It seems to be a “continuity soup” kind of deal. There are clear phases, but thematically similar events happen at roughly the same time, even if it’s tricky to put them on a discrete timeline. For all its faults, it’s still a better attempt at telling an ongoing story than G4.
I agree. While I wouldn’t completely defend Tell your Tale, I think the G5 writers have clearer project goals when it comes to continuity than the G4 writers. And for those who still think to this day that “Friendship is Magic has continuity”, I’ll tell you this:
-In Made in Manehattan it’s established that Applejack has a sudden fear of huge crowds, but it doesn’t make sense to show that since the audience saw her being fine in Manehattan in Cutie Mark Chronicles and Rarity takes Manehattan, both from season 1 and 4 respectively.
-Pinkie Pie had 2 sisters, not 3. I won’t say it as a reason to dislike Maud Pie. She was great in some episodes, but I kinda wish she was one of the two sisters.
-Pinkie Pie became more annoying in the later seasons, to the point where an episode was written as an excuse for her to go insane (Yakity-Sax and Secrets and Pies). I’m very glad that it wasn’t the case for The last laugh. It would have been very easy and very tempting to write an episode where she annoys Cheese Sandwich for 22 minutes.
-The writers have thrown the idea of Applejack and Pinkie Pie being related, but very little else. They haven’t toyed with the idea enough to the point where there was no conclusion (either being related or not related). I wanted to see a conclusion, even a small one, not an episode entirely dedicated to that conclusion.
-Rainbow Dash is supposed to care about her little turtle, but, after seeing her feeding the turtle with unhealthy food in Secrets and Pies (in this case, cake), I have a hard time believing that she actually cares about her turtle.
-The writers wanted Twilight to become a princess in season 3, which was fine, although I thought she would have been better as a teacher considering her character features. And then they wanted her to be a teacher in season 8 not only her, but also the Mane 6. Unfortunately, some of the main characters are not written to be teachers, such as Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Starlight Glimmer.
-In Call of the Cutie it was established that the cutie marks represent their talent, the uniqueness of each pony, which was a beautiful idea. But in Cutie Map, Starlight kinda swaps cutie marks like nothing. I think this skill completely invalidates the personal aspect and the point of having a cutie mark. When you have a talent, you perfected it and you make a living with your own talent and effort, that doesn’t matter because Starlight is gonna take that away from you whenever she wants and however she wants. And I think it shouldn’t have been this way. It’s like seeing a human playing God.
-Starlight as a new redeemed character is a really cool idea to talk about redemption and empathy, but I don’t think that’s what we got at all. Starlight using her magic to manipulate everyone (including age regression spells, brainwash spells, hypnosis and exterminating a draconequus) and swap cutie marks in an abusive way to achieve her personal goals and being a complete jerk with essentially everyone is really bad. Using magic to solve friendship problems and/or learning about friendship shouldn’t be a solution for a character who was previously a villain.
-The show clearly questions Discord because he was evil in season 2. That makes sense. But the entire Ponyville and Canterlot don’t give the same treatment for Starlight. And, like Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy Glow, Starlight has done so many horrible things that she has no redeeming value. And she never faced any consequences, just like Discord. They’re as bad as each other but the show desperately wants you to think she’s better.
-Trixie is supposed to be someone who has learned from her mistakes, but I don’t think it was the case here, especially in episodes where she was thinking about herself (like All Bottled Up) and how she blames everyone for jugding her (which, by the way, she is the last pony to talk about judgement considering what happened in Boast Busters and Magic Duel). In A Horse Shoe-in, Trixie doesn’t learn anything. She wants something, there are obstacles, she gets what she wants. The end. Despite her causing all this trouble, she still gets exactly what she wants. She whines and complains, and in the end, she’s rewarded for it. There’s no sense of effort from Trixie’s part.
-Queen Chrysalis was probably the most mishandled character I’ve seen in the show. From showing up at the end of season 2 to briefly appear in season 5 to briefly appear in season 6 (including an UGLY redesign of the changelings), to briefly appear in season 8 and to finally appear as frequent as she could in season 9.
-Speaking of villains, I don’t remember what the point of Cozy Glow was. I don’t mind typical villains with ambitions, but these villains needed to be more fleshed out.
These are my arguments to why Friendship is Magic didn’t make too much sense when it comes to continuity. There was a layer of improvement that the show rarely got. It was doing the bare minimum. No continuity, no consistency, etc. When you have a show that depends too much on the status-quo of the show, I have a hard time believing that the writers wanted to get ambitious, which is neat, but it didn’t completely work at the end.
I said this in a Make your Mark comic, but I’ll repeat it. the TV shows with a established status-quo have always existed and they will always exist, but nowadays there’s no excuse for the writers not to create stories that reward the audience for paying attention, something that MLP:FiM didn’t do and the G5 can do.
If we keep telling ourselves over and over that the story makes sense, we’ve been lying to ourselves. It actually isn’t. It’s very inconsistent. My Little Pony Friendship is Magic isn’t supposed to have a concrete planned-out logical storyline. If there was one, it would be there, clear as day, and we definitively wouldn’t talk that much about Starlight’s character arc and Cozy Glow’s relevance in the context of the show. The writers didn’t think of the idea of writing stories about ponies for nine seasons. Trying to say that “the story makes sense” would be like falling in the Kingdom Hearts rabbit hole.