Cleverclover

Encasing Twilight and Spike in crystal and then allowing them to fall to their deaths wasn't trying to kill them? You can explain her actions away if you wish, but it won't change the fact that these actions are what left people feel indifferent or unsatisfied with her reformation. She clearly had a lot to make up for. The mane six clearly needed some time to forgive her and build a relationship. She should not have received forgiveness instantly, especially since Discord didn't. And there's still the matter that, despite deciding to make a commitment to become a better pony, she decides to squander her goodwill by proving that Twilight had indeed been far too hasty in trusting her by mind-controlling the ponies that she was supposed to be spending time with. Because that was a far more convenient option to her than simply taking the time to get to know them. And I have to say, I don't see why the mane five have to be forced into friendship with her after something like that. I mean, I'd like to think I'm a forgiving guy, but if you're asking me to befriend someone who has willingly stolen away my free will and forced me to become a slave, then you're just crazy. Besides, I don't think Starlight needs them anyway, and vice versa. Especially if she does not respect or care about them. As far as friends goes, she has Twilight, Spike, Sunburst and Trixie. All ponies whom I believe she never would have mind-controlled for her own benefit.

The mane six have never put Equestria in legitimate peril, nor tried to kill each other, or anyone else. Starlight had some pretty massive hurdles to jump.

Yep, I've been saying it for months now. For me, this is easily the worst season of the show for two distinct reasons: 1. The mane six have accomplished next to nothing this season. As far as actual accomplishments go, we've had Dash finally make it into the Wonderbolts, and Rarity opening a new boutique. That's it. They haven't even received much in the way of character development either, because in many episodes, they act as though they haven't progressed or developed past season 2. The sole exception to this is Fluttershy, who has managed to show that she has grown more confident and assertive due to her past development. Additionally, Spike has had a great season as well, with many of his episodes being among the season's best, instead of among the worst like they usually are. As such, many of this season's episodes seem utterly pointless, since they only appeared to serve the purpose of regressing the mane six and having them learn something they they should have already known. These episodes include The Cart Before the Ponies, 28 Pranks Later, and P.P.O.V. 2. Both Starlight and the post-marked CMC have been squandered. Despite facing the insurmountable task of getting the fandom to warm up towards Starlight after her polarizing reformation, season 6 has proceeded to ignore her existence entirely except in episodes in which she's either the focus or a supporting character (her non-speaking cameo in Spice Up Your Life being the one exception). She has been shown to share a decent relationship with Twilight and Spike, but barely any effort has been made towards getting her to interact with the mane five, each of whom honestly seem quite indifferent towards her, not appearing to care one way or the other if she sticks around or not. And in the one episode that attempts to amend this, she willfully casts a controlling spell on the mane five, which not only damaged nearly all of the goodwill Starlight had built up to that point by effectively proving that she clearly did not deserve the trust that Twilight had gifted her with, but also showed that she lacks any respect for them whatsoever. I certainly could not see her casting the same spell on Twilight, Spike, Sunburst, or Trixie without undoing it right away. But for the mane five, she just decided to let it stand. I honestly don't feel that they should have wanted anything more to do with her after that, but for the sake of proving that they're still on good terms, the show went the direction of yet another montage showing Starlight interacting with them positively, because evidently, that's as deep as Starlight's relationship with them needs to be. Why couldn't Starlight have received an entire episode showing her interacting with each of the mane six individually? I can't help but feel that if they actually intended for her to stick around, that's what would have happened. But now, I'm just not sure. The post-marked CMC have been treated no better. Despite receiving a brand new arc after getting cutie marks, they have only managed to receive three episodes this season, one of which had absolutely nothing to do with their arc. Even more insulting is that by the time The Fault in Our Cutie Marks aired, the CMC are implied to have had a very successful career already. Why couldn't we have actually seen it? Why did we need the 22 minutes of pointlessness that was The Cart Before the Ponies? Starlight and the CMC were easily two of the biggest reason that the show had to continue, and both were not utilized to their full potential.

This seems about right to me. I just hope she doesn't continue to hover around Twilight so much.

