Why I Hate a Canterlot Wedding

Warning: This analysis contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and probably for other episodes as well.

I would also like to note that this document may well evolve over time, if people bring up new arguments or if my opinions change, so as always, comments are welcome.

Edit 16/7/12: The article has been edited to account for various comments I have received here and around the internet about my views.  All edits are marked like this one. 

Why I Hated "A Canterlot Wedding"

The Season Two finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has been and gone. It is reasonable to say that it, at the very least, lived up to the expectations of Hasbro and the Hub, with the first part breaking the network's ratings record. Amongst bronies, the reaction has, at least in the fandom circles in which I travel, been overwhelmingly positive. The episode dominated Equestria Daily's fanart and comic sections for weeks afterwards. Comments about the episode itself have been favourable, with only a few exceptions that I have seen. Such a reaction is all but unheard of in most fandoms in which I have been involved, and is arguably unprecedented even amongst the more positive bronies.

I wish I could share the glee of Hasbro and my fellow bronies. Truly, I do. It is certainly not unheard of for me to look for flaws in something I have set out to hate, and that may explain some of the more nitpicky aspects of the following analysis. On the whole, however, I wanted to like this episode. It had promise, and at many points it seemed like it would fulfil that promise. As I hope to show, however, quality is a fragile thing.

When I critique anything, I prefer what I like to call a "sandwich" style. If I was writing about most episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, this would consist of some positives, then some negatives, and then some more positives to finish off. Since I have, at best, a severe disliking towards this episode, I will do the opposite, first discussing minor negatives, then the episode's many positives, and then finally an in-depth explanation of the factor that ruined the episode for me. In short: the bad; the good; and the ugly. 

Just a final note before we begin: if by some bizarre chance anyone involved in the production of the show (particularly Meghan McCarthy and Jayson Thiessen, as my primary issues are with writing and the episode's place in the show as a whole) is reading this, please feel free to answer my questions, counter my arguments, or respond in any way you see fit. This can even be something as simple as calling me a pretentious jerk who doesn't know what he's talking about. The same goes for anyone else reading this, as well.

The Bad

Given that there is over 40 minutes of material to look at, it is unsurprising that there are a fair few minor problems I had with the episode. These are sorted into broad categories below.

Cadance: Interestingly, my issue with this character is not the obvious one. Going into this episode, I thought I would hate the fact that Cadance is a winged unicorn or, to use the fanon term, an alicorn. I thought this was a cheap attempt to sell toys, in a manner that devalued Celestia and Luna and went against Lauren Faust's original vision of Equestria. I stand by the first part of that statement, but I do not think that Cadance being an alicorn has any serious consequences on the other princesses or the vision of Equestria. It was made quite clear that she is not on the same level as Celestia or Luna, and the fact that she is an alicorn is irrelevant to the plot as a whole. Indeed, I barely noticed her wings when watching the episode. In that regard, well done for working Hasbro's inane demands in in an unobtrusive manner.

I have four major issues with Cadance. First, she comes out of nowhere, without explanation. This may seem to contradict my opinion from above, but I am referring to Cadance as a character, not as an alicorn. For better or for worse, she is a princess, and as an alicorn, it is reasonable to assume that she is held in a somewhat higher regard than mere unicorn nobility. With that in mind, it is bordering on ludicrous that she did not appear in some capacity at the Grand Galloping Gala. This isn't like with Luna, who was having to slowly reintegrate herself into society. As far as I can tell, Cadance is a fairly well-adjusted pony, so missing Equestria's night of nights is literally unbelievable. For that matter, it is also a bit hard to believe that Twilight never mentioned her favourite foal-sitter, but that basic argument is better saved for later.  

Edit 13/7/12: (ProfessorOats raised the possibility of an out-of-show explanation for this and similar problems, from the staff.  While this would be better than nothing, it still strikes me as a failure in writing, and thus still a point against the episode.  If you can come up with a quick explanation to tell the fans, then you can work that explanation into the episode.) 

My second issue is with Cadance being Twilight's foal-sitter. This is one spoiler that I was very glad to read before the episode, as it saved me from performing a facepalm in the middle of the episode. In a show about brightly-coloured talking ponies who can use magic, control the weather and defeat chaos gods with rainbows, this may be the single most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I have stretched my brain to the limit trying to think of a reason for royalty to be a babysitter to an essentially common pony (remember, in the flashback Twilight did not have her cutie mark, so she wasn't Celestia's apprentice at this point, and it is highly doubtful that Shining Armour was even in the Royal Guard, let alone high-ranking), but I have not come up with a single satisfactory explanation. Clearly, Canterlot has way too large an aristocracy, if this is what its members are reduced to. The last time I can recall such a glut of nobility, a lot of people in the Holy Land died (note to fanfic writers: feel free to use this as inspiration for some sort of pony Crusades story; I have no desire to write such a fanfic). 

Edit 13/7/12: (ProfessorOats raised the possibility that Cadance was Twilight's foalsitter when the latter was in the early days of her apprenticeship to Princess Celestia.  Purely on a writing level, this does make sense, and it's possible this was Meghan McCarthy's intention.  If this is the case, however, then she clearly didn't communicate it to the animators, who drew filly Twilight without her cutie mark.  Therefore, since what is canon is what is on screen, those flashback scenes must take place before Twilight got her cutie mark, and thus before she became Celestia's apprentice.  ProfessorOats also raised the possibility that this was an error on the animator's part, but it's too consistent to just be that.  They knew what they animating Twilight without her cutie mark.  In short, ProfessorOats theory is a valiant effort (indeed, if Twilight had had her cutie mark in the flashback, then I and everyone else would have gone with this theory, and we wouldn't have this problem), but doesn't work.) 

My third, and probably largest, issue with Cadance is that she's simply dull. The primary cause of her dullness is that she's simply too perfect (or at least, presented as so), with no personality flaws to speak of. In general, character comes from flaws. We can see this in the Mane 6, although the series also managed to make Celestia an entertaining character even though she was essentially perfect for the first season (her flaws appear in the second season). Cadance doesn't pull this off, and is thus a fundamentally boring character. In a series built around quirky characters of all breeds and classes, she commits the cardinal sin of having next to no personality. It's not purely an issue of screentime, either, as Luna managed to charm audiences with her eccentricities in a similar amount of screentime. Cadance is just your typical fairytale princess, with nothing to make her memorable as a character. It's not necessarily a problem in and of itself, but hopefully subsequent sections will prove just how big a problem it is.

Edit 13/7/12: (The point has been raised by people here and on other websites that that Cadance and Shining Armour weren't present, at least under their own will, for long enough in the episode to establish flaws.  In other shows, this might work, but not for this one.  In the very first episode, we see character flaws in each of the Mane 6, generally within their first minute on screen.  Cadance and Shining Armour had more than enough time, especially with the aid of flashbacks, to have flaws established, but they don't get them.  Also, if there isn't long enough to establish flaws for the character, then there isn't long enough for the audience to care about them, and thus not long enough to gain a satisfying ending from them saving the day - see "The Ugly".)

