The limits are endless while we're waiting for the next episode of season six to air. I've covered all of season six. I think I missed some episode about something, but it's so bland and forgettable that I can't remember it.
I had a randomizer pick a number between one and five, then a randomly pick an episode number. Keep Calm and Flutter On is the tenth episode of season three. I think the reason I should point this out is because the last episode I covered that wasn't season six was also about Discord.
Keep Calm and Flutter On doesn't require much introduction, as it seems to be pretty well known. While lots of people can recognize the flaws of the episode, the humor of it and the antics with Discord are the parts that we keep going to it for.
Without much more to introduce this episode off with, here we go.
It begins with two thirds of the main cast, as well as Spike, gathered in what I assume is on some hill outside of Ponyville. Apparently that's the best place to meet up with Princess Celestia, who is arriving with an "important guest." Pinkie got her hooves shined for it, and Rarity seems to stare at Pinkie's front hoof for a little bit longer than somebody else usually would.
Just a little bit....
Speculation begins on who Celestia's important guest might be. Spike points out frightfully that it might be a guest that has a deer antler, a goat leg, a bat wing, and a snake tail. To which Twilight replies with, "Yeah right. That's Discord."
Now I don't know about you guys, but something seems a bit off with Twilight's reaction. I'm not really an analyst on this stuff, so I can't say I can put into words why I think that. It just feels a bit unnatural is all.
Celestia has returned with the a still, stone clad Discord, which I guess she's just been keeping with her for some reason. I guess it makes sense considering three kids fighting near the statue when it was out in public was enough to bring Discord back, but where does one keep a stone-turned Discord?
Anyway, Twilight seems pretty pissed at her mentor for bringing Discord to them. Considering what he did to them before, I suppose that's fair enough. Celestia says that she thinks that if Discord can be reformed, his chaos magic can be of use for her if he uses it for good.
Over the course of the series, Discord's chaos magic has been needed once ever since being brought back. I'm totally okay with him being brought back, but justifying why they would do it storywise is understandably difficult. The way they come up with it here sounds like a good reason in theory, but I'm not sure if it's worth it considering what Discord did before.
And if you forgot what Discord did before, the two thirds of the main cast that Celestia is with will inform you by literally summarizing all of his actions in The Return of Harmony over the course of a very awkward moment for the viewers. It sounds really silly when all of that summary is shoved in there just to keep potential newcomers informed.
Nonetheless, Celestia believes that Fluttershy could possibly help reform Discord. She doesn't explain why she thinks that, but I guess with Fluttershy being the one representing the Element of Kindness, it's a somewhat reasonable assumption. Rainbow Dash doesn't seem amused with that assumption, showing how little faith she has in Fluttershy.
Fluttershy, along with Applejack, are at Sweet Apple Acres. There's some flooding there because some beavers set up their dam in a nearby river. It seems Applejack was nice enough to the beaver that she didn't kick down the thing's dam to prevent her trees from being waterlogged, and instead got Fluttershy to help them.
The beaver is apparently a really angry beaver with a raunchy vocabulary, according to Fluttershy's translation. Applejack eventually has to apologize for calling him a "varmit" and the beaver removes the dam and lets the river keep flowing.
So uh...
That happens.
Rainbow Dash tells them to head on over to Ponyville. Or at least, that hill on the outside of Ponyville. They get to the statue of Discord and are to use the Elements of Harmony to reanimate the draconequus. So they get on their little McGuffins after Fluttershy decides to help reform Discord.
I managed to get this disturbing screenshot of Discord being reanimated from stone form. Not disturbing, I suppose, but that's a pretty weird looking pose to begin your reanimation off from. But it has a pretty rainbow background!
Discord obviously gives Fluttershy and co. a bit of trouble and starts turning animals into little demonic monster versions of themselves. The scene is the beginning of several shenanigans that I can only imagine the animation team seemed to enjoy working on. Discord always talks to the ponies with sass and mocks them for even thinking they can reform him.
Fluttershy even tries giving Discord the stare. Discord isn't intimidated by Fluttershy's "disapproving eyeballs," though. I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembered that Fluttershy previously mentioned that she only used her stare when she absolutely had to.
