Ah, Twilicorn. Nothing ever shook this fandom up quite like giving Twilight Sparkle a pair of wings, a longer horn, and a slightly taller body type.

 

Or at least that's what I've been led to believe.

 

I actually didn't join the fandom until around April 2013—after season 3 had already ended. While all the anti-Twilicorn flame wars were raging all over the net, I was just starting to get to know Twilight and all the mane six as I watched through the first season with a fair bit of skepticism as to why I kept hearing such great things about this "pony show."

 

Now over two years since Magical Mystery Cure first aired, all of that hate seems somewhat like a distant memory. Those who have quit the fandom never looked back, and those who remained either never had any issues with Twilicorn at all, or simply grew to accept it.

 

Believe it or not, I was initially in the former category. My overall opinion of Twilight throughout the series had been quite positive. Though I never had her pegged as my "best pony", I thought that she was perhaps the most relatable in the show, and a suitable central character because of it. So when I finally reached Magical Mystery Cure, I honestly didn't have any issues with her becoming an alicorn princess aside from a few lingering fears. I thought that it was a significant milestone for her development.

 

This is something I feel the need to make clear before going any further. It isn't Twilight I hate. I have never hated Twilight. My hatred is solely directed at Twilicorn. Yeah, I get it, that seems contradictory. Twilicorn and Twilight are one in the same, so it's a bit impossible to hate one without hating the other, right? Well then, at the very least, I'll say that I hate the pony she has become since the start of season 4.

 

Actually, it may have even been earlier than that, as the writing on the wall first presented itself to me right at the ending of Magical Mystery Cure:

 

 

 

I would agree that Twilight's perfect flight at the end of the episode justified at least a few of those "Mary Sue" claims she received. It was a bit of an uncomfortable moment, and even those who supported Twilight's ascension tended to agree.

 

Fortunately, once the season 4 premiere aired, any notions of Twilight being a perfect flyer were swiftly tossed out the window. In fact, the premiere did a fantastic job of proving to us that newly-crowned Princess Twilight was going to remain the same character she had always been, much to our immense relief. We saw her neuroticism highlighted in a rather humorous freak out scene, we saw her doubt herself and her new title, and we saw her get incapacitated by plants, proving that she wasn't some incredibly powerful pony capable of overcoming any obstacle with a simple wave of her horn.

 

After I watched the premiere, I realized that I would have nothing to worry about where Twilight was concerned. But unfortunately for me, it was all a farce. Little did I know that after this episode, the lovable and relatable character I always found her to be was gone, possibly never to return...

 

 

 

The start of Twilight's constant glorification over the mane five. It would ultimately culminate to them being reduced to helpless damsels in distress in the season finale.

 

 

Castle Mane-ia, the very next episode after the premiere, began a trend for Twilight which still continues up to now. The status quo changed almost overnight, and no longer was she on the same level as the mane five. From this point onward, any notion of Twilight remaining the same character after her ascension vanished, as did any notion of her ascension not creating a significant imbalance between the mane five and herself.

 

In this episode, the mane six (minus Pinkie, who remains mostly absent until the end) separately decide to go to Celestia and Luna's ancient castle in groups of two for different reasons. Twilight/Spike go to find some information on the mystery box introduced in the previous episode, Rarity/Fluttershy go to restore some of the castle's old tapestries, and Rainbow Dash/Applejack go for the sake of holding a daring competition. The three groups are ignorant to the each other's presence, and everyone soon becomes convinced that the castle is haunted due to several trap doors, rotating walls, and other such things being triggered by one group which directly affect another, accompanied by an ominous organ echoing throughout the halls.

 

"Everyone" except for Twilight, that is. Twilight is the only one who does not show any fear (outside of a little caution), and she is also the one who brings her friends back to their senses when they're all running around like headless chickens during the climax. The reason she gives for not being afraid is Celestia's journal, which apparently gave her enough information about the castle for her to not be afraid of it, an explanation which is dubious at best. The journal certainly would not have been able to tell her about anything that may have moved into the castle since the two sisters abandoned it. The episode concludes with Twilight schooling her friends into learning a lesson, making them all feel foolish for not being as level-headed and rational as she was.

 

 

Compare this to the gif above. It's one of the best visual examples for the difference between alicorn Twilight and pre-alicorn Twilight.

 

 

This episode was the first to highlight everything that I would eventually come to detest about Twilicorn. She was portrayed as flawless while everyone else was not, she was glorified over her friends by her fearlessness, and she ended up being the one to solve the problem by revealing the "Pony of Shadows" to be nothing more than a myth. This was simply the beginning of the trend. This was just a taste of things to come.

