Is it me or was there something really unsettling in this episode?

E) The most damning thing - two young, exceptionally fit ponies being dead after a few years of marriage for no apparent reason. If you look at the original love story, Romeo committed suicide after finding dead body of his lover. If that's what happened here, too, why would Buttercup commit suicide after having three kids? The only thing that comes to mind is being disowned by *both* families and perhaps verbally driven to suicide.

Maybe I am over-thinking it, but still. I do realize writers worked with Apple family background of past 6 seasons but if you made up three completely new characters who we see for the first time despite all being well known in Ponyville it should be equally easy to erase sinister undertones by say mentioning Apple siblings were named after Bright Mac grandparents or by AJ having flashback to some scene exhibiting talents she inherited from her mother. Instead, it's as if Buttercup never existed and only one parent got to pass legacy along...

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>>30470287

Nobody thought about it too deeply. They just wanted some Romeo and Juliet with cartoon horses. Before this episode Pears didn't exist, whole backstory was made up on the spot. It's just a cartoon for kids, it doesn't even pretend to have the deepest lore or some shit.

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>>30470287
tl;dr

>>30470291
>Romeo and Juliet
Not every family feud is based on Romeo and Juliet

It was just a good feelsy episode.

>>30470287
>AJ and Mac have been conditioned to hate Pears

No. All they know is to not bring it up in front of Granny, because it upsets her greatly, and that it has something to do with a feud. That's it. I dunno how you got "conditioning" out of that.

>>30470291
>Maybe I am over-thinking it
Ain't no maybes about it, partner.

>>30470291
>Buttercup never existed
>made up three completely new characters
There's your answer.

Personally the episode was really disappointing for the fact that creators actually had to make an episode about Apple parents. Either because they couldn't come up with episode ideas or it was Hasbro or DHX's demand, it was not something you need to do in the show.
What's the point of making an episode with a story that can be told without and doesn't even involve any of mane 6 or CMC?

>>30470403
It was a good episode. Piss off. Perhaps the best in all 7 seasons.

>>30470287
>ritual obliteration
Or maybe she just changed her name after she got married. It happens.
>razed to the ground
Or bought up and replanted. Waste not want not.
>scorn
The "you were a dick to my daughter-in-law and mother of my grandkids!"-look? I don't blame her.

0/10 trying too hard.

>>30470371

>Not every family feud is based on Romeo and Juliet

But that's how it was described to us

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>>30470437
Forgot pic

>>30470411
Can you tell me more specifically about what made you think it's a good episode?
I'm just curious.

>>30470451
I liked it, therefore it is good.

>>30470437
>But that's how it was described to us
By Seth. And even if it is based on R&J, it's very loosely. In the play, Juliet fakes her own death to run away and marry Romeo (which leads to hilarious misunderstandings and actual suicide). The episode obviously doesn't have that, so you made up some bullshit. Stop.

>>30470471
This. It's the tragic irony that makes Romeo and Juliet a famous play.

>>30470287
>it was much darker if you look at hints

So was that Trixie episode and her supposed attempt at suicide. But that was just retards picking apart a kids show and developing their own headcanon.

Stop looking into it so deeply.

>>30470493
>dude lmao is just cartoonz xD y u seriuz???

>>30470471
>>30470486
I never understood that by the way. Coincidentally running into your boyfriend pretending to be dead, then killing yourself because of it, is good writing apparently.

>>30470499
>hurr I was only pretending

>>30470466
Well I didn't, therefore it's shit.

>>30470504
That's tragedies for ya. Also it's super romantic and stuff.

>>30470512
The strawpoll for the episode had the highest rating of any episode after it aired with about a 9.6/10 average.

You just have shit taste anon.

>>30470570
I guess.
I just don't get why people are particularly going nuts about this episode. The episode just didn't made sense to me.

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>>30470570
This. I'm pretty sure it was record-breaking.

>>30470287
>none of the kids actually took anything after the mom
What are you talking about? Applejack is like 70% Pear Butter with the only difference being
Applejack got labeled "honest", and we know that AJ can bend the truth. AB and Big Mac take more after their father with their pure emotionally driven, charging into a problem without looking back attitude.

I think the darker thing people are missing is that Pear Butter had to stay with a family that hated her guts for the rest of her life. Even Granny only lighted up once Pear took the Apple name, not because her son was in love.

>>30470287
A) AJ and Big Mac did not have an irrational hatred of pears. Granny Smith did. The kids just made sure pears were banned from the home so that their grandma wouldn't go off on one of her tirades.

