My Little Pony: Rise of Cadance review

In late January this year, a new one-shot My Little Pony comic was published: a new G4 My Little Pony comic, Rise of Cadance. Among other things, this has sparked a debate among the fans whether the new G6 will be a continuation of G4 (well, a more direct one than G5 was), or perhaps a reboot, and so on. Without delving too deep into it, I’d just like to state that I’m fine with generations coexisting, so one being the “main” one currently shouldn’t prevent content of older generations being made, particularly when it comes to printed media, which is generally less expensive to produce than animation. If there are writers and artists interested in making it, and fans interested in reading it, bring on all the generations, as far as I’m concerned! Bring on a whole pony multiverse!

So, regardless of whether it has any implications for the future G6 – today we’re reviewing Rise of Cadance as a part of G4 that it is! Since it’s one relatively short comic, we can’t really talk about it without some spoilers – so if you want to get it and read it first, go ahead! You can get a Kindle edition of it on Amazon here (link affiliate), and I’m sure you can find other means if you prefer them. As far as spoilers / prior knowledge of MLP G4 is concerned, if you’ve watched the wedding and Crystal Empire double episodes, and are at least familiar with Twilight Sparkle becoming an alicorn and the birth of Flurry Heart as bare facts, that is sufficient. However, a part of the story in the comic has already been told in the novel Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell (from which the comic deviates slightly, which we’ll address), and minor connections to other pony comics can be made, for better or for worse.

If you’re following the fandom, you may have already read some pretty negative impressions of the comic, including this review by MLP-Trinary on Equestria Daily. While I agree with some of the stuff said there, for me, the comic still has some redeeming qualities and nice moments for me, so let’s sift out the good and the bad!

 

General information, art and writing

First of all, the comic was written by Christina Rice and drawn by Abby Bulmer, both of whom have experience with working on G4 and G5 comics. As far as the art is concerned, generally, the IDW comics’ style, regardless of the artist, is a bit too caricatural for my tastes (to be honest, G4 and G5 overall are, and the comics all the more so), and I prefer more of an epic and fairytale-like feel to my ponies. But with that in mind, Rise of Cadance doesn’t stand out negatively – in fact, the issue is less prominent than in the early (Andy Price era) IDWs.

Speaking of art, Rise of Cadance has two alternate covers, drawn by artists other than Bulmer: one showing Cadance zoomed in, with a swirl of magic on her horn, and another one showing Hitch Trailblazer and Sparky the dragon standing in front of a statue of Cadance with various woodland animals.

Obviously, the second cover is meant to attract those who are primarily G5 fans, just as, back in the day of the G2 era, VHS tapes of the G1 show used to be sold with G2 ponies on the covers. (And here at least they do take place in the future of the same universe, so a direct connection through the statue can be made.) Probably just as obviously, I prefer the first cover. It focuses on the star of the show: this is obviously a comic about her; in the second one, she is so far in the background (and in pastel colours, compared to the bright ones in the front) that you might fail to notice her on a casual look. Also, the comic is fully a G4 one: there isn’t even a short intro of, say, someone in the G5 future learning of her story – so it feels a bit like false advertising to put G5 characters on the cover. If I was a child who watched just G5 and bought the comic because I saw Hitch and Sparky on it, well, I’d be at least confused, and probably disappointed as well, to find out that they’re not in it at all. (So, shame on you, Hasbro, stop trying to trick your fans as to what they’re getting! Thirty years, and still you haven’t learned.) In addition to that, I prefer the more realistic and epic style of the first cover. Still, if you know what you’re buying and like the G5 style, I admit there is some beauty in the other one as well.

As for the writing, it had been criticised up to the point of people suspecting at least some of the lines to be written by AI. While there are some issues with the writing and some lines that could have been better – whether software was used to help is sort of irrelevant at this point, since a human had to at least inspect and approve the end result – I believe all the major issues can be ascribed to two problems that have, alas, been endemic to My Little Pony since the eighties.