This episode was a delightful surprise, especially given the writer. As an Applejack fan, I was quite satisfied by her backstory here. I could sympathize with her sense of dependability clashing against her sense of honesty, and how she was ultimately driven to continue lying in order to save her family's partnership with the Rich family. Applejack was more than a bit naive here, and she clearly needed to learn a lesson. And if nearly getting your brother's leg hacked off isn't enough motivation never to lie for the rest of your life, I don't know what is. There were a few things that struck me as odd, though. Filthy Rich put a lot of pressure on two teenage ponies who obviously didn't have the final say in the farm's operations. I could understand him being upset, but threatening to pull his business entirely was a bit much. We learned that Spoiled Rich's maiden name was Spoiled Milk, which just makes pony names in Equestria that much more confusing (why is it that some ponies have obvious surnames while others don't? ) And I'm not really sure why we didn't get an appearance from Applejack's parents since Apple Bloom presumably wasn't born yet.

I cannot for the life of me see how anyone on the show staff expected Starlight's induction into the cast to be well-received with the entirety of the fandom. She nearly killed Twilight and Spike, nearly doomed Equestria for all time, and received a very flimsy justification as to why she became evil. But it's okay! Mane seventh, guys!!! Whoohoo!!! Unlike Discord, Starlight, for whatever reason, received undeserved forgiveness and redemption from the mane six instantly. Despite showing signs early on that she did not deserve any of the mane six's friendship or trust, she received it anyway. And ultimately, nothing substantial has come from her inclusion to the show. She does not feel like a friend to the mane five, especially after she mind-controlled them, which she clearly would not have done if she had even a modicum of respect for them. Her inclusion to the cast has not benefited them in the slightest. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that they would not be perfectly happy if Starlight decided to leave Ponyville. And honestly, the fact that the writers have not bothered to have her build a relationship with them, outside of a last-minute montage scene, makes me feel that she was never really intended to become a main character. I imagine she'll still just be a recurring character in season 7. Her completely unexplained prodigious magic talent does not help either. If anything, it makes her seem like some brony's OC that the staff put into the show for whatever reason, because the notion that there's this completely random unicorn who happens to be even more powerful than the Element of Magic herself definitely seems like a backstory that a brony would give to their OC. How exactly does making her incredibly powerful do anything to benefit her as a character? Are the writers honestly expecting me to like her on the merit of her being more talented than Twilight? As if the only thing that makes Twilight a good character is how powerful she is... I want to like Starlight. I want to give her a chance. But she just has not been handled well at all. And it's perfectly understandable to me that many in the fandom still struggle to accept her.

Fluttershy is the only one of the mane six who has displayed both development and growth this season. Quite impressive for a "background pony."

Pretty sure this is a joke thread, but I'll entertain it anyway. Why shouldn't Starlight become an alicorn? Gee, I don't know... - Maybe because her growth throughout season six has consisted of, at most, six episodes, whereas Twilight spent an entire season learning lessons herself, and then an additional two seasons of learning lessons alongside her friends? - Maybe because the mane five are not alicorns themselves, and they clearly deserve it infinitely more? - Maybe because Starlight has already received enough reward in getting away scot-free for nearly dooming Equestria forever, and becoming an alicorn only one season later would be ridiculously excessive? - Maybe because there is clearly no more room in Equestria for an another princess, thus rendering her ascension meaningless and pointless? - Maybe because just a few episodes ago, she mind-controlled the mane five and didn't think there was a single thing wrong with it? - Maybe because she's already a controversial addition to the show, and this would only serve to incite more hatred against her? - Maybe because this would verify the notion that Starlight was simply someone's OC that the writers shoved into the show, since alicorn OCs normally have very little justification as to why they're alicorns? - Maybe because Larson isn't around anymore?

I have tons of expectations here, yet very little faith that Dave Rapp can live up to them. He's shown that he's capable of writing the mane six well, but he's shown that he's also capable of flanderizing them, too...

Really hoping that this is "the farewell season." Season 6 shows all the evidence of a show that has simply run its course. The only thing I can imagine needing a season 7 for is for the purpose of seeing the characters off.

This! Nearly four years later, it still rubs me the wrong way that Trixie got away with that scot-free. People always say that Trixie didn't deserve to be punished because the amulet manipulated her, but I think that's a load of crap. Trixie bought that amulet knowing exactly what she was going to do with it. And if she knew about the amulet and where to find it, then surely she knew that it was capable of corrupting her mind. And yet, she didn't care. She deserved to go down for that.