 

I honestly believe that when season 4 was being drafted up, the staff writers were given a strict set of guidelines to adhere to concerning Twilight's character, and these guidelines were as follows:

 

- That she must display little to no flaws

 

- That she must frequently appear superior to her friends

 

- That she can never be portrayed in a worse light than her friends

 

- That she must be the mane six's most consistent problem-solver

 

The guidelines were likely laid down by Hasbro themselves, who now wanted their new princess to be the most appealing character in the show, which would undoubtedly help to increase her sales. It obviously wasn't enough that Twilight was now an alicorn princess while the other five were not—she also had to be made to look better than her friends in every conceivable way.

 

And how well did the staff end up adhering to these guidelines during season 4? Well, let's just take a look...

 

 

I. That she must display little to no flaws

 

 

Outside of the premiere and finale, Twilight only had one focus episode throughout season 4: Three's a Crowd.

 

Some have also cited Twilight Time and Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3 as Twilight-focused episodes, but her role in both of those was supporting at best, and thus the former was more of a CMC episode while the latter was more of a Rainbow Dash episode.The most common formula associated with character-focused slice-of-life episodes revolves around that character making a crucial mistake, learning from it, and then subsequently writing about the lesson learned in a friendship letter/journal. And therein lies the reason as to why Twilight only had one all season.

 

She now lacks character flaws, and thus she is unsuited for slice-of-life focus episodes. Even her neuroticism, a staple of her character that she's become so well-known for, was hardly seen at all throughout season 4. Without any flaws to speak of, she is rarely shown making mistakes or otherwise doing anything wrong. She effortlessly sailed through season 4 while her friends stumbled through, making their own mistakes and overcoming their own personal obstacles.

 

I believe that this was part of Hasbro's new marketing plan for Twilight. She would not appear to be the most appealing character in the show if she went through the season still exhibiting flaws alongside the rest of her friends, and so she didn't. The downside to this, of course, is that her lack of flaws prevents her from having her own focus episodes.

 

Or does it? After all, she still had one, and she actually learned a lesson at the end of it, right? Well, let's take a closer look at this episode...

 

 

 

Princess Cadence—the prototype for Twilicorn.

 

 

For starters, it includes Princess Cadence as a supporting character. Personally, I detest Cadence simply because it seems like she does not have a single imperfect bone in her body. In the few appearances she's made on the show, she has never truly exhibited any character flaws herself. And if you really think about it, Cadence was more or less a prototype for Twilicorn. Not only did she serve as proof that alicorns could be "made," her existence also put their apparent immortality into question. Not only had she chosen to marry a unicorn—a being whom she would not be able to spend the rest of her life with if she were truly immortal, we saw that she aged like a normal pony in Twilight's flashbacks. Because of this, we can surmise that Twilight is not immortal either, and also that her sudden lack of flaws was something that she ended up inheriting as well.

 

Anyway, the plot of Three's a Crowd involves Twilight and Cadence spending a day together, which is intentionally ruined by Discord, who fakes an illness under the guise of a "friendship test." So without much choice in the matter, Twilight reluctantly puts her plans with Cadence on hold to care for the "ailing" Discord, taking him back to her home so that he can rest in her bed. There is nary a single flaw to be found on Twilight's part in this episode. She treats Discord with more kindness than he certainly deserves and remains largely tolerant of his presence, expressing only mild annoyance at his illness cutting into her day with Cadence.

 

When she finally decides to seek a cure for his illness, Discord directs her to a "magic flower" which he claims will cure him. After carrying him on an over-sized throne to the flower's location (once again displaying Twilight's unusually high tolerance for his presence), the climax of the episode finally begins...

 

 

 

Character development? Who needs character development? It's SUPER DUAL ALICORN BATTLE TIME!!!

 

 

The next thing Twilight and Cadence know, they're suddenly locked into a battle with a massive worm living beneath the now-plucked flower. This battle comes completely out of the left field and seems incredibly out-of-place, and yet only when I watch it do I realize that this is basically what we're getting in place of any meaningful development or legitimate lessons for Twilight. She shows no flaws, makes no mistakes, and instead, we get an "epic" battle just for us to gawk over how incredibly awesome she is now that she's an alicorn.

 

And as for the "lesson" learned at the end of the episode? Well....

"I think it's pretty clear that my visit with Cadence didn't go quite the way I expected. But in the end, I realized that when you're with a good friend, even the most chaotic day can end up being a great experience that brings you closer."

