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Season 7, Episode 10

It’s been a while since my last MLP review, hasn’t it? While I’m unemployed I need something to do when bored, and working on my blog is one such thing. I wonder how much of this post series I can get done in 2025. Also, today is my 26th birthday!

And just to recap, I will no longer be releasing my MLP reviews only on Fridays, but instead on the day I finish them. I’ll continue having all of my posts cover either one or two episodes.

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Season 7 Episode 10: A Royal Problem

In five words: Starlight swaps princesses’ cutie marks.

Premise: The Cutie Map sends Starlight Glimmer on a mission to Celestia and Luna’s castle because they haven’t been getting along as of late. To help them see eye to eye, she swaps the sisters’ cutie marks.

Detailed run-through:

It’s been over a year since I last reviewed a MLP episode, so forgive me if I struggle to get back into my groove. But I will try! The good thing, this is one of the fan favorite episodes of season 7.

To start the episode, the map sends Starlight Glimmer alone on a mission to Celestia and Luna’s castle. Twilight Sparkle responds with some good old Twilighting, doubled by her motherly treatment of Starlight.

Twilight Sparkle: Don’t worry. For all we know, it’s something small. Like, maybe the cooks are fighting over who has the best butternut squash soup. Or the royal hairdressers are fighting over a comb.
Spike: Or you know, maybe the royal sisters aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on something
Twilight Sparkle: NO! That’s just crazy. Luna and Celestia would never fight. … Again.

Thinking about it, it makes sense the map would send Starlight to solve this conflict for multiple reasons. It’s not just because of Starlight’s brash impulsiveness as the episode later discusses. The Mane 6 and Spike wouldn’t see the sisters’ conflict from an unbiased perspective, because Celestia knows them (especially Twilight) much better than Luna does. And the Cutie Mark Crusaders would be just as biased towards Luna. The map needs a neutral party to solve their rivalry. Moreover, I’m sure the map knows that last time Celestia and Luna got into a conflict, Luna got banished to the moon, and that had better not reoccur.

A third reason is that while Luna has expressed tons of trauma over her behavior as Nightmare Moon, I can’t recall Celestia showing the same level of guilt about banishing Luna. Celestia’s mindset always seemed to be that it was cruel, but she had no other choice.

Starlight arrives at the princesses’ palace and both of them claim through gritted teeth that everything is perfect as usual, then comes the theme song.

In the room Starlight is staying at, Twilight Sparkle uses a magic spell to appear in the form of a music box figurine. That would be the pony equivalent of her calling Starlight’s cell phone to see how she’s doing. Then Starlight displays an admirable moment of emotional intelligence:

Starlight Glimmer: You know how some ponies say nothing’s wrong but you can tell something’s definitely wrong?
Twilight Sparkle: No…? (smiles nervously)
Starlight Glimmer: That’s basically what the princesses did when I said there was a friendship problem, only they did it more… regally.

I think Starlight Glimmer has a degree of sass and ability to pick up on when others are being weird that none of the Mane 6 have. Part of it is because she’s a late addition to the cast, but Spike has a similar ability to pick up on his friends’ cues. She’s always been a very observant pony, which makes her both a good villain and hero.

I’m curious how you bite into an uncut pineapple. Is the skin even edible?

Celestia: Good morning, sister!
Celestia: Join us?
Luna: Too tired. (bites pineapple)
Luna: Please excuse me.
Starlight Glimmer: Wow. Last night must have been really hard on her.
Celestia: Perhaps, but… she is like this every morning.

I’ve noticed that Lewis and Songco like writing episodes involving a conflict where both parties aren’t quite in the right. They wrote two such episodes about new characters (The Hooffields and the McColts, Top Bolt), and now they’re doing it with existing characters. I feel like when writing this episode, they thought about why Celestia and Luna might still be mad at each other, and they did such a good job with it. It makes perfect sense that after multiple years where Luna lived in Equestria, the sisters still have some unresolved bad blood.

Starlight Glimmer: So, I think Luna may be hurting her sister’s feelings. Without even realizing it.
Twilight Sparkle: Poor Celestia. That’s so sweet that she makes her sister pancakes every morning.
Starlight Glimmer: She’s your mentor. I think you might be biased.

This little passage shows something I love about Starlight Glimmer: her character brings out the flaws in the other Mane 6 members, particularly Twilight. I love how shamelessly biased Twilight Sparkle is towards Celestia’s side of the conflict, because it proves the writers have a good understanding of her character. As for Celestia, the writers not only have a good understanding of her, but also successfully invent new aspects of her personality.