I figure I might as well offer my take on this. Though Twilight's level of power was always quite impressive throughout the first three seasons of the show, she never really struck me as "overpowered" until It Ain't Easy Being Breezies, when she cast the spell that wound up turning she and her friends into breezies. This spell raised a few startling implications for me. The first one is the notion that Twilight has gone from a gifted prodigy to a bonafide goddess, since this spell evidently would have worked on any living creature. To date, I think it's easily the most powerful thing she's ever pulled off. The second is that this spell would clearly be extremely dangerous if an evil unicorn ever learned it. Imagine if Starlight, instead of manipulating an entire town of ponies and stealing their cutie marks, decided to turn them into insects and crush them under her hoof. Or alternatively, imagine if she managed to perform the spell to turn herself into a dragon or a hydra and subsequently laid waste to entire towns or cities. It seems to me that both of these scenarios would be possible with this spell. And thirdly, perhaps the most important thing to me, is that this spell was given no limit or restriction whatsoever. So ultimately, we have no reason whatsoever to believe that the mane six would not have been breezies for the rest of their lives until Twilight decided to reverse it. When it comes to magic, especially in scenarios when one third of the population can use it while the remaining two-thirds cannot, balance matters. There needs to be restrictions, there needs to be rules. Powerful spells that could potentially cause legitimate harm to others need to be regulated. This prevents the magic-users from getting too powerful, and if worst comes to worst, it prevents them from being able to overpower the other two races. However, it's utterly mind-boggling to me that throughout the course of the show, only one writer seems to have understood this very simple concept: M.A. Larson. Since the very first season, Larson has been the one most responsible with setting limits for Twilight, and for magic in Equestria itself. This began in the episode Sonic Rainboom, where Larson made it that the wing spell was too difficult for Twilight to perform more than once. Additionally, he also made it so that the wing spell was not permanent. It was only going to last for three days. In just a matter of including a simple restriction, he gave an incredibly powerful spell a sense of balance. However, I would say that the best example of Larson balancing both Twilight and magic itself comes from the episode It's About Time. We could have come away from that episode with the notion that Twilight could now travel backward or forward through time at will, but we didn't. Because Larson realized that if he gave Twilight the ability to travel back in time at will, fans would question why she would not simply do it whenever she wanted to change the past. For instance, why wouldn't she go back in time to prevent Tirek from destroying her library home? So, to solve this dilemma, Larson gave the spell two restrictions. The first was that the spell could only work for a few moments, and the second was that it could only be used once. And just like that, time travel was permanently excluded from Twilight's repertoire of abilities. Larson continued to balance Twilight all the way up to Amending Fences, when he established that she could only do her book spell for a few minutes. It seems ridiculous, but it really is that easy to set restrictions. All you need is a casual mention of a time limit, and a mention of something you can't do with it, and that's all. So why Larson was the only writer to have had the foresight to set limits with Twilight is completely beyond me. Perhaps it's because the rest of the writers on the staff simply do not care about how powerful Twilight is perceived to be. I really don't know. And now we have Starlight, whose abilities the writers have never even attempted to balance. Who seems to be able to pull off things that even Twilight cannot do with any level of ease that she displays. Who clearly poses a threat to slice-of-life episodes because there evidently isn't much of anything she couldn't solve with a simple wave of her horn. Whose level of power is clearly greater than it would ever need to be, and who will most certainly need to be nerfed, or at least need to forget just how powerful she is whenever it's convenient for the plot (in fact, I would expect to see this in the finale). Would the spell she cast on the mane five have ever worn off? Could the mane five potentially have been Starlight's mind-controlled slaves forever? Who knows? I honestly doubt Mike Vogel really cared when he wrote the episode. Ultimately, I think this is just a testament to how unfocused the show has become with season 6. It just feels to me that everything is just unraveling. The mane six are acting as immaturely as though they hadn't developed past season 1 or 2, there's so much emphasis on pointless gimmicks and an abundance of weird facial expressions that are often out-of-place, there hasn't been any arc for the post-marked CMC, and just barely an arc for Starlight, who doesn't feel like she's earned a massive payoff for her efforts towards learning about friendship yet. At this point, I think that if the writers don't care about balancing Twilight or Starlight, then there's little reason for us to care either. The longer the show goes on, the more we're likely to see them pulling off incredible magic that no one else in the show could possibly hope to match, especially the mane five, whose gap in ability was already massive enough as it was. I really wish that weren't the case, but the one writer who ever cared about magical balance is gone and most likely won't be coming back...