My final problem with Cadance is that she is evil, or at least her actions are. To answer your questions, yes, I did see Part 2, and yes, I am aware that the frankly bitchy Cadance of Part 1 was an impostor. My issue lies elsewhere. In Part 1, it is established through Twilight's flashback that Cadance has the power to "spread love". This seems harmless enough, until you realise just what it does. We see her use this power to stop two ponies (presumably a couple who are romantically involved) arguing, making them all lovey-dovey again. This is not done through reasoned argument, or in fact any interaction other than a spell. The only logical explanation that I can think of is that the spell altered their thoughts towards love once again. If this is sounding like brainwashing, then you have good instincts and/or I am making my point well (probably the former). This is not like enforcing laws against stealing or murder, or even laws against arguing in public. This is Cadance controlling ponies' minds until they fit her ideal. To refer to Orwell, she is the Thought Police, though admittedly her spell is much more merciful than the Ministry of Love. It's not even as if it was necessary for a much greater good, as it was when she used what appears to be the "want-it-need-it" spell in Part 2. This is Cadance infringing on ponies' freedom, which, to paraphrase another Hasbro franchise, is the right of all sentient beings.

This is especially confusing when you bear in mind that the show has condemned brainwashing as evil before. Discord is the primary example, with his brainwashing of the main characters - particularly Fluttershy, to whom he didn't even edge towards her new personality before simply using magic - being arguably his most evil act. In "Lesson Zero", Twilight's actions with the "want-it-need-it" spell are rightly portrayed as wrong. For that matter, Chrysalis, the villain of this episode, brainwashes Shining Armour, and she at least has the excuse that it's necessary in order to feed herself and her people. In spite of this, no one so much as raises an issue with Cadance's spell, thus forcing me to believe that the show's stance is that her actions are just, when they're clearly not.

Just to counter a counter-argument before it emerges, I would like to briefly discuss Twilight's memory spell from "The Return of Harmony, Part 2". This spell also alters the target's thought patterns, but it is different, at least in her usage, because it is fixing prior brainwashing that turned the victims against their true natures. Cadance has no such justification. Just because two ponies are arguing, that doesn't mean they're any less themselves. Twilight's spell could also be justified by the fact that it was necessary to save all of Equestria, which is certainly not true for Cadance's use of her spell.

Edit 13/7/12: (Gunny raised the excellent point that my opposition to Cadance's spell comes from the assumption that the ends don't justify the means.  Now, it is true that I take this as an axiom in all but the most extreme circumstances, but this is also the way heroes - as opposed to antiheroes and villains - have interpreted this problem in all well-written works of fiction, and most poorly written works as well.  When a character's goodness is not being called into question (and with Cadance, it most certainly isn't by the end), then you'd better make sure there aren't any lingering morally questionable activities that you emphasised in the very same episode.  In short, I see this as a reason to hate Cadance, but objectively, it is still a way in which her characterisation fails, and thus another point against this episode. 

In addition, people around the internet have been having issues with my interpretation of Cadance's spell.  To be fair, there is some extrapolation and interpretation involved with the above, but let's look at what we know.  Cadance sees two ponies arguing, Cadance casts spell that doesn't produce anything noteworthy that the audience can see, ponies stop arguing.  From this, I see only two basic possibilities.  The first is that Cadance's spell invaded the ponies' minds in some fashion to alter their thought patterns.  Whether you wish to call this brainwashing or not, it's still a colossal invasion of privacy, far beyond what any government in history has ever done.  The second possibility is that the spell does not alter their thought patterns, but rather just manipulates their bodies, so that they no longer argue because they physically can't.  This may actually be more reprehensible, because it would imply that Cadance doesn't actually care about resolving their emotional or relationship problems, but rather about just giving the appearance of such.  In short, she would want everything to be pretty and orderly, without any reminders of things that go against her own views of how the world should be.  While it would work with my argument for her being superficial (see below), I don't think this is the case.) 
Edit 1/6/12: To be frank, Cadance is also ludicrously superficial.  Let's look to the ending here for a moment.  The horrific battle running through Canterlot has ended, but the fancy wedding is ruined.  This is the point where the couple realise that none of that superficial stuff matters as long as they have each other, and just get married in a quick, simple ceremony, right?  Silly you, and silly me.  Apparently, weddings aren't about love or commitment or anything like that, but rather about walking down a fancy aisle in a pretty dress and generally being the centre of attention. 

This would be horrendously superficial in any situation, but given that the city was just attacked by an army, it's selfishness bordering on sociopathy.  There is destruction in the streets, and ponies suffering.  All those ponies involved in setting up this superficial monument to materialism could have been helping them.  Cadance herself probably earned her break, so I can understand if she herself doesn't want to help, but let the others help.  She shouldn't force ponies to serve her every whim just because she wants everything to be perfect.  Then again, that's pretty much how Cadance seems to work, so maybe it's spectacularly in character.  Even so, it should actually be shown within the episode to be a character flaw, as opposed to random geeks on the internet having to point it out. 

Shining Armour: My issues with Shining Armour are very similar to my issues with Cadance. First, he comes out of nowhere. Now admittedly, he could have been patrolling just about anywhere during episodes set in Canterlot, but it is utterly ridiculous that Twilight hasn't mentioned him before now, especially since we are meant to believe that they were so close before she went to Ponyville. If the writers had gone with the angle of them being estranged in some fashion, then this could have worked, and would have provided for some very interesting character interactions.

My other complaint is that, as with his wife, Shining Armour has about as much personality as a brick wall (and less than the school building's brick wall in Peanuts). Again, this is owing to him being him a paragon of moral perfection that is far less realistic than unicorns. He is the trite fairytale prince to Cadance's trite fairytale princess. For a character-driven show, this is bordering on unacceptable.

Still, at least he doesn't evil acts that are passed off as good. Now that I think about it, though, an overly zealous peace-keeper would probably have suited a captain of the royal guard more than it would have suited a princess.

To be frank, however, he forsakes his duties as Captain of the Royal Guard by allowing himself to become emotionally attached to someone. Now, I've never worked in security (which is essentially Shining Armour's job, since Equestria, as far as I know, does not wage military campaigns), but from all I've seen and heard, the fundamental rule is "trust no one." Shining Armour goes against this rule to the most extreme extent by allowing himself to become emotionally attached to Cadance, with terrible consequences, and yet is never called out on it. Needless to say, this is incredibly annoying, especially when the Mane 6 (and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, for that matter, who have the excuse of being mere fillies) are called out for much lesser mistakes on a regular basis.

The romance: Or rather, the lack of romance. We are clearly being positioned to believe that Cadance and Shining Armour are in love, but I simply don't buy it. There is no chemistry between them. I have absolutely no ability to write romance, so I can't really explain the theory. Instead, I'll give some brief examples. Basically, look at most of the films of the Disney Renaissance (for some reason, they all felt the need to have romance as, at the very least, a subplot), since this episode was clearly taking some inspiration from Disney. Films like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King all have romantic leads that exist in a state of tension for much of the movie. Even outside of the external conflict, the relationship doesn't exist in harmony. The couples argue, and their dialogue and actions gradually reveal the love they have for each other. When they are ultimately able to confess their love to each other in whatever form that may take (for the ultimate in declarations of love, I recommend taking a few steps more towards the present and looking at the scene in the garbage hold in WALL-E), the love feels genuine and satisfying to the audience. We buy it because we've seen it develop. In many ways, this is much like how we can believe Twilight's faith in the magic of friendship, because we saw her gradually come to that understanding. 

