It’s time to celebrate Twilight over on Equestria Daily, and I’m always down for honoring the greatest purple pony who ever lived.

I admit, my fondness for her is pretty well cemented in her unicorn years… I enjoyed her most as the more unassuming librarian who lived in a tree in a small, crazy town. Sure, she was still uber-powerful, but that wasn’t really the point of her existence. I realized while drawing this that we’re sadly now far enough removed from the library days that I can actually get a pang of nostalgia looking back at them.

I was never one of the ones who felt that making her a princess was a mistake from the get-go, and I’d even argue that there were many ways in which it could have strengthened her role in the show: In the beginning, her role had the same kind of dynamics as the leads in shows like Newhart, Northern Exposure, or even Green Acres… that of a relatively “normal” individual who moved and found themselves surrounded by eccentrics with odd customs. This was something of the driving set up for the show… however, all such shows eventually have to deal with their characters adjusting to the craziness around them. They begin to fit in more as time goes on, and so the dynamic fades.

This is where the Princess thing could have really helped. Being a Princess could have forced Twilight to deal with a whole new kind of insanity… Dignitaries, social-climbers, fans, over-protective guards, the upper-crust, etc. The show did in fact use some of these kinds of encounters for her, but they were more focused on Twilight being panicked about failing as a princess, rather than the earlier dynamics of the show where she was comically put-out by the unreasonableness of others. Instead of being the sane one annoyed with the Yaks, for instance, she was always fretting and worried… pacing and panicking. Gone was the confident mare of season one who got orders from Celestia to go evict a full-grown dragon and didn’t blink an eye, or had to increasingly struggle to control her temper as the world (and ponies) around her refused to make logical sense, as with her efforts to disprove Pinkie-Sense.

Beyond that, if she wasn’t fretting as a princess, she was being bubbly and adorkable… and I do love bubbly, adorkable Twilight. But for me, it was great because it was the more rare exception to the calm, level-headed Twilight. Seeing her facade come down and her revert to filly-like enthusiasm was a treat, but when she gets excited like that in every episode then it becomes the default, not the exception… and to me it loses some of its charm.

I don’t dislike Twilight now by any stretch… she’ll always be the reason I became a fan of the show. But I do realize that I love a specific stretch of time for her character most of all.