But I suppose this is somewhat of a decent time to at least try it out. Obviously, it doesn't work on Discord, and he still takes Fluttershy as a joke.
At this point in the episode, you can begin to see that it's going to have some good humor in it. And I indeed find some of the jokes to be pretty funny or at least amusing.
Discord figures he can just crash at Fluttershy's house for a bit. Discord is intentionally acting like a nuisance for the sake of it, but I think most of us are just glad that Angel Bunny is the one being treated like crap for once. Everybody visits Fluttershy's place to check up on it, but all of them except Twilight decide they can't bare to watch it and walk out the door with angry faces.
Not sure why but...
Okay, so Twilight talks to Fluttershy and asks her if she can handle it. Fluttershy explains that her plan is to show Discord kindness and make him her friend. I guess that's implying that making friends with somebody just so that they'll do what you need them to is the right thing.
And it seems Fluttershy's friends really don't trust her, because they decide they should come up with a plan B. But hey, it's better to be safe than sorry. After all, the last time Discord was free, he caused serious havoc.
At this point, while her plot is showing, I have to wonder why Pinkie is so angry at Discord all of a sudden. I would think she would be able to handle Discord pretty well. Just to remind you, this was before all it took to distract her was a red balloon floating in the air. I mean, both Pinkie and Discord seem to enjoy some fun every now and then, while Pinkie would likely be capable knowing when Discord would try to pull a fast one on her. Anything he tries out, Pinkie would probably be able to use her logic-defying antics in order to counter act it. It's just an extra thought.
Twilight announces that she does indeed know the perfect thing that can function as a plan B, and so they all head off.
Discord, meanwhile, is eating paper. The funny thing is, I actually eat paper. Not a lot of it at once, but I maybe chew a little piece that I may have torn off, chew it, and then digest it. It's really silly, but I can kind of connect with this scene. I hope I'm the only one who can, though.
Fluttershy walks in on Discord eating paper and figures that as long as the latter is comfortable, nothing's wrong with it.
It turns out that the paper Discord was eating was the plan B that Twilight had in mind. It was a reformation spell. I'm not going to lie, that's a bit stupid. First off, Celestia could have had Twilight cast it on Discord as a statue and saved everyone a lot of time. Second off, a spell that magically reforms anyone just isn't right. It's altering one's true self with magic just so that whoever cast the spell can have whoever they cast the spell on to do what they need them to. I think you all know what I'm saying.
Either way, a reforming spell is too easy a way out and would be a frustrating way for the problem to be solved.
After Discord is finished eating the reformation spell, which I guess there aren't any copies of in somewhere like the Canterlot Library- (unless Discord ate those too), he can be found uprooting Fluttershy's cottage-tree and spinning it around in the air. That's what he does, though.
Fluttershy is a bit uncomfortable by the way her entire home is being messed with, but Discord reminds her that she did previously tell him to make himself comfortable. Fluttershy decides it's a fair enough of a point, and Discord begins talking to the former about how she is so much more understanding than her other "nasty friends."
At this point, it's obvious that Discord is trying to manipulate Fluttershy, but Fluttershy still goes through with trying to show him some kindness to try to reform him. Twilight and Spike are outside to check on Discord. When Twilight mentions she wanted to use a reformation spell, Fluttershy doesn't really react to it much. Instead, she reveals that was likely the paper that Discord was eating. Obviously, Twilight isn't too thrilled about her plot device being eaten like that.
Fluttershy proposes that she should show the progress she is making with Discord by inviting them all to a dinner party at her cottage later that evening. Of course, once Discord grounds the cottage. Twilight reluctantly agrees and she and the rest of the main cast arrive at the cottage that evening.
So the dinner party clearly doesn't go well. Discord pulls off some more shenanigans with his powers. He turns the objects at the dinner table against the main cast, bar Fluttershy, once mostly Rainbow Dash begins trash talking him. Rainbow Dash is clearly taking Fluttershy for an idiot as she tries desperately to tell the latter that Discord is manipulating her.