 

The concept and the first problem: brevity

As stated, the comic is a one-shot. It’s not the beginning of a series, but a single episode, conceived as Cadance’s reminiscence, covering her past from as early as she remembers herself up to her becoming an alicorn and some brief events right after that. All in 30 pages of comic. That is very, very little for developing an important character and showing the most significant and fateful events of her past. Personally, if I had the liberty, I would have taken at least five times as much for the task at hand. Perhaps Rice would have done a much better job had she been commissioned to write a mini-series, and not a one-shot comic. Of course, this does not excuse her for not polishing the writing, but the fact remains that the format is simply too short for such a story to be told with the detail that it deserves. This isn’t the story of a minor background character, but of one of the so very few alicorns – as Cadance herself underlines. It needed more space. If events feel rushed, that’s because they are. The page count is squeezing them.

This problem, in various incarnations, is something that has been plaguing My Little Pony practically since day one. I firmly maintain that, while I love Rescue at Midnight Castle, it would have been much better as a full-length film, and not a 22-minute special: the plot is rushed and the characters aren’t given time for development. Back in G1, comics and stories were usually only a few pages long – and while that sufficed for some of the more light-hearted, slice-of-life stories, we can easily imagine some of the more dramatic ones, such as Applejack’s Amazing Adventure, being developed with far more detail. G2 never even got animation, just a line of loosely connected stories and comics, and while G3 did get animation, again, it was not a consistent show with a developed timeline, but an assembly of specials and movies, sometimes directly following each other’s plot (like Dancing in the Clouds and Friends are Never Far Away), but sometimes shifting focus and even changing timelines. Which brings us to the second problem.

 

The second problem: series inconsistency

Fans were quick to point out various little details in the plot that don’t quite match what had previously happened in other instalments of the series. The most obvious example is that the ending of the conflict with Prismia (more information about it soon, don’t worry) directly contradicts the description of the same episode in Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell – while the end result is the same, the events take place differently. Young Shining Armour looking at Cadance with hearts in his eyes might be adorable, but if that was their first encounter, that sort of contradicts the story of how they got together in the comic Neigh Anything: they could be reconciled, but again, that requires a bit of a stretch of the reader’s imagination. Other examples of mismatched details could probably also be found.

Another, less factual, but still relevant problem is how some characters are written: most notably Princess Celestia, who seems to be lacking some of her kindness and gentleness, as well as wisdom. While Celestia did have moments of both harshness and bad judgement in the show as well, she could also be relaxed and playful, and did have plenty of good sage advice to share. Personally, I see an easy explanation to this in this particular case, but overall, it is part of a bigger problem. The writer obviously didn’t do all the research necessary – someone in the comments on Equestria Daily even pointed out she might have read Crystal Heart Spell’s wiki page instead of the book itself. But the blame isn’t solely on her: the company also didn’t bother either providing clear factual character guidelines (this-and-this happened and cannot be changed), or providing someone versed in the lore to either advise the writer or check for consistency issues.

This is a type of problem that all big franchises run into: when many people are writing stories set in the same world, sooner or later some of them either won’t know some part of the lore, or will be convinced that the way they’ve done it is better. Discrepancies happen more often when a franchise aims to appeal to audiences of varying ages and interests: My Little Pony does try to ‘cover’ everyone from toddlers who want things bright, shiny and simple, to adult fans of the grim, gritty and creepy. If the same characters feature prominently in both types of stories (and others in between), differences are bound to be noticeable. Of course, the more a franchise grows, the bigger the problem becomes, because there is more and more of material to consume and know. However, it happens to even fairly young and small universes. For example, I’ve been so excited for Nightmares and Sueños back when it was announced as a part of the Encanto world – but I still haven’t gotten around to writing a review for it because of some very annoying inconsistences in there, despite the fact that there really aren’t that many parts of the Encanto franchise.

