The fourth season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic premiered today with a two-part episode that revealed much of the history of Equestria and the origin of the Elements of Harmony. Perhaps it’s fitting that with the advent of a new princess and the beginning of a new era, we have an episode rooted in exploring the past. Yet this glimpse into the history of Equestria does more than just provide backstory (and fodder to fanfiction writers). By connecting the history of Equestria to the problems facing the Mane Six in the present, the episode conveys a powerful and relevant message: In creating the solutions of today, we sow the seeds of the problems of tomorrow.

Spoiliers ahead

By beginning the episode with Twilight’s preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, the writers immediately bring the past to the forefront of the audience’s mind. After all, MLP:FIM began in a similar way, with Twilight preparing for the previous year’s Summer Sun Celebration. The focus on the past really comes to the forefront once Twilight takes Zecora’s badly written plot device potion and sees visions from the past – the banishment of Nightmare Moon and the defeat of Discord. While these scenes are seemingly unconnected to the invading vines from the Everfree, their relevance becomes clear in Twilight’s final vision which shows the origin of the Elements of Harmony. Celestia and Luna took the Elements from the Tree of Harmony in order to defeat Discord. However, while the Elements proved essential in the resolution of many crises throughout Equestria’s history, their absence from the Tree of Harmony is the reason why the Everfree is invading. In removing the Elements from the Tree, Celestia and Luna set into motion a series of events that led to the crisis they now face (complete with Discord sowing the literal seeds of destruction).

Thus, the flashbacks establish the choice our heroes must face. In order to save Equestria, the Mane Six must give up the Elements, the artifacts that had been so critical to the protection of Equestria in countless other situations. I was a bit disappointed that the writers did not put more focus on this choice, but they do pay some lip service to this with Rainbow Dash’s protests against Twilight’s plan. Perhaps focusing on this issue would have provided more drama than the somewhat manufactured "we can't risk Princess Twilight's safety" debate. In the broader story arc, giving up the Elements is a necessary step in the development of the Mane Six as heroes as they can no longer rely on their deus ex machina to save the day.

In many ways, the Season 4 opener brings MLP:FIM full circle. The show began during the Summer Sun Celebration with the Mane Six retrieving the Elements of Harmony from the Everfree Forest to vanquish Nightmare Moon. By the next Summer Sun Celebration, the Mane Six must return the Elements to the Everfree. Furthermore, the flashbacks intimately connect the events in the openers for Seasons 1 and 2 to the events of this episode. Indeed, if there is a common theme to these season openers, it is that Twilight and her friends must address some problem that their predecessors failed to correctly address in the past. Celestia had banished Nightmare Moon yet failed to address the underlying problems between her and her sister, leading to the return of Nightmare Moon. Celestia and Luna had stopped Discord by imprisoning him in stone, but did not do the tough work of reforming him so that he no longer posed a threat. In all of these cases, these unresolved problems from the past reemerge and Twilight, not Celestia, must be the one to correct her mentor’s mistakes.

In much the same way, MLP’s audience faces the same situation as Twilight. Throughout human history, we’ve seen the consequences of actions taken by one generation come back to bite their descendants. In aiding the mujahideen against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the US sowed the seeds for the rise of the Taliban who eventually aided in the attacks on September 11. In creating the atomic bomb to force the Japanese to surrender and end World War II, the US unleashed a technology under whose shadow the world still lives, most recently with Iran’s efforts to build a bomb. But perhaps more relevant to the episode, given that it centers around a dying tree, by harvesting the energy of fossil fuels to power our modern society, we have sown the seeds of our own destruction at the hands of climate change. Like Twilight, while the roots of these problems began well before our time, it falls upon our generation to solve them. Perhaps, then, we should take Princess Celestia’s speech to heart. While the Summer Sun Celebration used to remind her of the banishment of her sister, the problems of the past are not immutable. We too can defeat our Nightmare Moon, and we too we can save our dying tree. However, like our equine heroes going forward, we’ll have to face them without being able to turn to a magical deus ex machina.