"Sonic Rainboom" is the most painful experience I've had to cope with since delivering a speech at my dad's funeral when I was 10 years old.

Alright, maybe that's an over-exaggeration, but the episode was still something that made me feel absolutely nauseous, and the feelings refuse to go away because it's so well-liked and praised despite the laundry list of issues that essentially destroy entire characters during the second half of the episode. Every time someone says they like this episode two things happen to me: A little bit of my faith in the human race dies and a little part of me dies as well.

I've been wanting to write a review on why the mere mention of this episode makes bile rise to my throat, but that'd require re-watching the atrocity and I remember absolutely hating as it progressed - and that's the only episode I've hated while watching it. Usually I have to let it marinate for a while before forming my own opinion on the matter. Think about things, what was said and done, what was accomplished, etc. This episode is one that almost killed the show for me entirely because it was such a damn atrocity that I honestly felt like someone shit on me as a fan of the product. I didn't want to finish it, but I did in hopes that it'd get better.

It didn't.

The first issue with the episode is how terribly stupid Fluttershy is, and I'm going to say what many people are either unwilling to say or unwilling to notice when it comes to her characterization in this episode. Whether it having a look of naivety while her friend is falling to her death or throwing incredibly obvious fears back into RD's face like it was no big deal, she was an idiot for almost the entire episode. Let me delve into this.

Part I: The Element of Airheadedness or the Element of Mean-Spiritedness, take your pick.

Stupid, nonchalant look while her friend was, in all likelhood, about to die.

There's the almost iconic scene of the other 4 sitting on a cloud as Rarity falls from the sky after the cringe worthy Icarus reference. The other 3 look concerned while Fluttershy sits there with an empty and uncaring look on her face. While some will make the argument that she wasn't worried because she had faith in Rainbow Dash, I don't buy that for a second. The Sonic Rainboom was something so rare that the only person to do it was RD and she only did it one time. This is something so rare that it's been performed by one person only one time. So to say she was anticipating the Sonic Rainboom is either implying she has some sort of ability to see into the future that's unbeknowst to everyone else around her, or it's similar to claiming that Japan should be expecting to be bombed by the USA again just because it happened once before, in spite of years of peaceful relations since then. It doesn't make any sense for her to be expecting that from what we do know, though, because even if Murphy's Law does exist, it's impossible to expect everything and not be surprised, especially when the life of your "friend" is laid on the table.

So to show no concern about her friend potentially dying is either saying she has an ability to see into the future and know what's going to happen before it happens (which I don't believe for a single second) or to say she just doesn't care if Rarity dies. There is no feasible way she could've expected this to happen and especially no reason for her not to show concern regardless. I know that if I had a friend that I went on an outing on every week and there was a good chance they'd lose their life, I wouldn't just sit there and look happy.

So yeahh. That's bullshit, honestly. Element of Kindness showing no concern for her friend's life, and that's not even the start of issues with this one tiny fraction of problems in the second half of this episode.

Throwing RD's fears back into her face like it was no biggie

"Just because you've failed the Sonic Rainboom One-hundred-thousand times in practice doesn't mean you won't be able to do it in front of a stadium full of impatient, super-critical sports fan ponies”

-Fluttershy

I understand that while Fluttershy may not be the most socially adept pony, this was just so incredibly stupid and insensitive for her to say and all it really did was show how little attention she's paying to someone she's known for practically her entire life. If they've known each other since they were that young then I'd like to think that she'd at least be able to pick up obvious signs from her friend. We're not talking about someone who's know this person for a few days, we're talking about, in a likelihood, someone who's known this person for the majority of her life. So not only have they known each other for an exceedingly long time but the signs were so obvious that there's no way Fluttershy shouldn't have been able to pick them up. Even her sentence itself is showing a bit of awareness of what she's saying as it both blatantly brings up RD's large number of attempts and 100% failure rate as well as how harsh and brutal sports fans can be. She even shows awareness of this herself, yet she says it anyway. So either she's an idiot or she's deliberately trying to hurt Rainbow Dash by playing on her fears. There isn't much of a middle ground.

Like I stated before, she may not be the most socially adept pony, but she even her statement is showing a good degree of awareness.

Many of her issues were an attempt to make her either be cute or to make her be funny, but really, when you think about it, they weren't cute and funny. They were kind of mean-spirited, honestly. I like Fluttershy and all, but I don't understand how people look past her behavior in this godforesaken 22 minutes of my life that I want back. What's even scarier is that she's just the tip of the iceburg when it comes to the myriad of problems in this episode.

Part II: The appetizer before the main course

Now, before I dive into the biggest problem with this episode, allow me to point out another gaping flaw and my only major issue with the first half of this episode.

A Variation of the Breezies Effect

If anyone recalls the main criticisms of the Season 4 episode "It Ain't Easy Being Breezy," then you should be able to recall the Deus Ex Machina of Twilight just finding the Breezies spell that made them all Breezies. While this one is still on a lesser scale, it's still worth noting.

Twilight put the spell on Rarity that gave her these magical butterfly wings. It was apparently the only way she knew that'd allow them to go up to the weaksauce version of Bespin's Cloud City and support their friend Rainbow Dash. However, it was also very dangerous and could very likely have some very bad, possibly irreversible side effects. Very risky spell that could put someone in great danger. Rarity, who was apparently the only one who cared enough to even notice that Rainbow Dash was tearing herself apart over this despite the lack of subtlety on RD's part, volunteered herself despite the risk, which was honestly quite noble and showed that MA Larson isn't a total idiot when it comes to Rarity's character, despite what the rest of the episode says about his knowledge of her and what she's supposed to stand for.

