Music Chart Fan

Overall, this was an okay episode. It seems to rely a fair bit on cartoon cliches, but the action is entertaining enough. Ember is also a likable enough character in the end, especially with her "Please don't make me talk about my feelings!" line. Spike is positively portrayed as confident in who he is and how he's different than most of the other dragons, although this episode might take his altruistic, friend-making personality a little too far into naivete. And seeing Celestia and Luna having casual tea with Twilight at the beginning of the episode is also nice to see. However, while the episode tries to say that the Gauntlet is a high-stakes contest, with the fate of ponies in Equestria hinging on stopping the other dragons from winning, it too often doesn't feel that way with how the characters are treating it. Garble's one-dimensional gratuitous bullying schtick quickly became annoying to watch; even if the point is to make him unlikable, his bullying isn't really entertaining. And there are several distracting contrivances throughout the episode - Spike demonstrates shocking physical strength at times; somehow only Spike, Ember, and Garble end up contending for the scepter; Twilight and Rarity have to be "saved" by Ember because they seemingly forget that they can use magic; and we don't really know why Ember changes her mind about being friends with Spike in the end. A lot of questions I have from this episode revolve around just how high the stakes are for Spike to win the Gauntlet and prevent other dragons from becoming Dragon Lord, and why this is a problem now when it didn't seem to be before. In the episode, Spike worriedly says that NONE of the other dragons can win, because "Equestria's in big trouble if any of them are in charge", and therefore, winning the Gauntlet is the ONLY way to protect Equestria from the dragons. But how does he know that? He (and we) only saw two dragons who said that they would pillage or attack ponies if they became Dragon Lord. This makes me wonder how dragons in general feel about ponies. Do they share Garble's intense hatred of ponies, but perhaps fear the consequences of provoking or attacking them? Do they generally not like ponies, but don't find it worthwhile to mess with them? Are they just indifferent to ponies altogether? I don't think we or the characters in the episode (Spike, Twilight, Rarity) know. Speaking of how other dragons feel about ponies, Garble does say that he wants to become Dragon Lord so he can "get revenge on those puny ponies". But why hasn't he just gone ahead and tried to do so anyway? (Or, for that matter, why hasn't the dragon who wants to pillage Equestria for its pillows done that either?) Has he been unable to convince other dragons to help him attack the ponies? If that's the only problem, is it because the other dragons just don't care enough to do so? Has Dragon Lord Torch decreed that dragons not attack ponies, and Garble has to follow that decree? Is the fact that Garble and other dragons haven't seemed to attack ponies yet proof that attacking ponies may not actually be that easy for dragons to do? Or is Garble just all talk and no action? Similar possibilities seem to arise when we ask the question of why exactly ponies haven't seemed to have problems with the dragons so far. Again, has Dragon Lord Torch decreed that dragons not attack ponies, and that decree has protected ponies from dragons up to this point? If Torch made such a declaration, why? Is Torch neutral toward ponies, even as other dragons like Garble or the dragon complaining about pillows dislike or hate ponies? Or, again, does Torch perhaps not like ponies, but recognize that attacking ponies would be infeasible or incur heavy costs? The situation with the dragons and the ponies up to now is also important when we consider what will happen with the dragons in the future with Ember as Dragon Lord. Ember could decree that the dragons are to, at minimum, leave ponies alone, and maybe she could even go further, initiating or strengthening diplomatic and trade relations with the ponies. However, how would all of this be received by dragons in general? Would they more or less go along with it? If so, would that be because they see the value in it and don't actually dislike ponies, or would it only be out of fear of punishment by the Dragon Lord? And if dragons only previously refrained from attacking ponies because of fear of Dragon Lord Torch punishing them, would that same fear carry over to Ember, who isn't physically imposing like Torch? Is there a danger of Ember's decrees being ignored, or even Ember herself being overthrown in a coup, by anti-pony dragons, perhaps spurred to action by dragons like Garble? There are still a lot of unanswered questions and potential problems at the end of the episode, and hopefully Twilight, Rarity and Spike will talk to Celestia and Luna about all of this. Another big thing I noticed throughout the episode is that even as Spike, Twilight, and Rarity believe that Spike's winning the Gauntlet is essential to protect the ponies from an anti-pony Dragon Lord, they (as well as Ember and Garble) act surprisingly lackadaisical about the whole thing. The three of them and Ember repeatedly waste time talking to each other, and even Garble wastes time talking to them on the beach. Spike and Ember stroll around, seemingly without any sense of urgency. When Ember wants to stop working with Spike after getting through the tunnel, Spike's primary concern seems to be whether Ember is actually friends with him, rather than how he's going to win the Gauntlet without Ember's help, or somehow convincing Ember to stick with him and help him because he can't afford to let Garble or the others win. Even after Ember takes off ahead of Spike and leaves him behind, he, Twilight, and Rarity also proceed to stroll around without any sense of urgency. And in the final room, more time is wasted talking, and Garble also gets distracted by acting menacing toward Twilight and Rarity, rather than, you know, getting the scepter first. But I guess it's funny that, even after wasting all that time and seemingly not taking the Gauntlet that seriously, Spike, Ember, and Garble are the only three dragons that even come close to being the first ones to grab the scepter. And that's after Spike takes the time to save Ember, swims to the island, waits for her to come to on the beach, spends more time talking (including with Garble), decides to work together with Ember, talks some more at the top of the mountain, saves Rarity and talks again in the lava room after the tunnel, and casually walks around the final maze area enough to see the same crevasse three times. Did Spike's and Ember's being small and working together really confer that much of an advantage? Then, in the final room, there's still enough time for Spike, Ember, and Garble to fight with each other before any other dragons show up. I would have expected some other dragons to show up and grab the scepter while the three of them were fighting with each other. So, overall, it seems rather unrealistic that the main characters don't really seem to take the Gauntlet seriously, yet manage to be by far the first ones to reach the final room before any of the other dragons. Now for a few other major points: first, considering that Ember and her armor were heavy enough to sink beneath the surface of the water fairly quickly, I'm pretty surprised that Spike would have the strength to single-handedly haul her up out of the water in a matter of seconds. Plus, where did Spike learn to swim like that? Spike also demonstrated surprising strength by pushing away the boulder pinning Garble down with relatively little effort. With this scene, I agree with @@Truffles's point that it would have been better to see Spike grapple with the moral dilemma of whether to leave Garble pinned down by the rock. After all, what would have happened if Spike and Ember just left him there? It didn't seem like Garble was in danger of imminent death or serious injury if Spike didn't act immediately. Garble may even have freed himself eventually, in which case the only effect would have been to slow him down a little. Spike's immediately saving Garble here could also tie in with my point above about his not seeming to take the Gauntlet as seriously as he perhaps should. Also, in the final room, as Garble is menacingly approaching Twilight and Rarity, I was thinking "Use some magic!" - teleport themselves away, teleport Garble away, levitate and immobilize him, shoot a magic laser blast at him, something other than just backing away wide-eyed. Maybe Garble would respect ponies a little more if they used some magic to fight back or protect themselves, rather than backing away or running away scared from him. If Twilight and Rarity planned to stay in the Dragon Lands and cheer Spike on, shouldn't they have had a contingency plan in case they were spotted and put in a dangerous situation? I understand Twilight's and Rarity's not interfering with the contest to help Spike, which could invalidate his victory while making the dragons angry with ponies in the process. But in this case, Garble's threatening them has nothing to do with the Gauntlet, and I would think that protecting themselves by taking action against Garble is justifiable. Finally, the episode doesn't really establish what caused Ember to change her mind and decide that she and Spike are actually friends, and that she should therefore intervene to protect him from Garble. Ember tells Spike that they're friends and that "I never should have left you back there", but what happened in the meantime for her to come to that conclusion? Now for my other miscellaneous observations: When Spike is talking to Rarity about Garble near the beginning of the episode, he says that "Garble would have burnt us to a crisp if you weren't there". But does Spike's "you" refer to Rarity specifically? Twilight was the one who teleported the four of them out of danger; I don't know what Rarity specifically did to prevent Garble from burning them to a crisp. Or perhaps Spike's "you" is actually referring to Rarity, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash. I don't know, it seems unusually callous for Twilight to think first about dragon research in the Dragon Lands and not about supporting Spike, only to have everyone else present have to remind her of why she should want to go. Twilight is Spike's primary family, after all. Rarity gets excited about still having the costume they used last time they went to the Dragon Lands, but didn't they have several close calls with that costume, either almost blowing their cover or almost getting themselves hurt? It seems weird that Rarity doesn't recall those problems and consider how they might do better this time. Why does Twilight talk out loud to Rarity when Garble is literally sitting right on top of them? And how does Garble not hear her talking? Torch catches Spike trying to leave, but Torch said that they would gather at the cliff when the sun is at its peak, presumably sometime in the future. So what are the dragons supposed to do until then? Stand around and do nothing? What if they want to make preparations for the Gauntlet? I don't necessarily see why Spike's going in the opposite direction should have drawn as much attention as it did. I mentioned above that one of the dragons complains about how ponies get to be comfortable with their pillows while they sleep on rocks, and his solution is to become Dragon Lord so they can pillage Equestria for their pillows. Or, you know, they could make their own, or buy/trade for some. Being able to buy pillows would be one benefit of having trade relations with ponies, if they don't already. Do ponies in general have a distinctive smell that Garble can recognize and track? Are dragons known for having a good sense of smell, like dogs? Ember says "Why did you cover for me? You could have had one less competitor" - I can't help thinking "fewer!". In the lava room after the tunnel, the ground rumbles from the volcano geyser and Spike has to save Rarity from going over the edge. But how hard is it for Rarity to just keep her balance, or even fall over deliberately in a safe position, rather than stumbling around and almost falling off the edge? The other three don't seem to have any problems staying in place. When Ember first swoops in to push Garble away from Spike, Spike starts to fall off the cliff, but we also see Garble tumble and run into Twilight and Rarity, and the three of them fall somewhere out of sight, i.e., not just on the ground next to them. Yet the next time we see the three of them, they don't appear to have fallen to a lower ledge or anything. When Garble complains "I'm sick and tired of you two helping each other! Dragons don't do helping!" it sounds like he's just whining that they found an advantage that isn't technically against the rules, but that no one expected that they would do. Why does Garble act so shocked that Spike got the scepter? I mean, couldn't he have seen Spike running up to get it? And who else was around who could have picked it up? When Spike hugs Ember, she acts like she's never heard of the concept. But when Spike commanded Garble to give every dragon he sees on the way back a hug, Garble knew what that meant, and Ember didn't act confused after hearing that command or seeing Garble do it. It's a little odd that Garble continues to follow Spike's command of giving every dragon a hug even after Spike is gone. I suppose Garble left before Spike handed the scepter over to Ember, but Garble must have seen Ember with the scepter later, and in that case, since Spike isn't the Dragon Lord, wouldn't Garble no longer have to comply with Spike's command? I don't know, maybe he figured Ember would still command him to do it, anyway. Finally, Ember apparently told Twilight that she could write Ember with questions about dragon culture, so I guess it's confirmed that Ember, at least, can read and write. I wonder, though, whether that's something that dragons in general learn to do. Is Ember's being able to read and write part of her being smarter than most of the other dragons?

Eh, it doesn't seem to me that Apple Bloom would be in mortal danger if Big Mac were to accidentally step on her. If we look at the force with which he puts his front hooves down as he trots along, would that really be enough to kill Apple Bloom? In fact, if we look at his walk cycle, I'm not even sure that he's lifting his front hooves high enough off the ground for Apple Bloom to fit under one of them, anyway. The situation might look more dangerous because Big Mac lifts his front hooves so high off the ground as he stops himself.

Overall, this felt like a necessary episode to advance the CMC's character arcs in the wake of their getting their cutie marks, but ultimately, I also didn't feel very entertained by it. It's difficult to explain exactly why not, though. The major accomplishment of the episode - helping Tender Taps overcome stage fright and get his cutie mark - only occurred in the last few minutes of the episode. Meanwhile, the rest of the episode had us watch the CMC rather aimlessly try to figure out how to implement their special talent in practice, watch the CMC try to find activities to do together without really succeeding at finding one, and watch Apple Bloom mope around after Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle go off to do their own things. So, while these do feel like things the CMC needed to do, and it mostly makes sense that they did them, all of this also feels mostly like setting up how the CMC will act in the future, without any particularly satisfying payoff in this episode. Regarding the CMC not realizing at first that they can do fun activities that aren't cutie mark-related, and that they don't all have to do everything together, on the one hand, it seems strange that the CMC seemingly never considered what they would do in their free time after getting their cutie marks. But, on the other hand, we could always say that they're only kids, so they may not really have thought that far ahead. It also seems a bit strange that Apple Bloom at first can't find any solo thing to do that would be fun. Her enjoyment of dancing also seems to come out of nowhere - I don't recall her showing interest in it previously, and it doesn't seem especially compatible with her character. She's been shown in this episode and previous ones to be good at and like potion-making, so why didn't Apple Bloom think to do more intense study in that? Maybe she could even investigate potions to make the Apples' apple trees fruit bat-resistant or increase yield or something like that. It seems a bit contrived that Tender Taps gets his cutie mark after the first time the CMC push him to overcome his stage fright and perform. I wouldn't think that stage fright can be gotten over that easily, and I think it would make more sense for him to perform on stage at least a few more times before realizing that he actually likes public performance and earning his cutie mark in it. Part of the issue here might be that this arc had just a few minutes at the end to come to a conclusion and wrap up the whole episode. I don't really have much other big-picture stuff to talk about with this episode, but I have a lot of one-off observations I made, which I'll list below. Near the beginning of the episode, Apple Bloom mispronounces the word "ridiculous". But would that be a particularly difficult word for her to pronounce, considering her vocabulary level? Big Mac doesn't seem like the first pony to come to mind who would be having an existential crisis for the CMC to help solve, but I suppose Big Mac might have just been the first other pony that the CMC saw. It doesn't seem like Big Mac's leisurely trot would be nearly fast enough to cause all the apples to fly out of his cart when he "screeches" to a halt to avoid stepping on Apple Bloom. The CMC's generic advice to Pound and Pumpkin Cake about how there's no rush to get their cutie marks, that they'll come when they come, etc. is the same kind of advice that the CMC themselves were given, and yet that didn't stop them from worrying about and trying to get their cutie marks. When the CMC are on the playground, they worry that if they can't find anyone with a cutie mark problem to help solve, then maybe they're not special. Oh, the horror! The CMC might not be special, whatever that's supposed to mean! I almost expected Scootaloo to say tell Bulk Biceps that the Crusader Clubhouse is a "safe space", but she didn't. But I don't know, maybe this episode was written before "safe spaces" became a widespread news topic. I couldn't help thinking that if the CMC are looking for things to do, maybe they should consider whether, and how, they can make a living as adults from their special talent of solving others' cutie mark problems. Because if there's no good way to make a living doing that, then they have to develop other skills that they can use to make a living. Scootaloo tells Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle that, to scooter, "just remember - stomp, kick, and roll!" But then what? Do they have to do anything when actually going around the track, or will their scooters just take the correct route with no further input from them? It's funny that Sweetie Belle is trying and failing to teach the CMC to sing when they've sung several songs together in previous episodes, and Apple Bloom sings a song later in this episode. Did all of those songs not actually happen in the world of the characters? It's quite the coincidence that it appears that Equestria uses the same musical notation that the human Western world has used for hundreds of years - the staff; treble and bass clefs; key signatures; quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes; accents, slurs, and dynamic notation; etc. Considering how (im)precise "a dash", "a drop", and "a drip" are, maybe it shouldn't be surprising that Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle can't replicate those measurements correctly. I guess the other four rafters don't mind that Apple Bloom is just dead weight on the raft and not contributing to paddling. Apple Bloom didn't appear to be bad at baking a pie; there just wasn't anyone there at the shop that wanted to share it with her. When Apple Bloom bursts into the dance studio wanting to enroll, I would think the instructor's first reaction would be "Can I talk to your parents?". After all, dance class would be a serious commitment and something that has to be paid for, and I would think the instructor would want some reassurances on those fronts before she starts any serious teaching and before Apple Bloom joins the recital that night. As Apple Bloom is leaving the dance studio after being told that she can't do partnered dancing, we see Tender Taps with his dance clothes on, but literally two seconds later, as he's in the doorway to leave and talk to Apple Bloom, his clothes are gone, probably so that we can see that he's a blank flank. Where did his clothes go in such a short time? Are the dance clothes property of the dance studio and therefore must be removed before leaving the premises? Did Apple Bloom really not realize that Tender Taps didn't have a cutie mark until Sweetie Belle asked about it later? I would think that the CMC would be in the habit of noticing when a fellow pony doesn't have a cutie mark. Apple Bloom tells Tender Taps that he's the best dancer she's ever seen, but how meaningful is that statement? How many other dancers has Apple Bloom seen? Just how long is the recital, anyway? It's apparently long enough for Sweetie Belle, who just started to learn crocheting earlier that day, to crochet costumes, and long enough for the CMC to create a backdrop. It also sure was nice for Scootaloo's bungee jumping instructor to show up and help on such short notice. It sure was nice for whoever scheduled and arranged the recital to allow a last-minute addition to the recital as it was going on, too. Finally, I couldn't help noticing that the background music at the very end of the episode sounds like the background music during the montage of Ponyville residents helping Rainbow to learn the material for the Wonderbolts history test in "Testing Testing 1, 2, 3". That's probably not the only time that similar music has been used in different episodes in the show; I've just watched "Testing Testing 1, 2, 3" enough to be able to recognize it this time.

