Music Chart Fan

Overall, I'd say that this was a decent episode. I'll admit that I'm a bit of a sucker for Rainbow showing her sensitive side and being affectionate toward Scootaloo, both of which we get in this episode. We get some nice interaction between Twilight and Rainbow, and we even see Twilight helping Scootaloo eavesdrop on her fan club at the end of the episode. It's also amusing to watch Rainbow kind of freak out about Scootaloo's starting a different fan club at the start of the episode, and to see Rainbow confronting Scootaloo about it, even though yeah, the mere fact that Scootaloo is "exploring other fan clubs" shouldn't in itself be a problem. I'm glad, though, that Rainbow's determination to put down the Washouts and prove that she and the Wonderbolts are better faded away and caring for Scootaloo's safety came to the forefront. However, some of the gags, like Rainbow's claiming that bleachers and refreshments are rip-offs and Spitfire's yelling-in-Scootaloo's-face routine, crossed the line into being annoying. I wish Rainbow could have better defended the reasons why the Wonderbolts follow safety rules, and why the Washouts were kicked out of the Wonderbolts. It's also a little frustrating to watch Rainbow do things like just telling Scootaloo "no!", physically carrying/dragging her away, and unilaterally ripping up and throwing away her Washouts memorabilia, all of which aren't going to be convincing and are liable to make Scootaloo even more rebellious. Finally, I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with the Washouts - as adults with full knowledge of what they're doing - choosing to perform extreme stunts that only endanger themselves and each other, and their performance was pretty good. But then, of course, Lightning Dust has to completely disregard Scootaloo's safety and force her into doing a very dangerous stunt that none of them has done before, even as Lightning Dust knows that Scootaloo can't fly and is only a middle-school-age (or so) kid, all of which comes across as rather over-the-top and simplistic. ----- First, I'll talk about Rainbow's responses to Lightning Dust's reasoning for being glad to leave the Wonderbolts and to start the Washouts. When Lightning Dust, Rainbow, and Scootaloo are talking after the first performance, Lightning Dust says that the Washouts' secret is that they "basically ignore everything the Wonderbolts ever taught us about safety", to which Rainbow replies "Well, we do have safety rules for a reason". Then Lightning Dust says "All their "rules" were just ways of keeping their little club exclusive so they could feel good about themselves", to which Rainbow replies "It's not about making anypony feel bad. It's about finding the best flyers. The best of the best". Rainbow's last response in particular seemed kind of odd, and it also apparently was an impetus for Rainbow's and Scootaloo's falling out later in the episode. When Rainbow says that the Wonderbolts are looking for "the best of the best", my first thought was "the best of the best in what?". Presumably the Wonderbolts are looking for more than just members with "the best" flying ability, or else the Washouts might still be in the Wonderbolts now. Shouldn't the Wonderbolts (at least in theory) also be looking for members with "the best" integrity, dependability to their fellow Wonderbolts, dedication to protecting Equestria, etc.? In multiple previous episodes ("Wonderbolts Academy", "Rainbow Falls", "Rarity Investigates!"), Rainbow demonstrated to and reminded the Wonderbolts of these higher ideals that they should be standing for. With that in mind, Rainbow says "Cool!" to Rolling Thunder's story of getting booted from the Wonderbolts for "flagrant disregard for hazardous weather", but couldn't Rolling Thunder's reckless flying be considered "not cool", even if she wasn't endangering anyone but herself? If Wonderbolts have duties to protect and serve their fellow Wonderbolts and Equestria, then they can't well fulfill those duties if they needlessly injure or kill themselves. So if the Washouts (as adults who are fully knowledgeable of what they're doing) want to endanger themselves and each other doing extreme stunts, then fine. But if the Wonderbolts have these duties and ideals to uphold, then they have good reason to kick ponies out who have as their primary concern doing the most extreme feats, regardless of how much that endangers themselves, their wingponies, or others. That could even be a pitch for why Scootaloo should still consider Rainbow and the Wonderbolts to be admirable, even if they don't perform as extreme of stunts as the Washouts do. I'll admit, though, that I don't know how much weight Scootaloo would place on things like "integrity" and "looking out for your fellow Wonderbolts" and "protecting Equestria", rather than "cool stunts!". ----- Next, here's some larger observations I have about Scootaloo's stunt and how the characters reacted to it. When Scootaloo says the stunt that she's going to do tonight, Twilight just asks "Scootaloo, are you sure that's what you really want to do?". I feel like Twilight or Rainbow could have asked what the logistics of this stunt are, what practice or experience Scootaloo is going to have before doing the stunt in the performance tonight, and whether Scootaloo will really be capable of doing the stunt in that short of notice. Is Twilight (and Rainbow) just assuming that Lightning Dust and the Washouts already worked this all out, and that Scootaloo will definitely be up to performing the stunt tonight? I'm not sure that Twilight (or the rest of the Mane Six, for that matter) seems all that concerned. Others have pointed out that the other CMCs are nowhere to be seen in this episode, but I also noticed that Scootaloo's parents/guardians (assuming that she's not a homeless orphan) are nowhere to be seen, either. I particularly thought of this when Scootaloo says that she "absolutely" wants to do the stunt tonight, and tells Rainbow that "there's nothing you can do to stop me!". If Rainbow really fears that Scootaloo will seriously injure or kill herself, then I would think Rainbow could go to Scootaloo's parents/guardians, who might want to know what Scootaloo is planning to do, and would have more authority than Rainbow does to stop Scootaloo from carrying through with it. Also, I don't know how Scootaloo's stunt was supposed to work, with the way that it was set up. Both the launching ramp and the landing ramp end up pointing essentially straight up in the air. So how is Scootaloo supposed to use those ramps to cross the horizontal distance of the 22 wagons if the ramps will orient her scooter/rocket to go straight up? Also, how much boost and how much fuel is really necessary to accomplish that? What was Scootaloo supposed to do to stop, even if she reached the other side? Was Scootaloo actually intended to blast off hundreds of feet into the air? Then what, would Scootaloo and the rocket just freefall down on the other side to land at terminal velocity? Finally, did Scootaloo do any practicing or ask about the logistics of her stunt prior to performance time? Earlier in the episode, just after Spitfire told Scootaloo what happens when something goes wrong with the Crushinator Jaws of Smashalot, Scootaloo said "But with enough practice—" before being interrupted by Spitfire again. That would seem to indicate that Scootaloo thought it was important and necessary to practice these dangerous stunts before doing them. So was Scootaloo just too angsty and rebellious to remember that she herself thought that it was important to practice dangerous stunts in order to do them? ----- Now here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: When Rainbow is hovering in the air holding a Washouts poster, and asks who they are, Scootaloo jumps and holds herself up on Rainbow's leg, using only her one or two front legs, without even straining or breaking a sweat. We've seen Scootaloo's athletic ability before, and this might be another example of that. As I've seen others point out, the Washouts may be wearing protective fireproof flight suits, but their wings and manes are still sticking out of those flight suits, so we would think that those are liable to be burned or damaged. The way in which "L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-Lightning Dust!" is announced made me think of the similar way that the first syllable of "Li-Li-Li-Li-Li-Li-Li-Li-Li-Linda" is repeated in the 1963 hit song "Linda" by Jan & Dean. Scootaloo is telling Lightning Dust about starting "Equestria's first Washouts fan club" as they're flying up for Scootaloo to do her stunt at the performance. Is this really a good time to be talking about that? Couldn't Scootaloo, say, be going over the logistics of her stunt, or getting in the zone, or something like that? As Lightning Dust and Scootaloo emerge from the clouds, before they land, we see the big rocket with the two smaller rockets already taped to the sides. However, once Lightning Dust and Scootaloo land, the big rocket no longer has the smaller rockets taped to the sides, and Lightning Dust then proceeds to tape the smaller rockets on. When Lightning Dust tells Scootaloo "You wouldn't want to get impeached for dishonoring my wishes, would you?", Scootaloo wonders "Is that a thing?". But considering that Scootaloo was the one that started the fan club, I would think that she would have written, or would be aware of, the rules for how presidents of the fan club are selected. I made a more in-depth post here about some observations I had of the strange behavior of the rope which wraps around the wheel of Scootaloo's rocket and later pulls Lightning Dust off into the sky. When Rainbow says that she knows "a fan club that could use some new members", we see Twilight, Rarity and Applejack walk up behind Rainbow. I thought that meant that they would be members of Rainbow's new Scootaloo fan club, but then we don't see them at the first Scootaloo fan club meeting, other than Twilight, who's outside. It is nice, though, to see Twilight helping Scootaloo. It's also a nice touch to see Rainbow's parents at the Scootaloo fan club meeting. Since I presume that Rainbow went to her parents and told them about the fan club, that would confirm that Rainbow continues to be on good terms with her parents now. I hadn't noticed that we don't see Spike or Starlight with the Mane Six in this episode. Rainbow reads from the Washouts flyer that their first performance in Ponyville would be "this weekend", so the students at the Friendship School probably wouldn't have classes, at least. We also see most of the Student Six (except Sandbar?) at the first Washouts performance, sitting in the bleachers in the background. But, especially considering that the students appear to live at the Friendship School full-time, Spike and Starlight may have been the designated "skeleton crew" to keep an eye on the School and the Castle, and be available for emergencies. Good catch! We never see Rolling Thunder fly through (or even near) the Crushinator Jaws of Smashalot; that was Lightning Dust. In fact, we don't see Rolling Thunder get injured at any other point during the performance, nor do we see any sign of prior injury on her leg. Was there more to the performance than what we saw, or was there some additional different performance that occurred in the time between jump cuts, maybe?

I'll be making a normal episode post later, but I've been working on this and wanted to post it separately to give it more space. I noticed some strangeness about the rope that wraps around the wheel of Scootaloo's rocket - specifically, the length of the rope, the way in which it uncoils, and the amount of time that elapses between when the rope firsts wraps around the wheel of the rocket and when the other end of the rope wraps around Lightning Dust's leg. So, just for fun, I took some screenshots and made some rough calculations to look more closely at the behavior of the rope in that scene. To start, here's a screenshot of the piled rope on the ground just before Scootaloo's scooter/rocket runs over it; note how relatively short the rope is. After the rope gets wrapped around the wheel of the rocket, I tried to estimate the rate at which the rope was being pulled by the rocket, so I tried to count the number of rope "segments" that had traveled past the base of the ramp over time. I went frame-by-frame for a few frames and estimated that the rope was being pulled up the ramp at a rate of ~2 rope segments/frame, and because the video is 30 frames/second, that would come out to ~60 rope segments/second. With that in mind, if we look at the screenshot of the original coiled rope, we might guess that the number of segments in that rope is in the vicinity of 60, and thus, that the rope might become fully uncoiled in around 1 second. However, about 20 frames after we see the rope first wrap around the wheel of the rocket, we get this wide shot showing Scootaloo going up and off the ramp, and a significant pile of coiled rope is still on the ground. For about 20 frames after the above screenshot, the rocket continues to travel, and we see the pile of rope on the ground uncoiling. This is what the rope looks like after those 20 frames. If the rope uncoiled this much in 20 frames (2/3 second), again, we might estimate that the rest of the rope should uncoil within a second or so. However, after this frame, as the rocket continues to fly away, for about 1 second, the rope in the air kind of wiggles around, but the coiled rope on the ground stops uncoiling and stays still before we cut to a crowd reaction shot. A few seconds after this, Rainbow Dash flies down the path and up the ramp to save Scootaloo. However, as shown in the example screenshot below, the rope is never seen, either in the air or on the ground. The next time we see the rope on the ground is in this screenshot, after Rainbow picks up Scootaloo and they hug, and just before Rainbow and Scootaloo land on the ground. Notice that the pile of rope on the ground appears to have gotten larger in the ~14 seconds or so since the last screenshot of the rope on the ground, even as the rocket has still continued to fly away. After this screenshot, we see the rope being pulled to the right and up out of frame, but the pile of rope on the ground stays coiled and doesn't move. Finally, about 25 seconds after the rope first wraps around the wheel of the rocket, we get the below screenshot, where the rope finishes uncoiling and wraps around Lightning Dust's leg. So, if the rocket was pulling one end of the rope as it blasted off into the sky at high speed, and the rope just finishes uncoiling about 25 seconds later, we would expect that to be a very long rope. To get an idea of the order of magnitude, if we multiply the ~60 rope segments/second rate estimated above by that 25 seconds, then the rope would need to be about 1500 "segments" long, and the pile of rope we see on the ground in various shots during this scene doesn't look to be anywhere near that length. To conclude, I'll reiterate that this is just for fun; I'm not saying that this ruined the episode, and I'm not hating on the animators or anything. I just thought that it's interesting that I noticed these little details that might otherwise blow by in this suspenseful, action-packed scene. Thanks for reading!

I've seen fans of Starlight and Trixie say that they like those characters because they're imperfect and flawed and still have problems to work out, and that that makes them interesting and entertaining, particularly in comparison to the Mane Six, who are sometimes described as having become stale, boring, and/or too perfect. So I suppose it would stand to reason that a similar argument might be made for why Starlight's and Trixie's friendship is likable/interesting/entertaining, particularly in comparison to the Mane Six's friendships. However, those just aren't arguments that I really buy into; to me, Starlight's and Trixie's friendship being more flawed and imperfect than the Mane Six's friendships doesn't in itself make Starlight's and Trixie's relationship more likable or interesting or entertaining. I think I better understand what the song is supposed to be accomplishing; maybe it's not just my thing. Demonstrating Starlight's and Trixie's friendship by having them sing inanities about it, while going through a sequence of repeatedly narrowly avoiding danger and being oblivious to it, is probably too wacky and contrived for my taste. I feel like I would rather see friendships demonstrated or developed through means that I would find more relatable. This might be another case of differing perspectives. I just see superlative proclamations like "This will be the best magical road trip ever!" as ridiculous on their face; consequently, I can't imagine saying or believing things like that in sincerity, and I don't like seeing characters saying or believing things like that in apparent sincerity, either. (I expressed similar sentiments about the superlative praise that Rainbow Dash's parents gave out in "Parental Glideance", for example.) I feel like I would rather have characters express sincere feelings in a way that's more grounded. But that may just be something that bothers me significantly more than it does other people. Also, in many cases, when characters make superlative proclamations like that, it seems like they're just being set up as strawmen to be knocked down later, which I usually find to be a tedious and pointless exercise. I don't want this discussion to go on for too long, but I do feel now as though I understand a little better why other people might really like this episode while I don't, so thanks for taking the time to explain.

