My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Analyzing Endings - Bats

Boy it's been way too long since I posted here, apologies to all my readers for taking so long! I hope I haven't let the both of you down too much. Anyways, let's get on with it eh?

Ah Bats, what an odd episode this is. This was one of my most anticipated MLP epsiodes, and well, it’s not that surprising when you look at my name. This is the first and perhaps only Applejack and Fluttershy episode we’ll get, so my hype levels were through the roof. And I remember after I first watched the episode, my initial reaction was well………………shock.

And really, whose wasn’t? I was expecting a character focused episode, and instead got a plot focused one. I was expecting a focus on the character interactions of Fluttershy and Applejack, and instead got a focus on Fluttershy turning into a friggin bat. I was expecting a sort of happy duet like song between Fluttershy and Applejack on their friendship, and instead got an unsettling conflict oriented song with the mane 6 all ganging up on Fluttershy. In that regard, Pinkie Apple Pie was really everything I was hoping Bats would be, which is why I loved that episode, while this one……well, Bats you see is an episode in which I’m still not fully sure how I feel about it.

But! Let’s toss all that aside for the moment and focus on what I thought was the most important and most interesting part of this episode; the ending. The ending itself is simple; after Fluttershy and Applejack battle it out and list their opposing views on the bats; Applejack wanting the bats gone while Fluttershy thinks they should be shown kindness, Applejack decides to go with Fluttershy’s plan realizing the errors of her ways, and builds a separate area in the orchard for the bats. But the thing is………..we’re never completely told how she reached that conclusion. While most would call that lazy writing, and honestly, it probably is, I like to see it in a different light. You see open endings are something I tend to really like. They leave you much to speculate and wonder on, give you something to think about and discuss with others and see their interpretations of things, and they allow you to think more about what you just watched, and think why things went the way they did. And well, as someone who loves it when stories make you think, open endings have always been good in my book for this reason.

So getting back to this ambiguous ending of Bats, the purpose of this write up will be to focus on this one simple thing, that being, my own interpretation of the ending of Bats, and why I thought it went the way it did. I wondered a lot about this you see, as many of my favorite stories have me do. Examples of this are Crossroads of Destiny from Avatar: The Last Airbender, which prompted me to write a giant essay on the mystery of Zuko’s choice. Another one would be The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, who’s lack of moral forced me to think hard about if there really was one and what it was. One day I’ll finally write that up and post my analysis of that episode, but until then, let’s focus on Bats, an episode that left me with tons to think about, and one I’ll certainly be thinking of for a long long time:

Bowser's Inside Story: Understanding the Villain

 



WARNING: Below are great spoilers for Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, it is suggested that you do not read the following post if you have not at least gotten halfway through Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

There was always something I really loved about Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, that I noticed after playing and thinking about the game for a while. I'm pretty sure what I'm about to say would be overthinking the game, but nonetheless, I had a lot of fun with it, so let's begin!

 

The big unique thing about the third Mario & Luigi game was the fact that, you get to play as Bowser, the main villain from the Mario Universe. Now, it isn't the first Mario game to do this, no no, this has been done before in say, Super Mario RPG and Super Paper Mario, but what makes Bowser's Inside Story so special, is that of all the games to feature Bowser, none are able to capture the feeling of his character so well, and make you feel so much like Bowser himself, like that of Bowser's Inside Story.

Characters: The Old vs. The New



WARNING: Below are great big spoilers for most of the Mario RPGs, it is suggested that you do not read the following post if you have not beaten most of the Mario RPGs


Part of what I love about the Mario RPGs is their ability to create great deep worlds and characters that are ripe for exploring and learning about, as I spoke of in an earlier essay (can be found here). But you see, the thing is, the Mario RPGs don't have to focus on creating new worlds and characters, like that of Final Fantasy and other RPGs tend to always do. What makes the Mario RPG series so special, is that despite it being a huge series that spans 9 games now, and many different worlds, it still stars many familiar faces and characters, something long RPG series aren't known for doing.

Mario + RPG = ?

The Mario RPGs Analyses Collection

Analyzing Themes: Equestria Girls

Equestria Girls.............Equestria Girls!? Yeah, so, for those who aren't into the whole My Little Pony craze nowadays, there was a movie done for the new series, the very first movie for the new series in fact, only er.....the pony characters we grew to know and love.......became human.....ish.

This turned the movie into a bit of a controversial mess among the My Little Pony fans, and so when the airing time for it finally came, we were all holding our breath, wondering how in the world this would turn out. So with everyone talking about it, and me finally seeing it, I thought, why not, I'm in the mood, how about I share my thoughts on this film, see how it all goes, eh?

Like all of my write ups on MLP, this won't be a review per say. If I may go on a small tangent, I don't like doing reviews. Everyone does reviews, and they give me the feeling of being opinionated, and I don't like that, I prefer write ups that get you thinking not about the quality of things and of arguing, but about deep life related things. I prefer to discuss stories my way, not by their quality, but by their themes and connections to our lives. So in the style of my previous write ups, this will be an Analysis of Themes in Equestria Girls. If however, despite all that, you are still very curious about my opinion on the movie, as you value my opinion that highly, I must show my appreciation to your generosity by quickly telling you that, I thought it was really flawed, and I can understand why some wouldn't like it, but I still really loved it, so much so that I think I will watch it a 2nd time. Now! Onto the interesting bits, let's get to it, and let's take a look at the themes of Equestria Girls:

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Analysis - One Bad Apple

Hoping to get three of these done by the middle of July, let's see how I do! Here's the first of three!

Bullying's always been a bit of touchy subject with people. Some greatly dislike it, some were very badly affected by it, etc. so when I first learned that an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic would be about the issue of bullying, I was curious to see how they'd do it, and scared of the reaction from fans. Let’s ignore the latter for this write up though, and say that after I watched the episode, I was very surprised by it. Even though the episode was clearly about bullying and overcoming it, I took away a completely different theme from it, and one that caused me to really like the episode for what it did. So with that in mind, I would like to offer my own interpretation of the events of the episode titled One Bad Apple, and what I thought a key theme of the entire experience was, and how it connects to bullying.