Music Chart Fan

Overall, I would have to say that I didn't find the main story of this episode very engaging. It's difficult for me to buy into the idea that the Student Six have a special deep connection to the Tree of Harmony, such that they're personally devastated that it was destroyed. And I thought the whole middle section - where the Student Six argue, go off to do their own things, ruin each other's ideas, then argue some more - wasn't very interesting and dragged on a bit. But there were some other smaller things that I liked - such as Silverstream's apparent desire to become a Wonderbolt, the return of Thorax in another speaking role, seeing a little bit of the Student Six interacting with their families and societies, etc. And the crystal treehouse at the end of the episode does look pretty nice. One thing I noted was how, after hearing that the Tree and Elements of Harmony are gone, Ocellus anxiously asks a question that I had in the last episode: "But doesn't that mean the Everfree Forest will take over Equestria?!". And Spike just says "We've got that part under control, and Sombra won't be coming back". But how do they have the Everfree Forest under control with the Tree and Elements of Harmony destroyed? I don't think that's ever answered. Just last episode, the Mane Six prioritized fighting the Everfree Forest over stopping Sombra or freeing the enslaved residents of Ponyville, and it apparently took the powers of Celestia, Luna, and Star Swirl to keep it at bay. And in this episode, the Student Six make multiple trips out to the Tree of Harmony, and tourists even make their way out there. So that seems like a significant thing to just gloss over with no explanation. It might also tell us just how much of a place of solace and safety the new crystal treehouse is - after all, it might be more difficult to find solace and safety there if the trip there is dangerous and stressful. Next, when the Student Six ask to stay to do something to memorialize the Tree of Harmony, I noticed that Twilight said that it's okay "as long as you get permission from your kingdoms", while not mentioning their parents/guardians. But I suppose if this is analogous to studying abroad, then the Student Six would be getting the equivalent of clearance from their home countries. And it appears that most of the Student Six get permission from their parents/guardians, anyway. We see Ember signing Smolder's permission slip (after Smolder proves herself worthy), but after that, the permission slip appears to have four signatures, so Smolder may have gotten her parents to sign already. Yona has to do chores to get her dad's (I assume) signature, although we never see Yona getting Prince Rutherford's (or some other leader's) signature. Grampa Gruff may act as both Gallus's guardian and a "leader" of the griffons; I don't know if the griffons really have a formal leader. Ocellus gets (what appears to be) her parents and her two baby siblings to sign her form; I suppose Thorax's nod to Twilight already counted as permission from him. Silversteam gives a presentation to get her parents and Terramar to give their signatures. There's no scene of getting Queen Novo's permission, but maybe if Silverstream's parents are related to her, then they count as high-enough-ranking officials? It's a bit weird that, in at least two cases, students seem to get their siblings' signatures, too; would their siblings have standing to stop them? And I guess this episode didn't feel any need to show us Sandbar's parents, although we did see them back in "The Hearth's Warming Club". I don't have any other major observations, so here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: Gallus was the one to help Silverstream face her fear back in "What Lies Beneath", so in this episode, Silverstream returns the favor and saves Gallus from his fear (while no doubt adding fuel to the shipping fire). The Tree of Harmony tells the Student Six in the dream "Good. You have all answered my summons", which seems like a bit of a strange way to put it. Did they have a choice in the matter? They didn't even seem to be aware that they were being summoned. To all of us in the audience, the Tree of Harmony's manifestation as Twilight is obviously sparkly and translucent, and looks different than the actual Twilight. But Ocellus refers to the Tree of Harmony's manifestation as Headmare Twilight, so can the characters in the show not see the same differences? Twilight's worrying about the highlighters raises a question: at the School of Friendship, is the school itself responsible for students' writing supplies, etc.? Most of us are probably used to the model whereby individual students (and their parents) are largely responsible for their own school supplies, hence the annual start-of-school-year supply lists and shopping trips. Are the School of Friendship students not considered responsible enough to buy their own supplies? Is it that they come from different societies, such that they may not be familiar with the supplies that will be used? It's nice to see Thorax, and he does push back on the "dragon quest" idea from Smolder (and Ocellus's transforming into a dragon), but after he first scolds Ocellus for sneaking off, he doesn't appear to doubt or question Ocellus's vague rationale that "it was an emergency!". So Thorax might still exhibit at least some signs of still being a pushover. I'm kind of curious as to how Sandbar cleaned up the Tree of Harmony as well as he did, at least if he did so without significant help. Did the Tree of Harmony not have a whole root system that wouldn't be easy to dig out and clean up? I had a big tree cut down in my backyard, and while the stump was ground down as much as possible, there's no way that the root system was going to be removed. Also, as soon as the rest of the Student Six were upset and not on board with the Tree of Harmony's being removed, why didn't Sandbar just tell them "Hey, okay, I have the pieces of the Tree of Harmony right over here"? And I guess none of the rest of them saw the wagon with the pieces in it (or were curious about it) prior to Yona's bringing it out, either. During the song, we see Ocellus and Silverstream putting together pieces of what appear to be the broken Elements of Harmony. However, in this episode, each Element is only broken into 2 or 3 pieces, whereas if we look at the end of "The Beginning Of The End - Part 1", we see each of the Elements shattering into at least 8-15 pieces. With how precarious the treehouse looks, I wouldn't have trusted its structural integrity to hold the weight of the Student Six, and I thought the rumbling was going to be the whole thing collapsing.

I concur with this (and I'll tag @Justin_Case001 so he sees this). I don't necessarily put too much stock in the episode topic polls in the first place, since voters in episode topic polls have to be aware of the polls, willing/able to distill their opinions down to a 1-5 integer scale, motivated enough to vote in the polls, etc. So, for example, we might think that people who disliked or didn't care much about an episode are less likely to be motivated to vote in the poll at all. But for what it's worth, if we compare the poll results for "The Beginning Of The End" to those for a couple of other episodes that are widely loved, "The Beginning Of The End" doesn't score quite as highly. (Note that the poll for "The Perfect Pear" below has six options, with the last one being even higher than "Love it!".) I briefly looked around and found that the poll results for "The Beginning Of The End" could be compared to those for "Once Upon A Zeppelin", for example. And while I think that episode was fairly well-liked, it probably isn't in the stratosphere of all-time most amazing episodes.

@Justin_Case001, You make a very good point about how a more slower-paced, "feelsy" episode could probably better suit the emotional impact that this subject matter would seem to warrant, and I really like your alternative vision for how Celestia could have told Twilight about Celestia's and Luna's intention to retire, and their desire to have Twilight and her friends take their place.

Yeah, this hadn't come to mind before, but when I stop and think about it, Rainbow has had good rapport with Spike before, such as her going with Twilight and Rarity to watch over Spike in "Dragon Quest", or her and Spike's going to the Dragon Lands to retrieve Flash Magnus's shield in "Shadow Play".

I feel you about this. Over the years, there have been quite a few episodes that it seemed like just about everyone loved and raved about, but that I just didn't like, and in some cases, really didn't like. And I felt like I just couldn't see what everyone else was seeing. For me, at least, I could chalk that up to a few things. I might just really be an idiosyncratic person who has a different mindset when watching the show than a lot of (or even most) other people have. Also, my own personality, personal experiences (or lack thereof), etc. will probably mean that some episodes just won't resonate with me, even if they do with many other people. Or I'll be inclined to see things, or have things bother me, that other people just don't notice, or don't particularly care about, or are more willing to give a pass. I'm not sure that I'm being particularly insightful or helpful here. But I just wanted to say that you're not alone in sometimes just not liking episodes that seemingly everyone else loves.

