S03 E01-02: "The Crystal Empire"

[TotalEcplise]

I just dug up a relevant quote:

"The door is everything; all that once was, and all that will be! The door controls time and space, love and death!

The door can see into your mind! The DOOR can see into your SOULLLLL!"

"Re-really? The door can do all that"

"Heh, no."

edit: Well, relevant to the door. Not so much to the death scene

That door. Not gonna lie those were some troll traps.

[BaconofChaos]

I just dug up a relevant quote:

"The door is everything; all that once was, and all that will be! The door controls time and space, love and death!

The door can see into your mind! The DOOR can see into your SOULLLLL!"

"Re-really? The door can do all that"

"Heh, no."

edit: Well, relevant to the door. Not so much to the death scene

You are about to enter...

.

Well, saw the episode with the local bronie group; used to be there were some 8 or 9 of us for these events, now there are more than 20!

I liked the episode, it was good, not great, but good. I felt the premiere for season one and two were stronger but this one did have something the others did not: It strongly hinted this was the beginning of a much larger story arc.

Some fascinating realizations:

Dark Magic - Ponies, well at least unicorns and alicorns, can use "dark magic" that is appears to be fundamentally negative and based on negative emotions. This all appears to fit right in with the magic lore of the pony universe with the Elements of Harmony, the Crystal Heart fueled by love and hope and so forth. Sombra may have once been a regular unicorn that became corrupted, then consumed by the dark magics he wished to understand and later control. It also opens the question of temptation by others to use such magic arts; now Twilight has touched the dark magic and used it, will she be tempted by it? Or affect her in some other way?

King Sombra - As the antagonist for the story, he was a profound disappointment, but I don't think he really was the antagonist, it wasn't about him at all, he was merely a plot device. The story was about Twilight and her moving to the next stage of her studies and whatever grander plans Celestia and Luna have; no doubt to protect Equestria in the long term from whatever great dangers still lurk. The story definitely left the feeling there is something much bigger going on and that Celestia is thinking "big picture".

That all being said I wish he was utilized a little better. It would have been far more interesting if we discovered Sombra was simply a pawn for a much stronger evil; perhaps even set up to fail to move forward that great evil's plans against Equestria and ponykind. Just a thought.

Crystal Ponies - Clearly we now have a fourth pony type. Cadance is their princess (her cutie mark was the Crystal Heart), but other than their design and shine, I am not sure what makes them different. What I mean by that is each of the three types of ponies are special beyond their physical differences: Unicorns for spell-casting and associated tasks that require fine magic, pegasai to control the weather and the magic of flight, earth who have a magic connection to all life that makes them best for growing food and caring for animals. What about crystal ponies? Well, they could be connected more to the earth itself then others, they may also/or be the fine artists of ponykind (and by art I mean in the broadest terms: literature, artwork, music, poetry, etc.) It also seems apparent their "shine" changes if they are in the crystal kingdom or not. Full shine within the kingdom, that "somber" more normal look outside the kingdom. Just my take.

What do you all think?

Re: Dark Magic: I'm not sure about temptation. It LOOKS bad, but both Celestia and Twilight used it with apparantly no ill effects, though in Celestia's case it might be because she's so strong, and maybe it will affect Twilight later.

Re: Crystal ponies. Their shtick is they they are good with crystals.

Or something.

I got nothing.

[Thoth]

You are about to enter...

.

You win.

EVERYTHING

[BaconofChaos]

You win.

EVERYTHING

Darn tootin'

[RarityDash]

Crystal Ponies - Clearly we now have a fourth pony type. Cadance is their princess (her cutie mark was the Crystal Heart), but other than their design and shine, I am not sure what makes them different. What I mean by that is each of the three types of ponies are special beyond their physical differences: Unicorns for spell-casting and associated tasks that require fine magic, pegasai to control the weather and the magic of flight, earth who have a magic connection to all life that makes them best for growing food and caring for animals. What about crystal ponies? Well, they could be connected more to the earth itself then others, they may also/or be the fine artists of ponykind (and by art I mean in the broadest terms: literature, artwork, music, poetry, etc.) It also seems apparent their "shine" changes if they are in the crystal kingdom or not. Full shine within the kingdom, that "somber" more normal look outside the kingdom. Just my take.

