A critical look at “A Canterlot Wedding” and why I dislike it

Introduction

Ah, “A Canterlot Wedding”. If there ever was an episode that nearly ruined my enjoyment of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, it would have to be this one. I truly do not like this episode, for a great number of reasons. Sadly, it seems I’m part of a minority, as the general consensus seems to be that these two episodes are great. However, I’m afraid I have to say that no, they most definitely are not. This opinion, however, has often put me on a collision course with people who do like the finale. Since this happens more often than I care for – given that people who like “A Canterlot Wedding” seem to have problems imagining how anyone could dislike these episodes – I have decided to collect my reasoning and my arguments in this blog.

My biggest gripe with “A Canterlot Wedding” is that it is poorly written, and that the plot has holes in it that are so large you could push an elephant through them. The plotholes are what I’m going to talk about in this blog. As for my other reasons as to why I do not like the episodes, I will kindly direct you to the blog of fellow “A Canterlot Wedding”-critic David Ker, which you can find here:

http://animationfixation.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/warningthis-analysis-contains-spoilers.html

I, however, will focus exclusively on the plotholes here. So with that said, let us begin.

1. Shining Armour

Who is Shining Armour? Why have we never heard of him until now? Twilight says they were “Oh so close” and yet failed to mention him to any of her friends until now? You’d think she’d tell her friends all about her BBBFF, if they were so close as she claims they were.

One of the counter-arguments I’ve often come across is that not being introduced to family is normal for the show, and that we haven’t seen the parents of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash either, for example. Sadly, that argument is flawed. While it’s true that we have not yet been introduced to the parents of Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy, we do know they exist. Everypony has parents, after all.

However, the key difference here is that while every pony has parents, not every pony has siblings. There never were any indications, ever, in the entire show that Twilight had a brother, which is the biggest problem I have with Shining Armour. I don’t have anything against Twilight having a brother, but the way it was implemented in the wedding episodes was, to be frank, very poor. We’re just supposed to accept he was always there and Twilight’s best friend, even though we have never heard of him until now. Not only that, but him being Twilight’s best friend also contradicts the previous canon that Twilight was alone and socially reclusive until she was sent to Ponyville by Celestia.

The introduction of Shining Armour is shoddy, and poorly done. What’s worse, however, is that we don’t even get an explanation for it. It’s almost as if the writers think their audience is stupid and won’t ask questions because “OMG, LOOK! Pretty Princess and Prince and wedding! Squee!”. That’s quite offensive, to put it mildly.

Shining Armour: the first hole in the plot.

2. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza

The problem with Cadance is the same as with Shining Armour, namely: who is she? Just like her husband, we have never heard of her until the wedding two-parter. We don’t even get an explanation for her existence, her background, or her origin. We know nothing about her.

Think about it, what do we know about this character? She’s pink, a princess, an alicorn and Twilight’s foal sitter. That’s it. We don’t even get an explanation as to why she is an alicorn, even though the introduction of a third alicorn is a pretty big deal. Let’s not forget that in Lauren Faust’s original vision, there were only two alicorns: Luna and Celestia. The writers are free to introduce a new one to us, but the least they can do is explain to us where she comes from, why she is an alicorn and where she has been all this time!

Another thing that baffles me is why a Princess is playing foalsitter for the daughter of some common ponies. It can’t be because Twilight is Celestia’s student, as the episodes clearly show that in the flashbacks to Twilight’s childhood with Cadance, she didn’t have her cutie mark yet. This means that she wasn’t Celestia’s student yet at the time. So again, why is a Princess playing foalsitter? One would think she has more important matters to attend to, like ruling a country or other such things. Nothing about Cadance makes any sense: her alicornhood, her job as foalsitter, nothing.

Princess Cadance: the second hole in the plot.

3. The mane six

Let’s not beat around the bush: the mane six, except for Twilight, were wasted in these episodes. None of them did anything significant or were in any way important to the plot. You could remove them from the episodes and nothing would change. This is really quite unforgivable, since the show is about them, and not about a princess and a brother who came out of nowhere and who we know nothing about.