I'd say that my favorite Mane Six pair-up is probably Rainbow and Twilight. I'm sure at least part of that is that Twilight and Rainbow are the two of the Mane Six I like and relate to the most. But I think there are other reasons why they're a good pairing. For one, they're both very good at, and share a kind of drive to excel in, their own specializations, and so I think they can understand and relate to each other, despite having different areas of expertise. I really enjoyed seeing Twilight cheer up and motivate Rainbow Dash in several episodes like "Read It And Weep", "Daring Don't", and "Testing Testing 1, 2, 3". I would really like to see that dynamic the other way around - Twilight feeling depressed or doubting herself and Rainbow picking her back up; to my recollection, I don't think that has really happened before. I think Rainbow and Twilight could be fairly evenly matched in a rivalry, too. For example, we saw a bit of this in "Testing Testing 1, 2, 3", when Rainbow first surprised Twilight with her spitballs, but Twilight then caught her in the act, or how the two of them essentially argued to a draw before Fluttershy intervened. However, Rainbow and Twilight can also complement each other and moderate each other's excesses. If the two of them were to go on an adventure together, Twilight would be more cautious, planning things out and using her magic and "book smarts", while Rainbow would be more spontaneous, ready for action and using her agility, strength, and "street smarts".

Overall, I found this to be another obnoxious Pinkie episode. I'll admit that the lesson of the episode is decent enough, and that it's nice to see Maud express some genuine sisterly love of Pinkie. The problem is most of the rest of the episode other than those things. The simple plot drags, leaving me to focus on the various annoyances in the episode. Pinkie is repeatedly hyper, loud, and annoying in public - in other ponies' faces on the train, out on the sidewalk, making a scene of asking Rarity for help, etc. Pinkie even drags Rarity into acting like that a few times. Maud is mostly her usual socially oblivious self, but also bafflingly seems to be completely unaware of Pinkie's and Rarity's plan for her gift even as they (sometimes loudly) discuss it a few away from her. Below, I'll detail some of the larger aspects of the episode that contributed to my disliking it. For one thing, I find it extremely annoying when Pinkie uses her own inane made-up words in conversation with other ponies and arrogantly expects them to know what these words mean, berating them or making fun of them when they don't. In this episode, Rarity understandably misinterprets Pinkie's "PSSSD" as her saying "psst", and when she does, Pinkie bluntly says "No, silly!" as though of course Rarity ought to have known that Pinkie was using one of her made-up acronyms and known what it stands for. Pinkie evens uses her made-up acronym to a Manehattan police officer who would have absolutely no reason to know what it means. I would think that, if you were following basic social decency, you would anticipate whether others in conversation would know the term you're using, and if not, either explain it when you use it or don't use it. And if you inadvertently use a term others doesn't understand, and they show that they don't understand it, then simply explain it, perhaps with an apology. But Pinkie has repeatedly demonstrated an obliviousness to and/or disregard for basic social decency, and this is just another example of that. Of course, Maud does this too, using technical geological terms and pointing out geological phenomena without any consideration of whether Rarity (or Pinkie) knows what she's talking about, nor any consideration of how to make her observations interesting to someone who isn't as "into rocks" as she is. And Pinkie does it again when the three of them are in the park for the gift exchange. Rarity says that she can't wait to see what gifts they got each other, and Pinkie bluntly says "We don't just swap, silly!", again implying that of course Rarity ought to have known what the rituals of this idiosyncratic Pie family tradition are. Speaking of Maud, her baffling and unfunny behavior also contributes to my dislike of this episode. Perhaps most obviously, Pinkie and Rarity discuss, shout and scream about their "secret" plans to get Maud a rock pouch literally a few feet away from her on several occasions, and Maud seemingly somehow remains totally oblivious. There are also Maud's antics with Boulder - having Boulder "look" at postcards, calling for Boulder when it gets lost, telling Boulder to "play nice" with another rock, etc. I know that Maud has been doing these obviously nonsensical things all along, but I still don't find it funny that a supposedly full-grown adult (who is getting a "rocktorate") is doing these things and seeming to take them seriously. Pinkie's insistence on repeating over and over and over just how amazing her gift to Maud will be is also extremely obnoxious. Doing that is just asking for something in her plan to go wrong, and it's also setting her up for failing to meet the sky-high expectation she's making. Although, if I were in Maud's position, I would suspect that Pinkie's repeated assertion of the greatness of her gift is actually hiding insecurity - that Pinkie is really trying to convince Maud, Rarity and/or herself that her gift is the best thing ever, when it actually isn't. The whole scene where Maud, Pinkie, and Rarity get Pinkie's party cannon back in exchange for the pouch was extraordinarily foolish. Besides the immorality of the implied threat of violence if the exchange didn't happen (which the pouch owner was well within his right to refuse), the situation could have gone very badly for Maud, Pinkie, and Rarity. What if the pouch owner responded to the implied threat of violence with actual violence, e.g., pulling a weapon out or firing actual projectiles from the cannon? What if the pouch owner runs with a gang and other gang members are nearby to assist in the fight? Furthermore, before joining in on this plan, Rarity should have considered that she's planning on opening a boutique in Manehattan. The pouch owner could find several ways of getting revenge on Rarity later, especially, again, if he runs with a gang. Rarity and/or her employees could go to the boutique one day to find it trashed and their merchandise and money stolen. Or Rarity and/or her employees could be threatened or injured themselves, either at the boutique or while going around town. So Maud, Pinkie, and Rarity are very lucky that the pouch owner acquiesced to them with little resistance, and it remains to be seen whether they will experience any other repercussions later. Finally, Pinkie's and Maud's idea to include Rarity in a special sightseeing/gift swapping day may not be as "sweet" as it's made out to be. While Rarity did go with Pinkie on this trip, and tried to roll with Pinkie's and Maud's antics, Rarity may not necessarily enjoy doing that every year. Plus it does mean that Rarity has to try to come up with gifts for Pinkie and Maud, even as Rarity said earlier in the episode that Maud is "simply impossible to shop for". The lesson about the specific gift not mattering so long as it's given with love seems weird to apply to Rarity and Maud, who barely know or see each other and seem to have little in common. One other thing that I'll comment on: Would I want to have a tradition like Pinkie in which I schedule a sightseeing day one-on-one with each of my eight siblings? Personally, I feel like that would be a bit of a waste of time and effort. I think we see and talk to each other enough spontaneously that that wouldn't be necessary. Plus, I feel like deliberately making one-on-one trips like that would be awkward - it would be more fun to go on outings and hang out with at least a small group of our siblings in which all of us contribute comments, stories, etc. And we certainly wouldn't do the gift exchange part of it - we don't feel the need to give gifts to each other, and we wouldn't know what to get each other anyway. Now for the rest of my miscellaneous observations: On the train, Pinkie says to Rarity "Why doesn't your face look like this?". Are ponies allowed not to be as excited as she is, or to be excited without being publicly hyper and over-the-top about it? Considering how the rest of her family behaves, Pinkie ought to understand that not everyone reacts to excitement like she does. Pinkie says that the pouch store is just a block away from the restaurant at which the three of them are eating, but the map depicts the pouch store as being farther away than that, and Pinkie traveling a path of several blocks to get there. Pinkie jumps and smashes her face on the door of the pouch store, and then says "Huh, must be stuck". Is that the way Pinkie would normally try to open the door to a store? It does seem quite unusual that the pouch store owner would close the store for such an extended period of time. Does the owner not have any other employees to run the store in his absence? Does the store do so little business that it wouldn't be profitable to hire a single employee? How does the owner afford to have a downtown storefront, and is it a good idea to have one if the owner is the only one running it? When Pinkie returns to the restaurant from the pouch store, Rarity says to Pinkie that her hooves "must be sparkling clean". Was it part of the plan for Pinkie to actually clean her hooves, which could add additional time to her absence and make it more suspicious? If not, then why draw attention to Pinkie's hooves which wouldn't actually be clean? While Rarity is making all of the effort to find an alternative gift for Maud, what is Pinkie doing to help? It's ultimately Pinkie's responsibility to find a gift for Maud if she wants to give one; Rarity is just generously offering to help. So why is Rarity seeming to do all of the work? At the market, Rarity runs around asking Maud "What do you think about this? Or this? Or this? This? This?", etc., without ever stopping and giving her a chance to reply, at least not until she has a pile of tens of different things. And when Maud says "I like that", Rarity starts running down a list again without giving Maud a chance to respond. Pinkie says that she and Maud are supposed to swap gifts at sunset, but it doesn't really look like sunset when they exchange their gifts. When Pinkie gives the pouch to Maud as a gift, it's in a box of some kind, which I guess Pinkie must have gotten with the wrapping. Yet after Maud opens the gift, the box seems to have disappeared. It seems weird for Pinkie to say that she's going to love Maud's gift "five-ever". Isn't the point of confetti to use it and then throw it away? Besides, the amount of confetti there by itself might be good for a few party cannon blasts, at best. Pinkie could run through that in less than a day, and in fact, that's what happens. Finally, "Pinkie sense" is already annoying enough, but we apparently have to deal with "Maud sense" too.

That's an interesting point I hadn't considered! However, there seemed to be something about the time-traveling spell such that it required the physical scroll it was written on in order to work. Back in "The Cutie Re-Mark", Twilight had to desperately talk down Starlight before she ripped the scroll in half, which, according to Starlight, would have prevented Twilight from traveling back in time and stopping Starlight from stopping Rainbow Dash's rainboom. And while the scroll wasn't destroyed by Starlight, once everything was set right, the scroll was sucked into the time portal, presumably never to be seen again. So it's not clear if or how Starlight could travel back in time again. Could Starlight just write the time-traveling spell on a new scroll and have it work? Would the original "inventor" of the spell - in this case, Star Swirl - need to write it down for it to work, in which case, with Star Swirl not present and the original scroll gone, time travel by Starlight's method is effectively not possible? The mechanics of how Starlight's time-traveling spell actually worked haven't really been explained. @ also makes a good point that, even if they could travel back in time, they still may not want to risk other unintended alterations to the timeline, with whatever echo effects those would have. To be fair, Starlight did use her magic to help save the day, though in ensemble with Celestia, Luna, Twilight, and the others. Sunburst tasked Starlight specifically with casting Somnambula's Weather Abjuration to clear away the snow. We don't know how much magical skill was required to cast that spell - that is, whether Starlight's level of magical skill was necessary or whether she was just a nearby unicorn who was available - but she did at least play a part in doing good and saving the day. I agree, though, that it would be nice to be Starlight unambiguously using her "wicked magic skills" for good.

I can think of at least a couple of other significant differences between Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer, even post-reformation. For one, Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer differ in the extent to which they've had to deal with their past evil actions. Most of Canterlot High saw Sunset Shimmer in demon form and knew what she tried to do. And because of that, Sunset would have had to work with and confront others at school who knew about her attempted evil deeds and shunned her for them. In that environment, Sunset would have had to learn to show regret for what she did and make up for it to most everyone at Canterlot High. By contrast, almost no one other than the Mane Six, Spike, and her villagers (who seem to be living isolated from the rest of Equestria) know who Starlight Glimmer is and what her past evil deeds were. Starlight could get by day-to-day without others shunning her or knowing what she did, unless she chooses to tell them. As a result, it might be harder to see to what extent Starlight regrets her past actions, and it might be harder to believe that Starlight has made up for them. Also, while both Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer tried to execute evil plans which would have affected all of Equestria, the long-term consequences of their failed plans differ. Sunset's evil plan was basically stopped a few minutes after she started trying to put it into motion. Once the school building/grounds were repaired, it's likely that there was relatively little lasting damage. The students/faculty at Canterlot High saw her in demon form, and were temporarily possessed for a few minutes, but that's about the extent of it. Obviously that doesn't excuse the immorality of her attempted plan, but Sunset might have less guilt because of the small amount of long-term damage. On the other hand, while Starlight Glimmer's plot to alter the history of Equestria was stopped without lasting damage, Starlight was responsible for brainwashing, removing the cutie marks from, and compelling at least tens of ponies to live in her village for an extended period of time. It seems more likely that the ponies from Starlight's village will carry mental/emotional scars for a long time after that. So Starlight arguably is more guilty of having more long-term damage as a result of her past actions.

Good point, I hadn't noticed that. It's possible, though, that Starlight found her way to the throne room in "The Cutie Re-Mark" by randomly opening doors until she found the right one, or even by spying on how Twilight or someone else got there, without bothering to pay attention to how exactly to get there in the future. Or even if Starlight knows how to get to the throne room from, say, the castle entrance, that wouldn't necessarily translate to knowing how to get there from any other room in the castle. If Starlight doesn't know how she got to the library, then she might not know where the throne room is in relation to the library.

Overall, these episodes were okay. Spike is written well in his supporting role with Starlight and Twilight, and his rapport with Starlight is relatable and entertaining. I still have reservations about "reformed" Starlight, but I did like seeing that her manipulativeness and even some of her under-the-surface anger haven't disappeared entirely. Sunburst seems to be a decent enough character, and it's nice to see him use his knowledge to save the day. It's also nice to see Celestia and Luna play at least somewhat important roles. There are several aspects of the episodes I didn't particularly like, though, including the pointlessness of pushing Starlight and Sunburst to rekindle their friendship (even though it works out in the end), some of the ways Starlight and Sunburst acted toward each other, Flurry Heart's inexplicable superpowers and how she was handled, Shining Armor's cringeworthy antics as a new and tired dad, and the obliviousness, stupidity, and shallowness of the crystal ponies. First, Twilight's friendship lesson of making Starlight meet with Sunburst and try to dredge up their early childhood friendship seems pointless. Yes, supposedly Starlight's experience of losing touch with Sunburst after he moved away to magic school was the source of Starlight's trauma and her consequent evil actions. But it seems to me that the better lesson would be to teach Starlight to keep bad memories/experiences in check and move on with her life. Not every friend that a person had earlier in life needs to stay friends forever. Some friendships do fall by the wayside as people move, go to new schools or jobs, develop different interests, etc., and that's something that should be learned to be dealt with. But rather than teaching that lesson, having Starlight try to become friends with Sunburst again potentially re-opens (or keeps open) old wounds, may leave Starlight excessively dwelling on the past (which Twilight says Starlight shouldn't do), and may not even work - maybe Starlight and Sunburst just don't have a foundation for a friendship any more, or are not willing or able to put in the work to (re)build and maintain their friendship now. In light of this, it would make sense that Starlight isn't looking forward to meeting Sunburst, and that she and Sunburst are awkward with each other, not knowing what to say and even wondering why they're talking with each other. Their early childhood friendship was so long ago, and they know so little about each other in the present (since what they did, liked, etc. in childhood will not necessarily be what they do, like, etc. now), that they're little more than strangers at this point. And that fact makes some of Starlight's and Sunburst's behavior puzzling. In particular, why does Sunburst go along with Starlight's false belief that he's an important powerful wizard? Does Sunburst think that he'll "disappoint" Starlight? Again, they know essentially nothing about each other's lives since childhood, and people can change quite a lot from how they were as children, so Starlight shouldn't be terribly shocked or disappointed if her childhood impression of Sunburst turns out to be not quite accurate. And besides, at that point, Sunburst doesn't even know if he'll be seeing Starlight again anyway - for all he knows, Starlight just happened to be in town. Does Sunburst think that Starlight will spread the story that he's a "failure" to Princess Twilight and beyond, causing him shame and embarrassment, denying him job opportunities, etc.? For one thing, Sunburst doesn't appear to be any kind of catastrophic failure, but also, it would be better to be truthful (and try to spin the story positively) than to try to maintain a falsehood and be found out later. Starlight's denial of having done anything wrong/unusual/etc., and the way it eventually comes spilling out in an emotional outburst, is also puzzling. When Twilight (and Starlight) knew that this was the lesson that Starlight would try to do, wouldn't they have thought that Starlight would have to plan how to introduce herself, how to explain her past misdeeds, how to explain why she's Princess Twilight's pupil now, etc.? If Starlight is to move forward from her past evil deeds, shouldn't she be able to explain what she did, why her motivating beliefs (e.g., that cutie marks cause suffering) were wrong, why what she did was immoral, and how she will prevent herself from doing such evil deeds again? The fact that Starlight can't seem to do that makes me wonder whether she does truly regret her past evil actions and whether she has truly learned from them. This is a problem that has carried over from last season - her "reformation" was so seemingly quick and painless that it's hard to tell what she learned and what growth she still needs to do. Regarding Flurry Heart, I didn't especially like her character or how she was handled in these episodes, but hopefully, after this, we won't have to see her much. I didn't particularly like watching other characters fawn over her, but that's probably in part because I don't find her especially cute and I don't really relate to fawning over babies, since I don't think I would really do that myself. It's a bit frustrating that these episodes make a point of showing that Flurry Heart is an alicorn, but offer no explanation or speculation about why that's the case and what the implications of that are. Flurry Heart's supersonic cry also seemed like a cheap way to create a conflict. Has any other pony ever shown an ability to do that? Is there any reason why being an alicorn baby would cause Flurry Heart to have such a power? Also, after everyone knows that Flurry Heart has dangerous magical bursts out of her horn and can teleport to places out of easy reach, why doesn't Cadance or Shining Armor or someone restrain Flurry Heart in an anti-magic bubble or something, rather than chasing her around on foot and leaving her free to destroy things and teleport to who-knows-where? I suppose that it's good that a spell was contrived to "curb her power fluctuations", since they were annoying to watch and it's implausible that Cadance and Shining Armor would continue to live with Flurry Heart doing them. Now for the rest of my random observations, in order as they appeared in the episodes: Is Twilight's castle a public building? In that case, maybe she should label the rooms, have signage, and/or make maps of the castle so that the public doesn't get lost. Or, if Twilight's castle is like her private home, then we would think that Twilight would give good enough directions for Starlight to find her way to the library to meet her. And when Starlight asks which way the throne room is, I hope Twilight is sighing and rolling her eyes out of sympathy for having to learn the castle's layout as she once did, rather than because she's annoyed with Starlight or expects Starlight to know better. So, according to Spike, this whole crystalling ceremony was undertaken for every newborn child? How big was The Crystal Empire supposed to have been? Were crystalling ceremonies being performed multiple times a day, every day? I guess being a crystaller might really have been a full-time job. Also, how many ponies need to "share the light and joy they feel" to have a successful crystalling? What if there's a newborn for whom there just aren't any other family or friends who care about him/her? At the end of his description of crystalling, Spike says that a royal crystalling hasn't occurred in "a millenia". In comparison with Starlight's imagining that Sunburst is "probably some big important wizard now", she says that she can't even find her way around Twilight's castle. But what does that have to do with anything? How is being able to find her way around Twilight's castle (a.k.a. memorizing its layout) any indication of her potential or her accomplishments, especially when she's new to the castle and there doesn't seem to be any quick way of learning her way around? When Twilight shouts for Spike to come quick as she's out on the balcony to receive the "snowflake-gram", how did Twilight know that that was coming at that particular moment? What would have happened if Twilight weren't there at that moment to receive it? Applejack says that "anypony related to Twilight is practically family", even as Flurry Heart would be three steps removed from the Apple family, being their friend's brother's daughter. Is there anything about Rainbow Dash's Cloudsdale mobile that would identify it as being from Cloudsdale specifically? The clouds, rainbows, and lightning bolts on it seem pretty generic. Twilight's telling Shining Armor "I don't know what I was thinking! You two probably need all kinds of help!" strikes me as a bit patronizing, similar to how Twilight was acting toward Pinkie in the episode "Baby Cakes". After Shining Armor warns Twilight that seeing the baby might be a bit of a shock, why wouldn't Twilight say something curious like "Oh really? Why is that?" rather than blithely and pretentiously dismissing the warning just to be "humorously" (i.e., annoyingly) proven wrong? I don't know why Pinkie is so excited about Flurry Heart being a super-strong flyer and having crazy baby magic. Hasn't Pinkie experienced firsthand how much of a hassle that can be? After Spike tells his story about how he "saved" The Crystal Empire, he pulls out Twilight's checklist and several items are already checked off. But what steps have Starlight and Spike completed at that point? They haven't even completed step 1, which Twilight described earlier as "head to Sunburst's house and get you two started on the right hoof", although there might be sub-steps or something like that on the giant scroll. If Rarity knows the differences between the potential crystals of purity, why doesn't she describe them, rather than playing this game of seeing whether a tired and not-all-there Shining Armor can tell them apart? Why do the crystal ponies live in such a hazardous location, where The Crystal Empire is constantly in danger of being buried in ice and snow, which are only held back by The Crystal Heart? Are there especially valuable resources nearby, or some other reason which makes living there worth the risk? Luna says that "this far north, the weather has a will of its own". Oh, the horror! Weather that isn't intentionally created and controlled! When Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy are tasked with telling the crowd outside to get somewhere warm, why can't they just say something like "Due to a weather emergency, the crystalling has been postponed until further notice. By order of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, you are to return to your homes"? Does The Crystal Empire have the equivalent of declaring a "snow emergency"? We might think that, with the ever-present threat of wild weather, The Crystal Empire would have some emergency plan in case the weather gets through or The Crystal Heart somehow fails to keep it out. Finally, it doesn't seem like a good idea to name Flurry Heart after the disaster she nearly caused shortly after being born. Remember, she'll be carrying that name - and having to explain it to others - for the rest of her life.