However, all of that risk is now meaningless as before they get up to Cloudsdale, Twilight very, very, very conveniently finds a spell that allows them to walk on the clouds without issue.

Now, paint me blue and call me babe, but if you're going to talk about "this is the only way that I can" and how "there's a great, great risk involved" then shortly find a more convenient spell that has much less risk, why don't you just try to find something that doesn't have such a great potential for harm first? It was obviously there and not too difficult to find as she managed to find it, so why not just try to do what's safe and best for everyone by at least attempting to find a spell that is safe?

Oh. Right. Because M.A. Larson was dead set on tearing down every thing Rarity's character was intended to stand for.

That was just stupid of Twilight to do though, honestly. It couldn't have been that hard to find a safer and more convenient spell due to the fact she was able to find it before they headed up to Cloudsdale yet she didn't even attempt to look for one until after she put her friend in grave danger. One of the big sins committed against Rarity in this episode.

Speaking of sins committed against Rarity...

Part III: why

I couldn't think of a more fitting title, honestly.

To understand why this last part is so fundamentally terrible, you first must understand what Rarity's character is intended to stand for.

When Faust was creating the show, Hasbro essentially demanded a character "absolutely obsessed with fashion." Essentially, all they wanted Rarity to be was this:

So, in defiance of the archetype the execs wanted to see, Faust created Rarity; a fashion pony who did not follow trends, but set them. A fashion pony that didn't rely on money and others, but took care of herself completely on her own and relied on herself first and foremost. A fashion pony who is strong and ambitious, but one who is also kind, sweet, and caring.

This is what Rarity was intended to be - she was intended to spit in the face of what characters like her are supposed to be. She was intended to prove to the younger girls who watched the show and cared about how they looked and what they wore and what others thought of them that just because this is what you love, it doesn't mean you have to be like...

Oh.

This episode just shits all over what Rarity is meant to be and what she's meant to stand for. This episode shits all over what makes her character so great and so pure - this shits all over everything that makes Rarity unique, charming, deep, and just a great character in general.

This episode takes the purity of her conception and origin and injects it with bile, germs, and whatever type of things you find to be disgusting. This episode quite literally makes her into everything she was intended to stand against - all the girly, bitchy types who only care about what they look and what they wear. The ones that treat everyone like snot and only care about themselves and what they want.

This is saddening to type about, honestly. This takes the core of Rarity's meaning as a character what she represents and turns it on her head to make her into what she's meant to prove you don't have to be like if you're this kinda person. It only gets worse from there, unfortunately, as we see Rarity humiliated in front of a large crowd of people and turned into the villain of the episode, basically. She knocks the Wonderbolts unconscious and clogs up the cloud factory like a fool. She almost dies, even, and is made into an Icarus reference.

This just can't sit well with me. The writer of this episode taking a character of such pure intentions and making her into this is just horrible to me, and I get a strong headache just thinking about this. I hate it. And regardless of if I sound petty, I hate it when people say they like this episode because Rainbow Dash farted Rainbows in the end because of how the episode itself only serves to destroy such a wonderful and stereotype defying character.

What is only the icing on the cow patty is how Rarity apologizes in the end. Sadly, this doesn't mean much and not too much development is offered aside from the bare minimum it took to villainize her and then revert her back to the good side after it was all said and done. After this it just goes on to talk about how great Rainbow Dash is and how amazing she is and all that shit.

Yay.

I remember watching this episode and finishing it only out of hope it was going to get better, honestly. I don't usually hate episode until they've marinated a bit for me, so generally a fresh of the press review from me is about as useful as...nothing, really. Once things set and I have time to think I like to think I can form pretty solid opinions about the show itself, but rarely ever do I just want the episode to be over so I can try to forget about it.

In the end, nothing that happened mattered much to me. I was just left asking "Was it worth it?"

And really, was it? Was it worth destroying everything a character is meant to stand for just to play up a totally different character? Was any of it worth it?

I can't say it was. It can't be undone. It can't be fixed. It can't be mended. All that can be done is try to rebuild her character and press forward, and Larson did a half ass job of that at the end and left it up to later episodes to try and fix the damage he caused.

This episode has its good points - as a matter of fact, I'd say it's one of the best Rainbow Dash episodes out there in terms of just her. So much went wrong, though, and the crumbling and decay of everything Rarity was meant to stand for is the cardinal sin here.

What they should've done was introduce either a Trixie-like foil for RD to play the role that Rarity did. Have the foil act in the same way that Rarity did in many areas with a personal twist to make the character unique, force them to compete at the same time slot due to time constraints like Rarity and Rainbow Dash had to do, and then, finally, have the other pony fall from grace and have Rainbow Dash save her using the Sonic Rainboom just like she did for Rarity.

It would've saved Rarity's character from the horrors this episode would've wrought on her, and while the episode still would've been a bit flawed in my eyes, the sins it committed would've been forgivable for the great development it offered to Rainbow Dash.

Hell, a potential foil was even offered - the bullies it showed earlier in the episode. What if they had a leader who was a bit of a jackass to RD and was a great flier in his own right? RD was outperforming him in their shared time slot and he got angry about that, flew too close to the sun, was blinded and began falling down backwards. His wings, while strong, weren't strong enough to compete with the force of gravity that was making him fall, and RD sees that and goes to save the day despite being nervous and despite how poorly he treated her, both in the past and the present.

Boom. Same development and same outcome and you don't have to shit all over another mane character just to get that result.

All in all, though, it just comes down to one thing about character-driven shows like FiM - if you have to destroy one character to build up another, then I think you're doing it wrong.

And that's all I have to say about that.