Overall, I just feel kind of "meh" about these episodes. There are amusing/entertaining moments here and there, such as Rainbow's eagerness to be the one to enter everyone's dreams, or how Starlight's ploy to get Twilight to calm down almost appears to work before Twilight rejects it. But then there are also a lot of moments that are probably supposed to be emotionally impactful, but just come and go with little to no impact on me, and I don't like, for example, the repetition of the trope where the heroes and the villain take turns just standing around when the other monologues or whatever. I'll talk below in more detail about a few issues I have with these episodes. I feel like Twilight's fretting, freaking out, and hyperventilating are being taken too far. But at the same time, I really don't buy into the confidence that everyone else has that the Mane Seven are ready to lead Equestria, either. And I think that skepticism is validated by what I see as the Mane Six's astoundingly terrible judgement in the crucial aftermath of Sombra's incapacitation of the Tree of Harmony, when he's just starting to enslave people and accumulate power. ----- First, it feels to me like Twilight's fretting, freaking out, and hyperventilating are being dialed up too much. I can't help thinking that, in comparison to these episodes, Twilight seemed more composed, clearheaded, and even leader-like in "Princess Twilight Sparkle" - way back at the beginning of Season 4, five seasons ago. That was at a time when Princesses Celestia and Luna were missing (and, for all anyone knew, perhaps gone for good), and Twilight was acting as the only princess in authority. Twilight was still nervous, but she was able to overcome that in order to assess the situation and act decisively. In these episodes, though, Twilight repeatedly screams, makes faces, and breathes into a paper bag; she seems unable to articulate her concerns such that anyone else will take them seriously; and she's being pressured and dragged into assenting to what the others want to do. One problem here is that it's never specified what exactly Celestia and Luna are retiring from, and what the Mane Seven would be expected to do in taking Celestia's and Luna's place. There's more to Celestia's and Luna's "jobs" than just protecting Equestria from big bad villains. At one point, Rainbow asks if the Mane Seven will get all of Celestia's and Luna's powers, and calls dibs on showing up in everypony's dreams, but Rainbow is never answered about those things. Will Celestia and Luna in "retirement" still raise the sun and moon? Will Luna still oversee and intervene in Equestrians' dreams? Will Celestia still act as a formal or informal ambassador for Equestria? Furthermore, how large of a government do Celestia and Luna currently oversee, and how much power does it wield? How many of the appointments, and how much of the decision-making, is made by Celestia and Luna themselves? To what extent are Celestia and Luna held responsible for the decisions and actions that the government takes? Getting more information on things like these would help to clarify how justified Twilight is in not feeling ready to (co-)lead Equestria. Another issue I have is that I don't find the others' confidence in the Mane Seven's ability to lead Equestria particularly convincing, and I don't find their attempts to try to reassure Twilight about that particularly convincing, either. For example, Applejack says that the Mane Seven are "not a bad choice" to take over for Celestia and Luna because "we always have Equestria's best interests at heart". But that doesn't, in itself, mean that they'll do a good job. One could have Equestria's best interests at heart, but do an utterly incompetent job, or even be actively harmful in attempting to do the job. Besides, I'm sure that there are many Equestrians who would have Equestria's best interests at heart; that doesn't seem to me like a particularly exceptional or distinguishing factor. Or when Twilight, in panicked fashion, says that "there's gotta be a guide or a rulebook!", Luna responds that "the friendship journal you wrote yourselves is a better guide than any we could provide". But doesn't the friendship journal, by and large, contain lessons that were learned about how to lead one's personal life, or how to handle one's personal friendships? I wouldn't see that as a guide for the responsibilities of ruling Equestria, and how to handle them. I could also see cause for concern in how running the School of Friendship has gone for the Mane Eight thus far. Cozy Glow, as a student at the school, became Twilight's personal assistant and "right-hoof pony", all while corresponding with Tirek and scheming to drain Equestria's magic in order to take over. And Twilight (and the rest of the Mane Eight) apparently had no idea that all of this was happening right under everyone's noses. If Twilight & Co. become the new rulers of Equestria, what would they do to prevent the next villain from doing something similar - ingratiating him/herself with them while obtaining valuable information and positioning him/herself in the government to do a power grab, inflict major damage on Equestria, etc.? So the thing is that, at least in the absence of clarifying information, I would probably take Twilight's side - that she and the Mane Seven aren't ready to take Celestia's and Luna's place, especially in a matter of days - over that of everyone else, who seem dismissive of Twilight's concerns and have little or no apparent concern of their own. I just wish that the likely legitimate concerns of Twilight could be communicated more effectively - such that they would be taken seriously - or channeled into more productive action, rather than Twilight's fretting and freaking out and hyperventilating, just to be dragged into going along anyway. ----- Next, I want to talk about how the Mane Six acted in the crucial aftermath of Sombra's incapacitation of the Tree of Harmony, when Sombra was just starting to enslave people and accumulate power. After the Mane Six observe that the residents of Ponyville are enslaved, and the Mane Six can't think of any immediate way to stop them, Pinkie points out that the Everfree Forest is growing out of control into Ponyville. So Twilight says "Even if we figure out how to defeat Sombra and bring everypony back to Ponyville, if we don't stop the forest, there won't be a Ponyville to come back to!". And therefore, the Mane Six grab gardening tools and decide to try to stop the Everfree Forest from growing into the buildings and physical infrastructure of Ponyville. But it certainly seems to me that they have their priorities backwards. Shouldn't their first priorities be to try to stop Sombra from enslaving anyone else, and to try to free the enslaved residents of Ponyville? Saving the buildings and physical infrastructure of Ponyville would be nice, but that seems less important than saving actual people and stopping Sombra from just doing whatever he wants. And this occurs right after the Mane Six were devastated to see their families and friends enslaved and doing Sombra's bidding. I might have thought that that would motivate the Mane Six to want to stop Sombra and free their families and friends. If the argument is that none of the Mane Six have any ideas of how to stop Sombra, then they could start with observing what Sombra is doing and plans to do, and at least trying to stop that. Enslaved Starlight said right to Twilight that "We must lay siege to Canterlot", and it would probably be fairly easy to observe that that's where all the enslaved residents of Ponyville are going. And later in the episode, Twilight teleports the Mane Six from Ponyville to Canterlot without any apparent issue. So why couldn't Twilight teleport the Mane Six ahead to Canterlot and warn Celestia and Luna, the royal guard, the Wonderbolts, and/or any other capable people to prepare for an incoming invasion by Sombra and his army of enslaved Ponyville residents? And after that, perhaps Twilight, Rainbow, and/or others could teleport/fly/travel ahead to other cities in Equestria to warn them, in case Sombra can't be stopped at Canterlot. With the relatively slow pace at which the enslaved ponies of Ponyville are walking to Canterlot, there might be a fair amount of time to do that, and Twilight and/or Rainbow might even be able to return in time to assist in the defense of Canterlot. But instead of doing anything like this, the Mane Six, in a collective act of astoundingly terrible judgement, spend hours futilely fighting the outgrowth of the Everfree Forest - by themselves, and making no progress toward stopping it - while doing nothing to stop (or even slow down) Sombra and doing nothing to warn anyone else that he's back. So what's the plan for how to succeed here? If they've spent hours trying and failing to stop the outgrowth of the Everfree Forest, are any of them thinking of anything different to try to do? More importantly, during these hours, did any of the Mane Six think "What is Sombra doing right now? What are the enslaved residents of Ponyville doing right now?"? If Celestia, Luna, and Starswirl hadn't miraculously appeared, would the Mane Six have just fruitlessly continued to fight the Everfree Forest until they passed out from exhaustion, while Sombra just carried out his plans unimpeded by them? Near the end of the episode, Celestia states that "a good leader knows when to ask for help, but a great leader has the courage to admit when they've made a mistake and the strength to make it right". And that's fine and all, but we could also say that good leaders should have a certain minimum competence at handling emergencies, especially when time is of the essence. More specifically, it could be argued that good leaders ought to be able to triage particularly catastrophic situations; to assess and prioritize multiple simultaneous crises; and to act effectively to prevent smaller, more manageable crises from growing into large ones that could spin out of control. But instead, the Mane Six exhibited tunnel vision on a crisis of lower importance while doing nothing about crises of higher importance. And, to add insult to injury, all of the Mane Six except Twilight were essentially totally confident that they're ready to lead Equestria. So the Mane Six's handling of this whole situation does not convince me that they've "definitely got this", as Twilight was pushed into saying. ----- Now here are some other larger observations I had about these episodes. Luna tells the Mane Seven that "Equestria is currently enjoying its longest period of harmony in recent years", and Celestia says that it's all thanks to Twilight and her friends. We might think that the events of the show - including all the battles with villains, the times when Celestia and Luna themselves were captured or incapacitated, the times when Equestria was nearly destroyed, etc. - have occurred "in recent years", especially from the point of view of Celestia and Luna, who have lived for well over 1000 years. So if the time period of the show is considered a "long period of harmony", what was Equestria like before the Mane Six became the Elements of Harmony? If Grogar has spent millenia biding his time and waiting for the perfect opportunity to seize control of Equestria, why is now the perfect time - when Celestia and Luna are both around and have their powers, Discord is free and (nominally) on the "good" side, and the Mane Six are the Elements of Harmony? Was there not a more opportune time back before the events of the show - before the Mane Six became the Elements, when Luna was banished to the moon, when Discord was still a stone statue (and not turned to "good"), and Celestia was alone in ruling Equestria? Or what about other times during the period of the show when villains were wrecking havoc and had incapacitated some or most of the main protectors of Equestria? It was kind of funny to see Starlight "trick" Twilight into telling her the same reassuring words that everyone else is telling Twilight, just to have that ploy fail because Twilight makes a (not necessarily wrong) point that "running a school and running a country are two very different things". But, the way I see it, I don't just believe everyone else's trite reassuring rhetoric about how the Mane Seven are ready to run Equestria, and similarly, I don't just believe Twilight's trite reassuring rhetoric about how Starlight is ready to run the school, either. I almost wish that, when Starlight said in panicked fashion that she's not ready to run the school, Twilight replied "You know what? You're right. If you don't feel ready to run the school, then I shouldn't pressure you into doing so against your own judgement. That's what I've been trying to say - that if I don't feel ready to lead Equestria, then I shouldn't be pressured into doing so against my own judgement, either. So it looks like we can both agree that it's better for everyone if I just stay here and continue to run the school". So when King Sombra returns and invades the Crystal Empire and starts enslaving residents, is there just nothing that Cadance and Shining Armor and all their guards can do about it, other than sending Twilight a letter saying that they need her and her friends to defeat him? I also can't help wondering why the Crystal Heart apparently didn't stop any of this from happening. When the Crystal Heart was restored in "The Crystal Empire", it expelled Sombra, his magic, and any physical results of his magic. And the Crystal Heart constantly keeps the "Frozen North" out of the Crystal Empire, seemingly without the residents paying active attention to it or needing to constantly "activate" it. So I was under the impression that the Crystal Heart would work the same way against Sombra or other potential threats. It just feels like the utter ease with which Sombra strolled into the Crystal Empire and subjugated it makes Cadance, Shining Armor, and the Empire in general look incompetent unnecessarily. When Cadance and her family are trapped by Sombra in their throne room, Flurry Heart blasts some magic in between the physical crystals surrounding them, but there appears to be some magical shielding above and beyond the physical crystals themselves. So it's interesting that just a little of Spike's dragon fire breath appears to disable the magical shield, even without destroying the physical crystals, thus allowing Cadance and her family to escape. Also, considering how well Spike's fire breath disabled Sombra's magical shield in that case, Spike could have gotten everyone out from Sombra's trap down at the Tree of Harmony without all the digging if he had tagged along. I guess the Mane Six didn't think that Spike needed to come, and/or Spike just didn't feel like going with them? When Star Swirl appears with Celestia and Luna, he says that he felt the Tree of Harmony being incapacitated, and that he alerted Celestia and Luna as soon as he could. So did the other Pillars feel that, too? If so, did they recognize what had happened? And did any of them attempt to alert authorities as to what happened? Flash Magnus works as a drill sergeant for the royal guard, so could he have alerted Celestia and Luna himself more quickly than Star Swirl could? Or, if not Celestia and Luna, could Flash have at least alerted the royal guard in Canterlot? Could Mistmane in the Crystal Empire have alerted Cadance and Shining Armor and their guards? Could Rockhoof, if he lives in or near Ponyville, have alerted Spike or Starlight (or others in Ponyville), since the Mane Six were gone at the time? ----- Finally, here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations. I noticed that when the Mane Seven are together hurrying to the castle to answer the summons, Rainbow, Twilight, and Spike all fly, while Pinkie, Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy all run. We would expect flying to be faster and easier for Rainbow, but apparently it might be easier and/or faster for Twilight and Spike to fly also, whereas Fluttershy just sticks with running. Rainbow shouts "Race ya!" to Pinkie and appears to zoom ahead, but in the next cutaway shot, Rainbow's seen entering the throne room with everyone else except Pinkie, who tumbles in last. So I guess Rainbow ended up waiting for most of the others before barging in. Did Tirek just never particularly like Cozy Glow, even when the two of them were corresponding and planning to drain the magic from Equestria? Did Tirek just not realize when writing Cozy Glow letters how obnoxiously cloying she is in person? Or is Tirek just annoyed with Cozy Glow for failing to successfully carry out their evil plot? If Cozy Glow hasn't heard of Grogar, then does that mean that he wasn't covered (yet) in any of the classes at Twilight's School of Friendship? After all, Cozy Glow seemed to be a particularly studious student. One question that comes to my mind about the league of supervillains is what each of the members wants to do once Equestria is conquered. Perhaps they all want to defeat the Mane Six and conquer Equestria, such that they could work together to do that, but then what? Would there not be near-immediate infighting as soon as they've accomplished that one common goal? The fact that Chrysalis and Tirek say that they were defeated because the Mane Six "cheat" or are "annoyingly lucky" would indicate that the lecturing at Chrysalis, Tirek, etc. about what they did wrong, and about the power of friendship, didn't really teach them anything or change their minds. Twilight asks Starlight if she can "stay here and take care of the school", and Starlight replies "I've got you covered" while levitating Twilight's rulebook. But Starlight said earlier that the school is closed for the summer, and that she didn't expect anyone to be at the school. So why exactly does Starlight need to "take care of the school"? Is she just acting as a watchman, looking out for potential vandals or thieves? If so, is that something that Twilight and the Mane Six would normally do themselves? And what would acting as a watchman have to do with Twilight's rulebook for the school? Why does Cadance call Sombra's attention to the Mane Six charging into the throne room? Wouldn't it be better for her to distract him while the Mane Six do a sneak attack? So apparently Sombra wasn't killed by the Elements-of-Harmony rainbow laser, which had appeared to disintegrate him. But that raises a question: in a world of magical beings, like Equestria, how does one confirm that a magical being is dead if there's no physical body, or if a magical being can exist independent of a physical body? Is there some of magic detection spell that could confirm that the constitutive magic of a magical being no longer exists? Sombra declines to put the Mane Six under his control because he says that "my conquering Ponyville is already your greatest fear!". Is it, though? I thought Twilight's greatest fear, at least, was disappointing Celestia. That's what I thought was depicted back in "The Crystal Empire", and that's what I thought was depicted in Part 1. It does seem a little weird that Rainbow's first thought isn't to worry about Scootaloo being enslaved by Sombra, but rather, to worry about Spike and Starlight, when we might think that Twilight would be the one to first worry about them. Why is Twilight trying to dig a way out of Sombra's crystal/magic shield by hoof when she has magic? Can Twilight not just telekinetically pick up and move a big pile of dirt, or teleport it somewhere out of the way? And of course, it's very convenient that Sombra's magical shield apparently doesn't extend below and around the Mane Six like a bubble. When Fancy Pants & Co. are trapped in their own net, the net is only secured by a single rope for each of the four corners. That doesn't seem like it would remain secure for long against nine or so ponies struggling against it. I guess the enslaved ponies must not be trying very hard to escape. When the enslaved pegasi wearing helmets are tricked into flying into each other, it doesn't seem like they run into each other that hard. But after they hit each other, they don't appear to move at all as Twilight levitates them into a pile on the ground. Are they supposed to have knocked themselves out from hitting each other? Finally, if, as Twilight says, the Tree of Harmony was destroyed, then is there anything stopping the continued encroachment of the Everfree Forest on Ponyville? Is Star Swirl still slaving away off-screen to contain it? But, given what we've seen about the next episode in the trailers, we're almost certainly going to see more about this.

