I would have to say "The Magic of Friendship Grows." Although I can't listen to it without tearing up, its such a great send off to the show. It's sad yet heartwarming.
The true hero of the show's final season is none other than the one and only spirit of chaos and disharmony, the purveyor of pandemonium, lord of lawlessness, earl of turmoil, bringer of bedlam...[insert fanfare here] Discord!
Discord: The Secret Hero of Equestria
No, I am not joking. And yes, this is another post related to the Discord/Grogar revelation. Yippee.
Let me explain. The last time I shared my thoughts on this topic, they were not very positive. But I've been thinking about it a lot since then. I read another Reddit post on it (thanks, u/lordwithoutmyth), saw a Dr. Wolf video, and re-watched three certain Season 9 episodes from Discord's perspective. And you know what? In a way, the twist...actually sorta works. And not only that, the pieces fit in a way that makes Discord's redemption more important to Equestria than I realized.
Think about it. We know that everything involving Sombra, Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy Glow wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for Discord, but you know what would've happened? Celestia and Luna would've given Twilight the throne in a few days. A FEW DAYS! Twilight didn't have that much time to prepare. Would it really be a good idea for Equestria to be ruled by someone who didn't know how to run an entire kingdom? Discord himself was shocked upon hearing the news, and he saw that Twilight was freaking out. So as a friend, he thought, "If she really doesn't think she's ready, then I'll give her the biggest boost of confidence she needs. Celestia's given Twilight tons of lessons behind the scenes. Who's better at pulling strings than the Master of Chaos?" That's why he assembled an army of enemies and impersonated a well-known villain from Equestria's past. And that builds to King Sombra's invasion. Because of that, Twilight was given much more time to prepare and become the ruler that Discord and the princesses knew she could be. Afterwards, Discord sent the three remaining villains to retrieve Grogar's bell EXPECTING them to fail despite working as a unit. I mean, if he's not really Grogar, then why would he need it? He just wanted them to work together (maybe so they'd have a chance at being redeemed). And while it's true that Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy Glow are all known for deceiving others, Discord let his ego cloud his judgement despite his history with one of those villains. Obvious mistake. When things went haywire at the last Summer Sun Celebration, Discord watched as Twilight remained calm instead of freaking out. He saw that she was truly ready for anything. We know that his plan would eventually fall apart, and that is because of his arrogance. That mistake cost him his magic. He was still sure that Twilight would win the day, but the villains' invasion broke both of them. He knew that he messed up big time and set it right the best way he could at the time: he found a way to get Twilight's friends out of trouble, and that would ultimately lead to all of Equestria coming together as one. Twilight regained the confidence she had lost earlier and proved that she was ready to rule. Was Discord's plan perfect? No way! He took a huge risk and many suffered for it. But the plan still worked! And who knows? If the double-cross never happened, then maybe the Legion of Doom could've been reformed. Regardless, Equestria is at peace and has another worthy ruler. And it's all because of Discord.
It's no secret that the plot twist upset me when I first watched the episode. I already felt that The Beginning of the End, Frenemies and The Summer Sun Setback were some of the season's best episodes, and for a while it almost seemed like they weren't as good because of what they led to. But I watched them again before sitting through The Ending of the End once more. And doing that from Discord's point of view actually makes the plot twist better. It made me realize that Season 9 is secretly HIS season. It was a whole new chapter in his story. I thought they were taking a step back with his reformation with the twist, but now I see that they really did go in the right direction. He also had an important lesson to learn while teaching Twilight: admitting fault. Dr. Wolf put it best in the video I linked, so I won't go into detail here. Also, he wasn't as out of character as I initially believed. Of course the Master of Chaos would pull some strings to make Twilight a better princess. He's practically been using this method since the season 4 premiere! And it paid off in a big way. Yes, he was careless. I'm not denying that. But he's an immensely powerful creature; it makes sense that he would get cocky. And it plays into a big lesson for him. The more I think about it, the more I see that Discord giving Twilight the final challenge before her ascension to the throne is clever. He's not an idiot; he's an egotistical genius who embodies chaos. Yeah, he executed his plan in a rather nonsensical way, but...what fun is there in making sense?
EDIT: I want to give a shout-out to u/Lightbuster31 who posted a comment on the linked Dr. Wolf video and somewhat inspired me while I was putting this post together.
TL;DR - Watching The Beginning of the End, Frenemies, The Summer Sun Setback and The Ending of the End from the perspective of Discord/Grogar makes the plot twist more tolerable and turns the character into the biggest hero of the show's final season. He tried to teach Twilight the same way Celestia did, got her ready for her ascension and ultimately saved Equestria from having an unprepared ruler. Back in Keep Calm and Flutter On, Celestia mentioned that Discord could be a useful ally. And season 9 secretly proved that he was useful after all.