B) Pear Butter changed her name to Buttercup when she married Bright Mac, and hid her family origins from everyone in Ponyville who didn't know her already. Including conspiring with Bright Mac to hid it from their children. As for a grave site, it's possible Granny Smith kept the "apple-pear" twin trees, grown up around the stone bearing her son and daughter-in-law's cutie marks, as memorial. Apparently she banned AJ, Big Mac and Apple Bloom from that part of the orchard, otherwise we have a bit of a plot hole there.

C) See (B) above. Grand Pear's disowning his daughter was apparently so traumatic to Pear Butter that she deliberately erased her own past, and managed to get all of Ponyville to go along with it. That it was kept a secret all this time, by the way, tells you just how scandalous it was. Ponies just DO NOT break up their families; Grand Pear's behavior went totally beyond the pale.

D) It appears that the rest of the Pear family followed Grand Pear to Vanhoover, which ended the feud except in Grand Pear and Granny Smith's minds. Grand Pear has offered to bury the hatchet, and Granny Smith has agreed, but old wounds, especially deep ones, don't heal easily, see (C) above. We have two grumpy old ponies who've lived almost their entire lives hating one another, even worse than the Hooffield and McColt clans. It's going to take a LOT of work for these two to get along with each other, and I expect Twilight Sparkle will have her hooves full.

>>30470440
> Equestria Daily's word is law!

>>30470291
E) The fate of Bright Mac and Pear Blossom, aka Buttercup, is apparently going to be one of the show's unexplained mysteries. We'll probably never know what actually happened to them, but it's a sure bet they're dead. My guess is the show writers decided that "death of parents" was too dark a theme for the show, but they've dropped enough heavy-handed hints that the parents in the audience, and some of the older children watching, will get what's being left unsaid. I can see why the writers are doing this; they're giving the parents the freedom to explain a difficult and disturbing subject on their own terms, without forcing anything on the audience. Personally, I think it's a brilliant bit of writing.

>>30470493
"No Second Prances" was far darker than "The Perfect Pair". There's really no other way to interpret Trixie's behavior other than she was attempting suicide as a way of getting Starlight Glimmer's attention. I'm still amazed the writers managed to pull that one off.

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>>30470894
>There's really no other way to interpret Trixie's behavior other than she was attempting suicide as a way of getting Starlight Glimmer's attention. I'm still amazed the writers managed to pull that one off.
Yes, that was fantastic.

>>30470671
You are the special snowflake.

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>>30470287
You read too deeply into it. This is exactly what you get when you try to make an origin story 7 seasons in. Things don't make sense, flow is irrational, things don't add up. It's more of an error on the writer's part.

>>30470335
>>30470364
Suck my fucking dick, /b/.

Why are you even here in the first place? You don't have any interests at all. You're just a random piece of garbage.

>>30470894
No she wasn't. She needed Glimmer for the trick but was pressured first and formost by her desire to please the crowd. She probably figured that there was some small chance she'd turn out alright. Putting yourself into an incredibly risky scenario to please a crowd isn't the same as trying to commit suicide.

>>30470287
>>30470291
I'll start with E, because it's the easiest to deal with: Who says they committed suicide? Maybe they were killed by something that wandered out of the dread forest filled with terrible monsters that is right nearby. Similarly, I think you've answered your own question with D: Not everything was hunky-dory afterwards and Granny's opinion of Grandpa Pear never improved.

Now I'll look at B next: Big Mac has repeatedly come off as a pony who simply goes with the flow, having to be really pushed to extremes before he acts out for his own desires. Helping the family is a bit part of who he is. By the time he was old enough to make his own calls, he may have looked at what the costs would be of ripping the family apart with ANOTHER fued built on top of an already simmering one, and just decided it wasn't worth it. Especially if he looked at Pear Butter/Buttercup's own route of burying her history.

A and C have been answered elsewhere.

In short, yes, there is a bit of darkness lurking behind all the happy feels. Ponies are, in fact, very flawed beings - and in particular, vengeful and biased fucks at times who can and will hold on to grudges long-since done with or assume the worst of others just because they aren't familiar or "normal". Is that "unsettling"? Maybe; I found it normalizing. They behaved like real people, not idealized mockeries of them.

>>30472437
No, she deliberately gave up and tried to do the trick on her own. Trixie was ready to die, cuz she's a real G.

>>30471085
>You read too deeply into it.
Or maybe you're just a shallow turd, like your life and personality. And your education, your mentality, your self esteem, your humbleness, and everything in your life.

>>30470287
>AJ and Mac have been conditioned to hate Pears
False. They were afraid of raising Granny's ire by mentioning pears around her. They themselves held no personal animosity towards pears, at least nothing shown indicates that.

