HTKKTS 2

How Twilight’s Kingdom Killed the Show
Part 2: The Death of Twilight Sparkle, or: The Pinkie and the Brain

This is the script for my video series of the same title. It’s a bit rough, as it wasn’t originally written to be read by anyone other than me. I decided to publish these on request from several people, who either didn’t feel like watching hours of video or just had a hard time following my accent.
There might be typos and other mistakes, and it’s also slightly different from what was eventually recorded. Most of it should be video-accurate however. Note that the swearing is censored in the videos.
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[Meghan McCarthy: (Bumbles about Magical Mystery Cure) “It’s been obvious from the start, guys.” – “Fuck you, McCarthy.”]
Let’s talk about Twilight Sparkle, the protagonist of the show.
Before we do that, we have to agree on WHICH Twilight Sparkle we’ll be talking about: the post-season 3, “Alicorn” Twilight, or the real one? [Rimshot.]
I find it useful to distinguish between the original, unicorn Twilight Sparkle, and Alicorn Twilight, or Twilicorn for short, because I consider them to be fundamentally different characters. I mean sure, yeah, technically they’re the same person. They share superficial mannerisms, such as a love of reading, learning, and infantile friendship speeches.
When Twilight was turned into an Alicorn in Magical Mystery Cure, the finale of the show’s third season, many people used the fact that Twilight hasn’t changed much at all as a character to come to the episode’s defence. [Excerpt from McCarthy arguing that Twilicorn=Twilight.]
Twilight and Twilicorn are the same character inasmuch that Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker are the same character. TECHNICALLY they are, perhaps, but they fulfil completely different roles in the plot in totally different ways. When you look below the surface, however, you’ll be quick to realise that one of them is a longtime fan-favourite, with an iconic look and style and countless quotable lines and memorable scenes, while the other is a vapid, underutilised, empty husk of a character that no-one likes.
Just like Darth Vader and Anakin. [Rimshot.]
Just for the sake of this review, I’ve gone and analysed Twilight’s entire character with a team of scientists. I’ve gone out of my way to compare Twilight with Twilicorn. And here are the results now.
The thing about Twilight is that she really, really hasn’t changed one bit during her transition into Alicornhood. And that is the worst possible thing that could’ve happened.
The OTHER thing about Twilight is that her character was fundamentally altered when she became an Alicorn. And that is the worst possible thing that could’ve happened.
Does it sound like I’m contradicting myself? Because I’m not. Trust me; I’m right on BOTH accounts. Let me explain.
Remember that I like to look at things from a storytelling perspective. When confronting an element of a story, I always ask myself, “why is this here?” I try to discern the creator’s intentions and figure out why they created the element, in this case the main character, in the way that they did.
It’s important to understand that characters are more than a set of personality traits.
Twilight likes books. Twilight likes to learn new things. She likes studying. Twilight is, at the start of the story, asocial but not antisocial. She is socially competent, not socially awkward, but hates company and useless smalltalk. She is a loner who does not value friendship much.
These are all important traits, and they’re all parts of what made Twilight who she was – but they are, by far, NOT the most important parts of her character. In fact, I’d argue that you could cut some, or even all of these character traits, and still retain a character who is fundamentally Twilight Sparkle.
This is because Twilight was not created TO BE a socially reclusive bookworm. She was made INTO a socially reclusive bookworm because these traits best served the story, and these traits came naturally FROM developing a character like Twilight. But these things are NOT at the core of her character.
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Part 2.1: Twilight Sparkle as metaphor

Twilight Sparkle is a cynic.
This is the one single unalienable character trait that makes Twilight, Twilight. Everything else comes secondary to this one, simple trait. Twilight Sparkle, unlike every other little pony in the magical land of Equestria, is able to see her world for what it really is: just a little bit silly.
Twilight always recognises the outrageous, the ridiculous, the things that just don’t make sense.
[Train episode: Twilight: “But it makes no sense!”]
[Feeling Pinkie Keen: Twilight: “What in the wide-wide world of Equestria are you up to?”]
[Over a Barrel: Twilight: “Why won’t anybody be rational and reasonable?”]
[Feeling Pinkie Keen: Twilight: “This keeps getting more ridiculous by the minute!”]