@gingerninja666, I guess one question in my mind is that if the great thing about Starlight's and Trixie's friendship is supposed to be that it's especially flawed and imperfect, then what should we make of these multiple conspicuous lines of dialogue - from Cadance, Twilight, and Starlight and Trixie themselves - praising Starlight's and Trixie's friendship, and saying how great they think their road trip will be? I took the platitudes and superlatives praising Starlight's and Trixie's friendship in the first third of the episode as trying to communicate something like "Look, these characters are really praising Starlight's and Trixie's friendship, so you should think it's great, too!", with the song then just being an extension of that. And my impression from reading comments about this episode was that some commenters really did believe that Starlight and Trixie have a great and close friendship, and that those in-episode descriptions of Starlight's and Trixie's friendship are essentially right, with that being what was meant by describing Starlight and Trixie as having great chemistry. But, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that the contrived platitudes of the song, at least, are ironic, were never meant to be taken seriously, and are basically being set up to be disproven by the rest of the episode. Would that thinking also apply to other dialogue in this episode in which Starlight's and Trixie's friendship is praised and described with superlatives? Is the audience never intended to believe that Starlight and Trixie have a good friendship, such that the dialogue praising their friendship should be taken as meta and ironic, and should be seen as a setup for that dialogue to be proven wrong later and for Starlight and Trixie to be taken down a few notches? I suppose I hadn't thought of that, but I'm not sure that I really like that idea much better. I don't feel like I would derive much entertainment or schadenfreude or whatever from watching Starlight and Trixie and others describe their friendship and their activities using empty platitudes and superlatives, which are meant to be obviously wrong and never meant to be taken seriously, just so that those empty platitudes and superlatives can be torn down later. I feel more like I would just rather have those empty platitudes and superlatives not be used in the first place. Regarding your statement that Starlight's and Trixie's is built on insecurity, I'm not sure that I understand what that means. I can understand and relate to the idea that two people who are insecure in general would want to be friends so that they could feel secure with each other and not have to deal with the same social pressure and judgment which they feel around others. And I thought that Starlight and Trixie were supposed to have first hit it off because they both were being judged and mistrusted by others for their past actions, and so they felt like they couldn't be themselves or say what they really think, whereas with each other, they could do those things. So when Starlight and Trixie repeat praise of their own friendship to each other, and use unnecessary platitudes and superlatives to describe their activities, isn't that more of the fakeness and hiding behind a facade that they would want to escape from? If Starlight and Trixie are taking insecurity-fueled actions with each other as they would with everyone else, then how is their insecurity a differentiating basis for their friendship? I don't know that I'm on the right track or really making sense here, but at least I have more to think about in trying to understand why I saw this episode differently than most everyone else.

Well, I went into this episode thinking that there would be a good chance that I would hate it, and as it turns out, I don't think I hate it like I believed that I might, but I still didn't like it, either. This looks to be another episode for which I'll be an odd man out in not liking it while almost everyone else likes or loves it. One particular aspect of this episode that most people seem to be praising and raving about is Starlight's and Trixie's purported great chemistry, which is something that I'm just not seeing, and it's difficult for me to pinpoint exactly why not. As I try to explain below, one reason for that may be that the frequently-stated cliches and superlatives about their friendship actually serve to make the idea that they're close friends less believable. Furthermore, Hoo'Far's repeated appearances and actions throughout the episode are just bewildering to me, and I didn't find Starlight's and Trixie's escalating arguments and sniping at each other to be very entertaining. I will grant, though, that some of Starlight's and Trixie's conflicts in this episode are more believable, are at least somewhat out of their control, and may not necessarily have had any good solutions, such that cutting the trip short and going home, as Starlight and Trixie do by the end of the episode, might have been the best solution under the circumstances. It seems like an implied lesson here, as with several other episodes, is to plan these activities better before doing them. ----- First, one of the aspects of this episode that I think might work against the idea that Starlight and Trixie have great chemistry is that Starlight and Trixie, and even other characters, repeatedly praise Starlight's and Trixie's friendship using flowery but vacuous platitudes and superlatives, while not giving any specifics to back those up. This might be especially demonstrated in the song, which feels particularly contrived and inane. Rather than all of this convincing me that Starlight's and Trixie's friendship must be as great as everyone is saying that it is, it comes across to me as being fake and forced. It seems to me that true friends wouldn't feel the need to frequently praise each other and their friendship and the things that they do together in that way. Rather, I would think that true friends would be real with each other. It would already be understood that they're good friends, and consequently, they could just hang out and talk freely and do things together. When they repeatedly use cliche superlatives to describe each other and their activities, without mentioning any specifics that might confirm that, it comes across like they're still not really comfortable in their friendship and haven't actually done that much together, and therefore, that they still feel the need to affirm with themselves, each other, and everyone else that yes, they really are good friends, they really will enjoy and handle well the activities they choose to do together, etc. This could perhaps be compared to how Trixie declares herself to be "The Great And Powerful Trixie". Does her doing that convince us that she really is great and powerful, or does it come across as a facade to try to hide her feelings of inadequacy and insecurity? ----- Next, Hoo'Far's repeated appearances and actions throughout this episode are just bewildering to me. What are his motivations? Why is he so intent on trading his wagon for Trixie's, to the point of doing the trade with Starlight and without Trixie's knowledge or consent? Why does he seem to keep following Starlight and Trixie without explicitly joining them? Is he supposed to be a kind of creepy Trixie superfan who just really wants to own things that belonged to her, because she's a "celebrity"? Is he supposed to be a disingenuous con artist who just wants to trade Trixie for her stuff, so that he can make a killing selling it or something? Is he supposed to be a purely altruistic character who just loves Trixie and wants to help her to perform in Saddle Arabia however he can? Or is he nothing more than a means to drive the plot whenever necessary? Later, when Trixie is upset and happens upon Hoo'Far and her wagon which he just acquired, and lies down in front of the wagon, Hoo'Far seemingly makes no attempt to sympathize with her or understand why she's upset, and doesn't take any positive action to help resolve the situation. However, he also doesn't just go around her and try to leave her behind or ignore her. He essentially just trolls Trixie and says that he'll wait her out. So why is he doing that? Does he really want to rub it in Trixie's face that he "outsmarted" her and her opposition to trading her wagon? Is he trying to force Trixie's consent to his trade? Is he trying to make some point and just being totally cryptic about it? And finally, why is Hoo'Far only willing to reverse the trade if Starlight and Trixie "prove" their friendship to him? Why has this turned into a "test" of Starlight's and Trixie's friendship? Is this also just for Hoo'Far's demented amusement? Is Hoo'Far supposed to have been planning from the beginning of the episode to "test" their friendship, with all of his actions throughout the episode being done to that end? That would just seem unbelievably contrived. And also, what, is he a second Discord, taking it upon himself to "test" friendships whenever he sees fit? ----- Now here are some other larger observations about the conflicts that Starlight and Trixie had in the episode. When Starlight and Trixie arrive at the marketplace, Trixie mentions that "life on the road requires very specific supplies, and we only have so many bits, so we'll have to spend them wisely", but this is apparently the first time that Trixie has brought this up, and of course, it's too late, as Starlight has already blown the budget on street food. So I guess we're to assume that neither of them thought to ask about or bring up or wonder about how the expenses of the trip would be paid for. (I remember Twilight advising Rainbow and Pinkie to "always carry plenty of bits" on their trip to Griffinstone in "The Lost Treasure of Griffinstone", with Pinkie running out of bits, but other than that, I don't recall episodes involving trips for Cutie Map missions or whatnot ever bringing up travel expenses or how they're paid for; go figure.) Did Starlight bring any of her own money along, whether for emergencies or for buying things that she might personally want? Did Starlight just assume that Trixie would be covering the expenses, because Trixie was the one who came up with the idea and invited Starlight along? Was Starlight thinking that Trixie's covering the expenses of the trip would be Starlight's "payment" for agreeing to travel and perform as Trixie's assistant? This also brings up another issue. Starlight told Trixie before the trip started not to worry about the cramped sleeping quarters in the wagon, because "there's plenty of high-quality inns to stay at on the way". However, neither of them asks about or brings up potential issues with paying for this plan, when presumably, staying at "high-quality inns" along the way would cost a fair number of bits. And if they didn't end up staying at an inn, then wouldn't they have that much extra money to spend on food or whatnot? So did they even have the money to stay at an inn in the first place? If not, then why didn't Trixie say that they might not have the budget to be staying at high-quality inns when Starlight first brought that idea up? Did the two of them each assume that the other would be paying for it, without asking about it or confirming it with each other? Furthermore, if they didn't actually have the money to stay at an inn, did they ever realize that as they were going around asking for a room at all of these inns? Did they ever double-check that they had the money for a room prior to asking for one? Or did all of these inns have some system whereby guests can stay in a room and just be billed later, without even checking guests' ability to pay before letting them stay? Trixie also angrily tells Starlight that she might have thought to make a reservation. But then that just makes me wonder how reservations to far-away hotels (or whatever), particularly on short notice, would work, given the technology level of Equestria. If hotels can't be called or wired to ask about or make reservations, then how would that be done? Would potential customers and hotels have to send snail mail letters back and forth, inquiring about making reservations, stating which rooms and days are available, requesting reservations, and finally confirming them? I can see how that system might not work on short notice, although I don't know if there's any particular reason that Trixie's Saddle Arabian tour couldn't be delayed in order to make these reservations. Did Trixie somehow already communicate and commit to particular dates, times, and locations for performances on this tour? I also wondered whether Starlight could teleport to these far-away inns on the route and ask about reservations in person before then teleporting back, but that might not be feasible with the distances being covered. To mention a couple of other things, first, the snoring and sleep-talking might well have been problems even if the two of them were staying in a room at an inn, unless perhaps they got separate rooms, which would be even more expensive when they're supposed to be on a tight budget. I was also thinking that maybe Starlight and Trixie could temporarily move some stuff outside while sleeping, or that one of them could sleep outside, and on the second night, that's kind of what they ended up doing. But, if the two of them are just staying in some random and strange place, they might have thought that leaving some of their belongings outside might have led to them being stolen or damaged. And they also might not have felt safe sleeping outside with unknown wild animals and potentially malicious passers-by. I also feel obligated to mention that Starlight trades away Trixie's property - essentially her house - without her consent, and when Trixie rightfully and distraughtly asks who said Starlight could do that, Starlight nonchalantly says "Nopony. I just did it", seemingly not even realizing that she might have something wrong. It seems that this is another case of Starlight's failing to respect boundaries of property or person, and of Starlight's previously-seen inclination to act first and ask questions later, after the damage has been done. In this case, Starlight does take it upon herself to apologize, and even states a reason why what she did was wrong - i.e., "I should never have traded away the wagon. It wasn't mine to trade. It belongs to my friend". But I'm more or less resigned to this kind of thing just being what Starlight periodically does and is expected to do, and I don't ultimately expect her to change much on this front. When Trixie runs into Hoo'Far and her wagon, and Hoo'Far says that he thinks that the wagon trade was perfectly honest and fair, Trixie exclaims "Unfortunately, it is more nuanced than that!", and rather than giving any further explanation, lies down in front of his wagon in protest. Why doesn't Trixie just say "This wagon was my property, and it was traded to you without my consent"? That seems like a pretty simple and compelling argument. She could also add that "I want to find Starlight and your original wagon and reverse the trade", which would at least be more productive than lying down on the ground. I don't know what, in Trixie's mind, that was supposed to accomplish. ----- Finally, here's the rest of my miscellaneous observations: Flurry Heart's gasping and covering her face with her wings is cute and all, but also confirms that she continues to act more precocious than she might look, or than the label of "baby" would suggest. In a world where Trixie and/or Starlight (who's probably one of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria) have access to unicorn magic and teleportation, I'm not sure that this trick (and perhaps the whole routine) they do would be very impressive or suspenseful. If Starlight and Trixie both had magic disabling spells put on them first, such as were used in "Equestria Games", maybe then the performance would be a little more impressive. Trixie reveals that "our volunteer" Granny Smith was in the locked trunk, and then Granny Smith annoyedly says "You shoulda oughta tell a pony before ya go a-poofin' 'em around the stage!". So did Granny Smith actually volunteer to participate in the trick? Was she misled, or not informed, about what the trick would entail? Starlight and Trixie certainly don't seem concerned. When Trixie says that "The Terrifying Trunk Escape does require a grrrreat and powerful assistant", does that mean that Starlight is "required" just to increase the theatrics and distract the audience, or is Starlight required because she's actually teleporting Trixie out of the locked trunk? When Cadance and Twilight are doing the friendship chant, Flurry Heart starts to look worried for a couple of seconds. Is she afraid that she's going to fall off? Or is she just supposed to be bewildered, like Starlight and Trixie are? Is it a little strange that Starlight says that "doing a show with [Trixie] is almost as much fun as counseling students at Twilight's school"? I could imagine school guidance counselors describing their jobs as rewarding, or saying that they enjoy helping young people succeed and find their paths in life, or something like that, but would school guidance counselors describe their jobs as being "fun" like performing a stage magic show? How does Trixie have "many fans" in Saddle Arabia? Has Trixie done any shows in Saddle Arabia before? Have Trixie's "many" Saddle Arabian fans gone to see her shows elsewhere? Are they fans because of word of mouth alone? Or is Hoo'Far misinformed or lying? Maybe Starlight shouldn't be chatting with friends on the job, especially when there are at least several students waiting in line to see her. Starlight says that "I should probably get somepony to cover my student counseling duties while we're gone", but then we never find out if she did that, and if so, who she got to do that, especially considering the problems with the lack of faculty and available substitutes that have been observed previously. Why does Starlight, who had never been camping as of the start of "The Mean 6" and who said in that episode that she'll "never like camping", have her own "famous collection of campfire spices"? What would have been the rationale behind that? If Starlight had these plans to stay in high-quality inns, did she expect to still be cooking over a campfire while doing that? Or did she anticipate that they had a good chance of not being able to stay in an inn? The board games and 1000-piece puzzles that Starlight packed could be an indication that Starlight really did intend to stay at inns along the way, though, since those don't seem like the kinds of things that people would try to do if they're setting up temporary camp by the side of the road or something similar. Starlight brings along what appears to be a self-inflating raft, the kind for which you pull a rip cord and it'll inflate in a matter of seconds. There needs to be some force by which the raft inflates that quickly, and from what I've read, pulling the rip cord opens a canister of pressurized gas which inflates the raft. However, Starlight's purportedly self-inflating raft looks to be fairly tightly-folded thin plastic; I don't see any obvious place where a canister of pressurized gas would be, particularly one to inflate the raft to the full size that we see in the episode. The market stand at which Trixie wants to buy haycakes looks to have only five ponies in line; would waiting in line really take "hours", as Starlight puts it? And later, when Starlight says "I'm sure we'll find out that waiting in that super-long line was worth it", is Starlight just being melodramatic in describing it as "super-long", or was it actually a super long time (e.g., hours) to wait in that line? Finally, does Trixie care to give any reason why she always buys haycakes from this one vendor, and doesn't want to go to another one? It seems like it might significantly defuse the situation if Trixie has an understandable reason (or reasons) to go to this one vendor, other than just stating that that's what she always does.

