EPT+ Show Spoiler +
So far I've heard mixed opinions about this episode,but more of them leaning towards the negative.
So personally, I actually thought it was a really good opener. If you are reading this you have probably seen the episodes allready so I wont go into detail what happened, so lets just jump in to some of the negative opinions I have heard thus far:
First off,the most often named problem of the bad villain. Now I do have to admkit myself, that King Sombra had no backstory,he was kinda just there and then he was gone without even saying anything important, and I do admit he is probably the worst villain so far. BUT allow me to ellaborate a bit on his character and think about it for a second. When King Sombra is compared to chrysalis/NMM/Discord you should immediatly notice something: he is very DIFFERENT in his role and behaviour than the other three villains and should therefore be looked at from a different perspective.
The other three villains were pretty cocky and talked a lot about their motives/plans, they were playing with the mane cast, and were all around pretty engaged into the episodes therefore. King Sombra however, does not fulfill any of these aspects. Instead he is incredibly direct about his goal and doesnt stop a single second to work to achieve it,not being stopped by anything in his path.
Therefore he doesnt waste time talking or trying to use direct mindtricks like the other three villains to stop the ponies. Sure Twilight stumbles upon the Door of Fears, but that wasnt a direct attack that King Sombra planned, it was merely a coincidence that Twilight found and fell for it. Additionally,he doesnt even HAVE ANYONE TO TALK TO, how is gonna have a personality and text, if he has no one to talk to like the other villains had? Once again,this is due to his different nature. This is also why on the show his appearance seems very lackluster and he hardly does anything to portrait his backstory or motives, nor does anyone else do that, which kinda leaves him as a blank character.
This is why we need to go one step further and start analyzing to interpret his character, which means we also have to make assumptions. I hope you have no problem with some interpretation and assumptions, but it actually works out really nicely. As mentioned before,King Sombra is a very different type of villain, I had a conversation with Camail, talking about how powerful he actually is compared to the other villains. But one thing is for sure: No pony can withstand his power, he was able to overthrow an entire empire in a day and he can seal unicorn's magic,aswell as summon and control dark crystals by will. He is also elusive and seems untouchable, making him this impending sense of doom that would befall the crystal ponies if the mane6 (and spike ofc) were to fail. This is exactly his role. His role is to make sure the opener has that lose condition, the ill fate, the murderous, unstoppable force that would consume the crystal empire and maybe even equestria afterwards. And this role he fulfills absolutely PERFECTLY.
Of course a lot more could have been done with him, like explaining his backstory, his motives, reasons, or why he even got that powerful. One thing I deducted for example,is that his appearance as a unicorn is very different from the crystal ponies and he must therefore not have been a crystal pony, but rather an outsider that stumbled upon the empire. But back to the opener. We know how powerful King Somber is,and combined with his characteristics, the opposite of the other three villains Chrysalis/NMM/Discord, makes it almost impossible for him to do any sort of character building HIMSELF, which means other characters would HAVE to have done it for him.
Allow me to explain: He has a clear goal: enslave the crystal ponies once again and make sure they cant use the crystal heart to stop him, he also has more than enough power to reach this goal, he is incredibly powerful and untouchable in his smoke form at the same time, he is also incredibly direct and wants nothing more than to reach this goal as quick as possible. This makes him incredibly focused and fixated on his goal and he does everything imaginable in his power to reach it, meaning he won't stop or even waste time talking for one single second. Of course this is all something I came up with, looking at the episode and the evidence I found in that episode by looking at his behaviour. Which is also once again, something very different than the other three villains that did all the characterbuilding themselves and hardly needed any sort of interpretation to be made by the viewer.
All in all, its very important you actually think about King Sombra for a bit, and dont just put a "SUCKS" stamp on his head and just move on. He is a very different type of villain that is defined not by his character, but by his power and goals, and should therefore be treated as such and not be treated like he was supposed to be another Chrysalis or Nightmare Moon. But as I mentioned in the beginning of this, I still think hes the worst villain so far.
Apart from the aspect of the "bad villain" I heard people saying it was an all around not that great of an episode, with a lot of stuff "just happening", I have to disagree once again. Given the time they had,which is ALWAYS something to take into consideration when talking about the episode and its plot (hehe plot) in general is how much they can fit into the time they have. And I personally think they have used their time very very nicely. If you look away from the villain and look at all the other aspects of the episode, you will see its a coherent and understandable plot that makes sense in itself.
