YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S2 E26 "A Canterlot Wedding – Part 2"

• Accidental Innuendo: Pinkie Pie saying, "Do me! Do me!" when asking a changeling to turn into her.
• Applicability: Many have compared the changeling invasion to a certain terrorist attack, especially with the plot resembling another real life event, the Royal Wedding of William and Kate.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Even if you're right, you still need to gather proof and be tactful about it. On the other hand, no matter how outrageous or ridiculous someone's claims are, there might be some truth to it and find out yourself instead of jumping into conclusions.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Queen Chrysalis. Is she pure evil, or a Well-Intentioned Extremist and/or Obliviously Evil who just wanted to feed her people?
  • The changelings. Always Chaotic Evil or Slave Mooks looking for food with a bad leader? By the end of the sixth season, the show itself decides that they're the latter.
• Angst? What Angst?: Boy howdy does this get hit with a heavy amount, and don't think they get brought up in later stories because they're never mentioned again.
  • Shining Armor took being brainwashed by Queen Chrysalis, tricked into thinking that it was Cadance, shunning his own sister and indirectly leading to her imprisonment in the caves, and failing to defend the city from the Changelings until the very end rather well.
  • Heck, a lot of people took things rather well. Twilight took her friends, mentor, and brother shunning her even after she knows the truth behind the imposter rather well, Celestia took being fooled, her defeat, and failing to defend Canterlot rather well, and most of Twilight's friends took the revelation that they were fooled rather well too, sans Applejack. Heck, Canterlot's citizens seem to have taken almost being a happy meal for the Changelings and their city being invaded rather well. At least Cadance has an excuse to be happy.
• Broken Base:
  • The two-parter itself, some sees this as one of the highest point of the series. While the others hated it so much, that they ended up leaving the series.
  • DJ-Pon-3's eyes are revealed! ...as magenta, not red, and this was later confirmed by Word of God. Before the confirmation, some vehemently denied it, others assumed it was a trick of the lighting, others still supported it to the point of antagonizing neighsayers, and lastly, there were those who just shrugged and went "At least we know now."
  • Chrysalis defeating Celestia divided some opinions on Celestia — or, more specifically, on how this might affect the common fan interpretation of alicorns as very powerful Physical Gods. Either Celestia is still incredibly powerful and Chrysalis feeding on Shining Armor's love really did make her strong enough to defeat Celestia or Celestia is not as strong as she is credited to be. Considering that Chrysalis herself was extremely shocked that she managed to do it and Celestia had been shown to be strong enough to neutralize a spell Twilight produced with little effort, it's likely the former. It should be noted that, even as powerful as she'd become, Chrysalis was visibly straining against Celestia's attack.
  • Was the false Cadance being dumb by casually acting evil, like snapping at Twilight about her ruining her plans, having a brainwashed Shining Armor with Celestia being none the wiser, and singing her Villain Song in front of thousands of ponies, including Celestia and the ponies she fooled, or does it just fall under the laws of cartoon logic, Musical World Hypotheses and people should just relax?
  • Applejack apologizing on behalf for everypony, the other half sees that her apology itself as half-hearted and rushed with the others should be apologizing as well, and not just Applejack. Some see the others apologizing as irrelevant since Applejack was the one who told to leave Twilight, she should be the one apologizing as well.
• Catharsis Factor: For anyone who was upset about Celestia and the other Mane Six walking out on Twilight for having warned them that all was not right with Cadance, it is rather satisfying when Chrysalis gloats to the lot of them about how easily she was able to fool them even after Twilight had attempted to warn them of her suspicious behavior.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • As could have been expected, this happened to Queen Chrysalis before the episode had finished airing, mostly because her Villain Song includes a line saying she's dreamed about this day since she was small, and because she has another line stating that she is pursuing her duty to find food for her subjects. This of course totally justifies the Mind Rape, the terror tactics, and the attempted invasion of a peaceful land. There's also the reprise where she says that "the day she has dreamed of" is taking over Equestria, not getting married.
