In this post, I will be inquiring into the nature of the Elements of Harmony as well as examining the historical uses of the Elements in the world of MLP.
The Elements of Harmony are arguably the most ambiguous items in the MLP-FiM universe, and very little is known about the nature and origin of these mysterious relics. The ambiguity itself is very much a literary device used often in the world of MLP in situations involving the lore of the world. Yet, despite this strategic minimalism, and perhaps partly because of it, the Elements are probably the most important items in the universe of the show.
Literally the first thing we ever learn about the Elements is that they are the “most powerful magic known to ponydom” (Season 1, Episode 1; written by Lauren Faust). But what makes them so powerful? Are they inherently powerful by themselves or is there some other factor that gives them this power? And if the Elements of Harmony are the most powerful magic known, then does that mean that harmony itself is somehow magical?
To answer these questions we must first pick apart at every piece of information the show has ever explicitly or implicitly stated about the elements. Don’t worry, there really isn’t much information at all.
1. They are the most powerful magic known to ponydom.
2. They were used to banish Nightmare Moon to the moon (S1, E1; Lauren Faust).
3. There are six Elements – 5 represent values; the sixth is a “mystery” (S1, E2; Lauren Faust).
4. Sometime after they were used to banish Nightmare Moon, they were stored in the “ancient castle of the royal pony sisters” (S1, E2; Lauren Faust).
5. “When the five are present, a spark will cause the sixth Element to be revealed” (S1, E2; Lauren Faust).
6. The first five Elements are somehow connected to the spirits of the ponies they represent, and the ‘spark’ “resides in the heart of us all”, and when the Elements are “ignited by the spark” they create the sixth Element: the Element of Magic (S1, E2; Lauren Faust).
7. The Elements were “discovered” by the royal sisters and were used to turn Discord to stone (S2, E1; M.A. Larson).
8. You can become disconnected from the Elements (S2, E1; M.A. Larson).
9. The Elements were used to banish King Sombra (S3, E1; Meghan McCarthy).
10. Starswirl’s unfinished spell changed the Elements of Harmony (S3, E13; M.A. Larson).
In the 65 episodes of MLP released so far, this is, as far as I have been able to determine, all we know about the Elements of Harmony. If you take into consideration that only numbers 1, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 10 are relevant to the nature of the Elements, then it’s obvious that this is very little information. The rest of the information only provides insight into the history of the Elements. It should also be noted that the driving forces behind the scenes of all this lore are M.A. Larson and Lauren Faust herself (though Faust’s contributions were minor in season 2 and practically nonexistent in season 3, making Larson the leading figure when it comes to the Elements of Harmony). The modified list below shows all of the important information:
1. They are the most powerful magic known to ponydom.
2. There are six Elements – 5 represent values; the sixth is a “mystery”.
3. “When the five are present, a spark will cause the sixth Element to be revealed”.
4. The first five Elements are somehow connected to the spirits of the ponies they represent, and the ‘spark’ “resides in the heart of us all”, and when the elements are “ignited by the spark” they create the sixth Element: the Element of Magic.
5. You can become disconnected from the Elements.
6. Starswirl’s unfinished spell changed the Elements of Harmony.
Now, to address these pieces of information in-depth (note that number 6 will not be discussed here as it requires its own separate analysis).
The Elements seem to be divided into a 5:1 ratio, where the first five Elements – which I, for the sake of convenience, call the Characteristic Elements – are apparently on a level separate from the sixth Element. The ambiguous descriptions of the sixth Element work to reinforce this disparity between the first five and the sixth. When the sixth Element is revealed to be the Element of Magic, this only strengthens the mysterious nature of the sixth Element. After all, what is magic anyway?
But, that’s exactly it. The little pieces of information the show gives you tell you, albeit implicitly, what magic is. Magic is harmony.
I believe that the first five Elements, the Characteristic Elements, are the Elements of Harmony insofar as being structural components of it; and consequently, the Element of Magic represents harmony itself. But, there is another concept in the world of MLP that is constantly equated to magic, and that is friendship. Thus, the only logical conclusion is that magic is an abstract and creative way of referring to harmony, and that friendship is only one way of attaining harmony since harmony is a much broader concept than friendship. Thus, the creators of this show have imagined such concepts as harmony and friendship as being magical, and these relationships ultimately add to the fantasy that is the world of MLP.
