Music Chart Fan

Overall, while there are a couple of aspects of this special which I liked, I was largely underwhelmed. I couldn't help noticing several animation errors and quality issues which I found distracting throughout the special. It feels as though nothing much happens in the first 2/3 or so of the special, with several scenes dragging, but then most of the action occurs in a few minutes right near the end. I also think that the plot line with Zipp's observing something wrong with the crystals, but the rest of the Mane Five dismissing and disbelieving her, is clunky and contrived. However, I did like the thread of Zipp's not quite feeling as though she fits in, partly isolating herself because of her potential royal responsibilities in Zephyr Heights, but ultimately getting to stay in Maretime Bay with her friends. As part of that, I also appreciated that Sunny makes some effort to try to help Zipp fit in. I also liked Zipp and Hitch getting some good interactions, especially Zipp's discovery of Hitch's egg. ----- First, I'll get out of the way that I was distracted by several animation errors and quality issues that I noticed. Lots of scenes and sequences throughout the special appear not to have enough frames of animation, making them look stuttery. In several instances, the lighting of the characters is not consistent with the lighting of the scene, making the characters look as though they're in front of a green screen. I noticed several cases where characters' lip movements did not appear to align or mesh with the voice lines the characters were saying. At least a couple of times, voice lines that should have been continuous were noticeably spliced together from different takes. I also noticed things like the water in the ocean having ripples/waves that don't actually move, or the sparkling effect of magic levitation looking odd. Ponies eating things also look awkward to me; the food seemingly just disappears during the biting animation, with the ponies' mouths and cheeks not looking to contain food or really looking any different afterward. Also, this was present in the first G5 movie, but ponies' blatant magnetic hooves continue to bug me - such as the spinning and holding of Pipp's lucky microphone, Izzy's holding the spoon when spreading pizza sauce, and Hitch's writing with a pencil at the Sheriff's station. The thing is that, for example, we see Sunny stirring dough or tart filling or whatever by holding the beater in her mouth, and when Sunny falls into the void, she grabs the lantern with her mouth. So the characters are capable of doing things like that, but they just don't most of the time. However, there's no indication that this will change going forward, so I know I'd better just get used to it. ----- One plot thread from the special that I thought was clunky is Zipp's noticing that something's going wrong with the crystals, but the rest of the Mane Five's not believing her. First, it's weird to me the extent to which Zipp is secretive about her observations. After the two pegasi fall near the lighthouse, Zipp doesn't tell Sunny, Izzy, and Pipp about it, but runs down to the Sheriff's office, where she then proceeds not to tell Hitch either. I guess she decided she needs more evidence to build a better case first? But then, after the magic glitches at the beach, Zipp again doesn't tell Sunny, Izzy, and Pipp about it, or even ask whether they noticed their magic going out. Following that, if it's true that Zipp believes she needs more evidence or a stronger case, then it's frustrating that Zipp spends five hours sitting and watching the rainbow beam while recording audio logs on her phone, and when something important actually happens, she doesn't record a video or take pictures with her phone. And that leads to further denial and dismissal when Zipp fails to get the rest of the Mane Five to see the vine effects, and tries to tell them that she thinks there's something wrong with the crystals. Sunny immediately and flatly denies it before Zipp even has a chance to explain. Izzy and Pipp are dismissive. Hitch, when confronted with the incident of the umbrella dropping in the sand castle, totally evades and runs away. And Sunny sticks around a little longer, but again flatly declares that "Magic is not glitching". Why are the rest of the Mane Five acting like this, dismissing and downplaying Zipp's concerns and seemingly refusing to entertain the possibility that magic is glitching? I don't see any particularly good reason for them not to hear Zipp out and take her seriously. Does their being preoccupied with festival planning or whatnot really mean that they can't take a few minutes to give Zipp some consideration? Sunny says at the end that she "was so focused on hoping that magic was okay" that she "lost sight of everything else". That statement doesn't seem to me like it describes Sunny's previous behavior. The only time that Sunny seems to show any concern about losing magic is briefly after the song at Mane Melody. Finally, all of this ends up not even affecting the main plot when Zipp is able to directly demonstrate the rainbow beam and magic glitching a few minutes later in the special anyway. ----- However, one thread from this special that I liked is Zipp's not feeling sure that she fits in at Maretime Bay, despite her preferring living in Maretime Bay to dealing with royal responsibilities in Zephyr Heights. To some extent, Zipp seems to have a different personality and different interests than the rest of the Mane Five. I can relate to, for example, Zipp's lack of enthusiasm about making decorations or baking with Sunny and Izzy and Pipp, or Zipp's not being into Pipp's song at Mane Melody. And with the weight of having to learn to be the future queen of Zephyr Heights, she also may be distancing herself a bit from the rest of the Mane Five, not wanting to get too attached to them or to Maretime Bay if she's going to have to go back to Zephyr Heights and take on royal responsibilities sooner or later. And I appreciate that Sunny, at least, makes some effort to try to make Zipp feel included and as though she belongs at Maretime Bay. Sunny is the only one who checks on Zipp when she takes the call from her mom. On the balcony, Sunny tries to tell Zipp that "of course" she fits in at Maretime Bay. Sunny tries to think of something to prepare for the festival with which Zipp would want to help. Sunny listens to Zipp at least a little and apologizes when Zipp tries to say that there's something wrong with the crystals (though Sunny ends up dismissing Zipp's concerns), whereas the others seem to take no interest and leave as soon as possible. When Zipp says that karaoke is the worst, Sunny defends Zipp, saying that she doesn't have to enjoy all the same things that the rest of them do. And Sunny apologizes to Zipp at the end and says that she should have listened. By the end of the special, though, I'm glad that Zipp has worked out that she'll stay in Maretime Bay for a while, and seems to have a stronger purpose with the whole detective thing. Hopefully she'll feel more included with the group in the future as well. ----- Next, I have a couple more larger observations. At least some of Posey's and other earth ponies' problems with the magical pegasi and unicorns may be more a result of growing pains from a lot of new ponies moving to Maretime Bay in a short time, or possibly cultural differences independent of magic. Posey was almost hit by someone who wasn't paying attention to where he/she was going, but that's not really a problem with unicorn magic, per se. Or, for example, Izzy just levitates oranges out of a pony's grocery bag and throws them up in the air, spearing one on her horn while the other three mysteriously vanish. Those belonged to the pony who was carrying them, and Izzy should be told not to just take other people's stuff without permission, but again, that's not necessarily a problem with unicorn magic itself. However, there are legitimate concerns if pegasi are randomly falling out of the sky over populated areas, if unicorns are levitating things that could hurt ponies when dropped, etc. So Sunny's blunt assertion that magic "may be unpredictable, but it's not dangerous" seems obviously overly simplistic and wrong. And did all these concerns, resentments, etc. go away when earth ponies discovered their own forms of magic? Or will we be seeing more jealousy, resentment, concern, etc. about magical abilities in the future? Also, I don't know whether these magic glitches are going to happen again in later episodes, but there are a few mechanics of them that I'm not sure I understand. Does magic glitch whenever some minimum threshold of ponies feels bad, doesn't treat others with kindness, etc.? If so, what is that threshold? Do magic glitches only affect ponies in the immediate vicinity of the ponies that are feeling bad, arguing, etc., or does magic glitch everywhere in the world at the same time? It would seem pretty difficult to stop all ponies from feeling bad and not treating each other with kindness, so are magic glitches just a permanent risk now? ----- Finally, here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations, in order as they appeared in the episode: In the opening sequence, can the guards not see, hear, or feel Zipp hovering right above them? Pipp's phone screen (and phone itself) looks exactly the same before and after Pipp announces that they're live. The red dot, which I would think would signify being live, doesn't change. Also, this is depicted as a live broadcast, occurring in real time, but if that's true, then how are the graphics, sound effects, backgrounds, transitions, etc. being added? There are at least a couple of cases where it doesn't seem possible that Pipp & co. are adding those in real time. The pizza that Izzy levitates into the air doesn't have cheese on it when it's on the counter, but when she drops it on her head, suddenly it does have cheese on it. I thought at first that Zipp's phone with a dual-size foldout screen is unrealistic, but I guess foldable phones with a larger screen do exist, and are being developed so as not to have a seam or split down the middle. Hitch's "landline" phone in the Sheriff's office only has keys for 1-9, with no 0, *, or #. So in this world, are only the digits 1-9 used for phone numbers? If Hitch is meant to be doing serious law enforcement, then shouldn't kids be told not to waste police time and resources calling in a dispute over whether a sand castle was sabotaged? Hitch didn't seem to want to deal with it, so why not tell them that this is not the job of the police? When Posey's hooves stuck to the sidewalk, is she sure that she didn't just step in a particularly sticky spot or something? Why does Zipp say to Hitch that she saw what happened at the beach "the other day"? Isn't that scene taking place later in the same day? Was there a whole day (or more) transition that I missed? So, what, Pipp communicates that she has an emergency by texting solely emojis? (Yeah, I know, the show doesn't want to use actual text because it's translated and shown in many different languages.) I'm frankly surprised that Sunny instantly recognized the lantern gift that Izzy gave her as being the lantern that her dad made for her. To me, it doesn't even look recognizable as the same thing. I would have thought that it's just an entirely new lantern. Posey complains that pegasi have an unfair advantage in the sand castle building contest, but was it not known ahead of time that pegasi (and presumably unicorns) could participate? If so, I'm not sure what complaining about that after the fact accomplishes. Perhaps, if earth ponies think the contest is unfair because of the participation of pegasi and unicorns, they could choose not to compete, or to hold their own earth pony only competition, or something. Maybe, if there's lightning actively occurring above and around the ponies (plus high winds, etc.), they should get indoors or take shelter? How can Posey sing the new Maretime Bay song (and the harmony part, no less) with Pipp if it's a newly written song? Does Posey somehow know the newly written song already? Hitch asks why he has the magical power to understand every animal except the baby dragon, but couldn't the answer be that a baby doesn't speak (or think) in fully formed language yet?

Maybe realism isn't quite the right word. I guess I was thinking that this movie is more detailed than the relatively simpler style of G4, and thus, phenomena that defy the typical laws of physics are more easily identifiable; there's less leeway in the style of the movie to assume or imagine a solution to the "magnetic hooves" dilemma that we just can't see because of the drawing style or lack of detail or whatnot. In the movie, we can clearly see that characters' hooves are flat and essentially smooth, and so, for example, when Sprout waves his aviator sunglasses around and points them at Sunny and Hitch, while the sunglasses are only "stuck" to his hoof by the rim around the edge, that's more noticeable to me as defying the typical laws of physics. Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. I hope that doesn't happen, but there's a significant chance that it will. Argyle says to Phyllis that his (and Sunny's) "nonsense" is "called research". So it seems we're meant to believe that Argyle has historical sources for at least the factual claims that they believe. But yeah, there is a value judgement in jumping from "this is the way things used to be (according to historical sources)" to "the way things used to be was better, and we should do that now". You make a good point that the movie could have used more tangible demonstration or evidence that the status quo is bad, and restoring magic and/or connections between the pony races would be better (and worth the risk). I suppose I was going by the jokey newscast that stated "This just in – Queen Haven has been arrested for being a phony pony full of baloney". There's no further explanation given, but you're right that there's probably more to it than just that. Queen Haven says to Zipp that "we have a duty to protect our citizens. Pegasi are happy enough knowing that we royals can fly" and "It makes them feel safe". So is that the basis of the royal family's political authority - that their ability to fly enables them to protect their citizens and make them feel safe? And therefore, the revelation that the royal family lied about their ability to fly invalidates their political authority because they no longer have the unique capability of protecting their citizens? I guess it depends on what the citizens of Zephyr Heights believe is the basis of the royal family's right to rule, and therefore, whether the citizens believe that the royal family's lying about their ability to fly makes their previous actions criminal and punishable by imprisonment. Thanks, I really appreciate that!

Zipp is my favorite of the Mane Five so far. I like that she's a princess, and next in line to be queen, but she's not pretentious about it. She doesn't care for what she sees as the pointless required customs of the royal family, so she only does them to the extent she has to. Instead, she's spent a lot of time studying and practicing flying (or gliding), showing a bit of her dual science and athleticism interests. She uses her position of authority to surreptitiously help her friends out. She can be sarcastic or supportive, depending on what the situation calls for. Plus, since Rainbow Dash was essentially my co-favorite of the Mane Six (along with Twilight), I think Zipp has a similar coolness factor. I'm interested to see whether Zipp's studying and practicing flying comes into play in the show. I could see her teaching advanced flying techniques to other pegasi, and maybe even starting a new version of the Wonderbolts, for example. Hitch and Zipp did team up in the climax to try to "rein in" Sprout's robot. Maybe Zipp volunteered to help Hitch because it could be physically strenuous to try to stop the robot, and her athleticism could help with that. She could also have volunteered because she has some science know-how, and that could help in figuring out how to stop the robot more quickly. Either way (or both) would be cool.