Don't worry about it, I know that it can be hard to go back and try to remember details about episodes that you originally watched weeks ago. I suppose I'm opting to stick to the one-episode-a-week schedule in part because I tend to think about episodes a lot (maybe even to a fault), and I would rather have more time to do that. Also, I feel as though if I were to watch new episodes on a shorter timescale, then for episodes that I didn't really like on first airing, I might not find the motivation to go back, re-watch, gather my thoughts and observations, and actually write posts about them. But I wouldn't disparage people for wanting to watch new episodes because they're particularly looking forward to certain ones, they don't want to try to dodge spoilers, etc. One potential downside to the one-episode-a-week schedule, though, is that it then takes longer to move past episodes that I dislike or don't care for. And for me, at least, other than "The Hearth Warming's Club", the run of episodes in the second half of Season 8 to this point has been kind of dispiriting, and I'm not sure if I'll like at least some later episodes more than these so far. A couple of other episodes this season sound as though they could be decent, so I might have to try to hold out some hope for those, at least!

Overall, this is another episode that I really don't care for. The intended message of this episode seems to be that people should feel free to do things that make them happy, even if they aren't perfect (or even good) at doing them, but then this episode has a strange way of trying to deliver that message. The episode starts off with Pinkie's yovidaphone playing being disruptive and obnoxious, with several examples of that. And I might have thought that would lead to a lesson that it's okay to do things that you like, so long as you're aware of their impact on others and generally respect others' wishes to be left alone. However, instead, this episode has the rest of the Mane Six giving Pinkie a rationale to stop playing (namely, that she's not good at it) that completely misses that point, with the rest of the episode then portraying the rest of the Mane Six as having to make up for this wrongdoing to Pinkie. And in the process, the episode completely ignores any possible wrongdoing on Pinkie's part and overexaggerates Pinkie's behavior - e.g., with playing yovidaphone now being the one and only thing that gives her life meaning, and with Pinkie's not cooperating with or even acknowledging at all any of the rest of the Mane Six's attempts to cheer her up. To start, in the first third or so of the episode, Pinkie's playing is observed to interrupt Rarity's concentration on detail-oriented sewing; wake up the tens (if not more) of Fluttershy's animals as they're being put to sleep at night, cause them to cry, and consequently cause Fluttershy to be up all night tending to them; interferes with a publicly-attended Wonderbolts competition; explodes all the apples on entire rows of trees on the Apple family's farm, destroying both part of the Apple family's livelihood and other ponies' source of food; and causes residents of Ponyville to actively run away screaming on multiple occasions. So what are we in the audience supposed to believe is going on here? Are we to believe that Pinkie is completely unaware that these might be inappropriate occasions to blast her yovidapohone? Are we also to believe that Pinkie completely failed to notice the disruption, and even destruction, she's causing on all of these occasions? Is there any point at which Pinkie can be expected to exhibit some minimum awareness of social expectations, her surroundings, and the impact of her actions on everyone else around her? But then that leads into another problem - namely, that if her friends (or, most likely, anyone else) want to tell her that she's being disruptive and even destructive, or that they just aren't interested in hearing her play, they have to try to conceive of just the right walking-on-eggshells method of telling her that, because Pinkie has repeatedly failed to handle being told something that she doesn't want to hear with maturity, and she's liable to go off the deep end and do something stupid and/or dangerous. So yeah, telling Pinkie not to play any more because she's not good at it, and therefore it's a waste of time, misses the root issue. Pinkie's playing was repeatedly disruptive and obnoxious, and, in most of the cases shown in the episode, would have been so even if it were better. The rest of the Mane Six's being "supportive" shouldn't mean having to listen to Pinkie play any place, any time. But I have to wonder if a "good" way of telling Pinkie about this root issue even existed, such that Pinkie would actually accept it and not go crazy about it. If the rest of the Mane Six told Pinkie the truth about her playing being disruptive or how they don't want to hear it right now, would that have gone any better? Or would Pinkie have reacted essentially the same way? It feels like the rest of the Mane Six are damned if they do, damned if they don't. And later, Pinkie's depression doesn't budge an inch with all of her friends' efforts to cheer her up, nor does Pinkie cooperate with or even acknowledge these efforts at all. Again, what are we in the audience supposed to believe here? Is Pinkie (supposedly) rightfully holding a grudge against the rest of the Mane Six for telling her not to play the yovidaphone any more because she's not good at it, and therefore Pinkie is right not to cooperate with or acknowledge any of their attempts to cheer her up? Should Pinkie not be expected to say something like "Hey everyone, I know you're trying to cheer me up, but I just want to be alone right now"? Does the responsibility to make Pinkie "undepressed" fall entirely on the rest of the Mane Six (and whoever else they recruit to help)? In the final scene in Yakyakistan, of course the rest of the Mane Six must not just confess their sin, but demand that Pinkie go up and play on stage, and "If these yaks don't like it, they'll have to answer to us!". What does that mean? If the yaks say that Pinkie's playing is bad, then what would the rest of the Mane Six say - "Shut up, you're wrong, Pinkie's playing is awesome"? If the yaks say "Hey, we don't want to hear Pinkie's playing, so we want her to stop and/or leave", then what would the rest of the Mane Six say - "Too bad, deal with it, or else (something)"? This "threat" only seems to make sense if the yaks were to say the same thing to Pinkie that the rest of the Mane Six did; so if the yaks said something to Pinkie like "You're bad, therefore stop playing", then I suppose that the rest of the Mane Six would say something like "Hey, she shouldn't have to stop playing just because she's not good!". But then the yaks could just reply with something like "Fine, but we don't want to hear it, so don't play here", and then what? This issue of there possibly being a proper time and place to do things that you like to do, so as not to disrupt or annoy others, is one that this episode has been avoiding the whole time, and is never addressed. So, by the end of the episode, Pinkie must be fully validated in her yovidaphone playing, with no compromise on her part. The rest of the yaks, including the "master" himself, applaud and praise her playing. And the rest of the Mane Six seem to have an open-ended (maybe even lifetime) penance of not just background acceptance/support, but active defense and cheerleading of Pinkie's playing. Now for the rest of my miscellaneous observations: I would think that there would be rules about not disrupting the Wonderbolts competition which are agreed to when one purchases a ticket. I might then think that Pinkie's playing, which was affecting not just the audience but the competitors themselves, would violate such rules, and that she could be told by security to stop playing her instrument or leave. I guess we're to believe that Pinkie can "store" anything of any size in her hair, and thus could get her huge instrument past any security when entering the arena for the Wonderbolts competition. But between this and Rainbow's parents carrying in and shooting fireworks toward the Wonderbolts back in "Parental Glideance", it seems that the Wonderbolts really need better security for these public performances. Does Ponyville have any noise ordinances or public nuisance laws? I might think that Pinkie could be cited for violating those, at least for the times that Pinkie was playing in public and causing the public to run away screaming. When Twilight says "Okay, maybe we can just pretend she's really good, and then I'll find a spell that will—", Applejack cuts her off and says "We're not goin' through that again!". Then Applejack references how they pretended (at Twilight's behest) that Celestia was really good when she wasn't in the episode "Horse Play". My first thought, though, was that Applejack would refer to Twilight's backfired attempt to magically hypnotize the fruit bats back in the episode "Bats!", with the lesson being not to try to cast a spell to fix this problem, either. Was Twilight planning to try to cast a spell on Pinkie directly, without her knowledge or consent? Or was Twilight thinking of at least a non-invasive magical solution? The oven in Sugarcube Corner also has electric heating elements on the sides of the oven, as I noted for the Apple family's oven in "The Break Up Break Down". As I've said before, I am really tired of Maud's "twenty questions" shtick, and its appearance again here is no exception. Finally, in Yakyakistan, nobody even asked the "master" and presumed owner of the yovidaphone if it's okay for Pinkie to play it. Applejack just presents it to Pinkie, and the rest of the Mane Six just insist that she play it, without the "master" even being around.

