AlexanderThrond

I found her dignity there came at the expense of the qualities that make her relatable, so perhaps it fits.

He's not very interesting, but when Juniper Montage exists, I don't see how he can be "worst human" anymore.

For the first time in a couple years, I feel comfortable saying "no." I still think she's kinda rude - tossing the book in the water might not have been the best way of handling that, and calling Twilight "not a princess princess" was slightly tactless. But those things are funny to me. In general I'm willing to pretend "A Matter of Principals" never happened, but what still worries me is that her first impulse upon being insulted was to blast Discord with a laser. Maybe Discord should be blasted with lasers more often, but I shudder to think of what might happen if she did that to someone else. That was just one occurrence this year, though, much more comparable to the other ponies' lapses in judgment. Otherwise, it's seemed a lot more in line with the other ponies' issues, and continues to be by far her most distinctive personality trait. At least, I think so. I'm still waiting for an episode where she gets to do kite things, however.

I presume it happened off-screen, because it wasn't very exciting. I sort of forgot this was a thing. They haven't had many episodes separate from each other lately, so these things have just never been relevant. It's a side effect of the CMC mostly sharing their episodes with each other, as we've never seen them in a situation where they could pursue their individual interests. This episode was written this way because, for some godforsaken reason, the writers just can't imagine what happens offscreen anymore. We saw the CMC pursue different interests in season 6's "On Your Marks," and there's no reason they couldn't have continued pursuing them, even if we don't see it. That's part of why that Rumble episode didn't sit right with me. Sure would be nice if those interests were brought up again, though.

I'd argue "no" regardless, because none of them have any sort of training in teaching, and presumably barely fit the school into their busy schedules. With the show's inconsistency, though, I don't really want to judge the mane six for their worst moments. Still, Rarity ordered a bunch of sewing machines for her class. I dunno what she thinks she's doing there.

I want to argue that Flim and Flam are embezzling money from the school, but it's hard to embezzle money from yourself, and I doubt Neighsay cares. "Twilight, you are not the kind of pony to let emotions cloud your judgement!" - this phrase is demonstrably false.

Take your pick of "Very carefully" or "A wizard did it."

Probably the exemplars for how school-focused episodes should look are "Marks for the Effort" and "The Hearth's Warming Club." The former establishes a dynamic between the CMC and a student through which both are able to learn from the experience, and the latter expands upon the students' lives and personalities. The way the school has been mishandled this season seems to be more an extension of the show's lingering flaws than anything else - the way the writing team has become more and more out of touch with what made the show special to begin with. Even episodes like "Horse Play" and "Molt Down" benefit from the added context of the school, even if they could have just as easily existed without it. I think people underestimate its positive impact on the show.

The Friendship School is a really silly idea for a lot of reasons. Where do the teachers find the time? Don't they have other jobs which would keep them busy? What are their qualifications? And is friendship really best taught in such a formal environment? But I've found that enjoying this show often requires me to put aside those kinds of questions, or I wouldn't be able to appreciate what the show actually does with its various dubious setups. Twilight's distaste for competition is something that wasn't really addressed sufficiently in that episode, and I think one good way to fix that would be to have another rival school pop up elsewhere which Twilight is more accepting of, having learned her lesson somewhere offscreen. I don't really expect that the show will mine this territory again, however. As said, the friendship school seems kinda equal-opportunity, as there are plenty of ponies attending as well. I think to mitigate the "pony superiority" implication entirely, however, Twilight would need to hire non-pony teachers; surely there are more people like Gabby who already know plenty about friendship. But then the show wouldn't be able to have the mane six as the school's staff, which would dilute the entire reason the school is interesting to me.

Given what little we've seen about her past, and how she seemed much younger when babysitting Twilight, I believe it's reasonable to infer that she's still well within a normal pony lifespan. I think her relatively approachable personality backs that up too - immortality hasn't made her aloof yet, if she is indeed immortal or long-lived. It's hard to say how old she was when she became an alicorn, but based on what we know about her from the show, it's likely that she wasn't very old at all. In her mid-teens at the oldest.

That actually explains a lot, as I tend to consider her one of the show's weakest writers, "Grannies Gone Wild" aside.

Somehow forgot that the moral was "don't disrespect others' interests." That's still something we've seen before, so I still don't know why this episode needed to be made.