What do you all think?

Heh. Just noticed this post.

I kind of expected to see Cadance stay with the Crystal Ponies in the end. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she returns in a later episode to lead them.

As for crystal ponies themselves, I think their magic is of the same general nature as Cadance's, based on "light and love". Celestia toward the beginning seems to describe the empire as holding a powerful magic which reflects emotions across Equestria. The crystal ponies use their magic, tied to love, joy and emotion to power the crystal heart, which I would expect is responsible for this effect as well as for protecting the empire from threats and the elements.

If they are indeed about channeling love and emotion with their magic, I would imagine you're probably right then that they would have a lot of ponies in tune with the arts and such.

[FrankT]

Simply put - THIS IS THE BEST EPISODE YET!!!!!! And, I love Spike more than ever!!! (huggles official plush doll)

[TotalEcplise]

Are you saying shadows are alive?

Its a kids cartoon don't delve so deeply into it. Sometimes somepony disappearing doesn't mean they died. They just disappeared. Shadow or otherwise.

I don't see what delving you'd have to do, its really an in your face sort of issue.

With media like IRobot, mass effect, star trek, star wars, etc... what you are composed of hasn't meant diddly about being alive since like the 90s. Even a kid can point at J5 and say he, but call a roomba an it.

Is a shadow alive, no, but that's really a moot point shadows have no consciousness or intelligence, but Sombra did. Is king sombra 'alive'? If i said no Id be a hypocrite because I believe Sonny, Data, Legion and the Geth, David, Bishop, J-5, and many droids from starwars to be 'alive'.

Unlike with the other villains defeated, Sombra was reduced to shadow because of what happened in his lore. That was how he survived to be a current threat, what happened at the end of the premier? He got reverted back to his solid mortal state and blown up...Death doesn't happen in Equestria *shrugs* You can call it whatever you like, and dance around semantics all day but there was pretty much no flex room in the interpretation of sombra's demise. Im almost certain that he has been obliterated and will never ever be heard from again.

Obliterating something obvious sentient...that's killing. Use any word you want, but at the end of the day you eradicated a consciousness. Not saying I have a problem with them eradicating Sombra.

Just pointing out that MLP:FiM just iced it's first villain.

[TotalEcplise]

Simply put - THIS IS THE BEST EPISODE YET!!!!!! And, I love Spike more than ever!!! (huggles official plush doll)

Yes, we need more spike! Seriously, he plays like 5 instruments is cool with everyone and ballet dances...

Also I NEED MORE RAINBOW DASH AND FLUTTERSHY IN ARMOR!

[Bellosh]

On Sombra: I heard before the episode aired on how he seemed to be quite similar to Sauron from Lord of the Rings. Turns out that prediction was quite right; both Dark Lords weren't really developed as characters at all, they only seem to exist as plot devices to give motivation to the heroes. Anyway, I don't think Sombra is quite gone yet. Depending on what type of dark magic he knows, he may have found a way to achieve immortality even if his physical body gets destroyed.... just like Sauron did with his One Ring. That said, I'd want Discord or the Changeling Queen to be given priority to return in future episodes.

On the Crystal Empire: Sorry, but it ain't an empire at all. No emperor or empress, no huge...... tracts of land outside the crystal city, nothing to indicate that it's a real empire. This is the worst case of deceptive imperial advertising I've seen since the Holy Roman Empire (which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire). Oh, who's going to lead them now that Sombra ain't around? The citizens seemed to bow to Cadence, but then she trotted off into the sunset with Twilight & Company.