While there are a couple of aspects of this episode to like, those aspects of the episode that I don't like serve to drag it down to the point that I dislike it overall. The second half or so of the episode, where Rarity and Rainbow go on an adventure to recover the Amulet of Aurora, is more or less entertaining, and it's nice to see Rainbow and Rarity successfully planning to do things together at the end of the episode, although the moral(s) of this episode definitely bear a strong resemblance to ones done previously on the show. The main problem is the first half of the episode that takes us there. As I discuss below, the episode starts off with a series of painfully awkward scenes in which Rarity, Rainbow, and Twilight struggle to answer questions, and later Rarity and Rainbow argue and blow each other off in full view of Twilight and the class. All of this seems as though it could have been stopped long before it devolved this far, and it looks to me as though Twilight is failing as a teacher to prevent her class from being derailed, and failing to get it back on track. And it could be argued that Rarity and Rainbow ought to be more mature than having their "day of fun" and their relationship degrade this far this quickly. Then Starlight's making the two of them continue to interact just after their blowup doesn't help matters. So while Twilight's, Starlight's and Spike's plan to help Rarity and Rainbow reconnect works in the end, I didn't like the way that we got to the point that that needed to happen. ----- First I'll talk about the way that having Rarity and Rainbow as invited guests to Twilight's class was handled. It seems to me like Twilight shouldn't invite guest speakers or demonstrators to her class without giving them time to prepare or planning what they will be expected to do and say. What we see in the episode, though, is Rarity (and, in all likelihood, Rainbow too) being asked to act as an example for Twilight's class literally at the last minute. And to further show how unprepared they are, Rainbow isn't even aware that Rarity was also invited to be an example until Rarity shows up. But if Twilight insists on inviting guests to her class with no chance to plan or prepare, then, as a matter both of keeping her class on track and of courtesy to the invited guests, she should utilize them for whatever specific purpose they're supposed to serve and then dismiss them to let them get on with their own day. If instead they continue to hang around and talk with no preparation or pre-approval of what they're going to say or do, then that runs the risk of their going off-topic or off-message and embarrassing both Twilight and themselves. So when Twilight is ushering Rarity and Rainbow out the door, and Silverstream then interrupts and asks a question, then either before or after Rarity and Rainbow attempt to answer, Twilight could have said something like "We might follow up with them later, but they really need to get going, and we need to get back to the lesson". It could be considered rude to the invited guests, and liable to create issues, to expect the two of them to try to answer questions when they weren't told they would have to do that, and haven't prepared for it. And even if Twilight didn't choose that moment to stop the questions, get the class back on track, and let Rarity and Rainbow leave, there were many other times that Twilight could have done so, especially times when they managed to come up with a half-decent answer to a question and save face. Twilight apparently didn't intend to be having any of this question-and-answer session, and presumably has other lesson plans to get to. But instead, Twilight essentially just allows her class to become derailed, and participates in that derailing herself, by continuing to let students blurt out questions and continuing to have Rarity, Rainbow, herself, or even Starlight awkwardly try to answer them. For their part, I would think that Rarity and Rainbow would want to minimize their time spent speaking without preparation in Twilight's class, and thus would want to just do whatever specific thing Twilight invited them to do and then leave. If they're not prepared for an extemporaneous question-and-answer session, then participating in that is liable to derail the class and potentially embarrass them. So, when Silverstream asks what Rarity and Rainbow are going to do together, and it quickly becomes obvious that they haven't worked that out, then they could just say something like "Well, we'll have to talk about it and figure it out. Bye!" and then leave. Twilight didn't intend for them to stick around any longer, and they weren't prepared to do so, so it seems like the best thing to do would be to let Twilight continue with her lesson plan. And again, even if the two of them didn't choose that moment to stop answering questions and leave, there were several other times that they could have done so. But, whether out of a sense of obligation to Twilight or whatever else, they continue to hang around and awkwardly try to answer student questions, rather than (understandably) excusing themselves. The painful awkwardness continues with the ill-considered decision to follow Rarity and Rainbow around on their "day of fun", even as Rarity and Rainbow had already shown that they hadn't even worked out together what they were going to do yet. Even if the "day of fun" hadn't crashed and burned like it did in the episode, it would still seem like a bad idea to do this with no planning or preparation. Rarity and Rainbow may not act as they normally would under the pressure of observation; Rarity and Rainbow may not exhibit many (or any) teachable moments; Twilight could struggle to relate what Rarity and Rainbow are doing to the lessons that the students are supposed to be learning; a lack of structure and significant downtime could lead students to be distracted and bored and not get anything out of this field trip; etc. But even as Rarity and Rainbow keep arguing with each other and blowing each other off, Twilight still apparently never finds a good place to cut this "experiment" off before it goes bad again or gets worse. I'll conclude this section with a couple of things about all this that I find a little dispiriting. First, isn't this the same Twilight who wrote an entire curriculum for her school before it opened, and who wrote a rule book for her school that's about a foot thick? Isn't this the same Twilight who had a 70-point back-up plan on a thick roll of parchment giving directions for what to do if she and the Mane Six had to leave the school? So, as I also wrote about "Horse Play", it's frustrating to watch Twilight - who has in other cases made detailed plans and tried to anticipate problems - seem to make these off-the-cuff decisions without thinking them through, just to have them predictably go wrong. And also, what should we take away from Twilight's failing to get back on track with her original lesson plan in the classroom, and her plowing ahead with observing Rarity and Rainbow as their "day of fun" keeps going badly? Is it evidence of Twilight's lack of experience as a teacher? Did Twilight just keep thinking that this ill-considered experiment was right on the verge of turning around into something great? Was Twilight exhibiting the same stubborn and self-interested refusal to admit that she's wrong which she displayed in "Horse Play"? I don't know what to make of it. ----- There's another point that I made in discussing "Uncommon Bond" that looks as though it also applies here - namely, that a little bit of planning a "friends' day out" probably goes a long way. In both "Uncommon Bond" and this episode, it seems as though the two friends who plan to hang out haven't discussed together mutually enjoyable activities to do. Instead, the friends seem to think of activities by themselves and then just drag the other along with little or no input, creating frustration and resentment. This seems easy enough to avoid - either talk together about activities that both friends will want to do before the "friends' day out", or have the first thing on that day be to, say, get some food and catch up, including then discussing what to do afterward. In fact, that seems like it could have a response that Rarity or Rainbow could have made after realizing that they're not agreeing on what they'll do on their "day of fun" - just say something like "Well, we'll start by getting some breakfast and catching up". After Rarity's and Rainbow's "day of fun" crashes and burns, it seems to me that they could probably use some time apart from each other to cool off and to get their minds off of thinking of all the reasons they don't like each other. So I don't really think that making the two of them continue to interact so soon after their blowup is helping. And, admittedly, I didn't see the "read a book from each others' favorite book series" idea coming, but I'm not surprised that it didn't work. Rarity and Rainbow could probably use some time away from reminders of why they dislike each other, including each other's favorite book series. But also, being assigned to read books just reminds me of all of the books we were assigned to read in high school English classes, most of which I skimmed, half-read, and/or read the Cliffs Notes for, and promptly forgot about soon after taking the tests on them. I would think that, in general, it's going to be pretty hard to get people to read a whole book that they have no interest or desire to read, let alone then trying to have any in-depth discussion about it afterward. Now here's the rest of my miscellaneous observations: If Twilight's class has already started, maybe Rarity shouldn't loudly announce herself as she comes in? Over the course of this episode, we see that dragons, griffons, and hippogriffs can hold writing utensils in their claws, and unicorns can hold writing utensils with their magic, but the other ponies and yaks have to hold writing utensils in their mouths to write. Interestingly, Ocellus also uses her mouth to write. Could she be allowed to transform into something that has digits to hold a pencil? Is she just used to writing with her mouth? How recently have changelings even learned to write? Did they ever learn to write under Chrysalis's rule? Also, could the students get some solid surface to write on? I know I would hate having to try to hold a notebook up or in my lap while writing in it. At the end of the episode, half of the class is even flapping their wings and hovering in the air while simultaneously holding their notebooks at the ready to write in them. I didn't think that gems are so brittle that they would shatter just from falling a few feet onto the ground. Do school guidance counselors typically mediate disputes between fellow faculty members? That struck me as being a kind of odd thing to be doing. Rarity's complaining that the Daring Do series has "silly unpronounceable names", presumably because they come from another language, seems a bit out of place for someone who "respects the finer things" to be doing. So, in the course of about 20 seconds, Starlight teleported to Twilight and Spike, they all came up with this plan to get Rarity and Rainbow to cooperate on an adventure to recover the Amulet of Aurora, and Starlight teleported back to grab Rarity and Rainbow to put the plan in action. Considering that we can see where the geysers are, couldn't Rainbow still fly and follow the blue sparkly trail while just avoiding the geysers? So squeezing a cloud through Rarity's handkerchief produced something with the consistency of toothpaste? Would that be consistent with pegasi being able to walk on clouds and shape them into buildings and such? Rarity and Rainbow seem to have lucked out that the bufogren liked, or at least didn't mind, the "effervescence" that Rarity gave it. I could imagine the bufogren not liking having its mouth cleaned, and getting angry with the two of them for tricking it into eating something that did that. Why does the Friendship School have a secret tunnel from the swamp leading to it? Did the tunnel pre-date the school? Did Twilight specifically have that tunnel built? The door to the secret passage looks to have the Elements of Harmony on it, suggesting that it might be connected to the school somehow. Is it supposed to be an emergency exit or something? I also wonder about the security of it, if all it took to unlock the door was spinning the (smooth) heel of a stiletto in the keyhole a couple of times. Finally, this episode does mark another (admittedly offscreen) instance of Spike using his wings, so it's nice to see that.