Twilight is possibly the one character who is closest to realising that she is living in a cartoon world. She seems to have instinctive knowledge of human-style cynicism, skepticism, and sometimes even pessimism despite having never seen any of these things herself, given that everyone else in her world is living a blissful, ignorant dream.
[Westworld gag.]
The entire show is built on Twilight Sparkle’s quest to discover the magic of friendship. This would not be possible if Twilight was like the other ponies who, by all account, live and breathe Equestria’s simplistic, saccharine atmosphere where friendship is literally magic and everything is always fine.
Friendship is Magic, taken as a whole, is a very much idealistic show. It presents a world where good always wins out, and where things always turn out well. No-one dies, no-one even gets seriously hurt, and 90% of the time, things reach a peaceful resolution that is beneficial to everyone, or almost everyone involved.
But you can’t have light without dark. There is no good without evil.
Idealism is the belief that the world CAN be better, that the world can BECOME what it SHOULD be. You cannot be an idealist if the world is ALREADY what it SHOULD be.
Idealism cannot exist without cynicism.
The show, at its inception, very wisely recognised this and was written with this in mind. In fact, the show’s gradual moving away from cynicism towards unbridled idealism is possibly its greatest fault, and the cause of most of the show’s problems in the long run.
Twilight Sparkle is a cynic. This is important because of one simple fact.
[2 year old “solves” the trolley problem]
Children are also cynics.
Children are, in some ways, a lot more intelligent and, just sometimes, even more mature than a lot of us give them credit for. Even small children. A child who literally has nothing to do all day except watch children’s television shows will KNOW if you’re bullshitting them.
[Teletubbies.] If every single show they watch presents a world where characters are all nice and the situations are all inoffensive and safe, they WILL grow tired of it.
[Ren and Stimpy, Rocko.] There is a reason that shows like the Ren and Stimpy Show and Rocko’s Modern Life were such big hits in the 90s with kids: these are shows that deliberately disregard idealism and dive deep into the weird, the scary, the uncanny, the ugly, and the flat-out gross.
What’s remarkable about Friendship is Magic is that it managed to achieve cynicism without going the way of shows like Ren and Stimpy or Rocko. I don’t mean it in a bad way at all when I say that MLP managed to remain a fundamentally “girly” and cute, and indeed, it remained a show about hope and idealism, but without abandoning cynicism.
This balance between the whimsical land of Equestria and the real-world attitude of Twilight Sparkle captures the very essence of the show.
Twilight’s entire character is based on being able to take a step back, and realising that the world she lives in is just a little bit silly. Furthermore, Twilight Sparkle spends a considerable chunk of her time telling other characters that they are being silly.
[Pilot: T: “Focus, Casanova.”]
[Feeling PK: T: “That’s downright dangerous!!”]
[Applebuck Season: T: “Applejack, you need help.”]
[Green Isn’t Your Color: Twilight’s face when Spike “reveals” his crush on Rarity.]
[FPK: Twi: “The only doozie here is how right I am!”]
[Bridle Gossip: P: “I heard she eats hay!” T: “Pinkie, I eat hay. YOU eat hay.”]
[ACW: T: “Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, who in the hoof is that?!”]
In any other little girls’ show, the protagonist would have been a perfect little girl, who is always nice, and kind, and generous, and smart, and eager to help anyone. They would have been innocent to the core and always well-intentioned. They’d have been little angels, really. They would have been the ideal little girl.
Faust, of course, knew that little girls don’t actually LIKE these characters, or at least they’re sick of seeing it in every. Single. Show. And. Movie. Faust had this on good authority, having spent many of her early years as a little girl herself.
This is how Twilight Sparkle, intentionally or not, became a PARODY of every other little girls’ show protagonist. She was the one girly protagonist who wasn’t a cardboard cutout.
[Pilot: Twilight pulling Spike off the ladder, doesn’t give a shit.] Twilight Sparkle had attitude. Often, Twilight was actually pretty mean – and the show never demonised her for it. It was presented as a perfectly natural part of her personality, because children are also often very mean. [Scene of 2yo. “solving” the trolley problem.]
