SharkJump

A common Mary Sue trait is the other characters not being jealous of the Sue's gifts even under circumstances where it would be perfectly justifiable. I find a bit hard to believe that none of the mane 6 is ever going to bring up that Twilight alone was rewarded for what was a group effort. You certainly don't learn the magic of friendship by yourself, that's for sure. Twilight knowing how to fly right from the start while Fluttershy and especially Scootaloo have been struggling with that just adds salt to the injury. Everything boils down to Twilight being rewarded too much, too soon -- the fact this is not acknowledged in-universe makes the matter worse, not better. Jealousy isn't something the show hasn't already dealt with (see: "Green isn't your color"), so I can see an episode where Twilight's "reward" is put into question working well.

The best way the writers could play season 4 is by showing us that Twilight Sparkle isn't the only one who can realize her destiny (and by that I mean, "having her turned into an alicorn princess without even asking her opinion first) among the main characters. CMCs should get their cutie marks, RD should join the Wonderbolts and the rest of the mane 6 should start having the own ambitions and work over them until they're fullfilled.

I'm not sure if that was sarcasm or not, but if it wasn't you underestimate the average child's intelligance nowdays. They're far smarter than they seem. Which is why children shows need to have solid plots nowdays. FiM was doing a fine job... until this.

Twilight used to be my favorite one before season 3. Now it's either Fluttershy or Rarity. As for secondary ponies, I'd say Sweetie Belle.

Season two, with season one being close behind. Season three is nowhere near as good as the first two in my opinion. Most of my favorite episodes come from seasons 1 and 2 and I don't think any of the S3 ones are in my top 10.

1. Rarity 2. Applejack 3. Fluttershy 4. Rainbow Dash 5. Twilight Sparkle 6. Pinkie Pie Pinkie Pie was hit the hardest by this season, as she got her weakest episode to date ("Too many Pinkie Pies") and a number of very, very annoying appearances (like in "Wonderbolts Academy"). Her performance in the season finale was top notch, though. Pinkie is really at her best when her depressed side comes into play, showing that she's not as mono-dimensional as she seems. Twilight Sparkle was flanderized in this season, even before the finale. She didn't make a particularly good first impression as an alicorn either. Been said that, I believe she was at her best in the season premiere where she was still a flawed, yet heroic pony. After that things went downhill but I think she can still be salvaged in season 4. Only time will tell. Rainbow Dash is still Rainbow Dash. This season didn't change her into better or worse. I think the writers tried a bit too hard into making her look "cool" in both of her episodes, though I give them credit for the scene where she rejects the Wonderbolts after 2 entire seasons of RD idolizing them. Fluttershy got the best episode of the season and she's arguably the only one of the mane 6 without OOC moments in this one. Her other appearances were standard fare, with her "scary" side occasionally showing up. Applejack got a very strong episode as well as a much needed amount of screentime. This season estabilished that she doesn't need to snap like her friends to be a good character. It also showed that having much of her character revolve around her family doesn't mean that she has no personality. Despite not getting an episode, Rarity managed to be at her best in this season. She's easily the best supporting cast member of the season, with most of her appearances being hilarious and entertaining (like the scene with Spike's pie in "Spike at your service" and her camping antics in "Sleepless in Ponyville"). Bonus points for fer singing parts being once again excellent.

Disappointing episode. Half of the songs were good, the other half were boring and generic. The switched cutie marks plot was a great idea and should have been developed more. Everything about Twilight becoming an alicorn princess felt incredibly forced and I see this as the shark jumping moment of the series. The fact that she instantly learned to fly just added salt to the injury. Being a three-parter I just hope the writers realize how brutally they have murdered the show (Hasbro confirmed that they nothing to do with this right? So the writers are to blame), listen to the fans and strip Twilight of her wings in the following two episodes.