 

Does that honestly sound like a meaningful lesson to come away from an episode with? It's so simplistic that it could have easily come from season 1, just when Twilight was first starting to learn about how great friendship is. But here in season 4, she's already well aware of how great friendship is, and thus a lesson like this certainly should not have been deemed anything journal-worthy. She shouldn't need to learn that the company of good friends can make unpleasant situations better—she should have already known that.

 

I would actually go as far as to call this a "non-lesson." It was a lesson shoehorned in just so that it could seem like Twilight actually learned something during her one focus slice-of-life episode all season. After all, it's not like she could have come away from the episode learning anything deeper or more relevant, since she did not make any mistakes throughout the episode.

 

So in Twilight's one focus episode in all of season 4, she displayed no flaws, she learned a non-lesson at the end, and she was given a battle scene in place of any meaningful development. It now occurs to me that this actually is what Twilight's development consists of now: flashy laser battles and equally flashy spells, with occasional reminders that she understands that friendship is good—something she has already known for three damn seasons.

 

So is it now any wonder why Twilight had only one focus episode in season 4? I think that the writers probably struggled to write episodes which consisted of her showing no flaws, and so they simply opted against it. However, surprising as it is, Twilight did end up learning one legitimate lesson from an episode which deviated slightly from the trend (I'll elaborate on this later).

 

Aside from a few very minor falters (and one major one which I will also elaborate upon later), Twilight made it through season 4's slice-of-life episodes relatively clean, unlike the mane five. While stripping her of flaws did make her the most appealing of the mane six as per Hasbro's guidelines, all it did for me was cause me to lose sight of the relatable character I had come to know during the show's first three seasons. The little quirks of her character which made her so likable simply ceased to present themselves anymore.

 

And unfortunately, it didn't stop there...

 

 

II. That she must frequently appear superior to her friends

 

 

 

"Alright, everypony STOP......and appreciate how much better I am than you!"

 

 

Season 4 was the first season of FiM to have an overarching plotline. The season premiere introduced an end goal in the form of a mystery box requiring six keys to open, which the mane six would unknowingly acquire one by one throughout the course of the season. The requirements for earning these keys were established early on: the mane six must make a significant blunder related to the Element of Harmony they represent, and then amend their blunder whilst inspiring someone in the process. After this, they receive their key as a gift by the one whom they inspired, which comes in the form of a random object.

 

With the exception of Rainbow Dash's key episode, I would honestly say that this particular arc was handled very well. Each of the mane five learned lessons pertaining to their Elements that they hadn't before, and they were among the deepest lessons they had learned in the show yet.

 

But out of all of them, only one of the mane six did not actually need to adhere to the established requirements for earning a key. Only one managed to get her key without making a single mistake pertaining to her Element, and even without needing to inspire anyone.

 

And just take a wild guess as to who that was.

 

It isn't exactly surprising that Twilight would not need to follow the same requirements. The writers apparently did not want to give her an episode which would involve her making a magic-related blunder that she would need to be called out on. So when looking back at the mane six's key episodes, Twilight's is obviously going to stand out as the best of the bunch by default, since instead of making and subsequently correcting a mistake alongside her friends, she got to have a lengthy two-minute death battle with the big bad of season 4. We don't see her falter, and we don't see her fail. We simply see her kicks ass. Yet again, we had another flashy laser battle stand in for Twilight's development.

 

This is a prime example of the show going out of its way to ensure that Twilight looks superior to the mane five throughout season 4. It began with her showing no fear in Castle Mane-ia, and continued all the way up to the mane five being reduced to helpless damsels in Twilight's Kingdom.

 

Naturally, this goes hand-in-hand with her lack of flaws as well, since also by default, Twilight is going to appear superior to her friends when they're spending the season stumbling through their own mistakes while she is not. But it certainly goes much further and deeper than that. It's now as if the show is honestly trying to get us to replace our current "best pony" with Twilight (assuming she wasn't already your "best pony"). The writers are now seriously bending over backwards just so that Twilight looks better than her friends at all times, even in other characters' focus episodes.

 

And one of the greatest examples of this lies in the episode It Ain't Easy Being Breezies....

 

 

 

"Dance, my puppets, dance!"

 

 

This is one of the episodes of season 4 that received a lot of mixed reception. However, as for me, I absolutely loathe this episode. I would even go as far to call it the worst episode of season 4. In fact, despite liking her debut episode, Pinkie Apple Pie, this episode honestly made me want Natasha Levinger to never write for FiM ever again.

 

Putting the rest of its numerous flaws aside, the biggest reason I hate this episode is its drawn-out conclusion. Twilight blissfully transforms herself and her friends into breezies in what is, beyond any doubt, the most ethically fucked up thing she has ever done on the show. Yes, even moreso than her "Want it, Need it" spell from Lesson Zero.