And, alas, that is the case with ponies, too, or rather, was even back in G1. Even if we ignore the constant introductions of new but not overly fleshed-out characters due to Hasbro wanting to make and sell new toys (that’s not good writing, but isn’t technically inconsistency), already in G1 did the show and printed media seriously deviate from each other through Majesty, a very important character in the books and comics, being completely absent from the show. Some fans treated those two plotlines as completely separate, while some, myself included, tried to make things work out in their heads by stretching their imaginations a bit. For example, my headcanon is that Megan first visited Ponyland while Majesty was away on some important and mysterious mission of her own, which additionally explains why the ponies were so ill-prepared for Tirac’s attack – while the comics where both of them appear simply take place later, when Majesty returned. But that still doesn’t explain the duality of Spike’s origins, Dream Castle being or not being destroyed, etc. You get the point. The worst offender was probably G3, which reset its timeline twice throughout the show while keeping most of the same characters – keeping things just about similar enough so you couldn’t call it a completely new show, but right about different enough that they obviously couldn’t be in the same timeline. As you all know, G5 has also made some changes to what was canon in G4, despite being set in the future of the same world, and so on. So, while I am certainly not happy with the inconsistencies in Rise of Cadance, they’re far from the worst MLP has to offer.

 

Finally, the plot summary (if you’re not sleeping yet :))

So, armed with the fact that My Little Pony has a long history of rushing stories that could and should have been longer, and turning a blind eye on various inconsistencies and discontinuities, let’s have a more concrete look at what happens in Rise of Cadance! Also, this is the only section with major spoilers regarding the contents of the comic itself, so if you haven’t read it yet, you have been warned.

The story is narrated by Cadance herself, who falls into some retrospection on a quiet morning in the Crystal Empire, and conveniently sums up the most important of her achievements in the series for those who didn’t quite watch everything, or forgot some of it:

Through a series of flashes (really brief, as we’ve already said), Cadance recounts the most important moments of her life. First, we see her earliest memory: an abandoned pegasus foal in a basket, found and taken in by three earth ponies. They come from a small village somewhere in Equestria that obviously corresponds to real-world Italy: the buildings have a Mediterranean look to them, and Italian-sounding names abound, including Cadance’s full name, Mi Amore Cadenza, which seems to have been a spur-of-the-moment idea:

Slightly unusual, but as far as pony names go, not so much, to be honest. I have some more issues with the main pony of the trio pictured above (the red-haired one), Alloro Legara. Firstly, I presume her name was supposed to be something along the lines of Laurel Wreath, since that’s what her cutie mark is, and “alloro” does mean “laurel”, but “legara” is more something along the lines of “binding”, and not a wreath that would be put on one’s head. (Disclaimer: I’m not fluent in Italian, if I’m missing something, please let me know!) Secondly, it appears that of the three, she is the one who became Cadance’s foster mother, but little Cadance still addresses her by name, “Alloro”, and never calls her “mom” or anything of the sort. Wouldn’t that be the most natural thing for an adopted child, even if she knows she is adopted? Of course, we can imagine a scenario where Alloro would ask Cadance to call her by name, perhaps positioning herself as an aunt or older sister rather than a mother, but we can’t just assume something like that. A small child needs a mother figure: if none of the ponies positioned herself as a mother to her, we need to know that, and we need to know why.

Cadance is loved and accepted by the village, and, being the only pegasus in it, often gets to help with everyday tasks in ways earth ponies could not. But one day, everything changes: the love seems gone. Everybody is sullen and gloomy, and Alloro recounts to the confused Cadance that it is the work of an evil sorceress, a unicorn named Prismia, who might be targeting Cadance herself due to the love she is spreading around her.

It is sadly unexplained why Prismia has been in the forest all that time, why is she terrorizing a little village, and how has she managed to do so for generations while looking so young. Presumably, through magic of some sort. We don’t have much time for exposition, as she appears on the very next page (looking a bit like a G5 villain initially), activating her magical necklace (you recognise it, right) and attacking Alloro.

Be honest, that face could have come straight out of TYT.

