The Return of Harmony, Part 1

Dear Princess Luna...

Alright, just quadruple checked the episode list, I *should* just have 3 more Season 2 episodes, Part 1 and 2 of this, and of course, Luna Eclipsed.

I was originally planning to do this one last, since I started with the final episodes and these were the first, but I gotta save that Luna related one. =]

Episode begins with Cherilee and her students on a field trip to the 'world famous' Canterlot sculpture garden.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders run into each other and get angry at one other in front of the Friendship statue.

""Wait a minute, wait! Who fired that machine gun?" "Me foots asleep and I wanna wake it up." "Oh, you're asleep all over!" "Well, I'm not the only one..." "Meaning me?" "Meaning you!" "I suppose you'd like to put me to sleep?" "Yeah, with a spade!" "Sez you!" "Sez me!"

Scootaloo thinks the Victory statue would make a cool cutie mark, Applebloom, despite also being a member of the constantly failing Cutie Mark Crusaders, makes a snide remark that she would have to be 'victoryfull' first. They then start bickering as Sweetie Belle says that isn't a word.

That would be a badass mark I suppose.

They get to the next statue, which looks kind of like an Asian dragon. Cherilee asks what it is and the Crusaders start beating each other. This fighting triggers something on the statue. Cherilee breaks up the fight, telling them they were all right, and that the statue represents Discord. After they continue on, we see the statue breaking apart with an evil laugh.

"Foolish mortals! Should have hired a better teacher than Cherilee, now I am set free!"

Now, wait a minute, so this statue was a living thing turned to stone? With some curse that can be cured by ponies fighting each other nearby. Shouldn't this be somewhere secret, not where the public can get to it? Also, what of those other statues? Are they also living things turned to stone? I would have to say they probably are. In a time of great peril, Victory will probably break free. During the Ponyverse Great Depression, the Friendship trio will break out and renew happiness to the distraught masses.

Rainbow Dash has a cloud go flying past her, she chases it and finds it is made of cotton candy. That's pretty badass. More cotton candy clouds appear and start raining chocolate. Are clouds sentient, because Rainbow tries to tell the cloud it isn't supposed to rain until tomorrow.

"Hmm, TARFU, but tastes pretty good."

The clouds are apparently raining chocolate milk, as Applejack immediately identifies it. A strange brown liquid starts falling, and she tastes it?

All sorts of insanity is going on across the realm apparently. In Cloudsdale, it is raining cola. The corn Applejack was harvesting inexplicably bursts into popcorn. Of course, the gluttonous Pinkie Pie is having the time of her life. The apples on the trees suddenly increase in size. Rarity is also out at the farm, and offers any help she can give, so long as she doesn't get wet, dirty, or out from under her umbrella.

And Applejack goes down from a barrage of popcorn to the face!

The non-'human' animals know all hell is indeed breaking loose at Sweet Apple Acres, squirrels and rabbits appear and start eating the giant apples. Applejack begs Fluttershy for help (for some reason 5/6 of the 'mane' characters are at the farm?) and then the stuff of nightmares happens.

Those were bunnies. What the deuce is going on in the Ponyverse.

Make that 6/6 'mane' characters, as Twilight is also there. She tells them not to worry, she's got this with a new spell she learned.

Ooyah, Twilight/Unicorns/Magic!

She unleashes a massive beam of magical energy, and achieved absolutely nothing. She calls it her 'fail safe spell' so it was either her last resort, or specifically a spell called Fail Safe, which in a world full of magic, having a spell to dispel whatever crazy things some unicorn conjured up is probably a very good idea.

Ahh, good to see the ol' Twilight rage has been there since the beginning, of Season 2 anyway.

Twilight enacts Plan B: Rainbow gathers the clouds, Applejack lassos them to the ground, Fluttershy accidentally mentions there being chocolate filled cotton candy clouds she wouldn't want to share with all the animals. The gluttonous Pinkie is still having the time of her life eating everything in sight.

Those animals better get their fill and bug out, I've seen how Pinkie eats.

Applejack tells the animals to eat all the popcorn too. Twilight starts telling Spike how they can overcome anything by working together, when he scroll belches up a summons for them to go to Canterlot.

The mane 6 arrive, and Twilight lets loose a barrage of questions at the obviously uneasy Celestia. She orders them to follow her, and leads them down a hallway full of stained glass windows and other artwork depicting Discord, the spirit of Disharmony.

Uh oh, looks like the statue. Nice work, Crusaders, maybe Sweetie Belle will get her super villain mark earlier than we thought.

Hmm, so in Hearth's Warming Eve, we learn that the pony tribes lived in some place other than Equestria, then migrated there and formed a new, united, kingdom. Their flag was shown to include some of this image if I recall:

Luna, Celestia, and Discord. Looks like he is being turned into a statue, and they were using magic.

Eh, I'll just put the image here. Equestria banner, with Celestia and Luna with sun and moon.