Overall, this is another episode that I just really don't care for. The Twilight and Rarity pairing works well enough and has its moments. But I've never liked Flim and Flam or episodes that center around their schemes, and I just find them tiresome, particularly the requisite "crowd-rousing" song and dance (which runs about 2 1/2 minutes, but felt to me like it just dragged on and on) and Equestrians' total lack of skepticism regarding Flim's and Flam's claims. I didn't like watching Chancellor Neighsay's blatant and gratuitous species-ism, and his overt corruption in service of his personal vendetta against Twilight. I also just wanted to bang my head against the wall every time that Twilight said something vague and unconvincing like "I smell a rat" or "They're obviously up to something" without building a case or giving any evidence or reasoning for her suspicion. Perhaps my biggest frustration, though, was with the climax of the episode, where I feel like Twilight isn't clear about what she thinks Flim and Flam did wrong, and why it was wrong. Consequently, much of this post below will involve my attempts to try to figure that out, as well as figure out what Flim and Flam did that might justifiably be considered wrong, although I don't think I really came up with satisfactory answers. I'll also add a disclaimer that, as with "Horse Play", I expended a lot of thought (and words) on this episode, and I have to admit that I'm kind of burned out and tired of trying to compose this post, so I'm just cutting it off and posting it as-is. As a result, this will probably be more scatterbrained than usual. ----- I guess I'll just start into the whole consideration of what Flim and Flam did wrong, and why it would be considered wrong. First, when Flim and Flam say that they'll be "going to the papers after all", Twilight replies "And I suppose I'll just lead your students into this secret room of bits and resort expansion plans", with the implication that the students will clearly be horrified and outraged at what they see. And just after that, Twilight tells Flim and Flam that "using your students' bits to expand your resort is wrong, even if the lessons you teach are good ones". Based on these statements, what exactly does Twilight believe that Flim and Flam did wrong, and why does she think that that's wrong? Why does Twilight seem to expect that the students will be horrified and outraged at Flim's and Flam's secret vault, and would they be justified in feeling that way? And does Star Swirl demand that Flim and Flam refund the students and close the school for the same reasons? One possibility is that Twilight, the students, and Star Swirl think that profiting from providing education is wrong in general, and this whole Friendship University situation would simply fall under that general rule. Another possibility is that they're outraged at what they might consider the "obscene" amount of money that Flim and Flam are making, in the sense of "Nobody should be making/owning that much money!". Or maybe Twilight, the students, and Star Swirl would be generally okay with the idea of people making a lot of money, but only if those people use that money for the "right reasons", and expanding Flim's and Flam's resort would not be considered a "right reason". In relation to the above, I could also see an argument that the sheer amount of wealth in Flim's and Flam's money vault is proof that they were "ripping students off". But that raises the question of how it's being determined that Flim and Flam were ripping students off. If the students were voluntarily paying for the worksheets (even at what some - or most - would consider a high price), and the students were reasonably aware of what they were getting, then is it right for us or Twilight to declare that the students were being ripped off, and that Flim and Flam were wrong to be selling the worksheets at their asking price? There are lots of people who pay for lots of goods and services (with their own money) that I would consider a waste of money, and that I wouldn't pay for myself, but I wouldn't declare just on that basis that those voluntary transactions are "wrong". And if the idea is that the students would simply see the large number of bits that Flim and Flam made, and what they plan to use them for, and conclude that they were ripped off, that seems like an odd response to me. If each of the individual students considered it worthwhile to pay whatever number of bits for the worksheets at the time, then why is that suddenly not worthwhile any more just because Flim and Flam made a lot of money and plan to use it to expand their resort? So I don't know, I don't feel like the above lines of thinking are leading to what I would consider satisfactory conclusions, and to the extent that these are what Twilight, the students, or Star Swirl had in mind for why Flim and Flam acted immorally, there's a good chance that I wouldn't agree with them. So are there more situation-specific things that Flim and Flam did wrong here, involving additional information or speculation beyond just what Twilight said to Flim and Flam in the quotes above? I can think of a few possibilities. ----- First, Rarity told Twilight earlier that Flim and Flam are charging for worksheets, but that "they have to cover expenses, and Flam insists that everything extra goes to improving the school". So if Flim and Flam are planning to use the bits they charge for worksheets to expand their resort, then they're not using the bits just to cover expenses or improve the school, as they told Rarity. And that's true enough. But how many students were actually told the same thing as Rarity? And was that verbal promise integral to those students' decisions to pay for the worksheets? Or were most students not told, or just didn't really care, what the bits they were paying for the worksheets would be used for? Was Twilight really thinking that students would be upset at seeing Flim's and Flam's vault of bits and resort plans because it was a betrayal of this promise? Maybe, although I wouldn't be confident in saying that. On a similar note, perhaps Twilight's thinking is that if Flim and Flam are trying to get rich quick just to expand the resort, then they're not committed to providing the amazing friendship education that they generally led ponies to expect that they would get. In other words, Flim and Flam don't really care about working with students, answering questions, and generally actually helping the students learn. And that probably is true in this case. But it doesn't seem like the piles of bits and resort plans in themselves are definitive proof of that; it seems like actual classes and worksheets and outcomes would have to be observed, and students would have to decide for themselves if, based on evidence and their own experience, whether these lessons and worksheets are worthwhile. Additionally, if Twilight does think (or at least suspect) that Flim and Flam are bad at teaching friendship and helping the students, then I don't think she ever says so. In fact, Twilight even proposes that Flim and Flam can teach her lessons "as much as they like", so long as they return the bits paid to them and not charge for lessons, even after they revealed that they're skipping every other page in teaching those lessons! So that's a puzzling thing for Twilight to propose if she believes that Flim and Flam are not teaching well. Another incident that Twilight, Rarity and we observed was a student seemingly giving the only bit he has, and the shirt off his back, in order to buy worksheets. And I would surmise that many, if not most, people would be put off by that, and would consider it unethical to convince people to spend seemingly all the money they have on things that they don't need. But, for one thing, is that situation actually what it appears to be? Is the pony with the alpha cutie mark actually spending all his money (and clothing) on worksheets? We actually see him later with another sweater on while he's waiting in line to get a refund, so he might not have actually given Flim and Flam everything he had to get worksheets. Could he just have been desperate to get worksheets because he believed that there were a limited number of them, or he just really wanted the worksheets now, and he happened not to be carrying enough bits at the time? And if the idea is that it's disgusting for Flim and Flam to be selling worksheets to ponies who are so desperate to get them that they'll sell the clothes off of their backs, I just wonder where the line is supposed to be drawn. When exactly does making an effective case for buying something cross into being immoral? Couldn't it be argued that people generally should take at least significant responsibility for their own poor decisions? The students here look to be adults; I would generally presume that they're paying for worksheets of their own free will, and are not incapacitated or otherwise unable to make decisions for themselves. I'm also not seeing the students as feeling like they "need" to attend Friendship University, and pay for worksheets, for any reason other than personal enrichment or personal interest; and if that's the case, then it seems like they could just stop paying for worksheets or attending classes whenever they feel that it's not worthwhile to do so. ----- There are also a few points I can make about Flim's and Flam's confessions of using Twilight's curriculum, and saying that they only used every other page of it. This revelation was made after Twilight's comment about bringing the students in to see Flim's and Flam's vault, and after she said that "using your students' bits to expand your resort is wrong", so these confessions couldn't have motivated those comments from Twilight. However, they could be considered as part of the totality of things that Flim and Flam might have done wrong. First, after the revelation that Flim and Flam are using Twilight's curriculum for their school, Twilight proposes that Flim and Flam can use her lessons "as much as they like", so long as they return the students' bits and not charge for her lessons any more. But it's interesting to note what Twilight doesn't say here. She doesn't demand that Flim and Flam write their own lessons and stop using hers entirely; she doesn't demand that they substantially add to or modify her lessons, in order to have added their own intellectual work to them; she doesn't tell them to use all of the pages of her lessons, rather than arbitrarily skipping every other page; she doesn't even ask to be credited as the writer of the lessons. So, in these respects, it doesn't appear that Twilight is taking a significant intellectual property issue with Flim's and Flam's using her curriculum, nor does Twilight even seem to insist on the integrity of her lessons if Flim and Flam are going to use them. However, Flim and Flam had to have obtained this physical copy of Twilight's curriculum somehow, and they probably didn't do so by a means of which Twilight would have approved. Of course, in the episode, after Rarity wonders how Flim and Flam got a copy of Twilight's curriculum, the camera conveniently pans to show Cozy Glow. But I also saw a suggestion that Chancellor Neighsay or another member of the EEA could have given Flim and Flam one of their copies of Twilight's curriculum, since Twilight gave all the ponies on the EEA board copies back when she was seeking accreditation. And Neighsay would certainly appear to have the motivation to do that. (Interestingly, though, Chancellor Neighsay stamped the front cover of his copy of Twilight's curriculum in "School Daze", while Flim's and Flam's copy of the curriculum has no stamp on the front cover.) We might think that there would be an implicit or explicit understanding that copies of curricula are given to the EEA in confidence, to be used only for evaluation for accreditation, and that the EEA should not be giving or distributing those copies to anyone else. Finally, I might think that Flim's and Flam's skipping of every other page of Twilight's curriculum would lead to disjointed, incoherent, and incomplete lessons. I'm imagining what it would be like to try to learn a subject from a textbook with every other page missing. And does this only apply to lesson plans, or does it apply to the worksheets, too? On the one hand, if Flim and Flam are trying to get rich quick, then I wouldn't expect them to write their own worksheets; I would presume that they would be taking the worksheets from Twilight's curriculum. But on the other hand, we never see any students saying that the worksheets they paid for are incomplete, or don't make sense, or that they never learned material that the worksheets are asking/talking about. We even see Star Swirl saying that the lessons in the worksheets are "quite fascinating" and "so valuable". So, to the extent that Flim's and Flam's skipping pages ruins the curriculum, that could be considered another point against Flim and Flam. Students signing up for the school and paying for worksheets could reasonably expect to be learning coherent and complete lessons, but that might not be what they're receiving. So, frustratingly, at the end of all of this, I still don't know for sure what exactly Twilight/the students/Star Swirl think Flim and Flam did wrong, and perhaps more importantly, why they believe that's wrong. And while I can think of a few somewhat convincing arguments for things that Flim and Flam did that were wrong, I still don't really have a whole lot of confidence in them. The last thing about this that I'm not sure about is whether the episode was intentionally written this way. If Twilight is supposed to have more specific issues with what Flim and Flam did, then why is it that, in the climax of the episode, we don't get more explanation of these issues? Was this episode written this way deliberately in order to prompt the audience to think for themselves about what wrongs things Flim and Flam did and why they're wrong? Or is this episode just muddled and unclear about what its intended message is supposed to be? This is just another thing that I don't know what to make of. ----- For the rest of this post, I'll talk about a couple of larger aspects of the episode, followed by the rest of my miscellaneous observations. To start off, I had a series of questions and observations regarding the Friendship University flyers sent to Twilight. First, was it really necessary to send a thick stack of Friendship University flyers to Twilight, since I'm presuming the point was just to taunt or provoke her? Or did Flim and Flam expect Twilight to advertise their school inside of hers? Next, where did that stack of flyers go? Twilight was levitating the stack and reading the one off the top, but after the camera cuts to Rarity and back, the rest of the stack isn't seen anywhere else in the room. And it seems like Twilight would be too shocked and distraught just after reading the flyer to have, say, teleported the stack into the garbage or something. Then, a little bit later, Twilight and Rarity are shocked to see the student population all reading Friendship University flyers. How did they get a hold of those? The beginning of this episode seems to establish that deliveries to the School are dropped off at and brought to the attention of Twilight, and Twilight obviously didn't distribute these flyers. Are these the same flyers from the stack that Cozy Glow delivered to Twilight? I thought that maybe Cozy Glow had taken the stack of flyers and run off to distribute them to students, but earlier, Cozy Glow is still standing in Twilight's office even as a wide shot shows the stack of flyers nowhere in sight. Is Cozy Glow supposed to have taken and hid the stack of flyers somehow (in a period of about 5 seconds, no less), then distributed them later? That seems like a pretty difficult feat to pull off, considering that Twilight was holding the stack of flyers with her magic, that they were right next to Twilight, and that Rarity is standing right there as well. I also had the thought that, with the events of this episode, a case could probably be made that Chancellor Neighsay failed to do his due diligence in evaluating Friendship University before awarding it full accreditation, and that therefore, his personal vendetta against Twilight is interfering with his fulfilling the EEA's mission. First Neighsay takes Star Swirl's choice to study at Friendship University at this particular moment as all he needs to see in order to confer "complete and unreserved EEA accreditation" upon the University. But Star Swirl is presumably not a qualified EEA inspector, and Star Swirl has almost certainly not gone through the thorough evaluation of all aspects of the University that the EEA would (or should) normally do. Wouldn't the accreditation process be expected to involve observing the teaching of classes; inspecting the worksheets, homework assignments, textbooks, etc. that students are given; and actually interviewing students? Also, if Flim and Flam are skipping every other page of the curriculum when teaching, and that is resulting in disjointed/incoherent/incomplete lessons, that's a pretty big oversight that Neighsay failed to catch before granting full accreditation. And of course, Flim and Flam had to close Friendship University, which had just been accredited, in disgrace and refund all of the students. However, Twilight may not want to be the one making that case; it might attract attention to the haphazard way in which her school has been operating. As @Truffles mentioned, I wondered where the funds to build the Friendship School came from, and now Rarity refers to "school funds" which she didn't use to buy sewing machines. So where do these "school funds" come from? Are Equestrians in general or residents of Ponyville paying for Twilight's Friendship School with tax money? Is it coming out of Celestia's and/or Twilight's personal funds? Did Twilight convince other Equestrians to give private donations to the school? One of the lines in Flim's and Flam's song is "As you can see, we're a success by any kind of stat", which of course just raises the questions of "What statistics? How are they measured? Are they even relevant to determining student learning and success?", just for starters. If this is some cheap fly-by-night operation, then it's quite possible that their statistics wouldn't stand up to much scrutiny. I guess we can't expect any of the usual audience ponies to be asking questions like these, but even Twilight apparently doesn't ask any of these questions, only vaguely stating that she "still smells a rat". It's interesting that, when Chancellor Neighsay sees Star Swirl, he says "I'd heard rumors you've returned, but I didn't believe it until now". From whom did Neighsay hear these "rumors", particularly if it wasn't from someone who would just confirm outright that Star Swirl is back? Was the Pillars' return deliberately kept a secret? Did the Princesses, the Mane Eight, and Sunburst just figure that essentially no one would know or care enough about the Pillars to announce their return? When Twilight is looking through the lessons on Flim's and Flam's desks, does she recognize them? Flim and Flam are supposed to be using the lessons that Twilight wrote, after all, and if they're trying to get rich quick, I wouldn't think that they would put much, if any, effort into modifying or rewriting Twilight's lessons. If Twilight is going to sneak into Flim's and Flam's office to look for "proof that it's all a scam", she should be listening out for anyone approaching or entering the office, and she should be ready to, say, teleport away as soon as anyone starts coming in. But instead, Twilight is too busy talking out loud to herself to even hear Flim and Flam opening and closing the office door. Of course, later in the episode, Flim and Flam don't see or hear Twilight opening their office door as they access their secret vault, and apparently don't see or hear Twilight entering their vault, either, so they could certainly stand to pay more attention to their surroundings, too. Rarity, in bubbly fashion, says that Flim's and Flam's lessons "really are impressive". So what's so impressive about them? Are the rest of their lessons significantly different than the class session that we saw earlier in the episode? Because I wouldn't really call "Hey class, demonstrate generosity by doing favors for me, the teacher" impressive. Of course, just after that, Rarity talks about selling back the sewing machines in order to continue advancing at Friendship University, apparently falling for the whole thing hook, line and sinker. Yeah, way to keep your wits about you, Rarity. As @Truffles also discusses, it's strange that Flim and Flam tell Twilight that "You have something on us. We have something on you. Let's just call it even". The "something" that Flim and Flam have on Twilight is the picture of her snooping in their office, and a narrative that Twilight was only doing that because she's jealous and is trying to sabotage her competition. But now, with Twilight having cornered Flim and Flam in their secret vault of bits and resort plans, what would really happen if the two of them tried to go to the papers with that? Couldn't Twilight just say that she was looking for evidence of corruption (or however she wants to describe it), and that she found it, with that corruption (or whatever) being the main story? So it doesn't seem like Flim's and Flam's picture and story are the same reputation-destroying device that they might have been previously. Star Swirl refers the former students of Friendship University to Twilight's Friendship School, and says that Twilight would consider letting them in. But with the lack of teaching staff and all the incidents that have occurred at the Friendship School so far, I think that Twilight might not be able to handle a large influx of new students right now. However, one of the things that Flim and Flam point out in their song is that residents of Las Pegasus would have to go and stay all the way in Ponyville to attend Twilight's Friendship School, whereas their school was right in Las Pegasus, so some of these former students may not even be willing/able to go to Ponyville to attend Twilight's school. At the end of the episode, Star Swirl writes a postcard to Twilight saying that "Of course, if I ever go to a school again, I'll make sure it's yours". So Star Swirl was willing to settle down for a while to attend Flim's and Flam's school, but he's not willing to settle down to attend Twilight's school for the foreseeable future? I guess Twilight doesn't seem to mind, but that still feels like a snub toward Twilight on Star Swirl's part.

I looked back at "The Fault In Our Cutie Marks", and I didn't see any obvious references to griffon families. Gabby talks about how she felt different from "the other griffons" and about how she wanted to show her fake cutie mark to "everyone in Griffonstone". Gabby does say that "Most griffons don't pay much attention to each other. And if they do, it's not, y'know, the good kind of attention", though, which could corroborate your idea that not even griffons that are technically related give each other "the good kind of attention". That's an interesting connection, and it would make a lot of sense in hindsight for Gallus to be the one who most wanted to do that and the one to convince the rest of the Student Six to go along. But I looked back at the first two episodes of this season, and while Smolder and Gallus are the two to suggest skipping class earlier, I didn't see any reference to whose idea it was for the Student Six to run away and hang out together rather than going home after the Friendship School was shut down. Apparently all of the Student Six left notes saying that they were running away. And after the Mane Eight conclude that they should follow Sandbar to find the missing students, the episode cuts to show the Student Six already at the Castle of the Two Sisters, and none of them talks about all of this being anyone's idea in particular.

When Gallus is describing the Blue Moon Festival, he says that "Families get together...", which might suggest that griffon society has at least some concept of "family", unless that's just Gallus's attempt to describe it to everyone else using a term that they would understand. But yeah, I'm not sure how to explain Gallus's apparently not knowing what cousins are. And I don't know how much to read into Gallus's statement that Grampa Gruff is "not anygriff's actual grandpa". Do griffons not recognize anyone other than immediate family as "family"? Or is it possible that Gallus has been a homeless orphan basically his whole life, and therefore had no parents, siblings, etc. to teach him what cousins are, and he also hadn't interacted enough with anyone else to have learned that either? It's an interesting question of how much Gallus's situation reflects griffon society in general.

Overall, I would say that this is an okay episode. It reminds me a bit of "Surf and/or Turf", in that this episode is kind of fluffy and has a fairly basic plot, which serves to facilitate a bunch of worldbuilding exposition. So this episode is fine for what it is, and I wouldn't say that there's anything particularly bad about it, but it also doesn't really blow me away or anything. Consequently, I won't have too much to say about it. One thing to comment on a bit more on is the idea that Twilight, Rainbow, and Spike had cornered the culprit in the Student Six's quarters, and therefore, one of the Student Six must have been the culprit. The three of them come in the front door, and Rainbow reports that the back door is locked and that there's no way out. So the students' quarters only have a front door and a back door to enter/exit? Do the hallways or dorm rooms have any openable windows through which someone other than the Student Six could escape? If not, only having two possible exits for the students' quarters would seem to be dangerous if there were some emergency requiring escape (fire, etc.). Also, couldn't the culprit be, say, a unicorn with an ability to teleport? Or what if Discord just wanted to cause some more chaos and teleported away? So I wouldn't have been 100% sure that one of the Student Six must have been the culprit. Another big part of this episode is Gallus's backstory. When Gallus says that he doesn't have a family, and he's shown outside looking in through a window at Gilda and company "celebrating" the Blue Moon Festival, what's the implication of that? Does Gallus not have a caretaker or any place to live? Is he literally a homeless orphan wandering the streets? Griffons don't seem like the type to have any orphanages or the like. And obviously his homelessness would be a serious issue, which he ought to bring up with Twilight and/or the Mane Eight, especially before he gets "sent home" on break without having an actual home to go to. Also, if Gallus is a homeless orphan, then how would he have come to be selected as the (apparently) one griffon to go to the Friendship School? Was it just a matter of the other griffons being tired of seeing him or having him hang around, so they figured that they would send him off so that he would be cared for by the Friendship School instead? The other thing I wonder about is how the Student Six's families feel about their staying at the Friendship School for one of the presumably infrequent school breaks. Most of the rest of the Student Six seemed pretty eager to go see their families (to the point that Ocellus and Silverstream were tearing up at the prospect of not going home), and their families might have been waiting for months to see them, but now it's not clear that any of them will go home to visit for the break. I jokingly thought that the cynical moral to this episode is that if you're living away from home to go to school, then when the holiday break rolls around, don't go home to see your family, whom you might not have seen in several months; instead, stay at school to continue hanging out with your friends, whom you've seen every day. But I do wonder when the rest of the Student Six would plan to see their families again, or if there would be any way for them to still arrange to see their families during the break for a shorter period or something, especially considering that Rainbow says that they don't really need to stay at school for extra lessons. Maybe Gallus could even go with one (or more) of the other Student Six to see their families and cultures. It seems like at least the hippogriffs or the changelings or even Sandbar's family would be welcoming and laid-back enough to do that (I might not be so sure about the yaks or dragons). Now here's the rest of my miscellaneous observations: So there's a literal Fire of Friendship on top of the tree? Do ponies in Equestria have horror stories like we have about Christmas tree fires and how to avoid them? Or is it like some kind of magical fire that wouldn't burn the tree or nearby flammable materials? The fire does react and get bigger when the goo powder is poured into it, so the fire isn't totally inert. It's nice that Twilight protected herself from the slime with a magical shield, but I kind of wish that she could have protected Spike, too, like she did with her wing back in "What About Discord?", as I mentioned in this post. Almost 30 seconds elapse between the time that the slime stops flowing and when Spike spots Gallus still hanging around. I might think that the distraction of the Fire of Friendship getting bigger and the subsequent wave of slime be a good chance to get away without getting spotted. Was Gallus observing to make sure that the goo powder worked as intended, and then it was too late to escape without being discovered? After none of the Student Six confesses to the sliming, Twilight tells them that they'll all have to help clean up before they can go home. But wasn't Rainbow telling them to pack rather than hanging around earlier in the episode, joking that "if you miss that train, it's a really long walk"? Would they have just all missed their train(s) because they had to stay to clean up? Would they have had to get new tickets for a different time and/or day to go back home? Do changelings really want/need to celebrate pony history with Hearth's Warming Eve? What's the significance of it to them? I would think that it would make more sense to make changeling cultural holidays out of things like, say, the day the changelings transformed or something. The changelings' punch pool isn't even the first time such a thing has appeared in the show; and as I also thought back then, a punch pool is liable to create a sticky, dirty, unhygienic mess. If apparently most of the hippogriffs stay under the sea or on land without going back and forth, then does the Three Days of Freedom Celebration also serve as a check to make sure that all the hippogriffs are still able to both swim as seaponies and walk/fly as hippogriffs? Finally, Sandbar seemingly gets suspicious of Smolder and Gallus because they're being "so cool about this" and aren't displaying sufficient anger/upset at the situation. But it's not as though Sandbar has been displaying strong emotions about the situation either.