To state this point as simply as possible, romance lies not in the love, but in the journey to the acceptance of love. Again, I realise I am not stating this point well, but hopefully the films I have listed will give some idea of how romance should work, in a form suitable for the primary audience.

Edit 16/7/12: (In other words, a couple already in love without any noteworthy conflict in the relationship does not make for interesting viewing.  In addition, if we do not see them have a proper conflict amongst themselves and overcome it, then I for one have a hard time believing their love is genuine, rather than something that is simply convenient.  Compare and contrast this with the friendships of the Mane 6.  We regularly see them have conflicts of varying levels, so when they resolve these, our belief in their friendship is enhanced.)

To Meghan McCarthy, if she happens to be reading this by some random chance, I say this: if you were actually attempting to write romance, then please don't ever do so again, because I'm inclined to believe that you can't. This is not intended as disrespect to your writing abilities; romance is perhaps the hardest genre to get right, and I don't know of a TV writer who can pull it off. If you weren't attempting to write romance, then perhaps you should have tried. It wasn't necessary for the general concept of the episode, as weddings rarely have anything to do with romance anyway (another discussion for another time), but the factor I will discuss in "The Ugly" made it necessary.

The wedding ceremony: To put it simply, it annoys me that in a fantasy universe, they gave us such a mundane wedding. There was simply nothing to distinguish it from the same tired old wedding ceremony we've seen countless times on TV. I like to think of Equestria as more than just "Earth with super-intelligent ponies". They needed a completely different ceremony, something built on Equestrian culture, not on the cheesy ceremony that exists to earn money for businesses.

What I would have loved to see in this regard is something like this: Celestia performing the bare bones ceremony from inside the cocoon (she seems to be more or less capable of speech after her battle, and the cocoon certainly doesn't have to be soundproof), while battle rages in Canterlot. Have her do this to Chrysalis' frustration and the bitter-sweet delight of Cadance and Shining Armour. This would have done far more to convince the audience of the love they supposedly share than all the fancy ceremonies in the world. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End had a similar idea in its wedding scene and, regardless of the film's flaws, that is easily my favourite wedding scene ever.

The Good

Let's take a step back from the negatives, to look at some of the episode's good points:

Songs: Daniel Ingram outdid himself here, and I wouldn't be surprised if he received some award nominations for his work in this episode. I'm not a musician or even particularly knowledgeable about music, so this is going to be very vague.

The first song, "B.B.B.F.F. (Big Brother Best Friend Forever)" has an interesting tune with plenty of bounce, and lyrics that work very well. It almost manages to make the relationship between Twilight and Shining Armour believable, although I still don't believe that she wouldn't have mentioned such a supposedly important figure in her life to her friends. The real value of this song, however, comes in its dark reprise at the end of Part 1. To put it simply, that was heartbreaking, and I will gladly admit that I shed some tears at that point.

The second song, the "This Day Aria" is an excellent villain song and duet, bringing to mind Disney at its best. The contrast between Cadance and Chrysalis is brought out very well here. It doesn't really accomplish all that much in developing characters or advancing the plot, but it's a very good song, and that's enough.

The final song, "Love is in Bloom", is easily the weakest of the three, but that doesn't make it a bad song by any stretch of the imagination. It's just a bit too much a of a cheesy pop song for my taste. If I may point out a flaw in its message, I found the focus on Cadance and Shining Armour being "beautiful" and "handsome" respectively to be incredibly superficial, in putting too much emphasis on looks. Then again, the whole wedding was superficial, so it actually makes for a very suitable ending to things.

In short, well done, Daniel Ingram. You didn't put a foot wrong this season, and you can certainly continue to hold your head high.

Twilight Sparkle: When you get down to it, the vast majority of this episode was really about her, particularly Part 1. Specifically, it was about her relationships with Shining Armour and Cadance, and her struggles to accept that they are moving on. Obviously, there's a fantasy twist in there, but that doesn't change the fundamental nature of the piece. From that perspective, the episode is largely very good. The relationships are believable, outside of the issues previously raised, and quite interesting to watch. It's certainly good to see her get some screen-time after a season that was frankly rather low on it. Really, I have little more to say than that.

Tension: This was built really well over the course of the episode. From the beginning, where something seems just off, the situation gets worse and worse, culminating in an action-packed second half. For that matter, the fight scenes were really good at building this as well. I know people have raised complaints that Celestia came off as too weak here, but I think it worked at building that tension. As I shall discuss in the section "How it Could be Fixed", I believe something does need to be done fairly soon to avoid subjecting her to the 'Worf Effect' (essentially, badass character repeatedly getting beaten in fights for the purposes of building tension, and thus losing their badass credentials), but that's not a problem with the episode as such. The fight between the Mane 6 and the Changelings was just awesome, and made good use of some rarely-used powers (the party cannon and Twilight as some sort of magical machine gun were great to watch), although it did raise some serious problems, which will be discussed in "The Ugly".

Chrysalis: She is a really cool and entertaining villain, without a doubt. Her design is incredibly creepy, her acts are truly evil, and she is a real threat. That's all I ask for in a villain, and the episode delivered. I don't like her as much as Discord, who struck me as a much more suitable villain for the show, conflicting perfectly with the themes of harmony. Ultimately though, that's not really an issue. Good is good, even if it's not best.

Changelings in general are a cool idea that was well-executed. I'm hoping to see them again. There's certainly potential there, for one-shots or multi-parters.

Luna: I certainly would have liked to have seen more of her, especially in the big battle, when she really should have been present to help out. I know she's nocturnal, but that's an excuse, not a reason - Celestia's been seen at night on a fair few occasions. Still, I was sufficiently happy to see her again that I can overlook these problems. Her line near the end, "Did I miss anything?" was almost funny enough to leave me with a decent opinion of the episode. Almost.

Technical aspects: As always, the various technical aspects that can be easily overlooked were up to the high standards of the show. Things like animation, voice acting and background music all met my expectations. I have nothing to add to that.

The Ugly

At this point, you may well be thinking I should actually have liked the episode. The above negatives are nitpicky at times, whereas the positives are more general. To an extent, this is true. For most of the running time, this was the best episode ever, owing to great tension, excellent characterisation, and some great music, amongst other things. However, to state that this was the best episode ever, or even a good episode, or even a tolerable episode, is to ignore my biggest problem with the episode, which is...

The ending.

To be more specific, the climax, where Cadance and Shining Armour defeat Chrysalis and her changeling army with the power of love. Even thinking about this makes me incredibly angry, so I'm going to divide this into smaller issues.

