Bhending the Rules

I really wish I could be around the forums during the weekend, when most of these episode discussions are going on. As it stands, I spend my weekends either working or sleeping and can never get here to check out the forum reaction and chime in until Monday morning. Pity. I'll have more to say in video form soon, but I'll say this much now: this is an awesome episode, and I'm glad the fandom agrees with me for the first time in several weeks, because this is likely going down as one of my favorites of the series.

I'm as confused as you are about the reaction to Tanks for the Memories. And I probably always will be. XD Appleoosa's Most Wanted isn't going to go down as one of the best episodes by any means, but it was a welcome return to form.

It's good that you don't do that. Your brain controls the respiratory and cardiovascular functions vital to sustaining life. You would die. Before anyone jumps in to say that that's not what "turn your brain off" means... I know. I'm giving that suggestion the dismissal it (imo, of course) deserves.

This is the part that really bothers me... she DOESN'T ignore the consequences of her actions. She isn't being irrational, or acting rashly or thoughtlessly, or acting only on emotion, as others here have asserted. If she was, I probably still wouldn't like the episode, but I could at least accept it. But she's not. She quite clearly has thought this through, and knows that what she's doing is wrong. The episode isn't even ambiguous on this point, as Dash spells that out in the song. And yet for some reason, even knowing that, she goes through with her harebrained scheme anyway. She knows about the destructive potential of her actions, and she doesn't care. At that point, Rainbow Dash loses any and all sympathy I might have had for her. Those are the actions of a villain, straight up. If I watched this episode and didn't already know Dash was a protagonist of the series, I would have assumed she was a villain. And when I can't sympathize with her situation and actions, the emotional connection that is essential to the episode's resolution is... dang, I can't even call it broken. It's pretty much just missing.

It saddens me somewhat that anyone should feel the need to make that particular clarification. Making someone cry is just generally a not cool thing to do. On a tangentially related note, so is virtually everything that Rainbow does in this episode.

It kind of makes me happy to see that a lot of people on this discussion thread were able to enjoy this episode. I've been trying to come up with something nice to say about it, and for now that will have to do. It's all I've got. I'll probably have more to say about this in some form later on, but right now I'm just stunned. I thought for the longest time that Rainbow Dash would never be the focus of an episode worse than Mare Do Well, but today it became necessary for me to revise that assumption. Even though I could tell which parts were aiming to be funny/emotional, most of the time I had to try really hard to not cringe. Just... wow. I am absolutely shocked.

Just so I'm clear, Diamond Tiara is one of my least favorite characters in the show, but I certainly don't "hate" her in the same way that I hate what her actions (sometimes) represent, or that I would hate a real person who acts like she does. She's just a fictional character, and a cartoon one at that in every sense of the word. And like someone else said, the god of chaos reformed. Well, more like "moved from Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral". So she might come around at some point. Who knows?

I was right there with them, because Maud was SUCH A KILLJOY. For a while, it felt like the lesson of the episode was going to be that not everyone can be friends (a worthwhile and important lesson that we all have to learn at some point), but unfortunately the episode copped out and came up with a solution that doesn't. Work. At. All. Regardless, it's not selfish to not want to be around someone that you don't enjoy being around. That's normal and perfectly reasonable. It would be selfish for someone to insist that someone who doesn't enjoy their company set aside time for them to be around. Which, to be fair, Maud doesn't do. Twilight's the one who ultimately solves the problem. But still. I loved Rainbow Rocks, with the exception of Flash/Brad. I really wish they would have actually given him a reason to be in the movie and made him a good character, but... no dice. Hopefully they do something interesting with him at some point. It can only be considered harsh until you've dealt with someone like Diamond Tiara. That scene from "Flight to the Finish" spoke to me in a very personal way (it's my favorite episode of season 4), because I got the DT Treatment as a kid and for very similar reasons. (Let's just say my right arm is a little... short.) I've heard stories of people being driven into crippling depression and/or suicide by people acting like that. I wasn't, but that isn't stopping me from being angry for those who were. Eventually most of the little brats who engage in that sort of behavior grow the buck up and realize what a cruel moron they were being, but some of them don't. They deserve nothing but contempt.

Gotta say, I'm kinda surprised to see Luna haters come out for a topic like this. But here they are. The only response that deserves is as follows: The OP specifies that the question is for the Mane Six, and my answer would just be no. They're only hateable if you're choosing to ignore certain aspects of their character. For every negative quality each of the Mane Six has, they have about a half dozen positive ones. And the negative ones are only focused on because we need to have a Problem of the Week for them to solve. As far as the minor characters go, I'll echo most of the sentiments I'm seeing here, but I will say I think Silver Spoon should be cut just a little bit of slack. It seems pretty obvious to me that Diamond Tiara is the leader of that duo and SS is the follower. I have a feeling there might be more to her character that we haven't seen yet, which is something I can't say for Diamond Tiara.

Well, THAT pessimism escalated quickly. XD The Mane Six are all going to get their own episodes. Probably more than one. That's how it's always been in 26 episode seasons, and I see little reason to believe this one will be any different in that regard.

My first impression is a bit more mixed on the episode itself, but I agree it could be setting up something very interesting. I'll watch it again before posting my full thoughts and voting in the poll here, but we may very well need to wait and see how the whole season unfolds before we can fairly judge this episode.

Uh, yeah... Starlight? Twi stared down Tirek when he had the power of LITERALLY EVERY PONY IN THE WORLD PLUS DISCORD. You are out of your league. By a magnitude too large for words. XD