Hello & welcome to the Trotting Through The Snow celebration here as I review the second Hearth's Warming episode to come from the world of My Little Pony. After a lack of Holiday material from MLP in the past few years save for an awful Equestira Girls Holiday comic, this year we are given a new holiday episode, a new Christmas album and a brand new holiday anthology comic. Now seeing as I've not had time to read the comic, that review will have to wait until next year but before I leave for Christmas vacation, I will be giving you a look at the brand new holiday episode from MLP and a look at the new Christmas album, which save for Pinkie's take on 12 Days of Christmas, Hasbro was gracious enough to upload all of the songs to their Hasbro Studios Shorts page. With that out of the way, let's begin.
Episode Title
Hearthbreakers
I feel like the episode title is referring to how AJ can't cope wit the fact that the Pies have different traditions than that of her family.
The Plot
We open on Ponyville all decorated for the holidays and it's such a gorgeous sight to behold. We then cut in to The Castle of Friendship as we see how Twilight and Spike celebrate Hearth's Warming and Applejack and Pinkie Pie come to extend holiday wishes before saying goodbye as they catch the train to the Pie Farm.
On the train ride to the Pie Rock Farm, we see how much these might-be, we don't know for sure cousins are excited about the prospect of spending time together and bringing their families together as one family. This is after we get a gorgeous recreation of the first Hearth's Warming in candy as toldy by AJ to explain to her little sis what the holiday is truly about. A lesson that she'll soon have to remember.
Now to quote the MLP Wiki, this scene was originally meant to be done with real candy.
Real candy was originally going to be used during the chocolate animation scene, but proved too difficult and time consuming.
Also, if you pay attention to this scene, you'll notice that that two of the dessert items references the past Hearth's Warming as one of them is called Chancellor Puddinghead Pudding. At the rock farm train station, we see Applejack fret over the fear that the Apples and the Pies will not get along. Which as we will soon learn isn't an unfounded concern but Pinkie with the help of some strange Pinkie math convinces her that the Apples and Pies will get along just fine.
Just then Maud comes to pick up her younger sister and their guests. And I gotta be honest, I was less than ecstatic about her return. As I'm probably the only Brony that didn't like Maud Pie (the character or the episode). Sorry but dry humor doesn't work for me but thankfully, she wasn't as annoying here as she was in season 4. Though that was in part balanced out by Limestone Pie. Who now has the title for most annoying Pie sister. And just as the Apples and Pies meet, we see how different these two families truly are.
Others have already described Pinkie's parents as being well... Amish, Limestone as being overly aggressive and Marble being shyer than Flutters. There isn't much to her family at first but that seems to work in the episode's favor as to show the difference between the Pies and the Apples. And this is when we learn of Holder's Boulder and how it will have an importance later on in the episode.
And later that night, Pinkie tells her cousins to get settled before dinner and we hear the Apples talk excitedly about Hearth's Warming dinner and what to expect. And well, it's not exactly what AJ or the Apple clan were expecting.
And... I'm about to defend AJ here. Yes, I know what I just typed but here's the deal, everyone has been calling out Applejack for being a poor guest and rightly so but... no one has called Pinkie Pie either as she gave her cousin false information saying that the Apples and Pies do everything exactly alike. So, it's not unreasonable for AJ to expect the traditions that she has grown up with. Now to be fair to Pink Party Pony, she may have remembered Hearth's Warming at her farm, differently than it actually was. But Pinkie filled AJ's head with expectations of what she knows Hearth's Warming to be and while, it wasn't right for her or any of the other Apples to complain about the Pie family dinner, it didn't come out of nowhere. And seriously, who would want to eat rock soup? Fred Flintstone ate better than that. We next see them making their Hearth's Warming dolls. Something that was foreshadowed at the beginning of the episode as we saw Twilight's and Spike's.
And after hearing about Twilight and Spike's first Hearth's Warming together, I hope someone wrote a story about that. But back to the review at hand, AJ is baffled to learn that the dolls are made out of rocks. And then we get more of the Pie traditions as we learn that another tradition is typically for the youngest pony to raise the Hearth's Warming flag but the Pies do a scavenger hunt for it and whoever finds it, gets to raise it. And the same is true of their presents and AJ thinks this sounds awful. And later that night, she talks to the other Apples about how Pinkie have never had a real Hearth's Warming.
And the next morning, we see that AJ has decorated the farm up in traditional Hearth's Warming decorations. And well... The Pies don't take too kindly to this.
And while Applejack was in the wrong here for doing this without The Pies' permission and trying to push her traditions on them paints her in a bad light, I also feel that The Pies' reaction again while understandable, I do think that they went a bit too far but at the same time, I kinda feel that was the point to show that both AJ and the Pies were handling this situation poorly. I think nowhere is this more apparent than in this exchange right here.
Pinkie Pie: ...Yeah, this is gonna be great! All the stuff she's said. Right, everypony?
Igneous Rock: Pinkamena Diane Pie! Truly thou cannot favor this madness!