It appears to me that the Fox brothers enjoy writing episodes that sacrifice characterization for comedy. I find this sort of thing to be an annoyance, so I did not enjoy this episode much at all. First off, whatever it was that really happened on the boat is treated seriously enough that Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie are potentially going to end their friendships over it. This is the first problem with the episode. After six seasons, these ponies have a bond that is as close as family, and there's absolutely no way that I can expected to believe that it can all be thrown away over whatever happened on that trip. The second problem is that we're never given an accurate account of the events. At least one account should have been the truth, or at least mostly the truth, with perhaps a few aspects exaggerated out of simple misunderstanding. Because again, I want to know exactly what happened that made this trip so terrible that three of the mane six are not going to easily forgive each other over it. And after all, Applejack was along for this trip, and you would think that you could expect the Element of HONESTY to give an accurate account, right? I really do understand that the three stories were meant to be as zany and random as possible so that they could be played up for comedy, and if I'm honest, I did get a mild chuckle out of them. However, I just don't understand the logic behind the blatant lies and deliberate mistruths that the three of them gave, especially Pinkie. For example, Pinkie states that Rarity brought an entire group of stallions on the boat to carry her luggage, and neither Applejack nor Rarity herself corroborate this (Applejack shortens it down to only one stallion). Meanwhile, two of the stories involve Applejack being responsible for why the cucumber sandwiches ended up overboard, with one being intentional, and the other being on accident. But again, Pinkie's story diverted by saying that Rarity threw them overboard for no apparent reason. Here's the bottom line: either these things happened, or they didn't!!!! What is the point of the lies?! It legitimately seems to me like the only purpose Pinkie intended with her account was to twist up events as much as possible. And for what!?!?!?! For her own amusement? Because she wanted to have a spat with AJ and Rarity? And also, why did they all say that a storm was the reason for the wave that sunk their boat, but when we saw the actual scene of them after the shipwreck, there was no storm in sight.... That was clearly a lie!!!!! WHY ARE THEY LYING!?!??!?!? There is just no logic to this, at least not that I'm seeing. And again, why the hell couldn't we have had an accurate account of events, because I most certainly want to know exactly what it was that they were so upset about. Even if it was insanely childish and petty, I still wanted to know what it was. So it's really irritating to me that the episode tries to pull a last-minute "you didn't realize you were all trying to get each other to have a good time" explanation out of nowhere to make some attempt at giving a reason for their differing accounts. Yeah, I don't get that at all. Especially since NOT ONE OF THEM stated that their attempts to get each other to have a good time were unappreciated as a reason for why they were upset. If that was truly a reason, they would have mentioned it to Twilight. Overall, this entire conflict seems so ridiculously fabricated. There is nothing that feels natural about it at all. There is absolutely no reason why AJ, Rarity, and Pinkie should have acted the way they did, and clearly, they only acted this way just for the sake of making the plot work. And even then, it only barely worked. This is still just a huge mess of an episode. Twilight being able to correctly guess at random that some sea monster accidentally caused their boat to sink was largely ridiculous, but highly expected at same time. Indeed, this is the second time Twilight has come out looking the best in an episode written by the Foxes. It seems like they respect Twilight enough not to make her look like a complete idiot in an episode, but they certainly don't seem to respect the rest of the mane six enough to do the same.

