Regarding Magic in the Season 8 Finale
TLDR courtesy of JesterofDestinty: TL:DR - The princesses have lost their unicorn magic, but not their alicorn magic. Magic drained slowly over time. The guards were walking to keep the princesses safe.
Hello! I've noticed in the last couple of days there's been quite a lot of discussion and debate about how various magic-y things were handled in the season 8 finale. Some of you might be confused or disappointed at potential plot holes in how the various end-game events of the episodes were handled, but I thought I would share my own personal thoughts and opinions. Specifically, I want to go over:
*The exact nature of how magic was drained over the course of three days
*How this affected Princess Celestia and Luna, and their ability to control the sun and moon
*How this affected non-unicorns and non-alicorns, with more of an emphasis on pegasus flight
First thing's first, I want to get this out of the way right off of the bat; I know some of you might be agitated or disappointed by a tweet(s) from certain staff members regarding questions about this topic. It's okay to feel those things (I felt the same as well, but after letting it sink for a while I'm not worried about it anymore), but that's not the crux of this discussion, so I will not be focusing on it.
With that addressed, let's look at topic one, Starswirl's three-day warning that essentially lays at the heart of this whole debate. To ensure utmost accuracy, I have pasted the transcript pertaining to this here:
Princess Celestia: Throughout our city, ponies have been reporting tales of their magic failing. Spells going wrong. Potions not working.
Princess Luna: Even raising the moon has become difficult. Are there similar troubles in Ponyville?
Twilight Sparkle: We experienced it first-hoof.
Princess Cadance: It's the same in my kingdom. The Crystal Heart seems safe for now, but I worry if this continues.
[door opens]
"Special Delivery": [panting] Letter for the princess from Star Swirl the Bearded!
Princess Celestia: Ah! It is even more terrible than we feared! Magic is disappearing all across Equestria!
[ponies gasp]
Princess Celestia: Star Swirl believes the power will drain from our land in three days. First, unicorn magic and spells will fail.
Starlight Glimmer: That's what's happening now.
Princess Celestia: On the second day, creatures will lose their magic abilities.
Fluttershy: [gasps] Oh, no!
Princess Celestia: And finally, magical artifacts will stop working. When the sun sets on the third day, the magic in our world will be gone forever!
So, we can summarize the warning as follows:
Day 1) Unicorn magic and spells will fail.
Day 2) Creatures will lose their magic abilities.
Day 3) Magical artifacts will stop working. When the sun sets on the third day, the magic in [Equestria] will [disappear] forever.
One of the primary points of contention is the nature of what each day represents. I feel that the first day doesn't require too much explanation. We see it happen firsthand to Twilight, Starlight, etc and that unicorn magic essentially shuts off. I think the wording here is CRITICAL, because the show is clearing making a special distinction on classes (or rather, each pony tribe) of magic. In 99% of cases, when the show refers to "magic," they tend to refer to unicorn magic. Levitation, shooting off energy beams, gem-finding, stage magic, things like that. Despite this, however, it's obvious that non-unicorn ponies also possess magic. Cutie marks themselves are a type of magic, and we've seen Tirek drain magic out of earth ponies and pegasi during season 4. We've also heard "alicorn magic" referred to by name in the season 4 opener (dark magic animation error not withstanding).
Whew. That's a mouthful. In summary, we can conclude there is unicorn magic, earth pony magic, pegasus magic, and alicorn magic. Why is this important? It goes back to Starswirl's warning about unicorn magic. We don't normally "see" earth ponies or pegasi using magic, but it's generally inferred that earth ponies are naturally adept at growing plants/crops and are physically strong, while pegasus magic enables them to fly (based on them crashing to the ground after Tirek drains them in S4), walk on clouds (Twilight needing to cast a spell to replicate this in S1), and manipulate weather. While manipulating the weather is impressive, it's not quite as flashy as firing off a DBZ-blast or turning someone into a cactus.
Unicorn magic was the biggest threat that Cozy Glow was able to steal right away. My theory is that it would have been unlikely for Cozy Glow's magic vortex to go straight for alicorn magic due to its overall power, so it went for the next best thing; one third of Equestria's population. By sapping unicorns of magic, I assume this will make the vortex not only stronger, but also eliminate a potential threat against Cozy Glow's plan. It's two-fold.
Moving on to day two, I don't have quite as much to write here as the setup and background for day one, but I'm of the opinion that "creature" refers to everything that isn't a pony. Zecora would lose the ability to make potions, changelings would be unable to transform or maintain any currently shapeshifted state, and random monsters or other critters that were out and about in Equestria would see their abilities fail. I feel this is why we see a cutaway to Fluttershy specifically gasping in horror; Any magic her animal friends may have would suddenly fail. I do not belive that day two includes pegasi and earth ponies simply because we see too many pegasi flying about, and that Fluttershy's reaction would be perfect for creatures that are not ponies.
Now for day three, which is broken up into two parts. Day three itself, and day three's sunset. There's a few ways we can interpret this. At face value, it seems to imply that magical artifacts would cease working, and then by sunset, everything ELSE would finally succumb. This seems to be the case as Chancellor Neighsay's teleporation amulet begins to fail, but still has enough juice in it for a trip to Canterlot to warn the Princesses. The only thing that could be a minor point of contradiction by taking the warning completely as-is is Cozy Glow's artifacts seemingly did not fail at this time; They were still being used to power the vortex. I feel that the vortex eventually hit a point of being able to sustain itself while also keeping the artifacts intact, until it was such time to suck those up as well right at the very end. Despite these observations, partial or cascading failures do not have to be completely ruled out. Neighsay's amulet DID allow him to teleport once before finally failing, which implies it takes time to drain magic, or even that the timing for magic draining could be inconsistent.
