, I chose to do something traditional instead. But I’m glad you still like it.
I’m also glad of your response. It’s rare that people read my descriptions, or at least discuss them in their comments.
I see what you mean. They’re both good movies, I just thought RR just had a little bit better build-up for its main conflict (i.e. establishing the Sirens and demonstrating their abilities). But you are right in saying that FG was more enjoyable because it was more independent. I also agree that it did revise what it reiterated, which is what I was trying to get across myself. Evolution is a good word to describe it.
I was going to make a “student has become the master” comment in my original description but think Sunset has rather actually become equals with Twilight, again tying in with the cyclical nature of this reiteration. I didn’t realize that Sunset was actually largely ignorant of the Elements of Harmony and the magic of friendship until the end of the film when she finally understood and was able to use them to defeat Twilight. This was the same lesson Twilight learned way back in season 1 while fighting Nightmare Moon. She knew about the Elements but didn’t know how they worked until she understood friendship. Similarly, Sunset didn’t know which Elements the CHS mane six represented (and neither did they) which is why they were so confused when they “ponied up”. Of course, the fact that their magic was changing constantly in the human world didn’t help either. In any case, it shows that this lesson, this knowledge, is able to be passed on and spread. It shows that Twilight isn’t the “chosen one” and that anyone can step up if the situation calls for it.
I would argue that the human world is still incomplete, it just doesn’t need to rely on the pony world to define itself any more. It’s finally started to create its own identity and, like you said, it at a starting place similar to how the main show was back in season 1. In a way, guess this would set up Sunset as Twilight’s mentor like you said, but rather the human Twilight instead of the pony Twilight, taking the role that Princess Celestia had in seasons 1-3.
When I said that I wouldn’t be disappointed if they didn’t make any more EQG movies, I didn’t mean that I thought it should end, nor that Sunset was finished as a character. I meant that everything that had been established in the previous films had been addressed. While, yes, the magic mirror still remains somewhat of a mystery and Sunset may miss Equestria a bit, the human Twilight has been fully integrated into the main cast of characters (something that had been alluded to in EQG), the Siren’s are now harmless, Twilight doesn’t need to wait until a certain time to use the portal thanks to her machine-thing made in RR, and Sunset can talk to Twilight whenever she wants with her magic book. There doesn’t seem to me to be any immediate issues that need addressing. When I said FG gave the films closure, I meant closure in an open-ended way rather than a finalized sort of way. There are plenty of directions EQG can still go but it’s at a point where there aren’t any nagging questions that need to be answered.
As for Sunset missing Equestria, I think an episode or two-parter could deal with that effectively enough rather than an entire new movie. I for one would love to see her and some other EQG characters like Flash try interacting in Equestria for a change. It’s been pretty one-sided so far with only Twilight coming and going through the portal.
My concern for Twilight stemmed from the fact that every other time the pendant had been opened it created a portal to Equestria, so I thought she might have been absorbed into this new portal through which some giant monster (maybe the plants from earlier) came through. Or she might have been turned into such a monster. I wasn’t expecting another she-demon kind of transformation, and I think I find that more intimidating actually.
I didn’t notice any bewilderment or fear in Twilight when she was all power-drunk but that’s a fair interpretation. To me it just seemed like she was a) semi-insane with the desire to understand magic and b) bitter at how she was shunned and manipulated by her classmates and was venting her anger. Again, not so much malicious as apathetic, not really caring about the human world because it hadn’t really cared about her (at least from her perspective). However, it is important to note that she wasn’t completely insane or brainwashed by the magic, maybe because the magic wasn’t inherently dark. Unlike Nightmare Moon, Sunset Shimmer, or even Rarity in Inspiration Manifestation, Twilight wasn’t possessed by a dark power or item, so she was still able to accept Sunset’s offer of friendship. If you noticed, the only person Twilight actually legitimately cared about was Spike, and he was the only one whom she showed any sort of kindness for when she was power-drunk. It was only when Sunset confronted her that she became mean again.
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I see. I hope the shoulder will be fine soon, in any case.
