Luna's personality was written before the fandom went to creating her personas. One thing I found odd, and forgot to mention in my first post, was that Luna refers to herself (y Celestia?) as "we". It seems that Nightmare Moon is part of her moniker, status, or personality in some way. Anyone else notice that? She completely ignores the fact that they directly fear Nightmare Moon, rather than really knowing who Princess Luna is in particular.
Why would they do that? Scootaloo is already a chicken. Spike already copped out by dressing as a dragon. If Scootaloo did the same I would have been disappointed. She was probably exhausted. I imagine she made the majority of the costumes we saw in this episode. And, as in real life, ponies probably wait until nearly the last minute to get Halloween costumes. Of course, as the Element of Generosity, Rarity couldn't just say "no"... ^I must say, I second this motion! :derpe: Suddenly Fridge Brilliance: Rainbow likes to pull pranks, so if she was in the mood to pull a ton of pranks on Halloween, no wonder she dressed up as a Shadowbolt. Mind = blown. Agreed on all points. Remember when she seemed surprised at what fun was? I bet a thousand years ago, the idea of the princesses having fun like commoners was crazy! Obviously things are more relaxed in modern times, possibly because of Celestia herself. Everybrony has to remember that, to Luna, a thousand years ago was only a year or so ago. She--as Nightmare Moon--was in the moon the entire time. If you went a thousand years into the future, would you adjust easily, even after a year? [size=-2]Not counting Futurama of course.[/size] Hm...remember the prologue in the first episode? About how Luna was jealous of how all the ponies enjoyed and played in the day but not the night? Well, she must be pretty happy that there's a holiday like Nightmare Night, not to mention ponies like Twilight who (based on "Owls Well that Ends Well") enjoy looking at the night sky as a hobby or even to study. I wish they had more than 22 minutes to explore Luna's character some more. Like I've said about Trixie and Gilda, I find it hard to judge characters in this show based on only one episode, although thankfully unlike those two, this one actually focused on Luna's personality. Anyway, loved the episode. The Derpy moment was great. I can forgive Pinkie easily. Y'know how? Using Pinkie Pie Logic (or Illogic, you could say), as long as she's having fun, everypony involved must be having fun, too, right? From her perspective, Luna was enjoying the whole thing as much as Pinkie was. As we all know, she can be a bit oblivious, ESPECIALLY when she's excited.
I believe the "we" is intended to be the "royal we", in the sense of the tradition (at least among the British royals) of the monarch referring to herself/himself as "we". That said, it could have a dual meaning and I could see Nightmare Moon as an exaggerated part of Luna's personality. I'd always assumed that the "royal we" was partly a reference to the monarch being both a person and an institution, so you could be on to something here.
My favorite part of that episode was the end scene with Luna, Twilight, and Dash. >w< What I'd really like in the future is the CMC to write to Luna of their cutie mark progress. As for Derpy, she was amusing... Also, Zecora looks better in that wig, I think... If it is a wig... If not, I really like her mane? Observation: The episode is titled Luna Eclipse, which does seem to hint to the possibility that Nightmare Moon represents the dark side of the moon and all things dark with it like space and Luna the light side of the moon and stars... That could be what she refers to when she calls herself "We..." On another note: -New pony type squee-
well, I was thinking about story, and something has been fishy about it, and then I figured it: 2 things: I'll present it trough pictures (except Luna's hair) also Luna in Season 1 Episode 2 in Ponyville Luna in Season 2 Episode 4 in Ponyville
Did anyone else notice the dark/dragon ponies pulling her chariot? o.o; Different kind of pegasus perhaps?
I can't say i was to pleased with this episode. Here's a couple of things I found wrong with it. 1) Luna's character design, not the same as season 1. I really liked season 1 Luna and thught she was adorable, this was much less adorable. 2) Luna's voice. see above for details. 3) Pip, why introduce him? Why here? Will he be in future episodes? If so then what is his role? If not then why was he here in the first place? Where was the CMC? 4) So...Season 1 where all the ponies were like "YAY Princess Luna!" now they're like "AHH Princess Luna!" and why? because it's FUN? What about Zecora? Weren't they afraid of her? That wasn't so fun was it, no someones FEELINGS were hurt. Luna's feelings were hurt here! Why was this different? What kind of message is that for little girls? "Have fun being singled out because surely everypony's intentions are good?" or maybe "Pick a person who's different from you and single them out, because it's FUN!" Once upon a time I was the age of the target demographic and at that time I was singled out for being 'weird' it wasn't fun! 5) NO RARITY!
