Dark Qiviut

So far, it takes more than just one thing to result in a bad episode. When it's bad, it's a combination of reasons why. Nevertheless, each bad episode has a starting point sequentially. Some examples off the top of my head: Griffon the Brush Off: Twilight accuses Pinkie (who was just whirlwinded away) of being jealous. Boast Busters: Spike complimenting on Twilight's spell progress, when she only completed #25, and the spell she enacted was unimpressive. Owl's Well: The entire episode sucked, but the moment it sucked is when Twilight vaguely introduced Spike to Owlowicious. Dragon Quest: Spike's friends use racism and sexism towards dragon to make fun of Spike. The Crystal Empire: Celestia assigns Twilight to protect the reborn kingdom, even though she can do it herself. Rainbow Fails: Bulk Biceps, who took part in the Academy and was decent in his duty, couldn't fly. Filli Vanilli: Pinkie mocks a distressed Big Mac by clucking in front of him. Appleoosa's Most Wanted: Troubleshoes's flashback. Brotherhooves Social: Big Mac's Adam's apple protrudes in grotesque fashion to conclude Sisterhood. 28PL: Rainbow Dash pranks Fluttershy twice and is remoseless. Fame & Misfortune: Twilight agrees to publish the friendship journal.

To stop their fight, Starlight impulsively swapped their cutie marks. Nonetheless, I don't hold it against her, because she had a major nightmare on the belief she only worsened their feud.

New characters aren't replacing them. It remains the Mane Eight's and the CMCs's series. That said, with the show soon ending and with a new team of six introduced, season 8 had to use them and make them stars in episodes.

There's a MAJOR difference between two people breaking off over a heated disagreement over fictional character preferences and ending a friendship over someone because their hatred for a character becomes a violent obsession. What's going on here is the latter. @cuteycindyhoney, @starrymiss, @ShadowPhoenix, and @Passion are right on the money. Person A's behavior regarding Pinkie is delusional, insane, and disturbing. PCutter did the right thing to cut off P.A. They're wrong. Pinkie's an integral part of FIM's mane cast, and that won't ever change.

^ This. Not once do Flim and Flam apologize for their scams. In Squeezy, they run and abandon Ponyville, and in LoF, they sneakily left. FU's the first time we really see DHX indulge them with a kettle full of karma. The antagonists and villains who reform showed remorse. Neither Flim nor Flam are the least bit sorry.