Overall, I would say that the movie was decent. I didn't have particularly high expectations for it, but it turned out better than I thought, and I am interested enough to want to see the G5 show. The overall plot is fine, although I don't care for Sprout and his juvenile "mama's boy" behavior, and I found the way the movie handled him and Maretime Bay's fear of the other races to be a bit weird. The ending is also a little abrupt and clunky. I like some characters (such as Zipp) more than others, but many characters didn't get a whole lot of development, and I'm not sure how they'll be handled going forward, so I may have to reserve full judgement. Of course, I (and everyone else) have lots of questions about the world, the background and the lore, but I guess to some extent that fuels interest in the show. There's a lot to talk about, so I'll try to divide this post into sections. ----- First, the new look of the movie isn't bad, but it would probably still take some getting used to for me. The fuzzy fur of the ponies can make them look like toys in my mind, so it can be difficult for me to register them as living, breathing beings. And I find that the hyper-realistic fuzzy fur and hair, when combined with the ponies' eyes and their face/body movements, can create an uncanny valley effect. And the higher realism of the movie's world causes another thing to really stick out to me: the ponies' "magnetic hooves". I lost count of how many times objects would "stick" to characters' hooves in a physically unrealistic (or even impossible) way, because they can't grab or hold things the way that humans (or animals with manipulable digits) can. I'm sure this happened in G4 as well, but the more cartoony style of that world may have made it less noticeable, whereas the higher realism here makes it more obvious. It did grate on me a little every time I saw it, but I may just have to get used to it, because it probably isn't going away. ----- Next, I'll give some brief thoughts about the new Mane Five. To start, Zipp is my favorite of the Mane Five so far. I like that she's a princess, and next in line to be queen, but she's not pretentious about it. She doesn't care for what she sees as the pointless required customs of the royal family, so she only does them to the extent she has to. Instead, she's spent a lot of time studying and practicing flying (or gliding), showing a bit of her dual science and athleticism interests. She uses her position of authority to surreptitiously help her friends out. She can be sarcastic or supportive, depending on what the situation calls for. Plus, since Rainbow Dash was essentially my co-favorite of the Mane Six (along with Twilight), I think Zipp has a similar coolness factor. Sunny is fine enough, but she does sometimes get preachy or bossy in a way that I find a little offputting. I also usually didn't find her motivational speeches to be particularly persuasive. However, I'm not sure how much of these things are just a function of the plot and events of the movie, rather than those being central character traits, so we'll have to see. Hitch also seems okay, but I also feel unsure about his character traits or dynamic in the group. For about half of the movie, he was mostly speaking and acting from a position of (supposed) authority as sheriff, rather than as a true friend and peer. I also don't think that the concept of critters being drawn to him, despite no effort or desire on his part to do that, really amounted to much, at least so far. And the movie makes quite a few jokes at his expense. But, again, we'll have to see how much of this is carried forward into the show, rather than just being movie-specific. It's probably little surprise that I'm not particularly a fan of Izzy. Her kind of hyper random extroverted character is close to the opposite of my personality, so my disagreeing with her actions and approach is almost inevitable. Especially near the beginning of the movie, she seems to be portrayed as an oblivious airhead, often not even realizing what's going on around her or paying any attention to what she's doing or where she's walking. Luckily, she's better in later scenes, and I'll admit that a few of her lines were entertaining. But overall, she's just not the character type that I tend to like, and that's fine. Finally, as others have pointed out, Pipp is probably the least developed of the Mane 5 so far. She's a social media celebrity and singer/performer who seems pretty enamored of her stardom and eager to maintain it, even if that means living a lie, as Zipp puts it. She does join the Mane Five and help them escape, although at that point, she's on the run from being arrested herself. But maybe she will be more humble and grounded after the events of the movie and as she hangs out more with the Mane 5 - another case that we'll just have to see. ----- Now I'll go through what I found the somewhat strange behavior of Sprout and Maretime Bay. On the one hand, it seems as though we're supposed to believe that the residents of Maretime Bay are legitimately scared of unicorns and pegasi invading the town and harming them. But, on the other hand, the actions they take about that, and the gadgets that are made and sold by Canterlogic to respond to that, are portrayed as goofy and incompetent. And that makes me wonder: do Phyllis and the Canterlogic employees genuinely believe that Maretime Bay is in danger from unicorns and pegasi invading the town? If so, then do they (or anyone else in Maretime Bay) realize that their gadgets are ineffective or useless? Or are Phyllis and the Canterlogic employees knowingly exaggerating or outright making up the threat to Maretime Bay in order to frighten the residents into trusting them and purchasing gadgets that Canterlogic knows are ineffective or useless? And these unclear motivations extend to the subplot in which Sprout takes over as sheriff and, driven by escalating fear, pushes the town and Canterlogic employees into preparing for battle and allowing him to become "emperor" of the town. So, again, the residents of the town are seemingly legitimately scared into doing these things, but then they're ready to abandon the whole thing as soon as Hitch and Sunny say that unicorns and pegasi don't have magic, and none of them end up doing any fighting, leaving Sprout as the only one to fight. If the residents of Maretime Bay are convinced to stop that easily, then would they have really been so invested in giving Sprout power and doing whatever he commanded in the first place? Plus there's the characterization of Sprout himself. He lets his power as sheriff, and then "emperor", go to his head, but at the same time, he's (again) portrayed and goofy and incompetent, particularly in his juvenile "mama's boy" behavior. This is the "leader" whom the residents of Maretime Bay listen to, give power to, and obey? Do they not see or realize his incompetence and unfitness to lead? Most people didn't seem to respect him or take him seriously before, so why do they so later, when he hasn't demonstrated any improved ability? Finally, Sprout did destroy Sunny's lighthouse in his rampage, and put several people in danger of being seriously harmed or even killed. Plus, in building his robot, he seized control of Canterlogic and used its resources, arguably without the consent of Phyllis, the presumed property owner. Yet we don't see Sprout formally punished or made to pay restitution in any way. Will Sunny have to build or find a new place to live? That's another thing that we'll have to see later. ----- Next, I'll go through some higher-level questions I had from the movie. How old are the Mane Five and Sprout supposed to be? My impression is that they look and generally act like teenagers, perhaps the equivalent of high-schoolers. But Sunny appears to live by herself in the lighthouse; Hitch is the sheriff of Maretime Bay; and Sprout is the deputy, who later takes over as sheriff and declares himself "emperor". Do those things make sense for teenagers, the equivalent of high-schoolers, to be doing? Are the Mane Five and Sprout actually older than my impression of them? The ages of the Mane Six from G4 were never exactly specified, but I don't know, they seemed older to me than the Mane Five from G5. It could be argued that the Mane Six did mature significantly over the course of nine seasons, though. Sprout's seizure of power also raises the question of what Maretime Bay's system of governance is. Does Maretime Bay have an executive or leader above the sheriff, such as a mayor? Do they have a city council or some other legislative body, and do they have any judicial system? It would seem strange to me if Hitch as sheriff is the highest political authority of Maretime Bay. When Sunny and Hitch return to town, one of the Canterlogic employees says that "we signed the Official Sprout Act". But who is "we", and what power do they have to make such acts into law? We also know essentially nothing about the organization of Bridlewood. The end of the movie sort of treats Phyllis, Alphabittle, and Queen Haven as the "representatives" of the three races, but I don't think there's any reason to believe that Phyllis or Alphabittle hold any positions of formal political authority. I have a lot of similar background/lore questions that others have pointed out. What happened between G4 and G5 to make the world this way? What knowledge of G4 Equestria still exists? How/when/where did Argyle, Sunny's dad, acquire the artifacts in the lighthouse? What happened to Argyle in the off-screen transition? Where are most of the other parents of the Mane 5 and Sprout? Are Sunny's glowing transparent wings and horn just a temporary effect, or is she actually an alicorn now? I suppose these and many other questions will probably have to wait for the show to see whether they're answered. One thing in that vein I noted is that Sunny's carved figures of the Mane Six show Twilight as an alicorn with the same body proportions as the others, before she developed her Celestia-like proportions, as seen in the last episode of G4. And Sunny's Spike doll also shows him in his usual short form, not his tall chunky form as seen in the last episode of G4. That's interesting, since Twilight presumably ruled Equestria for at least 15 years or so, if not much more, whereas Twilight may have only had her alicorn-but-not-Celestia-sized form for only a few years. And I suppose we don't know exactly when Spike had his growth spurt, but he may have lived a significant time in his fully-grown form. Is this because Argyle and Sunny were particularly (or solely) interested in the years when the Mane Six worked together, but before Twilight ascended to the throne? Are Argyle and Sunny aware of Twilight's ruling years, but aren't interested in them, or even want to forget them? This could all tie in to what happened between the end of G4 and now, but we don't know. ----- Finally, here are my other miscellaneous observations: As Sunny roller skates over the cobblestone and brick paths, we neither see nor hear any of the bumps and cracks I might expect. Does Sprout feel entitled to just take and consume other ponies' food and drink because he's the deputy, or something? Obviously the Earth Pony Balloon Escape Pack is a goofy joke product, like all the rest, but I still can't help thinking about how it works. It appears that all the ripcord does is open the flaps, and the balloons with the lifting power pop out and lift the pony away. So why don't the balloons - or, more specifically, the lighter-than-air gas inside them - lift the pony off the ground even before the flaps are opened? Also, why is the demonstrator of the Escape Pack almost immediately sucked out the window? Is an active air stream going out the window? Is there that much of a pressure differential between the building and outside? I didn't notice this at first, but Sunny's speech before she's launched out onto the runway all takes place behind the giant glass panes. Did Sunny know those were going to be there? They do serve to make her speech less effective, although it wasn't going to be convincing anyway. Hitch is right that Sunny shouldn't expect to change people's minds with a single speech after storming the stage. The earth ponies have seemingly been propagandized for years, if not their whole lives, so Sunny needs some compelling evidence and arguments to even start to counter that, not just shallow emotional appeals. I would think that the design of a manhole cover should prevent anybody from being able to just dive in. It appears that Maretime Bay has a sort of '80s/'90s level of technology. For example, we see green screen computers, CRT televisions, and Sunny's house has a boombox that plays cassette tapes. By contrast, Zephyr Heights has modern technology like giant flat screens, smart phones, wi-fi, etc. The level of technology in Bridlewood is uncertain; the DDR-like dance game is powered by a mechanical running wheel, but Izzy does appear to have an electric projector, and there are microphones in the Crystal Tea Room. Sunny needs to give Izzy (and, later, the pegasus guard) a chance to actually answer all of the questions she's rattling off one right after the other. When I hear "luminescence", I can't help thinking of the PS1 game Brave Fencer Musashi, in which Musashi powers up Lumina, the sword of luminescence. Does the glass Unicorn Crystal only fit into the projection of the Pegasus Crystal on the floor because light happens to be shining through the stained glass at the right angle? If so, then those two "fitting" together could essentially just be a coincidence, even though that ended up being true later. Zipp had wires attached to her in order to "fly" down before Pipp's performance, but a short time later, she gets up immediately upon seeing the Pegasus Crystal and runs around the crowd trying to retrieve it. So did she detach her wires some time after she landed? Would the royal family not "fly" back up to leave? If so, then would Zipp have to re-attach the wires without anyone noticing? That seems a bit risky. The behind-the-scenes operator of the lights/rigging/etc. could stand to be more professional, rather than yelling and freaking out and mashing a bunch of buttons and levers. I might think that he would have been told how important of a job this is, especially considering that the royal family was supposed to be arrested later when the secret got out. Queen Haven is arrested and thrown in jail, and a warrant is out for the arrest and presumed jailing of Zipp and Pipp, because they...covered up and lied about their inability to fly? Is that necessarily a jailable offense? Did doing that violate anyone's rights, or put anyone in physical danger? I could see the residents of Zephyr Heights insisting on an explanation, and considering the royal family untrustworthy and unfit to be recognized as their rulers. However, later on, the guards who come to re-arrest Queen Haven (and perhaps arrest Zipp and Pipp as well) still refer to her as "Your (Criminal) Highness" and "our queen". So, she's supposed to be arrested and in jail, but she's still considered the ruler of Zephyr Heights? How does Izzy chop the tree down to cross the ravine (where the bridge is out) in a matter of a few seconds, without magic? The tree is dead, but it doesn't look particularly rotted or cracked or on the verge of falling over. A human with a chainsaw couldn't cut that tree down that quickly. Apparently ponies' striking their hooves together can create sparks, and enough to start a fire. I find it hard to believe that Sunny suddenly got so good at the DDR-like game that she could beat Alphabittle in the last round, and all it apparently took was a few sentences of encouragement from Pipp. Sprout's giant robot has what looks like a European Union license plate on it, although I don't know what the country code of "PN" is meant to stand for. It seems a bit weird that, as the pegasi gain the ability to fly and unicorns gain the ability to cast magic using their horns, the earth ponies don't appear to gain any abilities or anything from magic being restored. They just seem to have to act happy for the unicorns and pegasi. I read that supposedly the glowing hoofprints of the earth pony kid at the very end of the movie represent earth pony magic, although what abilities earth pony magic imparts isn't obvious to me. Finally, does the pegasi's regaining the ability to fly also magically give them the knowledge of how to use their wings to control their flight? It's reminiscent of how Twilight appeared to already know how to fly at the end of "Magical Mystery Cure", but then in "Princess Twilight Sparkle", she's actually still a novice and learning to fly from Rainbow Dash. It might have been a neat callback to have Zipp be able to fly better than the other pegasi, because she's been studying and practicing. Maybe that could be involved in the show later - Zipp could teach advanced flying techniques to other pegasi, and could even restart the Wonderbolts or something like that.

A few random things I'll add: I must admit that I found the choppy/mismatched/desynced audio of the trailer to be distracting. When I first watched it, I stopped after the first 5 seconds, thinking that the particular upload I was watching had messed-up audio, but no, every copy of the trailer is like that. I also noticed at least a few animation oddities. At 0:25 in the trailer, Sunny and Izzy freeze in place looking at each other while everyone else panics and runs. Is that intentional, or is that an animation error? And at 0:57-0:59 in the trailer, Izzy is talking, but her profile on the left side of the screen doesn't move at all. I would suspect, though, that that's some still shot of Izzy which was pasted into that scene. 1:10 in the trailer also stuck out to me when the "Z Heights" billboard appears to be in sharp focus while the rest of the scenery has motion blur applied, as though that text was added in later or something. So far, it seems like Zipp may be the one of the Mane 5 I'll like most, being the closest to a Rainbow Dash-like character (plus her supposed "science" hobby may mix a bit of Twilight in as well, though I don't think we've seen that part of her yet). I feel like Zipp's two lines in the trailer were delivered differently, though, so I'm not quite sure what her voice will be like. And if Hitch ends up being a kind of male counterbalance to the other female Mane 5 characters, then I may relate to that, too. I haven't kept up with everything that's been revealed about the movie (and the world) so far, so I'm not sure that I can do in-depth theorizing or speculation yet. But I'm sure that'll come after we see the final movie!

Yeah, I'd like to think that Twilight wasn't that bad, even at the beginning of the show, to the point of her being dismissive or a know-it-all right to Princess Celestia's face as she's trying to explain an important lesson. But I suppose that Luster Dawn's relationship to Princess Twilight may be different than Twilight's more deferential relationship to Princess Celestia, and as you point out, the writers may have been trying to replicate Twilight's generally more snarky/exasperated attitude in the early part of the show. Good catch, I had missed that. I like Pharynx, so that's nice to see. It's in the scene where the Mane Six all cry together about Twilight's having to move to Canterlot, and Spike reminds them that "you should be more worried about missing the train to Canterlot!": And, for another example, the clock tower in "Hearts And Hooves Day" (S02E17) doesn't have the hours explicitly numbered, but it has 12 marks around the face, and has what looks like an hour and a minute hand: Contrast those two normal-looking clocks, though, to these examples from "Dragon Dropped" (S09E19), in Spike's room and in the post office. They both may have hour and minute hands, but they only have 8 marks around the face, and for the clock in the post office, those marks may not even be evenly spaced: And also contrast to the grandfather clock in Twilight's office from "School Raze - Part 1" (S08E25), which has four hands and 16 marks around the face: I'm sure that there are more examples, but those are ones that I recall off the top of my head.

I laughed at the mental image of Spike's teleporting a giant roc - or, say, the big frozen cloud from "Equestria Games" - somewhere else by breathing fire on it. But that mental image also calls to mind a potentially interesting thought experiment. From what I recall observing on the show, Spike's sending a scroll (or whatever else qualifies) by breathing fire on it doesn't necessarily occur instantaneously; it appears to be sent as it's burned, even if that takes a second or so. But on the receiving end, a cloud of smoke and magic forms until the whole scroll pops into existence instantaneously. So what if, say, a mile-long scroll was unrolled and set up so that Spike would breathe fire on one end to teleport it? Presumably the scroll would "send" as it burned down the very long length of it. But on the receiving end, would an ever-larger swirling cloud of smoke and magic form over the course of many seconds (or more, depending on how long it takes the scroll to burn), with the receiver perhaps looking on in horror, until the mile-long scroll pops into existence all at once? Could people observe a long, continuous trail of smoke and magic from where the scroll is originally located all the way to where it's being sent? I could imagine Twilight and Spike doing that as an experiment, or I could also imagine Rainbow or somebody asking Spike to do that as a prank.

I certainly don't think I'm qualified or able to make any "objective" judgement of what the best episodes of all time of the show are, so I'll just briefly go through some of what I think are my favorite episodes of the show. As a disclaimer, I think I'm more liable to like particular scenes, moments, and aspects of episodes in the show, rather than liking entire episodes from start to finish, per se. I'll probably have at least some qualms, skepticism, and/or certain things that I don't particularly like about essentially every episode of the show; I feel like that's just how my brain works. So when I mention episodes as being among my favorites, that doesn't necessarily mean that I like absolutely everything about those episodes. And as a corollary, not mentioning certain episodes among my favorites doesn't necessarily mean that there weren't ideas, scenes, or moments that I really liked in them. (And I'll tag @Truffles, in case he's interested in this.) The Perfect Pear (Season 7, Episode 13) is a fairly obvious choice for a really good episode, for its compelling and emotionally impactful backstory of Bright Mac and Pear Butter (and how Granny Smith and Grand Pear are involved); the sincerity with which the Apple siblings want to find out about the story of their parents, and the sincerity with which the ponies who knew them want to tell that story; and the bittersweet but hopeful outcome of the episode, with Grand Pear's reconciliation and the Apple siblings' feeling more complete knowing about the story (and example) of their parents. I also really like A Hearth's Warming Tail (Season 6, Episode 8). The episode is an entertaining total package, with the framing of telling a story about Snowfall, and the attendant songs, costumes, setpieces, and characters roleplaying as other characters. I do sympathize with Starlight's and Snowfall's sort of cynicism and lack of enthusiasm about the holiday, and I find it amusing to see others' reactions to Starlight's and Snowfall's attitudes. And this episode comes to a feel-good ending: Snowfall isn't necessarily portrayed as totally in the wrong, but, thanks to the earnest efforts of their friends (and, admittedly, some guilt-tripping), both Snowfall and Starlight come to see some value in the holiday, and both of them go to the Hearth's Warming Eve parties, participate in the festivities with their friends, and are happier for it. Also, Twilight and Rainbow have been my two favorites of the Mane Six for as long as I can remember, so I particularly like episodes where the two of them work together and/or help each other out. One of those episodes is Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3 (Season 4, Episode 21). Rainbow's antics and Twilight's reactions to them in the first part of the episode are funny and relatable. I particularly like Twilight's sincere concern for encouraging Rainbow not to give up on her dream of becoming a Wonderbolt. This episode also has a feel-good ending, where Twilight works together with the rest of the Mane Six and many residents of Ponyville to help Rainbow learn the Wonderbolts history, and Rainbow passes her test. I do find the method by which Rainbow supposedly learned this information not to make much sense, but it's still entertaining to see. Another of those episodes is Top Bolt (Season 6, Episode 24). Again, Twilight and Rainbow play off of each other really well in this episode. Vapor Trail is a very cute and endearing character, and it's satisfying to see her realize that she wants to be a Wonderbolt for herself, not just for Sky Stinger. And it's heartwarming to see Twilight's and Rainbow's cheering up Sky Stinger and Vapor Trail, respectively; Sky's and Vapor's helping each other train; Sky's and Vapor's successful completion of the solo trials (including where we see both of their trails as they fly fast, which are pretty cool); and their making it into the Wonderbolts Academy. And still another of those episodes is Read It And Weep (Season 2, Episode 16). I like that Twilight knows that Rainbow would like the Daring Do series, and encourages her to read it, and I like seeing Rainbow really relating to and getting more and more into the story. This was also the start of Daring Do on the show, and it was a simpler time, before Daring Do and her adventures were revealed to be real, which complicated things, even though I do like several aspects of later Daring Do episodes. The antics that Rainbow gets into in order to get back to reading the story are amusing. And, in another feel-good ending (do you see a pattern with episodes I like yet?), Rainbow admits to liking the Daring Do series, and Twilight gladly lets Rainbow borrow any of the Daring Do books in her collection. Finally, since Twilight and Rainbow are two of my favorite characters, honorable mention goes to episodes that showcase some of the best qualities of either of them, including episodes like Hurricane Fluttershy (Season 2, Episode 22), Sleepless In Ponyville (Season 3, Episode 6) and Luna Eclipsed (Season 2, Episode 4), among others.

