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bronyinabottle · 10 months

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G5 THOUGHTS - Misty Brightdawn

Hey, I don’t normally do a lot of these anymore. But I suddenly got the feeling of wanting to do a sort of.. analysis? Essay? I don’t really know what to call it. But regardless…

In my last post, I was kinda critical of G5 over a small scene and even kind of delved into my rather negative thoughts about G5 recently. It doesn’t help that my words of how long G5 is even going to last seems to have become foreboding now that we know Make Your Mark is ending by the end of this year. While Tell Your Tale continues onward for another season, and it will become the new main part of G5 going forward.

This time however, I’m going to provide something on G5 that I am more positive about. And that is the character of Misty Brightdawn.

I will say it right now. I think Misty is the best part of G5 as of right now. I don’t mean any offense to the core 5 before Misty made it a new Mane 6. But seriously, a pony that was adopted by the main villain and unfortunately basically forced to be their minion because Opaline is all she knows essentially until she meets the Main cast of G5 is an interesting story to follow. For anyone who’s ever had a controlling mother figure in their life, or just knows how awful that kind of life can be. She’s instantly sympathetic. It provides so much fuel for interesting stories then any other character currently in G5 and once she joins the main cast. She kinda serves as the true Fluttershy of the gang. Up to and including personality and a butterfly themed cutie mark (As much as Hitch was given the whole animal schtick, he’s always felt more like the Applejack of the group). Do you remember the old concept for G5? In a way we still sort of got the unicorn Fluttershy, and earth pony Twilight in both Misty and Sunny. We didn’t quite get Pegasus Pinkie, instead having a more unicorn Pinkie in Izzy… but you get the idea.

But continuing on, I even mentioned it in the previous post. That one of the few remaining reasons to keep watching G5 is to see where they take Misty from here. The end of Chapter 4 showed she’s not just going to be a new ally/friend. She may be an outright spy on Opaline (Since apparently she’s a huge idiot that can’t see the signs of Misty’s betrayal). What happens to Misty from here should be interesting to see. And what will the final confrontation when Opaline is ultimately defeated be like? What will Opaline’s fate be? How will Misty feel about it? Even if Opaline’s not a good stepmother, She was the one that ultimately took care of her in her young life.

I mean… I suppose G5 has the option to redeem Opaline… buuuuut… excuse me while I say how problematic that would be. And let’s even pretend the whole OPALINE WOULD HAVE LET SPARKY DIE IN THE CHAPTER 4 FINALE didn’t happen for a moment. Supposedly, Opaline has been around since Celestia and Luna were fillies and maybe even was the catalyst for why Equestria is now longer in the golden age of Friendship anymore. Just how do you go about redeeming someone that was evil for that long? I mean, you could bring up Nightmare Moon I suppose and how Luna was stuck in the moon for 1000 years but that was done so out of desperation. Maybe you could say seeing Opaline who was just a little filly who wanted to be friends with Celestia and Luna but was ignored to be something but. It just seems a lot of time has gone by for Opaline to possibly reflect on what they’ve done but not feel remorse for it..

And well… if you include the whole Sparky thing from the Chapter 4 finale… she’s arguably threatened to do worse than almost any G4 villain has in the past. Not one of the terrible trio that was never redeemed threatened to murder a child. So if by G4 standards… Tirek, Cozy, and Chrysalis are not redeemable (At least, within what FiM shows. I know it’s totally up to fanfics if they get redeemed later in some fashion) then what chance does Opaline have after being a terrible stepmother to Misty AND almost killing Sparky. It just would not be a good choice. Opaline either needs to be sealed away forever or even… *GASP* die. And while this probably would happen in like the series finale or something perhaps… it’s still something to think about how Misty would feel that her mother figure, regardless of how evil she was, is just gone like that.

Of course, another subject we can get to is of course the wonder who Misty’s real parents are. Are they even still alive? Was Opaline at all responsible for why they’re missing? How did Misty get into Opaline’s clutches in the first place? (And I mean as in more details then just Opaline found her as a filly) It’s interesting avenues to explore. I’d like G5 to totally go gung ho about what Misty’s full story is. It finally gave G5 something that G4 didn’t already provide…

…OR IS IT?