First, just to clear things up, I (not @Truffles) wrote those sentences you quoted; @Truffles had quoted those sentences from my earlier post about the episode in order to reply to me. Regarding your response, there have been many examples of written language throughout the show, depicting it as lines of text, and sometimes even as discrete words with spaces between them. More specifically, there have been cases of words written in English or pseudo-English, such as the banner in "Swarm of the Century" that you mentioned, or newspaper and book titles. There have also been several times in the show where letters are used to spell out words. In "The Cutie Pox", when Apple Bloom gets a fake ring cutie mark, Scootaloo asks "Is it an 'O'? Is your talent spelling?". In "Brotherhooves Social", Apple Bloom and Applejack practice a cheer where they spell out "S-I-S-T-E-R-S!", and later, Apple Bloom and Big Mac do a cheer where they spell out "C-O-U-S-I-N-S!". At the end of "The Gift of the Maud Pie", Pinkie spells "P-S-S-S-D-W-R", which is an acronym for "Pie Sisters' Surprise Swap Day With Rarity". In "Molt Down", Smolder says that the molt stench will attract rocs, and when Spike is confused by that, Smolder spells out "R-O-C-S". And in fact, in "Family Appreciation Day", Granny Smith sings the alphabet song at least through the letter P before getting interrupted. Furthermore, there are at least a few cases where people's names in the show were written out, or implied to have a written language form. As you mentioned, there was the banner in "Swarm of the Century" with Princess Celestia's (incomplete) name written out. We've seen the front covers of Daring Do books several times in the show, and in each case, Daring Do's name is in written language, rather than a depiction of her cutie mark or some other symbol. Near the beginning of "The Gift of the Maud Pie", Pinkie says "...guess who I see! M-A-U-D! You know what that spells?" and Maud replies "It spells Maud". And in the episode "A Friend In Deed", Pinkie reads the back of Cranky's wagon, which is labeled "Property of C.D.D.", with those initials standing for Cranky Doodle Donkey. So it seems to me that the Mane Seven would probably have written language forms of their names (or even abbreviations like RD, AJ, TS, etc.) that Twilight could have used for the slips of paper for the gift exchange. I was just making a casual observation that writing the Mane Seven's names, or abbreviations of their names, might be easier than drawing each of their cutie marks (and Spike's wing).

The other precedent set in "Triple Threat" was that the Cutie Map, which normally represents ponies using their cutie marks, just used Spike's head to represent him when indicating where his friendship problem was located. But yeah, maybe Twilight thought drawing a dragon wing was simpler than drawing Spike's head. Yeah, standard modern acoustic guitars have six strings spanning two octaves, with each string tuned within a few steps of its neighbors. Spike's homemade guitar only has three strings, so that would limit either the range or the types of chords that could reasonably be played. Furthermore, on modern acoustic guitars, the guitar neck has a series of precisely spaced frets, such that depressing one of the strings at each successive fret raises the pitch of that string one half-step. Spike's homemade guitar does have some clothing buttons attached to the neck, which might be able to serve as the equivalent of frets. But in order for Spike to play in tune, he would have needed to measure out and place those buttons on the guitar neck pretty precisely, or he would need to place his claws pretty precisely when depressing the strings while playing. Either way would require some fairly in-depth knowledge/skill - so Spike might be better than it might seem! Also, I know that you were out on vacation and busy near the end of this past season, and you may have watched some of the episodes weeks before I did, so I just want to reiterate that I really appreciate your taking the time and effort to go back and read and reply to the episode posts I made!

The poll in the topic for "The Perfect Pair" actually has a unique sixth "It's AMAZING!" option, which is even higher than the usual "LOVE IT!" option. And in that poll, those two options combine for 91% of the vote, which might be the highest percentage in an episode poll for "loving" an episode. That wouldn't be surprising, considering how well that episode was received.

Great, then I feel like I've done my job! Nah, but in seriousness, I don't write these episode posts with the intention of ruining others' viewing experiences or memories of the episodes. I just tend to watch the show more skeptically, and notice at least some smaller details, so I think of a fair number of observations and questions as I'm watching. I write those into episode posts in order to try to provide a bit of a different perspective, and so that others might find my observations and questions interesting and/or entertaining. And if we can think of good explanations for some of these things that I've noticed, all the better. If the resolution of Marble's feelings for Big Mac in "Hearthbreakers" is a 3-second scene showing her heartbroken in an episode 3 seasons later, and nothing else will be done or said about it, then I think that can cause people to wonder if that was worth bringing up again for seemingly just a bit of a quick joke. After all, if that 3-second scene weren't in this episode, then I suspect most viewers would have either blissfully forgotten about Marble's feelings for Big Mac (as I would have) or could have assumed that they were one-time feelings in the heat of the moment, which faded away soon after with no real harm done. It might be argued that this scene with Marble illustrates that "not everyone gets a happy ending", but I feel as though shows like this one usually treat unhappy endings as teachable moments or situations to learn from, and I don't necessarily see that being done here. We don't (yet) see, for example, what Marble could reasonably have done differently to act on her feelings, or how she can deal with her current heartbreak in a healthy way, or what she could resolve to change going forward. All that this 3-second scene seems to establish for Marble is that she's heartbroken, and that's it. I think that can come across as being a bit needlessly cruel to a character that doesn't seem to obviously deserve it, particularly when we don't even necessarily get any useful lessons from the situation.

Overall, this was an okay special episode. It has its nice moments throughout, although I would say that I liked some subplots of this episode more so than others. I'm not really a fan of the Yaks, nor of seeing Equestrians fall for yet another of Flim's and Flam's schemes (at least until one or more of the Mane Six put a stop to them), so I didn't really find those subplots very entertaining. However, Twilight's going "Twily-nanas" and Spike's mission to get Rarity's name and then figure out what to get her were okay, and I generally liked Discord's pushing Rainbow to get a good gift for Fluttershy, as well as Rarity's demonstration of generosity to Pistachio and his family. The three reindeer - Aurora, Bori, and Alice - are pleasant enough characters, but their existence and introduction in this episode seem to come completely out of nowhere. We have a character that can see into the past, and another character that can see into the future (plus a third in the present that keeps the two of them in line). And what do these characters do, exactly, especially considering these great abilities that they apparently possess? Have they just been sitting in their house at the north pole, in secrecy, doing nothing in particular for the whole run of the show? Are they supposed to be the equivalent of Santa Claus, except that they actually exist and actually give gifts to people? But two minutes after they're introduced, the scene with them is over, and we don't see them again until the last few lines of narration (and a one-second flashback). It seems strange to me to introduce these new characters with great abilities, only to be used for essentially a single subplot, and to be seen for about three minutes total in the episode. This episode also had a couple of surprises in the romantic feelings department. The portrayal of Spike's crush on Rarity seemed to be stronger in this episode than it's been in a while (although, of course, some Rarijack fuel also had to make an appearance), and I'm not sure how I feel about that still not being resolved. And I completely forgot about Marble's implied feelings for Big Mac a few seasons ago until that was suddenly brought up in the scene of Marble being crushed at seeing Big Mac and Sugar Belle snuggling up to each other. So now that situation with Marble seems to be left unresolved for now, as well. I don't think I have any other bigger-picture observations, so here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: If the Student Six are leaving to go home for the holidays, then this is presumably a different year than the one shown in "The Hearth's Warming Club", since in that episode, the Student Six had all agreed to stay at school with Gallus for the winter break. Boy, that's some strong parchment that Twilight used for her big list that Spike's hauling around. If Twilight is grading midterms just before Hearth's Warming Eve, then that must mean that Friendship School classes span at least both of what we would consider the fall and spring semesters. Using the term "Hearth's Warming Helper" to mean essentially a gift exchange seems a bit weird to me; I've never heard of people using "Christmas Helper" or "Holiday Helper" to refer to a gift exchange. Plus, the alliteration with "helper" makes my mind think of Hamburger Helper. In order to do the gift exchange, Twilight tears off the top of her checklist to make slips of paper to write the names on. So what, was that part of the list not important? Did it just so happen to cover the shopping for Twilight's friends that she no longer has to do? Also, was it really necessary to draw everyone's cutie marks (or Spike's wing), rather than just, you know, writing people's names? It reminds me of how, in "The Break Up Break Down", Big Mac addressed his boxed pie to Sugar Belle by drawing pictures of sugar cubes and a bell, rather than writing her name (and her address!). Since seemingly no one else besides Applejack has done a gift exchange before, I half-expected someone to draw his/her own name and just go with it, not realizing that everyone is supposed to be buying gifts for someone else. When Spike asks Applejack if it's against the rules to trade names, he gives an example of "Like if I had a better idea for somepony special? I mean specific?", but that's a strange thing for Spike to be saying, since later on it's revealed that Spike has no ideas for what to get Rarity. When Pinkie scatters the presents in her room, one of them lands on Limestone's head, and she rips off the wrapping paper and opens the box to show her face with nothing in front of it. So what, was that just a gift-wrapped empty box? Discord says that Fluttershy told him about the gift exchange, but how long has it been since everyone drew names - no more than a couple of hours or so? Does Fluttershy talk with Discord that frequently? Why are Flim and Flam selling what appears to be a mass-produced toy at something called the "Rainbow Falls Hearth's Warming Craft Fair"? Does this craft fair have organizers who give out or rent out spaces for people to (presumably) sell their crafts? If so, did Flim and Flam mislead or lie to the organizers about what they were selling? Did the craft fair organizers not really care whether sellers at the craft fair were actually selling crafted (rather than mass-produced) goods? If Rarity was getting her package delivered to her boutique, so that she could then give it to Applejack for her gift, then why was Applejack's name or Sweet Apple Acres ever involved in the mailing process? The post office doesn't need to know that Rarity's package is actually a gift for Applejack, so why wasn't the package just addressed to Rarity's Boutique, period? Did Rarity order gift wrapping and a label saying "For Applejack" before the package was shipped? If so, are there not standardized labels or protocols for stating where packages are actually supposed to be shipped? Maybe not, considering that back in "The Break Up Break Down", Big Mac's package for Sugar Belle had nothing more than a drawing of sugar cubes and a bell on it. But then, if Rarity's package did have a "For Applejack" label, then why did Oak Nut and Butternut open the package thinking that it was for them? Since they weren't expecting to receive a package, did they not look for a label indicating who the package was from or what it might be? Oh, goody, we have another intentionally designed meme on our hands with Twilight's "puuudding" line and the accompanying face. I don't see any good reason why Twilight would have made that face or reacted that way, other than just to intentionally create the next meme. Fluttershy says that she and Applejack never got presents for Rainbow or Spike, but didn't Applejack have fire-dancing sticks and a Power Ponies comic earlier? She was carrying those things in a bag as though she had already bought them. Or was Applejack just carrying them around as she considered buying them, but then never actually bought them? In Twilight's kitchen, Cadance was holding Flurry Heart, so in order to get away, Flurry Heart teleports a sack of flour into Cadance's arm at the same time that she teleports herself away. But does that sack of flour really have the same weight and feel as holding Flurry Heart, such that Cadance never even notices the difference? Do Shining Armor and Twilight not see and point out that Cadance is holding a sack of flour where Flurry Heart used to be? Furthermore, Flurry Heart is flying around and messing with stuff just behind Twilight, right in Shining Armor's and Cadance's line of sight. Do the two of them really not see Flurry Heart moving around behind Twilight? Plus, if Flurry Heart is prone to teleporting off and using her magic to mess with things (and potentially endangering herself), shouldn't Shining Armor and Cadance have learned to keep a closer eye on her? Fluttershy asks the winterzilla "Your family is gone for the holidays, and you're all alone?" and it nods in agreement. So what, that's the reason that the winterzilla was destroying property and acting threatening toward everyone, rather than just animal instinct? I didn't even know that the winterzilla's threatening actions needed an explanation. Wow, Spike's cardboard-and-craft-string guitar (with only 3 different strings, no less) sounds remarkably good. And I don't know if we've seen Spike play guitar before. In the final song montage, we see the Apple and Pie families at Sweet Apple Acres, and Big Mac and Sugar Belle are looking out the front door before Big Mac hugs Sugar Belle. Are they looking up at the night sky? Did the shooting stars representing Pear Butter and Bright Mac pass by again? I actually had to double-check this, because at first I thought that the scene of changelings celebrating Hearth's Warming Eve from this episode might have been recycled from "The Hearth's Warming Club", but it turns out that the two are actually different scenes. In "The Hearth's Warming Club", we only see Ocellus and four other changelings (her family?) celebrating, whereas in this episode, we see twelve changelings celebrating, including Thorax and Pharynx. In both cases, though, we see the changelings "putting up a tree" by hanging one by a rope, "building a fire" by hammering together boards and nails into a structure, and "lighting it up" by holding lanterns up around it.