All right, as I've done for most of the previous seasons, I've compiled what I think are my favorite episodes this season. It's weird to think that this is the last time I'll be doing this for this show. It's good to have a record of my taking stock of the episodes I most liked from each season, and to go back and see the previous episodes that I overall liked the most. So, for the final time, here are, not necessarily in rank order, what I believe are the five episodes I most liked in Season 9. The Big Mac Question (Episode 23): Many of the callbacks and symbolism around the proposals and the wedding were nice, and I liked that both of them were making plans to propose to each other. I also liked the back-and-forth between Spike and Discord, and I relate to Discord's mixture of sarcasm and cynicism, even while he does ultimately care and help out in his own way. And I think that there are a couple of good lessons here. The first is about how "the most romantic things are usually the simplest". And the other is that Big Mac and the Apple siblings can remember, look up to, and strive to emulate their parents in the good things that they did, but the Apple siblings should also remember that their parents weren't perfect in every single way, and they sometimes just had to do their imperfect best to overcome challenges in their own lives. Sparkle's Seven (Episode 4): As I mentioned before, I don't relate to or buy into the sibling rivalry premise between Twilight and Shining Armor, but there are other scenes and aspects of this episode to like. I liked Rainbow's and Rarity's working together and the callbacks to Shadow Spade and "Rarity Investigates!". Rainbow's "seducing" Zephyr at Rarity's insistence is amusing (although indulging his fantasy that Rainbow has secret feelings for him may not be good in the long run). Spike's and Fluttershy's working together was also good. It was cool that Spike and Luna made a secret pact to trick everyone. And it was nice to see Twilight and Shining Armor confirm Spike as their sibling that they've always had. Dragon Dropped (Episode 19): I might have liked this episode, at least in part, for some "wrong" reasons. I can't help being amused at and thinking of sarcastic responses to a lot of the melodrama of this episode - particularly Rarity's getting distraught at Spike's lack of attention to her, not doing work for her, and having plans that don't involve her. I also found Rarity's attempts to "seduce" Spike away from Gabby amusing, even as those things demonstrate that Rarity knows what Spike likes. Twilight's having to deal with Rarity's fainting couches is funny, and her looking out for Spike is always nice to see. Gabby generally makes a pretty good showing. And I prefer to see the ending of this episode as Spike's moving past his previous blind idolization of and crush on Rarity, and into a more healthy friendship. A Horse Shoe-In (Episode 20): I liked the simple, practical problem that's being worked on in this episode - Starlight's conducting interviews to find a vice headmare or headstallion - and the fairly reasonable process by which Starlight tries to find a suitable candidate. The struggle that Starlight goes through about keeping Trixie in the running, despite her underperformance, is understandable. Octavia, Dr. Whooves, and Big Mac put in generally good showings. It's kind of nice to see Trixie stick up for Gallus. And I think the eventual choice of Sunburst as vice headstallion is a pretty good one. I was (and still am) skeptical about Trixie's being the student counselor, but, based on the final episode, Starlight, Sunburst, and Trixie seem to have done a good (or at least good enough) job with the School of Friendship. The Last Problem (Episode 26): I certainly have my issues with this episode (though I would still be interested to read what @Truffles thinks). But I think it's an interesting idea to have a student of Twilight's be in a similar position to how Twilight was at the beginning of the show, with Twilight thus being in a good position to relate and to reach out in an effective way (although I wish Luster Dawn were a little less insufferable and simplistic in her dismissal of friendship). I think it's good to see that Twilight is concerned about how different things will be when she's coronated and moves to Canterlot. It's also an interesting idea to have the rest of the Mane Six bury themselves in the work of preparing for the coronation in order to take their minds off of the impending big changes and uncertainty (although I wish the rest of the Mane Six weren't quite so bluntly dismissive of Twilight's concern before it all comes spilling out just before the train ride). Finally, it's bittersweet to see what most of the main characters have done with their lives, and think about how far they've come from when they started.

Overall, I'm not really sure how to feel about this episode. I thought that it was good that the flashback story around Twilight's coronation acknowledges that things are going to be different with Twilight's moving to Canterlot, although it's also a little painful to watch. However, with the future part of the episode, I can't help feeling that Twilight's position as ruler of Equestria is a lonely one, particularly with Twilight's living in Canterlot, the Council of Friendship meetings with the Mane Seven only being once a month, and the rest of the Mane Seven's seeming to be really busy with their own jobs and lives. That could probably be considered a more realistic outcome, but it also feels more depressing. (Plus, there's the whole question of whether Twilight is aging at the same rate as the rest of the Mane Six, or whether Twilight will outlive them by hundreds of years.) I also can't help questioning some of the things that are shown or implied to have happened in the interim years. But, by the end of the episode, as we see what many of the main and secondary characters have done with their lives, it does manage to evoke some wistful and bittersweet feelings. ----- In this first section, I'll put my observations from the flashback story around Twilight's coronation. Does Spike's saying that he doesn't need to bring the Power Ponies comic to Canterlot imply that Twilight and Spike aren't going to take all of their belongings to Canterlot? Does that mean that they plan to come back and stay at the castle in Ponyville at least occasionally? Will Starlight and whoever else lives in the castle (Sunburst?) have to do maintenance on Twilight's and Spike's stuff for whenever they come to stay? If Pinkie is so worried about whether Gummy really took care of the fireworks (and she's probably not wrong to be worried about that), then why doesn't she just do it, or get someone else to do it? So are we to presume that these star spiders of Rarity's voluntarily agreed to this work load and these work conditions? Would Fluttershy approve of what's going on here? Wow, Spike has a normal clock with 12 hours marked, and an hour and minute hand. As I recall, the depiction of clocks on this show has been kind of all over the place. Why is it such a struggle for Big Mac to make the food deliveries correctly without Applejack there? Each of the recipients says what they're expecting to receive, and if Big Mac isn't sure what's in the crates, why couldn't he and the recipients just open the crates and verify them? When Applejack was closing the crates earlier, she saw her just setting the lids on top, and not even nailing them down or anything, so it may not even be that difficult to check the contents. So Rarity carries off her animal tank, but I guess she never glanced at it to see that the star spiders weren't inside. I wonder if that says something about how much Rarity cared about these star spiders. Does everyone really need to gasp in melodramatic horror because Twilight tripped? I guess they may just be following Celestia's lead in doing so, but Twilight's a young(er) pony, she should be fine. I wouldn't expect Rainbow to have too much trouble flying to Canterlot in a timely manner. So if Rainbow wasn't able to go over the routine with the Wonderbolts before they attempt to do it, should we chalk that up to Rainbow's being in Canterlot, but just not being able to find where in Canterlot the Wonderbolts were waiting? I read a theory that Celestia's and Luna's fusing their crowns to make a crown for Twilight supposedly passed their power to raise the sun and moon to Twilight. That seems a little weird, since I don't recall seeing their power to do that being infused into their crowns before. And would that mean that Twilight must wear the crown in order to have the power to raise the sun and moon? The book of memories made me think of the "chandelier" made from the roots of the Golden Oak Library, and how each of the diamonds on the chandelier contains a memory. Is that chandelier still there? How much meaning does it have now that Twilight doesn't live at that castle anymore? When Twilight uses a royal decree as ruler of Equestria to establish the Council of Friendship that meets once a moon, is that royal decree legally binding and enforceable by law? Is Luna still going to be on dream patrol, even in retirement? There was even a joke about this in "The Beginning Of The End", where Rainbow says to Celestia and Luna "Does this mean we get all your powers?! Ooh, ooh! I call dibs on showing up in everypony's dreams!". But I guess we're just left to speculate about whether Luna is still guarding ponies' dreams, and whether anyone else will take over doing that. ----- Now, in this section, I'll talk about my observations from the future part of this episode. First, as mentioned in the opening paragraph, when I see the future that's depicted in this episode, I can't help feeling that Twilight's position as ruler of Equestria is rather lonely and depressing. Luster Dawn tells Twilight that "as far as I can see, you rule by yourself now", and Luster Dawn is apparently unaware of the Council of Friendship. All of the Mane Seven - except for Spike, perhaps - are late to the Council of Friendship meeting, and almost all of them, including Spike, say something that suggests that they're really busy these days. Plus, we were told that the rest of the Mane Six would continue to live in Ponyville as Twilight moves to Canterlot. All of this seems to suggest that Twilight doesn't see or talk to her best friends much more than once a month, and that she may not have many good friends other than the Mane Seven. Does Twilight have any "work friends" among the government bureaucracy that she oversees, or at the School of Magic that she runs now? There was dialogue throughout this season that the rest of the Mane Seven would be helping Twilight to rule Equestria, and I honestly thought that would mean that the Mane Seven would take positions in the Equestrian government in Canterlot. But instead, the Mane Six's helping Twilight to rule Equestria seems to be limited to this once-a-month Council of Friendship meeting. Also, I'm not really a fan of the shipping, or implied shipping, in the future part of this episode. It's true that I'm not particularly a fan of CheesePie, AppleDash, FlutterCord, or YonaBar - but then, I'm also not particularly a fan of most Mane Six ships, either. And more importantly, I don't really like having a show throw characters (particularly main characters) into romantic relationships, or implied romantic relationships, without any real buildup or development of those relationships. Maybe some of these ships would be more plausible to me (or less scary, in the case of CheesePie) if they were properly developed and shown enough in the show. But as it stands, these ships or implied ships are being shown in the very last episode, so I'm going to be skeptical and just not really onboard with them. When, and why, did Twilight grow to the size of Celestia? Does Twilight's body know that she's the ruler of Equestria now, and it grew to the "right" size to match? I'm not sure that this is just the normal course of growth for all alicorns, either, since future Twilight looks bigger than Luna, who's over 1000 years old, and Cadance, who had been an alicorn for many years. Is it that shocking that Luster Dawn "doesn't want to make friends"? If she's very introverted, and hasn't met anyone at the school with whom she really relates, then that wouldn't be surprising to me. Luster Dawn says "if friendships ultimately fade, why even make them in the first place?". We could take that course of reasoning further, and question why most people should do anything. After all, unless they're going to become really famous and really change the course of history, then it's likely that essentially everything that most people do will ultimately fade away and be forgotten at some point in the future. But should that be the way to evaluate what's worth doing in one's life? So does future Pinkie just go around with toys and candy and confetti and stuff stuck in her hair all the time? Does she ever clean that stuff out? If so, does Little Cheese just put that stuff in her hair every day? Is Luster Dawn being sent to Ponyville because, out of all the cities and towns in Equestria, Ponyville is the most friendly, and Luster Dawn is most likely to make friends there specifically? Is it because the rest of the Mane Six will be there to keep an eye on her? Is it because she'll transfer to and/or live at the School of Friendship? Or is it just because Twilight has a sentimental bias toward Ponyville? What's with future Gummy being twice the size of ponies, while still having the same body proportions? Is future Rainbow still a regular performer with the Wonderbolts? They seem like an organization that would place a high priority on athleticism, and at some point, I would think that Rainbow's aging body wouldn't be able to keep up. Or does she perhaps have a less strenuous part in the shows, akin to what Wind Rider would have done back in "Rarity Investigates!" before Rainbow took his place? It's weird to think that, in the future, the School of Friendship has been run by Starlight and Sunburst for much longer than Twilight and the Mane Seven ever ran it, even though it was Twilight's idea to make the school, and she (along with the Mane Eight) fought to open it even without EEA accreditation. Plus, I have to wonder whether they still have, and still follow, Twilight's enormous rulebook that she first wrote for the school. Also, did Trixie ever think, back when she was a traveling magician, that she would settle down and take a long-term job being the guidance counselor at a School of Friendship? The griffon on the far right in Scootaloo's class seems much younger than the other students in the class, for some reason. Finally, it appears that the character collages behind each of the Mane Six near the end of the song are supposed to consist of those characters that each of the Mane Six particularly helped, interacted with, are related to, etc. And that is true for many of the characters. But, for some of the characters, I don't really see the connection. For example, what particular connection does Rainbow Dash have to Pharynx, Featherweight, or Vinyl and Octavia? What particular connection does Fluttershy have to Dr. Whooves, Mayor Mare, Nurse Redheart, or Lyra and Bon Bon? I'm not sure if I'm just not remembering all of these connections, or if some of these characters were sprinkled among the collages just to make sure they were there somewhere.

