It was October 24th, 2015, and as the time came to watch the newest episode of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic -- one where I had read Maud would appear in -- I was moderately filled with apprehension due to the memory of her dreadful appearance in episode 98 still in my mind.
What if this is another bad season five episode? What if they mess up on her characterization even more? Trying to not give it too much thought, I pushed onward and watched. Episode 111: "Hearthbreakers".
Within the first minute the ponies reveal how Pinkie Pie and Applejack's families will be spending Hearth's Warming Eve together, which seems mostly due to the events of the season four episode "Pinkie Apple Pie". Around the five minute mark Pinkie mentions Maud by name, who then appears seconds later, saying, "I'm so excited to see you, Pinkie Pie. You, too, Applejack. I hope you had fun sledding yesterday." After being questioned how she knows about their sledding, she explains that she recognizes the mountainous variety of rock specks embedded in Applejack's hoof. Ha ha ha, Maud sure knows her rocks... now let's just hope they acknowledge her other attributes, too; Remember, back in the "Maud Pie" episode there was more to her than rocks -- like when she tasted Applejack's apple cider she didn't say, "It tastes like apples that grew in an orchard with tourmaline present in the soil", no, she said simply that it tasted like apples, which was something different from both the norm and a rock-obsessor, the sum of which made her less two-dimensional and much more interesting.
Next, Pinkie asks Maud how school is, which is nice as we last heard she was going on a research trip and working towards a Rocktorate in Rock Science, and though there apparently isn't much significant news (Maud just replies by saying, "If you thought quartz was high on the Mohs hardness scale, wait 'till I tell you about corundum.") Pinkie bursts out with what we're all thinking, "I missed you so much!". Maud, Pinkie, and Applejack's family then head to the rock farm where we get to see Igneous Rock and Cloudy Quartz, Maud's father and mother, respectively, followed by Maud's sisters Limestone Pie and Marble Pie no longer as foals -- a first for the show.
Limestone Pie's cutie mark is a lime-half with two stones, and she almost always displays an irritated expression on her face. At one point she's jokingly called "Captain Grumpy" by Pinkie, which is pretty understandable considering Limestone's almost threatening delivery of some of her dialogue. Marble Pie's cutie mark is of three marbles, and she has a nervous and uneasy way about her, even resorting to running away when introductions are initially made; This instantly caught my attention as I generally like shyer characters. After having had run off, we soon find her wearily inspecting some sort of crystal formation by the house when Applejack approaches. By the expression on her face we can tell she's freaked out, and just as she begins to draw back, Pinkie intervenes. "This is Marble Pie: my baby sister who's only a few minutes younger than me, but she'll always be a baby to me!" and then soon adds, "Oh, and she wishes you all a happy Hearth's Warming." Being the center of attention really has her spooked, but after Pinkie gives her a nudge she manages to give a warm, nervous smile and a simple "Mm-hm." If she's only a few minutes younger than Pinkie, I guess that makes them twins... or triplets with another sister. Or even quadruplets. I suppose it's also possible either could have been adopted.
During their Hearth's Warming Eve dinner, the families have rock soup -- soup with a rock in it which the Pie family actually eat. This harkens back to the parts in the episode "Maud Pie" where Maud eats a rock thinking it's a muffin and also how the secret ingredient to the Pie family rock candy recipe is rocks. Marble continues to look very uncomfortable during this scene due to being surrounded with company.
After dinner they move on to another tradition, Hearth's Warming Dolls. The Apples expect them to be crochet, but are surprised to find that with the Pie Family they're chiseled out of rocks. "Are you saying that rock is a Hearth's Warming Doll?" Applejack asks, pointing to a rock Pinkie's holding. "Don't be silly, silly!" Pinkie gives the rock a smack with her tiny pickaxe causing chunks to fall away with only a Pinkie-shaped remain left. "Our dolls are these little pieces! Isn't that right, Marble Pie?" Caught off guard, Marble replies bashfully once again with an "Mm-hm." Maud's then shown steadily making her own doll (which, like Pinkie, looks like herself). After Applejack gives it a try and expresses her less-than-thrilled confusion, Pinkie replies with one of the best lines from the episode; Holding up Applejack's blobby-looking doll, she says, "Oh, you're just a frown-factory because you got a weird rock." -- a true, random, Pinkie comment, and not one of her aware attempts at being funny or just being outrageous and cartoonish.
After the doll making, they move on to "the flag finding mission". Big Mac and Marble form team one, and after initially appearing full of anxiety, she turns away with a blushing smile as Big Mac does the same.
Hmm, are they interested in each other or are they both just ill-at-ease and timid about the whole thing? We'll get back to this development later...