Celestia says that Discord used to rule over Equestria until her and Luna rose up against him. Either Luna and Celestia were established demi-gods just used for the flag (like putting Zeus and Poseidon or something), and sometime after Equestria was founded, Discord came in and took it over, or the flag shown in the Hearth's Warming Eve was the modern flag of Equestria, and Luna and Celestia were...well, whatever it is they are, then rebelled against him using the Elements of Harmony and became the new rulers.

Celestia says that Luna and herself are no longer connected to the Elements. Twilight asks what that is all about, but Celestia ignores it. Celestia says since apparently Twilight and co. used the Elements before (must be a Season 1 thing) that it is up to them to go kick Discord's ass and bring order back to the world.

Is that Luna that they're blasting? Looks similarly colored..

Pinkie tries to argue that they should just leave it be, since it rains chocolate.

Celestia opens the vault of the Elements, with magic. I forget the episode, but I mentioned an arms race between Unicorns to keep each other out, looks like I was right on that one too =] Rarity wants to steal the jewel-encrusted case of the Elements.

Celestia, sending teenagers(?) to their possible demise, tells them to have no fear, she's sure they will beat him with the Elements. She opens the case, with magic, and to everyone's horror, the Elements are gone. Guess some other Unicorn beat Celestia in the security arms race. As everyone struggles to comprehend the situation, Pinkie runs outside to drink more chocolate milk rain.

Put down your books and pick up a gun, we're gonna have a whole lot of fun! 'Cause it's one, two, three, four, what are we fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn, drinking chocolate milk in Discord land.

Discord manifests into a stained glass window and begins talking trash. He seems just a wee bit bitter over being turned to stone, commenting that he doesn't turn ponies to stone. So far he seems like a pretty cool guy, yeah, there may be bad side effects to it raining chocolate milk, but still, that's pretty badass.

He says he borrowed the Elements for a while, and Celestia demands them back. He responds, calling her grim and boring, Rainbow sees that as some extreme insult and attacks, smashing into a window.

If she had shattered it quickly enough, would it have even done anything? Well, would be better than what actually happened, which was just hurting herself..

Hmm, so there's these stained glass windows of the 'mane 6' and Discord, who has only been loose for seemingly not that long, knows all about them. I'm wondering if these windows were put in after their Season 1 escapades, or were they part of some ancient prophecy. If it's the latter, that would make more sense that Discord would know all about them. Then again, he is some badass demi-god thing so could probably know either way.

The Elements of Harmony apparently represent 'good' traits. Rainbow Dash is the element of Loyalty. Rarity is Generosity. Applejack is Honesty. Fluttershy is Kindness. Pinkie Pie is Laughter. And, to no surprise to any of my readers, Twilight Sparkle is Magic, which is the most powerful, and elusive, element. =]

"Quit stalling, Discord!" Cause yeah, we can totally take you without the super powerful Elements artifacts..

Celestia, proving Discord's accusation that she is 'boring' once again demands the Elements back. Discord gives them a riddle to figure out, "To retrieve your missing elements just make sense of this change of events. Twists and turns are my master plan. Then find the elements back where you began."

Twilight thinks she deciphers it as meaning the labyrinth we saw at the very beginning near the sculpture garden. Celestia, despite being some big Billy Badass, just wishes them good luck, not even trying to help find the things.

We quickly see why Celestia is not getting involved. Fluttershy is scared of the labyrinth, Rainbow, smartly, just tries to fly over it. Discord puts the kibosh on her and magic's away her wings.

Assuming she survives the fall, would that be a fate worse than death? Especially for her. Essentially an Earth Pony without the super strength and endurance, and with light weight pegasus structure.

 Oh, damn. He then *poofs* away Fluttershy's wings, and the horns of Rarity and Twilight.

We've seen in other episodes that the horn is the unicorn's main weak point, you'd think they would have super strong defense spells on it, especially Twilight. However, Discord is probably powerful enough to override them, even if they did have some cast.

Discord teleports in front of them, laughing at their reactions to his removal of their 'racial' features. He then says the first rule of the game is no magic and no flying. So, he presumably at least left the Earth Ponies with their strengths.

Damn, look at Twilight standing up against some insanely powerful thing, right after losing the biggest aspect of who she is.

The second rule is that all ponies must play, or he wins. Twilight and Rainbow bolster their ailing morale, and they all enter the labyrinth. Discord magic's up some hedge walls, separating them all. Twilight yells out to get her friends quieted down, and they all head out, except Fluttershy who is freaking out.

Applejack is charging through the maze, then gets distracted by 3 apples, which begin moving on their own. She stupidly follows them and ends up at an apple orchard. Apples rain from the trees and form into creepy apple blobs with eyes and mouths.

"Is this for all the years of eatin' and cookin' y'all? I didn't know you was alive, I swear!"

The apple things say they are the keepers of the grove of truth and that she can ask one question. She asks what the result of their mission against Discord will be. They tell her to look into a pond, she sees herself and her friends telling each other they don't want to see each other again. Applejack gets real upset, thinking their friendships are over. Above, Discord is manipulating the apple blobs with marionette strings and laughing.

