My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

[Killix]

Yep, I watched the finale a month ago.

It was alright. Hated the epilogue episode, though. Burn it.

[Liou]

Oops, and then I vamoosed for nearly three months before coming back to yell about the finale and epilogue!

24 & 25) The Ending of The End

SPOILER: Click to show

Aaand it was Discord.
I'm not very fond of Discord's whole thing of doing Discord-y things but you know, for the sake of teaching the Mane Six friendship lessons, so it's okay. It kind of throws his redemption arc under the bus.
Then again, what other options do we still have to instigate friendship lessons, at this point? :'D At least this is a good way to include our good ol' Discord?

Okay, what is "Grogar's magic" that the villain trio got from the bell even supposed to be? Tirek always looks the same when he levels up, but Cozy Glow got alicorn'd? Like with the Alicorn Amulet? Can any lady unicorn get alicorn'd if she gets saturated with enough magicks? That would really, really undermine the whole thing where Twilight and presumably Cadence became alicorns because they were Worthy and evolved through the magics of friendship and love.
Not sure what those new ornaments on Chryssy were supposed to be, all they did for me was make her look cuter.
The bit with Cozy Glow trying to wield Discord's chaos magic actually made me laugh. It was a neat way of preventing the villains from getting too powerful too fast.

Poor old Pillars, they were just there as an apetiser for Tirek.
I'm glad they let Starlight have a real good fight scene against Chryssy before being taken down by surprise and brute force. Starlight was introduced to us as a very impressive, very fast spellcaster, and I'm glad they didn't downgrade her for the sake of the finale. She's still the genre-savvy one, too - when the Mane Six are all "go find Twilight!" and she's all "Twilight needs you guys, duh"

I'm not sure if Discord actually meant to free Starlight when everyone was captured? It was definitely the best choice to free Starlight first out of the prisoners because she is both powerful and fast, but that magic beam deflection seemed incredibly lucky? Is that a Discord cartoon logic thing, even without his magic? Eh, I'll take it.

I kind of expected Discord to try to make the villain trio fight over who would be able to use his chaos magic. It was the predictable outcome, but they'd already outsmarted him before, though. I liked that Discord tricked them without actually sowing any discord between them like the old Discord would have done, and kept standing up for his friends the whole time. It was really consistent with his character development. He just used that old trick of casually tossing an object around while talking. (see: the seeds he tossed around right before Celestia and Luna first sealed him in a flashback, and which later grew to attack the Tree of Harmony)

As for the epic final battle with everyone, really everyone, gathered on a conveniently large grassy plain: good thing the magic of fast travel was there to help the magic of friendship. =o
Lots of friendship speeches, but look, it's the finale, we can take some speeches. I'll want to rewatch this and I will listen to those speeches again.
Combining the Friendship Beams of the Mane Six, Young Six and the Pillars: you know what, that was a thing I've wanted to happen for a while, out of curiosity, and I didn't expect them to actually do it, and I'm glad they did!

26) The Last Problem

SPOILER: Click to show

Me, every time Twilight Sparkle does a big magic beam in a season finale: floaty princess mane?? floaty alicorn mane now? no? this time floaty mane??

Epilogue: THIS TIME FLOATY MANE!!!

Oh goodness she's gorgeous. I've been waiting so long to see Big Alicorn Twilight. I think she's even bigger than Celestia by now?
The floaty mane looks different from Celestia's and Luna's due to Twilight's more angular style. I like it. It's like a trace of the neat, student-ish manestyle that the little nerd's always had.
Best thing: she has bigger wings to hug her friends with! ;u;

Welp, nothing much happens in this episode.
The weak suspense of "are they still friends" is so obviously fabricated, as Twilight could simply have told Luster: "my friends are actually about to arrive for our monthly meeting, but sshhh, we need to keep the audience guessing, we need you to ask obvious expository questions as it's the only reason you exist, dear discount-me student, and we need to have flashbacks and let my friends make their dramatic entrances =o"

This is like a callback to the very first pilot, with too much musical.
The difference is that, instead of dumping her student in Ponyville and letting things unfold like Trollestia did, Twilight actually explains the importance of friendship. Which... is fair: little Twilight was very stubborn and rational - in S1E15 she tried to make sense of Pinkie Pie - and I'm not sure she'd have responded well to a Celestial musical number about friendship.