A couple of quick observations: First, after the Crystal Heart "crystalfies" everyone, we can see that both Shining Armor's and Cadance's crystalfied versions in "The Crystalling Part 2" are different than in "The Crystal Empire Part 2". In the screenshots below from "The Crystal Empire Part 2", we can see that Shining Armor's mane is the same style as normal, and that Cadance's crystalfied mane is symmetrical and incorporates her crown, while her tail is the same style as normal. In the screenshot below from "The Crystalling Part 2", we can see that Shining Armor's mane becomes more slicked back, and Cadance's crystalfied mane is different - no longer symmetrical, although she's not wearing her crown this time - while her tail has gained a Rarity-like twist. I think that the rest of the Mane Six's and Spike's crystalfied versions are consistent between the two episodes. Second, there are several times in "The Crystalling" episodes where crystalfied ponies do not have hexagonal or diamond-shaped glints in their eyes, although this wasn't consistent in "The Crystal Empire" episodes either. Sometimes the crystal-shaped eye glints don't even stay consistent for the same character in the same episode. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to which (or when) crystalfied ponies have crystal-shaped eye glints, so I suspect that it's just animation oversight.

I made a list of my 5 favorite episodes of Season 4 last year, so I figured I'd do so for Season 5 as well. My episode posts mostly end up discussing questions, issues, inconsistencies, etc., so it's probably good for me to (at least occasionally) take stock of episodes and aspects of episodes that I liked. One thing I'll mention is that, besides the episodes below, there were several other episodes this season (e.g., Amending Fences, The Cutie Re-Mark, etc.) which were thought-provoking and provided a lot of material to analyze, and I enjoyed discussing and thinking about those episodes, even though I ultimately ended up not really liking them. So here are what I think are my top 5 overall favorite episodes of the season, in no particular order. The Cutie Map (Episodes 1 & 2): The storyline of these episodes is engaging, and the lessons of these episodes - about the dangers and horrors of forcing equality and erasing individuality - are good, complex and thought-provoking. These episodes are very good at making Starlight's town feel creepy, discomforting, and menacing, including the forced pleasantness and sameness of the town's residents, the feelings of being watched, having to keep talk of and admiration of cutie marks secret, the propaganda (including the town's song), and not being quite sure what the consequences will be for ponies who break with the town's philosophy. And Starlight in these episodes is an intriguing and sinister villain, with her magical talent to take cutie marks away and force equality, her ability to propagandize almost all the residents of her village and keep them in line, and her rejection of Twilight's lecturing and getting away at the end without being reformed. Crusaders Of The Lost Mark (Episode 18): Obviously this is a feel-good episode. After seeing Diamond Tiara hit rock bottom and open up a little to the CMC in between acting like her usual self, it's heartwarming to see her finally choosing the path of good, standing up to her mother and finding real happiness in complimenting her classmates and helping them get a new playground. And of course, it's gratifying to see the CMC's selflessness toward Diamond Tiara in this episode, and to see them get their cutie marks in such a selfless talent of helping others realize their purpose. The final sequence of the episode is especially emotionally powerful, when we see through flashbacks how far the CMC have come, and we see the Apple family, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity being proud of the CMC. Rarity Investigates! (Episode 15): It's a little surprising that this episode is here, since I don't ordinarily care much for Rarity episodes. I like the atmosphere of the episode which is set by the music, greyscale color scheme, lighting, and narration. This episode also does a very good job of showing Rarity's and Rainbow Dash's friendship, despite what would seem like pretty big differences between them. The biggest example of this is that Rarity is so willing and dedicated to helping exonerate Rainbow Dash, even as Rainbow complains and doesn't see the point of what Rarity is doing. But there are several little examples of this, too, like Rainbow inviting Rarity to the dinner, Rarity offering to accompany Rainbow to practice, Rainbow's apology to Rarity at the end of the episode, and Rarity's pointing out that Rainbow is in fact a good friend by flying out and finding Spitfire for the show. Finally, it's nice to see Rainbow Dash get to fly in a Wonderbolts performance, bringing her ever closer to achieving her dream of being a Wonderbolt. The Mane Attraction (Episode 24): I think this episode successfully gets the audience to like and root for Coloratura. It's nice to see her being down-to-earth and relatable, despite her fame and initial surface appearance as a demanding diva, and we hope to see her succeed even with Svengallop gone. I liked seeing Twilight use her recording spell to help Applejack with her plan to expose Svengallop, and to see the rest of the Mane Six on Applejack's (and, ultimately, Coloratura's) side as the plan is carried out. Finally, Coloratura's songs in this episode are quite good. Do Princesses Dream Of Magic Sheep? (Episode 13): I was hesitant to put this episode here, in part because Luna really does irresponsibly put Equestria in danger by creating and failing to control the Tantabus, but we don't see her punished or stripped of her power or anything. And yet I somehow find myself being forgiving of her and liking the episode. Part of the reason for that might be just that I like seeing Luna's character being developed. But also, while logically, Luna shouldn't really beat herself up for the relatively little harm she caused as Nightmare Moon, I can at least somewhat understand and relate to why she did so. She was sent to the moon for a thousand years by her own sister, in Luna Eclipsed nearly everyone in Ponyville reacts to her with horror, and I get the impression that not many ponies care much about Luna, even after her transformation back from Nightmare Moon. And I think that one big reason for my liking this episode is that we see that the Mane Six really care about Luna, even as perhaps not many others do. The scene where the Mane Six convince Luna that she has been forgiven for her actions as Nightmare Moon, that she's different now, and that they trust her, is emotionally impactful. And the episode has a good lesson that when you do something wrong, torturing yourself over it doesn't help anyone.

Overall, while these episodes bring up some interesting alternate timelines and questions about the Mane Six's role in Equestria, there are several issues that significantly brought down my enjoyment of the episodes. Starlight Glimmer's plot for revenge and her actions often didn't make much sense, her redemption seems to come too easily, and the story behind her dedication to equality is disappointing and takes away many of the interesting aspects of her character from the first two episodes of the season. The alternate timelines essentially confirm that the fate of all of Equestria is dependent on the Mane Six and their friendship, which I think might make the Mane Six too powerful in the grand scheme of things. Shouldn't Equestrian society be able to survive without the friendship of six of its members? And as a consequence of this, Twilight's attempted lessons about how all friendships are important fall flat, since her and the Mane Six's friendship is so much more important than most everyone else's. There's a lot to talk about, so I divided this post into thematic sections. -- In this first section, I'll talk about Starlight's role in these episodes. First, if Starlight's goal is to get revenge for losing control of her town and for everyone getting their cutie marks back, then it doesn't make sense for Starlight to go after Twilight and Twilight alone. Twilight didn't have a disproportionately large role in those things occurring; arguably, Fluttershy was more responsible for those events occurring than Twilight was. And all of the Mane Six played some role in the events; the Cutie Map did call all six of them there, after all. Starlight even says in the episodes that Twilight and her friends ruined her village, so why is there no attempt to punish the rest of the Mane Six? Does Starlight just think it would be a greater challenge to defeat Princess Twilight, as opposed to any of the rest of the Mane Six? Does Starlight anticipate that defeating Princess Twilight would be more impressive to Equestrians, thus making them fear her more for some unspecified future plans she has? I don't know. Starlight's single-minded thirst for revenge seems to have precluded her thinking too much about the consequences of her plan in the first place, though. As Twilight points out, she and Starlight could spend an eternity going back in time, and every single time they do so, Starlight would have to stop the rainboom while avoiding Twilight's attempts to defeat her. And while Starlight at first seems perfectly willing to do that so long as she gets her revenge, would she be so enthusiastic after the 500th time that it happens, especially if Starlight never actually gets to see Twilight have to live without her friends? And later, as Starlight is ripping the scroll that the time travel spell is on, she says "Who knows what'll really happen?" if she stops the rainboom and destroys the ability to change it back. Starlight is apparently really willing to risk a timeline in which any number of bad things could happen to Equestria, all so that Twilight can (supposedly) feel the pain of losing a friend because of a cutie mark. Of course, Starlight doesn't seem to consider that whatever satisfaction she gets from seeing Twilight suffer could be dwarfed by whatever terrible events could happen in an alternate timeline. And of course, Starlight initially doesn't realize, and refuses to believe, that the fate of Equestria rests on the Mane Six's friendship. Is Starlight unaware of all the times that the Mane Six have saved Equestria? Does news of all of those feats just never get around to the remote areas of Equestria like Starlight's town? But perhaps the biggest issue with Starlight in these episodes is her backstory of why she's dedicated to equality and removing other ponies' cutie marks. First, I think it's fair to ask why Starlight (in a fit of rage) even bothers with taking Twilight and Spike into the past to show them this traumatizing event from her childhood in the first place. How does this fit into Starlight's plot for revenge? What does Starlight hope to accomplish by doing this? Does Starlight think that Twilight will feel the pain that she experienced, and that would act as a form of punishment? Does Starlight think Twilight will acquiesce to Starlight enforcing equality and removing other ponies' cutie marks if Twilight sees her motivation for it? And then there's the traumatizing event itself. Starlight's childhood friend Sunburst got his cutie mark, and then, if we're to believe Starlight's account, he was more or less immediately whisked off to Canterlot, never to be seen again. There are several issues I see with this story, though. Why does Sunburst's going to Canterlot mean that Starlight never sees him again? Even as a kid, why didn't Starlight ever contact him or visit him? Did Sunburst never return home for holidays or to visit family and friends? Did Starlight ever try to seek Sunburst out at any time later, such as when she became an adult? Starlight also says that she stayed in her hometown and never made another friend, but why was she, as a child, allowed to do that? Why didn't her parents, teachers, etc. recognize her emotional trauma and help her work through it? And, of course, Starlight came to the wrong conclusion that Sunburst's cutie mark itself was the cause of Sunburst being taken away and her never seeing him again, when in reality, there were other factors at work. Starlight apparently never realized that what happened with Sunburst is probably a relatively unique case. Not all ponies who gets their cutie marks immediately leave their friends and hometowns never to be seen again, regardless of whether they get their cutie marks before their friends. But the big problem to me is that, while it's somewhat understandable for Starlight as a child to misunderstand the cause-effect relationship between Sunburst getting his cutie mark and her never seeing him again, Starlight carried this childhood misconception into adulthood and even based her life around it. She apparently never tried to make an honest friend, for fear of her friendship turning out the same way as with Sunburst, even long after having or not having a cutie mark stopped being an issue. Starlight says that she and Sunburst turned out different and it tore their friendship apart, but she apparently never considered if it was the circumstances and the actions that she, Sunburst, his parents, etc. took that caused their friendship to end. I would think that Starlight would be smart enough as an adult to realize that it's not valid to draw a general conclusion that cutie marks are bad and take away friendships, and therefore everyone should be equal, from a single relatively unique event in her childhood. And that's why I think this episode took away many of the interesting aspects of Starlight Glimmer, especially those that made her a threatening and sinister villain in the first two episodes of the season. I thought that a big part of why Starlight (and the town she created) was creepy and dangerous was that she seemed genuinely committed to the ideology of equality and to enforcing it. She was able to brainwash and propagandize most of the ponies of her town into submission with her superficially plausible emotional appeals to how equality brings true friendship, inequality leads to suffering, etc., even as the ponies in her town appear to be worse off for it. All of that, combined with Starlight's actual magical talent to take cutie marks away, her willingness and ability to fight back against dissenters, etc., made her a real threat, and not just in a brute force kind of way. So, to me, it's a letdown to learn that Starlight's motivation for all of this is a single misunderstood and overblown traumatic childhood event, one that people would not normally obsess about into adulthood and beyond. Finally, Starlight seems a little too easily persuaded to give up her desire for revenge and to give new friendships a chance after she's spent a good chunk of her childhood and her entire adult life determined not to make true friends and dedicated to equality. If I were in the Mane Six's position, and considering how she acted up to that point, I wouldn't take her "transformation" at face value; I would suspect that she's faking and still plotting to get revenge and get her town dedicated to equality back. However, the last episode gives no hint that Starlight's "transformation" disguises evil intentions, or that Starlight is liable to "relapse" into her old ways. I guess we'll just have to see what Starlight ends up doing in the next season. -- Next I'll talk about some of the observations and issues with time travel and the alternate timelines of these episodes. First, when we first see Starlight stopping Rainbow Dash from performing the sonic rainboom, we might think that as soon as the timeline is altered - as soon as Rainbow Dash is stopped from performing the sonic rainboom - the changes as a result of doing that would take effect. So we might expect that Twilight would lose her wings and no longer be a princess, that Twilight might even have a different cutie mark, that Twilight and Spike wouldn't know each other (and Spike might not be born at all), etc. But of course, Twilight and Spike are unaffected by altering the timeline. I don't know, does the spell to bring them back in time somehow render the two of them immune from the effects of altering the timeline? Is the Tree of Harmony somehow maintaining them in the "correct" timeline so that they'll be able to bring the timeline back to normal? Twilight tells Spike that what Starlight did in the past changed things in the present, and that she's not sure that anything they know is the same, but after saying those things, Twilight acts totally shocked and hurt that Applejack doesn't recognize her, and insists that they're friends. Of course, without the rainboom, wouldn't it be a significant possibility that Twilight never became Celestia's student, and hence, would never have been sent to Ponyville to get to know Applejack in the first place? Throughout these episodes, Twilight and Spike repeatedly fail to realize that in alternate timelines, there should be no expectation that the Mane Six or other ponies that they know in the "correct" timeline will recognize them, be friends with them, trust them, etc. Based on Twilight's statements, I would think that she would realize this ahead of time, but even if not, Twilight and Spike should learn this after the first time it happens. It also seems a bit random where Twilight, Spike, and the Cutie Map are located every time that Twilight and Spike are sucked through the portal back to the present. In the Sombra timeline, Twilight, Spike and the Cutie Map seem to be not too far from Ponyville, maybe even where Twilight's castle would be; in the Chrysalis timeline, they're somewhere in the middle of the Everfree Forest; in the Nightmare Moon timeline, they're close to the Castle of the Two Sisters; etc. It doesn't seem like the geographical layout of Equestria should vary that much in different timelines created by stopping Rainbow Dash's sonic rainboom, so why does the spell seem to take them to different geographical locations in the present? Furthermore, the fact that different timelines have different villains from previous episodes taking over Equestria implies that, in some of the timelines, some of the villains are defeated even without the Mane Six's friendship connection, while other villains aren't. So, if we take the episodes in chronological order, then in the Chrysalis timeline, Nightmare Moon and Discord were successfully defeated (or were never unleashed in the first place); in the Sombra timeline, Chrysalis and the changelings were successfully defeated; etc. But how is it that there are so many different outcomes from merely making minor changes to the immediate circumstances around Rainbow Dash's sonic rainboom? Why is it, for example, that Starlight knocking Rainbow off course produces a timeline in which Tirek is destroying the countryside (implying that all the other prior villains didn't successfully take over), while Twilight freezing Rainbow Dash in a crystal produces a timeline in which Discord has taken over Equestria? I wouldn't think that, say, the ability of Celestia (and sometimes Luna) to defeat the other villains would significantly change because of a change in the circumstances around Rainbow Dash's sonic rainboom. Speaking of villains, I don't believe that Flim and Flam are villains on the level of Sombra, Chrysalis, Nightmare Moon, Tirek, or Discord, and I don't think that their taking over Equestria should have been included as one of the "disastrous" alternate timelines. Flim and Flam never displayed any desire to take over Equestria or anything like that; they're essentially just slick salesponies trying to make easy money, sometimes through dishonest means. In "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000", there's no indication that, even if Flim and Flam had won the Apple family's farm, that would lead to mass industrialization or destruction of the environment as depicted in the alternate timeline in the episode. Finally, Twilight says multiple times that every present she comes to is worse than the last, but how is she making that determination? And even if that statement is true, why would that be the case? Why wouldn't the presents she and Spike go to appear more or less random? -- Finally, I'll talk about some other things that Twilight and the Mane Six did and said in these episodes. First there's the time that Starlight convinces the bullies not to tease Fluttershy, and Twilight is essentially left at a loss for how to reply to what Starlight says. To start, it doesn't seem plausible that the bullies would immediately stop teasing Fluttershy, and even offer to help her, after listening to Starlight for just a minute or so. Why are the bullies even listening to Starlight, let alone seemingly taking her words to heart? She's not in any position of authority over them or anything. Starlight says to the bullies and Fluttershy that no one would ever tease anyone else in a world where everyone was equal. Twilight doesn't have a good counter for that, but Starlight's statement isn't believable if they think about it for a few seconds. Ponies could, and in many cases would, be teased for almost anything (e.g. mane or coat or eye color, tripping over something, paying too much attention in class, etc.), regardless of whether they have equal talents or the same cutie marks or whatever. And with regard to everyone being equal, there's a fairly basic argument that ponies (and humans, obviously) having different talents and different specializations results in greater overall technological progress and greater production of goods and services, which makes everyone better off. Obviously the problem with Twilight failing to convince young Rainbow Dash to do a sonic rainboom isn't just that a sonic rainboom is supposedly impossible, but also that Twilight is acting like a total creep - perhaps another case of Twilight seemingly failing to realize that she traveled back in time and that she's a total stranger to young Rainbow Dash at that point. In the "wasteland" timeline, Twilight says to Starlight that she doesn't know why she and her friends are so important to Equestria, but they are. I guess the simplistic answer for why the Mane Six are so important is that they're the Elements of Harmony and have saved Equestria from world-stopping villains on many occasions. But of course, that raises a whole host of other questions that aren't answered in these episodes. Why are Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy the Elements of Harmony? Are they really the six ponies from all across Equestria that best represent their elements? If so, wouldn't it be an unbelievable coincidence that they all live in Ponyville? Why are there so many villains who can't be stopped (at least not reliably) by anyone else but the Mane Six? Why is Equestria so reliant on the Mane Six and the Elements of Harmony for normal survival? I don't know if we'll get satisfactory answers to questions like these. In light of seeing in alternate timelines how important the Mane Six and their friendship apparently are for even the mere survival of Equestria, Twilight's statements about how all friendships are important really ring hollow. Twilight tells Starlight that "It's not just my friendships that are important to Equestria - everypony's are!", and as proof, Twilight says that when Starlight's friendship ended, it led them here, where Starlight has the power to change the course of history. And later in the episode Twilight says "even when one friendship dies, the results can be disastrous". But the Mane Six's friendship is a special case because they're the Elements of Harmony and, as mentioned before, the power of their friendship is apparently required to save Equestria from all kinds of villains. And Starlight's friendship with Sunburst is also a special case, because Starlight is a powerful unicorn who's able to modify Starswirl's time travel spell and go back in time to change the course of Equestria's history. Most people (and their friendships) are not being relied upon in particular to save the world, nor will most people have the power to change the fate of the entire world in going about their normal day-to-day lives. Friendships begin and end all the time, and most of the time, those events will not have far-reaching society-wide effects and will not be especially disastrous. Rainbow Dash's excited statement about how all of Equestria depended on her rainboom could be worrisome. I really don't want that to go to Rainbow Dash's head - I think we've had quite enough of Rainbow Dash being egotistical and needing to be taken down a notch. Pinkie then adds that she didn't know how all of Equestria depended on the Mane Six. But what about all of the times that the Mane Six saved Equestria from villains? Did Pinkie think that those villains could have been stopped from transforming or destroying Equestria without the Mane Six or without the Elements of Harmony? Immediately after Pinkie's statement above, Twilight says "I think it's more than that. Friendship connects all of Equestria, and undoing one group of friends made its magic less powerful.". I honestly don't know what that's supposed to mean. What magic is being referred to - Equestria's magic? What's that? How did undoing one group of friends make that magic less powerful? Is the implication of this statement that ending any friendship - not just the Mane Six's - makes Equestria's magic less powerful? How/why would that happen? Applejack's statement that "But if [starlight]'s as powerful as all that, we can't just send her on her way, can we?" strikes me as weird. The implication of it seems to be that because Starlight is powerful, she must be controlled by the Mane Six and not allowed to make her own decisions about where to go and what to do, almost as though she's a wild animal or something. -- Now for the rest of my miscellaneous observations: Throughout these two episodes, it gets old that Spike repeatedly points out the completely obvious to Twilight, who apparently doesn't notice anything other than what's right in front of her face. Spike points out that Starlight is in the castle; that the castle isn't there and that the world has changed in the Sombra timeline; that Starlight is over talking to the bullies and Fluttershy; that the two of them are being approached by Pinkie, Fluttershy and company in the Chrysalis timeline; and that timberwolves are approaching them in the Nightmare Moon timeline. It seems a little weird that the magic to activate the time travel spell is contained in the parchment itself, and not in, say, the words. I suppose that we saw something similar in "Magical Mystery Cure", where Twilight wrote the words to the spell in the spell book and that activated the magic. I suppose the Apples' farm being made into a factory for mass-producing apple products is supposed to be horrifying, but I'm not horrified - it just seems like the march of progress to me. Shouldn't the hair nets on Applejack's mane and tail actually cover all of her hair? Otherwise it would seem to defeat the point of wearing them in the first place. I think that the battle scene showing Celestia's and Sombra's forces essentially slapping and wrestling with each other was pretty underwhelming. I guess the show can't get too violent or anything, but if that's the case, maybe the episode would have been better off not showing some of the details of that battle. If Twilight was capable of using her magic to break out of the crystal Starlight cast around her and Spike, why didn't Twilight try to break out sooner? Also, did Starlight expect Twilight to be able to break the crystal and free herself and Spike, or did Starlight expect the two of them to fall to their deaths? Twilight tells Zecora that "my friends and I" stopped Chrysalis, but the Mane Six played almost no role in expelling Chrysalis and the changelings from Canterlot - it was Cadance's and Shining Armor's "love blast" or whatever you want to call it. So maybe we're supposed to assume that Twilight is including Cadance and Shining Armor under "my friends" in her statement. But then, would stopping the rainboom really affect whether Cadance and Shining Armor get together, or whether they're capable of stopping the changeling invasion? Starlight tells Twilight that she really needs to work on her aim, but it's not as though Starlight is doing any better of a job. What's with Rainbow Dash's demand to Twilight to tell Nightmare Moon what she wants? Does Rainbow Dash think that Nightmare Moon needs help in getting Twilight to talk? Also, Rainbow Dash only gave Twilight about a second before starting to yell at her. It just seems strange for one of Nightmare Moon's guards to do something like that. Why did the scroll with the time travel spell on it get permanently sucked into the portal? Is it because nothing happened to change the past, and so somehow the Tree of Harmony knows that the scroll isn't necessary any more?