On the Crystal Ponies: In my opinion, they are not a distinct race of ponies like earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi. My guess is that these ponies were the descendants of those who opted to stay behind in the original pony homeland, who somehow found a way to comfortably thrive through "crystal magic". The way that Twilight & Company became all crystallized at the climax leads me to believe that anypony could in theory, become a Crystal Pony if exposed to this "crystal magic". Curious though that no pegasi or unicorns seem to reside in the quote-on-quote Crystal Empire.

On Spike: Finally, the little guy gets his own glass window in Canterlot. Three cheers for Spikey-Wikey!

Overall Thoughts: I'd give the two-parter a 4/5. Sombra brought things down a tad, but I was satisfied overall.

[PIJIN]

I don't see what delving you'd have to do, its really an in your face sort of issue.

With media like IRobot, mass effect, star trek, star wars, etc... what you are composed of hasn't meant diddly about being alive since like the 90s. Even a kid can point at J5 and say he, but call a roomba an it.

Is a shadow alive, no, but that's really a moot point shadows have no consciousness or intelligence, but Sombra did. Is king sombra 'alive'? If i said no Id be a hypocrite because I believe Sonny, Data, Legion and the Geth, David, Bishop, J-5, and many droids from starwars to be 'alive'.

Unlike with the other villains defeated, Sombra was reduced to shadow because of what happened in his lore. That was how he survived to be a current threat, what happened at the end of the premier? He got reverted back to his solid mortal state and blown up...Death doesn't happen in Equestria *shrugs* You can call it whatever you like, and dance around semantics all day but there was pretty much no flex room in the interpretation of sombra's demise. Im almost certain that he has been obliterated and will never ever be heard from again.

Obliterating something obvious sentient...that's killing. Use any word you want, but at the end of the day you eradicated a consciousness. Not saying I have a problem with them eradicating Sombra.

Just pointing out that MLP:FiM just iced it's first villain.

To Long;Didn't Read

To each his own I suppose.

Its just a kids show, don't take it so seriously.

[TheInvisiblePony]

Okay, a few thoughts that occur to me as I reflect on the episodes

First of all - Celestia can use dark magic. The more I think about it, the more it unnerves me. I mean, I guess I can see why she would have it, she is pretty much the most powerful magician in the show with few exceptions so it would make sense that she knows dark magic. That said, why would she know it? Was she bored one day and thought it could be fun?

What bothers me the most is that it has nothing to do with what we've seen of her so far, besides the whole ultra-wizard thing. Her talent, I presume, is raising the sun, and acting as princess, either/or. Shadow magic has nothing to do with either of those, at least, not directly. Its obviously advanced magic, seeing as how even Twilight had to improv it after seeing Celestia. We haven't seen any side effects on Twilight yet, but Sombra seems to be irredeemably evil. Can he use shadow magic because he's evil, or vice versa? If the latter, does this secretly support tyrant Celestia, or does it show she has complete control over her emotions?

I would equate it to Yoda from Star Wars just kind of showing off his skills with the dark side of the force. He, like Celestia, should know about it, but actually seeing him use it would be... off.

Second order of business - Alicorn =/= royalty. Proof? King Sombra, the Unicorn. Its interesting to see royalty that doesn't have wings.

And third (this one's less in depth) - Those guards in the first five seconds of the show have really cool voices.

[SonicRainb00m]

That said, I'd want Discord or the Changeling Queen to be given priority to return in future episodes.

I'm pretty sure at some point they said that a "fan-favorite villain will return in a very awesome way". Personally, I'm hoping this is Discord.

About the episode overall, I would give this an 8.5/10. The disappointing Sombra took things down for me- he definitely pales in comparison to Chrysalis, Nightmare Moon, Discord, and even Trixie. But there was a great amount of humor, some cool magic, and some good material for fanfics to work off of. And Spike gets a stained-glass window YAY! But seriously, they seem to add one of those every few weeks or something. Are they going to run out of room in that building?