To add to my previous post, I believe the show is still salvageable if Hasbro gives the writers enough room to fix the imbalance this change is going to cause. They chose to break the status quo, which in itself is not a bad thing, but the writers need to fix these two points: 1. the horrible, horrible imbalance between the three pony races. Unicorns can potentially become immortal demi-gods of magic, pegasi fly and earth ponies grow veggies? I get this is a show about tolerance, but something about all this just feels inherently wrong. It reminds me of the strict class division in the Middle Ages, except it gets sugar-coated and everyone pretends nothing is wrong about it, making it arguably worse. 2. Twilight's goal in life was mastering magic, not becoming a princess. In fact, according to the synopsis of the episode, she didn't have the slightiest clue that she would eventually become one. She literally gets the status of Princess handled on a silver plate while other characters who are pursuing their goals in life (such as RD and Rarity wanting to join the Wonderbolts and the Canterlot elite respectively, and let's not even get started on the CMC) are put through all sorts of hellish trials and have still not realized their dreams. At this point it's imperative that the future seasons focus on giving some sort of closure to the rest of the mane cast.

At first I was confused at why this episode was so poorly received when I thought it was a pretty average one, so I watched it again to make sure I didn't miss anything particularly bad. ...and I didn't. The episode was average, no more and no less. There is no reason to consider this the worst episode in the series. The moral of the episode can be summarized with "Don't brag about things a large number of people is capable of doing, especially when you only care about the attention". It might be a harsh message, but it's true nonetheless, especially given how the real world works. Were her friends jerks? Yeah they were, so what? Rarity was a jerk to Fluttershy in Green isn't your color, Fluttershy was a jerk to Pinkie and Rarity in PYHD, RD was a jerk to Fluttershy in Dragonshy and so on. It's really nothing new, nor a reason to consider this episode a bad one. The point is that these ponies aren't meant to be saints, they're meant to be flawed, else we wouldn't watch FiM to begin with. And honestly, RD had it coming. She acted like a complete self-absorbed jerk at the beginning, considering herself like a superhero, when in fact she only cared about the attention (signing autographs while ponies fall to their death, really?). Then the rest of the episode showed that she wasn't a beautiful unique snowflake and forced her to eat some humble pie. Another thing this episode did well was pointing how at how quickly Ponyville shifted their attention to the Mare Do Well, quickly forgetting about RD's deeds, something that happens all the time in real life. Ponyville's minor characters are well known for acting like selfish hypocrites either way (*cough*The Last Roundup*cough*Super Speedy Cider Squeezy*cough*) so I can't say that behavior was unexpected. The main problem with this episode is being redundant with Boast Busters, who has a similiar message. Then again many recent episodes have started to recycle morals from earlier ones (like Lesson Zero -> It's about time and Ticket Master ->Too many Pinkie Pies) so it's more of a problem of the show itself. I understand the complaints about this episode being perhaps the most cynical in the entire series, but it does still manage to send one of the most useful messages in the entire show, as well as having a decent dose of humor and nice shoutouts to the XX century's superhero cartoons and comics. Overall, a decent episode. I'm giving it a 7/10.

The real problem here is not the risk of Twilight leaving her friends or she becoming a Mary Sue (she already is), but it's the incredibly disturbing and not-so-subtle message of racial superiority this show mainly aimed to pre-teen girls is going to send: only unicors have the ability to transform into immortal god-like beings. It was made perfectly clear that the princesses are unicors who managed to write their own magic. It would be fine if wings and the title of "Princess" were the only rewards, but it was outright stated several times that Celestia and Luna are immortal. Not only that, but Celestia is explicitly refered as a goddess in the show itself with euphemisms like "As Celestia is my witness". I'm sorry, but how is this acceptable from the very show that is now censoring Derpy because for god knows why she is considered a negative caricature of disabled people by the moral guardians? Of course once Hasbro realizes exactly what they've done they'll ask the writers to retcon the whole thing so that every princess besides Celestia and Luna is no longer immortal. Which leads to the next problem: this unecessary change of direction in the plot is going to require a retcon, which by definition is a poor way to manage a story and it's one of the signs the show is getting old. This is where all the "jumping the shark" arguments come in, which I am not going to reiterate since we have already heard them plenty of times. A true shame, but all good things must come to an end, I guess.