I know that the thing with the final confrontation and the resolution came out rather unexpectedly, with no clues aside from our experience with EqG1 and the mirror-reverse situation in comparison with it to suggest that Twilight would become a magical superthing, or, even less so, that Sunset would become the angel my heart was already seeing her as. However, I don't see it in a "foreshadowing good, unexpected bad" sense - I think the way they played this out made for an excellent bringing-together of the audience's and the movie characters' points of view, as we really felt their shock and surprise ourselves when everything started falling apart so catastrophically. However, I would argue that its main conflict was actually built no worse than in RR - the opposing party had much more narrative presence and overall characterisation in FG as compared to RR; to me, the sirens always felt detached from us and we only ever saw glimpses of their perspective since the pre-intro sequence, while here Crystal Prep and its forward team got fairly good presentation and we could see their point of view. Also, their participation was more active - in RR, the sirens mostly created conditions for the Humane girls to operate in and against, while here the Crystal Prep side directly competed with them on equal footing.
Well, yeah, Sunset has become equals with Twilight in these terms, and Twilight is a master, so it doesn't run contrary to that. Though I'd also argue that while Sunset has emotionally matured to Twi's level, Twilight still wins out in experience due to being there longer. With the Elements suddenly making an indirect "comeback" in Sunset's invocation there, it really felt like the distant conclusion to the EQG movies' redux version of S1E2, as she basically rehashed the Nightmare Moon standoff, with even the looks being similar - except she ended up becoming Celestia in this comparison too. And yes, what you say about Twi not being the "chosen one" and the fact that anyone can be Batman a bearer of friendship and the Elements of it, I fully agree with it; it even ties in with the apparent partial theme of the concurrent season, which is "spreading friendship". Moreover, it also ends up representing the fact that Twi has learned more from Celestia's example and essentially played Celestia's role as well - in FG she, in classic Celestia fashion, was unable to be involved for separate reasons, and her student that she brought into learning friendship had to stand up to the task instead and completed it quite well. In this sense, Celestia passed her knowledge on to Twilight, and now Twilight played Celestia's role for Sunset, with Sunset possibly playing Celestia's role for the human Twilight in the future.
The completeness of the human world now roughly equals, with some exceeding, that of Equestria as of S1E2. Its status does, too. We know the broad-strokes information about its version of Ponyville (here also combined with Canterlot) and have the Mane 7 team assembled after they avert the looming catastrophe with the power of the Elements. In a way, both Crystal Prep and Equestria itself fulfill the role of Canterlot (a place where the team "leaders" didn't belong and from where they moved to here). It's complete on the level of "is story-wise seaworthy", but isn't nearly as developed as Equestria after four and a half seasons of pony awesomeness, of course.
The addressing of what the movies before FG raised is exactly what makes the above happen. By "complete", I mostly meant that it's no longer suffering from too many big unresolved questions that previous movies couldn't answer for some reasons, if only because it only just raised them in the first place. Answering them here has essentially completed the introductory chapter of EQG as a franchise. They do work very well as a trilogy, so in this sense, yes, I do agree with you indeed.
And yes on the Equestria-human world interaction as well. After EQG1 I would've been against it (though would've gone along with it anyway, because, well, what's the alternative, forsaking pony? No thank you.), but by now I would welcome it. It would be interesting to see if anyone's made it through the portal before, by accident or otherwise, since it's apparently placed in such a way that it could conceivably be interacted with by accident or discovered by enough inquisitive exploration. Though I do believe that such matters are, at least for now, best left for EQG-side movies or spinoff series to address - mainline FiM seems to generate more narrative and episode fuel than it consumes, and quite consistently so, and it's best not to steal EQG's bread and butter when there's plenty to go around for itself. Still, an EQG entry with one or more of them venturing into Equestria would be very interesting to see indeed.
My concern for her mostly stemmed from me loving Twi, as well as just how fearful the situation was and how real her reactions. And yes, her getting into a super-mode ended up more threatening than some sort of monster - after all, a monster would just be simple-minded or unintelligent, or, barring that, at the very least alien to the context of the movie and feel like a Godzilla from nowhere, while Twilight becoming the threat carries a heavy narrative punch that serves as the climax for all she's been going through during the movie and her backstory as well as her having been getting closer with the CHS girls bit by bit. She's the one possibility there with the maximum emotional and plot payoff, so using her was the only right thing to do.