Yeah, I was mildly frustrated by the way that Applejack was acting toward the Kirin, because I saw the issues with it and because I don't feel like I would act that way, but I agree that Applejack's approach with the Kirin probably wasn't out of character for her. And while I do kind of rant a little about Applejack's behavior in my episode post, it does set up some amusing jokes where Applejack keeps getting frustrated by the repeated non-response from the Kirin, so I'm not really that upset by it or anything.

That's an interesting theory! I do wonder how Cozy Glow would be able to "customize" the process by which the six artifacts are sucking the magic out of Equestria in order to exclude pegasi. Logistically, it's hard for me to imagine how that would work, although I suppose there are probably a lot of magical artifacts in the world of Equestria, and we don't necessarily know the precise mechanisms by which those operate, either.

I've finally constructed the list of my top 5 favorite episodes this season, as I've done for the previous four seasons. I actually found this somewhat challenging, since there were several episodes - including many in the last quarter of the season - which I liked about the same, and it was difficult for me to narrow those down to make a top 5. But here, not necessarily in rank order, are what I believe are my top 5 favorite episodes of Season 8. The Break Up Break Down (Episode 10): This is an episode where @Truffles's enthusiasm and observations about it wore off on me and caused me to like it more. There were many funny and relatable moments, including Discord's sarcastic and cynical lines, and Skellinore's suddenly having to deal with consoling Big Mac. It's also nice to see Spike helping Big Mac out with his planned big day, to see Discord trying to cheer Big Mac up, and to see that Spike's good-natured (if somewhat syrupy) point of view ultimately convinced Discord to help Big Mac out in the end. And I'll admit that Big Mac's and Sugar Belle's interactions are cute. The Washouts (Episode 20): I liked seeing Rainbow's concern about and affection toward Scootaloo, particularly near the end of the episode, after Rainbow saves Scootaloo and starts a fan club for her. It was also kind of a nice surprise to see Rainbow's parents at the Scootaloo fan club meeting. We get some nice interaction between Twilight and Rainbow, and we even get to see Twilight helping Scootaloo eavesdrop on her fan club meeting. I also found it funny to see Rainbow pretending to casually stumble upon Scootaloo's Washouts meeting, and to see Rainbow kind of freaking out about Scootaloo's becoming a fan of something other than Rainbow and the Wonderbolts. And I saw Rainbow's dilemma between letting Scootaloo be her own person and do what she wants, while still feeling an obligation to protect her and wanting her to look up to Rainbow, as interesting. Molt Down (Episode 11): This is another episode that @Truffles was enthusiastic about and consequently raised my enjoyment of. As with "The Break Up Break Down", there are several funny and relatable moments, including Rarity's initial discovery of Spike's stone scale and Spike's and Peewee's affection for each other. There were several times where Twilight and Rarity showed understanding for Spike and that they care about him, which was nice to see. After Smolder's helpfulness in other episodes this season, it's a little easier to see Smolder as ultimately well-meaning in this episode, and not take her teasing Spike too seriously. And Spike's wings have been shown in use several other times this season, serving to cement them as a permanent part of Spike's identity. Sounds of Silence (Episode 23): I may not have loved this episode to the extent that many other people did, but there's still a feel-good charm to it that I liked. The Kirin are cute and likable, and it's nice to see them be convinced to get their feelings and voices back, and to see them rediscover the joys of those things. I also did like Autumn Blaze's earnestness, enthusiasm (when not too over-the-top), and pleasant voice. And even as Applejack's presumptuous attitude is kind of off-putting, that also makes it funny to see Applejack get agitated at the Kirin's non-response to her. A Rockhoof and a Hard Place (Episode 21): The premise of this episode - Rockhoof's struggling to fit in to the modern world, and feeling isolated and despondent when he can't - is relatable, and it's nice to see the Mane Six and the rest of the school taking a genuine interest in finding a place for him and making him feel as though he belongs. It was also nice to see what the other Pillars are doing, and to see that they're doing well for themselves. I also liked Spike's and Smolder's fire-breathing contest, and Spike's no-nonsense attitude when substituting for Twilight's class. Finally, Twilight's comments about the stars moving slowly over time also proved to be interesting, and served as an impetus for me to learn a little more about astronomy!

Overall, I found these episodes kind of a mixed bag. There were moments I liked, such as Smolder's being suspicious of Cozy Glow's being put in charge, or Sandbar's getting a little bit of a chance to play an important role. It was kind of clever that Neighsay was ultimately a red herring. And some of the action of these episodes was good as it was playing out. But I also found that many elements of these episodes, when thinking about them more closely, were kind of distracting or stretched plausibility a little too much, and ultimately prevented me from enjoying these episodes. I found a lot of smaller things to talk about, so I'll try to divide those up below. ----- First, it would have been nice to have an explanation for Star Swirl's oddly specific knowledge of the timeline of how the magic of Equestria would disappear. If, say, Star Swirl is supposed to know that these effects are coming from the six artifacts, then if he had said so, then at least everyone in the throne room would have known to be looking for those. Star Swirl's letter says that "first, unicorn magic and spells will fail", and "on the second day, creatures will lose their magic abilities". I might have thought that the second statement would have included, say, the ability of pegasi to fly, but apparently that wasn't the case. And there's also a fairly obvious point that if unicorn magic and spells failed, then we would think that Celestia could not be raising or lowering the sun, and yet the sun was still setting anyway. ----- It's a little weird to me that apparently none of the students other than the Student Six were suspicious of having Cozy Glow be left in charge. Besides Smolder's good points, if these students are the equivalent of high-schoolers (if not younger, as Cozy Glow appears to be), then I can't imagine a high school being left with only a student in charge (apparently a young one, at that) and no adults in sight. And later in the episode, Cozy Glow is easily able to whip the other students at the school into a mob that seizes and chains up Neighsay and was trying to do the same to the Student Six. Do none of these students question or think it a little strange that they're doing all of these things at the behest of a kid? And yet it apparently took the Student Six's "sacrificing" themselves trying to save each other to cause the students to question Cozy Glow and what they've been doing. ----- The Student Six see Cozy Glow come out of the catacombs underneath the school, and apparently none of them think to investigate what she was doing down there first. (Later on, Yona even asks why Sandbar is leading the Student Six back into the catacombs, even though they all saw Cozy Glow suspiciously emerging from there earlier.) If the Student Six do think that Cozy Glow is up to something, wouldn't it be better to try to find out what she's up to while she thinks that nobody knows what she's doing? On the other hand, if the Student Six's confrontation with Cozy Glow goes wrong and fails to yield any information, then Cozy Glow would know that the Student Six are trying to figure out what she's doing, and she could take steps to prevent them from interfering or finding out any further. ----- Neighsay says that the Mane Seven are "skipping off on friendship trips" or "gallivanting off on adventures", as though they're taking a frivolous vacation or something. The Mane Seven were summoned by Princesses Celestia and Luna and are working to investigate why the magic of Equestria is disappearing, and to restore it. Is Neighsay not aware of that? Does he just refuse to believe it, or to believe the importance of what they're doing? Also, what is the mechanism by which Neighsay believes that the non-pony Student Six - probably the equivalent of teenagers, no less - are stealing all of Equestria's magic? Is it just a reflection of his ignorance and arrogance that he would assume that they're behind this even without any plausible theory of how they would be doing it? ----- Rainbow matter-of-factly tells Tirek that the Mane Seven are out of magic keys and that nobody can open the door, and the rest of the Mane Seven seem to react as though this is news to them. So did this only occur to Rainbow after the doors had closed? And Rainbow hadn't thought to tell the rest of the Mane Seven before now? And a little later, it's kind of weird to hear Sandbar independently coming to the conclusion that if all of Equestria's magic is getting sucked up, then the Mane Seven won't be able to get back from Tartarus. I suppose we might assume that Sandbar learned in one of the classes at school that the door to Tartarus must be opened with magic. But somehow Sandbar was able to think of that, while apparently none of the Mane Seven did until after they were trapped. ----- Apparently Tirek and Cozy Glow were "pen pals" and Tirek was instructing Cozy Glow on how to take the magic from Equestria. So letters are being delivered to and from Tartarus? Are these letters not being screened? Was Cozy Glow sending these letters, and getting letters from Tartarus delivered to her, while she was a student at the School of Friendship? Was anyone suspicious at the back-and-forth letters between Tirek and Cozy Glow, when we wouldn't necessarily expect Tirek to be regularly writing to some pony that he would have no record of knowing before? ----- Why exactly are all these caged monsters in Tartarus willing to help the Mane Seven escape, while they stay locked in Tartarus? Is it merely because Fluttershy petted them and said a few nice words? Fluttershy tells the monsters "Okay, everyone! Time to show Equestria that you aren't monsters! You're wonderful, mystical creatures!". Is there an implicit promise or understanding there that if they help the Mane Seven escape, they will have demonstrated that they aren't so bad after all, and that they therefore should be freed? That also leads to a related question of why the other animals in Tartarus don't just escape along with the Mane Seven while the door's open. Does their staying behind "prove" their trustworthiness and build the case that they should be freed, whereas their escaping would just lead to their being hunted down and captured again? ----- The Mane Seven expended all this effort to execute their plan to get out of Tartarus, but magic was restored to Equestria soon after they escaped, and before they even had the chance to do anything else. Consequently, that makes their entire effort seem almost pointless. If the Mane Seven hadn't executed this plan to get out, then their magic would have been restored soon after anyway (we see magic returning to residents of Tartarus even behind the closed doors), so they would have gotten out at about the same time and teleported back to the school either way. ----- We also don't seem to get much information or explanation about Cozy Glow's thinking or why she's doing what she's doing. Cozy Glow thinks that if she's the headmare of the School of Friendship, then no one will have more friends than she will, and that will therefore make her "the most powerful pony in Equestria". But we've only ever seen at best a couple dozen or so students at the school. Does no one else in Equestria have more than a couple dozen or so friends? How many friends or ponies loyal to Celestia and Luna does Cozy Glow think there are, to give the most obvious example? And it's hard for me not to be a little cynical about this. The show's writers/producers may have plans to use Cozy Glow as a villain in the future, so Cozy Glow gets no sympathetic backstory of how she got this way, and no real explanation of why she wants to accumulate power or what she would do with it. Those seem like understandable questions for the audience to ask, particularly considering that Cozy Glow appears to be a kid. But it seems that all we need to know is that she's evil, and that she didn't (yet) get a "redeemable" tag, so off to Tartarus she goes. (And yet, if Cozy Glow had merely acted apologetic when confronted, she might well have been treated very differently.) But, of course, one possible reason that Cozy Glow is being sent to Tartarus is to set up a future big conflict where the residents of Tartarus escape. Tirek and the other monsters in Tartarus all saw for themselves that their inherent magic was enough to open the doors of Tartarus. So what would stop them from doing so again and escaping? Did their magic need to be channeled through a unicorn horn in order to open the doors? Do the other monsters in Tartarus believe in this theory I mentioned earlier where their good behavior in helping the Mane Seven escape would be rewarded by their being set free later, and they'll continue to believe that and just wait for that time to come? ----- When the Student Six are practicing for graduation on the belief that they saved Equestria and are therefore done with school, Twilight and company laugh, and Twilight says "Saving Equestria is nice, but I'm afraid it'll take more than one semester to learn all there is to know about friendship". That led me to think back to Starlight's graduation in "Celestial Advice". At that time, Twilight declared to Starlight that "I know there's nothing more I need to teach you", and deemed Starlight ready to graduate. At least at first glance, it seems like the Student Six at the end of Season 8 are in a similar (if not better) position than Starlight was at the beginning of Season 7. In both cases, Starlight and the Student Six had spent about a show season's worth of time as students of friendship, and in both cases they formed teams and saved Equestria in the absence of the Mane Seven. Also, it seemed as though Starlight had a lot more she needed to learn about friendship back then, whereas it seems like the Student Six really haven't needed to learn much about friendship this season. So what could explain this apparent difference in how Twilight thought Starlight was ready to graduate back then, while Twilight doesn't think the Student Six are ready to graduate now? Is Starlight supposed to have been a student of friendship under Twilight for a significantly longer period of time than the Student Six have been students at the School of Friendship? Were the friendship lessons that Starlight completed supposed to have been significantly more rigorous than those that the Student Six have completed so far? Are there significant differences in what Starlight and the Student Six did to save Equestria that would differentiate their readiness to graduate? Is it just a matter of the Student Six's being too young to graduate? Have Twilight's criteria for what she considers as having learned friendship well enough to graduate changed significantly between then and now? Or if Twilight's criteria haven't changed, should her current thinking that the Student Six aren't ready to graduate be taken as evidence that Twilight was guilt-tripped/pressured into graduating Starlight when Twilight didn't truly think Starlight was ready to graduate? I honestly don't know what the best explanation is here. ----- Now here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: Cozy Glow throws a juice box in what appears to be a recycling bin, while taking the presumably plastic straw out and putting that in the garbage. I would think the opposite - that the plastic straw would be recyclable while the juice box wouldn't be, at least if Equestria's recycling capabilities are comparable to our world. I find it a little odd that Cozy Glow just feels free to read Silverstream's crossword puzzle and suggest answers. What if Silverstream wanted to solve it herself, and didn't necessarily want help? Twilight's grandfather clock in her office has 16 marked positions around the face, and has 4 hands. However, in the show, characters do refer to hours, minutes, and seconds, and have even occasionally used "24 hours" to apparently refer to a day. So I'm not sure what units of time are denoted by these markings, and I'm not sure what units of time the 4 different hands on the clock are keeping track of. Even without Cozy Glow's "tells" that we in the audience have observed from this season, her brown-nosing behavior might be considered suspicious in itself - not suspicious of being evil, per se, but at least suspicious of what motives she has for brown-nosing this hard, and what favors she might be planning on cashing in later. Twilight says that Cozy Glow is like her "right-hoof pony", which leads me to wonder how many "right-hoof creatures" Twilight is juggling at this point. Spike is Twilight's original #1 assistant, of course, and at least at one point, Owlowiscious was also supposed to be Twilight's helper. But now apparently Cozy Glow makes for the third one that Twilight has. While Yona and the other non-pegasus ponies fall through the clouds when Starlight's spell gives out, Smolder, Silverstream, Gallus, and Ocellus don't. So dragons, hippogriffs, griffons, and changelings all have the inherent ability to walk on clouds? Earlier, when Ocellus said "Wow! I've never stood on a cloud before!" and Starlight said "You can't normally. But for our trip, I cast a spell that lets us walk like Pegasi", did that "you" and that "us" not actually refer to Ocellus or the other three? Has Ocellus never stood on a cloud before just because she's never tried it before? Twilight briefly considers closing the school and sending the students home, but quickly abandons that idea. If this doesn't qualify as enough of an emergency to close the school and send the students home, then what would? Does the school have to be nuked before Twilight would finally send the students home? And what makes the Mane Eight confident enough that Starlight can oversee the school and protect all the students by herself without magic? Fluttershy says that the cupcakes "must've gone bad without magic to keep them cold", but since when did cupcakes have to be kept cold so as not to spoil, particularly within just a few hours or so? I'm a little surprised that a Sapphire Shores concert was still being held even as magic was disappearing all across Equestria. I might think that that would be a little bit of a national emergency, and that people would be concerned about security and their ability to travel and whatnot. The door to the room that the rest of the Student Six were locked into looks as though it's made of wood, so couldn't Smolder try to burn it down? Or if not the door, then is the window frame burnable? Or even the wooden floor? Is Smolder supposed to have lost the ability to breathe fire at this point? (If so, it would be nice to get a confirmation of that.) Could they just try to break the whole window and its frame out? It does seems fairly dumb for Cozy Glow to take Neighsay's medallion away from him, realizing that it still has magical power, only to drop it in the garbage can in full view mere feet away. Also, I can't help noting that Pinkie's obnoxiousness is actually a plot point. It's also strange that Ocellus warns that pulling one of the artifacts out "would probably cause a magical feedback loop and destroy the whole school", and yet they do just that a little later, and nothing happens, without any obvious explanation of why not. Finally, there are at least a couple of things that happened in other episodes this season that we thought might be answered by the end of the season. I remember some speculation about the significance of the Tree of Harmony's stopping the Mean 6 from obtaining the Elements, how they were turned into logs right next to the Tree, and how the Elements of Harmony might have been corrupted. But those things don't seem to have become significant in this season, other than perhaps demonstrating that the Tree of Harmony has gotten stronger. Also, in "Friendship University", we never did find out how Flim and Flam obtained a complete copy of Twilight's curriculum without her knowledge, and it was speculated that Cozy Glow might have "borrowed" a copy and given it to them, or that Neighsay gave them a copy from the EEA in order to sabotage Twilight's school. But we didn't see or hear anything about that, so I guess that remains a mystery.