Overall, as with the finale episodes for other recent seasons, I found these episodes to be kind of a mixed bag. As the final battle for Equestria, the stakes are high and the unfolding of events is compelling. It was particularly powerful to see the villainous three seize Spike and threaten to pluck his wings - essentially threatening to torture him - and Spike's willingness to lose his wings and go through that, saying not to worry about him. And after the Mane Six stand down so as not to allow Spike to be tortured, they even appear to resign themselves to die (unless the villainous three's combined magic beam would have just stripped their magic or imprisoned them again or something). There are also several entertaining fight scenes. Starlight's battle with Chrysalis, and Starlight's teleporting the two of them to an empty tundra so as not to hurt anyone else, is pretty cool, as is Rarity's saving Twilight from having her magic absorbed. Starlight's breaking everyone else out of prison is another good moment, although I can't help wishing that she used the element of surprise that she seemed to have, rather than announcing that she's able to free herself. It's also neat to see all the ponies and creatures of Equestria assembled to back up the Mane Seven, although admittedly, many of them don't do much other than look intimidating and provide emotional support. However, the subplot about the villainous three sowing distrust among the earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns, and the resolution to that being students from Twilight's school telling everyone about the power of friendship, seemed clunky to me. I was frustrated by the characters' responding to concerns about Twilight's leading Equestria, or Twilight's not being able to think of a plan to stop the villainous three, by repeating again and again how they believe in Twilight (and the Mane Seven), and how they've "faced so much", etc., while seeming not to address the actual concerns. (I particularly noticed this in the scene with the Mane Seven in the tower at the Crystal Empire, where they spend a lot of time seeming to talk about anything but actually thinking of a plan to stop the villainous three.) The villainous three have to make the usual stupid and hubristic mistakes in order to give the heroes a chance to defeat them. It doesn't make sense to me that the villainous three are treated as obviously bad and put to "stone sleep", but Discord, who enabled and encouraged the three of them in several ways, seems to be treated just as he was before by the end of these episodes. And there are some other lines and events during these episodes that I'm not quite sure what to make of, which I'll talk about below. ----- First, I'll talk about this subplot with the villainous three sowing distrust among the pony races, and how it seems clunky to me. Chrysalis says that "spreading distrust among the unicorns and earth ponies is almost too easy", and I think it is too easy. Why are the ponies of Equestria so gullible? The unicorn baker in the opening of the episode apparently just believes Chrysalis - a random stranger to him - when she says that the earth ponies are hoarding food, and that the mayor of Appleloosa said that "if unicorns and pegasi want to eat, they can use their own hooves to dig". If any of us were just walking down the street, and a random person stopped us to tell us that the farmers are conspiring to hoard the food and keep it from us, would we just believe that person? There are all kinds of people who believe all manner of crazy things; I'm not just going to take some random stranger's word that there's a vast conspiracy without evidence or following up on it to confirm it for myself. And do any of these ponies work with and see ponies of other races, and have their own experience that would contradict whatever the villainous three are telling them? So I don't really see why the ponies of Equestria seemingly just believe the villainous three as they sow enmity among the races. And related to this, Twilight in the tower at the Crystal Empire says "Equestria's been falling apart around us, and I didn't even notice! What kind of princess does that make me?". I'm not sure what exactly this means. First, to what extent was it Twilight's job to be noticing large-scale problems around Equestria and fixing them, when she hasn't taken over leading Equestria yet? Should that not be falling more to Celestia and Luna (and the government apparatus they control) until the two of them actually retire? Or is Twilight saying that that was her job as the Princess of Friendship, even before taking over as leader of Equestria? And what is Twilight thinking that she should have noticed and taken action to fix? Does Twilight think she should have noticed that the pony races in Equestria harbor distrust and disdain for each other just under the surface, such that the villainous three could easily cause that to come out? Was Twilight supposed to have noticed that the ponies of Equestria are so gullible that they'll believe any bad thing that they're told about the other ponies by Chrysalis disguised as a total stranger? I'm not even sure what particular evidence there would be of those things for Twilight to notice. (And of course, none of these questions are explored or addressed by the Mane Seven; right after Twilight says these things, the conversation just goes off in a different direction.) So the stakes are raised by having the pony races separate and only look out for themselves, and that in turn causes the windigoes to appear. But, as a resolution to this subplot, we're shown that the day was saved, and all the pony races and creatures were convinced to work together, because a few kids/teenagers went to Twilight's School of Friendship and then told all the various societies about the power of friendship, or whatever. I can see that this is supposed to be tying a bunch of things together. See, Twilight's founding and running the School of Friendship did matter! See, Twilight does know what she's doing and has everything figured out! This idea of hers to have a School of Friendship and invite representatives of other species was what saved Equestria! I mean, yeah, fostering cooperation and better relations among the societies and species of the world is generally a good thing, and it's nice to see them standing together. But I can't help thinking that it's ham-fisted to make a few students of Twilight's school the deciding factor that saves the world. If all the pony races and creatures were informed that the villainous three are on track to destroy and/or essentially enslave the world, and that they ought to try to fight back, would that not be enough to convince them to get a grip and try to work together to stop the villainous three? If some powerful aliens were to come and directly and imminently threaten to destroy or enslave the Earth, would humans of various nations and societies work together to try to stop that threat? And if the answer to either of these questions is no, then would these groups really change their minds after a few kids/teenagers tell them about the power of friendship? ----- Next, this is an issue that I've had throughout this season, but these episodes really seem to fall back a lot on having the characters say over and over that Twilight is ready to lead Equestria, rather than really addressing concerns about that and showing that Twilight is actually ready (and willing) to take over for Celestia and Luna. When Twilight has doubts and concerns about leading Equestria, or in these episodes, about being able to find a way to stop the villainous three, the Mane Seven seem to have little else to say than repeating platitudes such as "we believe in you/us" and pointing out the mere fact that they've "faced so much" or "come a long way" or whatnot, and come out okay. Every time they repeat these things, I always have the same frustrated thoughts in response. The Mane Seven's saying that they believe in Twilight or themselves as a group doesn't mean anything unless there are good reasons for that belief. So why don't they elaborate or explain why their confidence and belief are justified? And instead of just pointing out the simple fact that everything "worked out" before when bad things happened, why don't they go into how they tackled those challenges, and why that would demonstrate that they can/will be able to do so now and in the future? Of course, if the answer is that things "worked out" before because they just did whatever and it just happened to work until the Elements of Harmony/friendship powers bailed them out, then it wouldn't be surprising if that doesn't really inspire confidence. This even plays into Discord's motivations, when he points out that Twilight and the Mane Six gained confidence after defeating King Sombra the second time, and says "Just think - after defeating three baddies, Twilight would have to believe that she's the leader we all know she is!". But, oddly, Discord also agrees with Twilight when she says that "it was all a lie" by replying "A well-intentioned lie". So Discord apparently believes, along with the rest of Twilight's friends, that Twilight really is ready to lead, and she just needed to be manipulated into believing in herself and her own ability to lead. Why did seemingly none of Twilight's friends taken her concerns about not being ready to lead Equestria seriously? Instead, her concerns seem to have just been dismissed and treated as an obstacle to overcome by any means necessary. How about, instead of pressuring and manipulating Twilight into getting an artificial confidence boost in her ability to lead, her friends actually ask her and listen to why she doesn't feel ready, and if need be, make plans to teach her the skills she believes she's missing, address the changes she would have to go through, etc.? And while they're at it, they could also ask if she even really wants to take over leading Equestria, because maybe she doesn't. Finally, this issue also comes up when Twilight, Spike, Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow are wondering why ponies would be on edge today. Rarity first suggests that "the first shift in royal power in over a millennium" would make everyone jumpy. But then everyone else pooh-poohs that idea, repeating again that no one should be worried because Twilight has already saved them so many times. But I think they should seriously consider that residents of Equestria may not share their unbridled confidence in Twilight's (and their own) ability to lead, and may not share their belief that having managed to defeat villains in itself makes Twilight (and them) ready to lead. ----- Now here's a compilation of my observations about the stupid and hubristic things that the villainous three do, giving the Mane Seven (and everyone else) a chance to defeat them. Chrysalis thinks that Discord is no threat without his magic - yeah, it's not like he can tell the Mane Six or Celestia and Luna about the villainous three's having seized his and Grogar's power or anything. Since the Mane Six have often used their friendship/Elements of Harmony power to defeat villains, even when the rest of Equestria was not necessarily actively helping them, shouldn't the villainous three consider disrupting the Mane Six's friendship among each other? (Although I do have to admit that I don't know how they would go about doing that.) When the villainous three consider taking Discord's chaos magic from the bell, Tirek says "But taking it all would be madness! It's impossible for any other creature to control!". And a similar message is repeated later in these episodes. But Tirek himself absorbed Discord's chaos magic back in "Twilight's Kingdom" in Season 4, and he didn't appear to have any problem controlling it then. So why couldn't Tirek absorb Discord's magic again now? Was Tirek only able to control Discord's magic back in "Twilight's Kingdom" because he already had magic from all the other ponies in Equestria? If so, why wouldn't he say that? When Cozy Glow is given Discord's chaos magic, she immediately tries to give orders to Tirek and Chrysalis to submit to her, and she may have possibly tried to kill them. Does that not give Tirek and Chrysalis any doubt about whether Cozy Glow is safe to continue working with? Did Cozy Glow's little stunt there not violate the pact that the three of them agreed to? After Celestia and Luna have their magic sucked into Grogar's bell, Twilight screams and runs forward to the two of them lying on the ground. But that seems like exactly the time that Cozy Glow could attack Twilight or take her magic, too, while she's off guard. So that doesn't seem like a smart thing for Twilight to do, but luckily for her, Cozy Glow is too busy gloating to take advantage of the situation. I don't get why the villainous three don't take away the magic power of the Mane Seven and Starlight when they're all imprisoned. Chrysalis tells Cozy Glow that they shouldn't destroy the Mane Seven because "We need to show the rest of Equestria that we've broken their heroes first", but it seems like they could do that just as well by taking their magic power away. When the villainous three confront the Mane Seven again out in the field, couldn't they just absorb the Mane Seven's magic through Tirek or through Grogar's bell first, and then do whatever they want to do with the Mane Seven? The Mane Seven already escaped once, and were being considered a serious problem that needed to be dealt with. Is this just more of the villainous three wanting to watch the Mane Seven try to fight them and fail again? Is there some unwritten rule that the villainous three must give the Mane Seven a "fighting chance"? Finally, after the army of different creatures shows up and starts distracting the villainous three, Tirek says not to let the Mane Seven escape, and Cozy Glow says "Which ones?!". Maybe the ones in the magic shield that's still being cast? Plus, what, with all of their power, the villainous three can't cast any magic to make the dust disappear, or even to freeze in place or throw to the side the creatures who are trying to distract them? Tirek does do that eventually, but I don't know why it takes him (or the other two) so long to do that, other than because that gives a convenient window for Twilight and the Mane Seven to be filled in on how students of Twilight's school rallied everyone. ----- One other thing to address regarding the villainous three and Discord is the disparate way that they're treated by the end of these episodes. After the villainous three are defeated, Celestia says "There isn't a punishment worthy of all you've done!", and, at Discord's suggestion, the three of them are put to "stone sleep", perhaps indefinitely. By contrast, by the end of these episodes, Discord's status with everyone else in Equestria seems to have returned to normal. We don't see anyone particularly holding it against Discord that he released, brought back, or gathered Tirek, Cozy Glow, Chrysalis, and Sombra; that Discord was encouraging them to defeat Twilight and her friends, and he was working with them to plan an attack on Twilight's coronation; that Discord informed the villainous three of Grogar's bell and the power it contained, and told them to retrieve it; and that Discord apparently really was unaware of the villainous three's own plotting to take the power in Grogar's bell for themselves, and he didn't suspect or plan any contingencies for these villains' choosing not to obey him. One argument might be that Discord felt sorry, and that he repeatedly said that he did these things with "good intentions", but I don't believe that those things just wipe away the consequences of what Discord did, and the risk to which he chose to subject everyone. The Mane Seven are upset with Discord for a little while, with Rainbow's saying that Discord is going to need "a pretty epic make-up". But after Discord helps to break Starlight out (with her, in turn, breaking out everybody else), Rainbow then says that that was "a pretty epic make-up", with the implication that Discord is now forgiven with the Mane Seven. But I certainly don't think that Discord's doing that in itself makes up for what he did. At best, this gives the rest of the Mane Seven a chance to find Twilight, and maybe hopefully find a way to stop the villainous three. But that's nowhere near a guarantee, so even the status quo is far from being restored at that point, and that's before considering the harm and risk to which Discord subjected the Mane Seven, Celestia and Luna, and everyone else. So it just doesn't make sense to me that the villainous three are considered to have obviously done egregiously wrong things, and everyone cheers when they're put to "stone sleep", and yet Discord - who, in several ways, enabled and encouraged the villainous three to do all those things - doesn't appear to be any more mistrusted then before, and isn't seen to have done anything in particular to atone for what he did after the villainous three are stopped. ----- Next, there are some lines in the scene where Discord confesses to have been working with the villainous three that seem like they could be very significant, but I'm not sure what they're supposed to mean. Twilight says to Discord "You've been setting up challenges for us the whole time, haven't you? None of our successes were actually real", but which challenges and successes is Twilight referring to? If Twilight is only referring to events with the Mane Seven in Season 9, then which of those could Discord have set up? Discord brought back King Sombra, who was defeated in "The Beginning Of The End", and Discord brought back the villainous three, who carried out the sabotages in "The Summer Sun Setback", but what else? It would be weird for Twilight to be using that language only to refer to two events. So is Twilight instead suggesting that Discord has set up Twilight's and the Mane Six's challenges and successes ever since he was "reformed" in "Keep Calm And Flutter On" (S03E10)? That every major (and even minor) villain/challenge that the Mane Six have faced since the end of Season 3 was brought back, empowered, or encouraged by Discord? Just think back through all the villains and challenges from the opening and finale episodes of each season since Season 3, and also add to that all the various villains and challenges from regular mid-season episodes, too. Are we meant to believe that Discord orchestrated all, or at least many, of those in the background the whole time? That would be a huge retcon to be introducing right in the last episodes of the show. But I don't know how we're to understand Twilight's dialogue that I quoted above. Discord's response to Twilight's quoted dialogue doesn't necessarily clarify what was meant, either. Discord replies "Of course they were! You just had an extremely good-looking safety net", and when Spike says "And how was that supposed to help again?", Discord replies by talking about the plan to orchestrate an attack at the coronation, on which the conversation then focuses. So does Discord's responding to Spike's question by talking about the attack at the coronation imply that this entire conversation has only been about events in Season 9? Again, it's just not clear to me, and I'm confused by the dialogue in this scene. ----- Finally, after watching these episodes, I'm also not sure how Grogar's bell works, exactly. In the beginning, the villainous three have to use a spell from a book from the Canterlot library in order to get Grogar's magic out of the bell. The three of them also have to cast magic on the bell in order to take Discord (as Grogar)'s magic. Then, when the three of them test whether Discord's chaos magic can be controlled, Tirek and Chrysalis have to cast magic on the bell to release Discord's magic from it, and again cast magic on the bell to put Discord's magic back into it. But then, when Cozy Glow takes Celestia's and Luna's magic into the bell, she just points it in Celestia's and Luna's direction; we don't see her cast an activating spell on it to make it absorb magic. Also, on several occasions, we see Cozy Glow hold the bell without any apparent sign that she's absorbing or channeling Discord's magic from inside it. But later, in the field, Spike, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rarity try to "lasso" the bell, being careful not to touch it directly. And near the end of the episode, Pinkie appears to channel, and then absorb, Discord's magic from the bell merely by holding it; we don't see the bell "activate" to do either of these things. After that, Discord takes the bell and absorbs his magic back into it by just pointing it in Pinkie's direction, without any activating spell. Finally, Discord releases his, Celestia's, and Luna's magic from the bell just by pointing it in their directions, also without any activating spell. So I don't know how to reconcile these observations. Why does Grogar's bell need an activating spell to release or absorb magic the first few times that it's used, but not later? How does Grogar's bell know when to release and absorb magic (and which magic to absorb or release) if it doesn't need an activating spell to do so? Why can Cozy Glow hold the bell without any apparent issue, but the Mane Seven apparently are at risk of channeling or absorbing magic from it just by touching it? I don't know if there's a consistent explanation for all of this. ----- Now here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: Why would there be a tumbleweed in the middle of Canterlot? How does the pony at the thread shop know what color/type/etc. of thread Rarity wants to buy? Rarity doesn't say at the time. Did Rarity have a pre-order or something? Chrysalis's telling Twilight that her school is abandoned doesn't seem like it should be as demoralizing as Chrysalis probably thinks it is. If the school is abandoned, then that likely means that the students (and staff) escaped to safety, and that would be a good thing, right? But apparently Twilight doesn't think so, because later, she cites the School of Friendship's being shut down as a reason why nothing the Mane Seven have done has mattered. I don't know why Twilight cites that specifically; the School of Friendship is only "shut down" so that the students could try to go somewhere safe, the same way that probably most things are shut down at that time. Does Twilight expect the school to continue operating in a national emergency of this scope, and if it doesn't, then she's failed? I don't think it makes sense to think that way. When Chrysalis is talking about the remains of her throne in the cavern, she draws a line in the dirt and says that "on this side of the cavern, we're the most powerful beings in Equestria". So Chrysalis knows the precise distance at which her throne's magic-cancelling powers apply? And she's positioned the remains of her throne precisely so that the villainous three retain their powers on this side of the cavern? Also, what is the distance at which the throne's magic-cancelling powers act now? In "To Where And Back Again", that effect lasted for a pretty long distance away from the hive. So, with that in mind, it seems as though just having pieces of the throne in the same room should make it so that nobody in the cavern should be able to use magic. Or did the alteration of the pieces of the throne, as alluded to in "Sparkle's Seven", also greatly decrease the distance over which the magic-cancelling effect occurs, to a mere few feet or so? Do the rest of the Mane Seven run all the way from the cavern of the villainous three to Ponyville? How long does that take? And, after not finding Twilight there, do the rest of the Mane Seven then run all the way to the Crystal Empire? Or are the trains still running despite the widespread panic and distrust and national emergency? And while the Mane Seven were travelling to the Crystal Empire, maybe they could have been brainstorming ideas for how to help stop the villainous three, or how to protect the general population, or how to get the pony races working together again, or something, rather than just expecting Twilight to have come up with a plan. I noticed that Sugar Belle, despite being a unicorn, is sticking with Big Mac and the other Apples in Ponyville, rather than running off to join the other unicorns. It's nice to see at least one pony who wasn't so gullible as to fall for Chrysalis's rhetoric. Why does Twilight say that if things don't work out, Flurry Heart is "Equestria's last hope"? Is the leader of Equestria required to be an alicorn, even if the only alicorn left is a baby? Why couldn't a non-alicorn lead Equestria, if need be? Another bit of dialogue that I'm not sure I understand is when Twilight says "Now I truly understand! The Elements were just symbols! The real magic has always been right here!". So the Tree of Harmony and the Elements of Harmony never contained any of their own independent power? What was going on throughout the seasons when the Tree and the Elements appeared to be doing things - creating Twilight's castle in Ponyville, manifesting a spiritual form and talking to the Student Six, etc.? Were the Tree and the Elements just concentrating or channeling the nebulous magic of friendship present throughout Equestria? After the villainous three are blasted with the rainbow laser, we see Grogar's bell bounce back and away from where the Mane Seven and everyone else are, and we see Pinkie with the rest of the Mane Seven up until the camera changes to focus on Chrysalis speaking. So in the course of about five or six seconds, Pinkie runs over behind the villainous three, retrieves the bell, comes back to the rest of the Mane Seven, and uses its magic to drop a giant cupcake, with apparently no one noticing. So did ponies actually have to rebuild the destroyed Canterlot? Or, since Discord is responsible for bringing back the villainous three who destroyed it, couldn't Discord be asked to use his magic to restore it? Finally, is Pinkie paying for all these donuts she's eating at the end of these episodes? Or is she just taking advantage of someone else's generosity?