 

This scene isn't just ethically wrong. It also confirms that Twilight has essentially become a bonafide goddess, which was actually one of my original fears concerning her ascension. The scene tells me that she now possesses the power to transform any species into any other species on a permanent level. There is absolutely no indication that the spell would have simply worn off at some point like the transformation spell she used on the mice in The Best Night Ever. That episode quickly established that the spell would wear off at midnight, which ended up being quite convenient for Twilight since she wasn't forced to chase them down to reverse the spell after they ran off. Likewise, anytime Twilight ever pulled off a particularly powerful spell, it always had some kind of balance to it. The instance I bring up most often as an example is the time-travel spell from It's About Time. What if that spell had not been established as having a one-time use? We'd still think that time travel is something Twilight can do, and because of that, we'd wonder why she doesn't use it more often, particularly in times of actual crisis.

 

But for this breezy spell (and I only call it that out of simple convenience because as I said, it can apparently work with any living creature), the change was permanent until reversed, and there is absolutely no reason to believe otherwise. No time limit was established, nor any restriction or balance of any kind. In a single instant, all of the effort that had been done to keep Twilight's abilities in check for three and a half seasons was instantly destroyed.

 

Twilight casts this spell on her friends without bothering to get consent from anyone except Pinkie (the same pony, mind you, who thought that cloning herself was actually a great idea), using them as her own personal guinea pigs. She apparently couldn't even extend the courtesy to let them know what she was going to do with them, instead only telling them to "trust" her, which in all honesty, is just plain insulting. After the Flutterbat incident, did any of them have any good reason to trust her with a spell that would alter their bodies on a genetic level? I would certainly think not. And yet, for the sake of simple convenience, none of them had any problem with having their basic equine rights violated just so Twilight could save the day in an episode that originally belonged to Fluttershy.

 

Indeed, this was Fluttershy's key episode—an episode where she was supposed to shine above her friends. And yet Twilight suddenly appeared out of nowhere to steal her thunder and make the audience awe at her power and intuition for coming up with the solution they needed. She was deliberately positioned to be the hero that Fluttershy couldn't be.

 

Of course, this wasn't the first time Twilight was heavily involved in a key episode that was not her own. Rainbow Dash actually owes her key to Twilight, as she would not have received it were it not for her guilt tripping. Rainbow may have ultimately made the decision on her own, but she actually needed Twilight to tell her that she was doing something wrong, because she certainly did not think that she was. However, were Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy allowed to intrude upon Twilight's solo battle with Tirek? Of course not! Apparently it was perfectly fine for Twilight to hog the spotlight in their key episodes, but no one else was permitted to steal the spotlight away during her own moment to shine.

 

This adds an entirely new perspective to the key episodes, since not only do we see Twilight receive her key by remaining flawless, we also see her playing a huge role in two other key episodes. It's clearly not any secret how much better this arc makes Twilight look than her friends. It's not something you have to actually look for—it's plainly obvious to see.

 

And while on the subject of Twilight's Kingdom, if that episode isn't the ultimate confirmation of how much the writers want us to view Twilight's superiority over the mane five, I simply don't know what is.

 

 

 

"You had one job, guys. ONE job!"

 

 

This two-parter has so many flaws that I don't even know where to begin. It's a subject for another blog entirely. Suffice it to say that I believe that it has most likely done a significant amount of damage to the show, and it only remains to be seen how much.

 

I at least know that beyond how well-animated it is, I will never understand the praise for Twilight's fight scene with Tirek. The scene is a complete insult to the character Twilight had been established as in the four seasons of the show. The level-headed and largely rational pony who never acted on impulsive anger was suddenly reduced to a point where she was actively attempting to kill out of vengeful bloodlust.

 

Remember what happened in A Canterlot Wedding after Twilight blasted the cavern wall to reveal the real Cadence? Twilight had believed her to be the same Cadence who had just threatened her brother seconds earlier, and if she was anything like the Twilight in Twilight's Kingdom, Cadence would most likely be dead now because Twilight would have probably blasted her on the spot.

 

But that didn't happen, did it? No. Because despite being incredibly angry, Twilight was still rational enough to stop and allow her a chance to explain herself. Furthermore, this established that Twilight was actually unwilling to kill, since even though she had just been blasting angrily at the walls with harmful intention, she found that she was unable to do it again once she was finally standing face-to-face with her enemy.