Sadly, if it wasn’t enough that they are utterly unimportant, they also behave in an entire despicable way throughout the episodes. I found it utterly shameful to watch, to the point it was almost painful. The mane six, with the exception of Twilight, are portrayed as shallow, petty ponies who are only concerned with the glamour and glitter of the wedding, and the personal prestige they can get from it. They show no concern for Twilight, who is, might I remind you, their best friend.

Even worse, they all unceremoniously and unanimously turn their backs on her when she needs them the most, completely ignoring the growth these five mares have been through as characters throughout the season. This is so unbelievably bad that I can scarcely believe the writers did it. It took a lot of willpower to not jump up from my seat and cry “Are you kidding me?!” when they abandoned Twilight when she accused Cadance of being evil.

While it’s true that Twilight wasn’t very tactful and that she should have handled that situation a lot better, the fact remains that none of her friends did a single thing to support her or stood up for her. All of them immediately trusted the word of a Princess and a stallion, both of whom they barely know, over the word of one of their best friends. Not even a word of concern or wondering what made Twilight reach that conclusion. No, instead they just immediately abandon her, acting like, pardon the language, jackasses.

It shows the mane six at their worst, and it completely ignores their bonding and friendship throughout both seasons. It also ruins the continuity of the show. Remember Lesson zero? In that episode the mane six learned to “take your friend’s concerns seriously, even if it seems she has nothing to worry about”. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that the mane six pretty much said “Buck that! We have a wedding!” in this finale. It’s shameful to watch.

What makes this especially bad is that, in the past, My Little Pony had a great track record in terms of continuity. We often saw the mane six remembering the lessons they learned in previous episodes. Just think of Rainbow Dash reading in “A friend in deed”, or Applejack accepting help in “The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000”. However, “A Canterlot Wedding” completely ignores this kind of continuity, and even seems to do its very best to undo any progress made by our main characters. That is worrisome, to say the least.

The out-of-character behavior of the mane six: the third hole in the plot.

4. Princess Celestia

Time to talk about Celestia. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that her character was completely destroyed and stripped of any dignity. I can honestly say that I was sickened by the way she was treated in the finale.

In the first episode, we learn that Celestia is aware of some kind of threat looming over her kingdom. She knows this. Then along comes Twilight who accuses a pony of being evil, and what does Celestia do? Nothing! Nothing at all! This is so utterly, ridiculously stupid it honestly beggars belief.

Celestia knew her kingdom was in danger, she just didn’t know what the danger was exactly. Then when her personal student, her protege, the pony who saved Equestria twice when she herself couldn’t, offers a clue as to what the threat could be, she ignores it! This portrays Celestia as utterly incompetent. Even if Twilight was wrong, as a good ruler, she should have looked into it. She should have double checked, just to make sure that Twilight was indeed mistaken. Given everything Twilight has done for her, she owes her student that much at least.

That Celestia ignores Twilight’s warnings when she knows her kingdom is in danger, is inexcusable. Furthermore, just like with the mane six, it is disgusting how quickly Celestia turns her back on Twilight. Especially given everything Twilight has done for her and for Equestria, and that Celestia knows Twilight isn’t a pony to make random accusations.

Remember how Twilight behaved in “Griffon the brush-off”? When Pinkie accuses Gilda of being evil, it is Twilight who tells her friend that she may be exaggerating and that she may be biased towards Gilda due to the griffon spending so much time with Rainbow Dash. This shows that Twilight is not a pony to go randomly accusing ponies of being evil without any evidence. The mane six, as her friends, and Celestia, as her mentor, should know this aspect of Twilight’s character! So when Twilight accuses some pony of being evil, they shouldn’t just brush it off, given what they know of Twilight’s character!

