The Return of Harmony Part 2 (of 3)

Not really, but it should have been. As a five part series finale this could have been the most awesome thing ever, but as a two part season premier, not so much. One hour of material was crammed into 22 minutes of show and with predictable results. The most powerful villain in the world was defeated in a deus ex machina way and turned back into stone as if that were the default setting of the Elements of Harmony.



Luna didn't appear (although Derpy was in the crowd at Canterlot). She was banished for 1000 years, but that wasn't punishment enough, so she was banished for the rest of Season One and the start of Season Two - the most siginficant event in the history of Equestria. Some ponies can't catch a break. She and Celestia just sat by and did nothing while Discord was on the loose? They could have at least helped (in a way other than returning Twi's letters).



If Twi could use her magic to undo Discord's negative effects on her friends why didn't she do so in the beginning? It would have been better if they had to overcome their changes with at least some struggle, if not two additional episodes worth. Part one seemed to be building up for something that never happened.



Now that the Mane 6 defeated Discord who would ever oppose them? They've only saved the very fabric of reality, they should be heaped with praise, their every whim delivered. You want everything for free for the rest of your life? No problem, you only saved reality. How could they possibly get repaid? I'm actually disappointed by this turn of events. Where do you possibly go from here?



The whole Cutie Mark Crusaders subplot was never resolved. It was just dropped like one of Discord's many non sequiturs. Were they there to demonstrait something? Were they there to serve as foreshadowing? Did their petty arguing actually free Discord? The world may never know.



This episode tried to be the greatest thing ever but was left wanting.



That's not to say this episode was bad, merely rushed. I would have to give this episode a comparatively low rating of 9.0 (out of 10.0). Not bad, like Over a Barrel, but not fantastic like Suited for Success or The Cutie Mark Chronicles.



Some very good parts of this episode include:



*Derpy was there, although she wasn't derping

*EVERYTHING about Discord

*Mean Fluttershy standing up to mean Pinkie Pie (at least somepony did it)

*Twi's balloon is back!

*When Discord fills the glass with chocolate milk he fills it from the top down, then drinks the glass and throws the glass-shaped milk away! And it blows up!

*The way Discord sits on his throne (see top picture)

*Twi handing out all the EoH necklaces and when she comes to her own she calls it a "big crown thing"

*Spike is the new Rainbow Dash

*Applejack eating apple cores and they get more complete with every bite

*When the Mane 6 originally attacked Discord with the EoH he puts a bullseye on his chest

*When they attack Discord the second time he says "friend me"

*Discord saying to Twi "Maybe the magic of friendship can help you."

Marine Sergeant - A True Hero

On 15 September the President awarded Marine Sergeant Dakota Meyer the Medal of Honor for saving the lives of 36 of his brothers in arms. He disobeyed orders and entered an Afghan kill zone five times to save the lives of 13 Americans and 23 Afghanis, as well as recover the bodies of 4 of his friends. This is truly moving. Words cannot do justice to his brave deeds.

The Return of Harmony

Today was the long awaited premier of season two of FiM, and we got to meet the awesome villain Discord and learn that Equestria follows the same basic rules as most creation myths.



If we recall #69 on the list: Celestia needs the Elements of Harmony to defeat her sister, so even though she's older she's the weaker of the two.



From this we can know the following: (101.) Since both Celestia and Luna together needed the Elements of Harmony to defeat Discord, that makes Discord the de facto most powerful being ever introduced on the show. Not only did he precede the sisters as ruler of the world, he also held that position since deep antiquity and is possibly the oldest being yet introduced.



Next is the issue of the Elements of Harmony themselves. Who or what created them, or have they always existed?



The story presented in today's episode is one with a great deal of staying power. The world exists from an infinite past in chaos; out of the chaos are born the gods, the gods do battle with a great dragon, slay it, and then build the world from its remains. A lot of ancient myths follow this pattern with only slight variation (the Babylonian story of creation with Marduk fighting Tiamat follows it directly; the Greek Theogony details how the gods came from the premordial chaos: Kronos defeated his father Uranus, bringing about a golden age like when Celestia and Luna ruled together, then he overstepped his bounds and Zeus defeated him, like when Luna became Nightmare Moon and had to be defeated by her sister). This chaoskampf (conflict with chaos) appears throughout a very large number of the world's creation stories (including the Bible where, in Job, God tells Job how he fought Behemoth and Leviathan at the time of creation, trapped them, and how they will be destroyed in the eschaton, like how Discord was fought and trapped in stone, though we don't know if there was ever the intent on destroying him at the end of time), and plays out rather nicely in The Return of Harmony.



My only problem with this episode is that it is only a two-parter. I could stand to watch a separate episode dealing with how Discord affects each of the mane six. He is insanely powerful and insanely cool and I don't think two episodes do him much justice.

Asymmetric Warfare, Afghans, and Aliens

People say the Soviet Union and United States lost in Afghanistan and Vietnam, respectively, because of asymmetric warfare. This is not true in either circumstance.



Russia succeeded in its goals in Afghanistan and left the country because they had more pressing concerns elsewhere. The pro-Soviet Afghan government faired very well for several years after the Soviet withdrawl in 1989, the Mujahideen had largely been crushed by 1986 when the Soviets began to leave, allowing the Mujahideen to return from Pakistan, and the Soviets learned valuable lessons from testing new field tactics. 1 million Afghans were killed, 2 million internally displaced, and 5 million fled to Pakistan and Persia, and all at the cost of 15,000 Soviet troops.