…Ok to be fair, there is nothing in specifically Friendship is Magic itself that is analogous with Misty at all. But I’d like to remind you of a certain spin-off from Friendship is Magic. One that coincidentally turned 10 recently… I mean of course… the Equestria Girls movies/series.

You may be asking… who in all of the Equestria Girls media was the closest we had to Misty in G4? No one in all of EQG had a villainous stepmother forcing them to do their bidding. And that’s true… but it doesn’t always have to be a family member when it comes to the subject of abuse. Sometimes it can come from fellow peers at school… and even the higher-ups at said school… I am of course talking about…

Sci-Twi! AKA the Human World Twilight that debuted in Friendship Games (…Or Rainbow Rocks if you include the post-credits scene. but you get the idea). Unlike Misty, Sci-Twi probably has a fine enough family at home. I can’t imagine that the human versions of Twilight Velvet and Night Light are too much different from the pony versions. But regardless, here’s the similarities between Sci-Twi and Misty.

They were both generally loners (Although I suppose Sci-Twi did have Dean Cadence and her dog Spike) before they met up with either the Mane 5 of G5 or the HuMane 6 in Equestria Girls. (And needless to say, they both become permanent mainstays of the cast)

They both have (or well, at least had) some sort of magic device they carry with them while they’re meeting up with the main characters. Sci-Twi’s was that thing that sucked up magic, while Misty’s was what she uses to contact Opaline with from long distances.

They are both led astray and gaslit by two elders who blackmail them with serious punishments if they fail. Opaline for Misty, and Principal Cinch for Sci-Twi

They’re both of a more shy type of character, which was notable in Sci-Twi since it was a pretty stark difference from the Pony Twilight we knew. But it didn’t mean she was so different from Twilight that she was just a completely different character. Circumstances changed in their life that resulted in differences in their personality and behavior.

They both get that moment where they’re confronted by the main character(/s) when they had done something of note that was dangerous or was clearly helping the villain. I compare when Sunset was yelling at Sci-Twi after she inadvertently released portals during a motorcycle race that put many in danger with the moment in Chapter 4 when the Mane 5 found out Misty had been assisting Opaline the whole time. And another similarity between the same similarity, they don’t do this if they’re not coerced by a villain. Misty didn’t try to kidnap Sparky because she wanted to, Opaline promised her a cutie mark for doing so. And Cinch was blackmailing Sci-Twi with threatening to deny an application to Everton.

Granted unlike getting a Cutie Mark. Getting into Everton is something that Twilight decides to decline in favor of moving to Canterlot High instead where she could be around new friends. But the main point is both are coerced by something that both characters that we knew they were striving for from the moment we’re introduced to them.

And one more similarity I'll point out is that they're both technically an antagonist but not the kind of antagonist typical of a "minion". Misty's still out there causing some form of trouble for the G5 main cast though is often too clumsy and awkward for it to amount to much. And Sci-Twi's own actions result in some pretty dangerous situations throughout the climax of the film. I actually consider Twilight the antagonist of Friendship Games even if Cinch is the more obvious antagonist, though she and the Crystal Prep girls feel more like a driving force for the sympathetic antagonist we have in Sci-Twi that's forced to become a REAL menace when she transforms into Midnight Sparkle. They're both by all means reasons stuff goes wrong for our heroes, but we feel too bad for them to give them much flack for it.

Of course I am not saying both characters are the same. There are certainly stark differences and contexts between the two. But at their core, Sci-Twi… at least in Friendship Games specifically was the only part of G4 we had anything close to what Misty provides in G5. It’s a different type of abuser, but it’s abuse all the same. As it seems pretty implied that Sci-Twi is often bullied as an outcast in Crystal Prep (While I’m sure she has legit research interest in Everton, part of the reason she wants to be independently studying is probably so she doesn’t have to deal with other students) and how the administration adds to Sci-Twi’s misery by not just doing nothing about it but almost encouraging it, and twisting in some of their own cruelty by forcing Twilight to investigate their opponents so that they may have an advantage so they can keep their “perfect record”. The ending where Twilight transforms into Midnight Sparkle after the song “Unleash the Magic” could just about be an allegory for peer pressure for many things. The effects of what bullying and a school administration that won’t help could do to a person.