 

And now you're telling me that this same character who was unwilling to kill the pony whom she believed was threatening her brother is now willing and ready to go into a battle to the death just because someone destroyed her over-sized tree full of books, which, by the way, was mostly her own fault in the first place since she was the one who stupidly teleported there?!?!?!?! :okiedokielokie:

 

And you know, another thing that really makes me hate this fight scene is the idea that Twilight, who has mostly been portrayed as lighthearted and fun-loving throughout the series, can thrust herself into an intense life-or-death struggle and then just snap straight back to the same lighthearted pony directly afterward. That is simply absurd to me. It's pretty much the equivalent of a carefree and easygoing guy going to war, participating in a ton of battle, and then coming home and snapping back instantly into the same easygoing guy he always was.

 

It doesn't work like that. In real life, that guy would most likely be struck with PTSD or something similar. And yes, while there are many soldiers who came back home mostly unaffected by all of the violence and death, I simply cannot see Twilight as being one of those people. She honestly should not be able to walk away from this mentally unscathed. I'm not saying that she should develop PTSD, but she really should be affected in some way, perhaps by returning to the site of the battle and reflecting on her actions and realizing how far she had taken it. And yet, I fear that she won't be affected slightest, making her even more unrelatable. My only hope lies in the upcoming season 5 episode where she is going to lament over the loss of the library. Hopefully, this causes her to reflect on the fight as well.

 

Anyway, I've already mentioned that the mane five are reduced to helpless damsels in distress during the entire thing, but in all honestly, they're actually much more than that. They are a burden. They are a hindrance. They are liabilities standing in the way of Twilight saving Equestria all on her own. Because of their getting captured, she was ultimately forced to give up her power and possibly doom all of Equestria to the rule of Tirek. The biggest chance for Tirek's defeat in that moment was for her to just keep on fighting, but she instead decided to surrender to him in a lapse in judgement that only didn't get the mane six killed on the spot because of how deeply the plot was on their side.

 

This scene ultimately ended up being the end culmination of the season's glorification of Twilight. She receives a power upgrade and an intense battle scene all to herself while the mane five are simply relegated to liabilities in need of saving. There's obviously no need to point out who looks superior in this scenario. This is simply the icing on the cake.

 

Oh, but that's still not all! Because yet another thing that keeps Twilight several leaps and bounds ahead of the mane five is her general range of abilities. And as if having godlike power on her side was not enough, Rainbow Rocks proved that she has something else over them, too: unparalleled genius-level intellect.

 

 

 

"This is my Mary Sue face!"

 

 

How ironic is it that the overall message behind the plot of Rainbow Rocks was that Twilight actually does not have all the answers? I mean, come on, isn't that very idea pretty much a confirmation that the writers are acknowledging that they've made her too perfect? She never could have possibly been described as "having all the answers" before season 4. In the first three seasons, she was mostly going by trial and error, and simply hoping that the choices she was making were the right ones. It's as though they treated Rainbow Rocks as their attempt to bring her back down right after spending the whole season building her up so high.

 

That's just humorously ironic to me. But what's even more ironic is that they begin this message by giving Twilight hands down her biggest "Mary Sue" moment in all of FiM, as she singlehoofedly constructs a makeshift machine around the portal in order to bypass its "30 moons" restriction, and apparently does so within a short hour or two.

 

Twilight has always been portrayed as being exceptionally smart, that much is true. But her having the know-how to construct a complex mechanical device over a portal that she knows next to nothing about with cross-dimensional principles that she's somehow well-informed about and somehow knows will apply to the portal?

 

Nope, sorry, I don't think so. This act of genius honestly makes Twilight's season 1 self look like she can barely count to ten. Not only was she pretty damn far from a genius in season 1, there is no amount of intellect she showed in any subsequent season would have implied to me that she is capable of something like this. She may not be a Mary Sue by definition, but this was unquestionably a Mary Sue moment if I ever saw one. She was presented with a complex dilemma that she was not challenged with in the slightest, and pulled expert skills out of thin air to solve it.

 

And as if that weren't enough, for whatever reason, she feels the need to explain why the machine will work in painstaking detail to her friends, who, naturally, have absolutely no idea what she's saying with the exception of Pinkie, who was still only able to understand the gist of it. Why wouldn't she feel this need? Why wouldn't McCarthy have her go that extra mile to prove how much smarter she is than those braindead idiots she calls her friends?

 

Yeah, so, congratulations Meghan McCarthy, you've proved Twilight's awesomeness yet again, just like you did in Three's a Crowd and Twilight's Kingdom. There is truly no greater pony who has ever lived, nor will ever live. There is truly no greater mind in all of Equestria. Surely, if there ever existed some equine version of cancer, Twilight would have most certainly come up with the cure by now.