Now that Season 9 has officially finished airing, what do you think were the best and worst (or, if you prefer, your favorite and least favorite) episodes of the season? In the poll above, you can vote for as many or as few episodes for each question as you wish, although many people traditionally have given a top 5 and bottom 5. At the bottom of each question, there is also a "None / Prefer not to answer" option. Also, feel free to post and explain your choices. Later on, I'll post the top 5 episodes that I liked most this season. Thanks for voting!

I was sort of basing my presumption that the engagement ring is (at least fairly) expensive on Spike's reaction. He seems pretty impressed by it, and I think he would have a pretty good idea of what gems are impressive, considering that, for example, he's been Rarity's regular gem collecting helper, and he was seen with Rarity offering a second opinion on precious gems at the jeweler's shop in "Dragon Dropped". Then again, we may not be able to rule out his hopeless romanticism clouding his judgement, haha.

Overall, I would say that this is an okay episode. Part of the issue I have is that I don't like the idea of feeling obligated to buy an expensive engagement ring, or to come up with a complicated "grand gesture" proposal. So as the setting up and attempted execution of Big Mac's and Sugar Belle's proposal schemes were playing out, I couldn't help thinking of both the logistical issues of the schemes and how unnecessary they feel to me. Spike does say near the end of the episode that "when all the planning and grand gestures go wrong, it reminds you the most romantic things are usually the simplest", so maybe we can hope that everyone involved learned that lesson. I did like Discord's sarcasm and cynicism when interacting with Spike and the others, even as he does ultimately still care. It's nice to see that Sugar Belle was planning to propose herself, in addition to Big Mac. And there were some interesting and nice symbolism and callbacks throughout the episode. ----- The first thing I'll talk about is these engagement/proposal schemes that Big Mac and Sugar Belle attempt in the episode. It seems to me that buying an expensive/impressive engagement ring, and proposing with some over-the-top/complicated "grand gesture", are traditions that many people feel obligated to do because they heard or were told that that's what you're "supposed" to do, or that that's the way it's "been done". But I don't see any particular value in buying expensive engagement rings or making some complicated plan and "grand gesture" to propose, so I don't think people should be pressured or feel obligated to do things like that. Thus, I can't help feeling some frustration when seeing Big Mac's and Sugar Belle's proposal schemes for that reason, and on top of that, I can see logistical issues with their schemes, and I'm not even sure how much value or enjoyment they would get out of them. To start off, Big Mac says "I don't talk much, so I want to SHOW Sugar Belle how committed I am". But if he doesn't talk much, then wouldn't it be all the more meaningful for him to talk about his commitment to Sugar Belle? Or couldn't his commitment be shown by his day-to-day actions and nice things that he does, rather than making some definitive singular grand gesture? Looking at Big Mac's plan, the first thing that we see is that he'll make a picnic table to match the shelf that Big Mac made for Sugar Belle's shop. So will this picnic table be subsequently used for Sugar Belle's shop? Will the shelf end up being used elsewhere along with the picnic table? I'm just trying to think if there's any practical purpose to making this picnic table match the shelf, but I guess that depends on where and how this picnic table will be used later. (And hopefully it will be used later, and not just built and used for this one evening for the proposal.) I also don't know how much enjoyment Sugar Belle would get out of this riddle-solving scavenger hunt that Big Mac planned, even if it were to go off without a hitch. Is Sugar Belle known to like doing scavenger hunts and solving riddles? I guess we don't really know, since we don't know that much about Sugar Belle. Spike says "Sugar Belle's gonna love it!", but I don't know if he can be trusted, since he's probably blinded by hopeless romanticism. But we'd better hope Sugar Belle likes it, because, going by the map of apple locations, she has to find 21 apples with 21 riddles all around Ponyville and the surrounding area. How long is this scavenger hunt supposed to take? An hour? All afternoon? How much physical and mental exertion is Sugar Belle being expected to undergo? And this scheme feels like it's just asking for problems. Of course, what happens in the episode is that Sugar Belle is too busy and never even notices the first apple with the message to kick off the scavenger hunt. But even if Sugar Belle had seen that, what if she can't figure a riddle out? What if she takes too long to find all the apples and eventually go to Sweet Apple Acres? What if she just isn't in the mood for doing this scavenger hunt today? Yet Big Mac finishes the picnic table and then just sits there with a smile on his face, as though he thought this scheme would surely go just as planned. And then, about 15 seconds after we first see him at the picnic table, he apparently concludes that there must have been a problem, and gets up to investigate. I assume that Big Mac wouldn't have wanted Sugar Belle to show up before he had finished making the picnic table, so how long had Big Mac been sitting there? What was the time window within which Big Mac expected Sugar Belle to find all the apples and make her way to Sweet Apple Acres? For Sugar Belle's part, she says that Big Mac is "a pony of few words. I love that about him. So, I thought I'd use as many words as possible to propose to him!". But does Big Mac like hearing or putting together needlessly verbose questions/statements? Also, I'm not exactly clear on what Sugar Belle's proposal scheme is. She wants 21 slips of paper spelling out her proposal to be put in 21 different desserts, and the CMCs are delivering a pie to Big Mac containing an invitation to go to Sugarcube Corner. So, assuming the pie is delivered, and Big Mac cuts the pie open right away and sees the invitation (not a guarantee, unless the CMCs are told to make sure that he does so or something), then Big Mac will go to Sugarcube Corner. And then...what? Are these 21 desserts just going to be out on a table or something? Is Big Mac expected to eat, or at least cut open, each of the 21 desserts, to discover all the slips of paper? Are the slips of paper numbered or something, so Big Mac will put them together in the right order? Is Sugar Belle going to be there as Big Mac eats the desserts and discovers the slips of paper, or will she perhaps be hiding somewhere to secretly observe his reaction? At least it seems like a pretty safe bet that Big Mac would enjoy eating baked goods (although, again, it's possible that he could not be in the mood or something), but I don't know that Big Mac would eat or sample 21 desserts in one sitting, at least without prompting. ----- Another thing we see in this episode is that Spike's dragon breath to deliver "parchments" (as Spike describes it) apparently works by his thinking of the location he wants to send it, or something like that. But it's still not clear to me exactly how this works. Is it Spike's having a destination in mind that differentiates between his sending a scroll or whatever, and just burning it? Spike has burned books and newspapers before, and it's possible that that was because he had no thought of sending them anywhere. However, this still may not explain how, way back in "Griffon The Brush Off", Spike sends scrolls to Celestia by hiccuping fire on them, when he doesn't seem like he's intending to send them at that time. And I'm not sure if the material needs to be "parchment" specifically in order for Spike to send it. Spike sent and received tickets to the gala way back in "The Ticket Master", and the tickets were shiny and didn't appear to be made of just "parchment". And Spike has sent scrolls that are closed with ribbons and what appear to be metal seals, so those don't seem to be purely paper material. I'm also curious about the specific mechanics of this sending ability. For example, let's say that Spike is asked to sent a scroll to the office of the leader of Saddle Arabia. Does Spike need to have gone to that office personally? Does Spike need to know the geographic location of the office? Does Spike need to have a mental visualization of the office? And could Spike get such a mental visualization from a picture or something, even if Spike hasn't been there himself and doesn't necessarily know its geographic location? Or does Spike only need to think the words "office of the leader of Saddle Arabia" when sending the scroll, and the "magic" of the fire breath takes care of figuring out where that is? Also, could Spike send a scroll to a person without knowing that person's location at that moment? And if so, again, does Spike need to have met that person himself, have a mental visualization of that person, or just think of the name of that person to send a scroll to him/her? And thinking about this episode, if there are 21 slips of paper to put in 21 desserts, does Spike actually have the geographic locations, interiors, and/or names of 21 different desserts distinctly in his mind? Plus, Spike uses his dragon breath on all the slips of paper, even though there only look to be about 11 desserts on the table. Were there only the 11 slips of paper in the bowl, or all 21 (minus one that Mrs. Cake placed already)? Are there other desserts off-screen that also had slips of paper "delivered" into them and caught fire? And were particular slips of paper supposed to go into particular desserts? Spike never even asked before using his dragon breath to send them. ----- Now I'll talk about a few other larger points. First, Big Mac plans this big proposal scheme, but apparently doesn't think to pre-order or buy or make food for this romantic meal until just before it. And apparently Sugar Belle doesn't think to pre-order or make 21 desserts prior to the planned day of her proposal, either. Plus, if Mrs. Cake is frantically trying to make 21 desserts, such that she's making mistakes in her recipes that both she and others notice (or at least suspect), then what's the rush? Why do all these desserts, and these proposal schemes, need to be done today, rather than in a day or two, or even a week? Is today an important anniversary of Big Mac's and Sugar Belle's first date or something? (That could explain why both of them coincidentally were planning to propose on the same day.) Also, I'm kind of surprised by how much Mrs. Cake messes up when making Sugar Belle's order. She says "I pride myself on baking under pressure" and "I do love a challenge", but Sugar Belle's order is too much? Is her order unprecedented in scope and urgency? Does Mrs. Cake not have contingency plans for dealing with sudden large orders, such as enlisting Mr. Cake or Pinkie or others to help? When Big Mac tells Sugar Belle that he "wanted our love to be as perfect as my parents' was when they planted these two trees together", it called to mind what I noticed and wrote when I first watched "The Perfect Pear" - that Bright Mac and Pear Butter seemed to be portrayed as essentially perfect in every way. I did have a discussion about how it's understandable that people that remember Bright Mac and Pear Butter would want to remember the positive things about them, and that the two of them also may not have talked about many of their disagreements and mistakes. But this episode also shows that it's important for the Apple siblings (and others) not to put Bright Mac and Pear Butter so high on a pedestal that they forget that the two of them were people that made mistakes and had to deal with problems like everyone else. I obviously get the point of Sugar Belle's analogy about the intertwined apple and pear trees that Bright Mac and Pear Butter planted, but at risk of being accused of "ruining the moment", I still can't help thinking: are the two intertwined trees actually "stronger together", and actually more likely to "survive whatever comes because they don't have to do it alone", as compared to the two trees just growing separately? Should the Apple and Pear families be planting more apple and pear trees to grow in this intertwined way, if that actually makes the trees stronger and more likely to survive? I'm not sure that this analogy totally works. Finally, the wedding ends up being fairly small - none of the rest of the Mane Six, no Starlight, and none of the extended Apple family other than a few select members. I did wonder at first why there aren't more invitees, but perhaps Big Mac and Sugar Belle are putting into practice the lesson they learned from the disaster of their proposal schemes - to keep it simple. And of course, it could also be a remembrance of Bright Mac's and Pear Butter's wedding, which was pretty low-key. It's nice to see that all the ponies that told the Apple siblings about their parents in "The Perfect Pear" are present at the wedding - Goldie Delicious, Burnt Oak, Mrs. Cake, and Mayor Mare (as well as Grand Pear and Granny Smith). And honestly, it seems to me like smaller weddings could often be better, anyway. I don't think people should feel obligated to invite nearly everyone they know and everyone to whom they're related to their weddings. When my siblings and I were younger, we were carted to many weddings of extended family or friends of our parents, and we siblings usually barely knew and had barely ever talked to the people getting married. So, at these wedding receptions, my siblings and I would inevitably just sit at a table in the corner so we could be left alone to talk to each other, mess with the candles, play cards, and try to find ways to entertain ourselves as we waited for the hours to pass by. (And we were often being well-behaved in comparison to other kids who were running around, throwing things, causing a ruckus, etc.) In retrospect, it probably wasn't worthwhile for my siblings and I to be going to all of these weddings, but it seems like we kids were invited, and our parents made us go, out of a sense of obligation that feels unwarranted. ----- Now here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: When Spike tells Discord about figuring out Big Mac's proposal scheme, Spike says "If you were a hopeless romantic, you'd know that was the only logical choice". Somehow "logical" doesn't seem like the right word to be using there. Are hopeless romantics generally known or considered to be "logical"? It's an interesting parallel that both Big Mac's and Sugar Belle's proposal schemes involve 21 things - 21 apples on the map to be hidden around Ponyville and found by Sugar Belle, and 21 desserts in which Big Mac will find the words of Sugar Belle's proposal. I don't know if there's any particular significance to that number. Although we see 21 apple locations on the map, there are only 18 apples when Discord is giving them "orders", and when Discord changes the apple monster back into apples, it turns into about 100 apples, all of which look to have a heart painted on them and a message on the stem. Why is Spike even sampling the desserts anyway? They're clearly not his, and being made for somebody else. I can't imagine going to a bakery and sampling a completed baked good that I hadn't bought and was not invited to taste. If a big monster is coming, and Sugar Belle and many of the others weren't going to try to fight it, then shouldn't they run away or something? Sugar Belle and the CMCs want to leave Sugarcube Corner without Spike and Discord figuring out what they're up to, so they bust the door open and go running out all at once, because that's not suspicious or anything. How can Scootaloo tell that the black-and-white sketch of the picnic table "looks just like the shelf Big Mac made for Sugar Belle"? There's no color, and no depiction of the heart pattern or anything. The CMCs check the barn for Big Mac, and not finding him there, give up and run off to the supposed "least likely" place that they would find him. So they're not even going to check the house or out in the fields? Scootaloo's calling for Big Mac scares the bowling pony, so he throws the bowling ball (with a single arm) up to the ceiling and hits a light, because that's easy to do. And the light falls down and smashes a hole in the bowling lane, even though we might expect the floors in the bowling lanes to be pretty sturdy, in order to withstand the impact of bowling balls potentially hitting them day-in and day-out. If Sugar Belle was planning to propose to Big Mac, was she also planning to give him an engagement ring, or some other symbol of their engagement? Or is that not a tradition in Equestria? The necklace with the ring that Big Mac puts on Sugar Belle doesn't appear to have any hooks or clasps or anything, but somehow Big Mac is able to connect it together behind Sugar Belle's neck with his hooves in less than a second. So Discord, Spike, the CMCs, and Mrs. Cake were telling this whole backstory to...Applejack, at the wedding? Did nobody tell Applejack about all of this earlier? And how much time passed between the proposal day and the wedding day without Applejack's knowing about all of this?