Luna reveals that she puts lavender flowers in the hallways each night to help the residents of the castle sleep better, and grumbles that Celestia never notices or cares. I can actually relate to these sisters’ conflict, because it reminds me of the conflicts I’ve had with siblings regarding, for example, cooking food or keeping the house clean. Since I’m the oldest sibling of three, I see myself in Celestia and my siblings more in Luna. It’s a very good sign that Lewis and Songco made the royal sisters easy to relate to, because it proves Celestia and Luna are gaining depth as characters.

Back in her bedroom, Starlight tells Twilight her idea is to confront Celestia and Luna about this situation, but Twilight thinks this is a horrible idea because knowing the sisters’ past, that would probably lead to violence. I wonder if it would’ve been possible for Starlight to disable the sisters’ alicorn magic? Maybe that could’ve made their argument less physically destructive, but it would probably lead to a hoof fight or something. Now, we do know Starlight has a way to alter other ponies’ abilities, and it involves messing with their butt tattoos. It turns out that’s exactly what she’ll do.

Starlight Glimmer: Princess Luna, tell Celestia how you feel about the fact that she never acknowledges the work that you put into lining the hallway with lavender every night.
Luna: I– well… it’s not the best feeling.
Luna: I’m sorry I never noticed that you make fruit faces on pancakes, but nights are long for me. You might be a morning pony, but I am half asleep.
Celestia: You think I don’t get tired? I’m exhausted! Oh, I apologize for not noticing flowers in a wall sconce, but by the time I get to retire for the night, I can barely see straight!

Fake apologies are the worst and I hate them. It’s when someone says “I’m sorry for hurting your feelings, BUT”. The key word here is “but”, because it’s always followed by an excuse I never asked for that defeats the point of the apology. I may hate fake apologies in real life, but I love how they’re written in the episode, because they make both characters believable. I feel like the scenes in Slice of Life where Celestia and Luna argued were leading to an entire episode about their conflict and I love it.

I love the way the animators make Celestia put on a fake smile.

Celestia: Even so, I still make an effort to smile.
Luna: Like smiling is so hard.

Now here’s something I side with Luna on. We find out later that unlike Celestia, she has no idea how to smile in photos, and that’s something I can relate to. I knew how to smile in school photos when I was a kid, but then I somehow lost that skill when I was 10 or so.

It’s good that Twilight warned Starlight about a repeat of the Nightmare Moon conflict, because the moment Luna’s voice seeps into her villainous side, Starlight Glimmer does this:

Yep, that’s right: Celestia and Luna’s cutie marks have been swapped. Some fans might want to analyze the cutie mark logic in here, but I don’t care about that, because it’s more interesting to analyze the scenes that this leads to. For now I’ll just say this is a much better implementation of the “swapped cutie marks” concept than Magical Mystery Cure. It helps that only two ponies’ marks have been swapped instead of five, so this fits more nicely into a 22-minute episode. This swap is also a good way to learn more about what the princesses’ cutie marks mean. We’ve already learned that Celestia knows how to put on a sunny image even when she’s had a bad day, and that Luna is an expert in all things sleep, so the swap will teach us even more about their marks.

Celestia: What have you done?
Starlight Glimmer: I… went with my gut?
Luna: Switch our cutie marks back this instant!
Starlight Glimmer: My apologies, your majesties, but… I can’t, even if I wanted to.

Note the phrase, “even if I wanted to”. Even after seeing Celestia and Luna mad at her, Starlight truly believes swapping their cutie marks was the right idea, even if she knows others won’t feel the same. This is a commonality between her pre- and post-reformation: she insists her insane ideas are for the greater good.

Starlight reveals that the swap lasts 24 hours and can’t be reversed, and the sisters are convinced they’ll have an easy day. She tells the sisters this is a good choice, not that they had one, which is another funny little relapse of her villainous side.

Twilight unsurprisingly freaks out about what Starlight just did, and I love Starlight’s expression as she hears all this Twilighting. She knew Twilight wouldn’t like the idea and is waiting for the freakout to end. A royal guard asks her what’s going on and she says she’s just reading an exciting book. If we assume the guard can’t hear Twilight Sparkle, then that might actually be a believable story.

And so, Celestia and Luna’s royal duties have been swapped for the day. When Luna announces it, the royal guards are a bit confused among each other but don’t question it. Would it have been better if the royal guards did question this change? Not at all, because that would distract from the point of the episode.

Luna: So, what is first on my dear sister’s to-do list?
Starlight Glimmer: It says you have a few public appearances. Store openings, judging the royal rose contest, you know, that sort of thing.
Luna: Oh, I knew today would be easy, but I didn’t think it would be that easy.

