Truffles

6 hours ago, VG_Addict said:

She and Spike are closer in age than Ember, at least.

I was informed that she:

2 hours ago, ggg-2 said:

Once again, 

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Didn't watch the whole thing, but congrats, Spike! You're not special anymore! Have fun going through life as a generic winged dragon.

 

Spike has lots of traits that still make him special compared to other dragons, like being the only known hero dragon in Equestria and one of very few who support the concept of friendship. My only downer on the whole situation is Scootaloo doesn't have anyone she can relate to anymore.

1 hour ago, VG_Addict said:

She and Spike are closer in age than Ember, at least.

True. I wondered a bit why some thought Ember would be better for Spike than one of the Mane 6 since she wasn't that much younger in terms of maturity than any of them. (Years-wise, Ember is a dragon so she's probably much older than any of the Mane 6, however.)

Spike also has a new-found connection with Thorax:

36 minutes ago, WiiGuy2014 said:

Where were you getting these leaks?

YouTube is even showing them in my recommended videos section of all things, they are so ubiquitous right now... 

Something that is going to happen in season 8. 

Just now, VG_Addict said:

 

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How long do you give it until people start shipping Spike and the new dragon?

 

We will have to learn her name, first! 

Though I wouldn't be surprised to see artwork of such a thing before the end of the year, lol.

Whatever the final count of epsiodes is, we are pretty much guaranteed to get to episode 200, which is pretty sweet.

1 hour ago, VG_Addict said:

Just skimmed through the episode.

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-Learning more about dragons

-Callback to Peewee

-Lesson about growing up and change

-Spike getting wings

-Spike getting to save the day

-Cute moments between Spike and Twilight/Rarity.

Calling it, this will be the best Spike episode since Gauntlet of Fire. 

Also:

I loved the episode even though it lacks something without the music, and the dialogue still needs its volume levels balanced.

Bitchy Twilight. A little bit of her being sarcastic was good, but she went way overboard in almost every S1 episode. Making nasty comebacks to her new friends and Spike whenever things weren't going her way or whenever she was annoyed with them made me wonder why the show was even called "Friendship is Magic" in the first place.

10 minutes ago, ggg-2 said:

And Spike is officially ruined then.

Twilicorn 2.0.

1 hour ago, MegaSean45 said:

When was the last time he had a bad episode? C'mon! People on this post are talking like he had a bad episode recently, which he haven't! His only problem right now is that he's not having enough episodes so he can develope more!

He hasn't been in a bad episode since Princess Spike which was back near the beginning of season 5. It feels like a lifetime ago. o_o

As for the OP, having an obsession with a single character is a double edged sword. The downside is when he gets excluded it's a disappointment. The upside is being focused on a single character tends to last longer than being a fan of a series in  general (at least for me) and that propogates into the rest of show.

For example I still watched CSI all the way to the end of the series, but it was more out of a sense of duty/tradition than me looking forward to seeing a new episode. Thanks in part to Spike, that hasn't happened yet for MLP.

I have my little shrine of desktop icons that link to episode screenshots of my favorite dragon to cheer me up when I'm having a stressed out day at work.

As long as your character obsession isn't causing you to lose sleep or not eat and you're not harassing his VA, then embrace and enjoy it while it lasts - having a character that lets you feel strong happiness, sadness, and sometimes even anger is a great ride! 

1 minute ago, Ninetales said:

I understand its poorly writen, ive been told that PLENTY of times, i get it, thank you.

My apologies for sounding like I was picking on you. I needed an example of a comment from someone stating the reasons we didn't didn't like it was because of the negative portrayal of the fans, and your bold orange text stood out really well against the other similar comments. 