Overall, I would say that I don't care much for this episode. The basic plot of this episode just isn't very entertaining to me - kid characters think they know what they're doing; adult characters (patronizingly) tell them that they don't; kids go mess something up in their overconfidence; adults fix the mess; kids admit that the adults were right. And this episode repeatedly reinforces to the audience that the CMCs, even in adult bodies, are still immature and don't know what they're doing, which, again, I just don't find very interesting. Also, while it's not necessarily unrealistic for middle-school-aged kids (which I assume is about the age of the CMCs) to be overconfident and think that they know or can figure things out when they really can't, the tone and messaging of this episode seems inconsistent with that of (at least some) previous episodes. For example, the CMCs have had a consulting "business" in which they help other ponies, including adults, figure out their life's purpose, and people have taken the CMCs seriously in that endeavor. And we've had multiple episodes in which the older sisters of the CMCs (and others) had to learn that the CMCs are growing up and are more mature than they were being treated. But still, the Mane Six's appearances were pretty good, the old ticket booth pony was kind of amusing, and I liked Spur, including her striking appearance with her dark brown and bright aqua green colors. The only bigger observation I'll talk about is the magic wish-granting flower. When around it, Scootaloo says "I wish we didn't have to wait to grow up", Apple Bloom says "I wish it would happen all at once. Then we'd know everything we need to get to the fair and back with no problem", and Sweetie Belle says "I just wish we were as old as our sisters. Then nopony could tell us what to do, and we'd be able to take care of ourselves". And somehow the flower hears these statements and implements a result of the CMCs' becoming physically larger, but apparently not any different mentally. I'm not sure why that's the interpretation of what the CMCs wished for. Doesn't Apple Bloom say that she wants the CMCs to know everything they need to get to the fair and back with no problem? Doesn't Sweetie Belle say that she wants the CMCs to be able to take care of themselves? Does the flower only implement what Scootaloo first wished for? However, the flower also (conveniently) doesn't act until after all the CMCs say what they wish for. Or does the flower parse the CMCs' sentences and only implement the direct object of the sentences in which the CMC say what they wish for, not including any information other than that? Maybe the CMCs needed to be more precise with their wishes, but then that idea seems to be undermined a bit by the end of the episode, where the CMCs simply say "We wish we were foals again", and the magical flower interprets that to mean that they wish that they were the age that they were before wishing to be grown up. It's all a bit weird, but it also seems like that's what happens with a convenient magical object like this. I also can't help having similar thoughts to @Justin_Case001 about what exactly the limits are of the wish-granting ability of this magical flower. And it seems like characters that get these kind of wishes - with few or no limitations on what to wish for - inevitably end up making wishes just about themselves or people that they immediately know. It seems like they could think much bigger and beyond themselves and wish for the universe to be perfect, or something like that. (Of course, I don't know what exactly that would mean, or how that could possibly be implemented; maybe a wish like that needs to be carefully phrased to avoid misinterpretation. If the character can get more than one wish, then perhaps the character could first wish for the knowledge and ability to make the right wish, or something.) Now here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: When Sweetie Belle says she has the CMCs' whole itinerary planned, she shows a sheet with various pie, bar, and line graphs. What were all of these charts that Sweetie Belle needed to plot in order to plan the itinerary for the county fair? I don't remember if we've seen before that the head covering for the Wonderbolts uniform is separate, but apparently once it's put on, it looks seamless. Yeah, as I've seen pointed out, the CMC never discuss asking or try to ask Pinkie to bring them to the fair. I wouldn't blame them if they thought that Pinkie wouldn't be a good chaperone, but I could see their just not having gotten around to thinking of Pinkie yet. The CMCs first asked each of their big sisters, and then thought to ask Fluttershy because she might like to see the animals at the fair, and because Fluttershy was going to help Twilight, they asked Twilight, too. I don't know why the CMC keep hanging around, even after both Fluttershy and Twilight said that they couldn't go with the CMC to the fair. Twilight and Fluttershy basically ignore the CMC to start talking about the flower problem, and the CMC don't seem to have any particular interest in that, so I don't know why they wouldn't just leave at that point. I'm surprised that Scootaloo's helmet apparently still fits her in her adult body. So the CMCs got bigger bodies, but apparently not much bigger heads? What is the old ticket booth pony doing here? Wasn't he at the last stop on the train line to the Peaks of Peril back in "Sounds Of Silence"? Did he get re-assigned? Are the ticket booth ponies on some kind of rotation? I'm not sure why either Biscuit or Spur should look to the CMCs to tell them what to do with their pet. Even if they are "adults", that doesn't mean that they have any particular knowledge about pets, or about a whirling mungtooth in particular. But, of course, the CMCs don't say that they have no particular knowledge and aren't the ones to ask about this, which is what I would say if I were asked what to do about someone's pet. Are Biscuit and Spur supposed to be accompanied by a chaperone to the fair? Or are they just old enough that they wouldn't need one? Somehow the CMCs get on the Ferris wheel, even though we don't see or hear it stop to let them on.

Yeah, you raise an interesting point. Even if Caballeron were to go on to do other villainous things, and Daring Do went on adventures to stop him, Daring Do might still want to find some other way to make a living if the audience for her books has been greatly diminished by Ahuizotl and Caballeron. Back in "Stranger Than Fan Fiction", Daring Do does say that she's "gotta get [the Seven-Sided Chest of Chicomoztoc] to a museum", so I could imagine a couple of scenarios from that. Daring Do could get into legitimate archaeology and documentation of ancient temples and artifacts and such. That probably wouldn't be as thrilling, but if she were to write articles or books or curate artifacts and photos for a museum, at least some people might enjoy that. Also, if Daring Do does have a lot of artifacts in her house or wherever, Azuihotl (funnily enough) never asked or demanded that any previously taken artifacts be returned, so perhaps Daring Do could make some money selling the artifacts she has to museums or the like, where they would be studied and appreciated (and kept safe). Your suggestion about Daring Do's trying out for the Wonderbolts makes me think of how Daring Do's later books were described by Quibble in "Stranger Than Fan Fiction" as becoming "just a series of impossible action sequences". Did Daring Do actually engage in more action sequences in her later adventures? If so, that could be taken as an indication that Daring Do has maintained or gained in athletic ability over the course of her adventures, and therefore, becoming a Wonderbolt could be a good path for her (and Rainbow would be ecstatic about that, I'm sure!).

Overall, I have kind of mixed feelings about this episode. I do find the adventure and the unfolding of the action to be entertaining, and there are several lines and moments that I like. However, Fluttershy's naivete and her approach to Dr. Caballeron's accusations toward Daring Do is frustrating, and Rainbow's instant blind total defense of Daring Do is also frustrating. Rainbow particularly seems to forget a lot of what we learned in "Daring Done?" about Daring Do's approach to her adventures (at least in the past), and how that resulted in legitimate complaints against her. And while it can be interesting to show and explore the actions of Daring Do, Caballeron, and Ahuizotl as being shades of gray, the execution of that in this episode feels rather ham-fisted, and seems as though it needs a lot more explanation than this episode provides. When trying to think about it, I just end up being confused and not quite believing Daring Do, Caballeron, or Ahuizotl in what they say their actions and motivations have been. (This also feels like one problem with having these Daring Do adventures, which stereotypically feature villains with simple evil motivations, actually occur in-universe.) Finally, I'm not sure whether this episode would mark the end of Daring Do's adventures in-universe. Caballeron technically only promised not to steal artifacts from the Tenochtitlan Basin again; even with his co-writing a book with Daring Do, in the future, he could still try to take and sell other artifacts, or get into an illegal smuggling business, or some other villainous activity that Daring Do would still need to stop. ----- To start off, I find it frustrating that Fluttershy seems to go out of her way to listen to Caballeron's side of the story, to give him the benefit of the doubt, and even to travel with him, but she doesn't go to Daring Do and ask her about the accusations that Caballeron made. Fluttershy seems to think that just having read Daring Do's books is all she needs to know about Daring Do's side of the story, even as asking questions to Daring Do would seem like it would help to get closer to the truth of Caballeron's accusations. Also, later in the episode, I thought that it would be significant that we see Dr. Caballeron swat away a spider web, just as he said that Daring Do does. Fluttershy took that as a reason to mistrust Daring Do, but apparently Fluttershy conveniently never notices Caballeron doing that. And Caballeron and his henchmen end up destroying parts of the ancient site, which was another thing that they said that Daring Do does, and which Fluttershy was dismayed at, but she doesn't seem to notice or say anything about that, either. On the other hand, though, I don't know why Rainbow goes into instant blind total defense mode about what Caballeron's book says about Daring Do - even saying that "The only true thing in that pack of lies is that Daring Do is real" and telling Caballeron "Up to your old tricks again, huh? Just like in Somnambula! Spreading lies to make Daring Do look bad!". We obviously saw in "Daring Done?" that Daring Do wasn't particularly thoughtful in her approach to her adventures, and that residents of southern Equestria, at least, had legitimate complaints against Daring Do, and still held those things against her until she acted to make them right. So it ought to be well within the realm of possibility that someone would collect and publish basically true stories about wrongdoing that Daring Do has done. But, strangely to me, Rainbow also never seems to want to get Daring Do's side of these accusations, to find out what's true and what isn't, and to correct the record. It also seems a little presumptuous of Rainbow to think that, even though Dr. Caballeron's book came out last week, Daring Do needs to be warned by Rainbow and Fluttershy that her identity was revealed in the book. Has Daring Do not already heard about this, and even been confronted about it? Does news (and books) just take a really long time to get around in Equestria? (Plus, as others have pointed out, the fact that Daring Do is real was in the Friendship Journal that was mass published and distributed in "Fame And Misfortune", although I would just as soon forget that episode, to be honest.) ----- Now I'll talk in turn about the "confessional" statements that Daring Do, Ahuizotl, and Caballeron made when touching the Truth Talisman. First, we can examine Daring Do's statement that "the only reason I've been taking the artifacts is because I thought I was protecting them". So did Daring Do believe that these artifacts are essentially unowned, and therefore, she needs to protect them because no one else will? But if so, what did Daring Do think that Ahuizotl was doing? Why did she think that Ahuizotl kept showing up when she and Caballeron were taking artifacts? Did Daring Do ever think that Ahuizotl might own the artifacts, or he might be guarding them for their owner(s)? Did she think that Ahuizotl was just another looter like Caballeron, trying to take the artifacts for his own power or enrichment? Did she take Caballeron's view - that she thought Ahuizotl was just being a monster, and only trying to torture and kill people for his own amusement? Or another potential argument might be that Daring Do guessed or knew that Ahuizotl owned the artifacts, or was guarding them for their owner(s), but she still took the artifacts because she believed that she would keep them safer than Ahuizotl would. After all, if Caballeron or whoever has repeatedly been able to navigate the traps and protections and reach the artifacts, then that could be taken as evidence that Ahuizotl isn't up to the task of protecting them. However, for one thing, we don't know if that has always been the case - that Daring Do only takes artifacts after Caballeron or some other villain was already about to take them. Also, if Daring Do really just puts at least some of the artifacts in her ordinary house, either in the open or with only minimal effort to hide them, then it's hard to see how that would be more protection for the artifacts - particularly when it's been shown that Caballeron knows where Daring Do lives. And also, if this is the case, did Daring Do ever attempt to tell Ahuizotl about this plan of hers? If Ahuizotl believes that Daring Do is just a thief, then that leaves a motivation for Ahuizotl to continue to capture her and try to torture and kill her. We might think that Daring Do would try to reach an understanding with Ahuizotl in order to stop Ahuizotl's attempts to capture, torture, and kill her. Or did Daring Do try to talk to Ahuizotl, and he just refused to listen or didn't believe her? Still another potential argument might be that, regardless of whether Ahuizotl owns these artifacts or is guarding them for their owner(s), he has shown intent to use these artifacts to inflict unjustifiable damage and suffering (whether knowingly or unknowingly), and therefore, Daring Do has to take these artifacts away from him to stop him from doing such things. This does seem like it could be at least a major motivation behind Daring Do's trying to stop Ahuizotl's ritual to "unleash 800 years of unrelenting, sweltering heat" in "Daring Don't", and behind Daring Do's actions in southern Equestria to protect the town of Somnambula. But, for one thing, it's hard to get this motivation from Daring Do's statement above, and it's weird that Daring Do wouldn't say that when touching the Truth Talisman, since that would better describe what Daring Do's motivations were, and would portray her in a better light. And because this potential damage and suffering is almost always described by Daring Do, or seen from her side, we don't necessarily know if Daring Do is right in believing that this damage and suffering would actually occur, or that Ahuizotl is actually trying to do that. So I would like to know more about what Daring Do has thought that she's been doing, and whether she's been correct in what she's thought she's had to do. ----- Next, we can examine Ahuizotl's contention that, all along, he's just been trying to do his job of protecting the jungle and stopping artifacts from being stolen in the Tenochtitlan Basin. To start off, was it necessary or justified for Ahuizotl, in doing such a job, to capture and try to (essentially) torture and kill Daring Do? In the Daring Do book in "Read It And Weep", Ahuizotl ties down Daring Do in a room with quicksand, snakes, spiders, and two spiked walls that are closing in to crush her. And in "Daring Don't", Ahuizotl also leaves Daring Do restrained to the wall to drown and/or be eaten by piranhas. If Daring Do (and Caballeron and whoever else) is essentially considered a thief, is the right response to capture and try to torture and kill her? Also, if Ahuizotl's doing those things is intended to be an example or a deterrent, how would Ahuizotl communicate that to future would-be looters? Would he document and submit evidence of Daring Do's gruesome death to Equestrian newspapers or something, with a message that any other pony who tries to take artifacts from the basin will meet the same fate? And if we look back at what Ahuizotl has done on the show previously, many of his words and actions don't seem to line up with this contention that he was only trying to protect the jungle and the artifacts in the Tenochtitlan Basin. In the Daring Do book in "Read It And Weep", Ahuizotl says "With Daring Do out of the way, the world will suffer mightily at my hands". That sounds like going above and beyond merely protecting the jungle and artifacts of the Tenochtitlan Basin. In "Daring Don't", Rainbow says "You know what's at stake here! Ahuizotl has sought control of the Tenochtitlan Basin since book three!", and Twilight describes how Daring Do "defeated Ahuizotl and secured control of the Amulet of Atonement, dispelling the dark magic of the Ketztwctl Empress, and thus protecting the basin with the Radiant Shield of Razdon!". Again, that sounds as though Ahuizotl was trying to control the basin, and cast dark magic over it, such that Daring Do felt it necessary to protect the basin, which sounds like Ahuizotl was doing more than just guarding the jungle and artifacts at the request of their owners. That episode also certainly depicted Ahuizotl's ritual to "unleash 800 years of unrelenting, sweltering heat" as a bad thing that needed to be stopped. We're not told what the geographic limits of the effects of this ritual would be, although the earlier statement that Ahuizotl has been seeking control of the Tenochtitlan Basin may suggest that the effects of the ritual would be limited to the basin. And we see what appear to be "locals" participating in the ritual, so does that mean that the residents of the basin know what the "800 years of unrelenting, sweltering heat" mean, and that they actively want that? Well, we don't necessarily know that these participants in the ritual are representative of the residents of the basin; maybe they're in cahoots with Ahuizotl, and are looking to gain from his control over the basin. Or, even if these participants are representative of the residents of the basin, Ahuizotl may have been tricking or lying to them to get them to believe that this ritual is doing something else, or that the effects from it won't be as bad as they actually would be. It seems to me that, without additional information, we can't make any definite conclusions about Ahuizotl's motivations here, and whether this ritual should have been allowed to be carried out. And in "Daring Done?", Rainbow Dash says (referring to Daring Do's latest book) that "Daring Do thwarts Ahuizotl's evil plot to separate the Sister Crown Relics. And if it wasn't for her, the region would be cursed with eternal night, and the entire town of Somnambula would have sunk into the ground!". On the face of it, it seems like a real stretch to explain that away as merely protecting the jungle and artifacts of the Tenochtitlan Basin. What, did the entire town of Somnambula attempt to take artifacts from the basin, and therefore, the entire town deserved to be cursed, destroyed, and/or killed? Finally, yeah, most of these things above are in Daring Do books, or are seen from Daring Do's side, and so Ahuizotl's words and actions may have been exaggerated, embellished, misunderstood, etc. But still, these seem like serious considerations that Ahuizotl should be asked about before we believe that Ahuizotl was only acting in necessary and/or justified defense of the jungle and artifacts of the Tenochtitlan Basin. ----- Finally, Caballeron, when touching the Truth Talisman, tells Ahuizotl that "I was stealing [the artifacts] to get rich. But I never realized you had a noble cause. I thought you were just being a monster". And this ties into the issue of Caballeron's backstory, as told to Fluttershy. I've seen some people commenting on this episode who seem to believe that Caballeron's backstory was true - that he started out with noble intentions to research artifacts and put them in a museum where they could be studied, and that Caballeron "turned to the dark side" at some later point. But do we know that any of this backstory, as told in this episode, is true? I don't see any particular confirmation of this backstory in this episode. And we know that Caballeron was trying to get Fluttershy on-board to go on their expedition and retrieve the Truth Talisman (which they did not intend to study and keep safe in a museum), so I think that Caballeron's lying and making up a sympathetic backstory to tell her wouldn't be out of the question. Caballeron's statement that "I was stealing [the artifacts] to get rich" could even be seen as a reason to think that his backstory he told to Fluttershy isn't true. After all, if Caballeron did start out with altruistic intentions, why wouldn't he say that? Wouldn't that better explain his actions and portray him in a better light? Again, I would want to hear more information about what Caballeron has been doing before making definite conclusions about any previous good motivations he had, or anything like that. ----- Now I'll discuss a couple of larger observations about the Truth Talisman and Fluttershy's dialogue about talking to the cats, followed by the rest of my miscellaneous observations. First, regarding the Truth Talisman, Daring Do says that Caballeron only wants it "because it's made of solid gold. He'll melt it down and use it to get rich". So is the Truth Talisman worth more melted down as raw gold (and whatever other materials) than it is as a one-of-a-kind artifact with the power to make the pony holding it tell the truth? Is Caballeron just too dumb to realize that it's worth more as an artifact? Or would the artifact have no buyers because every other pony would refuse to buy it, saying that it should be returned to where it was taken from? Also, does the Truth Talisman have to be complete in order to retain its ability to make ponies tell the truth? Would its melted-down, deconstructed or broken pieces still retain that ability? Or if the Truth Talisman does have to be complete, what happens if, say, it gets chipped, or some tiny amount of it is scraped or worn off? Finally, we're told that the Truth Talisman "has the power to make the pony holding it tell the truth", but when, and how much? In some cases, we see someone wearing the Talisman who has to answer truthfully to a direct question, but other times, someone wearing the Talisman just says something truthful with no apparent prompting. Does the Truth Talisman allow for selective omission of truths, so long as what one says is truthful? If someone wearing the Talisman is asked an open-ended question, how much truth does the Talisman compel him or her to tell? Next, regarding the scene where the cats come to attack Caballeron's expedition group, Caballeron says "These ferocious beasts want to eat us for dinner!", and Fluttershy replies with apparent sincerity that "That's a common misconception. Have you ever tried just talking to them?". Uh, no, because he can't, just like how no other pony we've seen can talk to "non-speaking" animals? We just had an episode a few weeks ago about how that seems to be specifically Fluttershy's thing. And when Caballeron asks Fluttershy "How did you do that?", Fluttershy says "Everycreature likes to be listened to. You just need to take the time to understand them". So what is Fluttershy saying here - that understanding the communication of "non-speaking" animals is simply a matter of taking the time and effort to learn it? That's not what was depicted in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles". There, Fluttershy is shown communicating with "non-speaking" animals a mere minute or two after seeing them for the first time, which is something that even surprises her. Or is Fluttershy saying that ponies could already understand "non-speaking" animals if they would just slow down and really try to do so, and Fluttershy has been the only pony to ever do that? I find that hard to believe, too. For example, are we to believe that Dr. Fauna has always been able to talk with "non-speaking" animals, but she's just never tried hard enough? Rainbow calls herself "Daring Do's biggest fan", so why didn't Rainbow hear about a book that accuses Daring Do of having done all these bad things? Would that not make the news somewhere? Does Rainbow not keep up with news about A.K. Yearling? But I suppose that Equestria doesn't have the Internet or fan websites or anything, and this isn't the first time that Rainbow was late in finding out news about Daring Do. How many people other than Fluttershy really care that Daring Do, say, swats away spider webs when going into ancient temples and the like? Did Dr. Caballeron expect anyone other than Fluttershy to care? So everyone in this group of Daring Do detractors waited at this bookstore to confront A.K. Yearling, but after about 30 seconds, 3 accusations, and a couple of insults, they all voluntarily leave the bookstore? I kind of expected worse from them, and for them not to be satisfied that easily. Did they figure that after A.K. Yearling found out they're not here for the book signing, she would call security to remove them, or even remove them herself, if they continued? A.K. Yearling says that she's not into writing Daring Do books for the fame - the stories were just too good to keep to herself. But we can think of at least one other motivation, namely, that she appears to make a living from going on these adventures and writing and selling books about them. Or do all the profits from selling Daring Do books go into funding her expeditions to save valuable artifacts, and A.K. Yearling doesn't make a living off of book income? I don't have any problem with A.K. Yearling making a decent living off of selling books, but it's a bit weird not to mention that that's a factor. Does Fluttershy need to specify that her name has two t's? Have people misspelled it before? It seems like pretty common knowledge that "flutter" has two t's, so I don't know why people would hear Fluttershy's name pronounced the same way and not assume that it's spelled the same way. If Rainbow thought that Fluttershy was taking a long time to leave the bookstore, why didn't Rainbow go back in to look for her? It's funny that Caballeron tells Fluttershy about how Daring Do disturbs the fragile jungle ecosystem by "slashing plants aside with her cruel machete", and yet in this episode, Rainbow and Daring Do just go through the jungle without cutting down anything. Of course, I don't know why Caballeron didn't have Fluttershy hold on to the Truth Talisman until just before he and Fluttershy were due to part ways, and then maybe have a henchman take it and not say anything as he holds it. But I guess, as the stereotypical villains, Caballeron and company have to make bad judgments that the heroes can exploit. The guardian-goyles don't like bright light, and Fluttershy says "There's none of that in here" as we look upon a fully-lit room with several flaming torches. But shining an ordinary battery-powered flashlight at the Diamond of Lapis Lux apparently does count as "bright light". Does the Diamond of Lapis Lux have some magical ability to amplify light or something?