The question, then, is not if harmony is somehow inherently magical as I asked earlier, but rather why is harmony imagined by the creators of this show as being magical? Why is this fantastical relationship being made in the first place?
The blunt answer is quite simple, really. It’s the show’s subtle contribution to society. The intended audience, after all, are prepubescent girls. What better moral to teach them than that harmony and its component parts are wonderful, powerful, and, yes, even magical things. The Characteristic Elements are, after all, representative of human values. It is almost a profound statement, just like the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path to enlightenment, the path to harmony is a fivefold path. Charity, compassion, integrity, devotion, optimism. These are the elements of harmony.
But since the elements are representative of core human values, and the ‘mysterious element of magic’ is really only representative of harmony as a whole, then one must wonder if the elements themselves, as in the very objects themselves, are really necessary.
Are the elements really the determinant factor in this equation, or does the magic come from somewhere else?
The show only fleetingly hints at the fact that harmony isn’t something derived from pretty gemstones, but rather from within as well as from those ties that bind us.
Friendship is one of those ties.
When Twilight states that her friends are the spirits of the Elements of Harmony, and that the spark, the spark of magic, of harmony, resides in the hearts of us all, she is really speaking volumes of the true nature of the Elements. Those ancient relics are inherently powerless, and it is the user that gives them their power. They are, perhaps, merely lenses magnifying a deeper, unimaginably powerful magic. That is, the magic of friendship. Harmony.
Thus, it is not the Elements of Harmony that are the most powerful magic known to ponydom – no, not those unremarkable gemstones – but rather, it is harmony itself.
It is, after all, the moral goal of the show. To spread harmony. And it is quite obvious to me, having lurked in the shadows of the brony community for about two months now, that it has succeeded in that goal.
However, tragically, all things fall apart, and I believe that not even the bright, candy-colored world of MLP is exempt from the unstoppable cruelty of the flow of time, albeit perhaps less affected by it than our real world.
The royal alicorn sisters Celestia and Luna are, in my opinion, probably the most interesting characters in the show. This is partly due to the fact that, like the Elements of Harmony, very little is known about these enigmatic, godlike figures. I will not go in-depth into these characters here as that will stray too much from the subject at hand, so for now all you need to be aware of is that the show heavily implies that the royal sisters are immortal.
In the Return of Harmony arc, we learn that the spell the sisters had cast on Discord which imprisoned him in stone has been broken because the sisters are no longer connected to the elements. Apparently, you can become disconnected from the elements.
“Although Luna and I once wielded the elements, it is you who now control their power, and it is you who must defeat Discord” (Celestia speaking to Mane Six; S2, E1; M.A. Larson).
When Celestia explains this to our heroines, it is implied that this ‘disconnection’ occurred as a result of Twilight and her friends becoming the new wielders of the Elements. However, I do not believe this to be the case. I believe that time eroded away the ties that the sisters had to the elements.
If the spell would be broken by a change in who controlled the power of the Elements then why didn’t the spell break when Nightmare Moon was banished to the moon and Celestia was no longer able to use the elements, hence making it so that no one controlled the Elements’ power?
I believe that as time passed, the immortal Celestia became disconnected from the harmony within herself, and she had already been disconnected from the ties that bound her to elements in the first place. The moment she had her falling out with her sister, Luna, she lost the bond of family. For I believe that the royal sisters’ control of the Elements, their harmony, was not rooted in friendship, like Twilight’s harmony, but rather in family.
But, I digress, the idea here is that this concept of becoming disconnected from harmony perfectly illustrates the principle that everything falls apart, everything fades away, even the most powerful magic known to ponydom is susceptible to that one simple rule; and even the immortal sisters are susceptible to degeneration.
What, then, does the future hold in store for Twilight and her friends, and their grasp of harmony? They are mortal, after all, and it has been confirmed that alicorn Twilight will also remain mortal, just like Princess Cadance.