Who are the protagonists, again? A fairly simple rule of thumb with storytelling is that the protagonist(s) should defeat the antagonist(s), with the possible exception of tragedies. In TV shows, this can be made slightly more specific, in that protagonists should defeat the major antagonists, since there may well be minor antagonists for minor characters to defeat in 'a day in the limelight' episodes. In the context of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, it therefore stands to reason that the Mane 6 should defeat any major villains. This was held to in the premieres of Seasons 1 and 2, where the Mane 6 defeat Nightmare Moon and Discord, respectively.

This is not held to here. Instead, the Mane 6 are, with the exception of Twilight, completely useless. Even Twilight is bordering on useless. This is especially ridiculous when you consider that Twilight was the protagonist for most of the episode. To have this suddenly change makes this scenario doubly ridiculous. 

Edit 16/7/12: (Comments around the internet have made me realise that I should realise that I should emphasise that Twilight did do some useful things in the episode, primarily rescuing Cadance.  The problem is that these are supporting activities, which are obviously the realm of supporting characters.  Imagine if Neville had defeated Voldemort at the end of Deathly Hallows.  Harry would still have done some useful things along the way, things that were necessary for Voldemort to be defeated, but I think we would all feel a bit cheated if it had been anyone but the series' protagonist who dealt the final, most crucial, blow.  And Cadance and Shining Armour are nowhere near as awesome as Neville Longbottom.)

Instead, the most boring characters in the episode are suddenly made into the heroes. It's impossible to give a shout of triumph for characters that, to be blunt, I don't give a damn about in their own right. For that matter, what psychological issue(s) are they overcoming in order to defeat Chrysalis, anyway? In the first two two-parters, you can clearly point out the lessons that Twilight and, to a lesser extent, her friends, learn, and it is those lessons that enable them to defeat the villains. That's good writing, and it makes the victories very satisfying to watch. Cadance and Shining Armour don't really learn anything, unless something flew right over my head, so this victory has little to hold my interest.

Update 1/6/12: Various people around the internet have raised the good points that it does make for a nice change of pace to have the villain be defeated by something other than the Elements of Harmony, and by someone other than the Mane 6.  I agree entirely with the first point, and indeed the ending I give in the section "How it Could Have Worked" doesn't use the Elements of Harmony.  In regards to the second point, it is fine to have minor characters defeat villains, as long as said villains are also minor.  Major villains should be defeated by the protagonists, or else we can scarcely call them the protagonists at all.  This is especially the case in a show like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, where major villains are hard to come by. 

It made no sense: The only justification given for having to resort to this ending is that the Mane 6 were defeated by the changeling army before they could obtain the Elements of Harmony. Yet we saw them handling a massive number of changelings without tiring. Why is the next wave able to defeat them? It shall forever remain a mystery, because we're not even given the common courtesy of being shown this battle. The one they lose is the one that's important, since clearly the enemies must have done something different, yet we are not shown this. Even when they're brought back to Chrysalis, they're far more docile than they should be. They should be thrashing, refusing to give in as long as they have any strength left in their bodies. That's what heroes do.

For that matter, why doesn't Twilight try to use the shield spell, since we know she can do it from "Ponyville Confidential" (it appears to also have been used by her in "The Return of Harmony, Part 2", in the final showdown with Discord)? True, she had never used it on a sufficient scale for victory here, but we know that Twilight can unleash phenomenal amounts of power when under pressure. Why didn't she do it here? 

Edit 16/7/12: (The point has been raised by many around the internet that the shield falls under the category of Shining Armour's special talent, and thus it would be believable to have him be better at controlling it.  That said, Twilight did not have to keep the shield up for long, just for long enough for the Mane 6 to get to the Elements of Harmony (or for the shield to blast Chrysalis and the changeling army away, depending on the exact mechanics of it).) 

Finally, why weren't the Mane 6 already wearing their Elements, when it was known that there was a threat out there? True, no one knew what the threat was, but the Elements of Harmony are a known ace, and it makes sense to have your best weapon ready to deploy at any time when you're in a state of conflict. If the writers want to avoid whipping out the Elements of Harmony every time there's a major threat, then create a threat that cannot be defeated by them. Don't make everyone grossly incompetent. 

In short, it should never have gotten to the point where they needed Cadance and Shining Armour to save the day, because of the above three points. 

Update 1/6/12: To HMorris73's first comment, and to anyone else suggesting that they were waiting for another chance, there wasn't going to be one. That was their one shot, and they surrendered.  They could have and should have either:

(a)  Charged through the forces in front of them, ignoring the ones behind them.  They're living cavalry.  If there's one thing cavalry do well in fiction, it's a line-breaking charge.  Once they get the Elements of Harmony, they win, and the enemy army becomes entirely irrelevant. 

(b)  Gone down fighting.  That's what heroes do.  The fact that the Mane 6 didn't even do that is, to be frank, pathetic. 

It made the battle pointless: Since the Mane 6 didn't get the Elements, what was the point in having that sequence where they try to get them? It didn't change the situation. It could easily have been written out, and simply had the Mane 6 not able to get out of the first wedding, as Chrysalis' army subdues them then and there. Honestly, for the amount that actually mattered in this episode, it could probably have been squeezed into one part. It would still have been a bad episode, but I for one can easily push a bad one-part episode to one side (I frequently forget that "The Cutie Pox" even exists). Two-part episodes are inherently more memorable, so when you mess them up, we remember that you messed up. Needless to say, this is a very bad thing. Also, if this episode was only a one-parter, there would have been space for another good episode in this season (a Scootaloo episode would have gone well in this season). 

Edit 1/6/12: To anyone pointing out that the battle was a good action scene and served to raise tension, they could have done that in considerably less time by having the battle take place at the wedding itself.  If they're not going to get to the Elements of Harmony, then there's no point in letting them get out of the wedding.  The time could have been better used elsewhere, like actually finding something useful for the Mane 6 to do. 

Broken Aesop: For those unfamiliar with TV Tropes, this term refers to a situation where the actual moral of the episode is contradictory to what the writer(s) obviously intended. In this case, the moral that was clearly intended is some variation on the cliche "love conquers all", with this coming from Cadance and Shining Armour defeating Chrysalis and her army with the power of love. 

Let's take a few steps back, though. Chrysalis was only able to get as far as she did because of Shining Armour's love for Cadance. If Shining Armour had not loved Cadance, then one or both of two things would have happened. Either Chrysalis' brainwashing wouldn't have worked (this depends on the exact mechanics of this spell), or she wouldn't have been able to absorb any love from him, and thus wouldn't have had the power to defeat Celestia. As it stands, Chrysalis' dialogue implies that she would have been defeated by Celestia if Shining Armour had been able to suppress his love at all. In short, if Shining Armour had forsaken emotional attachments and actually focused on his duties as Captain of the Royal Guard, then Chrysalis wouldn't have been much of a threat at all. 

Also, the changelings are all powered by love. Logically, therefore, if there was no love at all, they would starve to death. Therefore, an emotionally repressed populace (remembering that outright hate powers the Windigos, so you can't go to the completely opposite extreme) is the best defence against the changelings. 