This is what allowed Twilight to become everything that all the other girly protagonists were not. This is what made her a GOOD CHARACTER – who, incidentally, turned out to be a joy to watch even for an adult audience.
Funny how giving your character an actual personality does that. Huh.
Twilight was you, and me, and all of us – all along.
You may not have noticed… but your brain did.
[McCarthy: “It was obvious from the start, guys.” Fuck you, McCarthy.]
Let’s imagine that we’re just creating Twilight Sparkle. So okay, we have a character who brings a much needed dose of cynicism to the show. How do we communicate this to an audience of primarily small children?
The easiest solution is to make Twilight “smart.” Reading a lot of books is an incredibly common narrative shorthand for “smart,” so we’ll make Twilight a bookish kind of pony. This is not a problem. I say this time and time again, and I’ll keep saying it because it bears repeating: the show’s ability to communicate relatively complex themes and ideas – for a children’s show, anyway – through simple narrative tools is one of its greatest strengths. Or, well, it WAS, before things started going downhill.
Okay, so we want Twilight to spend the show learning about friendship. Well then, let’s have her not have any friends to start with and go from there. Super simple stuff.
Notice that Twilight being “nerdy” or a “bookworm” or “adorkable” or someone who fusses over little details are all superficial things. They are not what make her herself. These are small traits added to her character to flesh it out, and to communicate ideas about Twilight’s character that speak to her core personality: that of a cynic.
To put it simply, Twilight reads books because she is a cynic, and not the other way around.
There was nothing to stop the creators from turning Twilight into an athlete, or a fashionista, or, hell, even a princess, or really anything they damn well please. Nothing outside of their own desire for simplicity. And again, simplicity, in this case, is a GOOD THING.
However this also means that when discussing changes to Twilight Sparkle’s character, all of these superficial traits are completely irrelevant because they do NOT represent what Twilight IS.
[McCarthy: stuff about Twilight staying Twilight. – Fuck you, McCarthy.]
Before we can discuss Twilicorn, and what makes her such a drastic departure from Twilight, and just a terrible character overall, we must first take a look at the REST of Twilight’s character.
In my personal and completely arbitrary interpretation of the show, everything I’ve said so far about Twilight only covers about HALF of her character.
The other half… is called Pinkie Pie.
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Part 2.2: The Pinkie to the brain

For the longest time, I did not find Pinkie Pie important at all. In fact, I found her to be pretty damn annoying. And let’s face it: she is.
It wasn’t until I actually stopped watching the show, and began to ponder why I liked it in the first place, that I came to realise how much Pinkie Pie added to the experience.
I didn’t notice… but my brain did.
You see, if we interpret Twilight as a parody of your usual “girly protagonists” – characters who are always nice, always know what to do, always befriend everyone – then we have to realise that Pinkie Pie is ALSO a parody… of the same exact thing.
The difference between Twilight and Pinkie is that Twilight takes everything that’s annoying and trite about girly protagonists and throws them out the window in favour of having an actual functioning brain. Pinkie Pie, on the other hand, takes the traits of girly protagonists and cranks them up to 11.
Pinkie Pie aaaalways knows what to do [Ball emergency, etc., Pinkie Sense,...] she’s aaaaaalways nice, and she’s friends with absolutely everyone.
Pinkie Pie is also the single most annoying pony to ever exist.
Even her friends regularly show signs of being fed up with her antics. [“Tell me she’s not…”]
Pinkie Pie is a warped mirror held up in front of every other little girls’ cartoon. “That’s you, that’s how dumb you sound!” The thing about characters like this in other shows is that they are a touch too perfect. No one person can be friends with everyone. No-one is always nice. These characters come off as saccharine, as overly simple, and generally not very fun to watch.
And, because Pinkie and Twilight are two sides of the same coin, episodes where they got to play off each other were always great. It was more than just “she’s smart, she’s crazy” – it was about seeing two interpretation of the same character deal with problems.
In a sense, Pinkie Pie is Equestria incarnate: she’s too cute, too nice, and too friendly to be real, to say nothing of always operating on cartoon logic. Pinkie Pie was all of Equestria’s insanity condensed into a single character.