Nothing happens for no reason, even though I read that someone else here said Episode two would have something like random pointless explosions, which I have to admit is in itself a pretty weird accusation. First off I didnt exactly notice that there would in fact be way too many random pointless explosions, and you have to admit, there is a giant incredibly powerful and untoucable monster of smoke rushing towards the empire after the shield has failed and the dark magic of King Sombra corrupts the empire and summons manifestations of his dark energies in form of crystals. This was probably the most apocalyptic scenery and atmosphere we ever had in the entirety of My Little Pony, even moreso than the changeling invasion or the endless night.
And I personally think that the amount of stuff going on onscreen at any given time after the shield fails is definitely NOT too much, too random, or too pointless. We should rather be happy that My Little Pony is shaping up more and more to be the awesome adventure that everyone loves to see, kids and adults. I mean after the S2 ending we could say "In MLP an insectoid race of shapeshifting ponies invade the capital of the land, start to destroy it and even knock out and imprison the leader after a Harry Potter like magic duel".
But now we can say "In MLP the main character has to find an artifact to save an entire empire from impeding doom that is knocking at their door and is allready starting to corrupt the entire and the shield protecting it would fail any minute, so she goes off with her dragon friend to find the artifact and mimics the dark magic of the evil villain himself to unveil a hidden path, overcomes a Door that leads to your worst fear, changes the gravity of herself and her dragon to fly up a ginormous flight of stairs, finds the artifact, but the artifact is actually trapped, but before she gets completely entrapped she throws the artifact out to the dragon,who then is forced by her to abandon her and deliver the artifact himself,by jumping off the tower and running down a slope of forming black crystals that are rapidly corruption and overgrowing the empire,as the barrier fails and the evil villain rushes to steal the artifact and then the guy and the girl who was holding up that barrier, team up and the guy throws the girl like a missile and she intercepts the dragon in front of the villain and they use the artifact to utterly shatter the villain and transform everyone into a crystalline form of themselves, while this has all been a test for the main protagonist to make sure if she is actually powerful enough to fulfil the destiny the two demigods of the land have in store for her" (this was probably my longest sentence I have ever wrote).
Combine this plot of epic proportions with the incredibly awesome lead up to it with all of the mane6 being incredibly in their role,delivering one joke and funny scene after another, and you know why I think THIS OPENER, is actually a BETTER opener, than the S1 opener. In my opinion this opener might not be in the godlike tiers of brony zealotry, but damn its still an awesome as hell episode.
If you have any questions or points you want to mention, be sure to reply, and thank you for taking your time to read my review.
So personally, I actually thought it was a really good opener. If you are reading this you have probably seen the episodes allready so I wont go into detail what happened, so lets just jump in to some of the negative opinions I have heard thus far:
First off,the most often named problem of the bad villain. Now I do have to admkit myself, that King Sombra had no backstory,he was kinda just there and then he was gone without even saying anything important, and I do admit he is probably the worst villain so far. BUT allow me to ellaborate a bit on his character and think about it for a second. When King Sombra is compared to chrysalis/NMM/Discord you should immediatly notice something: he is very DIFFERENT in his role and behaviour than the other three villains and should therefore be looked at from a different perspective.
The other three villains were pretty cocky and talked a lot about their motives/plans, they were playing with the mane cast, and were all around pretty engaged into the episodes therefore. King Sombra however, does not fulfill any of these aspects. Instead he is incredibly direct about his goal and doesnt stop a single second to work to achieve it,not being stopped by anything in his path.
Therefore he doesnt waste time talking or trying to use direct mindtricks like the other three villains to stop the ponies. Sure Twilight stumbles upon the Door of Fears, but that wasnt a direct attack that King Sombra planned, it was merely a coincidence that Twilight found and fell for it. Additionally,he doesnt even HAVE ANYONE TO TALK TO, how is gonna have a personality and text, if he has no one to talk to like the other villains had? Once again,this is due to his different nature. This is also why on the show his appearance seems very lackluster and he hardly does anything to portrait his backstory or motives, nor does anyone else do that, which kinda leaves him as a blank character.
This is why we need to go one step further and start analyzing to interpret his character, which means we also have to make assumptions. I hope you have no problem with some interpretation and assumptions, but it actually works out really nicely. As mentioned before,King Sombra is a very different type of villain, I had a conversation with Camail, talking about how powerful he actually is compared to the other villains. But one thing is for sure: No pony can withstand his power, he was able to overthrow an entire empire in a day and he can seal unicorn's magic,aswell as summon and control dark crystals by will. He is also elusive and seems untouchable, making him this impending sense of doom that would befall the crystal ponies if the mane6 (and spike ofc) were to fail. This is exactly his role. His role is to make sure the opener has that lose condition, the ill fate, the murderous, unstoppable force that would consume the crystal empire and maybe even equestria afterwards. And this role he fulfills absolutely PERFECTLY.