As for bewilderment, I suppose it falls to individual interpretation of her expressions. She certainly felt crazed with power, but somehow I also felt that she did not understand it, and it, as well as the sudden, shocking situation scared her under the super-mode cover. She was basically just like little pony Twily in Cutie Mark Chronicles, back when she experienced a magic surge in the rainboom and caused a smaller but similar cataclysm in the exam room until Celestia helps her to calm down and stop it. (Yet another point underlining Sunset taking on Celestia's role, passed on to her from pony Twilight.) And in this sense, the amulet thing served as the magic surge inducer for her - and yes, with the magic not being inherently dark, she did not fall far from where she already was. (Though I would argue that NMM was not possessed by a dark power but, rather, willingly embraced it of her own free will.) I did notice that Twilight only worried about Spike there - and it showed that she was still her own self. Again, like you said, it's a way of showing that, aside from Spike, she didn't have anyone in the world that she cared for as she felt she wasn't cared about by the world and other people at all - and with Crystal Prep's apparent policies and student body, I can't blame poor Twily. I think this is what stopped her from going through with her, again, just like you said, detached and obsessive plan of going all magical goddess no matter what it causes - that she was shown by Sunset that someone really did care about and for her. Thus, once again, it's the friendship and goodwill that stop the cataclysm in pony. Like an adage goes, "every villain could've been prevented from becoming one at some point if they were just given a big hug", and Sunset did exactly that at just the right moment to prevent Twilight from repeating her own failures.
All in all, quite the thought-provoking, analysis-friendly, impressive thing.
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Yeah, my shoulder’s better now so don’t worry.
I guess in terms of build-up FG’s conflict was set up about the same as RR’s, though frankly Crystal Prep seemed a lot less intimidating as villains that the Sirens. While they were a threat to human-world Twilight and her personal goals/education, which is important to be sure, it’s not quite the same as re-acquiring the Element of Magic or stopping the Sirens from gaining more power. So the conflict to me seemed very confined to human Twilight up until the very end because no one other than her was going to be immediately affected by the antagonists’ actions. From the beginning, the Sirens and even Sunset Shimmer were demonstrating their capabilities and potential as serious threats.
I probably would have been against some sort of human world interaction with Equestria with the first films (and I too would have just gone along with it). Now though, yeah, it would be welcome. The portal has yet to fully be explained and it would provide some good back story or a further demonstration of how it works. It, like the human Mane 6’s magic, seems to change a bit from film to film. In EQG1, it just opened and closed with no real indication that it was there once it had closed. After Twilight rigged up her device to the mirror in Equestria though it looks like this might not totally be the case now. As we saw, it looks like there’s a magical aura around it when people touch it even if they can’t go through it. I think it’s always there now thanks to Twilight’s device, but now I think it probably can only be opened from her side other than when 30 moons have passed or whatever.
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Good to hear!
Well, yeah, the villain thing was rather different this time around. I liked it as a change of pace as well as a better opportunity for exploring characters that didn't rely on their powers as a key trait of personality. The Crystal Prep ladies were negative all around, but not a big, superpower threat - and this time around, it was actually their very mundane, but perfectly present villainy that actually caused the superpower threat to emerge - if not for their coercion and blackmail and mistreatment of Twilight, she wouldn't have agreed to release the magic, and, speaking broadly, even participate in the event; instead, she could've just come there with her reasearch, be successfully spotted by Sunset or other observant students and come into contact with them outside of the bounds of an event that forced her to limit her inquest to that weird amulet that she didn't even understand herself properly as well as constrained her time and movements and forced her into direct opposition against them. The conflict, to me, resides squarely in Abacus Cinch, as without her domineering and at the same time petty machinations, none of this would've happened - she got her kicks from putting CHS and even her own students down all the time, and was the sole person coercing her, with others following suit because she held dominion over them in turn. Twilight here was a victim, including in the end - the magic was about to turn her into a kind of tragic monster, forced off the deep end against her will and crazed, but it did not, thanks to Sunset's intervention and her still retaining her self even in that state. In the end, I actually really like this setup - after all, yet another superpower threat coming up from the start would've just been more of the same, and we've already seen them be defeated both from the perspective of a total newcomer in the world and from that of the world's inhabitants in EQG1 and RR respectively. It was great to see a superpower threat emerge during the plot progression, instead, and contain those elements of buildup and even some sort of thriller/detective feeling as the Humane girls pieced it all together.