Apple Bloom and Maud form team two, which leaves the former looking a bit concerned and the latter looking a bit... well... a bit like Maud. Good. The rest of the teams are formed and then they're off to look for the "flag", which is said to be an obsidian stone... which then turns out to actually be a
drawing of an obsidian stone. Finding the picture leads to another great Pinkie moment -- Applejack says, "A picture? I've been looking for a
real stone, Pinkie Pie." to which she responds somewhat obliviously, "Um, that would be weird."
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. When it shows Marble and Big Mac during their search, Marble appears sorrowful and seems to be trying to mask her awkwardness by filling the pause of their non-existent conversation with another "Mm-hm.", which Big Mac counters with one of his "Ee-yup"s. Marble says another "Mm-hm", this time with a forced smile, but then turns her eyes to the ground with a dejected frown on her face. Big Mac says another "Ee-yup", this time, too, with a smile, but then similarly reverts back to a more neutral face.
When Maud next shows up, Apple Bloom and her are talking:
Apple Bloom: "What does the rock look like?"
Maud: "It looks like something that formed when volcanic lava cooled quickly."
Apple Bloom: "Oh."
Maud: "Have you ever wished you could turn into a rock?"
Apple Bloom: "I had a dream once I was an apple."
Maud:"We have a lot in common when it comes to thinking about turning into things."
The discussion is more of the standard obsessed-with-rocks-talk Maud's expected to make now. Though, I must admit in all honestly, the longer I dwell on this episode the more I come to decide that the idea of someone just completely obsessed with rocks is indeed really interesting and I can accept it as being a large part of who she is, I just wish that it was either originally set-up as her near-sole intention or that they just created a new character to do something similar with, like a character obsessed with flowers or something -- the way they're handling it, though, is sorta like if they took Twilight Sparkle and suddenly made it where her only character-trait was that she really liked books, and just ignored her organizational skills and her fretting and such.
On Hearth's Warming day, Pinkie zips about awaking the others in her excitement. It's shown where everyone slept, except curiously it's left a mystery where Maud did. She's seen leaving the home with everypony else, so it's fairly safe to say she wasn't slumbering in a cave among rocks or anything. Perhaps she was on a couch somewhere or something. Outside, the Pies are flabbergasted to see that during the night Applejack has decorated their farm to be more akin to how the Apples celebrate Hearth's Warming, including the raising of a flagpole. She approaches Marble (whose facial expression increasingly shows how distressed she is about the intrusion of her personal space) and explains that Marble gets to raise the Equestria Flag up the flagpole since she's the youngest Pie.
All the Pies are visually alarmed in their own ways due to Applejack trying to mess with their traditions, though I guess with Maud that'd only be presumably. As the fuss begins, Maud soon makes note of a discovery and says, "Excuse me. You planted your pole on a fault line." As if in response, a large fissure suddenly forms and subsequently tumbles an important, centerpiece boulder down the side of a cliff away from the farm. And by "important", I mean "important", so much so that the Apples are declared no longer welcome, and Maud and her family begin taking down the decorations.
After some time, the Pies are trying to push the boulder back up to its old spot when Maud says, "I'm pushing as hard as I can, too.", a line that isn't really connected to the previous line (Pinkie: "C'mon, you boulder! C'mon!") and I don't quite understand the inclusion of. Whatever. After the Apples show up again and make their amends, everyone, even Limestone, smiles... except Maud, which is fine by me. When all is wrapping up, Maud is seen holding Boulder (capitalized Boulder) as Apple Bloom pets him, and then offers him a cinnamon roll. Maud smiles a tiny smile of approval, which is also fine by me. Marble and Big Mac sit by the fireplace and face each other happily when suddenly Pinkie falls seemingly from nowhere between the two, causing them to look a bit more disturbed until she says, "Marble Pie, you wanna wish Big Mac a Happy Hearth's Warming, don't you?", which causes Big Mac to smile nervously first, and then a calmer smile from Marble. Pinkie turns to Big Mac and continues with, "And you, too, right Big Mac?" Marble replies first, with one of her "Mm-hm"s, then Big Mac follows with an "Ee-yup". I'd say it's pretty safe to say that the writer's implying the two may be falling in love, and I'm against it for a few reasons. First, let me explain my thoughts on Big Mac...