What will become of the Elements of Harmony when the Mane Six are all gone?
I suppose new ponies will come and replace the older generation. These new ponies will need to learn that harmony comes from within and from the ties that bind, be they family or friendship.
When the royal sisters first discovered the Elements – note that exactly how they were discovered is a complete mystery –, their first recorded usage of the Elements was to imprison Discord, the spirit of disharmony, in stone. One must assume that at this time their grasp of harmony, and consequently their control over the Elements’ magic, was at its peak. This is because as time would pass their grasp of harmony would weaken as Luna’s jealousy and resentment increased, thus compromising the familial ties that bonded the two sisters and slowly weakening their control over the Elements.
The next reported use of the Elements was to banish King Sombra. At this time the sisters’ magic must have been much weaker since this occurred shortly before Luna finally succumbed to her negative feelings and became Nightmare Moon. The fact that the Elements were only able to banish Sombra is interesting considering that the “love and light” of the Crystal Heart completely destroyed him. This raises the question of why the Elements didn’t destroy Sombra. Perhaps the sisters’ magic was too far weakened by the increasingly disharmonious Luna, or, more interestingly, perhaps the Elements are not able to do anything as permanent as what the Crystal Heart did to Sombra.
The last known use of the Elements before Twilight and her friends wielded them was when Celestia used them to banish Nightmare Moon to the moon. One interesting thing to note here is that Celestia apparently used the Elements by herself. This shouldn’t be possible, as one of the things needed to make the Elements work was not present. Celestia may have the spark of harmony within herself but the familial ties that gave her strength were not present. The only feasible explanation I can come up with is that Celestia’s familial love was strong enough to make up for that absence, and that since Celestia did what she did out of love for her sister, she was able to make the Elements work by herself.
Another interesting thing to note here is that when Celestia used the Elements she was only able to imprison her sister in the moon, but, when Twilight and her friends used the Elements, they were able to cleanse Luna of the taint of Nightmare Moon. This difference may just have been because Celestia’s was trying to do it all by herself but, alternatively, it may also be true that Twilight and her friends have a much greater control over the Elements than Celestia ever had.
After Nightmare Moon was banished, Celestia was no longer able to utilize the Elements and, as a result, the Characteristic Elements dulled and degenerated into powerless stones, and the Element of Magic apparently disappeared. Hence, harmony itself disappeared, and, as time passed, the spells that imprisoned Celestia’s old foes were slowly broken.
These instances in Equestrian history give us more insight into the Elements of Harmony, and show us what the “most powerful magic known to ponydom” is really capable of.
Yet, even in this historical context, we are reminded of the impermanence of all things. The very fact that the Elements’ magic can fade over time, and that their spells will eventually break, shows us that harmony, the most powerful force in the world of MLP, is not a permanent force.
It’s like war and peace. A cycle, where peace will always inevitably be interrupted by war. And, in the world of MLP, replace war with disharmony, and peace with harmony, and the exact same principle still stands.
In the end, all we know about the Elements of Harmony is that they embody the magic of harmony, and that that magic is supremely powerful in the world of MLP. Harmony itself comes from within and is ultimately realized in the interpersonal connections that make up a society, whether those connections be of friendship, like Twilight and her friends, or of family, like Celestia and Luna, or even of something else not as immediately obvious in the scope of the show. But, regrettably, harmony, like all things, does not last forever, and the ties that bind us will always inevitably break. It’s only natural, for life to keep moving, and for the next generation to have a chance at failing and succeeding life’s obstacles. In the world of MLP, these obstacles are the things in life that bring disharmony and unhappiness. In the real world, the obstacles are the same only in theory; nevertheless, MLP-FiM has taught me that the Characteristic Elements, as simplistic and childish as they may seem, are surprisingly good rules of conduct for the purpose of creating harmony in one’s own life. The show as a whole does a surprising job of turning even grown men and woman into better people, and it may sound funny but I truly believe that friendship, or rather harmony in general, really is magic.
Understanding Harmony 