Overall, I mostly found this episode tedious and exasperating. I don't think I've ever liked this recurring concept of Discord just making other characters' lives miserable, and they just have to try and deal with it (often for almost the whole episode) until someone figures out what to do/say to make Discord stop. I would much rather have Discord be characterized more as he was in "The Break Up Break Down". Consequently, I feel like this episode just holds very little entertainment value for me. As I'll discuss below, I'm not sure what exactly Discord wants, and more importantly, how his actions in this episode would help him to achieve that. I'm also not sure that Starlight handled Discord's antics particularly well, but she might well have been in an impossible situation, and I don't know that I could come up with a plan that would definitely work better. Finally, while the episode seems to imply that Starlight and Spike were being "bad friends" by not accepting Discord's (supposed) offer to help, I don't think that they were wrong to try to stick to Twilight's plan. I would argue that they had a greater obligation and promise to Twilight (and to the rest of the Mane Six and the students) to run the school as normally as possible, as opposed to letting Discord mess with school operations and with the students. ----- As mentioned above, one aspect of this episode that seemed rather muddled, and that I'm not clear on, is what Discord really wanted, and how his actions in this episode would have helped him to get what he wanted. One possible thing that's suggested that Discord might have wanted is to help in running the school. However, Discord's tricking the Mane Six into leaving on a fake Map mission, then appearing next to Starlight the second that they're gone, indicates that Discord didn't just spontaneously want to help, and that it wasn't just a sheer coincidence that Discord only offered to help when the Mane Six were gone. So was Discord's plan to send the Mane Six away, then deliberately sabotage Starlight's attempts to run the school, thus driving her off and/or getting her fired by Twilight, thus opening a position for Discord to fill instead? The obvious problem with that would seem to be that essentially everyone at the school knows that it's Discord who's carrying out this sabotage. If Twilight gets back and is angry that the school hasn't been running as she asked, all Starlight has to do is tell her the truth: Discord repeatedly disrupted school activities and endangered students, and refused to stop, making normal operation of the school impossible. And Spike, the students, and even the substitute teachers could corroborate that story. And then what? Does Discord expect to say "Well, Starlight has proven not to be up to the task, as demonstrated by my own handiwork, so now you'll take me for her job instead, right?"? Or one of the things suggested by this episode is that Discord felt "left out" by not being invited to any Friendship School events. But I can think of at least one good and simple explanation for Discord's not being invited to Friendship School events: I don't see any reason to have believed that such events would be particularly relevant to Discord, or that he would take any particular interest in them. There are plenty of the Mane Six's other friends that I don't recall seeing at any Friendship School events - the other Wonderbolts, Coco "Miss" Pommel, the Mane Six's families, etc. - so it's not as though Discord was uniquely snubbed in not being invited, and it's very probable that none of them were invited for the reasons that I mentioned. Plus, wasn't one of the lessons of "Make New Friends But Keep Discord" that friends don't have to be invited to everything that one of them does, and that friends may share some interests but not others? Discord also isn't helping his case for being invited to school events in the future by sabotaging Starlight and Spike and by terrorizing the students. Why should the Mane Eight invite Discord to future school events if he's going to do things like that? And these don't include what seems like at least one of the reasons for Discord's actions this episode: that he just wanted to create chaos and to watch others (including his friends) struggle and suffer for his own amusement. Even when Starlight had seemed to please Discord by making him vice headmare, and Starlight said "Next time you want something, just ask for it, all right?", Discord replied "But then we'd miss out on all those delightful misadventures", indicating that "those delightful misadventures" were part of his motivation in the first place. So okay, mission accomplished in that regard. I might have hoped that he would have moved past delighting in being gratuitously cruel, but who knows. ----- Next, looking at Starlight in this episode, it seems like she didn't handle this whole situation particularly well (at least up until the resolution), but then, I'm not sure that I can come up with a better plan for what to do under those circumstances. Starlight makes these absolute pronouncements that "I'm ready for him" and that she's going to run the school right "no matter what", and she ineffectually tells Discord that "it stops now" and "you can't keep messing up the school". But those things just seem to provoke an "Or else what?" reaction and encourage Discord to take continuing to mess up the school as a challenge. I had the thought that if Discord is enjoying disrupting normal school activities and watching everyone at the school struggling and suffering with the chaos that he's causing, then maybe Starlight could essentially cancel all school activities and declare a lockdown, or even just send the students home until the Mane Six get back. Then, maybe, if the students are just sitting in their dorm rooms or going home, then that would deprive Discord of his sadistic pleasure, and he would get bored and go do something else. As mentioned before, I would think that the Mane Six would understand if Starlight said that she did that because Discord was endangering students and making school activities impossible. The thing is, though, that if Discord is determined to make Starlight's/Spike's/the students' lives miserable, then he could do that essentially no matter where they go or what they do, given Discord's vast amount of power. Or did Starlight have any means of contacting the Mane Six in an emergency? Could Fluttershy, and possibly more of the Mane Six, come back to try to deal with Discord? That just makes me wonder what plans are in place for emergencies. What if Ponyville, possibly including the Friendship School, is attacked by some big magical creature, or the latest villain? How would the students be kept safe in such a situation? So I don't know, when Discord seems to have the ability to do almost anything, and he's determined to disrupt the operation of the school, then I'm not sure that there's any way to really stop him. One other thing that I'll comment on is near the end of the episode, when Starlight says to Discord "And when you offered to help, I didn't listen. I was so worried about doing things Twilight's way, I didn't stop to think about being a good friend". What is that supposed to mean? That it was necessary and/or desirable for Starlight to allow Discord to disrupt the normal operation of the school, just because he wanted to, and "being a good friend" means letting your friends do whatever they want? Wouldn't Starlight's being a good friend to Twilight (and the rest of the Mane Six) also mean doing what Twilight asked her to do and keeping her promise to do so? If Discord wants to help with running the school, then he can ask Twilight about that when she gets back. Right now, Starlight has a job that she was asked to do and that she promised to do - running the school according to Twilight's instructions. So I don't really see Starlight's and Spike's rebuffing Discord's "help" and wanting to stick to Twilight's plan as incorrect, or as their being bad friends. I see it more as fulfilling their greater obligations and promises to Twilight, the rest of the Mane Six, and the students of the school. ----- Now here are the rest of my miscellaneous observations: How does the entire class gasp and gawk in unison at Twilight's glowing cutie mark? From their perspective, can all of them even see it, let alone all notice it at exactly the same time? And I might suggest that Twilight's not noticing that she was being called could be a sign that it was being faked, but then, on other occasions, members of the Mane Six have failed to notice actual summons by the Map, so we can't say for sure that that was the case. Just before the opening song, Applejack says "Do y'all know what this means? There won't be any teachers left to run the school!" and everyone, including Twilight, gasps in horror. But then, in the very next scene, Twilight says "Don't worry, everypony. I already have a seventy-point plan in place for this very situation". So why was Twilight gasping in horror before? Also, had any of the rest of the Mane Six thought about or asked about this scenario before? Was this backup plan something that's on like page 2937 of the gigantic rule book, and nobody besides Twilight has read that thing? Wouldn't it be better for Twilight to ask who she has in mind for substitute headmare ahead of time, and get her consent and work out what she would do well before Twilight's absence, rather than cornering Starlight at the last minute and saddling her with all this responsibility and no prior preparation? Did Twilight think that Starlight might refuse if there weren't an imminent emergency? On a similar note, wouldn't it also be better to line up potential substitute teachers ahead of time, rather than scrambling to hire them with less than a day's notice? When Discord says "I just go to pieces", I thought of the song called "I Go To Pieces" by Peter And Gordon, which peaked at #9 on the Hot 100 in early 1965 as part of the British invasion. If Discord were to make gravity "optional", I would expect that to mean that gravitational forces are no longer acting on objects. Where those objects go, and with what speed or acceleration, would depend on what other forces act on them. So, with that in mind, what balance of forces would cause objects to just hover within a narrow range of a few feet off the ground, rather than, say, drifting off into the sky or bumping into other objects? What's with Cranky's going on a power trip and having the students wait on him hand and foot? Why would he think that that's an appropriate thing to do as a substitute teacher? I just don't see any good reason for him to be acting like that. I didn't know that Smolder breathed multicolored blue/pink/orange fire; that's kind of cool. Finally, if Starlight's massive beam of magic was just banishing Discord from school grounds, then why did it create this big smoking crater? Was that ground also "banished" from school grounds? And how far did that beam travel, anyway? Could it have hit some ponies and/or property in Ponyville?

I hadn't noticed this issue before, but that seems to be the explanation. These images are from the MLP Wiki's image gallery for "Slice of Life", and they show that the eighth notes are oriented correctly on her right flank, and reversed on her left flank.

I hadn't seen that suggestion before. I was thinking that this episode didn't seem to have set up much of anything for a later conflict, but that would be an interesting (and somewhat clever) possibility. Somebody needed to teach Fluttershy (and maybe everyone else) some basics of hiking and navigating terrain, haha. There is an orienteering merit badge in Boy Scouts, but I never earned it. I did earn the Hiking merit badge as an Eagle Scout requirement, though, which involved taking five 10-mile hikes and one 20-mile hike. (Most of the other Scouts earned the Swimming merit badge instead, but my immediate family and I generally weren't strong swimmers.) If Fluttershy, and at least some of the others, didn't have much experience hiking or navigating, though, I might think that would be even more reason to stick with the group and not wander off unannounced (in addition to the Everfree Forest being dangerous, at least theoretically). In my experience taking hikes with my family or with the Boy Scout Troop back in the day, it was understood that everyone would be aware of and check on at least the hiking mates right next to us. In the episode, I noticed that Rarity, Applejack, and Starlight, at least, all walked by Fluttershy as she was stopped on the side of the trail talking to the bird, but apparently none of them checked to make sure Fluttershy was coming before continuing very far past where she was stopped.

That part of my post was commenting on the content of that line, how it was said, and the situation in which it was said; it was not intended as a comment on Starlight's character in particular. If a different character (say, Rarity, for example) had said that same line in the same way in the same context, I would have reacted the same way to it. It just came across to me as mean-spirited at a time when everyone was apologizing and trying to stop the fighting, and I would have thought that regardless of which character said it.