Quite the contrary. Some schools teach classes or tutor others on how to be friends with others or providing skills to become friends with others. This is an example. And in the Realm, the Magic of Friendship's the most powerful and important magic of them all. By teaching the magic of friendship to individuals near and far, they can spread diplomacy with other nations and tribes. Despite still learning, the RM7 have the experience to teach it now. Also, to echo @Ganondox, social skills are taught in some schools. The School of Friendship is no exception. They're teaching them the concept of friendship and put it into practice. That's the advantage of being a cartoon without a set calendar. DHX is able to bend it so the Mane Eight can take part in the school and stay occupied with their other dominant jobs. The RM7 haven't been replaced whatsoever. Even with new focus on the Young Six, they're not the main characters or the stars of the show. The FIM Movie specifically puts the RM7 as the mane characters of the movie and series, including having their likeness on the poster and cover art. We're delving into early-episode territory, so I'm spoilering the next bit: Starlight Glimmer joined the man cast to conclude Season 5, and the S6 team had a hard time properly executing her redemption arc. Season 7 rectified many of the problems she had in S6, including: Giving her a solid alibi to use her magic. In Every Little Thing, she turned to magic at the first possible outcome, making her desperation reason at the end flimsy. In All Bottled Up, she physically bottled up her magic to not upset Trixie, maintain their friendship, and control her temper. Being in appearances despite not having a lead role and often around the ReManeing cast. This made her a more inclusive part of the team and feel belonged in Ponyville as a whole. She became more sympathetic. Uncommon Bond and Shadow Play demonstrate that well, the latter formally completing Part 1 of her arc. STRONGLY disagree. Out of every episode this season, the only episodes to truly suck are Non-Complete Clause and Fake It 'Til You Make It, the latter coming nowhere close to some of the worst episodes of previous years. Several episodes from the first half are excellent, especially Break Down. Rockhoof aired today in the U.S., and it's a top-ten of the series. The second half, as a whole, is very consistent with so many good episodes. The CMCs schemed, broke into the school, and nearly sabotaged Dash's class. Afterwards, Cozy manipulated the CMCs into helping her study for Twilight's exam, intentionally failed, and framed them to Twilight. When Starlight told Twi the truth, she de-blacklisted the CMCs and hired them as tutors. The vandal ran off into the student quarters, and there was no way out. Spike, Twi, and Dash knew who was left in the school and that one of the Young Six did it. All of the Young Six declaring innocence meant one of them was lying, and to the teachers, the others were covering up for them. They suspected Gallus vandalized the decorations, but waited for him to crack. The episode went into that false "Twilight is jealous" trap, when Twilight has every reason to still believe Discord was up to no good. Twi doesn't like or trust him, and episodes like Return of Harmony (slowly broke her confidence and trust for her friends) and Three's a Crowd (led her and Cadance to a man-eating plant for self-amusement) support why. Additionally, her friends acted very suspiciously around her, and at the end, Discord admitted to intentionally scheming against her, nullifying the jealousy plot and marginalizing the moral it taught minutes earlier. There's a HUGE difference between Celestia in ARP and HP. In ARP, Celestia and Luna not only argued pettily, but also treated their other's jobs as meaningless. Their insults breached into personal levels, and their bitterness and arrogance continued throughout the episode. Celestia even commented in surprise that raising the moon was as easy as raising the sun, contradicting the fact that she rose and set the moon for a millennium while Luna was sealed. In Horse Play, Celestia had no idea how to properly act on a stage, but Twilight lied to her because she wanted so badly to make it work and treat this special occasion with the authenticity and respect it deserves. Celly's anger came from being disappointed in Twilight as a student and friend, because Twi failed in living up to her title. She has no problem with being told she stunk, but had a big problem in being lied to, even with the best of intentions in mind. Also… Big difference here, too. Celly and Luna were miffed because they left the wedding presents back in Canterlot. The argument was on the material alone, didn't become personal, and they quickly made up. One of Break Down's biggest strengths was how Discord behaved. The chemistry between he, Spike, and Big Mac was organic with a lot of fantastic lines. His romantic advice to Big Mac was terrible, but meant well. When he realized his mistake, he knew how to make it up his way: breaking Sugar Belle's wagon wheel to stall her as Big Mac ran to her and fix the mix up. He remained the Lord of Chaos while being his friend. On top of that, the exchanges between him and Spike were comedy gold. They knew how to push each other's buttons without crossing the line. Like SG and Trixie in Road to Friendship, Discord and Spike act like long-time friends despite being sworn enemies till season 3. I beg to differ. The Flim Flam Brothers live exactly by what they are: they're crooks. They sell a product too good to be true, only to actually scam the hell out of you without remorse. The