For that matter, why is Twilight the only one who sees through Chrysalis’ charade? How can Celestia not see that something is off with her niece?! People have said that Celestia may have thought, just like the mane six did, that Cadance was simply suffering from stress from the wedding. Stress, my foot! Wedding stress doesn’t equal a complete reversal of one’s character! The mane six can be forgiven for thinking so, given that they didn’t know Cadance until the wedding, but Celestia ought to know how her niece behaves! Even if Celestia thought it was wedding stress, she still should have called out Cadance on her bad behavior.

That she didn’t do this just once again portrays her as stupid. It is unthinkable and entirely unbelievable that a character who until now we have alwas known to be both wise and powerful, would make such enormous errors in judgement. Which is exactly the problem: it isn’t believable.

Celestia is acting entirely out of character, just like the rest of the mane six. They are being made stupid because the plot demanded it, so Twilight, Shining Armour and Cadance could save the day. That is not good writing. That is not a good plot. When you need to make your characters behave out of character in order to make your plot work, you have a problem.

The out-of-character behaviour of Celestia: the fourth hole in the plot.

5. Queen Chrysalis

Now let’s talk about the much loved Chrysalis and her Changelings. Yes, I will admit her design is cool and she signs a pretty epic villain song. Sadly, a cool design and an epic song do not make a good villain or a good character. Chrysalis is terrible in both regards.

There is nothing substantial to her, nothing to make her a well-rounded character or a good villain.  She has no character, no background, no origin, nothing. She’s bland. She’s evil for the sake of evil, and she’s entirely uninteresting. Yes, her design is cool, I already admitted that. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s all she has going for her.

People have argued to me that Chrysalis is not really evil, and that she is just trying to find food for her subjects. To those people, I say: are you bucking kidding me?! Chrysalis is pure evil. She has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. She is not just trying to feed her subjects, like some tragically misunderstood hero! She tried to conquer all of Equestria and make every stallion, mare and foal her slaves! To her, the inhabitants of Equestria were nothing more but a living banquet! She captured a pony, imprisoned her in a dark and forgotten place and stole her identity! Look at Cadance’s body when Twilight finds her. She’s a mess and weakened. I have no doubt that if Twilight hadn’t found her, Cadance would have starved to death.

So you see, Chrysalis is not just trying to help her subjects like some tragic, misunderstood character who is good at heart. She’s going for world domination, and we’re not even told why. She seems to have no motivation for her evil, making her bland and uninteresting. She also raises more questions than she answers. Now, being a bland and forgettable character isn’t necessarily a plot hole. However, it doesn’t exactly do your storyline any good either.

6. Celestia’s defeat

We have arrived at the worst part of the entire finale. To summarize: Twilight finds Cadance, breaks her out, they crash the wedding, Chrysalis reveals herself, Celestia faces her and gets defeated with one attack.

Wait, what?

When I was watching that scene, all I could think was: “Oh no, you didn’t, Hasbro!”. Sadly, my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. What I was seeing was really happening. Hasbro really did what I thought they did. Celestia gets defeated. By a bug. It is at this point that “A Canterlot Wedding” officially jumped the shark for me, going from simply ‘bad’ to being plain ‘idiotic’.

Celestia getting defeated by Chrysalis is the most laughably bad and unbelievable scene in the entire series. It is, pardon my language, pure, utter bullshit. There is no way Chrysalis could defeat Celestia. None whatsoever. I’ll get to that in a minute. To add further insult to the injury, however, the writers give us the most ridiculous, insane explanation for why the bug could squash the Princess of the Sun.

“Chrysalis was powered by the love from Shining Armour!”

Apologies for my language once again, but that explanation is a steaming heap of horse manure, and I can’t believe the writers thinks their audience is so stupid as to actually swallow this explanation.

There are so many things wrong with this scene that I barely even know where to begin. First of all, it’s not believable. This is entirely because of what I said about Chrysalis before a moment ago, namely that she’s bland and uninteresting. What do we know about her? Nothing. She’s a changeling, she’s evil, and that’s it. We never even heard of her until now.