16 hours ago, Dark Qiviut said:

MA Larson said the contrary, according to what he said at BronyCAN. The entire script was his, but the ideas, premise, and outline aren't. Before he wrote the script, he didn't like the outline for F&M, because every background character was a major asshole, and none of them learn a lesson. He proposed a Pinkie Pie episode to represent an allegory of Twitter/social media and the viciousness sent to her. Unlike this piece of shit, the background characters would feel terrible, apologize, and bring her donuts. But his idea was rejected and he was forced to stick with everything given to him. Larson stated in the panel he doesn't like F&M for not making sense, being mean-spirited, and the background characters acting abusive.

That message of only displaying the bad would've been apparent if the episode showed both the good and the bad. Instead, everyone except two tokens at the end are villainous, eighth-dimensional caricatures of fans. These ponies crossed "fan" behavior into needing the cops called on them.

Thanks for the clarification. I admit I had read multiple articles from separate interviews and did my best to synthesize what had really led to the creation of this episode, and it's good to get all the details straight. I guess my real point was me trying to say if the writer himself thought the episode should not have been done the way it was, then why should we as the audience think otherwise?

16 hours ago, Ninetales said:

I suppose its just a difference of opinion. You didnt like it because of how negative it was, i liked it because it was basicaslly sticking one to the fan dumb portion of the fans. I just have some bias regarding it. However, i will also say not everything is going to be perfect.

I didn't like it because it's a terribly written episode. If the fans hadn't been jerks but created a conflict in some other way that made them appear just as one-dimensional, I would still consider it poorly executed.

For another example let's switch gears a bit and take Spike's mysterious non-appearance in this episode. He wrote in the journal in S4 like the Mane 6 and he lives at the castle - which is where most of the events of this episode take place. Yet he's nowhere to be found. Sure, we can come up with reasons retroactively for him to be away, but why not do that like they did in "Once Upon a Zeppelin?" It's not like this episode is filled with so many fantastic scenes that none of them could be cut to allow him to be included or him or give room to explain why he's away. Again, it just looks like lazy writing.

It's funny how much this episode and "Zeppelin" are like two sides of the same coin - not only did they get the fans right in the latter, they even nailed the explanation as to why Spike wouldn't be part of the story. I loved "Zeppelin" even though it mirrors much of this episode and it's all because of how thoughtfully it was executed.

If you need another example, "Honest Apple" is another episode I dislike and it doesn't make fun of the fans at all. AJ was just terribly written, and that was enough to sink it.

13 hours ago, Dark Qiviut said:

The show can poke fun at the fandom without being lazy.

This pretty much sums up the main problem with the episode. It was lazy. Even the writer of the episode has admitted what we saw was not meant to be the final product and for whatever reason that's the script they went with anyway. With more work, a good story and moral could be honed from it, with the meta humor even being really funny for fans of the show. But the cardboard cutout antagonists and pat ending make this episode mediocre at best and awful at worst.

On 11/8/2017 at 9:25 PM, AlexanderThrond said:

I still find the "power" thing kinda weird; she didn't seem all that magically adept in the flashbacks, so I assumed she picked up those skills over time, but I guess she could just as likely be some Flurry Heart type. Still, I would think there's a reason that Sunburst went to the fancy magic school and not her. 

As for the "outbursts," I suppose that's possible, especially if she had some sort of latent power like Flurry Heart and Twilight appear to. On the other hand, Starlight's inability to properly cope with social challenges seems like something which would be more expected at that much younger age, so who knows? 

I happened to be rewatching "The Crystaling" for unrelated reasons just before finding this topic (looking for evidence Spike has spooky 4th wall-breaking powers like Pinkie and Discord) and it's like what @findingbuglantis said - there are subtle hints in that particular flashback that she was crazy powerful but she lacked the spell/incantation knowledge to apply her power effectively. In all of those scenes, you see Sunburst demonstrating what the spell should do. Then after she sees the spell, she does an extreme version of it.