In short, love nearly doomed Equestria, not saved it. Something tells me that's not what anyone involved with the show intended. 

Edit 1/6/12: People seem to be having a hard time understanding this concept, so perhaps it would be better if I fell back on a cliche: prevention is better than cure.  This is a generally accepted truth.  Therefore, it would have been better to have prevented the changeling invasion than to stop it after they've gotten into Canterlot and started causing havoc.  Therefore, it would have been better if Shining Armour had not been in love with Cadance, since that's what caused his security system to fall apart.  Is this a tough deal for Shining Armour?  Yes, but he's the Captain of the Royal Guard, and he chose to be.  His duty is to protect Celestia, Luna and Canterlot above all else, including his own happiness.  If he doesn't like it, then he should quit, and let some pony who's actually willing to do the job take his place. 

The point has been raised that finding true companions is an important part of the show, and true enough... for those outside the system.  Twilight and her friends are outside of Equestria's main defence system, and thus any weakness they possess does not hurt the system.  And of course, they need their friendship to activate the Elements of Harmony.  Shining Armour is at the head of Equestria's defence system (or at least that of Canterlot) and thus any weakness he possesses hurts the entire system.  Nor does he need to trust any individual, and indeed he shouldn't.  Rather, he should establish a system whereby no one betrayal can do any significant damage (the Space Marine chapters in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy come to mind, for those who understand that reference).  By allowing himself to become emotionally attached to someone outside the chain of command, he puts a huge weak spot in the whole system that can and did bring it crashing down, only to be saved by a deus ex machina.  If I was a citizen of Canterlot, I would not feel at all safe with that pony in charge of defence. 

Now, HMorris73 did raise the point that no one could have foreseen Cadance being kidnapped and replaced with an impostor.  This is a fair point, but there are two problems.  First of all, Cadance could have betrayed him in any number of ways by her own will.  Obviously, in one's personal life, it's worth taking the risk of betrayal by one's loved ones for the various emotional benefits of such a relationship, but Shining Armour's responsibilities are far too important to allow for that potential betrayal.  Second, by forming an emotional attachment, he has given all of Equestria's enemies potential leverage over him.  All it would take is one villain kidnapping Cadance, and they'd be halfway to having a foothold into Canterlot.  Not a good idea.  Again, am I asking for Shining Armour to have a much harder life than most ponies?  Yes, but it is his job and his duty, and he chose it.  He can't just take the good parts and not the bad. 

I admit that when I was making the point about an emotionally repressed populace being the best defence, I was probably taking things a bit far.  If nothing else, such a thing is ludicrously unfeasible, and if a law can't be enforced properly, it is kind of pointless to make the law-abiding suffer with it.  I will leave the paragraph there for the sake of posterity, and to show that I can change my mind. 

It goes against the nature of the show: The show is called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I don't think it's too much for me to ask that the major villains be defeated by friendship, as opposed to romantic love. Wasn't this supposed to be the girls' show that didn't involve trite romance? This is a cartoon that has subverted romance so brilliantly in the past, with both The Best Night Ever and Hearts and Hooves Day showing the cliches of romance for the farces that they are. To see the show's first (and, if this is the best the staff can do, hopefully last) true romance have less originality than Disney movies based directly on fairy tales is not only disappointing, not only annoying, but simply bizarre. 

In the end, for all of the show's talk of the 'magic of friendship', it doesn't do anything here. You may as well change the show's title to My Little Pony: Friendship is Nothing Compared to True Love. To the target audience, this message is bordering on destructive. It essentially tells little girls that they will never be complete without a man in their life. For the record, I am a man, and I do not think that men or women need a romantic partner of either gender to be complete.  

Edit 1/6/12: HMorris73 raised two interesting points.  The first is that my argument that the episode suggests that no one is complete without romance could just as well be applied to friendship.  In a sense they are right, but I would like to raise two points to counter it.  First, friendship is a lot easier to find than romance, especially at the age of the target audience.  Most people tend to get friends by default.  Second, all of the clinical psychologists I had in my school years told me to make friends (amongst other things), so I'm rather inclined to go with their word on what is psychologically healthy.  In other words, the show does arguably make such a claim, but I'm inclined to agree with them, and to think that it is, though not necessarily a positive message, at least a constructive one. 

Their second point was that love was never shown to be more powerful than friendship, because the Elements of Harmony would have been just as good at defeating Chrysalis.  The conclusion is logical from the argument, but the argument itself is flawed.  The physical Elements of Harmony were never the point.  This is shown in both the earlier two-parters, first with the Mane 6 reforging them after they were shattered in "Friendship is Magic, Part 2", and then by the physical elements not working when the Mane 6 went against their natures in "The Return of Harmony, Part 2".  It is the virtues that the elements represent that are important.  Those are what get them to the castle in the pilot, and it is turning against those virtues that renders the elements useless in "The Return of Harmony."  In the battle scene of "A Canterlot Wedding", the Mane 6 do not go against these virtues, but they still lose.  At least to me, that's saying that those virtues are not enough, whereas the power of cliched romantic love is. 

Memo to the staff: It's highly unlikely that any people working on the show reading this, but if they are, I have a question for them: whose idea was it to have Cadance and Shining Armour save the day? Was it Meghan McCarthy, the episode's writer? Was it Jayson Thiessen, using his position as supervising director to override McCarthy's sense of storytelling? Was it Hasbro, so desperate to showcase their new toys in the best possible light that they forgot why this show was successful in the first place? Was it a combination of these things, or something completely different? Personally, I hope it was just Meghan McCarthy completely botching it on her own, because the alternatives do not bode well for the future of the show. I am not, however, willing to claim that is her fault without decisive evidence. So, regardless of the exact reasons behind the decision, I would sincerely appreciate an honest answer. Let us not forget that, as the show has taught us, honesty is the first step towards harmony, and dishonesty is the first step towards disharmony. 

I believe I have been very honest so far, brutally so even. I would like to continue this trend with a confession of sorts: I look to Season 3 not with the giddy anticipation with which I looked to Season 2, but with genuine anxiety to the show's future direction. I want to believe my worries are misplaced, but it is a hope that seems very far away at the present. 

How it Could Have Worked

Now, some of you are undoubtedly thinking "I'd like to see you do better." This is a fair point, but with a few problems. First, it's not my job to write fiction, so if I'm bad at it it doesn't invalidate my opinions or make this episode tolerable. Imagine if a plumber who had done a shoddy job fixing a toilet said "I'd like to see you better." Second, while I do the occasional bit of writing for fun, it's not at all in the style of My Little Pony. Meghan McCarthy and the other staff members, on the other hand, have shown repeatedly that they are able to make the concept of cute talking ponies work. 

I'm not one to turn down a challenge, though, and criticism is best if there's a constructive element involved, so let's see if I can improve the climax at all. That is, as I have shown above, the biggest problem with the episode. Note that I'm not going to attempt to replicate proper screenplay formatting, as that's a right pain in the proverbial posterior. 