I thought this was a sweet episode. After last week's, I was worried it'd be too fast-paced, but I was pleasantly surprised, and Princess Luna's pretty cool. Rainbow Dash was kind of a jerk, but she's kind of a jerk in a lot of episodes, and she's always good enough to rein herself in. Even if her prank almost ruined a crucial moment, Dash has been shown to have a certain lack of tact and bad sense of timing before (Rarity think she's a laughingstock, Twilight assures her she isn't, and Dash just blurts out, "She kind of is!"), so I don't see any problems there. Pip is cute; too cute for some fans, but I like him. It's nice to see a colt to balance out the fillies. Pinkie Pie might have come across as insensitive, but again, that's hardly anything new, as she can be rather unaware of other ponies' feelings in her hyperactivity. It bothered me that she didn't recognize Luna after tearing up and throwing her a party in the second episode...and then it turns out that she was pretending to be scared because it's all part of the fun, which is entirely in-character for her. Which makes me wonder; was all of Ponyville just joking around like Pinkie Pie, or were they genuinely afraid of Luna? The latter would be a huge continuity error, because they all saw her reunite with Princess Celestia and turn back from being Nightmare Moon in episode 2, so they should know who she is.
* Interestingly enough, if Rainbow Dash hadn't intervened then, Twilight might not have found out from Pinkie Pie that Pinkie's supposed fear of Luna was just playing into the spirit of the holiday. ** This is something I've thought about a bit. I'm thinking either they were all really into the spirit of the holiday (you know, being scared), or they were genuinely scared and/or distrustful of the Princess of the Night. If the latter is true, it's possible that they all simply acted happy to keep from offending Princess Celestia. As much as most ponies seem to love the princess, I imagine none of them would want to anger her (no matter how much those fears are unfounded).
Spoiler: for big picture that i wanted in my original post but no one will probably see it again Interestingly this made more sense as the general reaction to Luna dragged on. Lolol...
The episode really didn't work out like I thought it would, I hoped Luna would be the sweet, innocent pony we saw in season 1, but no they decided to destroy my dreams. I hope there will be more episodes with Luna.
I'll go back re-watch the episode when I get the chance, but I thought I'd heard Luna sidestep the "royal we" in favor of saying something like "they fear us." I could be wrong, but I was thinking she might consider Nightmare Moon a part of herself or respond to both names. After all, she did threaten to bring the world to a colloquial end. Ironically, Zecora educates everyone on Nightmare Moon, where Celestia never mentioned it was Luna at all, iirc. (See: Reaction to Celestia calling Luna her sister in S1E2.) "An old mares tale" is what they called it, in an old book. Also, given how (very) dark the previous episode was with Twilight's psychosis, I'm glad Luna wasn't coming off as deranged and only misunderstood.
You know, she kind of was. Well, maybe not so sweet, but there was a certain innocence in the way she genuinely couldn't figure out why she appeared so intimidating to everypony. I'd say they were genuinely afraid but I'd argue against it as a continuity error. Yes, they knew who she was and they'd seen her reconciled with Celestia but a thousand year reputation as the bogeypony of Nightmare Night and the evil princess who plunged Equestria into darkness would be a difficult one to shake off... Presumably she hadn't really got out much since she returned, so a sudden (and frankly loud...) appearance on the very night that commemorates her as an evil monster was always likely to jangle a few nerves :ahh: Plus there may have been whispers throughout the land that what can happen once can happen again...
And you have to keep in mind that during her first visit in Ponyville, she probably made the same impression to the other ponies that she made to the viewers: that of a socially awkward, probably shy, but all in all somewhat adorable pony. Now compare that to her appearance during Nightmare Night: she arrives with a chariot that is pulled by what at first glance appear to be demonic ponies (I guess bat-winged pegasi are canon now). She has this flowing, Nightmare Moon styled mane (presumably indicating a powered up form). She is moody and irritable and speaks with a booming voice that appears to be made to strike fear into the hearts of her fellow ponies. With all this, frankly, I'd have been more surprised if nopony had been scared at all (and Pinkie Pie getting just a bit too much into the spirit of the holiday probably didn't help matters much). All in all, I found this episode to be really enjoyable. Luna's role as Equestria's resident Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant pleases me (though I could have done without the royal voice). I'm not quite sold on the moral of the story (which to me looks like something along the line of "if you are already an outcast, you might as well have fun with it"), but in the context of Nightmare Night, I guess it works. And for some reason I can't quite explain, I found the Mayor's attempts at being a scary clown to be really funny.
Personally I am glad they didnt have Luna as the sweet pony here as she would be very socially awkward after 1000 years of imprisonment
I loved this episode! Can we talked about Spike's costume? I was dying of laughter. It's basically the cutest thing I've ever seen. Also, I love that Derpy is being worked into the show more. However, I was really hoping that Doctor Whooves was in the background dressed up as the Doctor. One can only dream...