Sunburst went because he had caring parents to help get him into Celestia's school, and I guess his one demonstration of powerful magic when his friend was in danger was enough to get him in. Certainly he could pass all of the written tests since knowledge was his thing. As for the practical tests, that's a good question. Is he younger or older than Twilight and did he take the same test before or after her? If it was after, then presumably they don't have any more dragon eggs lying around to test him with, lol. Whatever the test is, I would presume that just like with Twilight the hatching test was meant as a test of character and failing to do so would not exclude any unicorn from being accepted.

Heh, that's brings up an interesting scenario - if he did do that test before Twilight, then it would have been fun to listen to Spike and Sunburst having a conversation about how he'd be his assistant if he'd been able to hatch his egg! XD

As for Starlight, I guess her parents didn't care and/or notice how talented she was. Yikes. <_<  o_o

The nebulous part for me is after Sunburst left, what did she do? I guess I can assume she took up the learning part of it on her own and unlike him maybe she didn't have any qualms about working on the less-than-safe spells - which would definitely cause other ponies to grow fearful of her.

On 11/8/2017 at 9:25 PM, AlexanderThrond said:

As for the "outbursts," I suppose that's possible, especially if she had some sort of latent power like Flurry Heart and Twilight appear to.

When I mentioned outbursts, I was thinking more in terms of emotional outbursts, like the one she had at Twilight near the end of "The Cutie Re-Mark." Though if she had powerful magic, such emotion might cause her to do all sorts of scary things that would  be even more effective at driving neighbors away.

On 11/9/2017 at 6:34 AM, Battenberg said:

It explains a lot, if her parents weren't around and Sunburst was her only friend then that means Sunburst was her only form of company. This would explain why losing him messed her up so bad, she suddenly had nobody again and to make matters worse she had nobody to talk to about it, nobody to comfort her or to help her find a new friend and so she ended up being alone and angry and it all snowballed into the Starlight that almost destroyed equestria.

It seems like the map should be sending the ponies to fix parenting problems just as much as friendship problems - to avoid this exact scenario in the future. Goodness knows Starlight, Twilight, Sunset, and Tempest won't be the last powerful unicorns to be born into modern Equestria.

3 minutes ago, Jeric said:

While my take to this detail from Haber is basically, "well duh"

Yeah, reading over the quote again it does seem he was a bit flippant in his response, and that does make the statement less credible since it's not as clear if he's being serious or not, even if it makes sense logically.

15 hours ago, Jeric said:

Starlight and Scootaloo definitely would have something in common depending on the level of absence.

Oh, I smell a great opportunity for a Starlight-Scootaloo episode in season 8! 

1 hour ago, Concerned Bystander said:

As a general rule I don't take anything that a writer decides to mention out-of-universe seriously.  If a piece of information regarding a character is important enough to affect the narrative then it should be introduced in the narrative.  Once a work of fiction is released into the wild its creator surrenders any control over it, I don't mean in the sense of intellectual property rights, but rather the authority to determine how it is interpreted.

It's good to have a line in the sand, as it were, to be able to separate what is in-universe and out-of-universe; though I admit with me the line is a lot fuzzier. For example, should I dismiss all of the supplemental material the Tolkien estate has released over the years simply because it wasn't in the original stories? It's hard for me to ignore.

Perhaps a clearer example is the case of the sequel(s) to Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Robert C O'Brien's daughter wrote the sequels and makes it clear which characters it was who died at the end of the original - even though the original left that question open. I suppose classifying all the sequels as fanfiction (despite the author being a relative) is the proper conclusion, though again, it's difficult to reject them outright.

Of course, rules were meant to be broken and I do reject all of the "Alien" movies after Aliens. Seriously, kill off all main characters to fit your own narrative, Mr. Screenwriter? The heck with you! XD

9 hours ago, AlexanderThrond said:

This does help explain how nobody was around to give her the guidance she quite clearly needed. I have to wonder, do the adults of her childhood town not interact with the children much? I'm surprised nobody took pity on her or anything. Nonetheless, it explains a lot, and fits my operating theory that nobody was there to teach Starlight to deal with social interactions maturely, which only makes me like her reformation in "The Cutie Re-Mark" more. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: she's a messed-up kid who wants to do good but doesn't know how. Twilight didn't forgive her; rather, she just saw that Starlight desperately needed help. 