So, because it's No-Pics Thursday (October 24th, 2019) today, you know what that means...
It's time for the Weekly Fanfic Recommendation LINK-SWAP Game thread to continue!
Anyways, THE RULES (read 'em carefully):
Post a link to a fanfiction you like (can be your own as well - it's okay to self-promote), with or without a short blurb.
Important: Reply to someone else's post with a link to a fanfiction you think they might like, based on their choices.
Put each of your choices in a separate post if you want to make sure to get a recommendation based on each one. You may reply to someone else's reply, either to you or to someone else. Please make long discussion threads, they introduce a healthy bit of exploration and can help us find new interests! And that's it!
PLEASE COMPLETE BOTH STEPS 1 and 2. Don't just show up and ask for recommendations if you're not willing to provide any. I'll start the first few threads myself, and reply with a gentle reminder if you forget.
IMPORTANT NOTE. Thanks to /u/BookHorseBot (many thanks to their creator, /u/BitzLeon), you can now use the aforementioned bot to easily post the name, description, views, rating, tags, and a bunch of other information about a fic hosted on Fimfiction.net. All you need to do is include "{NAME OF STORY}" in your comment (without quotes), and the bot will look up the story and respond to your comment with the info. It makes sharing stories really convenient. You can even lookup multiple stories at once.
Ready? Set? LET"S GO! Also, feel free to self-promote in here!
Hi there! It's Thursday again and that means another chance to talk about what's been happening around here and how you feel about it!
Same as every other time, feel free to discuss whatever it is you'd like regarding our little subreddit good or bad. If you're unhappy we'll try our best to fix whatever problem you're having!
If you want to talk about the MLP fandom in general, that's fine too!
But some people may not want to talk about comics or anything else that hasn't happened yet, so you should be nice and hide those conversations from those people by using the spoiler tag.
If you don't know how it's as easy as making an emote:
>!It has ponies!!<
And if you're not wanting to discuss the subreddit or community specifically you can also check out the weekly off-topic thread here!!!!!
So, I've been bouncing this theory around in my head more or less since the finale was originally leaked:
Okay, go back to the Season 9 premiere. In an effort to grow his legion of villainry, he gathers the Trio and then appears to call Sombra back from the dead to augment his forces. But, with the finale passed, we now know that A, Grogar was Discord all along, and B, Discord was deliberately attempting to set up tests for Twilight to face down - playing a Celestia-esque chessmaster, but without the foreknowledge (to his eventualy detriment). This, however, brings me to a question:
Did Sombra never actually return?
Consider:
Sombra's personality and voice in S9 were hugely different from his S3 appearance: Hammy and loquacious, in contrast to his S3 nature as a brutally pragmatic tyrant of few words. But who do we know who is exactly like that? Discord.
The Crystal heart, surprisingly, has no impact on Sombra. Why? Because Sombra isn't Sombra; Sombra is Discord. And the Crystal Heart has no effect on him, especially because Discord may have believed or was doing genuine good.
While Sombra nominally seems to make great progress, he in fact falls over at the first real opposition: Twilight has absolutely no problem stymieing a ruler who previously took two Elder Alicorns to handle, and of course Discord himself no-sells "Sombra's" attacks easily.
What does Sombra actually do? Mind control a few ponies. But who else have we seen who can do that easily? Discord. For that matter, none of "Sombra's" thralls seem to suffer the enduring fearful impact that the Crystal Ponies did.
In fact, Discord himself seems remarkably blase about Sombra rolling up and threatening terrible harm to ponies he cares deeply about. Almost as if he doesn't think they're in any real danger...
So, with this in mind, I propose: Sombra never actually returned. He's still blasted into a million pieces from the Crystal Heart's energies.
What we saw in the premiere was nothing more than a Sombra-shaped puppet constructed by Discord: Used as a test-run of his plan to challenge Twilight, and to make "Grogar" seem threatening and powerful to the rest of the Villain Brigade. After all, resurrection is a power that Discord never otherwise seemed to have. His mask isn't perfect, though, and Discord can't help but let little bits of his personality slip through (indeed, it's possible that Discord never actually met Sombra - only read about him later on).
So I loved the Epilogue episode of Season 9 as it tied up a lot of loose ends and gave us a small sneak peak into the future of the characters that we have all grown to love over the years, but one thing that I noticed is that we only really saw half of the Student 6 I think over the course of that episode.
Gallus became a member of the Canterlot Royal Guard, if not Captain (as I prefer to think), and that was perhaps one of the more shocking things I took note of in the episode simply due to the fact that I had never really thought about his future before. . . and you know what? I REALLY like this idea. . .after all why would he head back to Griffonstone where nogriffon really cared about him and the only creatures to ever really care or stand up for him were all in Equestria? I do wonder if Trixie or somepony else pushed him towards a career in the guards but for some reason this idea just really fit for me.