She just shows up and defeats Celestia. That is bullshit. Celestia is one of the most powerful characters in the series, and that’s a fact. Now I’m not one of those people who think that Celestia is invincible or undefeatable. I have no problem at all with her being defeated. What I do have a problem with is how the writers handled it here. This scene is horrendously bad because there is nothing, at all, that can convince us, the audience, that Chrysalis could defeat Celestia.

Why? Because we know nothing about her. What makes Chrysalis so special that she can defeat Celestia? What are her powers? How do they work? What was it that allowed her to achieve this phenomenal feat? We don’t know. The writers just throw in this ‘power of love’ and expect us to believe it as if we are mindless idiots.

But it’s not believable. Not in the least. Aside from the fact that the ‘Power of love’ concept is so sickeningly, sugary sweet and clichéd in a way MLP has always avoided until now, it’s also utterly ridiculous that the love of one mortal stallion could overpower an ancient alicorn who can raise the sun and the moon on her own. It doesn’t work, writers! It. Doesn’t. Work!

To write a character like Celestia being defeated is no easy feat, and it requires the right setup. If you want the audience to believe that the villain can defeat Celestia, you need to give this villain the proper build up. Let’s take Discord and Nightmare Moon, for example. If they were shown defeating Celestia, now that would have been believable.

Why? Because both these characters were established as powerful entities that went beyond Celestia’s capabilities. We know things about them. We know some of their origin and their background. Sure, it’s brief, but it gets the point across, and it gives these characters depth. On top of this, both of these villains are given opportunities to display their power, which allows us, the audience, to get an impression of their strength and how much of a threat they are. Nightmare Moon is shown manipulating weather, brushing-off guards and creating multiple, lifelike illusions with ease.

Discord is even better established as a villain. His episodes begin with mysterious happenings in Ponyville, with chaos everywhere that not even Twilight’s magic can fix. Then our heroes are called to Canterlot by Celestia, indicating that this is serious. Then the Elements are revealed to be gone, and Discord makes a fantastic entrance, showing more of his power by manipulating glass windows at will. Further adding to the build-up of this character is Celestia’s nervosity during the window-scene, showing us that this is a creature to be feared. Then we have the maze scene, where Discord successfully corrupts all Elements of Harmony and basically wins, after which we see even more of his massive power as we see how Ponyville has changed. All of this happens before the final confrontation with him, and during all this time, Discord has been established as a powerful villain and a legitimate threat.

If either of these characters had defeated Celestia in a fight, it would have been believable. We already know that Celestia needed the Elements of Harmony to defeat both of them, after which we get a good display of the villains’ powers that helps establish them and gives us a good idea of their powers. We can believe these characters can defeat Celestia, because they have shown other powerful feats that convince us she has the power to take down Celestia.

Chrysalis, though? We know nothing about her. Nothing is established. No origin, no backstory, no character, no power. Nothing at all. She shows up, she defeats Celestia. That is poor writing at its finest. This is not how you have Celestia defeated, because it is entirely unbelievable. The fault for this lack of believability lies entirely with Chrysalis, because there is nothing at all that indicates Chrysalis is capable of the noteworthy feat of defeated Celestia.

Throughout the episodes, she didn’t show any feats or displays of power that could convince us that she had the power necessary to defeat Celestia. She didn’t make illusions and control weather, or throw all of Ponyville into chaos. She’s shown no impressive feats, nor does she have any past accomplishments that can establish her as a legitimate threat to Celestia. Nothing at all. She just shows up, with no introduction, and defeats Celestia with one attack, while we, as the audience, have seen nothing to convince us this is possible.

Someone has argued that not all villains should be super-powered types who can do the things Nightmare Moon and Discord could. Chrysalis, the person said, is more a schemer-type, who uses manipulation and deception to get her way. While this is a valid argument, the problem with it is that the writers tried to portray Chrysalis as a power-type to us by having her fight Celestia and win. If she was a schemer, she would have lost a contest of pure power with our Princess, and instead have used her cunning and wit to win.