That was the thing about her: she’s just insane, her very essence was insanity. Before she devolved into an unfunny, screeching lunatic, that is. As Twilight’s character eroded over the seasons, so did by extension Pinkie Pie’s. Pinkie was never really a character that could exist in a vacuum – remember, characters like her are generally pretty boring to watch – so she always needed someone to play off her. And when the primary candidate for that was no longer around, she suffered. And sadly, without Pinkie, or characters LIKE Pinkie, Twilight’s character suffered even more.
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Part 2.3: So what’s the DEAL with Twilicorn?

I ask that you roll with me for a second here. I’m once again about to compare Twilight Sparkle of My Little Pony to Darth Vader of Star Wars. Now, I’m not saying these characters are anything alike. And I’m not doing this because I’m a huge fan of Star Wars or anything, ‘cause I’m not. This is only an analogy.
I bring up Darth Vader because, whether we like it or not, he’s a pop cultural icon. Even if you’ve never even seen Star Wars, you recognise Darth Vader. Even if you don’t LIKE Darth Vader, you probably know why other people do.
Darth Vader was a metaphor for the entirety of the evil Empire. He was large, intimidating, and mysterious. He could show up at any time and overpower anyone. Whenever he DID show up, it was bad news for the rebels. He was powerful, and his presence lingered in the movie even when he wasn’t on screen.
The point is, people like Darth Vader ‘cause he’s awesome and because he was an excellent antagonist to our heroes. People like Darth Vader because he represents something.
Ain’t no-one cares about Darth Vader as a person. Nobody gives a flying fuck that he doesn’t like sand or that his wife died or something.
People liked Twilight Sparkle because she meant something. She was the one sane person in an insane world. Someone who could see things as we did, the audience, and make fun of things that didn’t make sense.
Part of MLP’s charm was in its fantastical, zany world. But without a sane character to anchor ourselves to, this world becomes unrelatable because it’s so far detached from reality. Even fairy tales have their wise men, their fairy godmothers, their wicked stepmothers. They have conflict and death to counterbalance the magic and the triumph of love. There must always be SOMETHING to keep it real.
In MLP, Twilight was that something.
When you turn the one sane character into a bland goodie-two-shoes who never has an opinion or anything, someone who just rolls with the insanity of the world around her, you lose Twilight’s core character.
I don’t care that she’s still kind of a nerd or she reads a lot of books. I don’t give a damn that she still worries about little things or has some form of OCD or whatever, because these things are completely incidental to what made me like her character in the first place.
No-one above the age of 5 likes Twilight ‘cause she “reads books”. Even saying it out loud sounds ridiculous. This is not who, or what Twilight is.
Now, even at this point the show had an excellent opportunity to salvage Twilight’s character. They COULD have turned all of this around, had they followed through with the story they’d set up in earlier seasons for Twilight.
…They did not follow through.
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Part 2.4: The dead end of Twilight’s story

Twilight was Celestia’s personal student, and by far the smartest little pony around, both inside the story and on a meta level. Twilight was the closest little pony to adulthood.
[McCarthy: It was obvious from the start, guys…]
Twilight didn’t HAVE to become an Alicorn. Twilight’s story was about become LIKE CELESTIA. Now, Lauren Faust has said on multiple occasions that she never wanted more Alicorns than 2, and I respect that. However, turning Twilight into an Alicorn wasn’t inherently a bad decision. It fit pretty well with her story, thematically speaking.
[McCarthy: “It was obvious from--” Shut up, I’m not finished!]
Notice that becoming more like Celestia doesn’t necessarily mean that Twilight becomes an Alicorn. All it means is that she, figuratively or literally, grows up. Now, I’ve talked at length about how Celestia is basically an adult in a world of children; she understands the value of friendship, as well as friendship’s limitations. She’s someone who can walk among the children and humour them, but she, by virtue of being an adult, has a fundamentally more cynical view of the world.
Twilight was sent out to learn about friendship. Not only was this the story of a high-class snob descending from the big city to a Bumblefuck little town in the country to learn some humility, but it was also the story of a child discovering when friendship can help you, and when it can’t.
It’s important to stress this because it’s fundamental to what made the show work: at the start of the show, “friendship” was not literally a magical mystery cure to all of life’s problems.