As for Sandbar and Yona they appear to be living together so their relationship is still going strong. . .though we have no hint towards what they actually DO in the epilogue.
And sadly we don't really get to see best dragon or the other two again either. So we can only guess at what they are doing in the time of the Epilogue.
So here are my theories. After defeating several threats to Equestria just as the previous bearers of Harmony have done the Student 6 ended up drifting apart physically as they grew to become their own people.
Gallus joined the Royal Guard to make something of himself and find a way to be proud of himself and defend the nation that brought him his friends and the first people to care about him.
Yona and Sandbar continued their schoolyard relationship and their friends assumed that nothing could ever separate the two lovehooves and eventually ended up opening up a store together.
Smolder eventually went back to the Dragon Lands to help Dragon Lord Ember in her efforts to change Dragon Culture for the better. Though they have been making great strides over the past two decades there still remain stubborn holdouts to the old ways that seek to hold fast to the old ways of power and "diplomacy".
Ocellus took what she learned from the School of Friendship and shared all she learned with her hive and King Thorax. Eventually though Ocellus began to feel stiffled by the confines of the Hive and went out to share her newfound knowledge with undiscovered hives. Or she made one herself.
Silverstream left to Seaquestria after her graduation and after sharing all she learned to Queen Novo and the Admiralty, much to their amused aggravation, she decided to explore all the lands in hopes of finding new things and people to share and learn about. Frequently she can be seen meeting up with the other members of the Student 6 before dragging them along to bi-monthly parties and meetups.
At the very least those are my ideas as to exactly what the Student 6 have been doing in the 15-20 year time span between the Finale and Epilogue. But what about the rest of y'all? What do YOU think became of the Student 6 in the future and what is your reasoning behind your ideas?
Stressing that these are songs sung by FiM villains. We're not including Equestria Girls in this or the category would be dominated by the Dazzlings.
The Flim Flam Brothers - 'Super speedy Cider Squeezey 6000': Arguably the first 'villain song', though these brothers were never 'season ending' villains they were unrepentant antagonists throughout most of the series. This catchy tune made them quiet popular among both the ponies of Ponyville and the fandom at large, though they are often forgotten when discussions about popular villains come up. They also did 'Flim Flam Miracle Curative Tonic' and 'Friendship U' though neither song were quiet as catchy or popular.
Queen Chrysalis - 'This Day Aria': Probably the most famous villain song in the series, this one is a little tricky as the first half is technically a duet between Princess Cadance and the queen in green disguised as Cadance, though the grand reprise has Chrysalis belting out the second half in her own droning voice. It has style and substance and was a big part of the second half of the season 2 finale.
Discord - 'Glass Of Water': While it's true that this song is performed some time after Discord was reformed, it comes from the same season where he helps Tirek steak all the magic in Equestria, so he wasn't that reformed. As a matter of fact he's playing the role of antagonist in the episode this song appears in, though not outright villain. The song itself is more like a tongue twister than anything, but the show stopping visuals and sight gags still manage to make it memorable.
Starlight Glimmer 'In Our Town': This militaristic little marching song managed to at one and the same time to be chipper, upbeat, and completely dystopian. With Starlight menacing her almost brainwashed cult of townsfolk into shape while they sing about the glories of not competing and never trying, the most iconic line is probably 'you can't have a nightmare if you never dream' emphasizing the blasé horror of Starlight's idea of 'equality' in all of its mediocrity. Catchy tune though.
Snowfall Frost(as played by Starlight) - 'Say Goodbye to the Holiday': A bit of an accepting, this is most definitely a villain song, although it's attributed to a former villain playing the role of another villain in a holiday story. It's not really the highlight of the episode but it is kind of fun to watch Starlight grinching around and stealing the ponies Hearths Warming decorations.
Tempest Shadow - 'Open Up Your Eyes': Definitely the show stopper of the MLP movie, this was a great song with lots of pyro and dramatic cinematic angles. It also gave us some late in the game backstory on Tempest and what her origins and motivations actually are, though that is told more through the visuals than the lyrics.
Cozy Glow, Tirek, Queen Chrysalis - 'Better way to be Bad': Although Chrysalis is already on this list by herself, since Cozy Hlow and Tirek don't have a song of their own I'm counting the Trio as a single villain for this category. A fantastic and fun song that really let you get a feel for each individual villains personalities and exactly what they thought of each other. While they may have their differences, the idea of putting them aside to strike fear and misery in the hearts of the ponies fills them with an almost infectious delight. The last villain song in the series.
So what is your favorite? Which is the best?
