My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic - "Winter Wrap Up" - Talkback [12/24]

[The Huntsman]

Today@ 1:30 PM ET on The Hub

I wonder why Twilight Sparkle can't use her magic in this episode, but I suppose we'll see. A lengthy song from this episode was leaked a while back, so this episode may be more musical than others.

Twilight Sparkle prepares for the Winter Wrap-Up without using her magic.

[The Huntsman]

I think I would have liked this episode more if Twilight would have used her magic to save the day instead of her organizational skills. I know her magic often saves the day, but if you have talents, you should be able to use them. They didn’t complain when she single-hoofedly harvested thousands of apples in a matter of seconds, so why are they so insistent on wrapping up winter by themselves when, apparently, their tradition has been a complete failure? I think it would have worked out a lot better if Twilight had temporarily lost her magic somehow, as at least then it would have made sense. Besides, didn’t Rarity use her magic as well?

[MetroSparkster]

I noticed weeks ago that there was this gray pegasus pony in the background whom various fans found interesting. They called her "Derpy Hooves", but after this episode, it looks like she was given the official name of "Ditzy Doo".

I think I would have liked this episode more if Twilight would have used her magic to save the day instead of her organizational skills. I know her magic often saves the day, but if you have talents, you should be able to use them.

I think the whole point is that Twilight can't rely on her magic every single time. Since she saw the tradition of hard work for this Winter Wrap-up, she felt that using magic would be the easy way out and not-so traditional. When she actually decided to use it (way to go, Spike...), it ended badly. So since her other talent was being organized, she used that instead and helped Ponyville finish on time for once.

[Mesousa]

The episode was...sort of okay. Considering that some of the recent episodes has been weird, and this was slighly more normal than usual, but I might be asking for too much, probably because the laughs weren't as strong for this one.

The musical part was pretty good, though, although it's interesting to note that some characters have completely different actors to sing, most notably Twilight, who is voiced by Tara Strong, who can sing, but for some reason doesn't sing in here.

[The Huntsman]

I noticed weeks ago that there was this gray pegasus pony in the background whom various fans found interesting. They called her "Derpy Hooves", but after this episode, it looks like she was given the official name of "Ditzy Doo".

I thought the pony in this episode had different color hair than “Derpy”. Perhaps I didn’t get a good enough look.

I think the whole point is that Twilight can't rely on her magic every single time. Since she saw the tradition of hard work for this Winter Wrap-up, she felt that using magic would be the easy way out and not-so traditional. When she actually decided to use it (way to go, Spike...), it ended badly. So since her other talent was being organized, she used that instead and helped Ponyville finish on time for once.

It still seemed convoluted to me, especially when they revealed that their “tradition” always ended badly. They should be able to adapt; refusing to change in the manner that they did is just stubborn, tradition or not. Twilight Sparkle’s attempt to use magic did fail and made things worse, to be sure, but she was trying to be subtle and go unnoticed. If she wanted to, she probably could have just powered up and wrapped up winter all by herself. She is that powerful.

[Zam]

Cute episode as expected. TS received a lot of slapstick punishment for my taste, almost sadistic....

Looks like Spike becomes Twilight´s Pet, Little bro, Secretary and Slave according to the occasion, which is kind of creepy.

[The Huntsman]

Looks like Spike becomes Twilight´s Pet, Little bro, Secretary and Slave according to the occasion, which is kind of creepy.

I think “slave” is pushing it, but I agree that his role seems to change depending on the episode. Since he is somewhat of an anomaly, being a non-pony, the writers can use him in different ways. A little more consistency would be appreciated, however. In “Look Before You Sleep”, I thought the bed that Applejack and Rarity slept in was Spike’s, but in this episode he was sleeping in a little mat at the foot of Twilight’s bed. I’m still curious as to what exactly Spike is doing there. I don’t think you can just have a dragon amidst ponies and not try to explain it, even if it’s just a passing sentence in an episode. I figure he’s some sort of foreign exchange student, to put it bluntly, sent to live with the ponies and learn from them. How he ultimately became Twilight’s assistant is anyone’s guess, but as this episode proved, Spike is still learning. Dude didn’t even know what hibernation was, although that felt forced to me to give Fluttershy a reason to explain it to the little kids watching the series.

[Zam]

We also have to remember that Laurentz included him because simply she liked it since G1, and the creators of G1 simply needed a cute sidekick character (typical of 80´s cartoons) Nothing deeper than that, really.

[The Huntsman]

We also have to remember that Laurentz included him because simply she liked it since G1, and the creators of G1 simply needed a cute sidekick character (typical of 80´s cartoons) Nothing deeper than that, really.

I think people like this series because it is deeper than G1. Lauren and her team could still explain Spike’s purpose in hanging out with Twilight if they wanted to. Hasbro could veto it for some weird reason, but I think they would allow an episode to reveal more about Spike.

[TheGunheart]

The musical part was pretty good, though, although it's interesting to note that some characters have completely different actors to sing, most notably Twilight, who is voiced by Tara Strong, who can sing, but for some reason doesn't sing in here.