I appreciate the effort, but I'll admit that I find that theory a little hard to believe. I don't recall any other indications in the episode that Applejack had a crush on Rara, or that Rara and Svengallop were in a romantic relationship. Also, the flashback depicts Applejack and Rara as being pretty young at Camp Friendship, maybe the equivalent of pre-teens. So Applejack may not have been mature enough to have a crush on Rara, and even if she did, they were still young enough that I think it would be strange for such a crush to be taken seriously many years later. Regarding the discussion among @@takai, @@Dark Qiviut, @, and @@Truffles, I largely agree with @@takai's and @@Truffles's points. I don't think that Applejack or we can definitively say that Coloratura was unsatisfied with the Countess Coloratura persona and style of music, or that Coloratura was manipulated/intimidated into accepting them, or that it would be right/good to abandon them because they aren't the "true" Coloratura. Svengallop does say that he came up with the idea of Countess Coloratura and designed her show. But it's possible that (1) Coloratura genuinely likes the Countess Coloratura persona, the design of the show, the style of music she's performing, etc., even if she didn't come up with them. And even if the Countess Coloratura persona and style of music aren't Coloratura's first preference, it's possible that (2) she derives more pleasure from satisfying all the fans of Countess Coloratura and her highly-produced dance-pop than she would from having a different public persona and performing a different style of music; and/or (3) she derives more pleasure from the fame and fortune that go with being and performing as Countess Coloratura than she would from having a different public persona and performing a different style of music. I don't think Applejack or we can definitively conclude from what we saw in this episode that Coloratura was manipulated or intimidated by Svengallop into accepting the Countess Coloratura persona and style of music against her "true" wishes. In light of this, I think it's not clear whether Coloratura's transition from the dance-pop star Countess Coloratura to the traditional pop singer Rara is the right or good decision to make. If any of (1)-(3) above are true, and if the transition results in a large-scale abandonment by her fans and decrease in popularity, then the transition might be a net negative decision for her, even if we or Applejack might like the "new" Rara better. And I'm not sure that the applauding/cheering for Rara's performance of "The Magic Inside" can be taken as evidence that Coloratura's transition to a traditional pop singer would result in her remaining popular. For one thing, the audience at a charity concert with many other artists performing isn't necessarily representative of Countess Coloratura's fans in general. But even with whatever fans of Countess Coloratura are in the audience, it could be that they felt compelled to applaud her performance, even if they didn't really like it, because all of the performances are for a charitable cause. Or maybe Countess Coloratura's fans in the audience enjoyed the performance as a one-time thing, but would generally still prefer that she continue to record and perform the highly-produced dance-pop for which she's known. So, again, it doesn't seem like Applejack or we can definitively say that Coloratura would be better off, or more "true to herself", by abandoning her career as the dance-pop star Countess Coloratura for a career as the traditional pop singer Rara.

Overall, this episode is a bit of a mixed bag. Coloratura is a likable enough character, and I think the audience does develop some desire to see her succeed while not being a stereotypical overproduced self-absorbed diva. "The Magic Inside" is a good song, and even "The Spectacle" is listenable. However, Svengallop is portrayed as essentially a one-note, selfish and controlling manager. Applejack's stubborn refusal to believe Coloratura has changed grows tiresome, even as it eventually leads to Coloratura's manager walking out and Coloratura being true to herself. Everyone else's impatience with Applejack in the first third or so of the episode for not knowing Coloratura is annoying. And I can't help wondering what the consequences of the events of this episode will be for Coloratura's image and career. First, as mentioned above, everyone's impatience with and incredulity at Applejack not knowing who Countess Coloratura is, and Applejack's not knowing that she's "obviously" a demanding diva, is annoying. Pinkie in particular seems to have a nasty and condescending attitude toward Applejack. I can't help feeling defensive on Applejack's behalf. What, is everyone in Equestria expected to stay on top of current music celebrity culture? Is it unacceptable for someone not to listen to current pop music and know who all the current pop stars are? That seems to be the implication of everyone's reactions (e.g., Pinkie's "How-how-how-how-how have you not heard of her?!"). I could easily find myself in Applejack's position, since I essentially don't follow or listen to current pop music at all. And I also don't hold it against other people if they haven't heard of popular music artists I listen to from the '70s or '80s or whatnot, even if those artists are well-known and majorly successful. On a related note, it's a little strange to me that ALL the rest of the Mane Six other than Applejack seem genuinely enthusiastic about Countess Coloratura's performance; we might think that they would have sufficiently different tastes in music that at least some of them wouldn't like her kind of dance-pop. Applejack's realization of who Coloratura is, and her subsequent stubborn insistence that Coloratura is an ordinary pony and not a high-maintenance diva, is also annoying and tiresome. If Applejack knows that her childhood friend Coloratura had a special talent for singing even back then, and that she wanted to go to Manehattan to make it big, wouldn't Applejack at least consider whether she's Countess Coloratura, rather than just dismissing that possibility out-of-hand? And once Applejack makes that realization, she stubbornly clings to her memory of Coloratura's personality from back then and refuses to believe that she could have changed. If we take Applejack's story at face value, Applejack and Rara spent time together at Camp Friendship as kids, and wrote to each other for a bit afterward (at least until sometime after Apple Bloom was born), but then lost touch. So Applejack probably hasn't heard from Coloratura in years, and maybe not even at all since she became a pop star. Therefore, it doesn't seem like Applejack has a sufficient basis for her repeated declarations that Coloratura isn't a demanding diva, that she's just a plain old pony, etc. Nor does it seem like Applejack should be as utterly shocked as she is when she sees Coloratura not acting like the pony she remembers - wearing a veil and "fashionable" clothes, vapidly giving out "hoofsies", performing highly-produced dance-pop, etc. Applejack's relatively brief (as far as we can tell) childhood experiences with Coloratura are no guarantee that she has retained the same personality characteristics as an adult and particularly as a celebrity. It doesn't seem too far-fetched to imagine that someone could act differently as an adult than they did as a kid. Consequently, I don't really like that Applejack's unreasonable stubbornness about this is partially responsible for Coloratura's confronting her manager and her "transformation" away from the Countess Coloratura persona. Applejack's first exchange with Coloratura about Svengallop threatening to pull her from the concert if his demands aren't met is also frustrating. First, Applejack is being needlessly tactless about saying that Svengallop doesn't care about Coloratura's charity work. By denouncing Svengallop in such harsh terms, Applejack is only triggering Coloratura's instinct to defend him. If Applejack hadn't done that, then Coloratura probably would have been willing to confront Svengallop about his threat to pull her from the concert against her wishes. That could have avoided the need for Twilight for record Svengallop berating Pinkie later, although I suppose Svengallop could have just denied that he made any such threat. Furthermore, it seems a little hasty of Applejack to jump to the conclusion that Coloratura is being used/manipulated by Svengallop for his own selfish gain, and that she just can't see it. It could just be that Svengallop really believes that Coloratura would find his demands reasonable and want them satisfied, and would cancel in protest if they weren't. That would be a misunderstanding of the extent of Coloratura's loyalty to him (and her judgment of the reasonableness of his demands), as compared to her devotion to charity, but that wouldn't necessarily imply evil intent. But of course, Applejack won't let her hasty conclusion go, and she inexplicably turns out to be right. Next, there are some issues around maintaining Countess Coloratura's image throughout the episode and retaining her fans. As a disclaimer, I don't follow celebrity news at all, and I know next to nothing about the backgrounds, charitable causes, political views, personal beliefs, etc. of the music artists I listen to. So my perspective on the episode's portrayal of maintaining Coloratura's image and retaining her fans may not necessarily be accurate. Svengallop talks after Countess Coloratura's first arrival about how Countess Coloratura made a big, bold, absolutely stunning entrance, but I'm not quite seeing it. She showed up to the location of the concert as it's still being set up, and it appears that most of the ponies around are ones helping with the set-up. In other words, it didn't look like any big well-publicized event. Consequently, Svengallop's complaint that the interaction with Applejack ("that dusty farmpony") muddied her entrance seems strange. First, I have to wonder how much anyone would really dwell on Coloratura's and Applejack's 20-second exchange. But besides, wouldn't exchanging pleasantries with the pony in charge of setting up the charity concert be good PR, showing that she really cares about her fans and the charity she's performing for? And couldn't meeting and chatting with one of her non-famous childhood friends show how, despite her stardom, she's still down-to-earth and relatable, which would be appealing to her "ordinary" fans? Coloratura and Svengallop also seem to have different understandings of what Coloratura's image is and how to maintain it. When talking with Applejack after the schoolpony meeting, Coloratura says that leaving the festival, as Svengallop threatened she would do, would "completely ruin my image". On the other hand, Svengallop is excited when Coloratura "cancels" the schoolpony contest, saying that it does nothing to promote the Countess Coloratura image that he built. Svengallop later derides "all this charity and schoolpony contest nonsense" as "just remnants of that boring little Rara I met back in Manehattan". So who's right? Are Coloratura's charity/schoolpony events hurting or helping her image? We would probably like to believe that it's the latter. Finally, at the end of the episode, it seems as though Countess Coloratura might change her name and the style of music she performs, in order to be more true to herself and her talents, and perhaps also because her previous persona was the creation of Svengallop, who isn't working for her anymore. And while the audience at her first performance seemed to like the song she performed, I can't help wondering whether she would maintain the same popularity and success she's had as Countess Coloratura. Would her previous fans stay loyal to her? Who's to say that her previous fans would enjoy her new persona and style of music? Is the lesson of the episode that Rara's being herself and performing to her vocal strengths would make her just as, or more, popular than her Countess Coloratura persona? Or is the lesson supposed to be that Rara should just be herself, regardless of whether doing so makes her (or keeps her) popular? Now for my other miscellaneous observations: Is it important that the water imported from Rainbow Falls is in glass containers? I thought the fact that Pinkie specified that they're glass containers meant that someone would break them at some point and create a problem, but nothing like that came of it. Maybe Svengallop demanded glass containers because they're more "high-class", and pointing them out was just showing the particularity of Svengallop's demands. Obviously Svengallop is out of line in demanding imported Appleoosan oats and 500 pre-peeled, pre-cored apples on such short notice. What is Svengallop doing to do with 500 pre-peeled, pre-cored apples anyway? Are they for other ponies - the dancers, make-up/costume artists, sound engineers, etc.? If so, why not send that request with the other requests that Pinkie did fulfill, in order to give sufficient preparation time? Coloratura's accusation that Applejack is just badmouthing Svengallop because she's jealous seems like a non-sequitur. If Applejack were jealous of Coloratura, why would that lead to Applejack (supposedly falsely) insulting her manager? What would that accomplish? Why are Pinkie and Applejack peeling and coring the 500 apples by themselves with only their own manual labor? If Coloratura's appearance at the festival is that important, couldn't they ask for others' help, or temporarily hire help? In the second exchange between Applejack and Coloratura about Svengallop, Coloratura acts skeptical of Applejack's claim that Svengallop doesn't care about her charity/schoolpony events, and rather testily asks Applejack how she's going to prove that claim. Applejack then tells Coloratura to "do exactly what I say". But if Coloratura is already skeptical of and exasperated by Applejack, then why would she agree to do exactly what Applejack says? Pinkie coughs up an apple core after Svengallop calls her to cancel the schoolpony contest, but why would Pinkie have swallowed an apple core? The device she's using to core the apples wouldn't necessarily even involve any use of her mouth. In addition to Twilight's projecting video of her magical recording from her horn onto thin air (i.e., we don't see a screen there before or after the fact), the audio of it sounds as though it's coming out of the loudspeakers. I suppose I should know not to question how exactly Twilight's spell does this, so I'll just say that it's interesting. Svengallop defiantly asks Coloratura what she can even do without him, since he was the one who made her somepony, before walking out. But she's already rich and famous, right? I wouldn't think it would be too difficult for the biggest pop star in Equestria to find candidates to be her new manager. Sure, Coloratura had probably developed at least a somewhat close working relationship with and reliance on Svengallop, but it's not as though his walking out automatically ends her pop star career. Coloratura thinks the performance will be terrible, supposedly because Svengallop was in charge of everything - the lights, the visuals, the sound. But wouldn't all of that pretty much still be set up and ready to go? It's doubtful that Svengallop was personally mixing the sound during the concert, triggering the lights and visuals, etc. He would have been directing other ponies to do all of that. So, unless Svengallop took all of those other ponies with him, the work of designing, setting up, and running the show is already taken care of, right? If so, Coloratura could just perform the show as planned, and it wouldn't be a disaster as she thinks it will be. Rara says that "this song may be familiar, but yet, it's totally different". So was the song reworked from some original form as a dance-pop Countess Coloratura song? If so, who did that, and on such short notice? Also, were the backing string musicians and conductor already there, perhaps to perform for a different act that night? It seems like pretty short notice to book them and/or convince them to play an additional song. There are several inaccuracies/criticisms that could be pointed out about Rara's piano playing, and the piano itself, during "The Magic Inside": Rara's hoof motions often are blatantly not in sync with the music; the song has many quick multiple-note runs and multi-note chords that would be very difficult, if not impossible, to play using only two hooves; lifting one's hands/hooves high above the keys while playing, as Rara does several times, would generally be considered poor technique; the piano doesn't have any pedals, but the music certainly sounds as though pedals are being used; and the keys on the piano are not laid out in the typical half-step arrangement, and don't appear to cover a very broad range of notes. It's one of those cases where ponies use something which was originally designed for use with human hands, fingers, etc., but the show's creators didn't want to alter it too much and make it unfamiliar to the audience. Finally, I find it unfortunate that the backing string musicians and their conductor are behind a screen the whole time, and are lowered below the stage as the song is finishing, such that the audience never gets to see them or applaud/cheer for them specifically. This probably comes from my years spent in band, but I would have liked to see the backing musicians performing, too. Maybe the screen is supposed to ensure that the audiences' attention is on Rara, but she's already front and center and has the spotlight on her. Also, it would have been nice for the backing musicians to have been recognized explicitly. I think it could have gone well with Rara showing her "true" humble self to recognize them, especially considering that they would probably have gone unappreciated if Svengallop were still in charge.