Understand, again, that this was a show primarily made for children. And all too often, in shows made for children, friendship always triumphs. That is a fine message – except it’s a false one. Everyone above the age of like, 10, knows this.
The importance of friendship comes not from what it can do, but from its fragility. It’s something to be cherished, something to be earned, and something you have to fight just to keep alive. A lot of friendship aren’t forever. People turn on each other. People die. People leave your life for all sorts of reasons, and friendships go with them. This is part of life.
All too often in life, being true to your friends comes with personal sacrifice. It could be as simple as not drinking on a night out so you can drive everyone home at the end. Maybe you agree not to pursue a romantic interest because your friend is also into the same person. Or maybe one day you’ll find yourself literally jumping in front of a bullet to save a friend. You never know.
The early episodes of the show reflected this. One of my favourite lessons the show has ever taught was in episode 6, Boast Busters. In it, Trixie, a particularly mean pony comes to town and majorly pisses everyone off. At the end of the episode, Trixie flees the town, presumably never to be seen again.
As Trixie runs, Rainbow Dash prepares to go after her – and it’s at this point that something amazing happens.
Twilight stops Rainbow. [Boast Busters: Twi: “Just let her go. Maybe some day she’ll learn her lesson.”]
I’d never have expected this from a show called Friendship is Magic.
I fully expected the ponies to go after Trixie, then talk to her until she comes around and becomes a better person. That’s how it usually goes in little girls’ shows, anyway. Not in Friendship is Magic.
Twilight Sparkle, the same pony who later in the series gets crowned the quote-unquote “Princess of Friendship,” tells Rainbow to let Trixie go – because some lessons must be learned on your own.
Throughout the first couple of seasons, the show always had a theme of self-improvement. Twilight was never TAUGHT friendship. She LEARNED how to be a good friend by going out and engaging with others, by taking part in activities around town, by going out and having a grand adventure.
[Scenes of Starlight Glimmer being “reformed”]
Never did a magical friendship princess appear on her doorstep and turn her into a good person in the span of a conversation. Because that would have been stupid. That’s not how life works, and that’s not a good lesson to teach children.
And yet, at the end of Season 4, in Twilight’s Kingdom, Twilight becomes everything her character ever stood against. She declares herself the Princess of Friendship and vows to spread the magic of friendship across Equestria and beyond.
But that’s not how friendship works! You can’t travel the world and magically make people into better people. A small child might believe that’s how friendship works – probably partially because of stupid shows like this teaching them exactly that – but it’s not right.
Ironically, Twilight acted much more maturely and understood friendship far better as a unicorn than as the “Princess of Friendship.”
Jee, it’s almost like the both of the show’s head writers left the show by that time.
Twilicorn’s design is in fact a perfect visual metaphor for what Twilicorn is: a child’s head stuck on top of an adult body. The show pretends that Twilight has grown up, making her take more on the role of a mentor rather than protagonist, but the way she thinks and behaves is largely characteristic of children.
Or more specifically, Twilicorn might be how children IMAGINE adulthood: having power, authority, money, fame, and everyone always listens to you.
But that’s not adulthood. That’s a power fantasy.
Meghan McCarthy, the new showrunner after Faust’s departure, has gone on record to say that “every little girl wants to be a princess.” A lot of people have taken this quote out of context, but I believe it’s important because it explains a lot about how McCarthy views the show.
Twilicorn really is a power fantasy for little girls. And I’m not against power fantasies. Goodness knows I’ve had plenty when I was a child. My problem is that McCarthy created this unrelatable little Princess Perfect out of an already established character who was the very antithesis of characters like this.
Twilicorn is Pinkie Pie, if Pinkie Pie wasn’t a joke. And that’s not funny.
If missing the point actually gave you wings in real life, Hasbro HQ would be a fucking airport.
But you know what? I could forgive that, I could forgive AAAALLL of that. You might not be able to tell based on this video, but I’m not generally one to nitpick. I’m more than willing to let some things slide if it makes for a good story.
Unfortunately, I’ve yet to talk about the single biggest mistake McCarthy has ever made in her handling of Twilight’s character.
Twilicorn is a power fantasy. Okay. Twilicorn is nothing like Twilight. Alright, whatever. I watch this show to be entertained, not for its philosophical depths.
