Virtue is Magic

Mild Spoiler Alert

It's a little over a week now since the screening of "Twilight's Kingdom", the two part, season four finale of My Little Pony: Friendship: is Magic. I'm inclined to regard season four as the best season yet and I'll certainly go to the mattresses to defend the view that this was the best season finale so far.

Why do I love MLP;FiM? I could give a great many reasons: I love the witty dialogue, I love the animation, I love the songs. Having said all that, there is one reason, above all that I love this show. I love My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic because it is a show about virtue.

Virtue has, oddly enough, become a little bit of a dirty word in the modern world. For many, the word virtue suggests a world of chastity belts, repressed desires and people walking about looking po-faced and serious and never, ever doing anything fun. The ancient Greek Master, Aristotle, however, and the tradition following, him, took a different view of things. For Aristotle, and the tradition following him, virtue describes those habits which tend to lead to greater human flourishing. For the Aristotelian school, there is a happiness the properly follows from human nature lived to its fullest and the virtues are the habits which promote the best chance of that happiness.

This is, in my judgement at least, what MLP:FiM is all about. Throughout the series, the mane (misspelling deliberate per fan convention) six ponies (and their dragon sidekick) learn a variety of life lessons which lead to them developing those qualities of character which lead to a free, happy and fulfilled life. I have no idea whether any of the writers or producers of the show have actually read Aristotle or not, but, whether consciously or unconsciously, they have produced a profoundly Aristotelian parable for life.

So, what was so great about season four? To back track, at the beginning of the first season, the mane six discovered that harmony is maintained in their kingdom of Equestria through six "Elements of Harmony". Through various trials, each of these six becomes mystically linked to one of the six elements: Apple Jack to honesty, Fluttershy to kindness, Pinky Pie to laughter, Rainbow Dash to loyalty, Rarity to generosity and Twilight Sparkle (my personal favourite) to the element of magic.

At the beginning of season four, each of the ponies, to prevent Equestria being over-run by chaos, the ponies had to sacrifice their connection to the elements. In response to their sacrifice, a magical trunk with six key-holes was revealed. Over the course of the season, each of the six mane ponies faced a situation in which she was tempted to act contrary to the element to which she was formerly linked. In each case, the pony in question overcame the temptation, acted in accord with her element and learnt a valuable lesson about the nature of her element as well as a lesson about life more generally.

In the season finale, Equestria faces a new danger, worse than anything it has faced before. The solution to the crisis turns out to lie in the chest revealed at the beginning of the season and the keys to the chest turn out to be linked to the lessons each pony has learnt about her element.

This is why I love this show. At the end of the day, it's show that send the message that the world can be saved and we can all live happy lives by following the path of virtue. Nothing else compares.

 

Talking About Ponies

Hi, my name is Jason, I’m 37, I’m male and I’m a passionate fan of a show targeted at pre-teen girls. About two years ago, friends of mine, told me that I really needed to watch the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I was, skeptical at first, but they were insistent and I decided I should at least give it a try. Within a month I had joined the growing tribe of the Bronies (a portmanteau of bro and pony).

To give background, My Little Pony is a range of toy ponies made by Hasbro Toys. They first appeared in the 1980s and have since gone through four major incarnations (known as “generations” by the fans.) The cartoons which accompanied the third generation ponies have been widely derided as essentially just extended infomercials for the toys with boring stories and nothing resembling character development (the one gen three episode I could bring myself to watch certainly supported this conclusion.) When, in 2010, Hasbro released the fourth generation of ponies, they took the radical step of hiring people, most notably Lauren Faust, of Power Puff Girls fame, with actual experience making quality children’s television. The result has been a show which not only charmed its target audience but won for its self a wide number of fans of all ages and given rise to talk to “the Brony Phenomenon.”

Season Three Spoiler Warning. All of this is background to this article by blogger Amanda Duncil. Ms. Duncil criticizes the conclusion to season three as well as the soon to be released Equestria Girls spin-off movie and related toy line.

Concerning the conclusion to season three, in which mane (misspelling intentional per fan convention) character Twilight Sparkles becomes a Princess, Ms. Duncil writes:

I didn't know that the ultimate end goal of learning was to suddenly become royalty. I'm still somewhat concerned that it sends mixed messages to little girls. Implying that all girls want to grow up to become princesses is destructive… I was under the impression that My Little Pony wanted to shake gender barriers, not reinforce them.

I can see where she is coming from, but I think her concern here is a bit misplaced. Twilight doesn’t become a Princess through the standard means of marrying a Prince (actually, that trope is reversed; her brother becomes a Prince by marrying a princess who earned her royal title.) nor by the other fairytale means of discovering that she is a king’s long lost daughter. Twilight’s royal title is bestowed up on, not by any pony laws but by reality itself. Actually, for someone unfamiliar with the show, the term “princess” is misleading. In Equestria, royalty is apparently not a matter of blood or even of purely political authority. When a Pony reaches a sufficient level of virtue and magical ability she transformed into an alicorn, a pony with pegasus wings, a unicorn horn and enhanced mystical control over reality. The Princesses of Equestria are not merely political rulers; they are responsible for such tasks as ensuring the sun and moon rise and set. What happened to Twilight, while it is called “becoming a princess” would more accurately be described as a sort of quasi-deification. (So, Jason, how do you, as a Catholic, feel about such obviously pagan themes in children’s entertainment? I’m fine with them, but that’s another post.)

I feel much more sympathy with the concerns which Ms. Duncil raises over the upcoming Equestria Girls movie. I’m looking forward to the movie and expect it to be fun, but I think it’s reasonable to feel uneasy about the images of the mane characters which we have seen thus far. I’m particularly unhappy about the look of Rainbow Dash. For those unfamiliar with the show, Rainbow is a tom-boy, indeed, the ultimate tomboy. Take a look at the Equestria Girls picture linked on Ms. Duncil’s page, I’m not seeing anything remotely suggestive of the personality I’ve come to know and love.

I’m still hopeful the movie will be worth watching, but I agree this raises cause for concern.