Discord/the blob tells her that 'All the truth does is make your heart ache, sometimes a lie is easier to take' and blasts her with a spell. A section of maze opens and Twilight enters. Hah, I see what happened. Discord did reverse polarity or what have you, the Honesty element Applejack, changes to Lies.

Which may mean Rarity becomes selfish, Fluttershy becomes mean, Twilight loses magic, Rainbow becomes a Benedict Arnold, and Pinkie cries constantly?

Twilight asks herself if Applejack just lied, then disregards it, because Applejack would never lie.

Pinkie is bouncing along and comes across a 'balloon garden.' She gleefully goes in, and a balloon trips her. She falls into mud and they all laugh at her. So, you're up against some super powerful spirit thing, and you go into obvious traps? Maybe Pinkie didn't have another route, but Applejack sure looked to have stopped going where she was headed to pursue those apples.

"Hey Pinkie, your epidermis is showing! Hah hah!"

Discord appears and asks her what is wrong. Pinkie is upset because they are laughing at her. Discord plants seeds of doubt by saying her friends laugh at her all the time. He also decapitates himself and becomes a balloon, spins around her, confusing her, then balloons turn into her friends' faces, which of course laugh at her. He then casts a spell on her, I guess I was wrong and instead of crying, the opposite of Pinkie's laughing is anger.

"I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"

Rarity is far easier to get, as Discord just puts some gems on a wall. He even directly talks to her, congratulating her for finding the one thing in Equestria that could 'rival my face for sheer beauty.' Rarity's latent magic lets her shrug off the spell at first, but her innate Unicorn greed overcomes her.

Rarity won't need to make dresses anymore if she can get that thing home.

She smashes through the rock to try and get the gems and finds a humongous diamond. She starts carrying it on her back and Twilight, Pinkie, and Applejack arrive. It is then shown that is isn't a diamond, and is just a big rock. Rarity obviously can't see the truth, and continues hauling the rock.

Fluttershy is making progress in the maze, and comes across some butterflies. They are, of course, Discord, and he begins trying to sow hatred in her. Fluttershy doesn't care that her friends may talk 'bad' about her, and Discord quickly loses his temper. Instead of doing whatever elaborate scheme he had planned for her, he just manifests as himself and pokes her, turning her mean.

Twilight and co. arrive and Fluttershy snaps at Twilight, making fun of her losing her horn. Not cool, Fluttershy, especially since you only lost your wings, which you don't like using anyway.

"What happened to the big tough guy that told my friend to stick it up his ass?!"

Fluttershy whips Twilight in the face with her tail and knocks over Pinkie, Applejack laughs and is scared of the enraged Pinkie. Rarity is struggling with her rock, Twilight helps, Rarity threatens her.

"I'll kill you, your family, everybody. This is my diamond!"

Rainbow sees a cloud with rainbow lightning, just like her mark, and pursues it. It leads to Discord in a cloud hammock. Rainbow is raring to fight him, he says he is just delivering a message. He then tells her a riddle, "A weighty choice is yours to make. The right selection or a big mistake. If a wrong choice you choose to pursue, the foundations of home will crumble without you." He conjures up an image of Cloudsdale collapsing, then infects Rainbow with his reverse element magic. He offers her a gift, which contains her wings, and makes sure to tell her she can take them and leave, or continue wandering the maze aimlessly.

Aww. look at the rainbows 'melting.' (Update: after seeing Cloudsdale in other episodes, it looks like the rainbows always look like that there.)

Twilight is now solely carrying the rock, and Applejack says Rainbow is flying away. Twilight dismisses it as a lie, but of course, loyalty=disloyalty so Rainbow is indeed leaving.

The labyrinth walls descend into the ground and Discord appears, saying that a pony broke the 'no wings, no magic' rule and thus he wins. Technically didn't Rainbow break both rules, since by choosing her wings, she chose not to play? He inexplicably returns their horns/wings. He says since they didn't find their precious Elements, looks like they may be in for a big storm of chaos, and the episode ends.

It's time for lightning, and a big dose of crazy!

What I learned from this episode:

• The 'mane 6' are apparently some heroines of destiny, yet they end up doing really ho-hum tasks most of the time. Like Fluttershy, she runs an animal shelter basically, or Rarity makes clothes for people. Rainbow at least tried to be a hero in Mysterious Mare Do Well, until Twilight Worth and co. meddled.
• More of the dark side of the Ponyverse is seen here, as Discord reigns supreme, humbling even the mighty Celestia. I haven't really seen him doing anything all that bad, he seems more (from what I can remember anyway) like Coyote, the 'good' trickster god, rather than Loki, who is more of an 'evil' trickster god. Celestia did claim that when he ruled all the ponies were unhappy though.
• What I've been saying all along looks to be true: Magic is just plain awesome, even being called out as the most powerful of the powerful Elements of Harmony.
• Does anyone know it was the Cutie Mark Crusaders that triggered this calamity? If they did/do, would they blame them? Or was this just destined to happen since Celestia and Luna apparently aren't 'connected' to the Elements anymore, which was required to keep Discord in stone.