>>30472711
They did shout at Applebloom when she brought pear jam then were shocked when they learned they were half pears too. That's not a reaction of someone who is neutral on subject, it's reaction of adoption-grade shock. If there was no pear animosity, why real name of their own mom was hidden from all three? Why Cake never mentioned to Applejack despite meeting her million times she used to be best friend of her mom? I can buy the kids never talked to wood pony but Cake's silence stinks of being forbidden (or afraid) to say any details until the kids learn it anyway...

>>30470687
mostly are bronies

>>30473094
Bringing up dead parents isn't really casual conversation, no matter the circumstances.

>>30470403
A story about the Apple parents was bound to happen eventually and I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

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>>30470349
>It's just a cartoon for kids
Bullshit, this is a cartoon for deep thinking adults.

>>30470916
>Trixiefags believe this

>>30470440
>>30470437
It only said the song was 'romeo and juliet' style, which just implies that they are in love while their families hate each other, not that they are going to both fucking kill themselves.

>>30473190
The thing that struck me about the episode was it wasn't the Apple parents' deaths that was the great big secret. It went unspoken, but obviously every pony acknowledged it.

The great big secret was Grand Pear disowning his daughter. That was the scandal the entire town was trying to cover up. Ponyville is very much a "Southern Gothic" kind of town.

>>30470287

>>30472479
>They behaved like real people, not idealized mockeries of them.
Sometimes that's the best thing about the show. The ponies being imperfect and flawed then owning up to it with realistic consequences is a great thing.

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>nor he knew there was other farm next to theirs, as if the place was razed to the ground after Pears left
See pic related? This is from "bloom and gloom", but that building in the background is also visible at the end of "the Perfect Pair". It's a carrot farm. I'm pretty sure this is in the same location as the Pear's old farm

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>>30476508
Here's Bright Mac looking out his window at the Pear's farmhouse. It seems to be about the same distance away, although the building looks different

>>30476508

Stands to reason they sold the land when they moved. The Carrots bought at least part of it.

>>30475806
My point still stands. Can't bring up one without the other.

Less coverup, more touchy subject that's difficult to broach. Nobody was trying to hide anything when they brought it up themselves.

>>30470287
>AB even has Pear colours

The fuck?

She's literally a rule 63 of her dad.

>>30470371
>Not every family feud is based on Romeo and Juliet
Any tale of Star crossed lovers pretty much is though
It's literally the most basic premise of the type of story

>>30478568
I wonder why. I guess you could say a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet?

>>30470287
>All three are named after apples, and have apple marks - why?

Children generally take the father's name, not the mother's. Bright Mac was an Apple.

>>30470504
R&J wasn't Shake's best play. Merchant of Venice (dat quality of mercy speech) and MacBeth (dem Chekhov's guns) were better desu.

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>>30470349
>It's just a cartoon for kids

*and adults

>>30479600
>No mention of Taming of the Shrew
I see the plebs are posting tonight

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>>30479655
>*and adults
No, it's for kids and kids only

>>30473094
OP says
>AJ and Mac have been conditioned to hate Pears
Nothing you said implies they were conditioned to hate anyone. Granny had a grudge against them, but the kids didn't. They just never brought up pears because they knew it upset Granny. And being shocked about your mother having different origins than you thought does not in any way imply they hate pears. They were just surprised.

>>30479668
Now post the quote where he clarifies what he means and completely collapses your jim-hates-us narrative. I know you have it. Your so obsessed with the man I know you save everything he farts out.

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>>30470287
>>30470291
>I cant' shake the feeling it was much darker if you look at hints:
>implying that there's not more to the story.
https://derpibooru.org/197884

This is what happens when you try to introduce something this major about the characters, 7 seasons into the show.

>>30470287
>>30470291
An interesting theory, but I doubt it, and not just because it's the sort of thing MLP would never have one of its protagonists do. Applejack and Big Mac don't seem to hate Pears themselves. They mention that the reason they avoid bringing up the Pears is because it upsets Granny Smith so much, and I suspect the reason for that is that Grand Pear abandoned his daughter, who then died after the Apples took her in. Granny isn't angry at all Pears, she's broken up over the loss of her son and daughter-in-law. Her anger at Grand Pear is for disowning a member of his family, hence why she accepted him so quickly once he apologized.

As for the lack of anything pear-related on the farm, it may be that Pear Butter herself is responsible for that. Her family treated her terribly, and it makes sense that she'd follow the example of the one that took her in, rather than the one that threw her out.

The thing that really breaks this theory's credibility for me is the idea that the Apples would have been cruel to a pony who chose them over her own father. Bright Mac would certainly never have left his wife, and Granny Smith wouldn't cast out her son.

I have no guess as to how they died, but the few signs we have point to it being an accident.

>>30483320
It becomes one of, if not the best episode of the show?

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>>30483718
This.

>>30470287