I ask for a genuine episode in which Starlight builds a friendly relationship with the mane five, and I get this... Seeing the mind-controlled mane five was not even the slightest bit funny to me. It was terribly painful to watch. These are all characters who I care deeply about, and I was literally seeing their free will being stolen away by Starlight, who utterly infuriated me by acting mind-numbingly ignorant as to why they were acting the way they were. I really do think the idea that this episode was meant to be Starlight's Lesson Zero, but where using a spell was Twilight's last resort, it ended up being Starlight's first resort. I'm even more astounded by how casually Twilight reacted to the fact that her student had cast a control spell on her best friends. The scene where she realized what Starlight had done was omitted completely, and the next scene jumped straight to the aftermath, which showed Starlight still not having the slightest idea as to where she went wrong, indicating that Twilight did not reprimand her at all after she realized what had happened. Additionally, fact that Starlight did this clearly demonstrates a massive failure on Twilight's part, since as her student, Starlight has apparently learned that there's no boundary that you can't cross with magic to get want you want. In fact, I think Starlight's blunder here was actually foreshadowed in No Second Prances. Remember at the beginning how Twilight said to set the table without using magic, yet Starlight ignored her and did so anyway? Twilight did not reprimand her for this in the slightest---she allowed her student to get away with disobeying her. What Starlight learned there is that there's nothing wrong with using magic even in situations that don't call for it. So why would Starlight honestly expect that there would be any consequences for doing this? And lastly, we got yet another montage to imply that the mane five are friends with Starlight, something that would be MUCH BETTER conveyed if we actually saw genuine interaction between them. What I get from this is that the mane five's relationship with Starlight does not matter. All we really need to know is that she's on good terms with them, and that's about it. We'll most likely never see the sort of close relationship that Twilight and Spike seem to share with her. Perhaps that means, as I somewhat expect, that Starlight will packing up after this season. I'm glad that Starlight apologized but this still felt more like a slap on the wrist. I think she should have been punished in some way by Twilight, who has clearly been more lenient on her that she should have been. Oh, and Starlight is clearly OP and far more powerful that Twilight. Yippie... Also, I'm certainly not looking forward to the finale now. This was apparently the show's last chance to sell me on why I should love and support Starlight, and it failed for me.

This. Also, she really should have known better anyway. After forcing Big Mac to talk in No Second Prances, she said, "maybe my first instinct shouldn't be to magically command ponies to act the way I want them to?" Right there she expressed at least some form of understanding that she doesn't have the right to control others with magic. And yet, that message doesn't seem to have sunk in at all. I just don't understand it. Why would the writers choose to damage Starlight's character like this? Especially since she's been highly controversial among the fandom, and this certainly won't be changing any opinions for the people who don't like her. Especially since we know that she's going to be the focus of the finale in place of the mane six, and right now it's honestly seeming like she should be the villain instead.

Hey, I totally feel you. I would have much rather wanted Starlight to have more episodes to develop her as a character rather than receiving some of the more pointless episodes we've gotten this season (e.g. The Cart Before the Ponies and 28 Pranks Later). Even if this episode does focus on her mental disorders, it doesn't change the fact that Starlight has not had nearly enough positive interaction with the mane five to justify her becoming a mane seventh, assuming that's what will happen in the finale. And even regardless of Starlight's reasoning for doing this, I don't see any reason as to why the mane five would even want to be her friend after this episode. It's just a testament to how poor the writing direction has been this season.

I'm someone who takes ethics very seriously. So when I see blatant mind-controlling, I get more than a bit up in arms. And I especially get up in arms when I happen to like the characters who are being mind controlled. I feel that I can disregard context because I simply don't think that whatever reason the episode is going to possibly give as to why this is even remotely acceptable is not going to be good enough. Unless Starlight is doing this to save their lives in some weird sort of way, or as you said, the mane five gave her consent (but I sincerely doubt that), it's just not going to fly with me. But fair enough, I shall wait until to find out exactly why Starlight does this, as well as why she doesn't deserve to be locked up after this. Starlight has done more than enough that is worthy of punishment. Yet all she's ever received is a slap on the wrist, and her clearly unstable and unfit-for-society mind as been able to to stay out of the mental institution it so deserves to be in. The question I ask is why have Starlight's blatantly obvious mental disorders been shoved under the rug? I'd be fully supportive of her being redeemed, just as long as she first undergoes a couple hundred hours of mental therapy to understand that using your magic to control or manipulate others to suit your own desires IS UNETHICAL AND WRONG. And yet, despite being "reformed" and spending plenty of time as Twilight's student, Starlight not only doesn't understand this, she has no concept of it whatsoever. And this is the character who's going to be the hero of the finale? This is the character I'm supposed to be cheering on and supporting as opposed to our main characters?