I suppose we can imply from how powerful she was that the other ponies (both adults and children) thought she was this "weird, spooky unicorn with uncanny amounts of power" and decided it best to stay clear of her. Maybe she was prone to the same kind of outbursts that she exhibits as an adult and that helped drive away any support that could have come from her neighbors?

Huh, I'm surprised no one else mentioned Cleo from the Catillac Cats yet:

I mean, leg warmers FTW, right? 

She was one of the early ones in a long line of fictional crushes, and the first after I pretty much threw in the towel midway in my senior year of HS trying to find a real girl go on a date with me. =/

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

To start, what's the urgency of figuring out the mystery of what happened to Star Swirl, other than Twilight's being impatient and excited? Is that really all that driving the Mane Seven and Sunburst (and maybe Starlight) to study for three days straight?

I believe so. Twilight is a princess, after all, with some amount of authority over them as we briefly saw in the S4 opener. And knowing her past fangasming over Starswirl, I can see how she's push all her friends to release him and the others ASAP under the guise of freeing them from whatever terrible things she's imagining might be happening to them in Limbo. The more interesting question, however, is why didn't the other princesses step in and tell her to take a step back and slow down? Even if they didn't know anything directly about what the Pillars were doing in the past to trap Stygian until the book was revealed, you would think they would be wise enough and know the 6 of them well enough to know freeing them would be dangerous.

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

First, Twilight says that Starlight used one of Star Swirl's spells to open portals through time, and if Star Swirl were there, he could have stopped it. But could he have, really? Is it necessarily the case that,

Yeah, I agree - probably not. In the S5 finale, Twilight didn't suspect anything was going on until just before Starlight went back in time. Unless she's thinking he could have closed the portal remotely from his version of the timeline - presuming that timeline still existed. I suppose Pinkie showing up after Twilight and Spike got pulled through might lend credence to that theory.

But if that was the case, then Twilight, Spike, and Starlight would be trapped forever in the alternate timelines or the past where Rainbow did the Rainboom. I'm not sure that's something Twilight would consider a positive outcome due to Starswirl being present. I guess if it was the past, Twi and Spike could live as older twin siblings to their younger counterparts. XD

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

Furthermore, once they're brought back, they'll presumably resume the aging process and die sooner or later.

Shhh, Twilight's secret plan is to turn all of them into Alicorns. 

Though I don't prescribe to the theory that Twilight is an immortal alicorn, so it probably doesn't matter.

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

If time doesn't pass in limbo, then I don't see how the Pillars could be suffering or feel trapped or anything like that. Whenever they exit limbo, wouldn't they not have any awareness or recollection of being in limbo, since it would just feel as though no time had passed since they first entered limbo?

The story doesn't say whether time is completely frozen and the 1000 years feels like an instant to them, or whether they are aware of their surroundings but don't age or require sustenance. I guess the latter case is what Sunburst was worried about. Having to spend 1000 years, even with a group of 7, with nothing to do but talk with one another would get boring pretty fast and would feel like a prison. Of course, if that was the case then you'd think they would have talked it out with Stygian/TPoS during that time and figured out what was really bothering him, making the danger of his release irrelevant. I suppose it's possible TPoS was sent off to another part of Limbo so they couldn't communicate, but it seems likely they would bump into one another if they could move about in there.

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

The holographic depiction of the Pillars trapping the Pony of Shadows (and themselves) in limbo shows them using their special artifacts to do so, with those objects then falling to the ground after they go to limbo. Is that supposed to be like a recording of the actual event? In other words, is that what actually happened? It would seem so. But then, that implies that the Pillars carried their special artifacts with them, and that their objects would have all been at Ponehenge, since they fell to the ground in the holographic depiction. So then how did their special artifacts get scattered across Equestria?