Okay, so, where am I going with this? At this point, I think we can move on to the other elephant in the room, the two alicorns. Let's go back to this quote from Princess Luna: Princess Luna: Even raising the moon has become difficult. Are there similar troubles in Ponyville?
What does this mean? Does it mean Celestia and Luna are having their powers drained? Well, yes and no. Rewinding time back to day one, I do believe that at this point, Celestia and Luna have lost most or all of their UNICORN magic, but not their alicorn magic. Celestia and Luna's ability to raise the sun and moon is handled via alicorn magic, and is related to their special talents; It is independent of normal unicorn magic and in a league all of its own.
Going back to the IRL book titled The Journal of the Two Sisters (and parts of the episode Horse Play), it explains how team(s) of unicorns raised the sun and moon, but it would eventually utterly drain them of power. However, when the Sisters attempt this feat, they do it with ease, and it also comes with the bonus of rejuvenating their magic each time they do so. It's a net gain for them.
The biggest criticism I see of the events unfolding in School Raze I and II is how the Sisters were able to keep the day/night cycle going in regards to the three day limit. I think the answer is simple; They simply haven't lost this ability yet. This goes back to my theory earlier about how unicorn magic was the first to fail; It was easier and in higher quantity to suck away than the alicorns. It's true Luna's comment might contradict this, since my theory holds that their sun/moon magic should be independent of their unicorn magic, but honestly, I think if you had what was essentially a quarter of your magic suddenly sucked out of you, you'd probably be off-balance a tad too.
I think people are getting too hung-up on a literal interpreation of "three days" and "the third day's sunset." Time is going to pass regardless of the day/night cycle, so even if the Sisters lost the ability to move the sun/moon (or just stopped for whatever reason), by the time we would have reached 7:30 PM on day three, it would have been game over, even if the sun was at high noon. So regardless of this, I feel that by the sunset of the third day, the two sisters would have been screwed. Even with their revjunation keeping them going on maintaining the day/night cycle, they would have lost this ability and their alicorn magic.
(Low key, this theory on the separation of alicorn magic and unicorn magic is how I'm able to rationalize Twilight channeling Tirek, etc's magic in Tartarus, but that's a tangent)
I think that should cover the Sisters, so let's move on to my next point. There's a scene near the end with the Sisters, Neighsay, and the entirety of the royal guard walking to Ponyville from Canterlot. I've seen some people complain about the exact timing of events, and if they could fly or not; Once the magic is restored, everyone suddenly takes flight (with Neighsay diving into a portal) in a grand "LET'S GO KICK ASS" shot.
But why? Had the royal guard and Sisters lost the magic of pegasus flight? If so, why are Rainbow Dash and Cozy Glow still fluttering about? Ultimately, based on the magic flowing back across Equestria, we did not see any magic return to the royal guard or other pegasi, so it's likely they still maintained the power of flight. So, why not just fly en-masse to Ponyville either way and stick the Princesses+Neighsay in the back of a cart? I think without unicorn magic, this would have left them too vulnerable to a potential multi-pronged attack.
Wait, what?
Any time a sudden and surprise attack is underway, it is foolish to assume that "the worst is over," unless you've somehow uncovered credible information. The possibility of a multi-pronged attack once the Princesses were vulnerable was indeed a very real possibility, hence the reason they were travelling with a huge group of guards. They could have potentially sent scouts ahead in advance, and left some guards behind to defend Canterlot, but I feel the reason why we see such a large group of guards walking is to keep the Princesses safe, and to also aid in any sort of potential battle in Ponyville. Even though the Princesses knew it was ultimately Tirek and Cozy Glow responsible, they don't know if it was ONLY them. No unicorn magic would have made the mid-air, carriage-bound Princesses pretty big targets.
So yeah! This really got away from me, but I just wanted to share my thoughts and opinions. I love this show, I love its lore, I love its magic, and I love just about everything about it. I know there are some inconsistencies that have popped up over the years with magic, the Sisters, etcetc, but I don't see such things as deteriments or plot holes; I see them as an exercise in creativity. I see them as something to dive into and get me thinking, which lets me add even MORE to this amazing universe.
Finally, it's easy to blame the writers or other staff for "being lazy" or "not caring" or "it's just a kid's show," but for me personally, I get so invested in the show and universe that those things don't really apply to me too frequently. Sure, sometimes things are so fucked up that you have to sit back and say "Yeah, they really screwed the pooch on this one," but I prefer to analyze and digest content from an "in-universe" perspective. I don't think "Why did they write her lines like this," I think "Why did she say this?" So that's why I don't want to blame these inconsistencies on meta factors like writing decisions, I want to instead focus on how I can use this to dive even deeper.
Or maybe I'm full of shit because I just spent 45 minutes typing out about 2000 words analyzing how horse magic works. I fully expect holes to be poked in this but I had a lot of fun thinking about this at work and fun typing it out, so I hope you at least have fun reading it!
It's boring to have all the answers laid out right away.
EDIT: A sudden thought occurred: Potentially Celestia and Luna used a last-ditch spell on the sun and moon to keep them going on their track for an indeterminate amount of time without their interference. This way the sun/moon would keep going even if they lost all of their magic at the beginning, and no distinction between alicorn and unicorn magic is made. Such a spell doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility, as they potentially would have had time to prepare. Any other time they've been hindered by villains it them being caught flat-footed.
EDIT 2: I may not be able to reply to comments tonight since my stomach hurts a tad after dinner, but I will do my best. I absolutely want to hear others' thoughts!
Submitted October 18, 2018 at 07:36PM by D_Tripper
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/mylittlepony/comments/9pfc8h/regarding_magic_in_the_season_8_finale/?utm_source=ifttt
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