 

So because of her newly apparent ability to pull expert skills out of thin air, I honestly have to ask a legitimate question:

 

Does Twilight have any limits now? Is there anything that she actually isn't capable of?

 

Well apparently, she isn't capable of writing a counterspell, as Rainbow Rocks goes on to imply. Honestly, I find this incredibly difficult to swallow after I just witnessed her pull off an act of pure, unparalleled genius. McCarthy's efforts to bring her back down ended up lost on me, particularly since I ended up under the impression that she was mostly concerned with building up Sunset Shimmer as the film's hero. Without Sunset Shimmer's presence, you'd better believe Twilight would have figured out that counterspell and saved the day once again.

 

Overall, this constant and incessant glorification of Twilight is quickly ruining the show for me. As I said, it honestly seems like the writers now want Twilight to be our number one "best pony", and I find that to be extremely annoying. Yes, she's always been the central character of the show and her development has always mattered the most, but she was never glorified over her friends in the previous three seasons the way she was in season 4—not even in season 1 where she appeared in every single episode. It simply isn't possible to watch through season 4 and not see how superior Twilight was in comparison to her friends: being the one who made the fewest mistakes, being the one who showed the fewest flaws, being the one who came up with the most solutions, and being the one who had the most moments of awesomeness or badassery.

 

As for the rest of us who remain foolish enough to have a non-Twilight member of the mane six as our "best pony", we are apparently forced to continue to watch them look increasingly inferior next to the almighty Twily, even if it's to the point where they're reduced to helpless damsels in distress.

 

Am I still watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic or am I now watching My Little Pony: Twilight is Best Pony? I'm really not sure.

 

But I do know that their efforts have an opposite effect on me. The more the writers try to build Twilight up to get me to admire her, the more my hatred towards her grows.

 

 

III. That she can never be portrayed in a worse light than her friends

 

 

If there was one thing that made Twilight relatable early on, it was her ability to fail when it came to magic. These moments proved that despite being a damn near prodigy when it comes to magic, she did still have her limits.

 

In the first part of The Return of Harmony, we saw her "failsafe spell" fail to stop Discord's magic. In Swarm of the Century, we saw her exacerbate the parasprite situation by casting a spell which backfired on her, altering their appetite from edible food to non-edible objects rather than getting rid of their appetite altogether. And in Magical Mystery Cure, we saw her inadvertently change her friends' destines by carelessly reading a spell aloud. These moments all served as enough proof that Twilight was not more powerful than she actually needed to be, and that she could still be an identifiable and relatable character in spite of her possessing powers far beyond our own capabilities.

 

Surprisingly enough, season 4 actually did have Twilight creating another huge magical blunder, one that was quite similar to her blunder from Swarm of the Century. However, this time, it included an absolutely tragic side effect.

 

In the episode Bats!, Applejack faces a huge dilemma with vampire fruit bats (not to be confused with normal "fruit bats", which appear laughably unintimidating in comparison) which threaten to devour her entire orchard. She clashes against Fluttershy, who suggests that Applejack set aside a section of her orchard just for the bats on the promise that it will end up being beneficial to her in the long run.

 

Naturally, Applejack, who has always been shown to care for her orchard as though it was just another member of her family, vehemently protests the idea. And thus, they're left at an impasse.

 

But then, out of nowhere, a solution! Twilight has found a spell that will remove the bats' will to eat apples! Because of course she has.

 

While I'm on the subject, I really have to admit, I take serious issue with any spells that alter a living being's mind and/or body. I mean seriously, why are they even legal? What exactly gives a single magic user the right to alter another being's mind—the very organ that actually defines who he/she/it actually is? This obviously isn't something that I can pin solely on Twilicorn, as Twilight has been consistently casting spells of this nature since the start of the show. So what exactly do the bats eat once Twilight takes away their appetite for fruit? Do they simply eat nothing and eventually starve themselves to death? Who knows? I'm not even sure Twilight does...

 

In any case, the spell certainly does the job. No longer do the bats have any appetite for apples, but this comes at a major cost. And this cost ends up becoming one of season 4's worst gimmicks....

 

 

 

"Now just look at what you did, Applejack!"

 

 

Since the spell required Fluttershy to "stare" the bats into submission, their essence became infused within their soul, creating the atrocity known as "Flutterbat."

 

This is easily the worst mistake Twilight made all season. For all intents and purposes, this is certainly a mistake that she should learn a valuable lesson from at the end, right? At the very least, this is something she should certainly be called out for, just like she was in other episodes where she made magical blunders of epic proportions such as Lesson Zero, right?

 

Wrong.