  • A more justifiable example would be the rest of the Changelings; many fans believe they only follow their evil, sadistic queen for the promise of food; food which, however, they can easily see is composed of thinking sentient creatures.
• Epileptic Trees: Some fans have justified multiple occurrences of the same ponies in a single setting in previous episodes as being Changelings.
• Fanfic Fuel: The Changelings!
  • Their Queen alone, being the latest "big villain" in the series, is sure to fuel tons of fanfics, much like Nightmare Moon and Discord before her. Not to mention the fact she's been beaten, but not sealed away or defeated once and for all.
  • There are already four groups dedicated to them over at deviantArt.
  • Also, both Cadance and Shining Armor. The former is a new alicorn and so origin stories and world building are inevitable; the latter is both Twilight's Brother and the captain of the Royal Guards. We may be looking at the Hero of Another Story.
  • There is a small upcoming of fanfics that call out the Ponies for their shunning of Twilight (or in some cases, Twilight for her jerkass behavior). Some of the more popular ones include Bitterness, Post Nuptials, Faith and Doubt, and Loved and Lost.
  • There are many "X is really a Changeling" stories out there, based on the premise of a given character being in truth a Changeling in disguise and this being revealed to everyone during the episode's climax by the "love explosion".
• Fan Nickname: Equestria Invasion: Battle Canterlot.
  • "Cheeselegs" for Queen Chrysalis.
• Franchise Original Sin: The show's infamous usage of The Worf Effect and Militaries Are Useless pretty much started here, but had enough mitigating circumstances (everyone being caught off guard, Celestia only losing due to circumstance even the villain was surprised by, the Mane Six putting up a good fight before being overwhelmed.) So it was mostly well received despite these flaws, especially since any action was a pleasant surprise. Later episodes would have action as the expectation, coupled with pushing credible ways of upping the threat, would make these contrivances far more common and contentious.
• Genius Bonus:
  • In Western European mythology Changelings are creatures that are switched with human babies, not unlike the Queen switching with Cadance.
  • "Mi Amore Cadenza" means "My Love Cadence". However, they may be mixing up Italian with Spanish, since the correct Italian form would be "Il Mio Amore Cadenza", and the right Spanish form would be "Mi Amor Cadencia".
  • Arias are generally written for a solo singer, while "This Day Aria" is ostensibly a duet. The irony lies in the fact that the duet is between two characters, where one of them is in the guise of the other. Also consider that, excluding the reprise, the song was sung by the same voice actress Britt McKillip, making it still an aria for all technical purposes. So so many props to Britt for having enough inflection in her voice to make it very easy to distinguish between the real and fake Cadance.
• It Was His Sled: It’s become pretty well known that Cadance was kidnapped and being impersonated by a shapeshifter. The fact that “This Day Aria”, which makes it very clear what’s going on, is the most famous thing from the episode may be to blame.
• Les Yay: After Rainbow Dash saves Fluttershy from the Changelings and picks her up, a kiss-like sound (most likely a "whoosh" sound effect for Fluttershy being lifted off the ground) is heard when their heads are closest together.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The final spell that defeats the Changelings has garnered numerous comparisons to the Sekiha Love Love Tenkyoken.
  • The scene where Pinkie convinces a changeling to mimic her ("Do me! Do me!") has been spread via the Changeling reinterpreting its Pinkie Pie guise somewhat differently.
• Misaimed Fandom: Queen Chrysalis may have been trying to feed her subjects, but many overlook that this was presented as a throwaway detail compared to the harm and evildoing they caused, her numerous acts of cruelty and jerkassery irrelevant and detrimental to her supposedly sympathetic goals, nor had a given reason they couldn't peacefully acquire love to feed on. Many praise Chrysalis for calling out Twilight's friends for dismissing her warnings which, while not incorrect, ignores Chrysalis was the one who manipulated them into dismissing Twilight and this was her just rubbing it in their faces as opposed to any regard for Twilight.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Princess Cadance's singing voice. "For I oh so love the groom, all my thoughts he does consume...Oh, Shining Armor, I'll be there very soon!"