Of course a lot more could have been done with him, like explaining his backstory, his motives, reasons, or why he even got that powerful. One thing I deducted for example,is that his appearance as a unicorn is very different from the crystal ponies and he must therefore not have been a crystal pony, but rather an outsider that stumbled upon the empire. But back to the opener. We know how powerful King Somber is,and combined with his characteristics, the opposite of the other three villains Chrysalis/NMM/Discord, makes it almost impossible for him to do any sort of character building HIMSELF, which means other characters would HAVE to have done it for him.
Allow me to explain: He has a clear goal: enslave the crystal ponies once again and make sure they cant use the crystal heart to stop him, he also has more than enough power to reach this goal, he is incredibly powerful and untouchable in his smoke form at the same time, he is also incredibly direct and wants nothing more than to reach this goal as quick as possible. This makes him incredibly focused and fixated on his goal and he does everything imaginable in his power to reach it, meaning he won't stop or even waste time talking for one single second. Of course this is all something I came up with, looking at the episode and the evidence I found in that episode by looking at his behaviour. Which is also once again, something very different than the other three villains that did all the characterbuilding themselves and hardly needed any sort of interpretation to be made by the viewer.
All in all, its very important you actually think about King Sombra for a bit, and dont just put a "SUCKS" stamp on his head and just move on. He is a very different type of villain that is defined not by his character, but by his power and goals, and should therefore be treated as such and not be treated like he was supposed to be another Chrysalis or Nightmare Moon. But as I mentioned in the beginning of this, I still think hes the worst villain so far.
Apart from the aspect of the "bad villain" I heard people saying it was an all around not that great of an episode, with a lot of stuff "just happening", I have to disagree once again. Given the time they had,which is ALWAYS something to take into consideration when talking about the episode and its plot (hehe plot) in general is how much they can fit into the time they have. And I personally think they have used their time very very nicely. If you look away from the villain and look at all the other aspects of the episode, you will see its a coherent and understandable plot that makes sense in itself.
Nothing happens for no reason, even though I read that someone else here said Episode two would have something like random pointless explosions, which I have to admit is in itself a pretty weird accusation. First off I didnt exactly notice that there would in fact be way too many random pointless explosions, and you have to admit, there is a giant incredibly powerful and untoucable monster of smoke rushing towards the empire after the shield has failed and the dark magic of King Sombra corrupts the empire and summons manifestations of his dark energies in form of crystals. This was probably the most apocalyptic scenery and atmosphere we ever had in the entirety of My Little Pony, even moreso than the changeling invasion or the endless night.
And I personally think that the amount of stuff going on onscreen at any given time after the shield fails is definitely NOT too much, too random, or too pointless. We should rather be happy that My Little Pony is shaping up more and more to be the awesome adventure that everyone loves to see, kids and adults. I mean after the S2 ending we could say "In MLP an insectoid race of shapeshifting ponies invade the capital of the land, start to destroy it and even knock out and imprison the leader after a Harry Potter like magic duel".
But now we can say "In MLP the main character has to find an artifact to save an entire empire from impeding doom that is knocking at their door and is allready starting to corrupt the entire and the shield protecting it would fail any minute, so she goes off with her dragon friend to find the artifact and mimics the dark magic of the evil villain himself to unveil a hidden path, overcomes a Door that leads to your worst fear, changes the gravity of herself and her dragon to fly up a ginormous flight of stairs, finds the artifact, but the artifact is actually trapped, but before she gets completely entrapped she throws the artifact out to the dragon,who then is forced by her to abandon her and deliver the artifact himself,by jumping off the tower and running down a slope of forming black crystals that are rapidly corruption and overgrowing the empire,as the barrier fails and the evil villain rushes to steal the artifact and then the guy and the girl who was holding up that barrier, team up and the guy throws the girl like a missile and she intercepts the dragon in front of the villain and they use the artifact to utterly shatter the villain and transform everyone into a crystalline form of themselves, while this has all been a test for the main protagonist to make sure if she is actually powerful enough to fulfil the destiny the two demigods of the land have in store for her" (this was probably my longest sentence I have ever wrote).
Combine this plot of epic proportions with the incredibly awesome lead up to it with all of the mane6 being incredibly in their role,delivering one joke and funny scene after another, and you know why I think THIS OPENER, is actually a BETTER opener, than the S1 opener. In my opinion this opener might not be in the godlike tiers of brony zealotry, but damn its still an awesome as hell episode.
If you have any questions or points you want to mention, be sure to reply, and thank you for taking your time to read my review.
![[image loading]](https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/18408_10151315437454553_1682526226_n.jpg)