Yeah, we still haven't got any explanation for the portal. I could accept it just existing on the Equestrian side, because it's magic and some unicorn or the Princesses could've just made it as an experiment (after all, we saw Star Swirl engage in precisely that in Reflections). But how did it come to be where it is on the human side? Why there? Was just some random surface chosen, or just happened to be enchanted by the magic punch? There're no answers whatsoever. It also brings the possible time dilation/acceleration differences - is time in the human world faster than in Equestria or is Equestria living more slowly, that the portal exists on the side of a seemingly modern monument pedestal in a town that doesn't look historic in most senses of the word, while it seems to be treated as an older relic in Equestria? Perhaps it accounts for the age difference between the pony characters and the human ones, or for the possible different length of the time the sirens spent in there? There're still plenty of unanswered questions about that, though they don't affect the EQG world's "seaworthiness" itself. I think that the portal previously existed as a time-activated thing opening every 30 moons only (the moons of which world? Or are they synergised? If so, does the delay in moonrise/moonset caused by cataclysms delaying the princesses or just random schedule variations affect the human world too?), but, like you said, since Twilight built her arcane machine for portal activation at any time, it can be triggered freely at her end or even on both (no idea about how it'd be triggered on the human side, though). I do wonder if it might still open on schedule or even randomly be open for some periods of time, but those are questions to potentially be answered by future movies as well.
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I agree with the mundaneness of the Crystal Prep-ers. FIM has been good about showing through characters like Trixie and Flim and Flam that villains aren’t always big monsters but average people too. Equestria’s not a utopia and neither is the human world. However, I’m not sure if much would have changed aside from Twilight’s push to unleash the magic by the Crystal Prep-ers. She still would have been wandering around with the amulet stealing magic, probably until something catastrophic would have happened. As we saw, the amulet started automatically stealing magic whether Twilight wanted it to or not. And the fact that she wouldn’t have been participating in the games directly would have made it a lot harder for Sunset and the gang to pinpoint who/what was stealing all their magic. She would have been further out of the way and less noticeable. Though I do agree with you that if she had been found out by Sunset and the rest she may have been less likely to run off scared and upset.
I liked the detective-ish feeling that was in FG too, though I feel it might have been even better if they had kept Twilight in the shadows for most of the movie. When I saw some of the promos for FG I thought Twilight might have been a bad guy at first, which I was interested in seeing if for nothing more than just a contrast with Equestria’s Twilight. In fact, if the Crystal Prep-ers had not been a part of the story and instead Twilight was acting on her own, bad guy or not, it would have lent her perspective a lot more authority for me. She could even just be naively obsessed with understanding magic and just cause things to go wrong accidentally like I mentioned before, though perhaps at the risk of making her less sympathetic.
I’m not familiar with much outside of the main show, so I don’t know what Reflections is and I can’t really agree with anything it says about Star Swirl right now. Unfortunately. It’s sort of implied even in the show that he might have had something to do with the mirror’s creation but nothing concrete. I think it exists on the human side specifically because the mirror exists in Equestria. As long as the mirror is intact—and doesn’t have its magic stolen or otherwise disabled—it has to create an exit portal into the human world because that’s its main function.
I’ve wondered if time works the same in the Equestria and the human world too. It seems like the human world runs faster than Equestria to me. The mirror is stated by Luna to open every 30 moons (however long that is) and would stay open for 3 days. In EQG1, Twilight was indeed in the human world for 3 days, but it might not have been that long in Equestria since when she returned there everyone looked like they were in the exact same place they had been when she first left. It seems unlikely to me that they’d just camp out by the mirror for 3 days straight. Plus a lot more time seems to have gone by in Equestria compared to the human world since EQG1, at least based on how long school seems to last in real life and based on what grade the human Mane 6 seem to be. Sunset’s been at CHS for at least 3 years if we look at her Fall Formal photos and high school (in the USA) is 4 years long. So she should be half way through her final year at CHS, possibly in the spring but maybe still late autumn. Meanwhile, summer, autumn, and winter have come and gone in Equestria making me think that Equestrian time runs about 3 times faster than in the human world, which could match up with the 3-day mirror time limit I talked about earlier, as well as possibly explaining the Sirens’ apparent lack of aging despite 1000+ years having gone by in Equestria. Though this may have also been due to their magical amulets or the fact that they’re from Equestria and may not actually age at the same rate as normal humans. They just look human.
As for the human Mane 6’s ages, they all seem to be exactly the same age while the ponies are not (at least Pinkie Pie is 1 year younger than Fluttershy for sure). This makes sense though because they aren’t the same people and their respective worlds have different histories.
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