I find it interesting that Luna assumes it takes zero effort to do a public appearance at events. Most people would gulp at the sight of this checklist and think “oh god, I have so much shit to do today”. But Luna is still out of the loop on society, and that’s why fans love her.

Oh look, here’s toothpaste lady Minuette and her two sidekicks!

It turns out Luna doesn’t even know how to use scissors for some reason. Did those simply not exist before she got banished to the moon? Or is she bad at using tools in general? You know, I bet she’s awful at using wrenches, screwdrivers, and many other such tools and can’t really help herself. Maybe Celestia once spent an hour trying to teach her sister how to use a can opener, and Luna never managed to master it.

Luna’s last task is to pose for a photo at Twilight Sparkle’s childhood school, but the last minute her smile breaks into a strangely nasty expression. I have to wonder why the photographer didn’t ask for a second take, because that’s normally what you do when someone’s expression in a group photo doesn’t look right.

It’s not your fault, Luna. It’s those newspaper editors’ fault for having no quality control.
I think Featherweight needs to get sprayed with ink again.

Because the photographer didn’t do a do-over, we’re left with a surprisingly nasty outcome:

Luna: “Princess Luna Unhappy with Student Fundraiser”? But I wasn’t unhappy!
Starlight Glimmer: Um, you are scowling.
Luna: I didn’t mean to. I’ve been smiling all day.  My cheeks hurt. I stopped for one second and that’s when he took the picture.
Starlight Glimmer: Guess smiling all day isn’t as easy as you thought?
Luna: It says here that because of me, the school didn’t raise enough funds to go on a field trip. I didn’t mean for that to happen!

Oh, I feel for Luna. People misread my emotions in pictures all the time because I forget to express my actual emotions when people take a picture of me. And boy does it hurt to be misinterpreted.

Things get even worse for Luna when her next task is to dispel rumors about timberwolves. She announces in a dramatic voice that there are no timberwolves, and the ponies who came by run away in fear.

Luna: I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stop thinking about those poor students. Normally I have all the time and solitude I need to work through my problems at my own pace.
Starlight Glimmer: Well, your sister doesn’t get that luxury.

Swapping cutie marks is the best possible way to get insight into Celestia and Luna’s daily lives. Getting through task after task with no time for reflecting on problems is a day as usual for Celestia, but we would never have learned that if it weren’t for someone else filling her shoes. Next up is a town hall which lasts three hours and leaves Luna exhausted; it probably doesn’t help that Luna doesn’t know any of these ponies personally, whereas Celestia likely does.

Celestia: Oh, hello Starlight. I don’t know about you, but I feel very well-rested.
Celestia: Where’s Luna?
Starlight Glimmer: Oh, uh, she already turned in for the night.
Celestia: Did she now? It seems my duties were harder than my sister expected.

Celestia is being a total jerk to Luna right now, and in the context of this episode, that’s a very good thing. Everyone is a jerk to their siblings sometimes, especially if they’re the older sibling. And everyone likes to prove they’re the superior sibling sometimes, unless they’re an only child. I believe that every major or recurring character in any work of media should be a jerk at least once, because otherwise they wouldn’t be interesting characters. I wouldn’t love Twilight Sparkle this much if she wasn’t a jerk sometimes, and the same now goes for Celestia and Luna. Big Macintosh is a comparable example, since he’s also the oldest sibling: we got hints of him being a smug older sibling in Pinkie Apple Pie, then he was a total jerk to Applejack in Where the Apple Lies and it was glorious. Not because Applejack deserves to get bullied, but because it makes Big Mac a more interesting character.

Note that Celestia and Luna’s magic colors have been swapped.

Now it’s Celestia’s turn to get through Luna’s checklist. It seems short and easy, because all she has to do is watch over the dream realm and protect ponies from their nightmares. That’s not hard at all… right? Celestia slowly realizes this will be a challenge but tries to convince itself it won’t, because she doesn’t want to think she isn’t the superior sibling.

Celestia’s attempt at substituting the princess of the night begins with a montage of little bubbles showing various ponies’ dreams, like Cadance having a DJ party with her baby daughter, Discord having a pillow fight with the Smooze, the Flim Flam brothers bathing in money, and a few others that will go into the miscellaneous notes. Not Derpy though—she’s too important for that bullet list.