Thus, it is not believable in the slightest that she defeated Celestia. ‘Power of love’ doesn’t change anything about that, because that’s a poor, weak excuse that I’ll get to in a minute. So, in short, Celestia couldn’t have been defeated by Chrysalis, it is flat-out impossible , and that the writers even tried to make us buy that is, frankly, insulting to our intelligence.

Celestia’s defeat: the fifth hole in the plot.

7. The Power of Love

Sadly, it gets worse. Not only is Celestia defeated, but so are the mane six. I’ll refer everyone to David Ker’s blog post as to why that is a terrible decision in its own right. But since it’s not a plot hole, I won’t address it here. Instead, I’ll just get straight to the point: Cadance and Shining Armour saving the day with ‘the power of love’.

That… is bullshit. I’m sorry to put it so crudely, but ‘bullshit’ perfectly manages to convey how I feel about this. Let me tell you why. The problem is that it’s never established or explained what exactly this ‘power of love’ is or how it works. When it comes to the Elements of Harmony, we have an idea. The mane six  need the necklaces to channel the power, and then the magical rainbow zaps everything back to normal. It’s simple, but it works.

But what do we know about the ‘power of love’? Like so many things in this episode – Cadance, Shining armour, Changelings – we never even heard of this power until now. You would think that such a strong power, greater than even Celestia or the Elements of Harmony, would be known to us, instead of being introduced in the last five minutes of the plot. This lack of a proper introduction would be bad enough on its own, but it’s made even worse by the fact that this ‘power of love’ isn’t established in a good way.

We don’t learn anything about it, and neither do we understand how exactly it works. All we know is that it saves the day for no explained reason. This is, again, very poor writing. The Elements of Harmony were introduced to us in the first two minutes of My Little Pony. We learned about their past usage and had some idea of what they could be used for and how powerful they were. Throughout the course of “Friendship is Magic”, we learn more about them, and there is a certain build-up to their usage. This establishes the Elements as a valid and believable problem solver. The ‘power of love’, however, has no such thing.

It is made even worse by the fact that the very concept of this power doesn’t make any sense, because it is entirely unclear who can use it and who can not. We know that Changelings can feed off of it, which, ironically, proves the argument raised by David Ker that love didn’t so much save Equestria as put it in danger in the first place. It is also apparently the power that allowed Chrysalis to defeat Celestia. I still do not find this even in the slightest way believable, but if the above meant that only to Changelings are able to do this, it would make sense to a certain extent.

However, Shining Armour and Cadance can also tap into this ‘power of love’ and make everything okay with it. This is just ridiculous. Take a good look at the following statement: two ponies, both of which are exhausted and weakened due to various reasons, can defeat not only a super-powered Changeling Queen, but also her entire swarm of Changelings, all with the ‘power of love’, whereas a perfectly healthy Celestia couldn’t even defeat one Changeling Queen. Did the writers even realise how incredibly dumb this sounded? I honestly cannot imagine how anyone could look at this and not ring the alarm.

But I digress. Let us continue. So thanks to Shining Armour and Cadance, we know that the ability  to draw strength from love is not exclusive to changelings. This immediately begs the question of why Celestia did not tap into the ‘power of love’ herself once she felt more resistance than expected. After all, she has the love of an entire nation that could strengthen her, since nearly every single pony loves and trusts her. I really can’t imagine that the love of one single, mortal stallion could be more powerful than the love of an entire nation.

In response to the above, people have argued that Celestia can not tap into the ‘power of love’. While this is a fair point, it does beg the question of why Shining Armour and Cadance were able to do it.

The most common explanation for this is that Cadance is the ‘alicorn of love’. This statement, however, is false. Nowhere is it ever said, shown or stated that Cadance is in any way related to the ‘power of love’ or that she holds a unique control over it. There is no proof that Cadance is the alicorn of love. It isn’t said by the writers, and it isn’t said by the show. So how can people be so certain she is an alicorn of ‘love’? We know nothing about her!