I guess if I were that mad at Discord, I would feel the same way. It's just a shame Rainbow Dash doesn't have a lot of confidence in Fluttershy. Or maybe she just doesn't have confidence in the reforming plan as a whole. Either way, not a lot of ponies are in favor of Discord as he makes the soup tureen spit soup everywhere and has the candles poke and pathetically attack Rainbow Sash.
Fluttershy still cuts Discord slack, and all of her friends start whining about it. She tells them that she sees Discord isn't perfect, but that none of them are giving the guy a chance. She also states that she is Discord's friend, and he seems really touched by that.
I didn't really think Discord would care about friends. You'd think he'd just use Fluttershy being his friend to his advantage. And yeah, he does do that, but he also goes through an emotional change knowing he has a friend in Fluttershy.
Angel Bunny comes in and has to play charades to communicate that there is flooding at Sweet Apple Acres. Of course, Discord receives the blame, and it's... kinda his fault.
The beavers that Discord essentially turned into demon rodents earlier have built another dam in the same location as before. According to Fluttershy's interpretations, it seems that the beavers still have some coarse language, but I doubt Discord's doing had any part in that.
Rainbow Dash confronts Fluttershy, and tries to get to Fluttershy by asking her if she can see Discord is behind all of this. Of course, Fluttershy does, and she is completely aware of Discord trying to manipulate her. She asks if they take her for a "silly and gullible fool."
Here are the responses she gets from her dearest friends:
But Fluttershy is ready to see if her plan to show Discord kindness to reform him has worked. She asks him to fix the flooding at Sweet Apple Acres.
He doesn't.
Fluttershy has made a promise not to use her Element of Harmony against Discord in exchange for him fixing everything. Instead, he turns Sweet Apple Acres into an ice rink, and that doesn't make Fluttershy too happy.
Spike goes up to Fluttershy and give the pegasus her respective Element of Harmony, with Twilight insisting that Discord either fixes everything or goes back to being turned into stone. Fluttershy stays true to her promise, though, much to her friends' dismay.
Fluttershy accepts the ice skates Discord gives to her, but Discord declares himself the victor because now that Fluttershy won't use her Element of Harmony against him, he's free to do whatever he wants. All because he and Fluttershy are friends now.
Fluttershy angrily tell Discord that she is not friends with him, but Discord doesn't really care. He is basically free now, so it would take something crazy for him to show some respect.
He kinda just... reminds himself that he will lose the only friend he ever made in Fluttershy.
And then he just fixes it and becomes good. That was fast. It's probably what the ending of the episode is most infamous for. Just how fast it is. Most people think that they probably ran out of time and had to make it quick. That's understandable, but it still results in an unnaturally quick reformation. It was really only built up once at that one moment during the dinner party when Discord was touched to have made a friend.
So Discord pledges to Celestia that he'll be good and Fluttershy has him say "Friendship is magic."
I think I flinched a little when he said that.
And that's it.
The episode is not perfect at all. The reform is, again, a bit rushed due to time constraints. While it isn't a problem in this episode in particular, Discord's chaos magic is only put to use once in the future. Other than that, we get him ruining everybody's Gala as a result from being jealous or interrupting family time with Cadance and Twilight. And it slightly bothered me how little faith Fluttershy's friends had in her. To be fair, you can argue that they were more just against the whole reforming plan, and that considering what happened to them last time Discord was free was indeed pretty bad, you can sort of understand where the hostility comes from.
The big important thing about the episode is that Discord is brought back into the series again. Maybe because of fan service, maybe because they wanted the star power back in the form of John de Lancie. I'm sure the reason is out there but I'm not going to dedicate that much to these posts. This episode is either to thank or to blame for the good or flawed things Discord would go on to do later in the series, respectively. That's not the episode's fault entirely.
It's just that it can be easy to resent this episode for what it did because Discord as a character is very shaky. He proves to be a big jerk and a terrible friend in the future, pinning all of his actions on simply trying to teach the characters a lesson. Time will tell if we can get a decent episode with Discord in it that isn't a two-parter.
That said, I'd say I'm about done with this monster. Maybe expect more Episode Posts outside of the ones on Saturday. I got motivated to make this one after watching some Silver Quill. I guess these will come out whenever, and will always be made on Saturdays. During the upcoming hiatus, I will go back to some older episodes, as well.
Have a good one.
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