Now that Season 8 is officially over, what do you think were the best and worst (or, if you prefer, your favorite and least favorite) episodes of the season? In the poll above, you can vote for as many or as few episodes for each question as you wish, although many people traditionally have given a top 5 and bottom 5. At the bottom of each question, there is also a "None / Prefer not to answer" option. Also, feel free to post and explain your choices. Later on, I'll post the top 5 episodes that I liked most this season. Thanks for voting!

Overall, this is another episode for which it's rather difficult to characterize my feelings. On the one hand, there are significant positive elements to the episode. It's nice to see the Mane Six really working to make Spike's dreams of doing activities with his dad come true. It's also heartwarming to see Twilight helping Spike with flying, Twilight's concern for Spike later, and more confirmation of Twilight's and Spike's loving relationship. And Smolder ends up being a real hero in this episode. She stops Spike from continuing to be manipulated, used, and derailed by Sludge; again acts as a mentor to Spike on what being a dragon is really like; and helps Spike to expose Sludge and ultimately get him to leave. On the other hand, though, it's painful to watch Spike being oblivious and obsequious to Sludge. It's hard not to wish that Spike would show more skepticism or hesitation before (more or less) doing anything that Sludge tells him to do, and before essentially agreeing to give up his current "ponified" life and any other personal goals just on Sludge's say-so. When Spike runs into Smolder outside, Spike says that Sludge is showing him how to be a "real dragon", that Sludge is really good at "being a dragon", and that "maybe someday, I'll be able to lay around doing nothing as well as he does". Didn't Spike have any of his own goals or aspirations other than being just like a "real dragon"? Even if Sludge were showing Spike what it's like to be a "real dragon", shouldn't Spike want to do more than that? Doesn't Spike have his own values and his own idea of who he is that he holds strongly enough to stand up for, rather than (in a matter of a couple of days or so) seemingly throwing all of that away in order to do whatever Sludge wants and to aspire to be like him? However, is it necessarily bad characterization to have Spike act this way? I have these things that I think Spike ought to have done, and I wish that he would have done, but is it unreasonable to expect Spike to have done them? I guess I don't know. From our perspective in the audience, we can see more dispassionately (and pretty early on) that Sludge is a slimy freeloader who's emotionally manipulating and taking advantage of Spike. But I don't know that I can really put myself in Spike's place, where he wants to meet his biological parents this badly, to the point that he keeps a long list of things that he wishes that he could do with his dad. I feel like I might do better at keeping my wits about me in a situation like that, but then, I'm also probably less inclined to feel these strong emotions that might overtake dispassionate observation and judgement. So while I don't like seeing Spike act this way, I don't really know if it's unreasonable for Spike to do so. ----- One potential turning point in the episode involves Spike's decision to take Sludge to the castle, and Spike's and the Mane Six's decision to nurse Sludge back to health. Spike and the Mane Six seem to think that Sludge is potentially seriously injured, as shown by their putting him in a wheelchair, making a sling for his arm, trying to do what looks like physical therapy, etc. But if they believe that, shouldn't they be taking him to a hospital? Ponyville does have a hospital, after all, and I would think that it would have more equipment and expertise in handling potentially serious injuries than the Mane Seven would have at Twilight's castle. Plus, if Sludge is overexaggerating or outright faking his injuries, then the hospital staff would seem more likely to pick up on that, and hopefully head off any attempt by Sludge to take advantage of Spike and the Mane Six. (The Ponyville hospital staff did, for example, see through Rainbow's pretending to be injured again back in "Read It And Weep", and refused to re-admit her.) And I could see those two decisions changing the whole trajectory of events from that point. What if Spike and Smolder immediately took Sludge to the hospital, and it was determined that Sludge had no injuries or only minor injuries, and therefore had no need to stay in Ponyville? What if Sludge tried too hard to fake being injured, and the hospital staff called him out on it, exposing him as a slimy freeloader to Spike (and the others) before Sludge could even learn about and exploit Spike's orphan status? The seemingly innocuous decisions to take Sludge to the castle and for the Mane Six to help him may have turned out to be more fateful than they might have thought. ----- Another aspect of this episode that I particularly noticed and thought about was how much Sludge managed to take advantage of Twilight's and everyone else's hospitality. Especially during and right after the song, I couldn't help wondering just how much food Sludge had gone through just in his relatively brief stay at the castle. And what about Sludge's (and Spike's) making a mess of things around the castle? Can Twilight, as presumably the one in charge of the castle, ask for some moderation in consuming all the food and trashing the place? Does she have to defer completely to whatever Sludge (and Spike) wants to do, no matter what the cost? I also thought of this when Twilight questions Spike about what Sludge is doing. Twilight expresses discomfort at Sludge's "taking over [Spike's] room" and "making a mess of things", and is worried about whether Spike will act that way, just to have Spike respond indignantly and accuse Twilight of jealousy and/or bigotry. What kind of expectations are being set up here? Sludge gets to stay in the castle indefinitely; in the meantime, he and Spike get to consume or use whatever they want, have piles of open food in Spike's room, toss shelves of (organized) books around the library, burn or throw out whatever they don't like, etc.; and if Twilight questions any of this or wishes that they wouldn't do it, then she's the bad one? But what would have happened if, say, Twilight stood firm and said that if Sludge won't follow her minimum baseline rules, then he's kicked out of the castle? Spike may well have followed Sludge wherever he went at that point, and Twilight could lose Spike indefinitely. But what would Sludge have done, knowing that his goal was to find a way to live a cushy lifestyle at others' expense? Would he have continued to manipulate Spike and tried to use Spike's other connections in order to freeload off of Spike's other friends/family? If that did work for Sludge, then it would seem like Twilight's kicking Sludge out would accomplish worse than nothing, because Sludge would still be using Spike and being a bad influence on him, but now he wouldn't even have Twilight to help, and meanwhile, Twilight would be alienated from Spike. So it does seem like Twilight is in a frustrating catch-22, at least for the moment. I do have to wonder, as others have mentioned, whether Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six were planning to use the Cutie Map to try to build a case against Sludge to present to Spike, and if so, how long that would have taken and how effective that would have been. ----- Now here's just a few more miscellaneous observations that I had: Spike's practicing flips and doing a "big finish" seems to imply that there's a performance of some kind that he's practicing for. This scene parallels Twilight's practicing in "Princess Twilight Sparkle", but in that case, she was (at least in part) practicing a routine for the Summer Sun Celebration. So are there plans for Spike to do some public flying performance at some point in the future? Apparently none of Twilight's flying advice to Spike is helping, and Smolder is much better at helping Spike with flying technique, because dragons don't have feathers. But to what extent was Twilight's flying advice only applicable to feathered wings? The only particular flying advice we hear Twilight give in the episode - "Remember, two flaps, then straight up" to do a flip - doesn't seem to be obviously specific to feathered wings. Spike also mentions after Smolder's lessons that he just needed to bend his wings, but does Twilight not bend her wings? Just a couple of episodes ago, I mentioned the dragon in "Gauntlet of Fire" that wanted to become Dragon Lord in order to raid Equestria for their pillows, and in this episode, that becomes relevant again. Smolder says to Spike's throw pillow gift that "It's just dragons don't really use pillows. At all". But that doesn't mean that all dragons don't want to use pillows, or that they couldn't start to. It doesn't seem like Sludge was specifically traveling to Ponyville for the purpose of taking advantage of Spike. So where was Sludge originally going? Why did he crash-land in Ponyville? Did Sludge happen to see Spike and Smolder walking down the road, and he tried to land to talk to them? During the whole first third of the episode, we don't see any of the characters asking these questions, even just out of curiosity. Right after Twilight leaves Sludge in Spike's room, she bumps into Spike, who drops the food he's carrying and has two raw eggs break on his face. Why was Spike carrying raw eggs with his pile of baked goods, anyway? Do dragons enjoy eating raw eggs?

