spoiler S09:E16 - A Trivial Pursuit

[ExplosionMare 18,062]

While I can see behavior like Twilight’s happen in real life, I feel like she was being pretty unfair. She could’ve at least whispered answers to Pinkie. It is a team effort after all.

This isn’t a terrible episode, but I didn’t really like it all that much. I was glad Twilight got a karma moment though, it added a bit of thoughtfulness to the episode.

[bwrosas 252]

I, along with likes of Dr.Wolf, seem to speculate and theorize, that this episodes (the first 3 at least of the 2nd half), were stories that the writers behind them wanted to do in pervious seasons, where they would actually fit in continuity with the season they were probably planning to be part of. 

But unfortunaly, they didn't have time to fit them in, until now that is.

I mean, if you want a good example, look at the 2017 movie, Which many feel the context of that fit in more with the season 4-6 continuity, than seasons 7-8.

So perhaps, that's why these first 3 feel a little out of place.

 

[Goat-kun 2,527]

1 hour ago, StitchandMLPlover said:

Sorry still disagree. Yes Pinkie Pe should have paid better attention, eaten properly before the game, and been less oblivious, but Pinkie never forced Twilight to pair up with her. The pairs were random and it was obvious that a few of the other players were taking the competition quite lightly to say the least. Cranky Doodle was the worst. Cranky never wanted to play at all. Pinkie Pie at least tried to participate albeit not well. Twilight was not the best communicator because of her stress and Pinkie was never good at picking up body language or subtle hints to be serious. The only episode where I felt Pinkie simply didn’t give a crap to the point of lacking cognitive functions was “Filli Vanili” with her utter rudeness and disregard for Fluttershy. It’s sad because I adore Pinkie Pie in episodes where she shows emotional range like “Too Many Pinkie Pies”. Pinkie Pie needs episodes/writers that display her as having compassion.  I hope Pinkie gets a better depiction before the show ends.

One could even go as far as to say that both Pinkie and Cranky were nothing more than plot devices in this episode. Well, it would have been fine if these two weren't supposed to be some sort of friendship paragons in season 9. Pinkie should have known that Twilight is hardcore since she knows just about every trivial thing about her supposed friends and other inhabitants of Ponyville. She is the one who chose to enter the competition that was not suited for her and then blamed the other competitor for wanting to win instead of enabling Pinkie's own version of having fun. How many times have we seen Pinkie react to things like no sane human would? Plenty of times. There is a reason why many people have Pinkie low on the character list. She's extremely unrelatable as a human being since our glorious writers have put jokes as higher priority than an actual character that should have been Pinkie Pie. It's not that she's the fun one of the group. It's that fun is all she is allowed to do. And it's the prescribed, boomer version of having fun to boot.

 

Also, how exactly are you disagreeing with me that these two are not good friends but strangers forced to work together on the Friendship project? Go ahead. Tell me how forcing yourself to be with someone through rationalization is the best thing ever, cause that's exactly what Twilight did at the end. The reason why one would not see it that way is cause she's using friendship commandments instead of classic religious ones

[StitchandMLPlover 930]

39 minutes ago, Goat-kun said:

One could even go as far as to say that both Pinkie and Cranky were nothing more than plot devices in this episode. Well, it would have been fine if these two weren't supposed to be some sort of friendship paragons in season 9. Pinkie should have known that Twilight is hardcore since she knows just about every trivial thing about her supposed friends and other inhabitants of Ponyville. She is the one who chose to enter the competition that was not suited for her and then blamed the other competitor for wanting to win instead of enabling Pinkie's own version of having fun. How many times have we seen Pinkie react to things like no sane human would? Plenty of times. There is a reason why many people have Pinkie low on the character list. She's extremely unrelatable as a human being since our glorious writers have put jokes as higher priority than an actual character that should have been Pinkie Pie. It's not that she's the fun one of the group. It's that fun is all she is allowed to do. And it's the prescribed, boomer version of having fun to boot.

 

 

 

Also, how exactly are you disagreeing with me that these two are not good friends but strangers forced to work together on the Friendship project? Go ahead. Tell me how forcing yourself to be with someone through rationalization is the best thing ever, cause that's exactly what Twilight did at the end. The reason why one would not see it that way is cause she's using friendship commandments instead of classic religious ones

 

 

 

I can see the argument of the characters being plot devices but how does this have to do with religion or forced projects??? You totally lost me there… Twilight and Pinkie CONSENTED to playing. Twilight could have quit the game at any point. Pinkie could have quit at any point. Twilight and Pinkie have free will in universe. Twilight and Pinkie have been friends for years. Pinkie cried first when she thought Twilight died in the MLP Movie. Regardless of Pinkie’s behavior it was wrong for Twilight to trick Pinkie into violating the game rules to get her disqualified so the ending was karma for Twilight. The only episode where I felt a character was being held back was “Rainbow Falls” because Rainbow Dash was Wonderbolt skill level and her Ponyvile friends were really weak flyers.