The answer to the hologram is "yes", and as @KH7672 said, someone probably found the artifacts sitting there and moved them. It could have been friends or family members, though I feel like the Pillars would have even kept their plan secret to their loved ones to avoid the spell getting undone. It's more likely whoever found the artifacts pawned them off. In some cases where the artifact was recognized, it was enshrined (like the shovel and flower) and the others were simply passed around from owner to owner or discarded.

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

The location of Somnambula's blindfold is particularly problematic. How did the blindfold come to be stuck in the "drain" of the pit of green slime? That would almost suggest that the blindfold was simply discarded right after it was removed when Somnambula rescued Prince Hisan. But that would contradict the holographic depiction of the blindfold being used by Somnambula at Ponehenge.

This is a bit of a problem. I guess due to the knowledge that all of the artifacts had to be at Ponehenge for the ritual to work, Somnambula must have retrieved the blindfold after defeating the sphinx, even if it wasn't shown. It was just a flashback from a narration, so it's not that hard to accept the pony telling the story simply didn't reveal that detail. As for how it got into the drain (it does seem like Haber had a brain fart and assumed it was dropped into the pit and forgot it had to be at the site) I can come up with a retcon to explain it, though it's not particularly satisfying: Like some of the other artifacts, someone in the mold of Flim or Flam recognized the scarf and used it as part of their "Somnambula Experience"™ attraction in the town, allowing patrons to do the challenge with the blindfold worn by Somnambula herself. One of them accidentally lost it in the pit where it was stuck in the drain.  Like I said, not really satisfying but probably a good enough explanation as anything. 

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

The gardens that Rarity visited to retrieve Mistmane's flower didn't look as though they could be fixed with a few seconds of pruning; besides the sheer amount of overgrowth and disrepair, a good number of the plants were brown.

Yeah, this was a bit of a stretch. I guess they had to move the plot along so they took a shortcut. It seems like they could have shown her starting the redecorating and then switch to the next artifact, returning later to show her completing the task. That would have been a lot more believable.

Then again, maybe she still has latent superpowers left over from the Inspiration Manifestation spell? 

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

So Garble's idea of "trash talking" Spike right before the race is to give him a thumbs down and blow a raspberry? Wow, how intimidating.

It's interesting Rainbow was not intimidated by the other dragons like she was at the end of "Dragon Quest" where she chose to run away with the others with a worried look on her face instead of staying and fighting them off. I guess Spike must have told her the story of what happened during "Gauntlet of Fire" and she knows Garble is really more bark than bite. Or that she could fly rings around him if she really had to.

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

But after seeing Rainbow and Spike flying off with the shield, why wouldn't Garble give chase? It's not as though Rainbow was flying away super quickly at that time, although she could surely outfly Garble if she needed to.

It would have been cool if he had and we saw her kick into high gear to get away, but I guess the story was again pressed for time and having him stay in place and get dissed by his buddy was more efficient.

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

Pinkie just hops out of the deep diving suit and stands on the glowing green slime, and allows the slime-soaked blindfold to smack her in the face as she holds it in her mouth.

Pinkie's not going to let a little radioactivity get in the way of helping her friends? 

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

It feels contrived and unsatisfying that nobody else is willing or able to consider what the appropriate means of stopping the Pony of Shadows should be, just so that Starlight can be inevitably proven right once again.

Agreed. I stated in other comments the episode needed to show TPoS actually doing some pretty bad stuff rather than just talking a good game about being threatening. It would have made the Mane & Crested 7's doubts about Starlight's ideas that the Map was trying to tell them it was a friendship problem and not a defeat-the-bad-guy problem. Or at least, like you suggested, spend some time having them have a discussion about it but eventually coming to the conclusion banishment was the best approach. It seemed like they all pretty much deferred to the Pillars and that was that.