Overall, I'm a bit of two minds about this episode. On the one hand, I can see a sort of feel-good fluffiness to the episode which can be appealing. The Kirin are cute and likable enough, and Autumn Blaze is all right; I'm not typically a fan of characters being super-talkative and hyperactive, but it helps that she generally has a more pleasant voice and demeanor (as compared to, say, Pinkie when she starts going off). The episode also comes to a nice feel-good ending where the Kirin realize that they can keep their anger in check, and rediscover the joys of speaking and having feelings again. However, when I thought more about some of the aspects of this episode, I saw a few potential issues. I thought Applejack was offputtingly presumptuous and insensitive in her attitude toward the Kirin upon meeting them. I also wonder about the logistics of Kirin society if the Stream of Silence took away their ability to have feelings, and I noticed quite a few cases where the Kirin appear to be exhibiting feelings, or are referred to as having feelings, when they supposedly shouldn't. I also got a sense that the Kirin's conflict and particularly the resolution to it were a little too simplistic; I wonder if some of the time spent on Autumn Blaze's song and her being quirky to Applejack could have been spent fleshing out the Kirin's conflict or the resolution to it a little more. ----- First, I'll talk about what I saw as Applejack's rather presumptuous and insensitive attitude toward the Kirin. When Applejack and Fluttershy come across the Kirin, Applejack in particular doesn't seem to realize that this isn't just another city in Equestria, with most of the attendant societal and cultural norms; the Kirin look to be pretty isolated from pony, or any other, society. I think it would be reasonable to expect the Kirin to be wary of Applejack and Fluttershy; to expect the Kirin to perhaps just want to observe them first; and to expect that the Kirin won't necessarily welcome them with open arms and go right into chatting them up. It even took Fluttershy a fair bit to consider that maybe the Kirin don't understand them, which shouldn't have been a surprise if true, although it turned out that (somehow) the Kirin also speak "Ponish". And when the Kirin leader nods to Fluttershy's suggestion that "you don't speak", Applejack is immediately suspicious and says "Don't or won't?". But, first off, the two of them don't even know if these Kirin are physically able to speak; that turned out to be somewhat the case, since the Stream of Silence "disabled" their ability to speak. But also, even if they were physically capable of speech, what if they just don't want to talk? The Kirin are not under any obligation to talk to Applejack and Fluttershy, or to do anything else that Applejack and Fluttershy want them to do, and the Kirin could have many reasons why aren't doing so. Yet Applejack carries on with her apparent expectation that the Kirin are perfectly capable of talking to her, and that it's outrageous that they aren't. This is embodied in Applejack's declaration that "there's gotta be some way to make 'em speak", followed by her trying to trick them or badger them into speaking. It doesn't seem to occur to Applejack that maybe the Kirin would be more cooperative if she showed them a little more respect. Earlier, Applejack yelled to Fluttershy "Well, how are we gonna solve a friendship problem if none of 'em will tell us what it is?". Gee, maybe Applejack and Fluttershy will have to get to know and understand the Kirin on the Kirin's terms, rather than Applejack's expecting the Kirin to just do whatever she wants them to do. And I'm not sure that we see Applejack ever really learn that she was going about meeting a new species and a new society the wrong way. However, it is funny, in some sense, to see Applejack getting agitated and impatient with the Kirin not talking to her, while the Kirin repeatedly just give her a stone-faced nonresponse; that feels, in a way, like Applejack is getting what she deserves for her presumptuousness and insensitivity. And it does seem like Applejack was (at least in part) written to have this bull-in-a-china-shop approach in order to provide a point of contention with Fluttershy, which in turn is used to demonstrate for the Kirin that friends can disagree and be angry with each other without getting out of control. But I'm not sure I like having Applejack made this offputting and oblivious to accomplish those things. ----- Next, I'll talk about this concept that the Stream of Silence not only took away the Kirin's ability to speak, but also took away their ability to feel "feelings". This is mentioned at least a few times in the episode. After Autumn Blaze's song, Applejack says "I can't believe it! Nopony should give up feelin'...their feelin's just to keep from gettin' angry!" and Autumn Blaze replies "That what's I said!". Later, when Applejack is arguing with Fluttershy, Applejack says that "There's gotta be a better way than givin' up all your feelin's!". And when Applejack and Fluttershy are about to be dunked in the Stream of Silence, Applejack says "If we hit that water, we'll never be able to talk or feel anythin' ever again!". And, of course, several times, the Kirin are portrayed as having "neutral" facial expressions and not having emotional reactions to things going on around them. First, it's not exactly clear what is meant by these "feelings" that the Stream of Silence prevented the Kirin from feeling. Does the term "feelings" also encompass, say, physical pain, hunger and thirst, tiredness, etc.? I suppose that, since we see the post-Stream of Silence Kirin still basically functioning, we might assume that "feelings" is referring essentially to higher-order human-like emotions, although even that still seems like a somewhat fuzzy categorization. And one potentially puzzling thing about the post-Stream of Silence Kirin not having feelings is that they appear to be maintaining basically the same lifestyle and civilized society that they had before. What is motivating the Kirin to undertake the day-to-day work to maintain their lifestyle and society if they have no feelings? One possibility is that the post-Stream of Silence Kirin are operating on animal instinct, without any of these higher-order human-like feelings. But to what extent can animal instincts be separated from "feelings"? And can animal instincts alone justify the maintenance of a civilized society? Another possibility is that the post-Stream of Silence Kirin are operating on cold, hard reasoning that doesn't involve higher-order human-like feelings. But it might be a non-trivial task to come up with reasoning for maintaining the Kirin's lifestyle and civilized society that doesn't invoke "feelings" at some point, and I'm not sure that I would be up to that task. ----- Another issue is that if this episode is combed through while keeping in mind that the post-Stream of Silence (and uncured) Kirin aren't supposed to have "feelings", then there seem to be quite a few apparent violations of that. Below, I'll list some of these that I noticed. - Autumn Blaze says that she was "super bored" and looked to be going kind of crazy before she found the foal's-breath flowers and looked happy/excited before making the brew to cure herself, which all seem like feelings which she shouldn't be able to feel. And after Autumn Blaze became "quite chatty", she says that she "drove my village batty", and that they "didn't like" her jokes, songs, news, plays, etc. Again, wouldn't those also be things that the Kirin who went through the Stream of Silence shouldn't be feeling? - Furthermore, one of the things that Autumn Blaze did after being cured was write plays/musicals and get them performed. First, how did that work, if none of the other Kirin were able to speak or have feelings? Were the actors just miming actions while music played over the top or something? Did Autumn Blaze provide voiceover to the whole thing? And if the actors don't have feelings, what would be their motivation to act in these plays/musicals in the first place? Also, did any other villagers watch these plays/musicals? If they didn't have feelings, then would they have any reason to watch them at all? - At the end of her song, Autumn Blaze says "No matter how hard I schooled them / Fear of hurt is still what ruled them". But if the other Kirin don't have feelings, then could that really be the case? Isn't "fear of hurt" a feeling that they shouldn't be able to feel? - A little later, when Applejack and Fluttershy start arguing over whether the Kirin should allow themselves to talk, the other Kirin who have gathered to observe start to look concerned or fearful that Applejack and Fluttershy will burst into flame or transform or something, and the Kirin do so again when they're about to dunk Applejack and Fluttershy in the Stream of Silence. - When Autumn Blaze tells Fern Flare "you used to love to laugh at everything", and tells Rain Shine "you sung the most beautiful harmonies. Don't you miss it?", aren't those essentially emotional appeals, which shouldn't work on Kirin who have no feelings? And yet we see Fern Flare, Rain Shine, and other surrounding Kirin looking sad/wistful/regretful. If the Kirin have no feelings, then it seems like Applejack, Fluttershy, and Autumn Blaze would have to make some kind of purely logical, utilitarian argument (which doesn't invoke "feelings") to convince the other Kirin to take the cure and get their speech and feelings back. - And at the end of the episode, Rain Shine wants Autumn Blaze to come back to live in the village, and says "I can't say how much we've missed your beautiful voice". But the Kirin literally just drank the cure which restored their abilities to have feelings; prior to that, could the Kirin have really missed Autumn Blaze's beautiful voice if they didn't have feelings? Now I'll admit that it seems fairly easy not to notice these apparent inconsistencies if this episode is being watched without actively keeping in mind that the post-Steam of Silence Kirin aren't supposed to have "feelings". The feelings being displayed or referred to would make sense and would be relatable otherwise. That causes me to wonder if this episode could have worked with the Stream of Silence only taking away the ability to speak, and not also taking away the ability to have feelings. That could introduce its own complications, however. For example, there would be a fairly obvious point to be made that the Kirin would still be perfectly capable of making each other angry, or becoming angry, even if they weren't able to speak. And if the Kirin retained their feelings, then that might take away a justification for the reception (at least initially) that the Kirin gave to Applejack and Fluttershy. ----- Finally, I'll talk about a few things that contribute to a sense that the Kirin's conflict and the resolution to it was a little overly simplistic. First, we have this story of the Kirin transforming into Nirik and burning down their old village, and their subsequent submersion in the Stream of Silence, but one aspect of this story that's never really explained is the circumstances around this particular incident. In the song, we see two Kirin having a seemingly petty argument and transforming, but then a few seconds after that, other Kirin observing the incident, who looked concerned or curious and seemed to have nothing obvious to be angry about, suddenly transformed too. Why did they do that? Is the implication that Kirin anger, or the transformation into Nirik, is "contagious" and can spread to other nearby Kirin who otherwise wouldn't be angry or transform? Or if not that, did all these other Kirin have their own things that they just happened to get angry about all at the same time? What were they getting angry about, and could those things have been worked out or solved? It's fine and all for Applejack to say that "friends can disagree without causin' a ruckus", and for Fluttershy to suggest that "if you're really angry, then take some time away to be a Nirik where it won't hurt anypony", but wouldn't it be better to fix the things that they're getting angry about in the first place, when possible? Also, Twilight had the shield and information from Rockhoof that suggested that this transformation into Nirik was happening 1000+ years ago. And if that's the case, then did Kirin getting angry and transforming (with that possibly spreading to other Kirin) never burn down their village before? Or was this a frequent occurrence, and this particular incident was just the straw that broke the Kirin leader's back? If this was a regular occurrence before, then I wouldn't be so sure that it can easily be fixed with just a few sentences of advice from Applejack and Fluttershy. And when Fluttershy asks Autumn Blaze how she knew she could control her temper, Autumn Blaze says that she didn't know, until she just did it, I suppose. But will it be that easy for the other Kirin to control their tempers? Did none of them know that they could control their tempers before, but now, all of a sudden, they'll just find that they're able to do so? This is important in light of Fluttershy's advice that "if you're really angry, then take some time away to be a Nirik where it won't hurt anypony". Being able to do that would require some level of self-control when they're getting angry, and I don't know if all the Kirin will be able to exert that self-control, at least not without a fair amount of work. ----- Now here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: Twilight proclaims that it's "amazing!" that Fluttershy and Applejack are going on a friendship quest, since this is the first time the map has teamed up the same ponies for a second quest. But is it amazing, really? Over the past few seasons, the Cutie Map has seemed to break any particular rules that we thought it was following, so I'm not sure that there's even intended to be any rhyme or reason to what the Map does at this point. Twilight says that she only knows what Rockhoof told her about the Peaks of Peril, which is presumably a reference to Rockhoof's new job. I remember that Twilight wasn't able to find much information on The Smoky Mountains in her research back in "The Hooffields And McColts", so it's nice to see that Rockhoof is being consulted by Twilight when perhaps she isn't able to find much (or any) information on a new Map location. Somewhat surprisingly, I got the "flanks don't lie" reference. I don't know much about 2000s mainstream pop, other than the big hits on the Adult Top 40 and Adult Contemporary charts, but I do know that Hips Don't Lie was a #1 hit in 2006 by Shakira. However, the Simon & Garfunkel song referenced by the title of this episode is much more of my kind of music, even though that song was a #1 hit way back in early 1966. The ticket guy says that he's not used to seeing anyone take the train to "the end of the line. The final destination. The last stop". But this isn't the only end of a train line we've seen in the show. Back in "The Cutie Map", when the Mane Six were travelling to Starlight's village, they also got off the train at a point where the tracks just abruptly ended in the middle of nowhere. Of course, we don't know how much else of the Friendship Express train system this ticket guy is aware of, especially if he's gone a little crazy. Speaking of which, does this ticket guy just live out of the ticket stand? Does he ever travel back to civilization at any point? Is he getting paid by somebody to be "on duty" out here? As I've seen pointed out by others, this is at least the second time that Fluttershy has been distracted by animals and split off from a hiking group without the rest of the group noticing, since that also occurred in "The Mean 6". Fluttershy really needs to learn to say something if she's going to hang back from the hiking group, and the others need to learn to pay some attention to their hiking mates. As soon as Autumn Blaze falls into the flower bed of foal's-breath, she gets excited and already seems to know to make a "brew" of the flowers to cure the effects of the Stream of Silence. So, is foal's-breath well-known among the Kirin to be a cure to the Stream of Silence? Did only Autumn Blaze know this, for some reason? How far away from the village did Autumn Blaze have to wonder before stumbling across the foal's-breath? After Autumn Blaze's song, Applejack says that she's going to get the other Kirin to welcome Autumn Blaze back, and maybe even convince them to take Autumn Blaze's cure. But I'm not sure what Applejack plans to say differently to convince the Kirin that Autumn Blaze didn't already try to say. And with Applejack's track record of failing to get the Kirin to cooperate with her up to this point, I wouldn't really expect any more success in this endeavor. When the other Kirin are going to dunk Applejack and Fluttershy in the Stream of Silence, the two of them are seen to be hovering over top of the water (as shown by their shadows) while the Kirin are all standing on the road and on the bank of the river. Then we zoom in on Autumn Blaze as a Nirik, and two seconds later, Applejack and Fluttershy are now conveniently hovering over the road instead of the water, and the Kirin have conveniently arrayed themselves on both sides of the road, to allow room for Autumn Blaze to make her wall of fire encircling Applejack and Fluttershy. Nirik fire was apparently hot enough to burn down the Kirin's old village, and Autumn Blaze encircles Applejack and Fluttershy with a wall of Nirik fire just a few feet away from them; I would think that it would be pretty hot in there. Also, if we're making song references in this episode, there was a missed opportunity for Fluttershy to thank Autumn Blaze for the "ring of fire", rather than the "wall of fire". Finally, when one of the Kirin is playing charades to try to communicate to Autumn Blaze that they want to take the cure, Autumn Blaze gets angry, and one of the things she shouts is "Just write it down!", which is a good point. We saw Autumn Blaze distributing newspapers and Variety reviews in her song earlier, so the Kirin seem to have written language. Did the Stream of Silence somehow modify the Kirins' brains so that they're incapable of writing, as well as speaking?