The United States never set out to win the war in Vietnam in the traditional sense. US goals involved defending the South from communist invasion. US forces could have invaded Hanoi, destroyed the DVR and left the VC to wither away after having the support kicked from under them, but Washington saw the risk of escalation with China as too great and decided to play small ball and eventually pull out, never having been defeated on the field.



The lessons learned from the Soviet-Afghan War and the Vietnam War can be applied to an hypothetical alien invasion of the earth to understand why asymmetrical warfare against extaterrestrials is doomed to fail.



Runs 12:30

Exploring the Near Death Experience

Someone called TheSurvivalIndex has put out a 15 minute video detailing the cultural phenomena associated with the NDE. He says three main groups of people form the bulk of the popular presentation on the NDE:
1. Fundamentalist Christians,
2. New Age Haberdashers, and
3. Fundamaterialist Skep-Dicks.
Group 1 latches on to the pro-Fundamentalist Christian NDEs as proof of their beliefs and ignores or even denigrates NDEs that are favourable to other religions or to no religions at all (like atheists who have NDEs that tell them part of their life's mission is to be an atheist). Group 2 extrapolates from the NDE to believe all sorts of stuff that most likely is untrue (Loch Ness Monster, Fairies, Vampires, etc.*) and often tries to profit large offering spurious services to unknowledgable people. Group 3 likes to come up with bullshit just-so stories to explain away the NDE because they are committed to materialism, even when those stories blatantly ignore real facts, are based on illogic, and other fundamaterialists disagree and tear apart opposing stories. All three groups are able to thrive because the general populous doesn't actually read the primary material - actual NDE accounts and the reports of NDE investigators. Even though all three groups are contradicted by the evidence that doesn't bother them because as long as the vast majority of people are ignorant of that evidence they can still come off looking like authority figures.










*I'm not necessarily saying things like the Loch Ness Monster and fairies are not real - they may be - but I have looked into the topics and can't really find any good evidence for them. Loch Ness almost certainly can't support a single large creature, let alone a breeding population. There were biosonar signals detected in Lake Champlain though, indicating that, while not a "monster" there has to be a freshwater equivalent of a cetacean, something that has never before been seen. Things like fairies, gnomes, and other little people stretch my credulity a might, but they may have something to do with some spiritual force, I don't know and am open to the possibility. Vampires, either corpses reanimated by evil spirits (as the original vampires were), people infected with a virus that compells them to drink blood, or these psychic vampires who are real people who claim to drain people's energy in some way they never quite explain, are probably one of the least likely of these "paranormal" phenomena. If vampires reproduce like zombies there should have been a "vampire" apocalypse by now. The vampires in the Blade movies kept changing to suit the story and the Underworld vampires were never really explained very well, so I don't know how they stayed in hiding all these centuries. Psychic vampirism appears to be a lifestyle choice, like hippies or bikers other such groups, and probably aren't vampires at all, although they get happiness from playing a role. There are people who are difficult or depressed or assaholic and drain your energy that way, but there's nothing "paranormal" about that.

9/11: Ten Years Later

9/11 remains one of the four most significant days in my life (and the only one that didn't happen in a short period between 2005-6). I remember exactly where I was ten years ago. I remember the innocence of the age and the girl at school I paid more attention to than the lessons. I remember the palpable dread that hung over everything. I remember the conversations, the denial, the grim disbelief. I remember having to learn to draw a new New York skyline. I remember how everyone was drawn into patriotism and brotherhood then quickly sunk back into the tick-tock of everyday life. I remember all the freedom I've had to give up. I remember the conversations with "truthers" and all their dreck, listening to people balancing between green and red reproach Capital Bush with the obsession of an alcoholic, ruining even what should have been their own dining experiences (I did attend university once). I remember the scenes of people jumping from buildings, now forever burned into my memory. I remember anger, confusion, sadness, government ineptitude at finding a single man, who was eventually caught and killed and dumped at sea with no proof given to the people who waited a decade for that day and to the country's enemies to serve as a warning.
Damn.
What a decade.

Swami Kriyananda on the Economic Collapse

Recall earlier how I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Paramhansa Yogananda's disciple Kriyananda's world brotherhood colonies, dubbed "Ananda Villiages", were neither hippie nor communist. Everyone must be fiscially responsible and contribute financially to the community. Now Swami Kriyananda gives an hour talk on the global economic collapse. In summary:



*Using creative energy to help others is like a muscle - it gets stronger the more you use it - and not like a fixed quantity like gold that diminshes the more you use it



*A lot of people care only for money, not for people, and they often play the stock market



*Government is too damn big (though he doesn't say "damn")



*Welfare helps government orders of magnitude more than it helps the needy



*...And it's FDR's fault!



*Deficite spending doesn't work and is killing the world economy



*"Legalise pot and maybe hard drugs so criminals can't make profits off of it and addicts can be given help, not rectal exams



*(Interestingly) Rock music (especially metal) is the vibration of negative dimensions and can cause natural disasters!



*Kindness and generosity can shelter you from economic hardship, though not always immediately, and, consequently, if you apply for enough jobs you'll eventually get one



*The Dollar will collapse, leading to world-wide hyperinflation



*The Euro sucks (too)



*Gold coins are very good to survive the economic apocalypse, but good farm land is the best investment



*Starting small communities in the country with similar minded individuals is the key to saving humanity, because cities will explode with apocalyptic crime