We last saw the Twilight Scepter in The Gift of the Maud Pie, and now we’ve come to the exciting conclusion of this arc. After a burglar stole the scepter from Lemon Hearts’ home and put it for sale at a Manehattan street fair, Dr. Whooves purchased the scepter as a birthday gift for his good friend Derpy Hooves. Derpy absolutely loves the scepter now and uses it to pretend not to be just a boring old princess, but the queen of Equestria. She would never tell anyone about her queenly fantasies, which is why we only see it in her dreams.

If we’re to assume that Derpy really does own the scepter now, then she’s a fitting choice to keep it. A meme character owning a meme object, is there a more perfect combination?

The episode then goes to freaky territory as we see Starlight Glimmer have a nightmare about her cutie mark swap going wrong. I wonder how much this scene would’ve scared me if I had watched it as a kid? Well, I was 18 years old when this episode came out and watched it when I was 21, but I can’t help but wonder anyway. I say this because there are some SpongeBob episodes I simply could not watch as a kid because the scenes were too nightmarish, so the same may have held for  this episode. These scenes obviously don’t freak me out as much as an adult, but one scene later in the episode still very much unsettles me, which proves how great the show is at appealing to adults.

Now THIS is an awesome and fitting place to bring back Nightmare Moon.

Celestia: Starlight, I’m here now. Tell me what’s wrong.
Starlight Glimmer: Going with my gut was the wrong call. I was supposed to bring you two closer together, but I’ve only driven you apart! If you two can’t see why you need each other, then—
Nightmare Moon: Then I am back! (evil laugh)
Celestia: Don’t worry, Starlight. I know how to handle Nightmare Moon.
Daybreaker: Yes, but can you handle… ME?

Celestia now has an evil alter ego as a counterpart to Nightmare Moon, named Daybreaker. Fans immediately loved her and probably started writing fanfiction about her right away. Tabitha St. Germain knows exactly how to dramatize Luna’s voice for Nightmare Moon while still keeping the Luna inside her, and Nicole Oliver admirably does the exact same with Daybreaker. She has a totally villainous voice, but you can still hear the wise ruler of Equestria inside.

Daybreaker: If Luna can turn into Nightmare Moon, you can absolutely turn into me: Daybreaker! The better, prettier, and more powerful version of you.
Celestia: No. I’ll never turn into you!
Daybreaker: Deep inside, you know how powerful you are. You don’t need Luna.
Celestia: That’s not true. Even when we were apart, I knew I needed her.
Daybreaker: Hahaha! Oh, please! You don’t need anypony. You can do whatever you want. And all you have to do is get rid of anypony who stands in your way!

Daybreaker’s evil speech makes me think that although she’s a character exclusive to dreams, I bet that she existed in at least one of the alternate timelines created in The Cutie Re-Mark. I wonder if Daybreaker played a part in killing everyone in Equestria in the wasteland timeline? Would she go that far? I’d hope not, but we can’t say for sure.

Daybreaker: I never should have banished you to the moon. I SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED YOU!

You know, “destroy” is in many cases the best alternative to the word “kill”, especially in this line. I could imagine a villain in an action movie less kid-friendly than MLP saying “I should have destroyed you”, and it wouldn’t sound out of place. The Perfect Pear is by the same pair of writers and similarly avoids saying “die” without it sounding awkward.

Turns out Daybreaker can even breathe fire! I dread to imagine what havoc she must have caused in alternate timelines.

Then again, dragons can all breathe fire too. She’d probably have a really good duel with one of them.

The next minute or two consists of anime battle scenes that really manage to hype me up, even though they’re entirely the products of Starlight’s imagination. Still unaware she’s dreaming, Starlight Glimmer blames herself and she says Equestria is doomed because of her.

Next up we have Luna’s nightmare, which is one of the most terrifying scenes of the entire show. A pattern with Princess Luna is, if she does something wrong, then she beats herself up like crazy about it, as is the case with the picture where she failed to smile. I don’t think I’m the only adult viewer who is absolutely freaked out by this scene. The fillies chanting, the teeth abruptly falling out, and the circle of angry students that circle Luna all make this scene brilliantly horrific.

Luna: I’ve seen a lot, but I haven’t seen this before.
Celestia: It’s Starlight Glimmer’s. She’s afraid that this is what would happen if we continue to fight.
Starlight Glimmer: What was I thinking? I’m never going with my gut again.
Luna: If you don’t fix this soon, it could have a grave consequence on Starlight’s psyche.

Luna is good at empathizing those who are having nightmares, since she gets easily traumatized by bad experiences herself. That’s a valuable and important skill to have, and not everyone knows how to do it.