Overall, I'd say that this is another okay episode, and another one that I don't really have any big issues with. The episode did seem a little too direct in fulfilling its goals of setting Cozy Glow up as a villain, expanding the Student Six's characterization, laying the foundation for the finale, etc.; consequently, parts of this episode seemed a little clunky. But there were a number of other good moments throughout the episode that were interesting and/or entertaining. I don't think I knew, for example, that Ocellus has a horrible past and apparently participated in some evil deeds as a changeling, or that Sandbar has particularly admired the Mane Six. And it was nice to see, for example, Smolder's inviting Ocellus to a top-secret tea party, and Silverstream's interactions with Gallus. One scene that I found particularly jarring is when Cozy Glow gives her patronizing and backhanded "compliments" to the Student Six. One moment the Student Six are all laughing at Ocellus's impressions, then the next moment, out of nowhere, Cozy Glow is pushing Ocellus aside to make her declaration. I'm presuming that Cozy Glow has some evil intentions to sow doubt/distrust/dislike among the Student Six, but why do that in this situation and in this kind of clumsy manner? Was Cozy Glow's little speech pre-planned, with her just waiting for the right time to say it, and for some reason, she thought that this was a good opportunity to interrupt and deploy it? Or did Cozy Glow just feel a spontaneous urge at that moment to break up the Student Six's camaraderie, and what she said wasn't planned ahead of time? And with the way that Cozy Glow's speech played out, did the Student Six say anything to each other about how weird, insulting, and condescending Cozy Glow was being? After the scene change, the Student Six are just reading silently, so I don't know. I don't think I have any other big points to make, so here's the rest of my miscellaneous observations: I missed this myself, but I saw it pointed out that when Twilight reminds the class about the test tomorrow, Cozy Glow is the only student who's excited about it; even smartypants Ocellus groans with the rest of the class. Maybe that behavior on Cozy Glow's part should be viewed as suspicious in itself - after all, what kind of student gets excited about taking a test, even if it's a subject that one likes and is good at? Why is there a grate by the tree in the courtyard that leads to this underground cave system? And then why is there another grate in the school library that apparently leads to the same cave system? At first I thought that the outside grate was like a storm drain or something, but then it wouldn't make much sense for a grate in the school library to lead to the storm drain system. Are the grates supposed to be an outlet to prevent natural buildup of gases in the underground cave system? But then why would they want to vent such gases indoors in the library? Were the underground caves repurposed to be part of the school's ventilation system? Are they another emergency exit or something, similar to the secret passage to the swamp we saw in "The End In Friend"? Ocellus's impressions of Twilight and Applejack are almost scary in their accuracy; Ocellus could probably do some real damage impersonating them if she wanted to. The Tree of Harmony seems to be making the Student Six believe that if they don't pass its test, then they'll be forced to stay in the underground cave system with no one else knowing that they're down there. And Gallus, at least, appears to be in a legitimately dangerous situation. But maybe we're supposed to assume that the Tree of Harmony wouldn't have actually allowed the Student Six to come to harm. The two tea party ponies suggest that Smolder is afraid to be cute and adorable, or afraid to admit that she likes it. But Smolder would seem to have good reason not to want to sit and make idle (and vapid) conversation with strangers at a tea party, regardless of how "cute and adorable" it is - she wants to find her friends and find a way out before sunrise, and she might think that sitting and chatting wouldn't help her to do those things. The whole thing about Smolder's being afraid to admit to not minding cute stuff brought to mind one of the dragons back in "Gauntlet of Fire" that wanted to become Dragon Lord in order to pillage Equestria for all of their pillows, because the dragons just sleep on rocks. Couldn't wanting nice, soft, comfortable pillows made by ponies also be viewed as "wussy" or whatever? But that shows that there's at least one more dragon (other than Smolder, Spike, and Ember) who likes at least that aspect of pony culture. Regarding Gallus's and Yona's tests, I think those would be scary for plenty of other people, too. We don't need to be claustrophobic to find a shrinking room that threatens to crush or trap us scary, nor would we need to be arachnophobic to find a giant swarm of spiders pursuing and cornering us scary (as evidenced by the other Student Six's reactions when Yona comes running in with the swarm of spiders). And sure, this particular swarm of spiders turned out to be friendly, but that doesn't necessarily mean that other spiders that Yona encounters later will be the same way. In Sandbar's test, it would seem well within reason for Sandbar to ask where he and "Rarity" and "Rainbow" are going, or how long it's going to take to get there. It's also funny that Sandbar is "tempted" by the prospect of going on a friendship adventure, and perhaps making a name for himself in the process, when he seems to be fairly widely viewed as the most forgettable of the Student Six. For Silverstream's test, if the Storm King and his minions are just shadows on the cave walls, then what was supposed to be making the menacing growling noise? The events of "Princess Twilight Sparkle" would probably have gone a lot more smoothly if the Tree of Harmony were able to make this kind of projection and, say, tell the Mane Six where it is and that it was in danger. But I guess the Tree didn't have enough power or hadn't grown enough yet to be able to do that. At the end of the episode, Cozy Glow begs the Student Six not to tell the Mane Eight about this, because she doesn't want to get in trouble and get expelled. So what, the Student Six can't even say that they saw the grate open in the library and discovered the underground cave system, and once they were down there, the Tree of Harmony talked to them and tested them on their friendship? I guess the idea is that if the Student Six told that story, then the Mane Eight would ask about why the Tree of Harmony was poking up from under the school and felt the need to test the Student Six, and then they would have to say that Cozy Glow's words to them planted doubt and caused their friendship to suffer. I'll have to keep this in mind, it's more fun to have a sort of mystery to look out for when watching an episode in the future!