Let's set the scene. The episode goes through as normal until the Mane 6 are captured and brought back to Chrysalis. Yes, I know that entire aspect of the plot bugs me, and I'm not claiming this ending fixes that, but let's keep the changes to a minimum. At any rate, my ending kicks off when Cadance is attempting to power up Shining Armour with her love.

Shining Armour: No! My power is useless now. I don't have the strength to repel them.

Princess Cadance: My love will give you strength.

Cue attempt at cheesy power-up

Chrysalis rolls her eyes, and laughs.

Chrysalis: Oh please.

With a single blast from her horn, she knocks Cadance and Shining Armour to the ground. They do not rise.

Chrysalis: Did you really think I was just going to let you do that? Did you really think I would spend so long planning this, and let the one thing that could stop me get loose?

A bright purple light shines from off-screen.

???: No one... hurts... my... brother...

Twilight floats in mid-air, curled up in a foetal position, encased in a pink bubble, much like Shining Armour's shield spell. Her eyes are closed, but seem to glow even beneath her eyelids.

Inside the cocoon, Celestia smiles.*

Chrysalis: No!

She blasts Twilight, but the shield absorbs the spell.

Shining Armour raises his head, but is otherwise unable to rise.

Shining Armour: Twilight...

Twilight: Shining Armour, I'm sorry. When I heard you were getting married, I couldn't accept it. Even if it had been the real Cadance, I would have tried to stop it. I couldn't let you go. But I can see clearly now. Even if you go away, even if we were never to see each other again, you'd still be...

Tears start to flow down Twilight's face, but she manages to smile through them.

Twilight (singing a capella): My Big Brother Best Friend... Forever.

Twilight opens her eyes, revealing the blinding light within. The shield expands like an explosion. As it hits Chrysalis, she screams, but is unable to stop the sheer force from blowing her and her army away from Canterlot.

As everything settles, Twilight floats back to the ground, panting for air. The light fades from her eyes, revealing her pupils once again.

*Okay, this is unnecessary, and may well be deleted in a purely hypothetical future draft. I just included it because I love the hint of ambiguity it gives, leaving open the possibility that Celestia somehow planned some or all of the events of the episode, including her own defeat. She's best as a chessmaster, as I believe the two-parters show. 

Obviously, a little more probably needs to happen after this climax, but that's not really the point. After all that's settled, they could still do the bland, generic wedding if they really wanted to. I believe, however, that something like this would be much more suitable after a long battle:

Celestia: Cadance, do you?

Cadance: I do.

Celestia: Shining Armour, do you?

Shining Armour: I do.

Celestia: Then I now pronounce you mare and colt.

Something somewhere is very wrong when a Mel Brooks movie has a more romantic wedding scene than a story where the villain is defeated by the power of romantic love. 

That aside, that is my ending. Obviously, it is only a first draft, and it shows. I need to bring in Cadance a little more, the dialogue is wooden at best (although those first two lines, atrocious as they were, were from the actual episode), and I may well be missing many details that an actual script would require, and that's not even mentioning the lousy formatting. If reality somehow got warped to the point where I was actually writing this episode, this ending would still have to go through a lot of editing. I maintain, however, that I have provided the framework for a good ending, albeit still one that doesn't satisfy me as much as those of the other two-parters. 

Let's look at what works in this ending. First and foremost, it puts the focus back on one of the show's protagonists, namely Twilight. The fact that she was also the protagonist of this episode until the climax makes it logical that she be the one to defeat Chrysalis, though I must admit that was mostly a happy coincidence. With the situation as it was, Twilight was the only one of the Mane 6 who could feasibly do anything. Naturally, this means that this ending does not resolve the issue that the rest of the Mane 6 were completely useless in the episode, but some things aren't so easily fixed. 

Second, it fixes the broken moral, to an extent, while still keeping close to the original intention. Chrysalis is still defeated by love, but it is the familial love that Twilight has towards Shining Armour and (arguably) Cadance, which is what revealed Chrysalis in the first place. This is instead of the romantic love that gave the villain her foothold in the first place. Therefore, familial love can still be shown as a positive force without any hypocrisy. By putting the focus on family, it also makes the message much more relevant to the show's primary audience of little girls. Chances are that they have a family of some description, but they are much too young to be pursuing romance. 

Third, it cuts Cadance and Shining Armour down to size. As mentioned in their respective sections, they commit their own crimes against freedom and duty, the latter with terrible consequences, but they are allowed to get away with it. While Chrysalis injuring them is not a strictly logical method of punishment, it works on a karmic level, and that's good enough. Note that this is the basic reason why I don't mind Celestia's dismissive, even slightly cruel treatment of Twilight's legitimate concerns at the end of Part 1, since karma paid her back in Part 2. 

Fourth, it actually makes Chrysalis much more threatening. As it stands, she is defeated not because of any deep power of love, but because she was dumb enough to let Cadance charge up Shining Armour. To be fair, villainous hubris is nothing new to this show, or fiction in general. Countless hero/villain pairs could have echoed the famous exchange from Return of the Jedi - "Your overconfidence is your weakness", "Your faith in your friends is yours!", and only a few of these texts suffer for having this concept. As it stands, Chrysalis having villainous hubris is not a bad thing, but having her subvert it would definitely be a good thing. 

In short, I believe that the ending I wrote, flawed as it is, is still vastly superior to the one we got.

How it Can be Fixed

Sadly, this is reality, and all my explanations of how the ending could have worked aren't going to fix things, since I obviously do not work on the show. Neither is it at all probable that Studio B will remake this episode to fix the ending. Does this mean that the episode is doomed to remain as the worst of the series (or at least of the first two seasons, if we somehow wind up with a worse episode than this in the future)? Not necessarily. Much like a bad plot point in a novel can become good due to a future event, so too can a bad episode of a TV series become good, if there is a move to fix the problem. This is better explained with examples of how the episode can be fixed in this manner. They will be rated for both practicality and effectiveness. 

Never mention any of it again: This is simple enough. Basically, if the events and characters (Cadance, Shining Armour and Chrysalis, although they might be able to get away with keeping changelings in general) are never mentioned again, then it will be simple enough to pretend that the episode never happened, and thus its glaring flaws can be ignored. This sounds ridiculous, and it is, but humans are inherently ridiculous. I'm fairly sure that comic books have done this on many occasions in regards to some of their more stupid plots and characters, and nowadays I barely remember the atrocious "Garbageman" episodes of the 2003 series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which were all but ignored after the second season. The obvious downside with this method is that it doesn't really solve anything, and some viewers will struggle with it more than others. 

Practicality: Extremely high.   What could be simpler, after all? 

Effectiveness: Will vary greatly from person to person. High for me, because I've done it before. 