Overall, I would say this is a basically okay episode. Starlight's wanting to find someone to act as vice headmare and assist her with running the school seems like a reasonable thing to do, and I don't take any significant issue with how the plot of the episode unfolds. Trixie is generally obnoxious, but she's almost always been that way to me, so that's kind of expected for me at this point. I'm not necessarily specifically excited about Octavia, Dr. Whooves, or Spoiled Rich, but their appearances in this episode are fine enough (and I wonder why we don't see Octavia, Dr. Whooves, or even Big Mac being considered to be teachers). And the selection of Sunburst to help Starlight with running the school seems like a good decision, although I'm not so convinced about having Trixie be the new student counselor, as I'll elaborate below. ----- To start off, I'll just talk a bit about the qualifications and fitness for candidates to help run or teach at the School of Friendship. I've said before that I don't think any of the Mane Eight are particularly qualified to be running a school, and that's been shown in the haphazard, and sometimes downright dangerous, way that the School of Friendship has been run so far. So Equestria seems to have different standards for qualification and fitness for a job like that, as compared to what we would probably have. But, by show standards, Sunburst is probably a pretty good choice to be vice headstallion. I wouldn't say that his knowing a lot about magic or whatever in itself means that he's qualified, but he seems generally competent, and might be able to rein in or calm down Starlight when necessary. I'm also surprised that Octavia, Dr. Whooves, and/or Big Mac aren't considered as teachers for the school (at least not on-screen). My impression is that the Mane Seven will be co-ruling Equestria, or will be assisting Twilight in ruling Equestria, so I would think that the School of Friendship is going to need new teachers. From what we see, Octavia seems like a perfectly fine music teacher/band director; Dr. Whooves is a little eccentric and/or absentminded, but probably could be a good, or at least passable, science teacher; and if Big Mac were willing to talk more, he probably wouldn't be a bad teacher, either, if he wanted to be. However, I'm a lot less convinced of Trixie's qualifications to be the new student counselor, and whether those overcome her personality issues, poor judgment, lack of experience, not taking the job seriously, etc. Starlight says that Trixie (supposedly) cares about the students, and that Trixie stands by the ponies she cares about. The primary demonstration of this in the episode is that Trixie stuck up for Gallus to Grampa Gruff. But, for one thing, as I mention below, did Trixie really teach Gallus and get to know enough about him to stick up for him as a student? And Trixie mostly was yelling at Grampa Gruff to care more and be more involved in Gallus's life. That could be seen as something good to do (and perhaps something that needed to be done), but how often are situations like that going to come up? How often do student counselors need to "stick up for" students, and to whom? Their parents? The teachers/staff? Other students? Even if that might happen occasionally, that doesn't seem like a major role for a student counselor. Another thing Starlight says is that Trixie helped Starlight talk through her problem, and Trixie "really did give good advice". But Trixie had just gotten done saying that she gave good advice when she didn't mean to. Shouldn't we want a student counselor who gives good advice intentionally and on purpose, not just when she doesn't mean to? And Trixie's happening to help Starlight talk through one problem doesn't necessarily mean that Trixie will be able to talk students through their problems, day-in, day-out, as a full-time job. Trixie also didn't seem to care about the subject matter being taught at the school, which would be a problem when the student counselor probably needs to help many students figure out what courses to take, what their paths to graduation will be, etc. For one final point, in the episode "Marks for Effort", Starlight offers the CMCs new jobs as tutors for the school, which seemed to imply that Starlight as the school's counselor was making staffing/hiring decisions. So does that mean that Trixie would be making staffing/hiring decisions for the school under headmare Starlight? ----- I don't really have any other big-picture observations, so here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: Starlight says that if Twilight is going to talk to her about leaving early yesterday, she didn't have any students on her schedule. So I suppose this confirms that Starlight doesn't have open-door office hours anymore, or at least not at the end of the day. When Twilight tells Starlight "I can't think of anypony who'd be better for the job" of taking over the school, what exactly that means is a function of Twilight's knowledge and how much she thought about it. If Twilight doesn't actually know very many people (particularly school administrator types), or didn't think very hard about who would be good for the job, then that statement wouldn't necessarily mean much. So Celestia and Luna are actually teaching Twilight at least some things before handing off the rulership of Equestria. At least they apparently are no longer just saying that the friendship journal written by Twilight & friends "is a better guide than any we could provide", and leaving Twilight & friends to figure everything out, although we'll have to see if the lessons like these end up being helpful or have any significant impact. And Twilight almost seems to be denigrating the royal etiquette lesson, but, for example, if Twilight will have to deal with other societies like the yaks, who might get offended at improper etiquette and retaliate (in whatever way) as a result, then knowing proper etiquette would be important. Doesn't "hiring" a vice headmare imply, you know, getting paid? This just raises the never-answered question of where funds for the school come from, and how transparent these hiring and spending decisions are to whomever is providing these funds. Also, Starlight tells Spoiled Rich that fundraising is "not the primary responsibility of the vice headmare". So is fundraising a responsibility, just not a "primary" one? Starlight doesn't outright say that the School of Friendship doesn't do fundraising. Starlight's tacked-on "...but anypony is welcome to apply!" makes me think: Is Starlight required to follow non-discrimination laws or the like in deciding whom to hire for a position? If Starlight rejected Spoiled Rich as a candidate without "due consideration", could Spoiled file a discrimination lawsuit against Starlight and/or the school? Is it really a good idea to have band practice in a room that doesn't even look to have doors? Is it possible that the band might disturb people in other parts of the school nearby? Every other vice principal candidate was teaching a class under the watch of one of the Mane Six (Big Mac with Rarity, Spoiled with Rainbow, Octavia with Pinkie, and Dr. Whooves with Fluttershy), so who's watching Trixie? Whose class is Trixie supposed to be teaching, and why doesn't the original teacher seem to be there? I thought the idea behind parent-teacher conferences is that the teacher has been teaching the students for weeks or months, and therefore, the teacher knows about, and can tell students' parents about, how well their kids have been performing, what and how they can improve, etc. We've only seen these vice principal candidates each teach one class, so how would they know and be able to tell parents (with any specificity) how well their kids are doing? Are we meant to assume that these candidates have been teaching classes off-screen for weeks or months? Or is all of this just an exercise in how well the candidates can flatter students' parents without actually knowing or saying anything substantive? How much should we read into Trixie's suggestion that "maybe we should find a different representative from Griffonstone to be Gallus's guardian"? Does Trixie know that Gallus doesn't have a permanent guardian? Seriously, Silverstream's father doesn't know what "exuberant" and "enthusiastic" mean? These aren't particularly exotic words, and they're in a library - just go get a dictionary. Throughout this episode, the job that Starlight is looking to fill is always referred to as "vice headmare", even when speaking to male candidates. Even when Starlight is talking to Big Mac in her office, she tells him "And if you aren't comfortable with that, vice headmare probably isn't the job for you". Is "headmare" supposed to be a gender-neutral term? Is the word "headstallion" not used? Could they not just use the terms "principal" or "headmaster"? Is Octavia's cello-playing at the concert being amplified at all? I don't see any microphones or anything around her, and I might think that her playing would be drowned out by whatever's playing through the mega-speakers. I can at least kind of see how Octavia's and Dr. Whooves's field trips might be used as a learning experience for the subjects that they teach. But Trixie was supposed to teach history, and I'm not really seeing how teleporting a (seemingly random) chunk of Froggy Bottom Bog into the classroom would really be a learning experience for a history class. Trixie's teleporting a big piece of the bog, and even casting a magic bubble around herself as she teleports it in, does seem like pretty impressive magic for Trixie to be doing, since she hasn't seemed to be a powerful unicorn in the past. Finally, Twilight does say near the beginning of the episode that she'll be moving to Canterlot, and assuming Spike moves with her, then Starlight would presumably have the castle to herself. But then, if Sunburst moves to Ponyville, will he be moving into the castle with Starlight? That seems like more shipping fuel. Also, it's too bad that the Tree of Harmony didn't know that Twilight would be moving to Canterlot and taking over the ruling of Equestria just a couple of years or so after the events of "Twilight's Kingdom"; otherwise, the Tree could have saved the effort of creating this whole new crystal castle in Ponyville.

I like this idea. If Gabby is gone for several days at a time, then it would make more sense for Spike to want to write and send her letters when she's gone, as he appeared to be doing at the beginning of the episode. And that might make it more important for Spike to hang out with Gabby while she's in Ponyville, before she leaves for several days, as opposed to a scenario where she's in Ponyville most days to collect/deliver mail. One potential wrench in the works, though, is when Spike and Rarity get off the train in Ponyville after getting back from The Gem Crevasse. Gabby tells Spike "I gotta get back to Griffonstone, but you have to tell me all about the Crevasse tomorrow!", which implies that Gabby travels from Ponyville to Griffonstone and back to Ponyville within (approximately) one day's time. And I might wonder what exactly Gabby does in Ponyville for several days at a time. How many rounds would Gabby need to make if she's only arriving from and departing to Griffonstone in several-day increments? I would suggest that perhaps Gabby does part-time work delivering other mail in Ponyville (not just mail to/from Griffonstone), but when Rarity first sees Gabby and says "I didn't realize griffons worked at the Ponyville Post Office", Gabby replies "No, I don't work here exactly", which would appear to rule that out. So I still like your idea, but I'm not sure if it can be totally integrated with everything we see in the episode.

Overall, I'd say that this episode was more-or-less okay. It's good for the show to address this "relationship" between Spike and Rarity, and I think I can be satisfied with how it turns out. This episode isn't explicitly about romantic interest between Spike and Rarity, or Spike and Gabby, but that seems like the only way that some of the behavior in this episode would make (at least some) sense. Otherwise, for example, this episode would appear to have us believe that it's devastating and abnormal for one's non-romantic friend to be busy doing other things for a few days. I haven't seen enough of Spike and Gabby together (or Gabby as a character in general) to form any particularly strong personal opinion on them as a couple. (I didn't have any particularly strong personal opinion about Big Mac and Sugar Belle, either, although I'm basically fine with them now.) Several parts of this episode do seem to overexaggerate the melodrama and the behavior of the characters to create conflict. But at the same time, I suppose many of those things aren't necessarily totally outside the realm of possibility. And several other parts of this episode were enjoyable. For example, Gabby generally makes a pretty good showing; Twilight's having to deal with Rarity's fainting couches was amusing; and it's always nice to see Twilight looking out for Spike. To start off, I know that other episodes have shown Rarity caring about Spike and his well-being, beyond whatever labor value he can produce for her. For example, Rarity went with Twilight and Rainbow to watch over and defend Spike in "Dragon Quest", and she and Twilight accompanied Spike again in "Gauntlet of Fire". But this episode seemed to emphasize the lopsided and potentially exploitative nature of Rarity's and Spike's "relationship", and consequently, I couldn't get sarcastic replies about Spike's essentially being Rarity's personal slave out of my mind. So, for example, when Rarity says that she misses her time with Spike, I couldn't help thinking "a.k.a. she misses having Spike attend to her every need while doing whatever she wants to do". I think part of the reason for this is that it's hard for me not to notice that the things Rarity remembers doing with Spike in flashback, and the things Rarity is now struggling to do without him, are all things that Rarity wants to do, most of which appear to be associated with her fashion work. And on top of that, Spike appears to be doing physically exhausting work at least half of those times. (And Spike's acting as Rarity's pincushion doesn't seem physically exhausting, but it does seem pointless. Why can't Rarity just put a pincushion where she wants it to be and leave it there?) Considering how much Applejack, Rainbow, Pinkie, and even Rarity herself struggle with doing the tasks that Spike would do, it seems like Spike puts up with a lot. And, looking at this from a third-party perspective, what does Spike get out of doing all of these things, in order to at least help balance this "relationship" out? Does he only get whatever meager flattery or attention Rarity throws his way to get him to do what she wants him to do? We see in this episode that Rarity knows/cares enough about Spike to know things that he would like to do - going on a gem-hunting adventure, going to Power Ponypalooza, playing O&O. But when was the last time that Rarity did something like that with Spike, where he chose something for the two of them to do that he finds enjoyable, rather than just assenting to whatever Rarity wants him to do right now? So, whatever Rarity's and Spike's "relationship" has been up to this point, I prefer to view the resolution of this episode as Spike's moving on from his sort of blind idolization of and crush on Rarity. I want Spike's spending time with Rarity and helping her in the future to be motivated by their being good friends - not by Spike's desperation for whatever attention he can get from his crush, and the consequent willingness to do almost anything to get it. Now here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: This episode appears to treat Spike's ability to send (and receive) scrolls with his fire breath differently than it's been shown in the show up to this point (something that @Truffles noticed as well). My recollection is that Spike has only been shown sending (and receiving) scrolls from princesses, especially Princess Celestia. But in the opening scene of this episode, Spike flames and sends a scroll that he appears to have been writing to Gabby. And later, in the gem cave, Rarity says "And why would Spike need to go to the post office at all? He sends mail by breathing! Breathing, darling! Breath mail!". But does Spike send mail to everyone that way, or just the princesses? And how would that work? Does Applejack really need to dangle the lantern right in front of her, where it's getting in the way? We see at the end of the episode that Spike uses a headlamp like Rarity. So is there a headlamp for Applejack to use or borrow? Or, since Applejack's hat can apparently support the lantern, couldn't she tie it to the top of her hat or something? When Twilight asks if Rarity and Spike have had a fight, and Rarity asks what she and Spike would even fight about, Twilight says "I've had arguments with friends before, and they can put a real strain on friendships". You don't say? Is Rarity not aware of this? That just seemed like a very basic and obvious statement for Twilight to make. When we first see Gabby at the post office, Derpy gives Gabby what looks like 8 envelopes tied together with string. And later, Spike says that Gabby's here all the time, since there's a griffon at Twilight's school now. So to whom were those 8 envelopes being sent? Spike says that Grampa Gruff asks for a lot of updates about how Gallus is doing, but how many updates are written and addressed to him in the times between when Gabby picks up the mail? And how much other correspondence is there between Ponyville (or other ponies) and Griffonstone for Gabby to deliver? Can Rarity's big box of apology stuff even fit through the door of the post office? Did Rarity have to teleport it in? The apology song does skip slightly when Rarity throws the record player onto the floor, but I'm surprised that the needle doesn't just jump out of the groove entirely. That needle must have a lot of tracking force, and if it does, then it's wearing out the records being played much faster. When Spike first says "Is that the time?" and rushes to meet Gabby, the clock looks like it says something like ten 'til "noon". But when Rarity goes to the post office with the big box of apology stuff, the clock on the wall looks like it says something like a little after "five". Is Gabby in the post office at different times on different days? Or does she just spend a lot of time in the post office? When the episode kept showing the ice cream cones dripping in Spike's hands, I was expecting them to melt away entirely or something, and for Spike to be annoyed that Rarity spent too long talking to him. But no, it turns out that the dripping ice cream cones weren't a plot point. Maybe Rarity could ask Spike if he's available before buying the two of them passes to Power Ponypalooza? Are these passes returnable and refundable? Because if not, that would really seem like guilt-tripping - hey Spike, you better come with me to Power Ponypalooza, or else I'll have spent the money to get these passes for nothing!

