>>12675
>>12677
>Does the Discord thing bug me? A little, yeah. This is in a lot of ways a ‘solid’ episode. Discord is interesting in most respects, everything leading up to the maze is fantastic, and then the maze itself is fine but just has the things that bug me about it
>From a concept perspective, it makes me sigh for missed opportunities,
>But as much as I lament the perceived loss of more creative shenanigans with Discord, the logistics of actually pulling that all off was not something I'd considered.
Basically, you consider that the episode should've been less harmony versus discord in a moral/spiritual sense and more of fun with a chaos villain? For me, that comes down to the limitations of the show and the context of the show's existence. The show, especially this episode would have still been constrained by the Season 1 attempt to maintain an educational rating (If you don't know, the show tried to conform to E/I US educational standards at first, this was soon dropped, because it had no benefit because E/I standards were only a classification for broadcast stations. It was purely a marketing move to sooth over their toy sales show for potential backlash at it's existence!). I consider Discord a very impressive villain for what the show was going for and certainly something that went above that standard! Albeit I think I actually would’ve liked to lean in that more heavily (though this would pose a problem later for having Discord return).

I think this does raise a valid question though: when does the show merely punching above it's weight shield it from critique? For example, I know it isn't Shakespeare and I wouldn't expect a quality of writing or depth of Shakespeare. Yet, A for effort is also a horrible standard to fall back on. Because you tried doesn't always mean you did a good job! On the standard of what they could have done and what they should have done, I agree this episode might have been better but I am not sure how much better it could be given it's budget and context of existence. I do find myself agreeing with a lot of your points (especially, mind control being sort of weak, though I accept it had to be at some level)


>I feel, if they just threw all the cleverness out the window and went for a fun episode.
I would say it is probably more of a B+ (or B-) in cleverness. Discord kind of *had* to be that way on some level to fit with the theme of the show.


>Cheerilee's seemingly more metaphorical understanding of Discord for Twilight, it would make a neat contrast to her knowing about Nightmare Moon last season, as well as highlighting that there are things Celestia knows about that even Twilight doesn't!
I think your epsiode still works from my lens and episode actually would be very clever itself as opposed to just a fun Discord episode. I think your episode could have still possibly existed, you could still have a moral based around conflict resolution, arguments, maybe trust. So, I don't consider what you ask for naturally absurd at all, just slightly advanced for what the show would've tried to pull off! I would have been just as happy with that. Actually, I often do this for later seasons and maybe some here, myself, lol!