An adult lady friend of mine has a birthday coming up. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and she pulled "A pony!" out of thin air.
My adult friend really likes animals, and can handle a little rough treatment; I looked into giving her a professional horse-riding lesson (there are stables in the area), but the prices were way out of range for my gift budget.
Then I considered "My Little Pony." For a joke, I ordered my friend the "Friendship Express" DVD of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic", which is cheap enough to give away as a gag gift, and my friend just might be girly enough to appreciate it. I also ordered something I knew was good: Amy Winfrey's excellent "Making Fiends" animated series.
When "My Little Pony" was introduced, it was a line of pastel-colored plastic horse figurines with pastel-colored acrylic hair which little girls could comb. I do not recall if these horses were even poseable. There was an insipid tie-in TV cartoon series. It was the kind of toy only a little girl could enjoy. I imagine My Little Pony play sessions involved tea parties and mane-grooming, but if any female reading this ever played with these My Little Pony toys, please enlighten me and I will issue a correction.
In contrast, little boys continued to play with their violent robot toys and their violent military GI Joe toys, and watched the corresponding violent cartoons. They toys, at least, seemed poeseable and each one seemed to feature separate personalities and skill sets.
Shortly after Wizards of the Coast (the owners of the "Dungeons & Dragons" franchise) got bought by Hasbro, the D&D folks did an April Fool's news update wherein they reported lots of new tie-ins with Hasbro's toy lines, especially "My Little Pony." The article announced plans for much more horse-related content in the D&D game, and adventures intended for entirely equine characters. They provided an image of a re-envisioned girly pink "Beholder" monster, dolled up with little bows on each eyestalk (by the way, Beholders are evil floating monsters from another dimension that hate all humans, they have several eyeballs on eyestalks, and each eyeball can fire powerful deadly magical rays at you). Of course, the My Little Pony tie-in premise seemed ridiculous at the time, and the D&D rules continued to treat horses as mere vehicles.
All good humor has a kernel of truth, however: part of the inspiration for this was no doubt the very real efforts of Role-Playing Game companies (like Wizards of the Coast) to sell their products to the largely-untapped female market. Unfortunately, D&D games and adventures stayed in the boy's-only thematic rut of adolescent power fantasies: manly heroes robbing graves and slaughtering monsters in dank grubby dungeons in between visits to the tavern; even though the game rules and mechanics feature the potential for intrigue, diplomacy, investigation, acts of compassion, and other insightful elements prominent in girls' literature. My point being that there is no reason that D&D need remain a boys'-only game; imagine Nancy Drew and Xena in a Medieval-era supernatural romance novel, where you could determine the outcome!
As it so happens, the My Little Pony franchise got a serious thematic reboot and upgrade with "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic," put together by one of the "Powerpuff Girls" people. Often a franchise reboot takes something swell and drags it through a field of manure (remember the live-action "How the Grinch Stole Christmas?"), but the My Little Pony reboot takes something lame and elevates it into something somewhat more rich and entertaining, with plots and message and characterization. As a result, "Friendship is Magic" is getting really popular, even with boys (called "bronies"), which seems weird on first glance; I mean, only girls like ponies and horses and stuff, right?
Since I had already mail-ordered the "Friendship is Magic" DVD for my friend, I decided to watch some of the cartoons online so that I'd know what I'm subjecting her to. I started with the first episode.
The first episode of Friendship is Magic is a 2-part story featuring a magical quest with a party of 6 ponies (each of whom possesses different skill sets) who must deal with an angry manticore, a water-controlling dragon, and a grudge-bearing spell-casting boss monster. The story starts with an ancient prophecy and hinges on control of magical gemstone maguffins.
For those unfamiliar with D&D, this has all the elements of classic "Lord Of The Rings"-inspired D&D adventure, with monsters almost straight out of the rule books.
(In this part of my little essay, imagine we're in the final seconds of a classic "Twilight Zone" episode. I've dropped hints throughout this posting, and now I'm going to reveal the amazing twist ending that will bend your mind and chill your bones.)
Remember that whimsical joke about "Dungeons & Dragons" adopting elements of "My Little Pony"? It's gone the other way: in a weird twist of fate, "My Little Pony" has adopted elements of D&D!
Not that I'm complaining.
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