However, much to Alloro’s shock, Cadance not only intervenes to save her adoptive mother, but also defeats Prismia due to her powers manifesting. It is then Cadance’s turn to get shocked when Celestia appears, and I simply love her facial expressions on that page, first utter disbelief, then adoration:

After Celestia threatens Prismia with sending her to Tartarus, however, Cadance feels something she hadn’t before: she feels Prismia’s loneliness and simply knows how the unicorn had been misunderstood and shunned by the village, leading her to start violently taking love from others instead of approaching them with love. Cadance then steps forth and asks Celestia to spare Prismia, saying that the ponies of the village will reform her. While this surprises everyone (including Prismia, who is grateful), Celestia asks Alloro what she thinks, and Alloro agrees, relying on Cadance’s judgement. Again, if Alloro holds an important position in the village that would allow her to make such a decision – we don’t know. Celestia demands that Alloro surrenders her magic necklace, and she does, but asking that it be given to Cadance, which is approved. We are not further explained how the necklace works and whether Cadance can make some non-evil use of it. Because now another dramatic thing happens – Cadance gets her cutie mark!

Celestia audibly gasps, and demands to talk to Alloro in private: afterwards, they tell Cadance that she must go and live with the princess in Canterlot – no explanations given, beyond it being implicitly important. She is shocked and sad, but she accepts – what else could she do? – and thus begins a new chapter of her life, where she gets to live in the bustling capital after a small and quiet village. She gets to train with the royal pegasus guards, honing her flight potential, but also to attend classes in the School for Gifted Unicorns, which confuses both her and her classmates… and to live in Canterlot Castle, and join Celestia on formal occasions to learn protocol. Celestia remains a benevolent, but enigmatic mentor.

The most relaxed of her activities, and the one she enjoys most, is helping out in a preschool for little unicorns that Celestia thinks have potential for the School for Gifted Unicorns. While helping the princess sniff out talents, Cadance also thoroughly enjoys working with the foals, and begins to think of becoming a schoolteacher.

However, all this is interrupted by the second conflict and climax of the story: the attack of a big dragon swarm upon Canterlot! With a teenager’s zeal, Cadance rushes out into the fight, eager to show off her newly honed flying skills (instead of going to Celestia as she was told), and after a premature moment of triumph, is promptly knocked out of the sky. Celestia catches her and tells her to get her wards – the little preschool unicorns – to safety.

Many people on Equestria Daily have taken issue with the word “younglings” used here, as being unusual for MLP, which usually uses “foals” for pony children. While, yes, it is unusual, and, yes, it did immediately remind me of Star Wars, I personally didn’t find it overly jarring, and the context soon afterwards explains it. Namely, as Cadance gathers her courage and leads the foals away from the city, they are ambushed by none other but the leader of the dragon swarm, a dragon named Liebe – the German word for love. For the second time, Cadance has her moment of providence, feeling the love and pain in the dragon’s heart, and understanding that she is seeking revenge for something ponies had done to her kin long ago.

Now, true, the word “children” would have been much more natural to the average reader than “younglings”. The word was chosen perhaps to sound more mystical and exotic, perhaps to slightly soften up probably the darkest moment in the whole comic: the idea that ponies had killed or hurt the dragons’ children, and that Liebe intends to respond in kind with pony children. True, the point is there either way, but who knows through which hoops they need to jump to keep the comic in the children’s section? But the aim is obvious either way – it is to draw a clear parallel between what Liebe has suffered and what she threatens the ponies with, why she has focused on Cadance and the little unicorns instead of looking for Celestia or some other strategically more important target. Once again, Cadance’s empathy manages to get the enemy to stand down and to turn back to the light: Liebe calls off the attack, much to Celestia’s shock.

Honestly, look at her face. If she was pleasantly surprised that Cadance defeated Prismia, now she doesn’t know what hit her.

Yet the surprise is soon replaced by understanding. “Finally, you are ready,” concludes Celestia with a smile. Obviously, this second, and greater, victory leads to Cadance’s ascension – she becomes an alicorn.

Celestia then finally explains what she has been concealing all along: that Cadance’s cutie mark shows that she is a descendant of Amore of the Crystal Empire, and thus heir to her throne. Further, that her parents probably abandoned her in a secluded place to protect her, to hide her from the world and from her (dangerous) destiny. For Cadance, this is all a shock and a lot to sift through in her head. For readers of a prequel, some things, like her cutie mark and the Crystal Heart, come full circle and click nicely into place. However, some things still remain unexplained. How is she a descendant of Amore? As some people have rightfully pointed out, we never heard that Amore had children before. Is that a new part of Amore’s story that remains to be shown? Is she a descendant in a much broader sense (somewhat stretching it), as in belonging to her family and dynasty in general? As so many things in this short comic – we do not know.