• Narm: During the dramatic "This Day Aria" song, the reveal shot of Shining Armor's derpy Mind-Control Eyes may have caused a few unintended giggles.
• Narm Charm:
  • "My love will give you the strength!" Cheesy, but it leads to a Moment of Awesome, and coming from a Love Goddess it makes sense.
  • Shining Armor and Cadance's slow dance. They're just sort of...leaning in and wobbling back and forth together, but oh Heavens, is it adorable.
  • You'd think Shining Armor's derpy Mind-Control Eyes would be hilarious and when seeing them in the initial commercial, they were but when put in context, it's really disturbing and depressing, especially at the end "This Day Aria" where the real Cadance cries as the mind-controlled Shining Armor approaches the altar with her fake.
  • Cadence and Twilight's Secret Handshake, which seems so much a cutesie shtick in the first part, becomes part of a powerful moment with Cadence desperately trying to prove her identity to Twilight in the mine, who was ready to kill her on the spot.
• Never Live It Down: Princess Celestia being easily defeated, which prompts some viewers to see how useless Celestia was in the episode. Even though Chrysalis's power was fueled by Shining Armor's love, and even the Changeling Queen herself was surprised by it.
• Once Original, Now Common: Controversy on the episodes' overall quality aside, this finale was considered a game changer by many at the time of its release as it was not only the first big 2-Part finale, but it also dropped the Slice of Life setup seen in The Best Night Ever in favor of the more traditional heroes vs. villains scenario that was only exclusive to the season premieres. 7 seasons later, this concept continued on for every season finale except for Season 3 that many newcomers find it hard to understand what made it such a big deal back in 2012.
• Paranoia Fuel: The changelings, as the name implies, they can take the appearance of any pony, mostly your loved ones.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Princess Cadance was presumed to be a character forced onto the show to sell toys. True or not, the real Cadance, in spite of everything she went through, was every bit a nice as Twilight led us to believe, and proved surprisingly active in saving the day, without overshadowing others. Many felt that she had earned her happy ending and fans in spite of initial options against her.
• Signature Scene: The "This Day Aria" sequence, as it gave us what many fans consider to be one of the best songs in the series.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Love Is In Bloom" sounds a tad like "Last Friday Night" by Katy Perry. It wouldn't be the last time that FiM has taken a cue from a Katy Perry song. (See: "Equestria Girls")
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The two-parter was Princess Luna's only season two appearance beside her focus episode, "Luna Eclipsed". However, she only appeared for two brief cameos with lines in part one, and only returned for a single line of part 2, uttering only three lines in the entire two-parter. Some people got upset with Luna disappearing during the invasion, leading to multiple interpretations of where she could be, but most of them leading to the meme of "Luna is useless."^note However, the previous episode already established that Luna isn't in Canterlot until nightfall in her cameo; she shows up in this episode only after the post-wedding party (which is occurring at night) began. This fact is often glossed over.
• Queen Chrysalis and the changelings were meant to be an Always Chaotic Evil race who sought to invade Equestria to steal and feed on its love. But the implication they needed to feed on love to survive caused them to instead come off as a Woobie Species forced to do so and operating under Blue-and-Orange Morality rather than maliciousness. Chrysalis was the only one to show excessive/unrelated cruelty, but this added to the changelings sympathy by being made to commit such and suffering under a Bad Boss, and for many wasn't enough to offset that she was trying to feed her subjects. It's only after the fact Ascended Fanon that there later appearances would fix this.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • Princess Cadance and Shining Armor's magic love spell.
  • The cave scene at the beginning was well done in terms of lighting and animation, to the point it almost looked like an Animation Bump to some fans.
• The Woobie: Princess Cadance. The poor girl was kidnapped and held prisoner below Canterlot while Queen Chrysalis was running around as her. She spends her wedding day locked in a cave underneath Canterlot. By the time she sings her half of "This Day Aria", the heartbreak in her voice will make you want to hug her.

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