Overall, this episode was a bit of a strange one for me. I ended up thinking about several things that the episode probably didn't intend for viewers to think too much about, although I believe they're still interesting and important things, anyway. One such thing was Fluttershy's having the predators at the sanctuary only eat vegetables, and her attempts to teach predators and prey to get along, even though I don't see those things as being necessary to what I thought is the primary purpose of the sanctuary. Second, it seems like this episode glosses over Zecora's essentially tricking Fluttershy and Angel into drinking a potion that switches their bodies without their informed consent. The episode seems to treat this as no particularly big deal, but it's something with which I would take significant ethical issue, for multiple reasons. And third, this episode seems to particularly push the idea (which has been danced around in the show for a long time) that Angel, and other "non-speaking" animals like him, are actually sentient. If this is true, though, then I think it leads down a deep rabbit hole (ha) of moral, legal, and practical questions that I don't think this show actually wants to address. However, if I try to set these considerations aside (which I admit is hard for me to do), then it is kind of interesting and entertaining to see Angel being "given voice" in this episode, and it's nice that Fluttershy and Angel come to an understanding by the end, with Angel even volunteering to help at the sanctuary. (I think what Fluttershy really needs, though, is more staff, but those staff would likely want to be paid, and we don't know where the funds are coming from to run this sanctuary.) ----- To start off, I'll talk about how Fluttershy has the predators at the sanctuary promise only to eat vegetables while staying there, despite some of the predators appearing to be carnivores whose healthy diets would likely require eating meat. One argument I've seen regarding this is that - despite these animals' often looking, acting, and/or being called the same names as their real-life counterparts - the audience is meant to infer that these animals in the show have different digestive systems and bodily needs, such that it's totally invalid to compare them to animals in real life, and that these animals in the show could in fact live on a vegetable-only diet. That seems like an overly convenient contrivance to me. But even setting that aside, I would also question the motivation behind this. If the idea is to keep the prey animals staying at the sanctuary safe, then why should Fluttershy ask the predators only to eat vegetables at the sanctuary? That goes beyond just saying not to eat other animals staying at the sanctuary; that's saying not to eat meat, period. Why can't the predators eat meat from other sources? In fact, couldn't an argument be made that the prey animals at the sanctuary may well be safer if the predators are satiated with meat that they want to eat from other sources, as opposed to having the predators eat no meat at all and relying solely on their willpower not to eat the prey animals, despite wanting to (and having a basic instinct to) do so? Fluttershy also has this predator/prey support group, and tries to tell the attendees that "we all need to get along", and that "just because you're on opposite ends of the food chain doesn't mean you can't work together". But do the predators and prey staying at the sanctuary actually need to get along or work together? Why couldn't the predators and prey just live in separate areas in the sanctuary, have their medical needs taken care of, and go their own separate ways? I thought that the primary purpose of the sanctuary is to provide a temporary place for animals to stay as their physical medical needs are addressed, not to be a mental/social rehabilitation/re-engineering institution. Attempting to have predators go against their basic animal instincts, and not do what they've done their whole lives, seems like a big and serious undertaking. And I'm not sure that Fluttershy is equipped to handle that - both because she's busy enough taking care of the basic physical and medical needs of the animals staying at the sanctuary, and because I don't know how much psychology education and experience she has. So if it's not necessary to have the predators eat no meat at all, and it's not necessary to try to get predators and prey to get along and work together, then why is Fluttershy doing these things, particularly when she would probably already be busy enough without doing them? Maybe Fluttershy thinks she's making the world a better place by trying to get predators to be vegetarians, and trying to get predators and prey to get along. But if so, then I wonder whether Fluttershy would actually be better off, and would do more good, just taking care of animals' medical needs, without trying to change their innate and lifelong-reinforced instincts. ----- Next, I think the switching of Fluttershy's and Angel's bodies in this episode bears resemblance to the switching of Celestia's and Luna's cutie marks in "A Royal Problem", and I take similar ethical issue with what happens in this episode as I took with what happens in "A Royal Problem". And that issue is that Zecora essentially tricks Fluttershy and Angel into drinking a potion that switches their bodies without their informed consent, and that effect is unable to be reversed until the two of them apologize and learn their lesson. Zecora seems to know what she's doing here, and does it anyway. And, as others have pointed out, it could be argued that Zecora's actions here at least in part led to dangers and damages that Fluttershy and others were subjected to later in the episode - including Fluttershy in Angel's body almost being snatched up by an eagle, and working herself to the point of exhaustion, as well as the damages done to the animals in the sanctuary from the neglect of Angel in Fluttershy's body, particularly allowing Muriel the elephant to be eaten by Antoine the snake. One counterargument I've seen is that Zecora told Fluttershy and Angel to go directly home, and to drink the potion when they're alone - that Zecora never intended for Fluttershy in Angel's body to travel to Zecora's hut through the forest, and never intended for Angel in Fluttershy's body to be taking responsibility for the animals in the sanctuary. But Zecora can't just assume that everything will go smoothly and in accordance with what she envisioned. In fact, I can imagine how things could even have gone worse than they did. Fluttershy could have to respond to an emergency at the sanctuary, or elsewhere in Equestria as an Element of Harmony, at essentially any time, even if Angel and Fluttershy switched bodies at home. Furthermore, it was not at all a guarantee that switching Fluttershy's and Angel's bodies would result in their appreciating, understanding, and apologizing to each other. And even if that did eventually happen, there was no guarantee that it would occur on a short time scale. What if Fluttershy and Angel continued to be stuck at an impasse for several days or more? As far as we know, Fluttershy and Angel would remain in each other's bodies until they apologized to each other and learned their lesson. What would happen to Fluttershy's responsibilities then? What about Fluttershy's class(es) at the school? Again, what if Fluttershy was called upon as an Element of Harmony to answer an emergency? Or, to imagine a potentially even worse scenario, what if Angel took Fluttershy's body and ran off to somewhere unknown, leaving Fluttershy stranded in Angel's body with no apparent means to directly communicate what happened or the situation that she's in? Even if Zecora did plan to check on Fluttershy and Angel later, a lot of things could happen in a matter of hours. There were lots of plausible things that could go wrong and result in potentially serious harm that Zecora seemingly failed to take into account before putting her plan into motion. Furthermore, though, I also take issue with what Zecora did here on a more fundamental level. I view switching Fluttershy's and Angel's bodies without their informed consent to be immoral, because it violates their fundamental right to ownership and control of themselves and their bodies, even if the dangers or damages in the previous two paragraphs don't come to pass. I don't see any good reason to believe that what Zecora does here is the last possible resort, or that it could be justified in the face of imminent disaster, or anything like that. We don't even see Fluttershy and Angel do much (or say that they've done much) in this episode to try to resolve the impasse, other than Fluttershy's scolding Angel a bit, before they resort to visiting Zecora. I would say that Fluttershy and Angel should be going to counseling before going to Zecora for a mysterious and potentially untested potion solution. But I still don't think that excuses Zecora's choice to give Fluttershy and Angel this potion that she says is the antidote they need, while apparently deliberately not telling them what it would do, essentially tricking them into switching their bodies without their being able to consent or not consent to doing so. The final point that I'll make here is that the "stunt" that Zecora pulled here is a violation of the trust that Fluttershy (and Angel) put in Zecora. When Angel in Fluttershy's body asks "Do you think this is what Zecora meant to happen?", Fluttershy in Angel's body shakes her head. And later, Fluttershy communicates that she thinks Zecora gave them the wrong potion, and sets off to go to her and get something to switch them back. We can imagine Fluttershy thinking that surely Zecora wouldn't just give them a potion that switches their bodies without even telling them that that's what it does, right? This must have been a mistake! How naive she was, apparently. If Zecora is going to pull "stunts" like this, I think people would be justified in losing trust in Zecora, and even just not going to her for help anymore. ----- Finally, the kind-of sort-of sentience of the "non-speaking" animals (for lack of a better term) has been a strange, and sometimes problematic, part of the show for a long time. But this episode particularly pushes the idea that Angel, and other "non-speaking" animals like him, are in fact sentient. So are we to believe that the only major difference between "speaking" species in the show - ponies, dragons, griffons, hippogriffs, yaks, changelings, kirin, Diamond Dogs, breezies, etc. - and "non-speaking" species - bunnies, raccoons, mice, giraffes, bears, birds, wolves, elephants, snakes, etc. - is that the former group all speak the same language, and the latter group don't? Are we to believe that all these species should otherwise be considered of the same sentience and general intellectual capability? If they are, then I think that raises a whole host of moral, legal, and practical questions that I don't think this show actually wants to address. Probably the first thing that comes to my mind is this. If these "non-speaking" species are sentient, should they be morally and legally considered to have "human" rights to life, liberty, property, etc.? And should the "non-speaking" species in turn be considered to have moral and legal obligations to respect the rights of others? Do the "speaking" species on the show morally and/or legally recognize, for example, property claims by "non-speaking" species? Or, to give an example from the episode, could Muriel the elephant sue Antoine the snake for attempted murder, and the associated damages from that? Could Antoine be thrown in jail as a menace to other sentient creatures? For that matter, should all sentient carnivores who eat other sentient animals be considered murderers, or at least complicit in murder? Furthermore, if "non-speaking" species do have "human" rights, then it would seem pretty difficult to mediate rights disputes when these "non-speaking" species are unable to meaningfully communicate with other species and with "speaking" species. Is this not a serious problem? Why is Fluttershy seemingly the only one who can facilitate cross-species communication? Why haven't any of these species seemed to come up with any sort of common language for this purpose, and other purposes? Have the "speaking" species generally just not noticed or cared that the "non-speaking" species are sentient? Also, we've seen that almost all of the "speaking" species in the show have some kind of towns and societies that they've built, with certain minimum levels of technology, customs, etc. However, to my recollection, we haven't seen towns or societies like these for most, if not all, of the "non-speaking" species. Why haven't we seen those? Do they exist, and it's just that the "speaking" species we follow on the show never go to these places? If not, why not? What levels of technology would these "non-speaking" species' towns and societies have? If they're significantly behind the technology level of "speaking" species' societies, then have "speaking" species observed this, and made any effort to help the "non-speaking" species? Again, is this just a matter of the "speaking" and more technologically advanced species just not knowing or caring about "non-speaking" species' towns and societies? To give another example that's related to this episode, what are the implications of ponies keeping animals as pets, if those animals are sentient themselves? Maybe Fluttershy's keeping Angel as a pet is harming his mental and emotional health, since that apparently means that Fluttershy is the only creature with which Angel can meaningfully communicate. Maybe Angel should be living in a community of bunnies where he actually could talk with and be friends with more than one other creature. (In fact, Angel tells Fluttershy at one point that he's only been able to talk with her since they met, potentially implying that Angel was able to talk to others before becoming Fluttershy's pet.) And maybe other pets owned by ponies, if those pets are sentient, are suffering because they're living in environments where they can't fully and meaningfully communicate with anyone else, including their owners. In fact, if these other pets can't meaningfully communicate with their owners, or essentially anyone else, then how do they withdraw consent from things that they don't want to do? Do they just have to try to look/act really unhappy and hope their owners notice and figure out what they want? If they don't want to be pets any more, is their only option to run away and hide from their owners for the rest of their lives? It feels to me like these sort of complex, uncomfortable, and not-easily-answered questions could go on and on. So, with that in mind, the show seems to be trying to have it both ways. These "non-speaking" species act sentient sometimes, in some ways, for particular scenes or gags or plots. But then, outside of those particular scenes or gags or plots, the same species are also sometimes treated as not sentient, and the show almost never brings up this mismatch or any of the moral, legal, and practical issues that would come up from it. ----- Now here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: Fluttershy gives Antoine vegan snake treats that are made to look like chocolate chip cookies. So what are these snake treats made of, then - vegetables, to keep in line with Fluttershy's earlier support group request? What makes them treats specifically for snakes? Also, what's the purpose of making them look like chocolate chip cookies? Are those particularly appealing to snakes? And later, the fire lizard wants to eat Antoine's treats. I suppose the fire lizard might think that they're actually chocolate chip cookies, not knowing that they're really vegan snake treats. But, again, do fire lizards find chocolate chip cookies particularly appealing? And also, the fire lizard eagerly eats the snake treats shaped as cookies when he gets them. So I guess fire lizards like eating vegan snake treats, too? What would have happened if, say, Angel drank one of the potions and Fluttershy didn't drink the other one? Would the potion just stay in Angel's system permanently, waiting to act until the other one was drunk, too? Almost the first thing Fluttershy in Angel's body does is go over and examine the vials that the potion was in. Unfortunately, we know from previous episodes that Zecora isn't in the habit of labeling anything, so she's not going to get any information from that. Angel makes a point of saying that, in Fluttershy's body, he can talk to anyone he wants for the first time since meeting Fluttershy, and the first thing he proceeds to do is...say nursery rhymes and other nonsense in the faces of ponies that happen to be in town. Way to take advantage of that opportunity. So we see Angel in Fluttershy's body talk with the other animals, even though Angel wouldn't normally be able to do that. But we also see that Fluttershy in Angel's body can still do "The Stare", even though we've seen no reason to believe that Angel is capable of doing that. So Fluttershy's ability to communicate with other animals is a feature of her pony body, whereas Fluttershy possesses the ability to do "The Stare" independent of her pony body? That seems kind of strange. It's also strange that Twilight asks Fluttershy in Angel's body what's going on, but then, after just one attempt, Twilight and Spike give up on trying to understand "Angel", just tell "him" to find Fluttershy, and walk off. If Twilight asked what's going on, what did she expect to see/hear? What if, say, Fluttershy was critically injured in the forest or sanctuary or something, and Angel was trying to get some pony's attention because no ponies were around to see that Fluttershy needs urgent help? But I guess if "Angel" doesn't point to directly obvious danger or anything, then Twilight and Spike just aren't going to bother. Color me skeptical that having a wolf pull on a leash tied to a snake, pushing the snake's body between two palm trees, would exert enough force to push an elephant back out of the snake's body. And I wasn't under the impression that palm trees are super-sturdy in the first place. In order to revive Fluttershy in Angel's body, Dr. Fauna asks for a jar of concentrated carrot extract. And so Angel in Fluttershy's body hulls the entire large jar up to where Fluttershy in Angel's body is laid out. Is that really necessary, considering that only a few drops of extract is actually used? Could Dr. Fauna just ask "Fluttershy" to bring her a dropper's worth of extract? Or, if this extract is used in emergency situations, could some of it be put in a smaller and more portable container?