Overall, this was a pretty ordinary, cookie-cutter episode - nothing really too positive or negative about it. The basic story and even many of the details (e.g. the Trojan cake) are standard cartoon fare, while Twilight and Fluttershy act more-or-less in character and don't do much of note. I don't really have any other comments about the overall episode, so I'll just write my observations below, in episode order. In previous episodes, other members of the Mane Six figured out that the Cutie Map was summoning them by their cutie marks seeming to vibrate and/or make a sound, but Fluttershy only seems to notice the light from her cutie mark when summoned. Twilight's research involving testing out potential friendship problems and diversifying her solution portfolio didn't have to wait until she was called; it could have been done at any time earlier (e.g. when she was complaining about being bored). It's not like the Cutie Map gives any additional information about the friendship problem to solve or what the possible solutions would be. The only additional information the Map gives is where she's going and who she's going with, neither of which would necessarily have much effect on the friendship problems and solutions that Twilight would be researching. Twilight asks how it would look if the Princess of Friendship couldn't solve a friendship problem, but there have been several previous episodes where no one seemed to notice or care that she's even a princess, anyway. Supposedly the Hooffields and McColts have been living on the Smoky Mountains for generations, and yet Twilight finds nothing about them in any of her books. Twilight's sole source of information makes the Smoky Mountains out to be uninhabited. Fluttershy shouldn't necessarily have high expectations about meeting "animal friends" at the Smoky Mountains; after all, her attempt to make friends with the animals at the Grand Galloping Gala didn't go so well. Twilight seems to have had a good reason for saying "books" twice - because she was saying the contents of each of the four bags as she was pointing to them, and two of the bags presumably contain books. Although if that's the case, Twilight put the book on the Smoky Mountains in the "blankets" bag. This episode shows that Twilight is stronger than Fluttershy, at least when it comes to hauling heavy saddle bags. When Twilight and Fluttershy are hovering in the air, just after the first pumpkin is fired, Fluttershy gets a magical aura around her hair and is moved down out of the way of the pumpkin, as though Twilight is moving Fluttershy out of the line of fire. But Twilight is facing away from the Hooffields' hill where the pumpkin is fired from, and she looks shocked when the pumpkin hits their bags, so how would Twilight manage to react like that and move Fluttershy out of the way? And why wouldn't Twilight move their bags out of the way as well? I'm a little surprised that one of the McColts guarding the entrance to the fort actually noticed that Twilight is an alicorn - as mentioned before, there have been plenty of times when others didn't seem to make that observation. Why does Twilight tear out and zap away potential friendship solutions from her portfolio when they don't work? It's doubtful that the portfolio was tailored specifically to this friendship problem, so couldn't those solutions work in a different situation? It seems a little strange that the Hooffields aren't capable of building minimally structurally sound buildings, but are capable of baking a giant cake and large batches of cupcakes. What did the Hooffields use to bake these things (e.g. some kind of oven), and did they build that themselves? Not to mention that the materials for making such baked goods (flour, sugar, etc.) are not simply grown - some level of processing is involved. Did the Hooffields build the equipment capable of processing the wheat, sugar cane, etc.? I suppose they could have bought those materials from someone else, although the episode seems to portray them as living in the middle of nowhere and not normally getting visitors. In the flashback story, Grub Hooffield and Piles McColt made a promise to each other to protect and preserve the valley for all the animals living in it. But why would that involve planting crops and building shelters? Aren't the animals capable of finding food and shelter themselves already? Those activities would make more sense if they were planning on settling there, making a living with their families, etc. To what extent did the valley and the animals in it really suffer destruction because of the feud specifically? How much of that was just the two families living off the land, perhaps in an unsustainable way? And of course, why do the animals know the whole story of the families' feud while the families themselves don't? The feud is made out to have started generations ago. Are we to presume that the woodland animals passed down the real story of the feud within their own families, while the Hooffields and McColts forgot all the details about it? It's rather eyeroll-inducing that the Hooffields and McColts would refuse to set their family feud aside for the sake of their own self-interests, but apparently would do so for the sake of "teh cute and cuddly animals!!". Finally, it's amazing how much of the local flora grew back in such a short time after the truce was declared. How much time is supposed to have passed, anyway? I wouldn't really expect Twilight and Fluttershy to have hung around (and for their cutie marks not to have given the "job complete" signal) for weeks or months after the truce.

Here's something rather cute that I haven't seen mentioned yet. Early in the episode, Twilight and Spike hit the ground after Rainbow Dash and Discord dive toward them out of the air. When the dust clears, we see that Twilight is protecting Spike with her wing. It's actually pretty cool that Twilight instinctually did that when she thought that she and Spike were in danger.

Overall, I didn't like this episode. The episode is effective at eliciting sympathy with Twilight's position of missing out on the rest of the Mane Six's and Discord's weekend activities, and not being "in" on their jokes and stories as they tell them repeatedly. Twilight's bitter outburst near the end of the episode closely reflects how I felt up to that point in the episode. So one reason for my not liking the episode is that it produces those negative emotions of annoyance, bitterness, disappointment, etc. that Twilight was feeling. However, perhaps more importantly, in order to hammer in the "point" of the episode, the rest of the Mane Six had to be made inconsiderate to Twilight and oblivious of her feelings, and Spike had to be made a bit of a smug jerk about the whole thing. And while the ending of the episode tried to wrap everything up and set things right again, I found it unsatisfying. Twilight was made to be the one in the wrong and in need of a lesson, but I thought that all the main characters in the episode had their faults, and everyone else's faults (except perhaps for Discord's, a little bit) seemed to be glossed over or ignored in the service of Twilight's lesson. First, as mentioned above, the rest of the Mane Six are rather unbelievably inconsiderate of Twilight and seemingly oblivious to her developing feelings of "jealousy" throughout most of the episode. It is true that Discord often instigates the inside jokes and stories of how great their weekend was, and he most likely deliberately did so wherever Twilight was going. However, throughout most of the episode, the rest of the Mane Six do lots of little things that add to Twilight's feelings of bitterness, annoyance, regret, and disappointment. They repeatedly laugh long and hard at their inside jokes in front of Twilight, including interrupting her conversation to do so, even after all of them know that Twilight doesn't get the jokes and doesn't find them funny. Rainbow Dash even does one of the inside jokes to Twilight's face. When Twilight is unamused by this behavior, on multiple occasions, they say something like "It's funny if you were there", even as such statements serve no good purpose other than to make Twilight feel bad. And even as Twilight's "jealous" feelings are building, to the point of her obsessing over recreating the scenes of the inside jokes they're repeating over and over again, none of the rest of the Mane Six seem concerned about Twilight or even sympathetic to the position she's in. This seems like another case of characters conveniently forgetting common decency and lessons that they seemingly already learned in the course of the show. Spike's smugness about Twilight's "jealous" feelings also didn't help matters. Several times, Spike seems to gloat about having discovered Twilight's "jealousy" before she'll admit it, and he makes statements to the effect of "Why don't you just admit you're jealous already?". Having an attitude like that only makes it more difficult for Twilight to open up about her feelings, and increases the instinct for her to double down on denying those feelings, if for no other reason than not to admit openly that she's wrong and give Spike even more reason to act smug. And that brings us to Twilight. First, yes, it was stupid for Twilight to insist that she can't get jealous because she's the Princess of Friendship. It probably would have worked out better for her to admit and talk about her negative feelings rather than letting them build up to the extent that she did. Having her friends painstakingly attempt to recreate their weekend fun time while insisting that it's "scientific" and "for a good cause", when really it's just because she's disappointed and annoyed that she missed out, is a waste of everyone's time and effort. The mere fact that her friends have inside jokes with Discord that they find hilarious, but that she doesn't get, is not in itself sufficient evidence that they're under a spell by Discord. So Twilight certainly had her faults in this episode. However, as I mentioned above, I don't like that Twilight was painted in this episode as being entirely in the wrong. For one thing, while we can argue that Twilight should have confessed her "jealous" feelings, it's understandable that she didn't. As mentioned above, Spike's attitude didn't help, but also, I feel like the social norm is more for the responsibility to fall on people telling inside jokes and stories to realize when other people aren't "in" on them, and to either explain them, or, if that's not realistic, at least to tone them down and not harp on about them. It seems like it would be more awkward for the "out" person to say "Hey, would you please either explain your joke/story or stop talking about it?", and doing something like that would run a high risk of coming across as petulant or even pathetic. Also, Twilight was made to look foolish for suspecting that the rest of the Mane Six were under Discord's spell, and while her given reason for that suspicion (i.e., that they're having fun with Discord and think his jokes are hilarious while Twilight doesn't get them) is kind of flimsy on its own, I don't think that suspecting that Discord put them under a spell was that unreasonable. The rest of the Mane Six's repeated inconsiderate actions, as mentioned above, seemed out-of-character and became reason to suspect that the rest of the Mane Six weren't being themselves. And also, considering how much Discord apparently likes to see the Mane Six get frustrated and waste their time and effort for his amusement, Discord's doing something like that would seem well within the realm of possibility. Of course, adding to the effort to make Twilight look foolish, Twilight is brutally blunt about telling the rest of the Mane Six to drink the potion to break Discord's spell. Would Twilight really think that it would be that simple? If the rest of the Mane Six really were under Discord's spell, wouldn't it reasonable to presume that, as part of the spell, they would resist breaking it and refuse such an obvious attempt to do so? Despite Twilight's bluntness, though, the rest of the Mane Six's indignation at the mere suggestion that Discord put them under a spell is still overblown. Fluttershy says "I know Discord still makes mistakes sometimes, but you're accusing him of being downright evil!". But if Discord put them under a spell, that wouldn't be a mistake, and wouldn't necessarily be "evil". Discord could have done so just to mess with them and laugh at their expense, and if so, it would be good to break the spell before someone, say, snaps and does something crazy, which has happened several times before in the show. And Rainbow Dash says "And to top it off, you're accusing us of not being able to tell he was up to something! What do you take us for?". But that assumes that Discord's casting a spell on them is something that they could tell was happening, and would be able to resist or stop from occurring, and it's not obvious that that's the case. Who says that Discord couldn't have cast a spell on them without their realizing it? Finally, the last few minutes of the episode introduced a lot of things to talk about. First, while Twilight's lesson is really driven in by both Spike and the rest of the Mane Six and by Discord, I feel like Spike and the rest of the Mane Six need to (re)learn a lesson about keeping their friends' feelings in consideration and taking their friends' concerns seriously. But the ending of the episode doesn't give much indication that they learned this. Twilight says the rest of the Mane Six "didn't do anything wrong", even though it certainly seems that they did. Twilight says "You're allowed to share things that don't include me", which is well and good, but if they do so, then maybe they shouldn't repeatedly bring those things up in such a way that Twilight would feel annoyed, disappointed, etc. that she wasn't there. Fluttershy gives a token "We're sorry if we made you feel left out", but did the rest of the Mane Six really not realize that Twilight was feeling left out before her outburst? It seems like they should have, and that's a lesson that I feel like they should have (re)learned. Then there's Discord's revelation that none of this would have happened if he hadn't encouraged the rest of the Mane Six not to invite Twilight to their weekend activities. First, why did Discord feel the need to teach Twilight this particular lesson? Has Discord been observing Twilight and came to the conclusion that Twilight needed to learn this lesson? But also, it's not clear exactly what sequence of events happened. Twilight says "They wanted me to be there? And you convinced them to not invite me?", and no one denies that. So I'm imagining the rest of the Mane Six thinking that Twilight would want to join them, and being on the verge of inviting her (maybe even in the process of going to her castle to do so), but then Discord somehow convincing them not to even try to invite her. I really don't know what Discord could have said or done to cause the rest of the Mane Six to do this complete turnaround in thinking, especially since, at that point, they probably would still have harbored at least some mistrust of him (as Twilight does in the episode). Discord says "I didn't think that they should interrupt you", which may be corroborated by Fluttershy earlier in the episode saying "We would've invited you to come along too, but we didn't want to interrupt your organizing. We know how important it is to you". But why would the rest of the Mane Six take Discord's word for it that Twilight wouldn't even want to be asked to come, if they originally thought otherwise? Wouldn't they know better than Discord whether Twilight would want to join them? And besides, what's the worst that could have happened from merely asking Twilight if she wants to come along? Would Twilight really have gotten upset with them just because they asked? And in considering all of this, I do wonder to what extent Twilight herself could be blamed for the rest of the Mane Six ultimately not inviting her to come with them. Some of the other Mane Six ask Twilight how her book-sort-cation went, so they seem to be aware that she planned to do that. But did Twilight actually tell them "I'm having a book-sort-cation this weekend, don't disturb me or ask to do any other activities this weekend no matter what"? If so, then Twilight would shoulder some of the burden of guilt for missing out on their activities, and the lesson from that would be not to tell your friends not to disturb you if you aren't actually doing something urgent (and Twilight's book-sort-cation is not urgent). If that's what happened, though, then it just raises the question again of what Discord said or did to dissuade the rest of the Mane Six from inviting Twilight. In that scenario, wouldn't they have already decided to honor Twilight's wishes and not disturb her, regardless of what Discord said? But if Twilight didn't say something like that, such that the rest of the Mane Six thought that Twilight would want to join them (maybe putting off her book-sort-cation), then Twilight wouldn't really have much to feel guilty about - her not joining the rest of the Mane Six would be almost entirely on Discord. And really, would Twilight have demanded that her friends not disturb her book-sort-cation for any reason? If the goal was for Twilight to relax, couldn't hanging out with her friends be a part of that? Twilight (and Spike) could even have just taken a break from book sorting and joined everyone for lunch, and maybe they would have ended up hanging out even longer after that. I don't know, it seems like Twilight should know better than to be so stupidly dogmatic about not disturbing her book-sort-cation, especially when it comes to hanging out with her best friends. After Discord's revelation that he manipulated the rest of the Mane Six into not inviting Twilight in order to teach her a lesson, it was a little surprising that the rest of the Mane Six immediately stop being amused at all by Discord's inside jokes, considering how hilarious the rest of the Mane Six found those jokes before. And then, of course, the Mane Six, including Twilight, proceed to make their own inside jokes and laugh at them at Discord's expense. I suppose the positive interpretation of all this is that (1) the rest of the Mane Six genuinely find Twilight's self-depreciating inside joke funny; (2) regardless of whether Twilight's joke was funny, all of them are miffed at Discord's manipulation of them and use this as a way get back at him; and/or (3) by laughing at Twilight's joke, the rest of the Mane Six are, in a way, apologizing to her and making her feel included again. The negative interpretation is that the rest of the Mane Six appear not to have learned any lesson about not making their friends (to the extent that Discord can be classified as a friend) feel left out by inside jokes that exclude them. And to finish everything off, Discord instantly feels bad about being left out of the Mane Six's inside jokes. I might think that Discord would be a little more resilient than that, but never mind. Twilight conjures up an orange for Discord as a reference to his now-defunct inside joke with the rest of the Mane Six, and Discord - having gotten his comeuppance, I guess - seems to immediately get over his bad feelings. Discord wraps everyone in a hug, everybody laughs together, Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six are fine with Discord, Discord's fine with them, everything's right with the world again. This all feels more than a bit rushed and forced, as though this episode really needed a happy ending, but there was only a limited time to make one (even as there were other parts of the episode that overstayed their welcome, intentionally or not). Now for my other observations that didn't fit into all the above paragraphs: Twilight's new system for organizing the books decreases search time for a book by nearly 0.75 seconds. So, assuming that she spent three 12-hour days sorting and reshelving the books, she would have to perform 172,800 book searches in order to break even with the time taken to implement this system and actually start saving time on book searches. And that's not even counting the time taken to devise the system, and whatever time and effort Spike had to put into sorting and shelving. But of course, the main point was probably for Twilight to relax and have fun devising and implementing the system, not really to increase her total efficiency or productivity. It's a little weird that Twilight refers to having a "long weekend", since that would seem to imply a regular Monday-Friday work schedule. Does Twilight have regular work hours like that? Twilight calls her and Spike's days in the library "three very productive days", but, as noted above, were those days really even about productivity? Twilight says when trying to recreate the lunch date scene that "When it comes to science, everything matters. One change to the equation could ruin the experiment". But that just raises the question of what equation she has in mind, and what the variables are in that equation. Part of scientific research is figuring out which variables are likely to be relevant and have a relationship with the outcomes you're studying. You could spend an eternity trying to account for the effect of every single variable you can think of; at some point, you have to figure that some variables won't make a significant difference in the outcome. Zecora says the cauldron in the middle of her hut is just for show, but for show to whom? I thought Zecora didn't really get many visitors. Is the potion bottle Zecora gave to Twilight magical? It seems to contain much more liquid than it should be able to, considering how long Twilight pours it out, and how long Pinkie subsequently pours it in her mouth. Discord says that Twilight's getting jealous is a "happy accident". That statement would seem to reveal the malintent on Discord's part. Also, Discord gets glee from watching the Mane Six all waste their time attempting to painstakingly recreate the lunch date from the weekend. Discord really is some kind of friend, huh?