Overall, it doesn't seem like there's much to this episode, and I didn't really find what's here to be all that entertaining. I liked Mean Twilight's scheming, and it was fairly amusing to see Chrysalis getting upset at her plan's falling apart, but I didn't find most of the other interactions involving the Mean Six to be very amusing or compelling. This episode seems like one that would mainly be setting up a conflict for later in the season, rather than standing as its own episode, but then, I'm not sure what this episode would be setting up. The one plan Chrysalis had for trying to get the Elements of Harmony under control failed, with the Mean Six being turned back into wood by the Tree of Harmony. Chrysalis runs off, apparently without her or her failed plan ever having been discovered by the Mane Seven. I suppose Chrysalis now knows about the Tree of Harmony and where it is, but her plan for obtaining the Elements of Harmony failed, and we're not aware of any other plans she has right now. She had a line about how "servants always fail you in the end", perhaps indicating that any of her further plans will involve her working alone. But that's about all that I can think of. One driver of the plot here is that Fluttershy says nothing to the others as she wanders off away from the group. Fluttershy says to the bird "I'm sure your home isn't too far away", but couldn't Fluttershy have asked the bird first? And if the bird's nest wasn't just off the path, then tell the others what she was going to do? Some of the other group members also walk past her as she's stopped and talking to the bird, but apparently none of them looks back to make sure she's coming, or says anything like "You coming, Fluttershy?", until after she's already gotten herself good and lost. It also seems like there were at least a few clues that something fishy was going on, but those are never followed up on by the Mane Seven, which serves to artificially increase the conflict among them, and also means that they never find out or even suspect that there were "mean" versions of themselves running around. When Rarity and Starlight stumble upon Mean Applejack, Rarity seems to realize that there's at least something wrong with the way Mean Applejack looks, and tells Mean Applejack that the two of them are "going to have a serious talk" later. Rainbow and Applejack also both seem to realize that there's something wrong with Mean Rarity, with Rainbow's suggesting that it's "some kind of curse" or "maybe poison joke". And even after Rainbow and Applejack suspect that Rarity was cursed or otherwise not acting of her own volition, Applejack still later says that "Rarity ran off with all my stuff", and never talks about how she and Rainbow thought Rarity might have been cursed or something, even when Rarity denies that she did that. And when Twilight gets upset about Mean Pinkie's saying that this is a "boring, lame, no-fun retreat", real Pinkie says that she never said that, but that's also never followed up on. (Plus, there are all the instances of "mean" and real characters leaving/entering the frame right after each other, so we might think that they could see or hear each other in at least a few of those cases.) So there are at least a few puzzle pieces there, but after Twilight shouts for everyone to be quiet and starts the apology session, those anomalies are apparently just forgotten about, and the Mane Seven thus never find out that Chrysalis was there at the same time trying to obtain the Elements of Harmony. Now for the rest of my miscellaneous observations: Twilight's single hair pulled by Chrysalis has two colors in one strand, and Rainbow's single hair has all the colors of the rainbow in one strand. I wouldn't think that their strands of hair would work like that. I didn't know that the location of the Tree of Harmony "isn't something made known to just anypony". Is that deliberately being kept a secret? Or does it just so happen that the few ponies who are aware of it (the Mane Eight, Celestia and Luna, the six Pillars) haven't talked about it to anyone else, and it's in a remote enough location that random residents of Equestria haven't just stumbled across it? I would expect Pinkie's rolling in thorny rose bushes to hurt. Is one of Pinkie's inexplicable mysterious powers not to feel pain, or to have a high pain tolerance? When Applejack asks Mean Rarity "Where's Starlight?", Mean Rarity starts saying "Well, if I knew that—" before being distracted by Applejack's stuff. What did Mean Rarity think Applejack meant by that question? If Mean Rarity knew "that", then...what? I'm not sure if it would be that obvious to Twilight that something was wrong with Pinkie; since Pinkie often acts so randomly and just does whatever she wants, it might be difficult to tell if Pinkie is being "out of character" just from a couple of sentences. Why does Starlight say "I'll never like camping" in this prideful and condescending way? Does she think that her never liking camping is something to be proud of? Does she want to rub Applejack's face in how stupid she thinks camping is? Is that really an appropriate attitude at a time when everyone is apologizing and trying to patch things up? Finally, considering that the campsite was set up in the middle of the Everfree Forest, with who knows what kinds of wild and vicious animals running around, I wouldn't consider it that big of a surprise that their campsite was trashed, particularly if Twilight had any unsecured food at the campsite.

Overall, I'd say that this was an okay episode. I'm not sure that there were many standout moments for me, but for most of the episode, there wasn't anything particularly bad about it, either. The biggest problem is probably Twilight's seeming to believe that the CMC deliberately set up Cozy Glow to fail, even as there isn't necessarily cause to believe that beyond a reasonable doubt, and even as Cozy Glow's test answers seem more like attempts at jokes. But that problem is soon enough resolved, and the episode comes to a nice ending with the CMC being given honorary diplomas, being congratulated by their big sisters and the other Mane Eight, and becoming friendship tutors, which seems like a good fit and which they appear to enjoy doing. ----- What might be the biggest issue with the episode is the scene in which Twilight acts as though she simply knows that the CMC set Cozy Glow up to fail, and interrogates them as to why they did it. First off, how would Twilight have reached that conclusion? I don't think we see any overwhelming evidence that the CMC set Cozy Glow up to fail, such that any other explanation could be ruled out beyond a reasonable doubt. Twilight says that Cozy Glow told her that the CMC are her "tutors", presumably after Cozy Glow was asked about her failing test grade. But notably, Twilight never says that Cozy Glow said that the CMC taught her the wrong answers, so that may have been an even further assumption on Twilight's part. And the CMC seem genuinely shocked that Cozy Glow failed her test, and seem sincere in saying that they taught Cozy Glow the right things. There might be a potential motivation in that the CMC have lately been trying and failing to get into the Friendship School as students. But did Twilight consider the possibility that Cozy Glow might have some reason (as was actually the case) to falsely blame the CMC for being intentionally bad tutors? What if, for example, Cozy Glow blanked out on the test, and just put random answers down, but when she was asked why she failed the test, she thought she would get in trouble, so she tried to shift the blame off of herself and onto the CMC? And one big consideration that Twilight doesn't seem to make is the nature of Cozy Glow's wrong answers. The two examples of wrong answers that Twilight gives are "Five turtlenecks and a cheese grater" in response to "What are the six Elements of Harmony?" and "Your mom" in response to "Who is the Princess of Friendship?". Those don't sound like the kind of wrong answers that a well-meaning student would be misled into believing are correct; those sound like the kind of intentionally ridiculous wrong answers that a student would give when he/she doesn't know (or doesn't care) what the right answers are and is just trying to be funny or random. So, again, looking at this, I don't see overwhelming evidence to conclude without a doubt that the CMC sabotaged Cozy Glow; this incident looks to me as though it needs further investigation. It seems like Twilight could have told the CMC that they're suspected of telling Cozy Glow the wrong answers, or just said that Cozy Glow told her that the CMC were giving Cozy Glow the wrong answers (if that was actually the case), rather than Twilight's apparently concluding that there's no question that they did it. Twilight could even have still told the CMC the line about staying away from her school and her students, with an additional "until this matter is resolved" or something like that. Was Twilight's acting as though the CMC definitely did it, and trying to shame them, actually an intentional hardball tactic on Twilight's part, in order to intimidate them into confessing? That doesn't strike me as something that Twilight would do. Now, with all of that said, the CMC's names are cleared not too much later - by the next day in-universe, and within a few minutes in the episode - so it probably doesn't ultimately matter too much. It just sticks out as likely the most objectionable thing in the episode. ----- The other line that caught my attention was Twilight's telling the CMC that "I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to stay away from my school. And my students". Now the "stay away from my school" part seems simple enough to understand. Twilight is the owner or the pony in charge of the Friendship School property, so she would have the authority to tell the CMC to leave (or forcibly remove them, if necessary) if they're caught on the school grounds again. The more complicated matter is the "stay away from my students" part. We see in the episode that students of the Friendship School are not restricted to staying only on the school grounds. One of Cozy Glow's homework assignments is to do something nice for three residents of Ponyville, and Cozy Glow sees the CMC to study or do homework several times without getting in any apparent trouble with the school. So would the CMC be restricted from going anywhere in Ponyville where Friendship School students are, or anywhere students could possibly go? Would Twilight monitor students when they leave school grounds to make sure that the CMC stay away from all of them? Or would Twilight only find out if, say, a student reported to her that the CMC tried to approach or talk to him/her off of school grounds? And if the CMC were caught too close to one of the students off of school grounds, what would Twilight do about that, and what would she have the authority to do? I wouldn't think that Twilight would have the authority just as headmare of the Friendship School to punish or restrict the movement of the CMC off of school grounds. But maybe Twilight would have the legal/political authority as a princess to order the CMC to stay away from her students, and to punish them for violating that order. But is there any check on that power? Is there any due process or ability to appeal such an order before it's made and enforced? Now I wouldn't expect the CMC to try to violate Twilight's request, and I would think that Twilight would respect the CMC's good-faith effort to honor her request (rather than, say, trying to catch and punish the CMC on a technicality). I just couldn't help wondering, when I heard that statement, about how the Friendship School works and about what the limits of Twilight's authority are. ----- Now here are my other miscellaneous observations: After the CMC try to sit in on Twilight's class, she tells them "You need Cheerilee's classes, not mine. Hurry up. You don't want late marks on your permanent record". But in the scene just after that, Apple Bloom is back at the farm and Applejack asks her "Aren't you supposed to be on harvest duty right now?". So is Apple Bloom supposed to be in school or on harvest duty? How big of a time jump is there supposed to be between those two scenes? Is the second scene supposed to be taking place hours later, after Apple Bloom had already gone to school for the day? Then again, the passage of time in the whole episode seems a little fuzzy. When the CMC first see Cozy Glow crying under a tree near the clubhouse, Sweetie Belle's immediate reaction is "Aww, she looks so sad. We better go see what's wrong", whereas my first reaction would be "Who is that, and what is she doing out here on the Apple family's property?". So, for Cozy Glow's homework, she was given three pictures of ponies in Ponyville and told to "do something nice for each of them". But then Cozy Glow says that she doesn't know anything about them. Were students told the names of the ponies in the pictures, or where they could be found in Ponyville, or the things that they generally do with which they could use help? At least some of the students at the Friendship School aren't longtime residents of Ponyville, so are they expected to find these ponies and help them just on the basis of single pictures? Also, did these pictured ponies agree to having students of the Friendship School try to do something nice for them ahead of time? I might think that not everyone in Ponyville would necessarily want socially awkward students trying to find and help them without any warning. And do these pictured ponies report back to the Friendship School on whether and how students did something nice for them? Or is this homework assignment essentially working on the honor system of students truthfully telling the teacher about the nice things they did? Why does Starlight have an armoire full of what appears to be jars and bottles in her guidance counselor's office? Is the idea that she's handing out medicine or potions to teenage students for psychiatric problems, even as she has no apparent medical training or certification? Starlight's meme face has been making the rounds, but Cozy Glow makes a pretty similar face earlier in the episode, and that has seemed to receive essentially no attention. After Cozy Glow describes her plan to try to get the CMC accepted as students at the Friendship School, she says "I guess I still have a lot to learn about friendship", and Starlight replies "Actually, I think you're doing all right. Sure, that was a really, really bad way to try to help your friends, but what matters is you wanted to", which I find kind of questionable. If "what matters is you wanted to [help your friends]", does that imply that the actual (or reasonably predicted) results of her actions don't matter? If Cozy Glow (supposedly) wanted to help her friends, but she then tried to do that in "a really, really bad way", and the end result is that she demonstrably made things worse for her friends, is it really appropriate to describe that as "doing all right"? Will anything be done to change Cozy Glow's actions or plans for action so that she doesn't harm her friends in the future, even if those actions are done or planned in the name of helping her friends? I'm not so sure that this is good counseling being done here, although in this particular case, it may not end up mattering. Twilight tells the CMC that "I think Starlight has a place for you at my school after all", and has Starlight offer to make the CMC friendship tutors on staff, rather than Twilight just saying that herself. I jokingly wondered if that's what Twilight meant by "And that's why this school needs you as our guidance counselor" - that Twilight just wants Starlight to handle recruitment/hiring of staff (which we've seen done this one time so far), rather than handling it herself. I wonder what the age difference is between the CMC and at least some of the students at the school, and whether that age difference could lead to older students not necessarily respecting the CMC as tutors. But that potential problem could be avoided if the CMC only tutored students close to their age or younger. Finally, the CMC seemed to originally want to get into the Friendship School as students because they wanted to get out of going to school with Miss Cheerilee, and the Friendship School looked like more fun. But now the CMC seem to have tutoring duties in addition to still having to attend school with Miss Cheerilee (unless being "friendship tutors on staff" is a full-time thing, although that doesn't seem to be the case for the teachers, so I wouldn't expect it to be the case for the tutors either). But the CMC do say that tutoring is fun, maybe even more so than attending the Friendship School would be, so at least they have something to work forward to doing when not in school themselves.

I agree that it's nice to see those two again, and moreover, it's nice to see that this is the second time in the last three episodes that Apple Bloom has helped out and been genuinely supportive of her brother's romantic relationship. It's true that Apple Bloom has been supportive of Big Mac's and Sugar Belle's relationship since she and the other CMC found out about it in "Hard To Say Anything", but I feel like the usual trope is for siblings to make fun of or cause trouble for their other siblings' relationships, so I like how Apple Bloom just does these nice things for Big Mac and Sugar Belle without making a big deal out of it.

Wow, we get to see some of the other students at the Friendship School, and the Student Six aren't all in the same class at the same time!

@Truffles, I just wanted to say something that has crossed my mind many times before, but especially so after all the time, thought, and effort you put into your huge undertaking of quotes and responses that you posted today (and you said that you're not even finished posting about this episode yet!). I often can't help feeling a little guilty at what feels like an asymmetry regarding your posts responding to me (and others) and my response, in turn, to you. For your part, you read and process my (and others') posts about episodes, which are often quite lengthy, and then quote and individually respond to several, if not dozens, of my (and others') thoughts, observations, and questions. But then, after all the time, thought, and effort you put into doing that, oftentimes my only response after reading your replies is just to click the "brohoof" button, and sometimes to pick out one or two of your responses and reply to those. So I just wanted to confirm that my brohoofing your posts is a stand-in for my quoting most of your responses and saying "Yeah, I hadn't thought of that" or "Good point" or "I agree" over and over. It really adds to my enjoyment of the show to have someone else who goes above and beyond in not just posting your own thoughts and observations, but also responding to mine (and others') - whether that's agreeing with them, sympathizing with them, expanding upon them, and/or offering potential explanations or solutions for them. So I really appreciate your continuing to take the time, thought, and effort to do all of this for each episode that comes out.

I do see your point here, but Twilight's not knowing about dragon molting may not be too far-fetched. For one thing, back in "Dragon Quest", Twilight and Spike searched the whole Golden Oak Library and didn't find anything in the books there about dragons, and Twilight said that "It's hard to believe, but ponies know next to nothing about dragons. Apparently they're too rare and too scary to try to talk to or study!". Then, near the beginning of "Gauntlet of Fire", Luna says that "little is known about dragon culture" (although she's seen the call of the Dragon Lord before), and Twilight reiterates that "we are sadly lacking any information on dragon culture and customs". And there doesn't seem to be much indication that ponies in general have communicated with or learned much about dragons since then. Ember's visit to Ponyville in "Triple Threat" may be the first visit by the Dragon Lord or any other dragon representative to pony society in a long time, if ever. It may be that, among ponies, only the Mane Eight have observed or interacted with dragons in general in any significant way, and even that has probably been pretty limited. It is true that, at the end of "Gauntlet of Fire", Twilight said that "Ember said I could write to her any time I had questions about dragon culture". But asking about dragon culture may be somewhat different than asking about dragon physiology, and if Twilight didn't know that dragons go through significant non-greed-induced bodily changes in their "teenage" years, then it might be understandable that Twilight didn't ask about something that she didn't even know would be a problem. Plus, the whole molting process appears to have only taken about a day, so by the time that Twilight might have observed what Spike was going through, tried to find out more about it, and then tried to do something about it, the molt had already ended. There are a lot of potential problems that we could encounter in our lives, and we could pre-emptively try to think of them and research solutions to them. But if things are generally going well enough, then rational ignorance often prevails, leading to our not thinking of problems or researching solutions to them until we actually encounter them. I could see that being the case here, and providing a plausible explanation for why Twilight didn't know about dragon molting until after Spike had already gone through it.

Overall, there might be two different things to consider when discussing this episode: how entertaining the episode itself is, and then the change of Spike's having wings in the show from now on. Regarding the episode itself, on the one hand, I thought there were several entertaining/nice moments, including: Spike's acting a little too suspicious, such that Rarity catches on to him trying to hide his stone scale; Spike's and Peewee's showing affection for each other; Twilight's and Rarity's being understanding about Spike's stone scale(s) and reassuring him that it's not that big of a deal; Twilight's and Rarity's taking the initiative to ask Zecora about a cure for Spike's stone scales, after Spike was too nervous/stubborn/etc. to do it himself; and of course, Rarity's and Twilight's being happy for Spike after he grew wings, and their assurance that they're there for him as he continues to grow up. However, I didn't like seeing Spike continuedly digging himself into a hole by trying and failing to hide the effects of his molting and not talking about it; the recurring gag where Spike, Rarity, and even Pinkie shout things quickly became obnoxious; I'm not sure that I like some of the puberty analogies in this episode, or that some of them quite work; and the action sequence seemed to have several contrivances in order to ratchet up the tension artificially. Regarding the status quo change of Spike's growing wings, I'm not sure that it's had that strong of an effect for me yet. However, there have been other status quo changes in the show that didn't really sink in or have their full impact for me until later, after some time had passed and we saw some subsequent interactions about them or consequences of them. For example, Twilight's being able to fly and having pegasus abilities (setting aside the questions about Twilight's becoming a princess and what that meant) wasn't really cemented for me until we saw things like Twilight's standing on clouds, casually flying and talking with Rainbow, and breaking through clouds when flying in "Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3". Or, for another example, Rainbow's finally being accepted into the Wonderbolts didn't have much impact on me just after "Newbie Dash" aired, even if I tried to set aside the issues I had with that episode. But seeing Rainbow having good casual camaraderie with the other Wonderbolts and flying with them in later episodes like "Top Bolt" and "Parental Glideance" was what really sealed the deal and made me happy that Rainbow had achieved her goal of becoming a Wonderbolt. So, while Spike's growing wings in this episode may not have had as strong of an emotional impact on me, that may be subject to change, depending on how it's handled in the future. I hope that we get to see Spike using his wings and having interactions with other characters about his wings and about flying; things like that would help to make this status quo change more meaningful. ----- To start off, there seem to be a few puberty analogies in this episode that I don't really like and/or might not quite work as intended. The first is Spike's refusal to try to find help (with Zecora or someone else) regarding his breakout and the other things his body is going through. When Rarity first suggests that Spike see Zecora, he says "I don't want anypony else to see this". But Zecora lives in an isolated location, and I wouldn't think that Zecora would be a particularly judgmental jerk about it or anything. And the next morning, when even as Twilight is understanding about Spike's breakout and also tells Spike to see Zecora, he insists that "I'm not leaving the castle until my face is back to its adorable self". So, essentially, Spike refuses to seek out a solution to his problem until...his problem solves itself, which seems like a bit of a paradox. And after that, Spike hides his breakout from Rarity and tries to get away without even telling her about what has happened. But earlier, when Spike eventually revealed his stone scale to her, she was mature about it. She didn't laugh at his misfortune or tell him that he's gross and she never wants to see him again or anything like that. Rarity might insist again that Spike see Zecora or do something about his breakout, but that is what Spike should try to do. It looks like the puberty analogy being attempted here is to pre-teens' or teens' peers being judgmental jerks and making fun of others' acne issues, or finding them so gross that they never want to hang out again. But we see that Rarity, Twilight, and Zecora don't do that, and Spike could probably expect them to be reasonably mature about body problems that Spike doesn't have any real control over. So I'm not sure that that puberty analogy quite works. Also, Smolder, and later Spike, both say that in the Dragon Lands, molting dragons are kicked out - or, as Smolder calls it, the "molt effect". In both cases, my first thought was "Well, this isn't the Dragon Lands". And of course, Twilight says those exact words to Spike when he brings that up. Smolder suggests that it's biological, but we're talking about other people's conscious actions and decisions here, not some uncontrollable biological phenomenon (hence why it's prefaced with "in the Dragon Lands"). So I don't like that Spike seems to think that Twilight would suddenly and irrevocably kick him out, just because that's what happens in the Dragon Lands. Since when has Twilight followed "what they do in the Dragon Lands" in her treatment of Spike? This feels like another "getting older" analogy - in this case, moving out or getting kicked out to make one's own living - that doesn't quite work. This "molt effect" of a dragon's getting kicked out for the mere fact that molting is occurring also seems to be mixed in with the fear that the side effects of molting - the smell, uncontrollable fire burps, etc. - will be the new normal, and therefore, no one else will want to be around Spike any more. But that seems like a separate concern (with its own potential solutions), with the puberty analogy there being to having to worry about body odor, bad breath, etc., rather than moving out or getting kicked out of the house. So I don't know, the way those two things are handled in the episode seems a little needlessly convoluted. ----- As I mentioned before, there are also a few instances where the action sequence with the roc seems to be drawn out or made more tense because of kind of contrived actions (or lack of actions) on the part of characters involved. When the roc was chasing Spike as he baited it away from Zecora, what was the thought process behind Spike's climbing a tree? Did he think that the roc wouldn't see him doing that, and that he could hide from the roc until it lost interest? But he was just running over open ground - at least open enough that we could clearly see the roc flying above and following Spike. And besides, isn't the roc supposed to be attracted to his smell? After that, when Spike runs into Rarity, he seems to understand that the first priority is to tell her "You have to get out of here! There's a giant roc trying to eat me! It's got Zecora!". But, of course, Rarity is having severe hearing problems. Spike had observed that already, and even if he forgot at that moment, Rarity goes back to doing the "shouting slowly" thing, which ought to clue Spike in. So why not, say, point to the flying roc and get Rarity to notice it, or grab Rarity's hoof and try to get her to run? Then, when Twilight finds Spike, she can hear just fine, but Spike inexplicably doesn't immediately inform Twilight of the giant predator bird chasing him, or that the roc is holding Zecora and Rarity, as Spike had just done with Rarity; instead, Spike wastes time doing the "this would normally be really embarrassing" shtick. Lastly, when Twilight finally understands that the roc is holding Zecora and Rarity, Twilight's solution is to chase the roc and try to fire generic magic laser blasts at it, which repeatedly miss and apparently aren't stopping the roc even when they hit. Why doesn't Twilight, for example, find Zecora and Rarity and teleport them to a safe location (perhaps followed by teleporting Spike and herself away as well)? Or why doesn't Twilight use her telekinesis to force the roc to stop and force open its claw so that Zecora and Rarity can escape? Even when Zecora and Rarity are in free fall, Twilight calls out to Spike and points, and the two of them race to catch up to Zecora and Rarity and catch them in their arms, rather than Twilight's just teleporting Zecora and Rarity or using telekinesis to stop them. ----- Next, here are a few other larger observations I had about the episode. Both Rarity and Twilight suggest that Spike pay Zecora a visit, since she "makes a cream that works wonders". But who's to say that a skin cream that works on ponies would also work on dragons? Is the cause of stone scales in dragons even understood by Zecora or by ponies in general? However, Spike never cites that as a reason not to see Zecora, and it would pretty obviously be better for Spike to at least see what Zecora thinks, rather than just hiding it and hoping that his issues will just go away, even as they continue to get worse. That's especially the case when people apparently don't have to schedule appointments with Zecora, make sure that insurance will cover the appointment and treatment, etc. Peewee apparently holds affection for Spike, which is nice to see. But does Peewee actually remember Spike from being raised by him, and/or did Peewee learn that Spike had saved him? Back in "Just for Sidekicks", the framed pictures depict Spike returning Peewee to his parents, with Peewee apparently looking no different than he did when he had just hatched. That might imply that Spike didn't take care of Peewee for very long, in which case it might also be surprising for grown-up Peewee to remember Spike. However, this show has had several other cases of characters not appearing to age even when they should be getting older, so the length of time for which Spike took care of Peewee might not be clear. Or is Spike supposed to have been making regular visits to see Peewee over the years? I noticed Peewee's dad not looking amused when Spike returned Peewee in the "Just for Sidekicks" picture, so would Peewee's parents be okay with Spike's visiting him? Were Peewee and his parents somehow informed that Spike was trying to save Peewee from the other dragons, rather than intending to steal him away from his parents? It seems that there are several questions about dragon molting that this episode doesn't answer. Did Smolder already go through molting, or did she merely observe it in other dragons? (On a side note, if Smolder molted already, and is actually older than Spike, that would be an interesting juxtaposition - Smolder is older than Spike, yet she's the student in school while Spike is helping to run the school.) Do all dragons only grow wings when they molt, or was Spike's growing wings upon molting particular to him, for some reason? Growing wings seems like a pretty big deal, so we might think that Smolder would mention growing wings when she talks about molting to Spike. Will Spike go through a non-greed-induced growth spurt, or grow horns like some (though not all) of the other dragons at some point? According to Zecora, phoenix feathers "can affect ponies' ears", and "it's a magic ailment I've treated for years". So do phoenix feathers have that effect on all ponies? Or is it comparable to an allergic reaction, where only a relatively small percentage of the population is affected? How much exposure is necessary for an affected pony to lose his/her hearing? I went back and looked at "A Bird In The Hoof", and we don't seem to see Celestia ever touching Philomena's feathers. But then Philomena gives an "apology" feather to Fluttershy, uses her feathers to tickle the noses of the royal guards, and "high-fives" Rainbow with her wing. If Philomena was aware that contact with her feathers would cause hearing loss in all ponies, then those would seem like thoughtless things for Philomena to do. It would also seem like much more of a hassle for Celestia to keep Philomena as a pet if Celestia could essentially only touch Philomena's claws and beak without losing her hearing. In Zecora's hut, even as Rarity had just said "I only know you're talking because your mouth is going up and down", Zecora proceeds to give Rarity the cure, then give Rarity verbal directions on how to use it. Zecora ought to be thinking that Rarity probably can't hear her, especially with what Rarity just said above. So Zecora could have said something like "In order to make these ear corrections / tell me if you understood my directions". But Zecora evidently did write directions for the ear drops on the bottle. At least that's a step up from "It Isn't The Mane Thing About You", in which the vials of identical-looking liquids were not labeled at all, and no one made sure that Pinkie and Rarity had the right ones. Now maybe the next step is writing directions clearly and making sure that her customers (if she's getting paid for any of this) understand those directions, which circles back to the point about Rarity's not being able to hear the verbal directions earlier. ----- Finally, here are my other miscellaneous smaller observations. It's amusing when Twilight resentfully says that Celestia "probably never had a blemish her whole life", but is there reason to believe that that's actually the case? Does Celestia's having lived for over 1100 years, and not looking ancient, have any connection to her apparently not being seen with any blemishes? After Spike has a couple of uncontrolled fire burps, Twilight tells Spike "Maybe you should leave the castle after all. And go somewhere less... flammable?". Is crystal particularly flammable? It's not like they're living in a library made of wood, like they used to. (But yeah, I know, there's flammable books/papers/linens/etc. around.) So Rarity complements another guy's clothing ensemble, boops his nose, winks at him, and then says "But I wonder if you wouldn't mind taking it off"? That sounds like a scenario out of a self-insert dating Rarity fantasy, lol. In the episode, though, Rarity's complementing Spike's outfit, booping his nose, and winking at him is likely her attempt to butter him up and manipulate him just before asking a favor, sort of like she did with the delivery pony and with the castle guards in "Rarity Investigates!". Why is Spike apparently unaware that he's shouting in the library? Is Spike unable to hear the volume of his own voice? Is the hearing loss effect of the phoenix feathers (which happened to Rarity) supposed to be happening to Spike, too? But I don't recall Spike being shown having trouble hearing in the rest of the episode. When Rarity is entering Zecora's hut, she says "Oh, dear! I'm talking even louder than I thought, aren't I?!", but then continues talking loudly, even as she's aware that she's probably doing so. I do appreciate that Spike isn't an instant expert at using his new wings, but he still manages to fly pretty fast and dodge the roc's attacks after only using his wings for 30 seconds or so. I remember how Twilight appeared not to struggle to fly in "Magical Mystery Cure", but then she did struggle with it and had Rainbow teaching her basics in "Princess Twilight Sparkle" at the start of the next season. So will we see any more of Spike still getting the hang of flying later on, or is it assumed that his learning to use his wings in this episode is all that's needed?