Re: S02E10: Secret of My Excess
by Wylie (?) » Wed Dec 14, 2011 3:20 am
Headless Horse wrote:Let's also not forget what else this episode has shown us:
It's given us a glimpse into the future. Spike's future.
It's shown us what Spike will become once he grows up. Sure, if he keeps his greed in check, maybe he won't be quite the same kind of dragon as what we saw here. But some aspects of his adult form are undoubtedly set in stone, and they're not terribly pleasant things to think about. He won't talk (maybe very seldom). He'll be a loner. He'll be too big to interact with his pony friends. He'll basically be an entirely different kind of creature than he is now, and fundamentally incompatible with those ponies he thinks of as his closest friends, and who consider him one in return.
This is heavy, wrenching stuff. It's like if the show did an episode that flash-forwarded to a time when the six friends had grown apart, or were getting old and couldn't go adventuring anymore, or any number of depressing (or at least bittersweet) things. It'd be one thing if the show simply said "Oh well, Spike's a baby dragon, and that's what he'll always be, high-five". It could have left all those implications of his nature unsaid and therefore maintained plausible deniability, let the audience handle any unnecessary distressing overanalysis, and kept up the story that the ponies' world is an unchanging snapshot in time, they'll never grow old, they'll never grow apart, nothing bad will happen. It could have left well enough alone. But now it's cracked open a whole new can of worms: Spike's present state is temporary, like a tiger cub you're raising illegally in your basement. One day he'll grow up, and he won't be Spike anymore.
That's what this sweet innocent kids' show about friendship has now more or less explicitly said. Its kind of staggering.
One part of me wants to argue with you that Spike will be a baby dragon exactly as long as he's got Rarity there to give him a reason to stay selfless.
There's another part of me that says Goddamn it if Bart and Lisa Simpson can be in elementary school for 23 years then Spike can be a baby dragon at least that long.
Most of the other parts of me agree with OpFarce that Friendship Is Magic, Bitches and we won't be forced by the show to examine this any more closely than we already have.
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Wylie
CIDER CIDER CIDER 
- Joined: Jun 08, 2011
- Gender: Male
and the occasional product placement (TWAHLAHT SPORKLE'S BLOON, the train, buildings looking like playsets), they're free to leave the creative team to do pretty much whatever they want. I'd say the people behind the original '80s cartoon had the same idea, from the looks of things; they just had different ideas of how to take advantage of the situation (and, truth be told, those ideas were the product of their time).
"Wish 
in its own way.