Overall, I don't really care for this episode. While the scary sequence of events that the Mane Six went through near the end of the episode is entertaining, that's ultimately overshadowed by Fluttershy's ridiculously overblown fears, Rainbow Dash's being a jerk, and a rather unsatisfying ending. As mentioned above, probably the most frustrating aspect of the episode is Fluttershy's crippling and over-the-top fears, and how everyone reacts to them. For one thing, when Fluttershy is going through town, she seems legitimately scared (that is, not just in a temporary "jumpscare" way) by obvious Nightmare Night decorations, kids wearing fake teeth, etc., none of which pose any threat to Fluttershy whatsoever. But more than that, Fluttershy seems to carry some deep-seated fear that the fact that it's Nightmare Night puts her at a much greater risk than usual. She wants her animal friends to alert her when "something scary" comes to the cottage; she's afraid of Spike's shadow on the wall inside Twilight's castle; she doesn't want to wear costumes that would impair her vision or prevent her from getting away quickly from "something terrifying"; she doesn't want to be blindfolded because she wouldn't have the chance to defend herself from "somepony" leaping out in front of her; she doesn't want to bob for apples because she wouldn't be able to hear if she's under attack from "some kind of scary monster" appearing; and she doesn't want to eat chewy taffy for fear of her mouth being glued shut and being unable to scream for help. In every case, Fluttershy acts as though some unspecified scary monster will attack her at any second, such that she would have to run away or defend herself. But what "scary monster" exactly does she think will attack her, and why only on Nightmare Night? We don't see her this paralyzed in fear on a normal day/night, so why is Nightmare Night different? We never find out the source of Fluttershy's overblown Nightmare Night fears. And Fluttershy's reasons for declining to participate in any of the activities at the Nightmare Night party are doubly ridiculous. Obviously there's no specific reason to believe that scary monsters will appear right in front of Fluttershy when she's blindfolded, or right beside her as she's bobbing for apples, or right as she's eating chewy taffy from her candy bag. (And speaking of the candy bag, she could easily have accepted it, talked about what candy she got, and even eaten some other candy even if she feared her mouth being glued shut by chewy taffy.) But, in addition to that, she's inside Sugarcube Corner with the Mane Six literally right by her side, and many more Ponyville residents out and about outside the door. How would a monster get in and attack her in the brief period of time when she's blindfolded or bobbing for apples or eating candy? Additionally, does Fluttershy not believe that the Mane Six (or other Ponyville residents) would protect her even if a scary monster or whatever were to try to attack her? Fluttershy should be just as, if not more, safe with the Mane Six inside Sugarcube Corner in the middle of town than she would be under her bed with her animal friends out at her cottage. In light of all this, it's frustrating that none of the Mane Six ever question Fluttershy's ridiculous fears or seem to consider how they could be reduced. Why don't any of them ask Fluttershy what specifically she's afraid of? Why don't any of them make any of the above points and try to convince her that it's safe to participate in the party activities? Do they think that Fluttershy's brain is so paralyzed by paranoia that there's zero chance of reasoning her fears down to a more normal level? Maybe they didn't want to make Fluttershy uncomfortable, but it would arguably be less uncomfortable to try to reassure Fluttershy that her fears are overblown so that she can participate in party activities (provided Rainbow Dash isn't a total jerk about it) rather than having the painfully awkward silence and attempts to shift to other activities that actually occurred. I have a couple of other miscellaneous points about Fluttershy's fears and the reactions to them. One is that, in the first part of the episode, it quickly becomes tiresome to see other characters - Granny Smith, Spike, and the rest of the Mane Six - all say to Fluttershy some variation of "What are you doing out here? Don't you know it's Nightmare Night?". Considering how deep Fluttershy's fears seem to be, it's almost insulting to suggest that Fluttershy didn't realize it's Nightmare Night and that she normally wouldn't be out and about. Furthermore, we the audience already heard from Fluttershy that she's afraid of Nightmare Night and normally stays in her cottage, so we don't need to hear that repeated multiple times afterward. Finally, I'm not sure that I follow the relative ranking of fears in Fluttershy's mind. At the beginning of the episode, Fluttershy does actually leave her cottage to find food for Angel, rather than telling him to deal with not having his preferred food for one night. This would imply that Fluttershy finds Angel's disapproval more scary than venturing out on Nightmare Night to find food for him. That could be seen as being in line with Fluttershy's comment at the tea party that she couldn't imagine anything more upsetting than everyone being extremely disappointed in her. But, if others' disappointment is what Fluttershy is most afraid of, then at the Nightmare Night party, shouldn't she have tried to overcome her fears and participate in the party activities, since not doing so would probably make her friends disappointed in her? In fact, wasn't she risking her friends' disappointment by even trying to go out with them on Nightmare Night, knowing that she may not have been able to do the things that the Mane Six would want her to do? Wouldn't there have been a lower risk of disappointment if she declined Spike's invitation and holed up in her cottage like she's reliably done every other year? Another annoying aspect of the episode is Rainbow Dash's repeated tactlessness and being a jerk about Fluttershy and her fears. Even if Rainbow Dash is frustrated by Fluttershy's fears stopping her from fully participating, and her fears taking the fun out of Nightmare Night (which would be understandable), her belittling comments and reactions are unproductive and seem like a regression of her character. In the episode "Hurricane Fluttershy", Rainbow Dash seemed to learn to use more tact with Fluttershy, and that Rainbow's "harsh" tactics served only to demoralize Fluttershy and cause her to want to quit. And there are other episodes in which Rainbow successfully used a softer approach (e.g. "Sleepless In Ponyville"), but here, Rainbow seems to have forgotten those lessons, and she becomes a frustrating caricature as a result. By contrast, Rarity is very tactful throughout the episode. Finally, I found the ending of the episode unsatisfying. Fluttershy's declining to participate in Nightmare Night because it's no fun for her to see her friends feel like they're in danger, even if she knows they're not, doesn't seem to have any relation to the rest of the episode or follow from it (other than the minute or so prior to that statement). Up to that point in the episode, Fluttershy seemed primarily concerned about herself, and never mentioned or alluded to any concern about her friends being scared, or about her seeing her friends being scared. In fact, when Fluttershy set up the "scary" tea party, she seemed eager to scare her friends and see them being scared. And even if she no longer wants to see her friends being scared, that shouldn't mean that she has to revert to the previous status quo of holing up under her bed on Nightmare Night. The party activities at Sugarcube Corner weren't intended to be scary, and none of the rest of the Mane Six were scared when doing them, so why couldn't Fluttershy go to a Nightmare Night party like that and just skip the haunted maze or other scary activities? In fact, the first part of the episode seems to lead to a somewhat different moral: if you say you want to do an activity with your friends, you should really commit to it and follow through with it; and if you don't think you can, or if doing so would result in your friends having to make excessive accommodations for you, then the polite thing to do would be to decline that activity, and your friends should respect that decision. Now for my other miscellaneous observations: I don't know why Granny Smith is giving the whole pitch for the Apple Family Haunted Maze to Fluttershy. Has Fluttershy never heard about the Apple family's maze before? And regardless, wouldn't Fluttershy not be expected to want to go to the maze anyway? Also, Granny Smith acts puzzled that Fluttershy ran away screaming from her "scary" description of the maze, but what did Granny Smith expect? She already knew that Fluttershy is easily scared, especially on Nightmare Night. The bones in the maze would have to be pretty brittle if they're crunching under ponies' hooves. The front door to Twilight's castle is apparently unlocked, even though Twilight and company are far away elsewhere in the castle and wouldn't even be able to notice if someone came in. It's interesting that Rainbow Dash is fine with being scared, or at least acting scared, around her friends on several occasions in this episode: when telling stories in Twilight's library, when seeing Granny Smith wearing a horse head at the beginning of the maze, when initially hearing the "bones" being crunched underhoof, etc. Rainbow asks Fluttershy where her costume is when she emerges from the changing room, but she's obviously wearing something when she normally doesn't, so it's not like she doesn't have a costume at all. Why doesn't Fluttershy go with any of Pinkie's suggestions of what her costume is? Are all of Pinkie's suggestions too scary? How is Rainbow spinning around so fast before she pins the horn on Nightmare Moon? Do her costume's hooves have extremely low friction with the floor? Also, was Pinkie's spin really that strong? Does Pinkie normally make a bag of candy for Fluttershy and give it to her later? After all, Fluttershy's presence at the party would not have been expected. I suppose Pinkie could have the extra candy and time on hand to whip up another bag before the party. Regarding Fluttershy's "scary" tea party, Rarity makes the point that Fluttershy wasn't going for the right kind of scares for Nightmare Night, but there's another issue with the entire set-up. At the tea party, the rest of the Mane Six are the guests and Fluttershy is the host. So Fluttershy's attempts to scare the rest of the Mane Six by showing horrors of being a bad host - not having any sugar, an invited friend not showing up, having unplanned guests without enough food for them - don't work, because they (correctly) see themselves as guests. If anything, Fluttershy's "scary" criticisms about being a bad host would fall on Fluttershy herself. Pinkie also gets in on Rainbow Dash's tactlessness by saying "I actually thought she had an idea for something really scary for a second there" when Fluttershy is right behind her and well within earshot. Why is the Mane Six's first reaction to seeing "ghosts" floating behind them to run away screaming? Do they think the ghosts are going to hurt them? What if, say, the ghosts just want to ask a favor of them so that they can go on to the afterlife? I'm surprised that Harry the bear agreed to act the part of a monster trying to attack the Mane Six. After all, if the idea is to make the Mane Six believe that they are really in danger, then wouldn't there be a good chance that Harry would be beat up, zapped with magic, or even killed? Why do the Mane Six just sit and cower in fear of Flutterbat at the edge of the cliff? For one thing, it's strange that the Mane Six seem not to recognize Flutterbat as such, considering that we the audience can see her perfectly fine. If the Mane Six did recognize her, then why don't they wonder how that transformation happened again and start planning how to transform Fluttershy back? And if they didn't recognize Flutterbat, then if they legitimately feared being bitten or something, why not fight or run away? Why does Fluttershy say "Oh my!" and act so concerned and apologetic upon seeing the Mane Six scared at her Flutterbat routine? Was their being scared not expected and intended by Fluttershy? How did just one or two birds with a sheet over them make the ghost shapes that they did? How does Fluttershy have different-colored irises for her Flutterbat costume? Are there such a thing as contact lenses in Equestria? It's hard for me to imagine how a non-unicorn would put those in. Fluttershy says "Fuzzy Legs made the sticky wall that made it difficult for you to see and move", but what did the spider web do to make it difficult for the Mane Six to see? It didn't seem to obstruct their vision or anything. Was that intended to refer to making it difficult for them to turn their heads or something? The Mane Six want Fluttershy to do an elaborate plan to scare them every year, but wasn't it especially scary this time precisely because they didn't expect it? It seems like a lot of pressure for Fluttershy to try to come up with innovative ways to scare them year after year, probably with diminishing returns. Finally, at the end of the episode, the window from Fluttershy's bedroom is lit up from the outside, as though she has the main lights on, but then inside the room, the light is almost completely contained under the bed. Also, Fluttershy's bed doesn't look it's nearly high enough off the floor for Fluttershy to be able to sit up under the bed with room to spare.