We don’t know Cadance’s origin, her character, her personality or even what her special talent is! The writers neglected to tell us, and this decision has really turned itself against them, because it completely takes away the credibility and believability of their great finale.

People have stated that the spell Cadance’s cast to make those two ponies stop arguing is sufficient proof that she is an alicorn of love. Let me assure you, however, that it is not. That single spell proves nothing at all. Nowhere is it stated she’s the only one who can do that spell. Let us not forget that Shining Armour’s special talent seems to be about his shield spell, but Twilight knows this spell as well. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Twilight could cast that anti-arguing spell of Cadance as well. That single, tiny spell proves nothing about Cadance or her special talent, and thus we are still left in the dark concerning those two things.

Besides, in the episodes, Cadence explicitly says that “my love will give you [referring to Shining Armour] strength”, which indicates that it is Shining Armour who can somehow tap into Cadence’s love and turn it into magical power to fuel his spell that saves the day. Shining Armour may be a lot of things, but he is definitely not an alicorn of love.

So, again, this begs the question, if he could do it, why couldn’t Celestia do the same? Why couldn’t anypony else, for that matter?

The argument has been raised that it should be ‘romantic’ love, but I can easily discard this as there is no proof that supports this claim. It certainly isn’t said in the show, nor can I remember any instance where the writers explicitly stated this. The truth of the matter is that the ‘proof’ for this argument simply does not exist, and therefor it is invalid.

The writers did nothing to explain the events that happened during the climax of the wedding, as if they expected us to just swallow everything they threw our way without asking questions. I find this especially offensive, as until “A Canterlot Wedding”, My Little Pony has always been a show that has treated its audience with respect, knowing that we had a brain. Now, it feels as if the writers suddenly treat us like we are mentally retarded eggplants. It’s as if they were hoping that a pretty wedding and a nicely designed villain would draw our attention away from the bad writing.

Sadly, it seems to have worked for a great deal of the fandom. I find this very worrisome, as Hasbro could interpret it like a sign that people will love the show regardless of its contents. This could have nefarious consequences for the quality of future episodes.

The ‘power of love’ and how it makes no sense: the sixth hole in the plot. I have to admit, I’m on a roll.

8. The stupidity of Chrysalis

Unfortunately, I’m still not done. Another flaw worthy of our attention is the entirely stupid behaviour displayed by Chrysalis. If we were at all supposed to feel threatened by her or see her as a legitimate threat, the writers ruined that by making her as dumb as the backside of a pig. Remember, everyone, she defeats Celestia with the power of Shining Armour’s love (which is still bullshit), and then right after doing this, claims that the same friggin’ ‘power of love’ can not defeat her. Chrysalis, I have to ask: are you an idiot?!

This is just laughably stupid on every level. People have claimed that it is normal, heck, almost traditional for villains in cartoons to make boastful claims of how they cannot be defeated. To a certain extent, this is true. We can’t forget that Discord himself made such boastful claims, after all. However, there is a key difference between Discord’s boasting and Chrysalis’ boasting, a difference that makes the distinction between understandable boasting and being an idiot.

Discord successfully corrupted the mane six and by doing so, he removed the threat that the Elements of Harmony posed to him. He had defeated them, and then taunted them into attacking him purely to prove that the corrupted Elements could not harm him. Discord successfully defeated the mane six, so his boasting makes sense. The only mistake he made was that he was too confident in his own power. He didn’t think his corruption of the mane six could be reversed, and as of such left himself open to their attack, which led to his downfall. Discord was defeated by his overconfidence, but he’s not an idiot, because he did successfully remove the Elements of Harmony as a threat, if only temporarily.