Ah, so that's what happened. I was wondering where Rainbow Dash got such a good singing voice from.

To be honest, I really thought that number was surprisingly good.

[The Huntsman]

To be honest, I really thought that number was surprisingly good.

Yes. I'm normally not a fan of musical numbers, animated or otherwise, but this one was alright. I've mostly skipped the other songs in the series so far, but I didn't feel the urge to skip this one.

[Mesousa]

Ah, so that's what happened. I was wondering where Rainbow Dash got such a good singing voice from.

Actually, Rainbow Dash's voice actress, Ashleigh Ball, also sings in here. The characters who have completely different singing voices are Twilight, Pinkie and Rarity.

[Particle_Beam]

The attempts of the ponies to "non-magically" wrap up winter kinda clashes with how they feel about the everfree forest. That place is after all so natural that it frightens the little ponies (trees that grow by themselves, clouds that move wihout the guidance of pegasi-ponies, and animals who are tended by nobody).

Then again, Ponyville might be so rural that it's not that they didn't want to use magic, they just couldn't. And then it became tradition, until unicorn-ponies and pegasi-ponies immigrated there, but the earth ponies were a little bit stubborn (especially considering that the Apple-family seems to have huge tracks there). Ponyville was founded by earth ponies, as we know now.

[Silverstar]

I think I would have liked this episode more if Twilight would have used her magic to save the day instead of her organizational skills. I know her magic often saves the day, but if you have talents, you should be able to use them. They didn’t complain when she single-hoofedly harvested thousands of apples in a matter of seconds, so why are they so insistent on wrapping up winter by themselves when, apparently, their tradition has been a complete failure? I think it would have worked out a lot better if Twilight had temporarily lost her magic somehow, as at least then it would have made sense. Besides, didn’t Rarity use her magic as well?

I agree with this. While I enjoyed the episode (and surprisingly, the musical number also, odd since I'm usually not big on musical numbers in shows and movies), I found it odd and a tad hypocritical that Twilight and the other unicorns were forbidden to use magic. Granted, Ponyville was founded by earth ponies and as such, Winter Wrap-Up is traditionally handled non-magically as 'tradition', but still, present-day Ponyville doesn't just consist of earth ponies, so why forbid the use of magic now, especially when it was disclosed that all of the previous Winter Wrap-Ups up to that point had been behind schedule failures? In addition to Huntsman's point that no one minded when Twilight used her magic to assist the apple harvest in "Applebuck Season", no one forbade the Pegasus ponies from using their special talent (flying), so why should Twilight and the other unicorns not be allowed to do what they specialize in, especially when it would've helped move things along?

[Particle_Beam]

Probably because everybody believed it was tradition, and nobody really dared to break tradition.

Also, perhaps there are some underlying societal problems in the magical lands of the ponies, with the unicorn-ponies being somewhat of higher "rank", seeing as they are capable of magic... and wasn't the capital city of Equestria inhabitated by unicorn ponies (and some male pegasy ponies as soldiers)? So for the earth ponies to not feel overshadowed by the two other pony species that were born with an advantage, they might really have insisted that things in Ponyville be done their way, at least for once. And then over the centuries, it has always been done that way.

Of course, showing societal anxiety between earth ponies and the other two supernatural pony races is a rather dramatic shift away from the feelgood nature and the power of friendship-theme that this series is meant to show, so I doubt that it would come up in a way to detract from that.

Nonetheless, it's interesting to see that the ponies are afraid of "natural" nature, and that they have tamed nature with their magic, control the skies with their wings, and watch over the cute and fluffy animals as caretakers. There is a dichotomy between these two aspects that is clear to see.

[Undrave]

I don't think you're being fair to the earth pony ways. I doubt the winter wrap up was ALWAYS a failiure. If it was so then they wouldn't have been dismayed at being late, after a while it would have become the norm to not complete winter wrap up in a day and nobody would bother. I think its more of a recent thing, something I would blame on the current mayor she likes to do speeches but seem to lack any real ledership and organisational talent

Beside the fact that once they got organized they completed it in time shows that there is nothing wrong with the way they do things in principle, they just needed a little help to plan things out.

Loved the musical number!

[zoombie]

I thought the song the greatest musical number in the series. And probably the best in the history of the franchise.

[Undrave]

I think it easily one of the greatest musical number on any TV animated series. Nothing short of a feature film comes close IMO. Though I would greatly enjoy being proven wrong

[zoombie]

Off topic, but I recently watched episodes of the original series, and one thing FIM has over the original series (and maybe others things like writing, and characters) for sure is the singing, and maybe the songs themselfs are way better. Can't hurt having professional singers oppose to the voice actors themselves, in the original series the singing was terrible. You can debate the other aspects, but to any rational person the songs or at least the singing is way better in this series.

[Zam]

Ms. Faust is the Bruce Timm of the Pony franchise. There, I said it.