Cider Squeezy 6000: claimed to sell efficient cider, only to be a terrible product after they beat the Apples. The tonic: an obvious placebo effect. FU: graduating with a college degree in only half the time, only to use their charges to expand their resort. And there are antagonists whose reformation makes sense and otherwise. Flim & Flam don't deserve one. In Viva Las Pegasus, after Gladmane was exiled, they took over his enterprise, returning to the same scheming as before. If they're gonna go back to their old ways, then reforming them is not necessary. After Viva Las Pegasus, not anymore. They hold no more animosity between each other. Their rivalry's closed. Their Friendship U scheme has some conviction in it. As what they advertise, Ponyville's really far away and difficult to travel to. Having a new school close to them allows them to study friendship without having to spend nights there. For LP residents, they can commute by going to school. Many ponies there graduated and accelerated in the ranks, Star Swirl its most prized pupil. It got the trust of Neighsay, and he and the Flim Flam Brothers were able to manipulate the crowd by accusing her of monopolizing the teaching of friendship. Flim & Flam are cons behind the scenes, but publicly, they gained a really strong LP rep. Early-ep spoilers: Lightning Dust doesn't deserve reformation, either. In Wonderbolts Academy, she showed no remorse for Dash hurting her wing, disrupting the other teams' routines, and accidentally nearly killing her friends. Each time Dash reminds her of how reckless she's being, Dust remains remorseless and acts like their near-deaths aren't a big deal. Throwing her out of The Wonderbolts was justified. In The Washouts, she not only remained unapologetic for the accident, but attributed it to beginning her daredevil career. And in the episode, she manipulated Scoot into convincing her to join the Washouts and helped divide her relationship with Dash. Later on, she got jealous of Dash's academy record and dared Spitfire to increase the dizzitron's speed to one-up her. She didn't break it, but helped her become the lead of the Dust-Dash team, and that ego got in Dust's head, which made her more and more brazen in her recklessness. Dust is Dash without her morals. The Map's lore's tied to the Elements of Harmony, but there's no explicit lore of the Map being tied to only the Bearers. It can call anyone it sees fit and suspect the character(s) are able to use their strengths to complete their quests. The CMCs are no exception. The Map called them, because they can convince Terramar he doesn't have to make an all-or-nothing decision, but also help resolve the collateral damage his parents accidentally caused. And, no, Twilight didn't solve it. When the CMCs let their biases get in the way, Twilight gave them advice. The CMCs put it into practice, and the problems were resolved. You're going into headcanon territory. Firelight was a latchkey parent to Starlight, because she was in the middle of her dark path that eventually transitioned into becoming a cult leader. He treats her like a five-year-old, because watching her grow up pained him, and he wanted to keep her safe, hence the security blanket and coddling. Like Sunburst, Starlight disowned her dad and wanted nothing to do with it. The Map forced them to return to Sire's Hollow and path things up. From the get-go, the RM7 were anxious. Things went wrong at every corner, and each of them got on each others' nerves by accident. Dash questioning Twilight's idea of fun activities, Pinkie accidentally startling Fluttershy, Pinkie nearly punting Twi in the muzzle as she stared down at the checklist and running ahead, AJ loading Starlight with all her camping equipment, FS going off to rescue the bird without informing anyone, and so on. The Mean Six accidentally exacerbated the simmering tempers. Them not questioning the Mean's coats and personalities isn't that big of a deal because of the preceding events. As for not discovering Chryssie and the Mean Six, that's not the point. The point is that friends sometimes say things they don't mean or get on each others' nerves. Close friends argue, sometimes to the point of being really upset, and have misunderstandings. What shows their close bonds is their ability to get past it. At the end, with everything that went wrong, their bond became tighter. His reasoning is very believable. Star Swirl didn't understand how powerful the Magic of Friendship truly was. The Pillars' era was fraught with war and evil, so they couldn't keep their guard down. The light of the Realm comes as a result of the Tree's continuous maturation, the Magic of Friendship, the absence of evil, and Equestria's millennium-long evolution. Twilight made a very careless mistake of overlooking a key component released from limbo: Stygian. He was rightfully upset, because her oversight put Equestria in danger, and it's up to her to gain his trust for her. While they still fought evil, Stygian stole the Pillars' artifacts behind their backs. Everyone was upset at him for taking advantage of their trust and endangering the security that made Equestria safe from harm. Strongly disagree. Season 8 is one of the best seasons FIM ever had, and I argue that it's better than S7 (though not better than 5). Albeit a slow start, it got better after Grannies Gone Wild. Eight of the best this season are among the best of the show, including Rockoof, Surf, Breakdown, and Washouts. DHX under Haber and Dubuc looked at what went wrong in previous episodes, understood them, and (for the most part) created a more solid experience from beginning to end.