For the majority of the series I thought Big Mac was a pretty good character, and maybe this was because he didn't talk much and thus didn't have much chance to ruin himself. It was even said in the episode "Hearts and Hooves Day" that Big Mac was "pretty shy", and like I said earlier, I generally like shyer characters. The first chink in Big Mac's armor that I can recall was in the episode "The Cutie Map - Part 1" when Spike reveals that Big Mac is a hoofball fan. I find football really boring and I doubt hoofball is much better. That's a more personal complaint that pales in comparison to seeing his freakish antics in the episode "Brotherhooves Social", though. For those of you who fortunately missed the episode, he goes around in a gaudy, frilly outfit making lengthy comments in a voice a southern lady might have, all with a really loose explanation as to why he'd do it -- I mean, his intentions almost seem to make sense, though poor writing blurred them into something pretty selfish. Regardless, he just went so over the top with it that he's been permanently etched on my not-favorite-characters-list. So while there's a time maybe I would've been for his and Marble's paring, I've lost my respect for him just three episodes ago, and now it just seems wrong. This also means that my view of Marble may be lowered if she's in love with this character I don't like and don't think she should like, either.
After a bit more family interactions, Apple Bloom makes what sounds like the intro into an abominable scene, "Attention, everypony! Maud wants to sing some Hearth's Warming carols that she wrote!" If Maud gets up and starts singing like Sweetie Belle did in "Stare Master", then I officially hate this show. The rest gather around, buzzing with excitement, but quickly it's found that Maud's way of singing is exactly the same as her way of reading poetry. She states, "The first one is about rocks. They're all about rocks.", an homage of sorts to the similar line she made in the episode "Maud Pie" when she read some poetry, complete with the zooming in closeup during the delivery of the second sentence. For the most part I find repeating gags is a poor decision, like with Fluttershy saying "Yay" constantly (maybe that's only a problem in the comics, I can't remember now), but with this scene, I thought it was pretty cool. So while I guess she's technically singing, we're essentially treated to more rock poetry, which goes, "Hearth's Warming is great. Like calcium silicate. What a wonderful day. As good as mica or clay." The episode fades out here, so we don't know if that's the end of the song or not. At first this "singing" sort of bugged me since I see it as more of an extroverted thing to do than I like in characters, but after sleeping on it, I like it now, and can see it very comparable to the way she "expresses herself through fashion" with a dish towel in "Maud Pie".
And now the bottom line: It was actually a good episode in my opinion. It's too bad I felt as apprehensive as I did going in with this being the case, but that's what happens when something's preceded by something lackluster or even outright bad (episode 98 in this case). As I've stated in my previous worries before, they did seem to overdo the rock-obession bit a little too much, which is a shame because that was only a facet of what made Maud great in the "Maud Pie" episode, but I'm starting to just appreciate that at least they're playing up a good thing rather than altering her character as episode 98 did. A pretty obvious problem with My Little Pony Friendship is Magic is that 99% of the time it doesn't come up with a characterization for a pony -- it just picks a stock stereotype. For example, there's Applejack: she has a farm, wears a cowgirl hat, says "yee-haw", is good at herding things, and just about anything you could imagine an old-western farmer type doing, she does. Other perfect examples are Tree Hugger, Fancy Pants, Granny Smith, Diamond Tiara, or even just the naming of characters like Featherweight and Filthy Rich. And so, with Maud originally being the outcome of actually trying to delve deeper to create a new, more unique characterization, it seems to be throwing off the other writers who don't know how to handle it, leaving them like they're trying to whittle down Maud's characterization into something that could be seen being as simple as a stereotype: someone obsessed with rocks. Stock characters have their place, and it's not like stereotyped personalities can't exist in real life, but this show just really, really over does it. One thing that's nice and shouldn't be taken for granted is that as far as I can recall, Maud's voice actress has stayed on track and is doing a great job, so that helps.
I think the combination of a "random" character (Pinkie), a rather expressionless character (Maud), a socially anxious character (Marble), an irritated character (Limestone), and their two reserved parents (Igneous Rock and Cloudy Quartz) sounds like a perfect group for a relatable entertainment experience, and the Pie family's shaping up to be one of my favorite aspects of the show. I really like the direction they took Igneous and Cloudy this time around. They're strict, but not in a particularly irrational feeling way, and I love how they talk -- that almost artificial sounding formal manner. Marble could become a favorite of mine, but right now there's just too little to make a judgement. Limestone seems like a character that has a lot of potential, maybe not as much as Marble, but still a lot; The thing is, I feel like the way they handled Limestone's anger was in a bit too tough of manner -- I'd preferred it had been in a more "I want everything done correctly and will behave as necessary to get it" way. The line between her being a bully and her being a justifiably harsh leader has been done awfully thin in her case, and though I'd like to see her pushed more onto the side of a caring pony who's just a bit stern in her job running the farm and maintaining order, I could certainly see writers continuing her down the more sinister path without even realizing that's not how she should've been handled; No one likes bullies, so why include more in the show when there are better courses of action that could be taken? Then, wrapping up, there are of course Pinkie and Maud, who have been favorites of mine for a long while.
So... was this the comeback of Maud I wanted?
Meh. Close enough.