 

No, Twilight does not get called out for this blunder in the slightest, nor does she ultimately learn anything from it. The episode appears to place the majority of the blame on Applejack, ultimately making her realize how wrong she was for not giving in to Fluttershy's idea (which, if you ask me, was pretty short-sighted). Even more indicative of this is that Applejack is the one who actually suffers a loss in order to revert Fluttershy back to normal, as she is forced to sacrifice the enormous apple that she had clearly been growing for a very long time with the intention of entering it in a competition.

 

So clearly, as far as this episode is concerned, Applejack is the one most responsible for Flutterbat, not Twilight.....you know, the one who actually cast the spell in the first place.

 

In my honest opinion, Twilight holds about 95% of the blame, with Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash splitting the remaining 5% (Pinkie is exempt since she was actually the only one who did not place any pressure on Fluttershy). Twilight was the one who came up the idea for using a spell, Twilight was the one who found said spell, and Twilight was the one who cast said spell. That easily places nearly all of the blame on her. If the episode really wanted to put most of the responsibility on Applejack, then it should have been written in a way that Applejack would have pressured Twilight into casting the spell where she was initially reluctant to do so. But nothing of the sort happened, and yet the episode still places the majority of the blame on Applejack anyway.

 

What makes this misplaced blame even worse is that Twilight clearly shows no desire whatsoever to take proper responsibility for her own actions. Her general apathy towards what she did to Fluttershy's soul is a strong point of irritation for me. When she accidentally switched up her friends' cutie marks in Magical Mystery Cure, she was highly upset about it to the point where she even had her own song regretting what she did. But here, there's absolutely nothing of the sort. She immediately distributes the blame as though attempting to direct it way from herself, stating that Flutterbat is "our" fault (that is, it's the fault of herself as well as her friends).

 

Wrong, Twilight. It's not our fault, it's your fault.

 

Nevertheless, since the episode fails to properly call Twilight out for her mistake, she learns absolutely nothing from it. When it comes time to learn a lesson at the end of the episode, Twilight's careless use of magic is not mentioned, thus permitting her to act with the exact same level of reckless abandon when she transforms her friends into breezies nine episodes later.

 

 

 

Oh, look! Fluttershy still has a fang! HA HA HA!!!! Isn't that hilarious?!

 

 

Fortunately enough, Twilight manages to figure out a way to fix her Applejack's mistake, and she reverses the spell, removing all of the bat essence from Fluttershy's soul.

 

Or so it seems...

 

In the episode's closing shot, a zoom-in on Fluttershy's mouth shows that she still has a remaining fang, implying that not all of the bat essence was dispelled from her body, and Twilight may have tarnished her soul for the rest of her life.

 

The one thing I will never understand is when people call this particular shot a "gag." Gags are used for humorous purposes. While they do normally rely on unusual circumstances, they are still meant to portray these circumstances in a way that is amusing to the audience.

 

There is absolutely nothing funny, humorous, or amusing about the notion that Fluttershy's soul may be permanently tarnished due to Twilight's carelessness. It's not something to laugh at, it's something to mourn. I would certainly like to think that the idea behind that little scene was simply meant to indicate that Flutterbat will be making an appearance in the future so that Fluttershy can be cleansed of it once and for all, and not just some painfully unfunny gag.

 

So this raises a question: why does this episode fail to place any blame or responsibility on Twilight when she clearly deserves it?

 

Well, that's easy. Because acknowledging that she made a colossal blunder would have simply shined her in a far worse light than the rest of her friends. By distributing the blame, the episode makes her appear much less responsible than she actually is, especially when it's also busy placing the bulk of the blame on someone else.

 

And you know what's so utterly ironic about the whole thing? Bats! could have easily been Twilight's key episode. It had her making a huge magic-related blunder, so all she really needed was to get called out for her mistake and to inspire someone, and it would have been perfect. Instead, the key episode she actually received involved her making no magical blunder at all, nor any other blunder of any kind.

 

Bats! was certainly best episode I could use as an example for this. It proves that even in the rare instances when Twilight makes mistakes, she still won't appear any worse than the mane five. Yet another example lies in Pinkie Pride after Pinkie's friends abandoned her for Cheese Sandwich. Twilight was the only one who made an effort to involve Pinkie in the party preparations.

 

I simply cannot recall a single instance in all of season 4 where Twilight ever looked worse than her friends. Not one.

 

Hooray for our endlessly incredibly awesome best pony! :okiedokielokie:

 

 

IV. That she must be the mane six's most consistent problem-solver

 

 

 

"Step back, guys. Twilight's got this one.....again."