Finally, on the last page, Cadance leaves her duties in the unicorn preschool with some sadness, as she has lots of new learning to do as an alicorn – but, perhaps to make it easier for her, perhaps already foreseeing how important it will be, Celestia tells her that she knows of a gifted young unicorn who might need occasional foalsitting, introducing her to Twilight Sparkle. The comic ends with the rhyme of “Sunshine, sunshine” that featured in the episode in which we first met Cadance, making another nice full circle.

 

Final thoughts and impressions

So, do I like this comic? Yes, in fact I do. I’m even tempted to say that I like it quite a bit. Yes, it has flaws, most notably the two mentioned in the beginning: it is too short, leading to many things being rushed or insufficiently explained, and it has inconsistencies with other G4 media. I presume that readers of primarily G4 find those flaws the most jarring, as Friendship is Magic, with its long, connected story arcs, did manage to avoid them the most. As someone more familiar with all the generations, unfortunately, I can only say it’s more or less the usual pony mess in that respect. I very much wish ponies weren’t such a mess – but I can’t pin the blame for it on this comic any more than a lot of other media from more or less all generations.

However, the negative comments on the internet complained of more than that: of the comic feeling cold and soulless, and both Cadance and Celestia acting out of character. Now, of course, impressions are a personal thing, but I didn’t have this feeling at all, particularly when it comes to Cadance. Maybe I’m very used to compensating for the aforementioned brevity in pony media, but I really saw (and still do) lots of emotion in the characters’ facial expressions, and as much as some of the dialogue lines seem clumsy, the spirit behind them is obvious and positive. When reading the comic out loud to my daughter, I was even moved almost to tears every time I read the scene with Liebe: no “younglings” could ruin the implications of peril and deep pain in that scene. And Cadance felt genuine throughout the comic: a kind-hearted, compassionate young pony first of all, but at the same time, sometimes playful, sometimes youthfully rash. Her speaking out to Celestia with the offer of the village reforming Prismia is exactly what an inspired child might do: go with what she suddenly and deeply feels is right, without considering how her elders might react. Her eagerness to fight the dragons assaulting Canterlot didn’t seem out of character, either, as we had just seen her happily and confidently practicing aerial combat manoeuvres just a few pages prior. And the shift between confusion and uncertainty and resolution that she will make everything alright for the children, faced with the foals frightened questions, is 100% the Cadance we know, as far as I’m concerned, though younger and less experienced. It would have been much better had we gotten more detail (including some stories of where she failed or at least extensively struggled with something, and not just two major victories), but, again, that is to blame on the very short format.

Now only the question of Celestia remains. Was she wrongly depicted as colder and more calculating, less gentle and wise than she could have been? Perhaps, but there are some factors to consider. Firstly, while the visual format of the comic might lull us into thinking that we are objectively watching events unfold, let’s not forget that we are hearing this story from Cadance’s perspective: to a very gentle and compassionate young filly, confused by new events all around her, Celestia might have seemed much more distant than she would have to someone who knew her well. Similarly, for the most of the story, Celestia keeps Cadance in the dark regarding her plans and motives, so she easily might not have intended to send Prismia to Tartarus, but just to threaten her with it to scare her, and so on. And that secrecy and relative coldness really isn’t something unusual for Celestia: it comes with being a god-queen for millennia, I guess. Finally, let us not forget that here we are watching Celestia in the time while Luna was still trapped on the Moon as Nightmare Moon, while in most of G4 we see her after her sister’s release. Celestia’s more light-hearted nature might have been reawakened by renewed proximity with Luna.

To sum up: Rise of Cadance isn’t perfect, and is most of all sadly short and rushed: I would really, really like for an extended version of this story to be published, as unlikely as it is now. But maybe later? Maybe as a book? Until such a book comes out, however, this comic is – at least for me – a lovely quick glimpse into Cadance’s past, into what made her the alicorn princess she is today. As such, I do recommend it as a read! Just don’t expect a novel from a 30-page comic, and I hope you will enjoy it!