Edit 16/7/12: Sadly, it looks like this will not come to pass.  Cadance is at the very least mentioned in a song from Season 3, and will most likely appear. 
Make the events a dream or hallucination: I seem to recall that Buffy the Vampire Slayer did this with one character across a whole season, but since I'm not a fan, I can't confirm that. It also brings to mind many 'holodeck malfunction' episodes of various Star Trek series. Essentially, you just need to have it turn out that a villain (possibly even Chrysalis for this purpose) was implanting visions or fake memories into a character's mind. Since Twilight was essentially the viewpoint character for this episode, she would be the ideal victim. The plot of the Season Three premiere would thus revolve around breaking loose from this dream world, or bringing Twilight back to reality in some other fashion. 

This may well seem too complex for a children's cartoon, and it certainly wouldn't be an easy method. I do believe it could be made to work, though. I again refer to the 2003 TMNT cartoon, specifically the episode "Virtual Reality Check", which was essentially a holodeck malfunction episode in half the time Star Trek normally took, and was similarly aimed at children (probably a slightly older audience than MLP, though). The problem is that TMNT and Star Trek had these episodes self-contained. In this scenario, the MLP writers would be trying to make it work not only across different episodes, but across two different seasons. Given that "A Canterlot Wedding" didn't end on a cliffhanger and the series hasn't been arc-based to this point, this may cause problems. They would most likely have the benefit of a two-part episode to make the idea work, however, which is more than TMNT had. 

If the idea were made to work, then it would be extremely effective. Not only would it essentially nullify the worst aspects of the ending, but it would also explain why Cadance and Shining Armour came out of nowhere: they never existed at all. The horribly bland romance and wedding could also be explained by the villain not understanding how these things work, and thus having to draw from fairy tale tropes. It wouldn't be the first time the show has been incredibly meta - "Lesson Zero" did that excellently. 

There would be one downside, though, in that this would make "A Canterlot Wedding" all but unwatchable on its own. Honestly though, that's only a little bit worse than the current state of affairs. I certainly don't watch this episode for pleasure at the moment. 

All in all, I think this idea would be excellent if they pulled it off, and I honestly think the writers could, if they took the time to make it work. It's my preferred method. 

Practicality: Medium. It's been done in cartoons, but I can't recall an instance of this scale.

Effectiveness: Extremely high. 

Give the neglected characters a truly awesome moment: "Neglected" refers to the Mane 6, and arguably Celestia and Luna. Essentially, their uselessness (near-uselessness in Twilight's case) can be remedied by having them do something sufficiently awesome. It's not redemption in the strictest sense, but it's certainly a similar idea. There are many forms this could take, and since Season 3 will probably begin with a two-parter, there's a reasonable chance this is going to happen. It can also be combined with other methods listed here for an improved effect. 

I cannot overstate how important it is to get this done as soon as possible. If these characters do not do something awesome and important in the Season 3 premiere, then it will be all but impossible to take them seriously, the Mane 6 as protagonists or Celestia and Luna as beings of great power. Failure to do this would all but kill the series. 

Practicality: High. Chances are that this will happen on some level, unless Hasbro has some more bland characters they want to sell toys of.

Effectiveness: Medium to high. It won't eliminate the complete failures of these characters in "A Canterlot Wedding", but it will help redeem their value. The specific amount will depend on what they do to earn that esteem. 

Cut Cadance and Shining Armour down to size: This has already been covered in part, but it should be mentioned again here. Essentially, the way these characters are presented is far too perfect. While they have flaws, they lurk beneath the surface and are never focused on. Therefore, it is necessary to have them fail. Completely. Utterly. This was done to great effect with the Mane 6 in "The Return of Harmony", although here it would be best if they don't recover under their own power. We don't want them taking the protagonists' role again, after all. 

There are many ways in which this can be done. I'm probably being a bit sadistic here, but I personally favour killing them off. They're dull, dead weight characters who have hurt the show far more than they have helped it. Killing them off would create easy drama, establish a villain as a threat, and eliminate a problem at the same time. Blood and gore is obviously not an option, but with the darker themes of Season 2, and the cartoon action violence of "A Canterlot Wedding", I think the franchise is ready to take this step. I may well be the only one who thinks so, however, as my fall-back solution to most story problems seems to be "kill off a character." 

If death is not an option, then there are still other options. In particular, it has been all but confirmed that Discord will be returning next season, and I would love to see him psychologically break Cadance and Shining Armour. He is more than capable of bringing those hidden flaws I've spoken about to the surface, and turning the characters against the Mane 6 would certainly provide conflict. 

Practicality: High. We've probably got the villain, so we just need the plot. 

Effectiveness: Medium to high. Much like the previous solution didn't fix the uselessness of those characters, so this solution won't change the fact that Cadance and Shining Armour stole the spotlight for no good reason. Cutting them down to size will help make sure it doesn't happen again, though. 

Have the Mane 6 defeat Chrysalis under their own power: It is reasonable to assume that Chrysalis is still alive. Most major villains in cartoon shows return at least once, and nothing about her defeat suggested anything lethal to me. Therefore, there is a fair chance she will return, and obviously someone will have to fight her then. Logically, it should be the Mane 6, since they are supposed to be the show's protagonists. By having them defeat Chrysalis, it will show that they have grown into fuller heroines, which is always a good thing. It would also redeem "A Canterlot Wedding", showing it as only a part in the narrative. 

To give an example of how that aspect works, I refer back to one of my favourite cartoons, the 2003 version of TMNT. In their first encounter with the Shredder, the turtles get their shells handed to them, and ultimately have to be saved by Splinter. As the series progresses and the turtles become better fighters, they are able to hold their own against him and even defeat him on a few occasions without help ("Exodus, Part 2" is a noteworthy exception to this pattern, as is "Turtles Forever", but those work in context). By Season 6, they wind up fighting the long-since-defeated Shredder through a mishap involving time travel, and barely break a sweat defeating him. This shows their development as fighters and as characters, and thus their earlier failures, and the episodes featuring them, become redeemed. 

A related method would be to have Celestia fight Chrysalis again and defeat her easily, on account of the changeling queen not having absorbed enough love from a victim. This would re-establish Celestia as a figure of power and show that Chrysalis' earlier success was mostly down to luck. 

Practicality: Extremely high. Chrysalis can easily return, and it is not in principle difficult to write an episode where the Mane 6 defeat her.

Effectiveness: Medium to extremely high. Honestly, something like is so vague that its effectiveness would be in the execution, but it would help things without a doubt. 

Let the Mane 6 go out in a blaze of glory: Please understand that I am speculating about a worst-case scenario here. Basically, I am proposing the possibility (and it is only a possibility) that Hasbro enforced the ending of "A Canterlot Wedding". Their intention within this theory would be to push the Mane 6 to the background so they can showcase new characters with which to sell new toys. In this case, Cadance and Shining Armour would be the first of many spotlight-stealing characters. 

The negative effects of this hardly need to be stated. The Mane 6 form an incredibly well-balanced and relatable cast of characters, probably the best I have seen in any cartoon. To rob us of them as main characters would be to remove most of the show's charm. Worse yet, they might be replaced with second-rate imitations. 