On 10/28/2017 at 7:41 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

Twilight says to Sunburst "I can't believe I'm gonna meet Star Swirl the Bearded! You know, outside of my dreams", while giving a devious smirk. Uh, is Sunburst really interested in what Twilight dreams about? That might be too much information there.

Yeah..... 

On 10/30/2017 at 4:22 AM, Justin_Case001 said:

Uh, let's see...I was also thrilled that they finally made it canon that Starswirl was the Sisters' teacher.  That has only been in the Journal, and I am ecstatic to have that be made official.

As am I. Maybe now that he's back with an official presence, we'll get an episode with a flashback of him teaching the two princesses back in the day? Seeing them in their younger years (and maybe their parents?) and how they got along with one another in the actual show would be a real treat.

Spike, Starlight, and Sunburst will fuse ala "Steven Universe" to become the 7th Pillar's counterpart. 

On 10/12/2017 at 2:22 AM, Spilight98 said:

No more mister nice dragon.

BURN THEM ALL!!!

 

Gotta love the expressions on all the ponies faces in this clip regarding their newfound weapon of mass incineration.

On 10/31/2017 at 7:09 PM, Spilight98 said:

Spike is so, "Geeze, Twilight! Lay off on the overly mushy stuff, will ya? I may be cute and cuddly but I still have a rep with the Dragon Lord to uphold!" 

When you see a skeleton in a hoodie snooping around your house in the distant future, insist on a extra 90 minutes before he decides to go tap you on the shoulder.

8 minutes ago, AlexanderThrond said:

Two of my favourite moments in the episode are small touches which show how much these two have grown: Rainbow admitting she's done "lots of nutty things" (or something like that), and Rarity putting her hooves up to defend Spike. Both are very brief, but they also show how much both characters have matured since the show started. 

Plus, throwing Rainbow Dash into the mix means it's not just "Spike and the two ponies who care about him" like "Gauntlet of Fire," and I honestly miss when the show would experiment with its character groupings more often. 

I did miss not having Dash along during "Gauntlet", she would have added the snark Spike usually provides in such instances when he's not the focus of the story. I imagine with it being as compressed a story as it was, and maybe the bigger problem that Dash could retrieve the staff easily due to her competitive nature and speed and agility in contests like that would have made her inclusion problematic. But it would have been nice to have her along anyway. Or Pinkie. Or even AJ.

I'm with @AlexanderThrond and have to admit that despite it's flaws, I have a soft spot for this episode as well; and it's not just because of Spike. In fact, because I didn't pay any attention to the show until a few weeks before S3 started, I binge-watched seasons 1 and 2 in whatever order The Hub was showing them (IOW, random). This was one of the earlier episodes I saw if I recall correctly.

Thus without much of the context of Spike's character in previous episodes, I thought it was interesting enough:

• It gave us that great opening scene of Fluttershy escaping out the window to avoid viewing the migration. 
• It gave us the world-building of the Great Dragon Migration, one of the rare times dragons leave their hordes and get down to the business of (presumably) making more dragons. 
• It opened the door to the question of Spike's parents which had been glossed over until this point, and did reveal he does wonder about them. Even if it did shut the door on him doing any further research for now, I still feel like he probably wonders who they were and whether they were good or bad dragons.
• It revealed dragons like to swim in lava (and could apparently drink it if they wanted); something the show has kind of forgotten about until the lava surfing scene in the S7 finale.
• It's actually Garble's best appearance (which I know isn't saying much) since he actually showed some depth besides being the stereotypical bully due to his being impressed with Spike's awesome lava belly-flop. The scene of his brethren knighting him as an official dragon was actually heartwarming, and Garble giving him the official "noogie" made him seem like an older brother rather than a villain.
• It gave us Peewee, who would have been a great addition to the cast as Spike's pet. "Would" being the key word here, since the staff seemed to forget about him completely until it was revealed in "Just for Sidekicks" he was returned to his parents. =P But that's a negative on that episode and not "Dragon Quest."
• It revealed that dragons apparently have sensitive areas just like human males. 
• One word: Crackle. We need more Crackle. She got a cameo in "Gauntlet" but alas she wasn't around during the surfing comp in the S7 finale.
• Although Rainbow Dash was particularly mean to Spike in the beginning and Rarity was a little careless with her words, both of them made up for it by accompanying Twilight to the Badlands in Rarity's awesome dragon disguise.
• The episode showed Spike was not a pushover as it seemed to initially indicate. First it was by how he tracked the migration and walked all on his own from Ponyville to the Badlands (I was surprised he was so winded doing a similar walk to Klugetown in the movie, though I guess that was somewhat longer). Then by him showing the courage and resolve to do the leap into the lava, despite the danger from jumping from such a height. And then finally for standing up to Garble and refusing to smash Peewee's egg.

