Why is Friendship is Magic such a good show? It's all things good and decent and wonderful. It's a show specifically for young girls but designed to have appeal for a far broader audience. So it's fun and clean and uplifting. That could be said of a lot of things. Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, Care Bears? All of these properties started out as designs on greeting cards. My Little Pony was designed to sell toys. Could that be it?
Friendship is Magic. My Little. Pony. Magic. Pony. Magic. Pony Magic? Yeah, that's good. Horses, through being alongside us for all of human history, have distinct lyrical ties. Medieval Europe, the American (and I guess Australian) Old West, legendary and mythic horses like Pegasus. So that gives us the archetypes for Pegasi, unicorns, and (just plain old) earth ponies. It's horses. The magic is an integral part of this. It extends to the core.
Style and substance? The horses aren't just the style, but the substance. Example. Without serial killers, say, Silence of the Lambs wouldn't be, so the darkness is necessary. Contrariwise, the lightness is necessary for Friendship is Magic.
(Just trying to think of a way to slip Cupcakes into this. I guess.)
It's a My Little Pony show, meaning it's designed to sell toys, meaning the adventures are meant to be able to continue beyond the screen. It's supposed to capture the imagination. Yay. That also causes the idea of personalization: being based off of that which is meant to be collectible, the character design has a sense of customization, from the colors to the mane style to the cutie marks. I guess that's another thing that comes from that.
If it weren't My Little Pony, it wouldn't be good.
Bizarre.
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