If it comes to this, then Studio B could do a lot worse than look to Hasbro's most successful franchise, Transformers, which has tackled this issue on at least two noteworthy occasions. The major one is Transformers: The Movie, which was largely a vehicle to get rid of the old toys and showcase the new ones. To their credit, the writers responded to this with some epic battles in the first half where loads of characters are killed off in spectacular fashion, culminating in Optimus Prime's legendary death scene. In Beast Wars, Dinobot could easily have become largely irrelevant after not getting a Transmetal form for Season 2 (Rhinox had a similar problem, and became relevant only for being the token scientist). Instead, the writers gave him a full episode, "Code of Hero", for a heroic sacrifice so amazing that it's probably the main reason he's in the Transformers Hall of Fame. Ironically, both characters came back in one form or another, and that may actually have been due to viewer response to these deaths. It's not a good idea to count on this, though. 

In both cases, we have a similar result. The beloved characters were gone, but it was done so well that the fans still love that material to this day (and believe me, if you think I'm hard to please, then you should see some Transformers fans). A similar thing could work in MLP, giving our favourite characters the honour of going out with a bang, rather than fading away with a whimper. Yes, this would involve killing them off, and yes, the material afterwards would probably never reach the heights of what came before. Even if the plots were better, the characters would be pale imitations of the originals. That said, I wager that I would not be the only one who would love those episodes, and watch them again and again. 

Once again, I must stress that this is based around a theory and little more. Indeed, if the Mane 6 were being pushed to the background in Season 3 as a whole, then there is a fair chance that someone on the show would have let it slip by now, as to their credit, the staff communicate quite a lot with the fanbase. 

Practicality: Low to medium. This method is reliant on being able to kill off characters, and yet dependent on Hasbro interfering too much in the show's development. Not a favourable combination for a girl's cartoon about cute talking ponies.

Effectiveness: Medium. In a sense, it doesn't fix anything, but it certainly gives a feeling of closure, and if things got bad enough to require this, then that's the best we would get. 

Conclusions

In this article, I have explained my opinions behind "A Canterlot Wedding." I have shown its good points as well as its bad points, and (arguably) shown how the bad far outweighs the good. I have also explained how the episode could have been made better, as well as provided some ways the situation can be fixed now that the episode has been inflicted upon us. 

I hope that, at the very least, you understand my reasoning. If you hated this episode, then I hope the points I have raised feel familiar to you on some level, and have helped to make it clearer why you feel this way. Of course, if you have other reasons for hating this episode, then feel free to state them. You may raise issues that had been similarly sitting in my subconscious. 

If you liked this episode, then I'm honestly not sure how I want you to respond to this. On the one hand, I don't wish to remove an aspect of anyone's happiness, regardless of a disagreement in opinion. On the other hand, I legitimately don't see how anyone can like this episode as a whole, even with its good points. If you have the time and inclination, I would be very interested to read your own opinions on the episode. Why did you like it? Had you thought about the issues I've raised? Does knowing about them change your opinion of the episode at all? Why or why not? I await any response. 

I suppose the only remaining question is, "What now?" What can any of us do to save the show that we love? The answer is, sadly, nothing. I don't work on this show, and chances are you don't either. Even if a staff member does happen to read this article, it is probably too late to change anything, as Season 3 has already started production and is probably well under-way by now. All we can really do is wait, holding onto a hope that the show's best days are ahead, not behind. Such is the nature of being a fan. 

To anyone working on the show who might, by some coincidence, be reading this, I would first like to say thank you. I have been very critical of your work here, and I stand by what I have said, but when you get down to it, you have given us fifty episodes of great material. Some of my favourite cartoons of all time, and most of my favourite live-action shows, could not manage such a feat. I cannot overstate how much I cherish My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. To paraphrase Pinkie Pie, it's true some days are dark and lonely, but it has been there to show me that things aren't that bad. It has made me smile, it has brightened up my day. The fact that I have typed nearly 15 pages of text about a mere 45 minutes worth of material is hopefully testament to how much I care about the show and its characters. 

I would like to close by asking two more favours of you. First, if you have anything at all you'd like to say in response to anything I've said, please get in contact with me in whatever way you can. As much as anything else, I am baffled by this episode, and any explanation you can provide would be most welcome. Second, please do better than this episode. I know you can, because you have already done so. If Hasbro is forcing you to do something you don't want to do, then find a way to make it work. Don't just take the simple option, but find a way to fulfil their demands while staying true to the show, its characters, and yourselves. If you can do that, then you can make the greatest cartoon series of all time, and I for one would look back on this situation and laugh. 

Celestia bless us, everypony.

Edit 1/6/12: I include my comment from below here, for those who do not read the comments, as I believe it to be rather important.  This is in response to HMorris73's third comment, referring to my conclusions. 

"First, I would like to say that no offence was intended towards fans of this episode or any staff members personally. In regards to the former, all people (at least that I've met) have things they like that are objectively complete garbage. I am no exception, as I happen to enjoy most of the sequels to "The Land Before Time." Compared to those, this episode is WALL-E. One instance of poor taste says nothing about the person's taste as a whole, and especially says nothing about them as a person.

In a similar manner, one bad episode does not make anyone associated with it bad at their job. It just means that they messed up on this one occasion. It happens to the best of us. For that matter, most of the people involved with this episode did a good job, it's just that the area that people where there was a mess-up was writing, and that is the most important area, at least to me. Even then, most of the elements of the script worked, it was just that the ending ruined everything. I can entirely understand, however, that a writer can often see a story as the sum of its parts, and thus not see how one element can hurt the whole. The phrase "kill your darlings" is common writing advice for a very good reason, but I'd wager that every professional writer has broken this on at least one occasion. Often, the result is not serious. Here, it was.

And of course, all of that is entirely irrelevant to the staff as people. The world is full of talented jerks and good people without any noteworthy talent. From all that I've seen, the staff of My Little Pony are good, friendly people, and I have nothing against them as people. That said, their nature as people is all but irrelevant to me, as I will likely never meet them in person or share any correspondence with them, and the messages they send out to the fans, nice as they are, do little to enrich my life.

You also seem to be a little bit naive about the staff's opinions. Now I don't actually recall seeing any of the staff members making subjective comments on the episode (e.g. whether it was a good or bad episode), merely stating things like they were glad the fans enjoyed it and so forth. I'm going to assume that you've seen something I haven't, and thus that some people involved with the show have stated that they liked the episode. I'll just tell you that, on some level, this happens with the vast majority of artists in their interactions with fans and the media. No matter how bad something is, there will be people involved with the production proclaiming its greatness. There are many reasons for this, but not the least of which is that people want to stay on good terms with their employers. Imagine that I was working on the show, and I posted the article (or something similar) in a place where hundreds, if not thousands, of people saw it. Yeah, somehow that latter part is even harder to believe than the first part, but work with me here. Do you really think I'd still have that job in a month? I certainly wouldn't expect to. I would probably still make the comments out of artistic principle, but that's only because I don't have a family to feed, as a lot of the staff probably do. I certainly don't expect anyone to put their families' well-being at risk over a cartoon show, and I wouldn't even recommend it.

In the end, we probably won't know the true opinions of any staff member for certain until after the show has finished or they have finished working for Hasbro. Such is life."