Celestia: But my magic isn’t powerful enough. I thought if we worked together…
Luna: I have your magic, remember? It doesn’t work in the dream realm. It has to be you.
Celestia: Oh Luna, I can’t do this! I was wrong. Your job is so incredibly hard. You have to battle nightmares and work in the darkness and do it all alone. It takes such a brave, strong pony to do what you do.
Luna: And that pony is you. I walked a day in your shoes. I thought all you had to do was smile and be adored all the time, but I was wrong. There is so much more to it than that.

I love how Luna gained some newfound respect for her sister after having to spend an entire day doing the chores Celestia normally does. And she uses that respect to encourage her sister, which is just so sweet of her. It’s for the best that Luna had to do Celestia’s tasks first, because Luna had each of her chores written out but in this situation Celestia wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Celestia needs to defeat Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon, and Luna advises Celestia simply to trust in her own strength. Celestia does just that and Nightmare Moon is destroyed, then Daybreaker resists for a few more moments and dissipates. Luna shares a laugh with Celestia about the latter talking to herself, which I presume means Luna knows Celestia talks to herself in dreams.

Luna: Welcome back, sister. I know you had a long night, so I made you some pancakes.
Celestia: Oh! How… nice. (clears throat)
Celestia: (swallows) They’re… delicious. Thank you.
Luna: (laughs) I know that face. They’re not. I know you have to be perfect for everypony else, and you do an amazing job, but you don’t have to do it for me.

It’s a small touch, but I really love the way the animators made Celestia show a trace of disgust, then switch to a smile as quickly as possible. You can tell that she’s unusually good at putting on a smile, but you can also tell that she secretly found the pancakes disgusting. Luna and Celestia exchange some well-earned I-love-yous, then Starlight enters the scene.

Celestia: It was the right call going with your gut.
Luna: The map was wise to send you, Starlight. Nopony else would have been so bold as to do what you did.
Starlight Glimmer: That’s a nice way of saying I came dangerously close to messing everything up.
Celestia: It was just what we needed. The experience has made us closer than ever.

There are more reasons it was good that the map sent Starlight than just her boldness, I would say. We’ve seen in previous episodes that she’s good at mediating between conflicts and seeing an issue from both sides. Most of the Mane 6 are staunchly opinionated and quick to pick a side, and thus they don’t have this skill. This may be why the friendship map likes to send Mane 6 members in pairs: two of them are needed to see an issue from multiple angles, but Starlight can do that all on her own.

Celestia and Luna’s cutie marks automatically change back, Starlight Glimmer’s mark starts glowing, and Twilight Sparkle teleports into the scene having learned from the map that Starlight completed the mission. Twilight proceeds to talk Starlight’s ear off exactly in the way a nosy parent would. Twilight mentions that she’s excited to hear all the details of how the cutie mark swap went, and I bet the reason why is because of her thirst for knowledge on how cutie marks work.

Luna: Oh, uh… by the way, there’s a field trip you need to make happen and a timberwolf issue you need to address.
Celestia: What?!
Luna: Oh, look! There’s the sun. Time for me to turn in.

I like how at the very end, Luna casually mentions some mishaps Celestia needs to fix as if it’s no big deal. I can’t explain why, but it’s a very “younger sibling” thing to do. It’s also smart of the writers to remember Luna’s mishaps need fixing at the end, instead of pretending Luna filling Celestia’s shoes never happened.

Overall thoughts:

Since I haven’t written an MLP episode review in so long, I’ll be brief here. This is exactly what I would’ve wanted an episode about Celestia and Luna’s relationship to be, because it explores both of their characters in so many interesting ways: in terms of their  personality traits, interests, and daily chores. I love how they’re written as a believable big and little sister as well. It’s impressive while the writers pulled that off while still making them feel like they’re royalty. The biggest criticism I see this episode get is that Starlight Glimmer is only there to swap their cutie marks, but I’m OK with that because the episode still provides insight into her character by showing how good she is at problem solving.

Grade: A

An episode that goes the extra mile in expanding on the characters is well-deserving of an A.

Miscellaneous notes:

• The montage of dreams contains Fluttershy on the head of a giant version of Angel… or is it a tiny version of Fluttershy on the head of Angel? Fluttershy had a similar dream in Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?, so it’s clear here that Fluttershy has a secret fantasy of being a pet but is too embarrassed to tell anyone about it.
• I’m also obligated to mention the montage of dreams contains a tiny teaser of Applejack’s parents, who we will meet three episodes later, though we don’t get to see their faces. It’s a clever hint for attentive fans.

The next episode features a problem involving royalty of a different species.

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See you next time for the last two episodes before my favorite of the entire show.

>> Part 83: Not Asking for Trouble + Discordant Harmony