Overall, this is another episode that I find boring, unrelatable, and a little annoying. The conflicts of the episode just seem contrived, and there are several scenes and lines of dialogue that were reptitive and pointless. I don't relate to the desire to share holiday traditions and get into the holiday spirit which drives a lot of the episode, and so I probably didn't enjoy this episode as much as others who are into that kind of thing. Perhaps the biggest issue with the episode is that most, if not all, of the conflict could have easily been resolved with a little communication prior to Hearth's Warming Eve, and a little common consideration and tact on the actual day. For example, rather than the Apples wrongly assuming that the Pies make the same dishes for Hearth's Warming Eve dinner that they do, why not make some basic dinner plans with the Pies? Why didn't the Apple family offer to make a few of their favorite dishes for the Hearth's Warming Eve dinner to share with the Pie family? That seems like a pretty common and nice thing to do (at least to us), and then they could have at least eaten some of their own dishes at dinner and made it less awkward. And of course, the Pies shouldn't have assumed that the Apples want to eat rocks if that's not a common thing in Equestria (and as far as we can tell, it isn't). And while Applejack and the Apples shouldn't have been repeatedly shocked and dismayed that the Pies' traditions were not exactly the same as theirs, the Pies should also have realized that the Apples weren't really enjoying, or even understanding, their traditional Hearth's Warming activities. This seems like pretty basic stuff that could have easily been figured out, and consequently, the episode comes off as contrived, annoying, and boring. On a personal note, I don't relate to the desire shown in this episode to share family holiday traditions with friends and their families, or to get into the holiday spirit. My family has never made a particularly big deal about holidays, and there are several holidays on which my family doesn't do anything special at all. Consequently, my family has few holiday traditions, and we don't take those especially seriously. So the characters in this episode taking their holiday traditions a little too seriously or needing to explain their traditions to the other family or wanting to create new traditions together aren't things that I've really had to deal with. Another thing I find annoying about this episode is all the talk about the Apples and Pies being related. Recall from the "Pinkie Apple Pie" episode that Applejack (and her siblings) and Pinkie (and her siblings) MIGHT be fourth cousins twice removed. So (1) this genealogical relationship between the Apple and Pie families is NOT confirmed, and (2) even if it were, it's so distant that it's effectively irrelevant - the friendship between Pinkie and the Apple family is far more important than their speculative genealogical relationship. So I think that the repeated harping on how Applejack and Pinkie (or Big Mac and Marble, for that matter) are "cousins" and how the Apples and Pies should be "one big happy family" is obnoxious and pointless, and I would be happy with the show never mentioning it again. And I found Applejack and Pinkie doing and saying things in sync, just because they "might be related", especially stupid and obnoxious. Now for my other miscellaneous observations: Since when did Twilight's castle have a fireplace and a chimney? Have we ever seen a chimney on the outside of the castle? And Twilight and Spike just chuckle at Pinkie falling out of their chimney, rather than asking what she's doing there or telling her that it's dangerous to attempt a stunt like that, considering the chimney might be too small, she could get stuck on the damper, etc. Despite having soot on her, Pinkie doesn't get any soot on anybody else when hugging or touching them. It's a little strange that when Applejack says "And tomorrow, we open presents!", Pinkie says "We do that too!", considering that Pinkie says later that her family usually doesn't find or get any presents. Applejack asks "What if our families don't like each other?", and Pinkie simply asserts that they're friends, and after tonight, their families will be, too. But obviously Pinkie and Applejack being friends is no guarantee that all of their family members will become friends; Pinkie needs to give other plausible reasons why she would expect that to happen. The specks of rock that Maud points out on Applejack's hoof apparently didn't come off while she was going about her usual business, and didn't wash off in the bath/shower - or Applejack hasn't taken a bath/shower since she went sledding. Pinkie calls Marble her "baby" sister who will "always be a baby to me", but what kind of twin treats his/her twin brother/sister like that, just because of who came out first? That seems condescending and mean to me. My twin brothers and my family certainly don't act that way. If the flag goes on "the highest point", does that mean that Holder's boulder is taller than the Pie's silo? Earlier in the episode, it looked as though the silo was the tallest thing on their farm. Where did Applejack get all of the things to decorate the Pies' farm her way overnight? And regarding Applejack's plans to cook up an Apple-style meal, if the Pies don't have all the necessary ingredients (and they likely wouldn't), then they would have to go out and get them. But wouldn't the stores be closed on a major holiday like that? Even if there were a fault line coincidentally running through the Pie farm, we would hardly expect planting a flagpole on it to be enough to split the ground open and cause an earthquake. It would be more likely that the blasting or whatever the Pies did to open the mine on the farm would cause such things. Finally, what's the difference between Maud's "singing" Hearth's Warming carols that she wrote and reading poetry that she wrote?

I think it's implied in the episode that Mayor Mare, as well as Featherweight and the furniture store salespony, found out about the baby from Shining Armor and Cadance when they were setting up the scavenger hunt, since the clues for it were in the Foal Free Press, the town hall records room, and the furniture store.

Overall, I thought that this episode was boring and obnoxious. I found the singular premise of the episode - "Watch Pinkie struggle to keep the news of Shining Armor's and Cadance's baby secret!" - to be totally ridiculous and unrelatable. And the "coincidental" dialogue and situations (e.g. Shining Armor and Cadance bursting in just as Pinkie is about to reveal the secret) and the occasional self-aware lines (e.g. Pinkie saying "You're right, spooky reflection of Rarity that I know is actually my own imagination"), rather than being funny, only served to underscore the ridiculousness of the episode. First, I just don't get the enormity of Pinkie's struggle to keep the news secret. We've seen Pinkie take keeping secrets seriously on the show before, and she presumably has had to keep secrets (even exciting ones) in her line of work as a party planner. And in light of these things, I don't buy the explanation that "This time is different, because the secret is really exciting!". I also don't believe that Pinkie's not having made a Pinkie Promise is particularly relevant; if Mrs. Cake had insisted on a Pinkie Promise to keep the secret, would Pinkie really have magically gained some resolve to keep the secret which she didn't possess in the course of the episode? I also couldn't help noticing that, as soon as Pinkie read that Shining Armor and Cadance are having a baby, her immediate reaction was to go and tell Twilight. Even if Shining Armor and Cadance didn't specifically ask for it to be kept top secret, wouldn't it still be inconsiderate for Pinkie to rush over and tell Twilight such personal news? Wouldn't that be considered a selfish intrusion on Shining Armor's and Cadance's prerogative to tell Twilight (and be there for her reaction) themselves in their own way? It's worth noting that the ponies from which Pinkie is keeping the secret don't know that she's keeping the secret. So no one is bugging her to reveal the surprise, and she shouldn't have to lie to or mislead anyone; all she has to do is be normal and go about business as usual. But of course, in this episode, Pinkie demonstrates an inability to do that. On several occasions, Pinkie needlessly brings suspicion on herself by acting dodgy when there's absolutely no reason to. For example, when Rarity asks Pinkie "What's all this about a baby?" after Pinkie was legitimately talking about Pound Cake, why is it so hard for Pinkie to just say that she was talking about Gummy having Pound Cake's pacifier? Or when Pinkie has to make deliveries and she says that it didn't feel good to ignore her friends like she did, why didn't she give an explanation like "Hey, Mr. Cake gave me a lot of urgent deliveries to make, so I don't have time to talk right now"? And I know that most of these situations are supposed to be humorous, but as I mentioned before, to me they just came across as ridiculous. Furthermore, why is Pinkie in danger of telling random ponies in Ponyville about the surprise? Would they really be excited about that news? Why would the average residents of Ponyville care that Shining Armor and Cadance are having a baby, considering that it's unlikely that they know Shining Armor or Cadance personally or that those two do anything that directly impacts their lives? And that brings me to another point - that I just don't relate to Pinkie (or others, for that matter) being incredibly excited about the news that Shining Armor and Cadance are having a baby, to the point that she's bursting to tell not just Twilight, but any random resident of Ponyville. I honestly can't think of any secret that I might hold about which I would be so incredibly excited that I couldn't just keep it to myself and go about my business as usual if necessary. Even if I found out that one of my own siblings were to have a baby (which I don't anticipate happening any time soon), and I were to become an uncle, I still wouldn't have anything like the reaction that Pinkie had, or even that Twilight had (which was more restrained by comparison). Finally, the side story about Twilight decorating Shining Armor's room in the castle with his childhood toys, just because he's coming to visit, strikes me as being just plain weird, especially since Twilight doesn't know the real reason for his and Cadance's visit. I was initially baffled by Twilight being so excited about this surprise, but then we see Shining Armor whinnying in excitement and swinging Twilight around, and according to Twilight, he couldn't stop raving about it. I just don't get why having some childhood toys in Shining Armor's room would spark such an over-the-top reaction from him. Is seeing some of one's childhood toys really that exciting? Plus, if Cadance is sleeping in the same room with him, I guess she'd better learn to like his childhood stuff being around. Now just a handful of other observations: So the "very special order" for which "the ingredients need to be perfect" is the small get-together at the end of the episode with the Mane Six, the Cakes, and Shining Armor and Cadance? That seems to me like a pretty standard event for which to make an order. Pinkie sitting on one of the roots in the chandelier really puts into perspective just how big the chandelier is, and how big the room must be to contain it. After revealing the surprise, Shining Armor immediately brohoofs and chats up the one other guy in the room (other than Pound Cake), Mr. Cake. Maybe he's not interested in all that girl talk going on over there. And perhaps in the world of Equestria, where males seem to be in the minority, guys gotta look out for each other, right? Why did Pinkie lie to Cadance about how much trouble it was to keep their secret? Maybe if she were truthful about it, she wouldn't have to be entrusted with such secrets in the future, and she wouldn't have to go through all the shenanigans that occurred in this episode.

Overall, this was a decent episode. While I probably didn't have nearly as much of an emotional reaction as others have posted, this episode did manage to bring on some of "the feels", which is more than can be said for other episodes this season which also aimed to do that. I was actually surprised that the CMC got their cutie marks in this episode; as I was watching, I thought that Diamond Tiara's redemption would be enough of a major event for one episode, but then we got the bonus of the CMC getting their cutie marks, too. I'm glad that the CMC have their cutie marks, and that we can finally move on from the CMC asking "What zany thing can we try to do to get our cutie marks today?!". However, one thing I'm not a particular fan of in this episode is making so much of it into choreographed song sequences. I think doing so led to the episode feeling a bit rushed and having to gloss over some things which I would have liked to see more detail about. For example, in Diamond Tiara's first song, she sings a little about the pressure her parents put on her, but I wish we could see more about Diamond Tiara's home life and its effects on her. Or, for another example, in the ending song Rainbow Dash says that Scootaloo has taught her a thing or two, but I really would have liked to hear Rainbow Dash say what exactly those things were, since we haven't seen much of the two of them spending time together. The song sequences also led to some awkward/weird moments, such as the CMC running backward as fast as Diamond Tiara running forward, and Rainbow Dash singing to Scootaloo with an unnatural cadence. While Diamond Tiara's redemption in this episode is heartwarming, I still find it a little problematic. Diamond Tiara asks in her song "Would you believe that I've always wished I could be somepony else?", to which I would reply "No, I don't believe that". She also says that "I can't see what I need to do to be the pony I want to be", which implies that she's not the pony she wants to be right now, but since when has that been the case? A lot of people on the forums are saying that Diamond Tiara now has an excuse for the things she's done over the course of the show - that her controlling/abusive mother pressured her into doing them. However, it seems to me that many of the cruel things Diamond Tiara has done have gone above and beyond the requirements of pleasing her mother. In other words, if Diamond Tiara really wanted to be somepony else, and didn't really want to belittle and sabotage the CMC and their classmates, it seems like she could have gotten away with doing much less of that and still met her mother's expectations. The more plausible explanation to me is that Diamond Tiara's mother did teach her (and expect her) to act like a "winner", not associate with her inferior classmates, etc., and Diamond Tiara sincerely believed those things and acted on them. But after the triple punch of not a single other classmate voting for her, Silver Spoon abandoning her, and her mother yelling at her, Diamond Tiara started to realize that her current trajectory is leaving her friendless and miserable, and so she becomes open to changing her ways. With this explanation, her turnaround in behavior/attitude in this episode is still rather sudden and perhaps not entirely believable, but her past actions would still make sense. I would also expect Diamond Tiara's parents to push back against her newfound attitude and not just accept it, so I wonder if the relationship between Diamond Tiara and her parents will be explored on the show some time in the future. Regarding the CMC's cutie marks, I'm okay with them and how they got them, for the most part. It is a little ironic that the CMC have been told throughout the show to be patient and not worry so much/try so hard to get their cutie marks, and sure enough, as soon as the CMC resolve to help others discover their talents and cutie marks, rather than focusing on their own, they get their cutie marks. I suppose that, with the three of them getting such similar cutie marks at the same time, we lose some potential episodes in which, for example, one or two of the CMC get their cutie marks, leaving the other one(s) anxious, disappointed, etc. However, in exchange, there could be future episodes in which the CMC try to help others discover their talents/cutie marks. One thing I can't help wondering about is whether, given that the CMC's cutie marks and what they represent are so similar, the CMC are destined to be friends forever. Will their childhood friendship and shared talent last into adulthood and beyond? After all, it's not uncommon for childhood friendships to break up or fall by the wayside. Another issue is that I'm not sure that I'm entirely on board with the idea that the Cutie Mark Crusaders' talent is in helping others get their cutie marks and discover their true talents. Apple Bloom says that when the CMC take a little time off from trying to discover their true talent, they end up helping others figure out their true talents. However, other than this episode, the only obvious example I can come up with in which this happens is "Appleoosa's Most Wanted" with Trouble Shoes. I'm not sure that I can think of another episode where the CMC assist someone else in discovering his or her true talent or cutie mark. The CMC ultimately help Babs Seed not to be such a jerk in "One Bad Apple", but that doesn't really have a direct connection to her discovering her true talent or getting her cutie mark in hairstyling. Hopefully the CMC's talent and how they use it will be explored on the show in the future. Now for my other miscellaneous observations: At the beginning of the episode, there's a poster of activities which the CMC tried to do on the wall. On that poster, wouldn't it have been easier to write the activites down as words (sewing, bowling, etc.), rather than drawing pictures? The CMC agree to be Pipsqueak's campaign manager and knock hooves, and when Pipsqueak can't reach, rather than lowering their hooves a little, Sweetie Belle uses magic to levitate Pipsqueak up to them. In this case, the episode's creators probably just wanted to have a cute moment and to show off Sweetie Belle using her magic. Pipsqueak says that the playground equipment took quite a beating in Twilight's battle with Tirek, but when did that happen? We saw Twilight's battle with Tirek take place almost entirely in the non-descript countryside, and as far as I remember, the Golden Oaks Library was the only time during that battle that Tirek destroyed or damaged any pony-made structures. Diamond Tiara says that Pipsqueak's proposal of getting new playground equipment is a ridiculous waste of money, and then, in a non sequitur, says that's just like when Twist proposed to replace the broken window that Discord destroyed with a plain schoolhouse window, whereas Diamond Tiara got it replaced with what looks like a stained glass window of herself. Wouldn't Twist's proposal for a plain window be the more fiscally responsible one? Wouldn't Diamond Tiara's stained glass window of herself be a ridiculous waste of money by comparison? How does Diamond Tiara know these embarrassing secrets about her classmates? Are they from her stint as editor-as-chief of The Foal Free Press back in "Ponyville Confidential"? Or does Diamond Tiara (or her lackeys) spy on her classmates for this very purpose? That would be funny considering that she derisively asks the CMC later if they're trying to get cutie marks in spying. The girl with the super strength seems to be lifting the entire foundation of a building to retrieve a ball, but how would the ball have even gotten there in the first place? So the fact that the CMC didn't get their cutie marks in campaign management is proof, in Diamond Tiara's mind, that Pipsqueak didn't really win, and there must be a recount? A recount would typically only be in order when the election results are close enough that a recount could change the winner. That obviously turned out not to be the case, but it does raise the question of why it was only announced that Pipsqueak won the election, and not what the vote counts or vote percentages were. Also, would the candidate herself be permitted to recount the votes? At the CMC's clubhouse, Diamond Tiara says that she isn't struggling at all to figure out who she's supposed to be and what she's supposed to be doing with her cutie mark, and when Apple Bloom asks "Are you sure about that?" Diamond Tiara testily says "That's a weird question". I don't think it's a weird question, but not just because the CMC overheard Diamond Tiara the previous day, but also because her statement sounded bitter, sarcastic and insincere. Pipsqueak comes screaming to the CMC for help after his request for new playground equipment was turned down at the school board meeting, and I feel like telling him "Hey, you're the student pony president, you figure it out". Why did everyone bother to elect him if he's just going to go screaming to the CMC for help when things don't go his way? When Diamond Tiara is running to the school, the CMC tell her that she can try another start, and point to what looks like a sunny gazebo with a rainbow over it. What is that location, exactly? If Diamond Tiara chose to go there, where would she (literally) be going? Is that just a nice location to sit and reflect, or maybe to talk with the CMC after they find a solution to Pipsqueak's problem? When Diamond Tiara arrives at the school, why are all those kids there? Weren't they already released from school for the day? Is there some after-school activity in which Diamond Tiara and the CMC aren't participating? Are all these kids' parents at the school board meeting, and they were just dragged along? Are they just all eagerly waiting for the end of the school board meeting to see if the new playground equipment is approved? If so, then what would be the point of Diamond Tiara rushing over there to be the first one to announce the news to them? Spoiled Rich berates Diamond Tiara for "associating with confused, insignificant lowlifes", a.k.a. her classmates, and says that "socializing with their kind is not how you move up in Equestria". If that's the case, and if Spoiled Rich really holds such disdain for Diamond Tiara's classmates, then why is Diamond Tiara even attending this school? Why is Spoiled Rich even serving on the school board? If that's what she thinks, then why isn't she, say, sending Diamond Tiara to a prestigious private school that would build "good" associations and reputation? Diamond Tiara says that her mother doesn't have friends, but we would obviously expect her to have certain associations and social circles with rich ponies, at least; we even see her and Filthy Rich making small talk with a group of rich ponies as Diamond Tiara and the CMC are running over to the school. So I guess we're meant to assume that her pretentiousness, obsession with social standing, etc. has left her without any "true" friends who care for her. It would be nice to actually see this, though, rather than just having Diamond Tiara say it without elaboration. Diamond Tiara asks the kid with the "super teeth" to help move a teeter-totter, but I wouldn't think that having big teeth would necessarily mean having super jaw muscle strength, although that apparently turns out to be the case. The flash of the picture at the end of the episode occurs as the CMC are in the middle of singing, yet they aren't singing in the actual picture Celestia and Luna see. Also, who's in the picture seems a bit random: the CMC, some of their classmates, Miss Cheerilee, the Mane Six, and Spike are in, but not any of the rest of Apple Bloom's or Sweetie Belle's family or any of the other townsfolk who were celebrating earlier.