And that's why I still like this episode even though it bothered me for quite a while how dragons (at the time I wasn't really distinguishing between "teen dragons" and "adult dragons" as I do now) were portrayed in such a negative onenote manner. I explained it away to myself after I finished my binge watching of S1 and S2 that the main purpose of the episode was to come up with a believable reason for Spike not to basically give the ponies the proverbial middle finger and take off for greener pastures, due to how much slapstick physical abuse he was receiving until S6.

It would have been a better episode if the dragons had all been simply portrayed as "extreme", going no farther than the dangerous contests and partying they were fond of. Maybe hint that Spike was not really comfortable with that lifestyle in the third act and longed for living like the ponies did, instead of creating the black-and-white ultimatum of committing murder that the episode went with.

That would have left no scene of him standing up to Garble, but if Garble was just "extreme" like Iron Will and not an all-out villain then the jumping into the lava scene would have been satisfactory in showing Spike standing up for himself.

In any case, the negative portrayal of dragons in the episode doesn't bother me as much anymore since it's been pretty much rectified by the dragon-centered episodes that followed.

So yeah, I still like it even if I don't love it.

On 10/29/2017 at 1:15 PM, Music Chart Fan said:

(and I'll mention @Truffles, since he might be interested in this):

Thanks for the heads up!

My favorite episodes of the season that I voted as "loved", in order:

1. A Perfect Pear - Clearly the best episode of the season. Flawless structure and a lot of emotional content to keep me engaged, and it proved MLP can do romance effectively, even in a "show for little girls." I still don't think I can put it above my all-time favorite "Equestria Games" because that one also has a fairly flawless structure and a lot of feels, but it gets a bonus of putting Spike through the highest of highs and lowest of the lows. Heaven help me if they ever do a Spike's parents story as effective as "A Perfect Pear."  

In fact, I think I still like "Amending Fences" a little better than this episode, but I love them all and there's not much daylight between any of these three.

2. Shadow Play 1 & 2 - Arguably the best finale of the series so far, though "Twilight's Kingdom" is a close second. (That finale still gets a demerit by my confusion over Discord's true motivation and the muddled way it was presented.) The only flaw in the S7 finale is the overt broadcasting they do with Starlight being in the right. If they had kept it a little more subtle, it would be a lot more effective in its storytelling. Also @Music Chart Fan brought up some interesting issues in his comments, which I would like to respond to. Other than that, a great use of all the main characters that bears resemblance to some of the best episodes of the first 2 seasons.

3. A Flurry of Emotions - Fun episode. They took the "bratty kid" babysitting premise and made it funny. Flurry was actually endearing, especially when she was trying to stop the fighting between Pound and Pumpkin. And I learned more about Spike in this episode than at any other time in S7 - he's good with foals and at last has found some pride in being a dragon.