My only concern is that to me, they were hinting heavily at Twilight replacing Luna or something... I know this is going out on a limb here, but PLEASE don't take away Luna...

Okay, a few thoughts that occur to me as I reflect on the episodes

First of all - Celestia can use dark magic. The more I think about it, the more it unnerves me. I mean, I guess I can see why she would have it, she is pretty much the most powerful magician in the show with few exceptions so it would make sense that she knows dark magic. That said, why would she know it? Was she bored one day and thought it could be fun?

What bothers me the most is that it has nothing to do with what we've seen of her so far, besides the whole ultra-wizard thing. Her talent, I presume, is raising the sun, and acting as princess, either/or. Shadow magic has nothing to do with either of those, at least, not directly. Its obviously advanced magic, seeing as how even Twilight had to improv it after seeing Celestia. We haven't seen any side effects on Twilight yet, but Sombra seems to be irredeemably evil. Can he use shadow magic because he's evil, or vice versa? If the latter, does this secretly support tyrant Celestia, or does it show she has complete control over her emotions?

I would equate it to Yoda from Star Wars just kind of showing off his skills with the dark side of the force. He, like Celestia, should know about it, but actually seeing him use it would be... off.

Second order of business - Alicorn =/= royalty. Proof? King Sombra, the Unicorn. Its interesting to see royalty that doesn't have wings.

And third (this one's less in depth) - Those guards in the first five seconds of the show have really cool voices.

I think if you're going to be a serious ruler, you have to know about all aspects of magic... You can't really afford to be surprised by something you don't know about.

About "King" Sombra, I don't think that title is meant to be taken too seriously. It's probably just the title he forced the crystal ponies to call him...

And yeah, those guards DID have cool voices. And there's probably going to be some fics about them.

I AM SO READY FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON.

[Bellosh]

First of all - Celestia can use dark magic. The more I think about it, the more it unnerves me. I mean, I guess I can see why she would have it, she is pretty much the most powerful magician in the show with few exceptions so it would make sense that she knows dark magic. That said, why would she know it? Was she bored one day and thought it could be fun?

I don't see the issue here. The only sort of "dark magic" Tia and Twi used in the two-parter didn't appear to be all that well, evil. All they did with it was make black crystals as presentation enhancements and to unlock magic pathways. I'd only see an issue if they used spells for more malevolent purposes.

[olsonarts]

I actually kind of didn't like this (or these) episode(s). I don't know why i just really didn't like it.

To be honest, this is probably my least favorite episode. I thought it had to much info to fast (Like what my first impression on Shining Armour(If you had a brother all this time that you absolutly LOVE then why wait till a sudden time to release such info)).

And I really didn't like the lack of lines for the enemy (Night-Mare Moon and Discord had plenty of lines and played a big role in their episodes).

I felt like something was corrupt in this episode. ALL THE APPLES. all the apples, but one

[TheInvisiblePony]

I don't see the issue here. The only sort of "dark magic" Tia and Twi used in the two-parter didn't appear to be all that well, evil. All they did with it was make black crystals as presentation enhancements and to unlock magic pathways. I'd only see an issue if they used spells for more malevolent purposes.

I guess so, and I suppose it could be considered a tangent of magic, completely separate from morality, but to see Celestia use the same kind of the magic as villain still seems odd.

Unless Celestia knew that Twilight would need dark magic to get to the crystal heart, but that might be giving her too much credit

[Bellosh]

Second order of business - Alicorn =/= royalty. Proof? King Sombra, the Unicorn. Its interesting to see royalty that doesn't have wings.

Royalty hasn't really required wings since Prince Blueblood.

[TheInvisiblePony]

Royalty hasn't really required wings since Prince Blueblood.

Oh. Right. Forgot about him.