 

 

As I mentioned before, Twilight's ascension has created a significant imbalance between her and her friends. She is now infinitely smarter and more powerful than they are, and naturally, this grants her a greater capacity to be the one coming up with the most solutions to the problems the mane six are faced with in the slice-of-life episodes.

 

A complaint I frequently hear towards season 4 was that Twilight was pretty much sidelined all season. While true that she had so few of her own focus episodes, she still assisted in getting quite a few slice-of-life episodes in season 4 to their conclusion either by being the one with the answer, or being the one who does the most to inspire another character to take action. I guess the writers figured that if they couldn't write episodes for her, they were going to find other ways to make her shine above her friends.

 

These episodes are:

 

Castle Mane-ia — As I mentioned, Twilight brought her friends back to their senses and schooled them into a lesson

 

Daring Don't — Twilight does the most to convince Rainbow Dash to go back for Daring Do.

 

Bats! — Twilight comes up with the plan to return Fluttershy to normal.

 

Rainbow Falls — Twilight guilt trips Rainbow Dash, which ultimately ends up earning her key and getting the Ponyville team to qualify for the Equestria Games.

 

It Ain't Easy Being Breezies — Already explained this.

Maud Pie — Twilight comes up with the way by which she and her friends can bond with Maud.

 

Equestria Games — Twilight does the most to break Spike out of his funk.

 

 

However, there is one episode that I deliberately left out, and this was the very episode which deviated from the trend—the very episode which instills me with hope for Twilight's character. That episode was Testing Testing, 1, 2, 3, and it pretty much gave the middle finger to Hasbro's guidelines and briefly brought back the old Twilight for one episode only.

 

This is the only episode all season in which she learns a legitimate lesson. It is literally the only episode that stopped her from going the entire season without stumbling once. It returned her flaws, as well as her ability to make mistakes. It even teetered on the edge of portraying her in a negative light, as she arrogantly boasted to Rainbow Dash that she could become a Wonderbolt if she wanted to, which was a surprisingly low blow. I should probably hate Twilight even more for trivializing Rainbow's dream in such a crude manner, but honestly, I'm just happy that she's still capable of displaying at least some flaws.

 

Although Twilight comes up with the solution for Rainbow Dash's study dilemma, it's far less annoying here for one reason: she was granted knowledge that the rest of her friends did not have. She was the only one who learned about Rainbow's observation abilities and was able to use this information to help her. This wasn't something she had simply come up with on her own.

 

The lesson itself was relatively minor, simply boiling down to Twilight learning that not everyone studies the same way that she does and that other methods of studying are just as good as each other. Nevertheless, it was still a lesson learned based on a character flaw, unlike her non-lesson from Three's a Crowd.

 

I loved this episode. It gives me hope that Twilight is not yet too far gone. Yet at the end of the day, it's just one episode, and I cannot help but feel that it was simply a rare exception to the trend and not something that I should come to expect from her character now.

 

 

Conclusion

 

In the face of all this, isn't it somewhat ironic that throughout season 4, Twilight frequently asserted that she did not think that she was better than anyone else? Clearly, the show staff has a somewhat different opinion.

 

Some people tend to get annoyed when others claim that Twilight is a "Mary Sue" and "too perfect." Those claims are not just pulled out of thin air. There are very valid reasons for them, and I have listed them above.

 

I'm not just some random Twilight hater. I could have liked Twilight's ascension, but unfortunately, I simply cannot stand the character she has become since it happened. She has become a little-miss-perfect who almost never makes mistakes, and who almost never falls into the trap of doing something morally wrong. Not only does she now make her friends look like immature children in comparison, she makes her season 1 self look incredibly unintelligent and immature as well. I no longer find anything relatable about the character whom I once thought was the most relatable character in the show.

 

Ultimately, all of those assurances made by the staff prior to season 4 about Twilight remaining the same character after her ascension just seem like lies to me. Because she is not the same character. The Twilight of the previous three seasons would not have shown so much apathy towards transforming one of her friends into a mindless beast. The Twilight of the previous three seasons would not have recklessly altered her friends' bodies without their consent. And the Twilight of previous seasons would not have actively attempted to take a life purely out of vengeful bloodlust.

 

A lot of people say that Twilight's lack of flaws now is attributed to her character development, but the truth is, that's bullshit. Because she certainly has not received any "development" which justifies her never making mistakes. The mane five have received a lot of development too, so why do they still show flaws, make mistakes, and learn lessons as usual? Because they're not princesses, that's why.

 

As I said, Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3 is the only reason I still have any hope for her character. Perhaps season 5 will see her return to the flawed and adorkable bookworm she always was. Perhaps. But as of right now....