Wow....just.... Don't even know where to begin. I've always condemned Twilight for exerting her magic over her friends. But at least she's never gone as far as to mind control them like this. I do not give a damn about context, because anything short of this simply being a dream sequence is not going to be good enough to justify this. I've said before that it didn't really seem that Starlight was a friend to the mane five, and that she was only an exclusive friend of Twilight and Spike. With this action, every single preconceived notion of Starlight being a friend towards the mane five has been shattered. If she were their friend, she would not feel the need to do this to them. And you know, it's also really striking to me that she's doing this so unapologetically, as though, like when she forced Big Mac to speak in No Second Prances, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Starlight's metal disorders are clearly still a problem, and clearly need to be addressed. But why do I get the feeling that the episode is still going to try to paint a sympathy angle on Starlight, and at the end, this action isn't going to be held against her in the way it should be? And this is the character who's stealing the focus in the finale, which is coming up soon? This psychopath is the character who I'm supposedly supposed to be rooting for? I have to say, this really just makes me want Starlight gone. Enough with focus on her clearly-poorly-handled "reformation." I genuinely want her to leave the show.

This was probably one of the best map episodes to date. At the very least, it most certainly kicks the crap out of Spice Up Your Life, which not only portrayed Rarity terribly, but also made it so that Pinkie was only really there to clean up the mess she made. And after Fluttershy was brutally shafted by Twilight in The Hooffields and McColts, I'm really glad she finally got a chance to feature prominently in a friendship mission episode. I just really hope that Dash does not suffer from having the misfortune of being paired with Twilight, because Heaven knows she really needs another good appearance this season. There are some things about the plot that didn't really make sense to me. It seems to me that keeping the performers at odds with each other could have backfired on Gladmane easily. What if they flat out refused to perform at all? Also, why would that be the only thing keeping them from leaving Gladmane's? Applejack's skepticism over Flim and Flam was well within reason, and I'm really glad that she allowed herself to move past it when she needed to. And best of all, Flim and Flam were NOT reformed at the end! Thank heavens for that! Ultimately, I think this episode mostly excelled in how well it portrayed both Applejack and Fluttershy and how they were both important to the mission, unlike Spice Up Your Life, which, again, only needed Pinkie, and The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone, which shoved Rainbow Dash into a pointless B-plot. However, plotwise, this episode was lacking a bit.

I don't really think so, mostly because it's always been a requirement that when Twilight undergoes another stage of development, she must be rewarded massively for it. And the truth is, what could she really receive now? She's a princess with a castle, and now with her own student. What's next? I really like the sound of this. It's just too bad that I think Celestia is simply done being involved in anything worthwhile.

Honestly, I don't think that any of the mane five can even remotely compare to Twilight in terms of accomplishment, and I honestly find that to be infuriating. Throughout the series, Twilight is the only one who has had the luxury of not developing at the pace of a snail. Season after season, she has taken yet another massive leap, while the mane five have taken only a small step. Half of the mane five have remained in almost the exact same place from where they stated, and have only received growth as characters as it was apparently never deemed worth the effort that they develop any sort of goals or aspirations to work towards. Despite clearly being good enough for the Wonderbolts since season 1, and after having jumped through a ton of pointless and seemingly unnecessary hoops, one of which (Wonderbolts Academy) did not seem to have any noticeable affect whatsoever on her goal, Dash has only just joined their ranks in what was easily the most disappointing introductory episode I could have possibly imagined she'd receive. Compare the entirety Newbie Dash to the hyped up fanfare of Twilight's coronation in Magical Mystery Cure. Both feature goals being realized, and only one is remotely satisfying. And unfortunately, the satisfying one is not the one that has been built up over the course of five seasons. It's the one that the character in question never once showed ANY desire for whatsoever. Rarity has run a successful business in Ponyville for years, and in season 1, she was hoof-picked by a famous celebrity to be a personal costume designer, who had apparently learned about Rarity via a magazine she had been featured in. With that sort of measured success, it seemed as though Rarity could have opened up a new boutique as early as season 2. But instead, it wasn't until season 5 until she opened her first new boutique, and it almost surprises me that she opened up a third so quickly afterward. Yet in the time Rarity has opened up two boutiques and Dash has realized her Wonderbolt dream, Twilight has gone from a supposedly "ordinary unicorn" (in her words) to one of the most respected and adored figures in Equestria, has had a moment where she briefly served as the unequivocal savior of all ponykind against a threat that the entire nation, including the princesses, could do absolutely nothing about, and has even taken on Celestia's former role as a mentor. In short, Twilight is the epitome of "accomplishment" in this show. Meanwhile, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie are the epitome of "stagnation."