Is that what she was expecting? I thought she wanted the equivalent of a pony hand shake.

edited 22nd Oct '11 5:58:32 PM by colinispower

She just wanted respect. And to be liked. Not ruling with an iron hoof. I wonder if she scared ponies 1000 years ago before the Nightmare Moon thing.

She does claim that they never liked her, which is presumably referring to before the Nightmare Moon thing. It isn't surprising that ponies have always been afraid of her if she has always been running around with a cloak that turns into bats.

That would explain a lot really. Combine a want to be loved, an inability to put yourself on the same level as those around you, god-like powers, and a relatively short temper and going all take over the world when you feel under appreciated seems like a good idea.

Fun things I noticed while rewatching.

The pink filly in the lady-bug outfit does derp-eyes at one point. Ironicly she's standing next to Dinky, Fanon Daughter of the Derp One herself (whether Death Cloud likes it or not :P), when it happens

A Palette Swap of Octavia is playing the violin with the band, as well as what appears to be Dr. Whoof on banjo, Blues on piano, and the saxophone player in Octavia's band playing harmonica.

With a couple of exceptions, Dinky only shows up when the Cutie Mark Crusaders are also in the scene. Pipsqueak spends most of his screen time with Alula (helment filly), Sunny Daze (princess filly), and the pink ladybug filly.

Appleloosa Lyra & Daisy make cameos.

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:17:34 PM by Calnos

by her posture she gave me that impression

this broke my heart :

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:19:27 PM by FallenLegend

I was actually surprised by how similar Luna's normal personality was to Nightmare Moon's. I guess it makes sense, though. She's seems to be the type of pony who would get into trouble trying to get people to like her. Given how she reacts in this episode, it really makes sense that the whole Nightmare Moon thing happened, for the reasons mentioned above.

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:20:05 PM by JapaneseTeeth

That's true in fact I think this confirms that NM wasn't (completely) a split personality but a extension/corruption of her main one

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:21:06 PM by FallenLegend

Sorry if someone else already answered this claim, but I couldn't read through dozens of pages...

Anyway, blatantly wrong: "Party of One" was all about Pinkie learning a lesson.

Arguably "Gryphon the Brush-Off" had a few lessons for her as well.

I think one thing Luna Eclipsed left underexplored is that Luna had been imprisoned for 1000 years, and it wasn't that long ago (in-story) that she got out; real-life people have difficulty readjusting to society from far shorter prison sentences than that.

Instead, the episode treats it like it's all her own fault for communicating badly.

Luna needs hugs.

She's blaming herself about the awkward, which is a tad unfair.

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:22:42 PM by AceOfScarabs

I thought she was The Woobie too.

Not her fault but while she wanted to get friends. It was very explicit that Luna saw herself as above other ponies. I think she has never treated her subjects as equals like Celestia.

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:23:30 PM by FallenLegend

She probably never had the chance to do so either way D:

Luna is The Woobie, not The Woobie we expected, but The Woobie we deserve.

@J Teeth: It makes a hell of a lot more sense than woobie!Luna going crazy. It also makes her seem a lot more culpable in the Nightmare Moon incident, rather than just getting corrupted by something.

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:25:20 PM by Crowfall

Ineed I love the way she was portrayed. She wasn't portrayed as and angsty blameless emo like in fanon.But a more complex person that had to overcome her flaws.

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:27:56 PM by FallenLegend

I think both Luna and the other ponies are partially responsible for the communication problems. Luna, because she never really introduced herself before going straight to "terrify everyone", and the other ponies because they didn't really give her a fair shot.

In short, a lot of trouble could have been avoided if she would have made a preliminary visit to Ponyville to plan out the celebration instead of just showing up in full Big Bad costume.

But yeah, I really like the way she was handled. It was a good balance between holding onto Nightmare Moon's characterization and her social problems without making her emo about it.

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:31:50 PM by JapaneseTeeth

Luna fully accepted the fact that she did wrong in the past, and even (sort of) thanked Twilight for destroying the...wrongness.

Exactly this proves that Luna was responsabe for what she did. But due to the fact that she repented she is not just forgiven by the cast but a good person.. I mean pony in my eyes :)

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:38:19 PM by FallenLegend

You do have to admire her spirit though, even if her logic is very flawed. She still wants to try and play games even after terrifying everypony with the Dramatic Thunder that randomly comes after she calls Pipsqueak an "Ungrateful whelp", though turning the spiders into actual spiders probably wasn't the best way to get the point across that "Don't run! I'm still nice! We can still have fun!"

But seriously, I hope she mellows out and becomes basically a more accessible version of Celestia later in the season, if we see her again. Like she starts talking like Celestia, meaning less formal (meaning no more Middle-Age talk) and more relaxed in how she acts. Even though she was royalty by the end everypony seemed really comfortable around her.

In other news, I love Viking Raindrop. Totally best background pony costume. FUS ROH DAH!! For Cloudsdale!!

yeah She could ironically be more close to them than Celestia ever was

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:39:42 PM by FallenLegend

I don't know, Lyra as Cleopatra and Colgate as a Dentist were pretty hilarious.

Most of Luna's issues seemed to be a misinterpretation of what she was supposed to be doing. She knows that she's supposed to be "scary", but she doesn't really get why, or to what degree, so she goes way overboard. Sort of like if somebody who had never celebrated Halloween didn't really understand the difference between "fun" scary and "traumatizing" scary.

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:45:11 PM by JapaneseTeeth

I just had a thought. Seems like Season Two so far has been a veritable Fountain of Memes.

And yet it seems like a lot of them are flash-in-the-pan memes. Screwball didn't catch on, I haven't seen shifty-eyed Applejack lately, and something tells me freaky-faced Twilight won't be remembered a few weeks from now.

It makes me think that of all the meme-worthy material this season, most of it will be forgotten, the exact opposite of all the 20% coolers and foreeevers we got last season.

Does this knowledge utterly depress anyone else, or do I need to take my meds?