Chrysalis, however? She has already proven how powerful love is by defeating Celestia with it (which is still bullshit), and the next moment she claims that it is ridiculous that the very same power could defeat her. This is utterly stupid because it doesn’t show her as overconfident in her own skills, it just makes her stupid. Discord acknowledged the threat the Elements posed, and worked hard to remove them. Chrysalis, however, didn’t do anything to nullify the threat posed by Cadance and Shining Armour’s love. Thus, her dismissal of the ‘power of love’ is funded on nothing but her sheer stupidity. It only makes her all the more laughable as a villain, making it even more unbelievable that such a stupid person could defeat Celestia, the mane six and nearly conquer Canterlot.

Now, a character being a retard isn’t necessarily a plot hole, so I will not count it as one. However, a character being retarded doesn’t do the plot much good either, especially if that character is your main villain who we’re supposed to see as a legitimate threat. It’s just more bad writing to add to the already huge pile of bad writing.

9. The implausibility of Shining Armour’s shield spell

We’re still going, but take heart, we’re nearing the end. Let’s talk for a moment about Shining Armour’s shield spell that keeps Canterlot protected and safe. There exists a word that describes this entire premise perfectly. That word is: bullshit. Let me explain why this idea doesn’t even begin to make sense.

For starters, why is Shining Armour the one to cast the shield spell, keep it up and power it? He’s vulnerable and stressed due to both the wedding and the looming threat to Canterlot, which already makes him a bad candidate to put in charge of your defences. David Ker also raised the excellent point that Shining Armour’s attachment to Cadance poses a threat to Canterlot’s security.

Secondly, I have to ask why this random unicorn stallion who came out of nowhere suddenly is the protector of Canterlot. If anything, it should be Luna and Celestia who cast the shield spell. People have argued that they can not do this because the shield spell is Shining Armour’s special talent, but that argument holds no weight, and even sounds quite ridiculous when one stops to think about it.

First of all, Twilight Sparkle can also cast the same shield spell, and her version packs quite a punch. It shielded her friends from the power of Discord, who is, without a doubt, the most powerful character in the world of My Little Pony. Later on, she casts the same spell and has it cover her entire library. It should be clear by now that this spell is in no way exclusive or unique to Shining Armour.

And why should it be? It is completely, totally, utterly unbelievable that Shining Armour would be the first pony ever, in thousands of years of pony history, to know that spell and be able to cast it in such a powerful form. It is ridiculous to even think of claiming this. So there is no excuse for Celestia and Luna not knowing this spell and being the ones to cast it. Let us not forget that they are alicorns, and have much greater magical strength than any mortal unicorn. The shield spell they cast would have been much more powerful and durable than the one cast by Shining Armour.

Plus, having the Princesses cast the spell would have the added benefit of everything not immediately going to Tartarus when Shining Armour gets mind-controlled by the cockroach equivalent of a succubus! It doesn’t matter if that spell is SA’s special talent or not! A special talent does not make that talent exclusive to that pony! If it did, Twilight would be the only unicorn in all of Equestria who could use magic since it’s her special talent.

It makes absolutely no sense that it was Shining Armour who cast this spell, and not Celestia and Luna, who are inherently more powerful and would definitely not be mind-controlled by Chrysalis. This also shows us that Chrysalis her entire masterplan would have failed before it even got started if anypony but Shining Armour had cast that darn spell!

Shining Armour and his shield spell: the seventh hole in the plot.

10. Princess Luna

We are close to the end of my essay, but there is one last thing that I would like to address. Over the course of this text I’ve established and proven that the characters of the mane six and Celestia were pretty much raped and twisted beyond recognition, but we have to add one more pony to the list of ‘out-of-character’ characters. Luna.

What, in the name of all things good and sweet, was up with the way Luna was treated in this finale?! At first I was happy she showed up, but once I was done watching that happiness was replaced by anger. The reason for this is that Luna was nowhere to be seen when the invasion happened. I mean, seriously, writers?!

This is unbelievable. This is unforgivable. So, let’s recap: not only was Celestia portrayed as incompetent in these two episodes, now the writers also have to portray Luna as a traitor to her own crown, a Princess who abandons her country in its time of need. This is disgusting and unforgivable, especially since Luna’s character was established so well in “Luna Eclipsed”. Luna should have been there. It was her duty as Princess of Equestria to be present and protect her people, plain and simple.