Overall, I'd say this was an okay episode - perhaps not particularly exciting to me, but it was better than I might have expected, and I don't really have any serious issues with it. Rockhoof's conflict is understandable, and it's nice to see the Mane Six and the rest of the school taking a genuine interest in finding a place for him and making him feel as though he belongs. It's also nice to see what the other Pillars besides Star Swirl are up to, and to see that they're doing well for themselves. And there are other smaller enjoyable details, such as Spike's seeing right through Gallus when substituting for Twilight. One thing that I'm not totally sold on, though, is the idea of appointing Rockhoof as "Equestria's official keeper of tales". We see Rockhoof want to tell a story when at the dig site for his old village, and he tells a story in class when he hasn't read Twilight's notes for the class yet. But I wouldn't see those instances as necessarily meaning that Rockhoof would want to become a full-time storykeeper and storyteller. After all, essentially everyone has stories about their own lives, and stories of things that they've heard, that they might want to tell on certain occasions. Also, Twilight calls Rockhoof "a living record of our history", but how much history does Rockhoof know, and has he been making any particular effort to remember it? Rockhoof says that his Ursa Major story "was just a tall tale", and at the end of the episode, he's seen to be just making a story up as he goes. In this new Twilight-appointed role, will Rockhoof be recording actual history or historical legends, in addition to making up inspirational "tall tales"? (Also, will Rockhoof be paid for this role through Twilight's mysterious source of funds?) This role for Rockhoof is depicted as better than being turned to stone, which is true enough, but I'm not sure of the long-term viability of this role, and I might think that Rockhoof would want to do something physical that utilizes his strength (a little more on that later). I don't really have any other bigger-picture observations, so here's the rest of my miscellaneous observations: After Rockhoof is seen apparently not understanding what the archaeological team is doing at his old village, Professor Fossil goes to Twilight and says "So, you see why Rockhoof isn't an ideal fit for my team". Was Rockhoof "officially" a part of Professor Fossil's archaeological team? Did Twilight or Celestia or somebody send Rockhoof to join Professor Fossil's team, without his fully understanding what they were doing? Was Rockhoof told what the archaeological team was doing, but just disregarded it? Or did Rockhoof himself volunteer for the team? Smolder asks the other Student Six whether they think that Rockhoof is "gonna be the weirdest teacher at school or just one of the weirdest". Is Smolder just referring to the substitute teachers that Discord and Starlight came up with in "A Matter Of Principals", or does Smolder think that (at least some of) the Mane Eight are weird, too? So Rarity's entire class's friendship quilts were ruined because, what, they got wet? Are these quilts they're making never supposed to be washed? Is the implication that they were blasted with water and the impact undid the incomplete stitching or something? Do the mail deliverers in Ponyville always know the contents of the packages they're delivering and what the people who ordered those packages will use them for? Was this one pharmaceutical company from which Cranky was ordering just particularly indiscreet in its packaging? The Pillars besides Rockhoof that we see in this episode seem to be aware of what the other Pillars have been up to, whereas to Rockhoof, this all appears to be new information. That's another factor that would contribute to Rockhoof's isolation and depression - he appears to have been left out of the loop when it comes to what his fellow Pillars, some of his only friends, have been doing. Applejack asks why the hippogriffs need ships if they can turn into seaponies, but one answer could be that they might not be able to effectively defend themselves and their home from threats on the seas as seaponies. Silverstream seems positively gleeful at the (supposed) story that "Rockhoof called down the stars and sunk the whole hippogriff Navy!" - i.e., the Navy of her own society. I suppose that, as a relatively young student, we can't expect her to show concern about the labor and resources it would take to rebuild the whole Navy, or about how such a story might indicate that the Navy isn't as ready to defend their home as they might think. Spike tells the class that Twilight won't be in because she has to cast a stone sleep spell on Rockhoof, but then when Ocellus asks why, Spike just shrugs his shoulders. Was Spike told by Twilight not to say why she's casting a stone sleep spell on Rockhoof? Is Spike protecting Rockhoof's privacy/dignity/image by not saying that Rockhoof himself wanted the stone sleep spell cast on him? If Yona is reading to Rockhoof directly from her essay, my first thought was to wonder whether the students at Twilight's school are being corrected/graded on their grammar, but maybe they don't want to interfere with the yaks' culture of speaking/writing that way. Finally, I made an earlier post here about Twilight's saying that the stars look different now than they did 1000 years ago. My first thought of something that Rockhoof could do was a job in construction/demolition. However, this episode makes a point multiple times that Rockhoof wants to be seen as heroic, and a construction/demolition job might be rather mundane. Digging a tunnel for a new train route through the mountains, for example, might not be viewed as particularly heroic, even if it's argued that that would improve many Equestrians' lives. Your suggestions could provide a little more opportunity for heroism. At least for the last case, maybe the idea is that Twilight and Rockhoof started arguing and woke Spike up early in the morning, a few hours before the time that he would have woken up. Spike might normally have to wake up fairly early for whatever jobs he does at the Friendship School, though, so I'm not sure if that's really a good explanation. One thing I noted was that the flames coming out of the windows during Spike's and Smolder's fire-breathing contest are the standard orange/yellow, but we've seen that Spike's fire breath is green and Smolder's is a multicolored pink/blue/orange. So it looks like the flames coming out of the windows are not Spike's and Smolder's fire breath directly, but rather, from something that they lit on fire. If they have fire-breathing contests all the time, as Twilight says, do they normally catch stuff on fire when they do so? I could imagine, say, a fire-breathing contest where the two of them get (essentially) identical flammable objects, and the goal is to use their fire breath to be the first one to reduce their flammable object to ash. However, are they prepared to contain the fires they make so that they don't harm anyone or anything else? It really would seem like something more safely done outside and a good distance away from anyone else.

Yeah, Twilight says that "stars can move slowly over time", and that "they must look different now than over a thousand years ago", with the implication that the stars must have moved far enough in the night sky to have caused Rockhoof to give directions that steered the ship significantly off course. That got me thinking about whether stars in our night sky on Earth could move that much over time, and if so, whether a similar explanation could apply to the stars seen in Equestria. I didn't know much about that, so I did a little research, and I'll try to explain my understanding of some significant factors that could cause that to happen. First, over the course of a year, the positions of stars we see in the sky change, because as the Earth moves along its orbit around the Sun, the direction that we face at night changes. (The positions of the stars will eventually "reset" when one year passes.) However, as we look closer to the Earth's north-south axis of rotation, stars will be observed to move in the night sky less over the course of the year. And if there's a north star (or south star) directly over the Earth's north-south axis of rotation, that star will stay in essentially the same place every night. If there isn't one easily identified north star, though, a constellation of stars near or over the North or South Pole will rotate, but will essentially stay close to or over the pole, and could still be used to approximately determine which direction is north. This appears to be what Rockhoof is trying to do by identifying a constellation in "the northwest sky". Next, if we think about the positions of stars in the night sky relative to each other, those would be expected to change over a long enough period of time. The stars that we see from Earth are orbiting the center of mass of the Milky Way galaxy (and so are we and our Sun), and these stars are different sizes and distances from that center of mass, and thus would have different velocities. However, the rate at which these factors would cause an appreciable change is very slow relative to human timescales; it would take at least tens of thousands of years for the relative positions of stars in the night sky to shift noticeably. Therefore, the shapes of constellations in the night sky for us would not noticeably change over 1000 years. And we also seem to observe that in the episode. Rockhoof is readily able to identify the same constellation in the night sky that he learned 1000 years ago. One significant complicating factor, though, is a phenomenon called axial precession, caused largely by the gravitational forces of the Sun and the Moon acting on the equatorial bulge of the Earth. Earth's axis of rotation is tilted about 23.5 degrees relative to the perpendicular to its plane of orbit, and this axis of rotation itself rotates about the perpendicular to the plane of orbit, completing one revolution approximately every 26,000 years. This can be hard to picture without a diagram, but if we were to draw a line through Earth's north-south axis out into space, that line would trace a circle in the night sky over the course of 26,000 years. This means that, for example, a different star was the north star (i.e., the star closest to being directly over the North Pole) 5000 years ago than the star that's the north star today. The implication of this is that the north-south axis, and thus the direction of north, will change relative to the star map over time, at a rate of one degree around this traced-out circle in the sky approximately every 72 years, or about 14 degrees over the course of 1000 years. So that could noticeably change the direction of north relative to the star map, but not drastically so over 1000 years. All of this suggests at least a couple of ways that the stars might look significantly different at the time of this episode as compared to 1000 years earlier. If the stars observable from Equestria are like those observable from Earth, and would only noticeably change their relative positions on a very slow timescale, then the direction of north relative to the star map could significantly change if the orientation of the axis of rotation of their planet underwent a big change in the last 1000 years. Or it might be possible that, if the stars observable from Equestria move at a much faster pace than the stars observable from Earth, then the stars might have significantly changed their positions in the night sky relative to each other, but the stars making up the particular constellation that Rockhoof identified could be traveling at a similar velocity and could have moved through the night sky as a unit to a different position. Of course, in a universe where the sun and moon are apparently raised and lowered at will by Princess Celestia and Princess Luna (or other unicorns wielding the same level of power), I've also seen what I believe is a fan theory that Luna creates the night sky by placing the stars in the heavens, as well as raising the moon. In that case, Luna - or Celestia, in Luna's absence - could have intentionally or unintentionally changed the positions of the stars when (re)creating the night sky. With respect to this episode, though, all of this might just be moot when considering why the ship crashed. The problem didn't seem so much to be that the crew of the ship couldn't tell which direction was north, or what general direction they needed to travel in; rather, the problem seemed more that the crew was unable to see immediate obstacles in the ship's path. Even if Rockhoof's method worked in determining which direction was north, that probably wouldn't have helped them to see and steer clear of giant rocks or other obstructions in their path out of the harbor.

Regarding these two points, one complicating factor that I see here, even though it's not really addressed in the episode, is that I view Scootaloo and the CMC as being developmentally equivalent to middle-schoolers or 12-to-14-year-olds. And if that's the case, then that raises some questions. Should Scootaloo, or 12-to-14-year-olds in general, be treated as fully adult? Does Scootaloo, or 12-to-14-year-olds in general, have the knowledge, life experience, and/or developmental capacity to fully consent to activities with a high risk of serious injury or death? If the answers to these questions are "no" or "not really", then I think it's easier to see Lightning Dust and the Washouts as being substantially responsible for the situation. Lightning Dust and the Washouts goaded/pressured Scootaloo into agreeing to do a highly dangerous stunt which she's not capable of fully consenting to doing, and then Lightning Dust forced Scootaloo to do the stunt even as she feared for her safety and wanted to back out. Also, in this paradigm, the Washouts could be seen as supervisory adults taking substantial responsibility for Scootaloo's safety, since Scootaloo wouldn't be considered a full adult yet. That might be one reason why Twilight and the other four of the Mane Six seem to have little or no concern for Scootaloo's safety, and don't try to stop her from doing the stunt - they might have assumed that Scootaloo was "in good hands" (so to speak) with Lightning Dust and the Washouts. But that turned out not to be the case. The Washouts had Scootaloo do this stunt even though they hadn't tested it before, Scootaloo had apparently never practiced it, and, given the way it was set up, I don't even know how the stunt was supposed to work. To think about it another way, in the real world, if a supervising adult goaded/pressured a 12-to-14-year-old into doing a highly dangerous stunt with no testing or practice, and that 12-to-14-year-old was subsequently seriously injured or killed, would people generally say "Well, that was the 12-to-14-year-old's decision to make, and now he/she has to deal with the consequences"? Or would people generally consider that adult substantially (if not entirely) responsible? Also, if Scootaloo shouldn't be considered fully able to consent to a highly dangerous stunt like this, and Rainbow believes that the Washouts are not taking their responsibility for Scootaloo's safety seriously, then, from that perspective, Rainbow might have been justified in stopping Scootaloo from doing the stunt outright, even against her wishes. In that case, Rainbow would be seen as actually exercising restraint in allowing Scootaloo to attempt the stunt anyway, and being ready to rescue her before any serious harm came to pass. I would say that Scootaloo does need to learn to take more responsibility for her own safety, and that could have been more explicitly addressed in the episode. But we might be meant to hope or assume that, after her brush with serious injury or death, Scootaloo will take her own safety more seriously going forward. And yeah, Rainbow was being too controlling of Scootaloo prior to her joining the Washouts, and that also could have been made more clear in the end-of-episode moral, although again, we might hope that Rainbow learned to back off when appropriate. Ultimately, the issue of exactly how much responsibility and control over their own lives kids should be given as they gradually grow into adults is difficult. I've seen fairly convincing arguments that kids raised in the last 25 years or so have generally been overprotected and too micromanaged, and therefore they generally haven't been given enough chance to make their own meaningful decisions, work out problems for themselves, etc. But I can see how allowing or encouraging a 12-to-14-year-old essentially to take her life completely into her own hands, and allowing or encouraging her to do a highly dangerous stunt like this with no interference, could be seen as taking things too far. And in that case, the Washouts would be seen as villainous, and Rainbow's protective instinct would be seen as ultimately good in the end, even if she was being too controlling earlier.