Overall, I found this episode pretty ordinary; nothing really interesting or unexpected happens, and I don't foresee watching this episode again anytime soon. Apple Bloom's over-the-top praising of Applejack, her obliviousness to Big Mac's feelings, and her moping around after Applejack is gone just warrant an eye roll and an "Oh well, I guess kids will be kids" reaction from me. And Big Mac's antics at the Social were more-or-less standard cartoon fare. I was thinking as Big Mac is smashing through the obstacle course that that shouldn't really be allowed, since he's not going through it as intended, and as it turns out, it wasn't allowed. At least it's nice to see Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo working together in this episode. As for the ending scene with Big Mac and Apple Bloom, while I can see the feelings that were supposed to be evoked, I wasn't really feeling them, myself. I guess I don't really relate to Big Mac's feelings or his situation, particularly all the talk about being a "hero" to Apple Bloom. "Hero" seems like a strong word to use, and something which it may not necessarily be realistic to aspire to be. I'm the second oldest of nine kids, and I don't know that I've ever been my siblings' "hero", but then, I don't feel like I've tried to be their hero, either. For me, it's plenty good enough if my siblings and I are good friends, if we help each other out when we can and learn some things from each other to make our lives a little bit better - no need to be a "hero". Here are my other noteworthy observations from the episode (not so many this time around): Granny Smith and Big Mac are looking for the ribbon from when they hosted the very first Social so they can give it to the winner this time, but why would the Apple family have the winner's ribbon from the first Social? Wouldn't the winner of the first Social have the ribbon? Did the Apple family both host and win the first Social? Apple Bloom tells Big Mac to "hold that thought" just so that she can tell Applejack that she's "the most awesome sister ever". Did that really require interrupting Big Mac? That thought just couldn't wait until after Big Mac said what he wanted to say? Applejack tells Apple Bloom that her being summoned by the Cutie Map might just be a false alarm, but has being summoned by the Map ever been a false alarm? Bringing that up as a possibility seems to be just setting Apple Bloom up for disappointment if that's never happened before and there's no reason to suppose that it would happen. Apple Bloom asks Applejack "Can't you just tell that map it'll have to wait a couple days?", to which Applejack doesn't really have a good answer. That makes me wonder what would happen if some (or all) of the Mane Six were summoned somewhere and they didn't immediately go to solve the problem. Would they continue to get "called" until they went and solved the problem? Would the Cutie Map ever summon them for a legitimate emergency, e.g., some situation where death or serious injury would result if they didn't immediately respond? The friendship problems for which the Map has summoned the Mane Six so far haven't really been emergencies in that sense. If the judges knew all along that Big Mac was pretending to be a lady, then they could have just said "Okay, since Applejack isn't here, we'll let you compete in her place this time", so Big Mac's whole charade could have been avoided. I suppose that some of the other competitors and/or spectators might have complained, although the judges could have pointedly only allowed it in Applejack's absence, or they could have cited their "loose policy" about what counts as a sister. Since Big Mac was revealed in the end, they still might get some of those complaints anyway. Maybe the judges didn't want to set a bad precedent of allowing all kinds of other non-sisters to compete, but then again, they didn't keep their "loose policy" a secret after Big Mac was revealed. So I'm not really sure what the judges were thinking. When Apple Bloom and Big Mac are jump roping, is there a reason why Big Mac can't, or won't, jump over the rope? Is it supposedly "unladylike" to jump? When Big Mac flings the bale of hay behind him during the race, why don't Berry Punch and her sister attempt to move out of the way (e.g. to the side), rather than stopping in their tracks, watching in horror, and flinching as the bale of hay nearly lands on them? During the part of the race where the competitors have to balance an egg on their muzzles and carry it to the basket, one of the kids is carrying the egg on her hat instead. Is that really allowed? Was her carrying the egg like that approved ahead of time? Apple Bloom tells Big Mac "Guess both of us have been holdin' back when it comes to expressin' ourselves"...except for when it comes to telling Applejack how awesome she is, as seen in the beginning of the episode.

Overall, if I had to rank Friendship Games, I would probably place it above Equestria Girls (the first movie), but below Rainbow Rocks. My main issue with this movie might be that, when compared to the redemption arc of Sunset Shimmer in Rainbow Rocks, I didn't find Twilight's behavior and the situations into which she was thrown to be as relatable or engaging. Twilight was blackmailed into competing in the Friendship Games, and for most of the movie, Twilight seems to be passively stumbling through situations: just trying to get through the Games, often allowing herself to be pushed around by Principal Cinch and the Shadowbolts, and all the while her magic device acts on its own with Twilight being clueless as to how or why. Speaking of which, one of the bigger problems I had in the movie was with Twilight's magic-detecting and magic-gathering device, and how she acted with it. Something that is never explained in the movie is how/why the magic device acts on its own to suck up magic, and how/why it's able to create portals to random locations in Equestria. Given that Twilight built the device herself, why does she have no clue how it can do these things? Furthermore, even after seeing the magic device repeatedly act on its own, possibly harm the Mane Six in sucking the magic out of them, create portals to some mysterious location, and do all this with Twilight struggling (and failing) to control or stop the device, Twilight blithely continues to carry the device around and enable it to "do its thing". After the device started doing all of these things, Twilight should have done something with it, like put it in a safe place where it couldn't access potential sources of magic, and later on, perhaps try to dismantle the device in a safe environment. In the movie, though, Twilight repeatedly puts the Mane Six and everyone else at risk by recklessly continuing to carry the device around and let it suck up more and more magic. Another big issue I had with the movie was the climax. First, Principal Cinch's song convincing Twilight to open the magic device, and especially her statements to the effect of "unleash the magic so we don't lose the opportunity to gain knowledge and understand magic!", really shouldn't be convincing to Twilight. For one thing, Principal Cinch and the rest of the Crystal Prep students obviously have no academic interest in how the magic works, and outright say so. Also, just opening the device and seeing what happens hardly seems like a good way of learning about the device or the magic contained in it. Wouldn't Twilight learn more by examining the device more closely later, and perhaps opening it in a controlled environment where the effects are more easily monitored and contained? And declining to use the device in the final event of the Friendship Games would not constitute any kind of obvious "lost opportunity"; the device presumably could easily be opened at some later time. But the biggest point against opening the device (which Twilight fails to mention to Principal Cinch and the Crystal Prep students) is that doing so is a clear risk to everyone there, including Crystal Prep students. Twilight (and Principal Cinch, for that matter) knows that the device creates dangerous portals, and could do something even worse, since no one understands how it works. Principal Cinch says "Isn't understanding magic worth the cost?" but the obvious answer should be "No", considering how dangerous opening the device has proven to be. However, Twilight gives in to the pressure and bad arguments and opens the magic device, which sets off a baffling series of events. The unleashed magic causes Twilight to transform into a demon and begin firing off portals to Equestria, including firing them directly at where other people are standing. And when Sunset Shimmer says that Twilight is destroying this world to get to the magic of Equestria, Twilight says "So what? There's more magic there, and I want to understand it all!". Why would the Equestrian magic collected from the Mane Six cause Twilight to transform into a demon? And why does demon Twilight have this "Gain knowledge at all costs!" mentality, including directly putting many people's lives at risk and possibly destroying the world? It's hard to believe that the magic collected from the Mane Six is itself evil. And I don't think we see any precedent in the movie prior to Twilight opening the magic device for Twilight to deliberately disregard the lives of others (and even actively try to harm them) and disregard the fate of the world in a single-minded quest for knowledge. Some people have suggested that Twilight's being blackmailed, bullied, and pushed around could have played a role in her transformation, but we also don't see Twilight expressing anger or a desire for revenge against Principal Cinch or Crystal Prep students at any point in the movie, even when she's transformed. So I just don't understand how or why the Mane Six's collected magic transforms Twilight into a demon. Consequently, Twilight's "redemption" and transformation back into a human doesn't make much sense to me, either. Sunset Shimmer collects even more of the Mane Six's magic in Twilight's device, but this time, the collected magic inexplicably turns Sunset into a powerful good being. And after a brief duel, Sunset's stream of magic overwhelms demon Twilight's, which then takes Sunset and Twilight into a void of some kind. Sunset then asks Twilight to take her hand and let her show Twilight there's another way, and Twilight tearfully does so, leading to the two of them transforming back to normal. But why does demon Twilight take Sunset's hand and transform back into a human? Is it just because she was defeated by Sunset? Is it because she somehow saw past the single-minded quest for knowledge and saw the harm she would have caused? If so, how/why did that happen? The movie doesn't make this very clear. So, in consideration of the above, I find the climax of Twilight turning into a demon and her subsequent transformation back into a human puzzling and unsatisfying, even as the movie ultimately comes to the expected happy ending. Now, I'll post some of my other miscellaneous observations, in mostly movie order (and there are a lot of them): Sunset Shimmer says "I got your text Rainbow Dash", then she and Pinkie start going through a laundry list of potential emergencies, rather than just letting Rainbow say what the emergency is. This happens again later when Rainbow says that she's totally figured out who was examining the statue; Pinkie starts pointlessly running down a laundry list, rather than just letting Rainbow explain. Fluttershy was about to tuck everyone in for the night at the shelter? It looks to be mid-afternoon or so; do the animals at the shelter really go to sleep when it's bright outside? Fluttershy also says that she'll have to start stories all over again, but do a bunch of animals understand and care about whatever stories Fluttershy was telling? Why would Rainbow send an emergency text to all of the rest of the Mane Six if the emergency is a broken guitar string? Do all of the rest of the Mane Six own guitars, or carry spare guitar strings around? Why not first text Sunset, since she's a fellow guitar player and the most likely one to have a spare string (as she actually did in the movie). Rainbow plays her guitar without an amp or a speaker, but it sounds as though she's using one. Why does Sunset decline to go with the rest of the Mane Six and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, other than because she needed to see human Twilight examining the Wondercolts statue? Her entry in the diary addressed to Twilight doesn't seem particularly urgent. Did Twilight's touching the Wondercolts statue while holding some device in her other hand really warrant Sunset's suspicion and questioning Twilight on what she was doing? What Twilight was doing could have been totally innocent. Was Sunset worried that Twilight would discover the portal, and maybe accidentally go through it or something? Would Twilight have even been able to discover the portal? Sunset later says that Twilight was definitely doing something to the statue (or was going to), but was that really so definite? Why does Sunset act as though she's not aware of (or at least not aware of the extent of) the rivalry between Canterlot High and Crystal Prep? Sunset has been attending Canterlot High for over three years at this point, so I would think that Sunset would have heard about the rivalry at some point in all that time. The gym and the bleachers at the initial announcement/pep rally about the Friendship Games are surprisingly empty. Wouldn't this be a required event for the whole school to attend? And wouldn't the entire student body be bigger than what we see there? In Rainbow's song, she sings about how "we've fought magic more than once and come out on top" and how "we overcame the obstacles we faced" with pictures of the transformed Sunset Shimmer and the Sirens. But, of course, the "we" in those lyrics consists only of the Mane Seven (and perhaps Vinyl). The student body which Rainbow is firing up with her song, far from fighting magic and overcoming obstacles, were actually victims that needed to be saved in both of the previous movies. Funnily enough, the Mane Six - the ones who did actually fight magic and overcome obstacles - are the ones who compete in the final set of events, so maybe Rainbow's song is appropriate after all. It's hard for me to imagine what books Sunset would be reading in the school library when trying to figure out why Rainbow Dash "ponied up". How did Twilight come to have her own room at Crystal Prep where she keeps random equipment, test tubes of mystery liquids, her computers, etc.? The bare concrete walls and visible pipes make it seem like a back room that Twilight secretly appropriated for her own use without permission. But Dean Cadance apparently knows that Twilight can be found there, and seems to have no shock or objection about the room. So was Twilight given the room as a place to conduct research? Or maybe because she's such a star student? During Twilight's song (and as we've seen in the previous movies), while some students are in class, Twilight is in her private room, and other students seem to be just hanging around in the hallways and the lobby. This seems strange for the equivalent of a high school. In my experience, students' schedules in high school were highly structured, and during class times, all the students at school had to be in their classrooms (or in the cafeteria at lunchtime), and the hallways and lobbies were almost completely empty. Shining Armor would be an alumnus (singular), not "an alumni" (plural), which is what Dean Cadance says. Principal Cinch can't understand why Twilight, the best student at Crystal Prep, wouldn't want to compete in the Friendship Games. Of course, Twilight may just not want to participate in a social activity, or she may have other research she wants to work on instead. But one obvious and understandable reason would be that the Friendship Games include athletic events, and Twilight does not seem to be athletic at all. What's the big deal about Canterlot High starting to develop a reputation? I don't see why Canterlot High's reputation going up would have any significant bearing on Crystal Prep's reputation. Is there really any significant danger of students/families who would have chosen to attend Crystal Prep choosing to attend Canterlot High instead? The two schools are located some distance from each other and seem to be serving students/families of different income levels and cultures, assuming that both are private schools. When Twilight was pushed by Indigo Zap and knocked over Sunny Flare, why didn't Twilight say that she was pushed, rather than saying "I didn't mean to"? What do Canterlot High's years of losses at the Friendship Games have to do with whether Canterlot High's ideals are misguided? Are the Friendship Games intended to be a test of the validity of the two school's ideals? Spike is supposedly shocked and hurt that Twilight ran away after he started talking. But then Spike acknowledges that his talking, and the events that transpired outside, are weird, so wouldn't that be a sufficient explanation for Twilight's behavior? It's hard to believe that one of the Friendship Games events is motocross, especially considering that the students don't know ahead of time what the events will be. Was it really expected that high school students advancing to that round of events would be trained in and experienced with motocross, such that they wouldn't end up seriously injuring somebody? When Applejack is trying to help Twilight with her archery, Sour Sweet yells at Twilight for taking advice from a competitor. But is it good advice or not? If so, then why chastise Twilight about it? And if not, then why doesn't Sour Sweet give correct advice to help her teammate, and thus her team, win? Also, it's a bit contrived that, after Applejack's pro tip, Twilight hits a bullseye on her first attempt. Applejack tells Twilight when to let the arrow go to hit a bullseye, but, for one thing, wouldn't that require Applejack to know where Twilight is aiming, since the target is moving in a big circle? Neither Twilight nor Applejack say anything about where Twilight is aiming (e.g. "try to aim at 3 o'clock"), so can Applejack tell just by looking? Also, is it realistic for Applejack to be accurate enough in saying when to fire that she managed to account for Twilight's delayed reaction to her command, the speed at which Twilight would fire, and the speed at which the target is moving? Furthermore, while Twilight did manage to get one arrow in the vicinity of where the bullseye would be (at the wrong time), she also missed the mark on several other attempts, so it would seem more plausible for Twilight to not quite hit a bullseye right away. The boost which Rarity gave Pinkie in speed skating using her leg seemed absurdly strong, looking at the speed at which Pinkie skated after doing that. In the motocross race, after Sugarcoat is grabbed by a killer plant and Sunset Shimmer wipes out, everybody clearly should have stopped the race and agreed to a rematch. Killer plants coming out of portals was obviously not intended as a course obstacle, and the safety of the racers and everyone else should have taken priority. Rainbow Dash's declaration of "we can still win this!" after transforming (using magic against the rules), flying around without even riding her bike, and still having to dodge/beat up the killer plants is stunning in its utter ridiculousness. And I can't believe that Principal Celestia later tries to argue that the results of the motocross race should stand, or that a tie should be declared. It seems weird that Sunset Shimmer almost instantly acts regretful after yelling at Twilight. It seems to me that Sunset had good reason to be angry at her. Sunset made good points about not messing around with things she doesn't understand and how Twilight put Sunset and her friends in danger, and Twilight didn't really have any good excuses to rebut those points. Sure, Twilight didn't intend to cause harm, but that doesn't mean that she's blameless. Twilight was still recklessly endangering others by continuing to carry around her magic-containing device and letting it suck up the Mane Six's magic, even as Twilight had already seen that, in doing so, the device was potentially harming the Mane Six and opening dangerous portals. Near the end of Principal Cinch's song, Twilight clearly takes off the necklace with the device on it, as seen in multiple shots, but then Twilight is inexplicably wearing the necklace again just a few seconds later, and then a short time later, the necklace is off again. Dean Cadance says to Twilight "Pretty sure Cinch will be fast-tracking your application after all of that", but is that really so sure? Isn't it at least a significant possibility that Principal Cinch might hold a grudge against Twilight for aiding in humiliating her, turning the rest of the school against her, and denying her (and Crystal Prep) the clear victory in the Friendship Games? I suppose Dean Cadance might be thinking that Principal Cinch wants Twilight far away so that she won't cause any further humiliation, or perhaps because she's dangerous - she did transform into a demon and nearly caused the death/disappearance of several people, after all. Twilight decides after the events of the day to transfer to Canterlot High, and Dean Cadance talks to Principal Celestia about it, culminating in Princess Celestia announcing to the Mane Six that Twilight is a new Wondercolt at Canterlot High. But shouldn't Twilight, you know, consult her parents about the transfer before it's finalized that same day? Her parents are probably significantly invested (both financially and emotionally) in sending her to Crystal Prep, and are likely anticipating her going to Everton. It's possible that Twilight's parents were called off-screen, but there's a good chance that they would both be working, and even if they could be reached, I would expect that they would want to talk to Twilight in person and think about it first. However, the way Twilight's transfer played out is in keeping with the audience never seeing anyone's parents in the Equestria Girls universe. Sunset Shimmer says that the way that magic works in this world is that the Mane Six pony up when they're showing the truest part of themselves. But is this explanation consistent with what we've seen in the three movies? This movie seems to portray the Mane Six transforming when exhibiting their corresponding elements: Rainbow Dash transformed when showing loyalty to Canterlot High, Rarity transformed when showing generosity to her friends in making outfits for them, etc. But then why do the Mane Six transform when they're just playing in the band? Is Applejack exhibiting honesty when playing bass in the band? By being the drummer, is Pinkie exhibiting laughter? Or, thinking back to Rainbow Rocks, was Rainbow Dash exhibiting loyalty when she was playing "Awesome As I Wanna Be", hogging the spotlight and playing an extended guitar solo while her bandmates were exasperated and annoyed by her antics? Instances like these don't seem to fit the explanation of magic shown in this movie. Finally, in the very end scene, why does Equestria Twilight think that meeting her human doppelganger is the strangest thing that's ever happened to her? Since everyone else in Equestria seems to have a human counterpart, shouldn't Equestria Twilight have expected there to be a human counterpart for her as well? And it's not as though human Twilight is drastically different than Equestria Twilight (or at least not drastically different than she used to be). If you managed to get through this whole post, then thanks for your patience, and thanks for reading!