The thing about Twilicorn is that she is BORING.
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Part 2.5: The Princess of Snoooooooooze!

Twilight was an excellent character. Not only was she genuinely relatable regardless of your age, being just as baffled by the pony world as any human, but she was always so full of personality and, simply put, a joy to see on screen. Credit to Tara Strong’s excellent performance in bringing this character to life.
I’ve only seen most episodes of the show once, way back when they aired. I’ve only ever rewatched a handful of them, maybe two or three times at most at that.
And yet, so many scenes from the first two seasons are still lodged in my memory – and a lot of them include Twilight. Practically every episode had Twilight do or say something memorable, something funny, something witty.
[Feeling Pinkie Keen: Twilight “soapboxing”] It could’ve been as simple as a visual gag, or reacting to the other characters. [Applebuck Season: Twi: “GRRH, nevermind!”] Even after almost a decade, I can outline some of these scenes, or occasionally even recite them verbatim, just by looking at the episode title. They’re THAT memorable.
Come on, if you’ve ever watched the show, you know what I’m talking about. [Montage.][Ex.: “Obviously…” (Smacking Spike in Hurricane FS.) “She only has one cat…”, ….]
And then there’s Twilicorn, who… well, she… um…
[Twilight’s Kingdom fight scene.] There was the fight scene in Twilight’s Kingdom, when she was shooting lazers at the bad guy. I guess I remember that.
[S4 Discord ep, shooting the wurm.] There was also the time when she was shooting lazers at the big monster.
[Power Ponies, fighting the baddie.] The episode where she was shooting lazers at the baddie. No, wait, have I said that already?
[S5 premiere, finale, shooting at Starlight Glimmer.] Oh, that’s right, she also shot a bunch of lazers at Starlight Glimmer, the baddie in Season 5. Wait, was that the same episode? I can’t remember.
Okay, but what about all the episodes where she WASN’T shooting lazers?
[Princess Spike.] There was the one where the plot was that Twilicorn wasn’t in the episode. Wait…
[Tree corpse episode.] Oh, oh, there was the episode where… the plot was that Twilicorn wasn’t in the episode. Hmm.
[Random shots of Twilicorn doing fuck all.] Well, there was the time when… the time… the one where… remember that ONE time… she… um…
[McCarthy: “It was obvious from the start, guys.” FUCK Y(cut off)]
Naaah, I’m just messing with ya. I love McCarthy. I think she’s great, and she’s produced some of the show’s best episodes.
But she completely screwed up with Twilicorn. She’s just a boring character! She’s already achieved everything she possibly could in life, and so her character meanders, doing nothing of significance. In fact it feels like the writers are always looking for an excuse to get rid of her because she’s a plot tumour.
Twilicorn has no wants, no desires, no goals, no needs. She has nothing more to learn, nothing to develop towards, nothing to change about herself. She never has an opinion, she never questions anything, she never does anything memorable.
Twilicorn is… nice. Twilicorn is inoffensive. Twilicorn is bland. Twilicorn is your average, vanilla-flavoured girly protagonist, completely interchangeable with all the others.
It’s clear that McCarthy has a vastly different idea of what the show should be from what Lauren Faust thought. I commend McCarthy’s efforts, and I genuinely believe she cares, and that she’s doing the best she can with the material Hasbro gives her.
At the end of the day, we all know why Twilight became an Alicorn. [Toy commercial. “Let’s fly to my palace!” – throw Twilicorn toy into the trash.] It was gonna happen, whether anyone liked it or not.
Unfortunately, McCarthy’s different vision, combined with Hasbro breathing down her neck, plus most of the show’s original writing team jumping ship as the seasons progressed, has left the show in a sorry state indeed.
In fact, there is a noticeable shift in the perspective and overall theme of the show in Season 4 onwards, compared to the earliest seasons. It’s not just vague things like the stuff I’ve said about the Alicorns in general, and it’s not as simple as consistently writing one character completely wrong as is the case with Twilicorn.
It’s about how the show presents the very world the characters live in.
[Ponyville comparison shot, s1 – s5]
The world of Equestria changed over the years… and not for the better.