Pinkie Pie: Well, I wanna be one big family!
Limestone Pie: But what about what we usually do?!
Pinkie Pie: I, um, well, I-I don't know! [tearing up] Don't make me choose!
Applejack: I didn't mean to cause a fuss... Why don't we just open presents around the flag pole? It'll be fun, you'll see!
Poor Pinkie, she wants to please her biological family but she also wants to make her cousins happy as well and you can see the conflict here and her being put on the spot was the wrong way for her biological family to handle this. It's understandable but Pinkie had nothing to do with setting up the decorations as it was all Applejack's doing. I think the biggest line that drove home this point was Limestone's line in response to Pinkie wanting the Apples and Pies be one big happy family.
But what about what we usually do?!
I completely understand Limestone's line here as AJ overstepped her rights as a guest but again lashing out at Pinkie was the wrong way to handle this but it is is understandable as Pinkie did invite the Apples as her guests but her being put on the spot by her family did make it appear as though, they went a step too far. Though things only get worse as we are soon informed by Maud that AJ planted her flag on a fault line and that causes Holder's Boulder to fall.
And it's right after this incident that the Pies ask the Apples to leave and according to Limestone, they wanted to leave by pushing their traditions onto them. We see later AJ and Pinkie in the same cave from the previous day feeling dejected about how nothing went as planned.
But AJ must leave as she hears the train and on the train, Granny Smith explains the importance of Holder's Boulder to her granddaughter.
Granny Smith: You want to know why Holder's Boulder's so danged important? [exhales] Well, now their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Holder Cobblestone – he found that boulder in a dragon's nest, older than time itself! He built the family farm around it, even though it was just an ordinary rock. It always brought them good luck.
Applejack: Aw, crickets! That is important! I got so caught up in the things they were doin', I never asked why they did 'em!
This is the wake-up call that the cowpony needed as she finally realizes the importance of the holiday and that just because the Pies have different traditions, doesn't make them bad. Just different. And there is nothing wrong with that. We then later see that the Pies are trying to move Holder's Boulder back up the quarry and they are having difficulties but that is until the Apples come into help and Pinkie suggests that this be their first combined Apple-Pie tradition. Yeah, I don't think it's gonna catch on, Pinks.
And the episode ends with the Apples and Pies sharing each other's traditions as they come to understand that while they celebrate Hearth's Warming differently, they can still learn form one another and that this is what they should've been doing in the first place.
I really liked this episode. I found it quite enjoyable and perhaps it's me but I think that I may like this Hearth's Warming episode more than season 2's.
Characters
Main Characters
Applejack voiced by Ashleigh Ball
I really liked Applejack here in this episode and on a whole, season 5 made me actually like AJ and enjoy her episodes. I think the big thing that made her so likable was that while what she was doing was wrong, there was no malicious intent. Her intentions were pure but that doesn't excuse what she did.
Pinkie Pie voiced by Andrea Libman
Poor Pinkie. Man, I've not felt bad for Pinkie in a long time. She just wanted everyone to be happy but she was stuck in the middle between her biological family and what they wanted and her cousin family and what they expected. She was stuck in the middle because she wanted to make everyone happy.
Supporting Characters
Granny Smith, Big Mac, and Apple Bloom voiced by Tabitha St. Germain, Peter New, & Michelle Creber
The Apples did fair just as poorly as AJ in how they acted but I go back to what their expectations were. Though by the end, they did come around and Granny Smith towards the end of the episode did seem more understanding about the Pies' traditions.
Igneous Rock, Cloudy Quartz, Maud, Marble, & Marble Pie voiced by Terry Klassen, Andrea Libman, & Ingrid Nilson
Now as you already know, we've already met Maud last season but the books had already introduced us to Pinkie's other family members in Pinkie Pie and The Rockin' Ponypalooza.
Which was released two years ago and it dealt with her parents about to lose the rock farm and they came to Ponyville to get help from Princess Twilight but wouldn't take any help from Pinkie because she couldn't be serious. And while it's been two years since I've read that book, the way Pinkie's parents were portrayed in the show lines up with how they were in the book but as for Limestone and Marble, they didn't get much page time from what I recall. So, I just have to go off how they were portrayed in this episode and as for those two, I'm not a fan of Limestone as she is just way too overly aggressive for my tastes. And Marble is a super shy pony that I think even Fluttershy would wonder what's going on. Seriously, she's shyer than season 1 Fluttershy.
My Final Thoughts
Overall, I greatly enjoyed this episode and can't wait to watch it again in a Hearth's Warming double feature with Hearth's Warming Eve. Though as I said, I do think that this episode is slightly better than that episode as while that explored the origins of the holiday. This explored more how ponies celebrate the holiday in current times and hit upon traditions that are celebrated in current times and the big takeaway from this episode is that while people have different traditions, that doesn't make them bad and we should take the time to come and understand their traditions. Join me next time as I close out Trotting Through The Snow as I look at...
It's A Pony Kind of Christmas
No comments:
Post a Comment