Now it’s not like we’re going to get like a Midnight Misty or whatever would be an evil form of Misty be called. But Misty still has something she could share with Sci-Twi. And from an even younger age from her teen years. She was found as a filly by Opaline and she was taken care of by the Alicorn. How well remains to be seen, but it’s clear she has a pretty complicated relationship with her “mother”. Misty’s sheltering seems to have prevented her from learning what her real talent/calling is. So she’s stuck dreaming of eventually having her mark at last. Misty’s main motivation for listening to Opaline is getting her cutie mark at last. I wouldn’t be surprised if Opaline never actually had the means to give Misty a cutie mark (Granted it’s a bit null and void now that Misty does have her cutie mark. But Opaline doesn’t know that yet). But if that’s the case, it will still be a meaningful conversation if Misty ever finds out Opaline wouldn’t have been able to give her what she promised. Maybe it’d even be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and Misty won’t even want to live with Opaline anymore now that she knows just how much Opaline has lied to her for most of her life.

For me personally, both Misty and Sci-Twi are the central reasons to keep watching their respective parts of the MLP franchises. I was not a fan of the first EQG movie, and while Rainbow Rocks was definitely a more than marginal improvement. Something about it still didn’t quite grab me, but its post-credits scene certainly gave me some intrigue. And when it came time for Friendship Games, I was not disappointed. Sci-Twi felt she had hidden depths that I wouldn’t think Equestria Girls would get to in favor of just putting the ponies in high school movie cliches. Sci-Twi basically single handedly turned around my opinion on Equestria Girls as IMO, it got more interesting as they gradually downplayed many of the flaws of the first movie as time went on.

And Misty’s kinda done the same thing in some way for G5. Granted, I definitely think the G5 movie is way better than the first Equestria Girls movie. But as Make Your Mark approached early on. It kinda became clear that the series just isn’t grabbing me in the same way FiM was. And any attempts to try to connect to G4, AKA try to give it more intrigue often fell flat for one reason or another. It took introducing Misty before I had something to motivate me to continue watching. (..Although even Misty’s presence has not made me watch all of Tell Your Tale). I need to continue seeing G5 to see what they do with Misty. It's the main motivation I have for seeing more of G5. It’s just so sad however that it seems Make Your Mark is ending after this year in favor of Tell Your Tale. Maybe they’ll be able to wrap much of Misty’s story by the two remaining chapters we have left and it’ll feel more ok that it’s ending this year rather than have it drag on for too long. But who knows how much room they’ll have when they have to consider storylines for the other 5.

And I apologize if maybe I’m underrating Tell Your Tale a bit. I’ve heard there’s actually some genuine good episodes in it. It’s just that the art style is not that great… and then there’s of course the moment they let Sparky fart in Misty’s face for a punchline. I don’t care how many good episodes Tell Your Tale has, if the series is allowed to go to that level of toilet humor. I’d rather avoid it altogether. The moment they let that happen to one of the most sympathetic and implied abused (Even if it’s mostly emotional than physical) characters that MLP has ever had is when Tell Your Tale lost me as a potential viewer. The only character in G5 that deserves what Misty got in that episode right now is Opaline. ESPECIALLY after what just happened in the Chapter 4 finale. (…And even then, fart jokes are just still too gross)

Anyway, I think that’s all I have to say on the subject. Both Misty and Sci-Twi gave me intrigue into parts of MLP I was otherwise unsure about and without their additions I may have certainly never watched much more of either Equestria Girls or the G5 series. They provided the hook I needed to continue to see more even if I remain iffy on the core concepts that have been there since the original movies in both EQG and G5. Misty’s still a little new compared to Sci-Twi, but hopefully she continues to go in interesting places with her in the story. Just as Sci-Twi did before when I suddenly did become invested in the EQG series from Friendship Games and onward. It’s almost too bad we may only have six months left before Make Your Mark is finished... but let’s hope there’s enough Misty content to satisfy everybody before it does.

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