4. Once Upon a Zeppelin - A really funny romp with Twilight's parents and meta fan humor done right. We finally get some depth for them, get a revisit from an old antagonist, and get reaffirmation that Spike is part of the Sparkle family. Twilight has an emotional scene, though I admit it's a bit contrived to have had her out on the deck in the open air and still somehow miss the light show. o_O Also after the first time Shining turned green I just wanted to see him to stick his head overboard and empty himself out because seeing his cheeks puff out over and over was nasty. =P

Honorable mentions go to "Parental Glidance", which almost pulled off a "loved" rating save for how they botched the moral at the end with Rainbow seemingly being portrayed as the only one in the wrong, and "Triple Threat", which was an amazing showcase for Ember and Thorax but loses points for using the tired "one guy on two dates" premise and not wrapping that aspect up after the first act and doing something more interesting in the second act. (The third act was great as is.) Also an honorable mention to "Marks and Recreation" for Rumble getting an awesome musical number in an also fun episode.

My least favorite episodes, in no particular order:

Fluttershy Leans In - Arguably the most contrived episode in a season of noticeable contrivances. All three of the OC "experts" are written to be stupid beyond belief, and there's little or no common sense used by any of the characters. Plus the story is just too low-key and uninteresting. It's only redeeming aspects are the return of Dr. Fauna and seeing every major character helping out in a montage at the end.

Honest Apple - Yet another bad portrayal of AJ, cementing her place in series history as character with the most bad episodes. This is S7's "Somepony to Watch Over Me," only worse. Not only is AJ acting out-of-line, but the writing for some reason thinks judges are supposed to alter the contestant's submissions to make them into winners. Rarity is poorly realized here as well, letting AJ go on and on without ever putting her hoof down to stop what was happening.

Discordant Harmony - I realized that because this was one of the early release episodes which I had I skipped, I never even commented on it when it did finally air. Reason being was it was rather boring. I guess I never felt like I needed to change to impress someone - either accept me for who I am or move on - so the premise didn't work for me. I was excited for a moment when Pinkie showed up and thought she was going to be the one helping Discord put on a good tea party in his realm, but sadly she shuffled off again moments later. Ever since "Three's a Crowd," I've wanted a Pinkie-Discord pair-up episode and was hoping this could be it. Instead, we got Discord talking to himself, which, as much as I like John DeLancie, was excruciatingly boring. At least in this episode, no one is written OOC, but like I said above, I have a hard time understanding when people fret over making a good impression, so it feels forced in how he didn't know she likes him the way he is.

Fame and Misfortune - Initially funny for meta shock value, it doesn't hold up due to the utter stupidity and shallow portrayal of the "fan" characters. Furthermore, it has only gone downward after seeing "Once Upon a Zeppelin," which like I said above, gets the fan parodying right. 'Nuff said.

Secrets and Pies - I can't remember if I ever wrote a comment in this episode's official thread (only writing a brief comment in the leak thread) because it was just so boring and tedious, like "Discordant Harmony" - only worse. They tried to stretch the premise out for nearly the entire episode, but it is only good for about one act, and even then that's pushing it. Pinkie needed to find out the truth very early on and take the story in a different direction, maybe spend some time trying to find out what kind of pies Rainbow does like? Something. Anything.

Dishonorable mentions go out to "Daring Done?" for the absolutely worst bit of OOC for Rainbow Dash ever (yes even more than in "Mare-do-Well") where she forgets to fly and cowers before a goon squad, "Hard to Say Anything" for it making a lot of mistakes (but still not enough to throw it into the disliked pile) and "It Isn't the Mane Thing About You" for having Spike in nothing but a non-speaking role and seemingly not giving a crap about what happened to Rarity's mane.

Overall, I still prefer S4 over this season. In fact, I prefer S6 over this season. S4 was just plain consistently good, and S6 had fewer bad episodes than S7, even if S7 had some really good ones. If I were to complete the list, I guess it would go S4 > S6 > S7 > S2 > S1 > S5 > S3.