Twilight being afraid of leaving her friends seems like nothing really new or unexpected... but it is the end, and exploring their feelings about this is important and a unique time of their lives.
The actual coronation of Twilight in flashbacks was perfect, yep, this is exactly how it should go.
The Mane Six having a good cry together was nice as a farewell.

Now for the real purpose of this episode, showing us where everyone is at in the canon future!

Pinkie Pie /Cheese sandwich actual confirmed ship: *disappointed Fluttershy trying not to hurt your feelings voice* It's... nice.
I mean, I can see them working as a couple. But I can also see them working as... anything else? Friends. Business partners. Supervillain archenemies with a deathly yet very glamorous rivalry!

*inhale* APPLEDASH! APPLEDASH!
Yes, the show is just tossing us implicit crumbs here.
I'll take them.
I've always leaned more towards Flutterdash but sure, I'll take Old Married Lesbian Aesthetic Appledash. Only AJ can withstand living with RD, tbh.

The other reason I'm good with this outcome is that Flutterscord are together. (Guess they had to be two by two.)
This one is also open to interpretation and I prefer to see Flutterscord as platonic. I think they can work as a couple somehow, but personally I find their bond beautiful as a platonic thing. Fluttershy and Discord are quite a unique pairing to me, I can't think of any other like them. It's not like buff angsty creatureman and plain clumsy humangirl who fixes his angst with her pureness. They don't need each other, they just like each other.
I really like how Discord casually uses his powers to make things more convenient for her, so attentively. A nice, efficient visual representation of what they've got, definitely not because there was no time to give Discord dialogue.

Am not satisfied: Rarity looking regal, but what was she even doing in Yakyakistan? That doesn't tell us anything much about her life? Rarity got robbed.

Nice little stained glass windows of Flurry Heart... getting crowned in the Crystal Empire? and of the Young Six defeating some creature with the Elements, like old times.
Loads and loads of background characters, everyone pretty much where we expect, continuity, but nevermind them, because SUNSET SHIMMER WAS THERE!!

Bye bye show. So long, and thanks for all the friendship.

[June Scarlet]

Now the real question: Do I read the spoilers or not?

I usually don't mind spoilers about MLP because I'm so far behind, but this is the series finale we're talking about. I feel like caring about making it the experience intended. So I think I'll leave the spoilers untouched for now.

I'm currently in the middle of Season 7, so not too far out. I'm still taking the watching slowly, savoring each episode. I'm a binge reader, but not much of a binge watcher.

I have plushies of all the characters except Rarity, which is fitting that Rarity would be the rare one. Not matching plushies, but that's okay, they're more unique that way.

I've also taken to watching a show called "Cinamare Sins" on Youtube, which points out little details of the episodes I didn't notice, and also brings in the fandom perspective. It's very interesting. So far they aren't ahead of me either, so I don't have to worry about spoilers. I recommend it to people who enjoy MLP, though you might already know about it.

[Liou]

June Scarlet Yeah, I wouldn't read spoilerboxes if I were you, because 1) you'll get there in due time there isn't that much left to binge, and 2) at this point the show doesn't have that much content left in it? so if you read spoilers there won't be much left to discover in the actual episodes. Kudos on getting this far!



But speaking of spoilerboxes-

*slams door back into thread*

I've just remembered something that was missing from the later seasons and could have been a lovely callback in the finale but was left out and left a huge void!

SPOILER: Click to show

Dear Princess Celestia letters! Or Dear Princess Twilight at the end!
I think Sunset Shimmer was doing that in EQG? So why not in the show finale? I would have loved that as a callback. It was always comforting and consistent and kept the episodes sort of tied together. Even correspondence to and from other characters. Especially with the new nations and non-pony characters who could have sent their own style of correspondence, and the Young Six could have got into it too... Not in every episode, but once in a while for special lessons.