[abc]

just watched it on teh tubes of you, and i loved it, the story, the humor, the possible shipping

The bronies have come out of their eternal slumber!! Rejoyce my fellow bronies for another 2-3 months of pony!

[Rosewind]

This episode...I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. There's a lot to digest.

Pros: New location, new pony "race," more Twilight character development, hints at a bigger story arc and continuity, two new songs we've already heard months ago, all Mane Six featured in some way, Luna taking place in Canterlot business more, Pinkie in Fluttersuit, introduction of "dark" magic, first villain that is straight up slain (subject for debate on this one), Flutterjousting, Cadance toss.

Cons: Shallowest villain to date, by-the-numbers pony adventure, no real twists or gasp-out-loud moments.

I'd give it a high 7 out of 10. As for Celestia casting dark magic: I don't see why not. To control something, you have to understand it. We don't really understand how magic works in Equestria, so this will probably be debated a lot in time to come. I think the best way to describe it would be that dark magic is only as evil as the intent of the pony casting it, and it stands alone as its own element. Twilight certainly isn't evil, but cast it with no problems or ill effects. Magic and emotion have always gone together, even since the first first episode. Friendship is magic, but so is love -- it stands to reason other negative emotions would be on the darker spectrum of Equestrian magica.

[Mojo]

Ok folks, got home from work and viewed the episode.

First, I have to agree with those who say, this wasn't a GREAT episode.

A GOOD one? Sure, but not great. Perhaps I was expecting too much.

Second, King Sombra wasn't a POWERFUL villain, but then again, how could he be? The Princess sisters reduced him to shadow, so (forgive the pun) the unicorn king was a 'shadow' of his former self. Still with powerful magic, but not even a 'solid' pony anymore. In THIS story, he didn't NEED to be powerful. All he needed to do was to instill enough fear into the Crystal Ponies so they couldn't activate the magic of the Crystal Heart and thus, enslave the entire population again.

Third, this episode WAS a test for Twilight Sparkle. Notice the number of times she used things she had learned previously to help her and Spike find the Crystal Heart. Detective skills to narrow down the search to the castle, gravity spell to speed 'down' to the 'top' of the huge hidden tower. And then, being willing to fail the 'test' in order to save the Crystal Ponies in the end. Good writing on that part of the plotline.

So, now that their memories have been restored and the Crystal Empire is apparently here to stay, does THIS mean that Crystal Ponies will choose to travel and have commerce with the rest of Equestria?

And will the RACE of "Chrystal Ponies" be appable for OC's?

[Rosewind]

And will the RACE of "Chrystal Ponies" be appable for OC's?

Give us some time to mull on it. At first glance we think they'd fit in well with the RP, but we have to introduce them right and let Mane give them a solid lookie. We didn't see any pegasi or unicorn crystal ponies, which might make them their own race.

We're not sure yet, so sit tight!

[Bellosh]

...no real twists or gasp-out-loud moments.

Yeah, that reminds me of that one bit where it looked like Twilight was transported back to Celestia. It only took me a couple seconds or so to realize that the entire scene was a magic-induced sham.

[TheCustodian]

I dont see why Crystal ponies couldnt be made OC's... That said they dont seem to have much aside from the crystal in the eyes and a body that seems to act like a mood ring ~.~

What im more worried about is the whole 'dark magic thing'...

[Tenkan]

It was such a pleasure watching new episodes of the show again.

New villain looked absolutely awesome, and I really hope we see more of the Crystal Kingdom. The plot itself was very cool, and I have a feeling there's more to it than we think. Did anyone see that dark book Princess Luna and Celestia were lifting?

I'm curious as to how the evil King took over in the first place. We just gotta see more of the guy!

Animation was as brilliant as ever, and the songs were so catchy I just had to sing out loud with them!

All in all, I'd say it was a very special and memorable way to start the season with a whole story to explore.

[TheColtofPersonality]

By the way when twilight was climbing the stairs I had this in my head: