S08:E01+02 - School Daze

[Buttonmash1973 1,024]

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Edited April 8, 2018 by Buttonmash1973

[Esoteric 142]

Ocellus is the best character ever omg <3

[Buttonmash1973 1,024]

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Edited April 11, 2018 by Buttonmash1973

[PacificGreen 1,163]

I liked seeing the new characters in this one (love the School/Young Six!) but I think the main conflict was its weakest point.

By that, I mean that I can't really blame Neighsay for closing down the school when he just witnessed a disaster unfold in front of him that put the safety of others at risk. Instead the episode focused on how racist he was which, while I obviously don't agree with him there, doesn't discount other reasons not to accredit the school (unqualified teachers, the fact that the Mane Six might have to go on adventures which might interfere with the school's curriculum).

Basically it felt like "Strawman Has A Point: The Episode" and the moral came off as more like "if you mess up your first chance at doing something important to you, screw the rules and authority because you're doing what's right".

[Wonderbolt Slipstream 263]

This episode sure did touch on racism, but I can see where chancellor Neighsay was coming from. First, I don't support his actions, he was hasty and didn't get all the facts and these are just my opinions on what I think he thought, not my own.

With that out of the way Chancellor Neighsay was told the school was created to protect Equestria so when he see's that the school is being torn apart by foreign creatures, you can see where he might disapprove of them being there and want them out, in the end he cares about his country, a country made up of ponies, and he doesn't believe these creatures can co-exist. "The best way to get rid of a problem is to get rid of its existence of being a problem." is what I'm assuming he thought.

Of course these are just my thoughts and assumptions...

[Pastel 7,627]

Great season premiere!

I really didn't expect the movie continuity. In general, for series, there is no continuity between the actual series and movies (when they make some), which actually annoys me most of the time...

Another thing that always amazes me with this show is how they easily add many new characters in a single episode, and here these new characters aren't even ponies anymore. It was very refreshing to see new "creatures".

And finally, I really liked Ocellus, she was a nice addition to this episode.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Pastel

[blackstarraven 142]

On 3/28/2018 at 12:31 AM, Truffles said:

He could presumably order guards to physically prevent the teachers and students from meeting, have the Mane Eight thrown in jail, or, if he goes off the deep end, even personally attack the Mane Eight or the non-pony students.

...

I can imagine a negative spin that could be put on that: "Princess Celestia fires/arrests head of EEA so favored student Princess Twilight Sparkle doesn't have to follow the same rules for her school as everybody else".

I actually have a pretty good insite / answer to this.

The Answer to this is simple: No.. No he can't.

The incite is also simple: He can't because the school doesn't actually REQUIRE accreditation. It's clearly not being pitched as the primary education of the students attending.

I'm going to compare this to real schools, I know that's not the best ideal but it has some good comparisons.

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Point #1: If your running a 'school' but its not the primary education for a child or adult. It's not required to be accredited by anyone. This is why Seminary schools don't need to be credited. Because what they are teaching is not considered to be required in education.

Point #2: At least for the... foreign? Students. They most likely don't fall under any accreditation anyways.

Point #3: The accreditation would most likely all revolve around WHAT the school is actually giving out. And who actually takes the credentials.

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Example: If I wanted to I could in pretty much any developed nation in the world, start a college, and hand out degrees... With no accreditation. But without that accreditation there just pieces of paper.

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Point #4: You get thrown in jail for breaking laws. Not for breaking rules. Those are two very different things.

Laws are legal social things with consequences.

Rules are more or less private rules.

- Example: If you cheat in the NFL, you legally can't be thrown in jail unless what you did broke a Non-NFL law. So for instance, pulling on a face mask is a rule. Using Drugs is a law.

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Now I don't actually know what angel there going to take in the show. But from a real world stand point. All not being accredited does is make the degree there handing out worth only what people put stock in Twilight reputation.

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Personal Example: I went to the Patterson school of diplomacy.

Its 100% Unaccredited from a University stand point.

The only rules it has to follow are the one's put forth by the Patterson Board.

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It is however one of the best Diplomacy schools out there. Hold a lot of weight, but my degree does not count as a Bachelors degree.

-

I'm guessing this is the place that twilight is in.

While yes she has to follow the laws. (Can't beat children, so on and so on) She doesn't actually have to meet up with the boards expectations.

On 4/9/2018 at 2:07 AM, Slipstream95 said:

This episode sure did touch on racism, but I can see where chancellor Neighsay was coming from. First, I don't support his actions, he was hasty and didn't get all the facts and these are just my opinions on what I think he thought, not my own.

With that out of the way Chancellor Neighsay was told the school was created to protect Equestria so when he see's that the school is being torn apart by foreign creatures, you can see where he might disapprove of them being there and want them out, in the end he cares about his country, a country made up of ponies, and he doesn't believe these creatures can co-exist. "The best way to get rid of a problem is to get rid of its existence of being a problem." is what I'm assuming he thought.

Of course these are just my thoughts and assumptions...

Well yes and no...

Twilight never actually said it was to protect Eqestria, She actually tried to correct him when he said it.

Yes, good political relations is good for the safety of Equestria. but its not the same thing.

That would be like me claiming that my Degree in Diplomacy was = to a degree in Military Science... (I have a degree in both actually)

But part of his freak out was that HE assumed something.

-

I'm not going to say that I don't get his freak out. I'm going to say that I get it because I saw where his logical disconnect took place.

On 4/8/2018 at 9:06 PM, PacificGreen said:

I liked seeing the new characters in this one (love the School/Young Six!) but I think the main conflict was its weakest point.

By that, I mean that I can't really blame Neighsay for closing down the school when he just witnessed a disaster unfold in front of him that put the safety of others at risk. Instead the episode focused on how racist he was which, while I obviously don't agree with him there, doesn't discount other reasons not to accredit the school (unqualified teachers, the fact that the Mane Six might have to go on adventures which might interfere with the school's curriculum).

Basically it felt like "Strawman Has A Point: The Episode" and the moral came off as more like "if you mess up your first chance at doing something important to you, screw the rules and authority because you're doing what's right".

Agreed, Starman does have a point.

But I do get the point of the episode also...

Twilight should never have even worried about the accreditation. She's not providing a primary education here....

No one is going to take a degree form this place and try to get a job with it. (Unless maybe its in diplomacy or conflict resolution)
Point being.

 

This is closer to doing to a Seminary school then a High School or University.

Edited April 10, 2018 by blackstarraven

[Truffles 2,033]

On 4/10/2018 at 5:22 AM, blackstarraven said:

On 3/27/2018 at 11:31 PM, Truffles said:

He could presumably order guards to physically prevent the teachers and students from meeting, have the Mane Eight thrown in jail, or, if he goes off the deep end, even personally attack the Mane Eight or the non-pony students.

...

I can imagine a negative spin that could be put on that: "Princess Celestia fires/arrests head of EEA so favored student Princess Twilight Sparkle doesn't have to follow the same rules for her school as everybody else".

I actually have a pretty good insite / answer to this.

The Answer to this is simple: No.. No he can't.

The incite is also simple: He can't because the school doesn't actually REQUIRE accreditation. It's clearly not being pitched as the primary education of the students attending.

I think this is misattributed somehow. @Music Chart Fan wrote the above text, not me. I generally agree with you that he can't throw them in jail and attacking them would be political suicide, which is why he could do nothing after Twilight broke his magic seal other than flee the scene.

Like I said in my post elsewhere, his only punitive power seems to be to seal off the school from anyone entering it. Presumably having the school closed would drive the pony parents to seek to get it opened again, perhaps through meeting with the teachers/headmaster and getting whatever it is that is breaking the rules fixed.

In Twilight's case, the main problem was having other species besides ponies attending and I don't think Celestia would have sided with him on that anyway. (How she managed to miss that little rule when dealing with the EEA and her own school is a whole other mystery, however.) No amount of meetings would have helped, which is one of the reasons why Twilight decided to step up and simply open the school on her own.

[Music Chart Fan 818]

@blackstarraven,

I said in my original big post on these episodes (which you might not have seen) that if the Friendship School is essentially a voluntary enrichment activity, comparable to something like summer camp, then the only big concerns would be that parents and potential students see the school as safe and worthwhile to attend (in addition to possibly maintaining funding, although we don't know how that works with the Friendship School).

But regular schools for underage children, at least in the real world, have their own sets of laws and regulations to follow. As I understand it, in the U.S., states have laws requiring underage children, usually under 18, to attend government-approved school (whether public or private) or be in a government-approved homeschooling program. So if someone or some group were to run a non-government-approved elementary/middle/high school, then the underage students attending that school would be breaking the law. And if the government found out about it, then the parents of those students and/or the people running the school could be in trouble with the law as well, and thus could be fined/arrested/jailed. People over 18 (or the legally required age) are not required by law to attend a government-approved school, so, as I understand it, accreditation for colleges and universities attended by students over that age is a different matter.

But there are a lot of unknowns regarding the Friendship School, the role of the EEA, and the laws of Equestria. We don't know if Equestria has laws requiring school attendance for underage children; we don't know exactly what age the students of the Friendship School are (although I think they seem like the equivalent of high schoolers); I don't think we know yet whether the Friendship School acts as a replacement for regular schooling; and we don't know exactly what EEA accreditation means with regard to the laws of Equestria. Princess Celestia says that the EEA is "a board of learned ponies that oversee every school in Equestria", and Chancellor Neighsay apparently has at least some authority to "shut schools down" that don't meet EEA standards, which seems to imply that EEA accreditation is not completely optional. But it's still unclear under what circumstances, if any, schools in Equestria would be legally required to obtain EEA accreditation.

Regardless of that, though, as @Truffles discussed with me after my original big post, Twilight and the rest of the Mane Eight have favored or hero status with Celestia and Luna, and probably with the general population. So the Mane Eight would most likely not get in any serious legal trouble, since that would pretty clearly be against the wishes of Celestia and Luna and the general population.

(And I apologize to @Truffles for getting unintentionally mixed up in this, and being put on the spot as having said things that I said, rather than that he said.)

[BlinkZ 1,151]

Twilight's school is open to all, BUT the buffalo because they apparently were not invited

[Buttonmash1973 1,024]

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Edited April 13, 2018 by Buttonmash1973

[Singe 2,109]

Though to be honest I can see where Neighsay is coming from as more than a leader of the EEA, he's an angry citizen of the Equestrian Kingdom. A character that challenges Twilight's ideals. He's like one of the few characters that calls Twilight out on the safety of ponies. Neighsay is distrustful of other creatures and that seems like the anger stemmed from the several attacks on the kingdom with a failed defense.

Not a bad guy, just a character to show Twilight has more work to do to prove friendship/alliances with other creatures can work and not back fire.

 

Edited April 15, 2018 by Singe

[Buttonmash1973 1,024]

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Edited April 17, 2018 by Buttonmash1973

[Singe 2,109]

On 3/30/2018 at 8:24 PM, Querch said:

Something always struck me as off with the whole EEA thing. I get the impression that Twilight's idea wasn't communicated clearly enough. Let's look at Twilight's and Neighsay's exchange in that room that looked a little too dark for reading to be practical (seriously...).

Twilight: If we want to keep our land safe and create a friendlier tomorrow, we need to teach the magic of friendship far and wide.
Neighsay: A school for ponies to learn how to defend themselves?
Twilight: Uh, more like respecting differences and communicating.
Neighsay: The EEA concurs. Everypony should be prepared to defend our way of life. So, if your work is in order...

Hm... It's not just me who thinks that Twilight and Neighsay weren't on the same page at the outset? It seemed as though both had something else in mind after the session concluded. Another obvious thing is that Neighsay seems to have been in the dark about the school bringing in students from outside of Equestria as well.

As for the the school itself, I really have to piece together what it's all about because it's really not obvious (even though it proclaims itself to be). It looks like this School of Friendship was supposed to be any other school with species other than ponies in it. I don't know, it just comes across as not very clearly thought-out and having gone into pitfalls that could have been avoided from the outset.

As much as I'd like to have a look at the curriculum she wrote to the EEA so that I can have a better look at what Twilight's thought processes were, the nitty-gritty aspects of her plan just weren't relevant to the plot. Her plan gets preemptively approved, it fails final approval, she writes her own rules, Neighsay finds himself without recourse and everything works out.

Sigh... This really could have been executed a lot better. I've worked with norms before. In my case, it's norms about electrical installations. Norms are all about what is established and what is known. At least as far as I can tell, it all boils down to not having to re-invent the wheel with every new project and to hold people accountable should something go awry. Another thing that bothered me a little was Neighsay's over-acting. Was this his first day on the job? You'd think this sort of thing would get very mundane very quickly.

You're not the only one. It's obvious past Neighsay's in the heat of the moment creature outburst that he was in the right to penalize Twilight's school. She made mistakes and had to be held to account for them. Per the terms and agreement when seeking the EEA approval.

Twilight should have been more clear to explain what kind of school the EEA was approving. She also deceived Neighsay to hide the point some of her students were missing. Some of her students caused a panic and damaged the school which nearly got some ponies injured.

Despite being in the right on the idea that there can be a school open to teaching friendship between creatures, she still failed to show she's fit to actually run a school even ensuring the safety of them. By the end screw the rules I'm a princess and we'll wing it.

Also still no apology to those poor ponies that nearly got crushed.  

Without the EEA accreditation that means any credits for completing class if transfering to an EEA school or graduating TS's school would have no value in the pony kingdom.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Singe

[J.J 918]

Many flaws revolving around the Hipogryphs  one they would definitely still knew about the alternative terrain at mt. ares, but more interesting is it seems like they have the ability to switch forms at a whim from whatever exposure they had to the pearl, either that is going to be an important racial exclusive or it was just a reference gimmick, quality of this episode, starlight literally  trashing authority, just remember who her character is and its even cooler, its just, the quality of this episode keeps me from counting the whine list, because honestly, i love it lol

[heavens-champion 1,893]

On ‎4‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 1:20 PM, Buttonmash1973 said:

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Why do you keep deleting your comments?

[Singe 2,109]

Princess Celestia had no problems running her school with the EEA. Yet, somehow Twilight couldn't do it and resorted to listening to the advice of our favorite totalitarian dictator to forget the rules, do it her own way.

 

Season 9 Starlight Glimmer talks Twilight into usurping the Equestrian Kingdom.

Edited April 29, 2018 by Singe

[heavens-champion 1,893]

On ‎4‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 10:55 PM, BlinkZ said:

Twilight's school is open to all, BUT the buffalo because they apparently were not invited

I think they just forgot.

[Buttonmash1973 1,024]

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Edited May 3, 2018 by Buttonmash1973

[JCKane 345]

I'll be honest... I'm still not fully sure how I feel about the school thing. Don't get me wrong it's an interesting concept and I'm going to see where it leads.  But my primary issue is that I feel like the series may shift more away from the Mane 6 and go to this next generation of students.  As in shift the Mane 6 to supporting roles and focus on the students more.

Granted, you 'could' argue that Starlight did something similar... but imo it wasn't exactly the case.  For starters she wasn't a 'next generation' tbh... and I always seen her more as being added as like an unofficial member of the Mane 6.  But that's just me.  So I have a feeling the students will take more over the series.  Again still looking to see what happens but *shrug*.

[Buttonmash1973 1,024]

This is my favorite opening of FiM

[Thrond 3,257]

On 5/28/2018 at 12:57 PM, JCKane said:

Granted, you 'could' argue that Starlight did something similar... but imo it wasn't exactly the case.  For starters she wasn't a 'next generation' tbh... and I always seen her more as being added as like an unofficial member of the Mane 6.  But that's just me.  So I have a feeling the students will take more over the series.  Again still looking to see what happens but *shrug*.

There's not enough series left for them to take over. 

[JCKane 345]

9 minutes ago, AlexanderThrond said:

There's not enough series left for them to take over. 

I've been seeing this around and again from what I've seen, it's only rumor.  So if this is true can someone link me to an official source stating that the FIM series is about over?

With that said, my comment was before I even heard the rumor that the series was about to end, as I had a feeling that the Series itself would continue but shift from the Mane 6 to these new students.  However, so far they've not as they have been taking more a back role in the episodes to come and their not even featured in some of them.

[YoshiAngemon 223]

My comment regarding the Warners in SFM came true! Although someone else may have done it before me They're available for downloading in SFM, and for making bigger fools out of Blueblood and Shadow, like having Dot go after Shadow like Rarity goes after Flash Sentry!

[Allen 1,371]

The School of Friendship is worth it for education in Equestria, which every young pony and creature are welcome to learn more about. Chancellor Neighsay is worsened and was being disrespectful who's responsible for all this, he and the E.E.A. was disobeyed.

During the first part of the episode, they weren't supposed to be tired of learning in school which Princess Twilight Sparkle is keeping it organized for all of that.

During the second part of the episode, those six young students left out with reason when the School of Friendship is closed, they encountered the ferocious puckwudgies outside at the Castle of the Two Sisters which they are dangerous creatures. Until then, the Mane 6 ponies including Starlight Glimmer shows up and saves them from those nasty pests! Later on, the School of Friendship is reopened and is back in session which they will continue their jobs as what it was supposed to be!

And finally, I will rate this episode as a great episode which ponies and creatures will now do their jobs!