People have argued that we shouldn’t take it so serious and that it was all played for laughs that she showed up in the end and said: “Hello everypony, did I miss anything?”.

I’m sorry, but I fail to see the humour in this. Her country was in terrible danger. Her sister’s life was in danger. Her subjects’ lives were in danger. And she wasn’t there. She betrayed her people, she abandoned them in their time of need. People have argued that she could have been fighting the Changelings in town and that she simply wasn’t shown, but this is not true. When Luna arrived at the end of episode 2 at the party, she clearly had no idea what had happened. If she had been there during the invasion, she wouldn’t have asked if she had missed anything. So, we can only conclude that she was not there. She abandoned her people when they needed her, and that is unforgivable for a ruler.

People have argued that Luna should be forgiven for her absence, because it is heavily implied that she is Nocturnal. However, it doesn’t matter if Luna is nocturnal or not. It is of no consequence if she sleeps during the day or not! Why? Because her country was under attack and her people needed her, that is why! Ponies’ lives were in danger, her own family was in danger! Don’t you think that those are valid reasons for getting out of bed a bit earlier than you’re used to?!

Heck, even if the invasion hadn’t happened, it still makes little sense that Luna wasn’t there. Her own niece was getting wed to the brother of her saviour (Twilight Sparkle). Shouldn’t that be a good reason for getting out of bed earlier as well? The fact that it was day didn’t stop Luna from talking to her sister and offering her help when the Crystal Empire appeared! So why was she not there during the wedding?! Why did she abandon her country?

Imagine for a moment that your country was under attack, and the military staff calls of the head of your state to ask for directions, only for said head of your state to reply that they have to call him back in the morning, because it’s night now and he sleeps at night. Would you find that funny? Would you laugh, brush it off and forgive him? I sincerely doubt it. Far more likely that there would be massive protests on the streets asking for his removal!

This situation is exactly what happened with Luna. She abandoned her people. She didn’t do anything to help them when their need was dire. She was nowhere to be found. This entire finale portrayed her as a pony unworthy of her title and place as Princess of Equestria. That the writers managed to so utterly ruin a beloved character so badly just blows my mind.

Even if Luna had shown up only to get her flank handed to her by Chrysalis, that doesn’t matter! She would at least have shown up and tried to help, and that is what counts! Currently, however, her absence from the fight is nothing short of high treason. Nothing more, nothing less. It is insulting to the character, and even more insulting to our intelligence that the writers think they can joke about such a serious crime. It also gives a bad message to the audience, namely that it’s okay for a leader to abandon his or her country when it needs him or her the most.

Luna’s absence: the eight hole in the plot.

Conclusion

With that said, we’ve reached the end of my essay. I think I’ve proven my point more than enough, and backed it up with sound reasoning, logic and facts from the show. It’s pretty clear that none of the issues I brought up here were addressed in a satisfying way, and to claim otherwise is simply being ignorant and turning a blind eye to the glaring plot holes and poor writing.

I will freely admit that “A Canterlot Wedding” had a high production value, and that it certainly looked fantastic. The songs were all very good and amongst the best we’ve had so far in the series, and the Changelings had a wonderfully creepy design. However, pretty graphics and nice songs don’t make for a good storyline or a solid plot. And that is where “A Canterlot Wedding” drops the ball entirely.

I think its faults are partly because Hasbro forced the writers to have these episodes focus on their wedding playset, but that still doesn’t excuse them. Someone has argued to me that the writers did the best they could given what they had to work with. To a certain extent I will admit that this is true. The episodes are certainly serviceable. I also have no problem with people liking this finale. I’ve also liked things before that were objectively crap. So if you liked it, great, more power to you!

But let us please stop making claims that “A Canterlot Wedding” was objectively anywhere near good.