[Goat-kun 2,527]

11 minutes ago, StitchandMLPlover said:

I can see the argument of the characters being plot devices but how does this have to do with religion or forced projects??? You totally lost me there… Twilight and Pinkie CONSENTED to playing. Twilight could have quit the game at any point. Pinkie could have quit at any point. Twilight and Pinkie have free will in universe. Twilight and Pinkie have been friends for years. Pinkie cried first when she thought Twilight died in the MLP Movie. Regardless of Pinkie’s behavior it was wrong for Twilight to trick Pinkie into violating the game rules to get her disqualified so the ending was karma for Twilight. The only episode where I felt a character was being held back was “Rainbow Falls” because Rainbow Dash was Wonderbolt skill level and her Ponyvile friends were really weak flyers.

Twilight operates somewhat like a person, Pinkie does not, and they are not friends by RL standards which is but one example of why FIM Friendship dogmas are fake and meaningless.

 

Karma for Twilight? Where is karma for Pinkie? She didn't learn anything and she knowingly ruined fun for her friend. There you go ignoring Pinkie like a prop again while claiming that she's a character

[ImpctR 155]

Time to start giving more accurate rating of my own (more honestly disliking some things and less often giving high rates)

MOAR GAGS PLS, that's what the episodes are for lately.

 

Spoiler

 

A Twilight episode, it overall ended OK but the first things became a thing I do not think I should be seeing among the final episodes anymore: 2 buckball episodes, and lately I think more episodes are made for the expressions. For anyone that's seen them already, they did not amuse me (we've seen Twilighting too many times) and showing us how funny that looks, ye ye we know but not really because it's OVER-DONE. And so the first half went to me like a boring episode. The previous two might have been considered better in their own way.

The whole plot of a QUIZ and how they interact is rather boring to me... 

At least I liked Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps but ugh Bulk annoys me a little , still that looked cute:

 

Spoiler

 

In the 2nd half Twilight who once again ignores her friend in the attempt to be Number 1 (again a plot, done over and over) at least went into more of a Season 1 episode, where it had some substance unlike episodes like Going to Seed, Yakity-Sax and some others of that kind with barely any substance or answering the question - so what? And Twilight got to her senses that her friendship matters more.

 

I said like Season 1 because these types are not what I am in mood for, in this last half.. So far saw some unnecessary episodes for this Season. OK not make adventures w villains out of every ep but maybe some more substantial problem for Twilight that would prepare her for the finale, like worries around ruling, I still mention, not seeing Tempest Storm and making a much more useful season with such than with some of these episodes.

3/5 im tired of gags episodes, good ending though, even though it came as a flash after 2/3 just made for the pics.

[Fluttershutter 2,400]

On 8/14/2019 at 3:14 PM, Goat-kun said:

HOWEVER! There is a single good thing that came out of it all:

Problem Starfoals?

 

It was so funny that they used shipping names for the teams. Appledash, Twipie.

[Fluttershutter 2,400]

12 hours ago, YoshiAngemon said:

A question: Does Twilight even NEED to keep her winning streak alive if she is gonna be Ruler of All Equestria?

 

[StitchandMLPlover 930]

20 minutes ago, Goat-kun said:

Twilight operates somewhat like a person, Pinkie does not, and they are not friends by RL standards which is but one example of why FIM Friendship dogmas are fake and meaningless.

 

 

 

Karma for Twilight? Where is karma for Pinkie? She didn't learn anything and she knowingly ruined fun for her friend. There you go ignoring Pinkie like a prop again while claiming that she's a character

 

I have a friend diagnosed with severe ADHD so I’m familiar with the type of dynamic Pinkie and Twilight have. My friend has bad impulse control similar to Pinkie and is learning to be more understanding of boundaries. I never said Pinkie didn’t make mistakes.   Pinkie was over her head, Pinkie was inattentive and she could stand to lesson too, but Twilight’s reaction was way worse in this episode especially considering the rules of the game don’t seem to specify skill level. It’s for anyone. Twilight had bad intent to get Pinkie disqualified whereas Pinkie had innocent intent to boot. In “Sunset’s Backstage Pass” however Human Pinkie has no excuse for her behavior to Sunset yet Sunset got painted as being wrong which ticked me off. Sunset had no bad intent and didn’t behave as Twilight did here either. Sunset just got angry.

 

How is this episode dogma? How would you like the episode to have ended? Do you feel Twilight was completely justified in disqualifying Pinkie? I’m honestly curious.

[Goat-kun 2,527]

13 minutes ago, StitchandMLPlover said:

I have a friend diagnosed with severe ADHD so I’m familiar with the type of dynamic Pinkie and Twilight have. My friend has bad impulse control similar to Pinkie and is learning to be more understanding of boundaries. I never said Pinkie didn’t make mistakes.   Pinkie was over her head, Pinkie was inattentive and she could stand to lesson too, but Twilight’s reaction was way worse in this episode especially considering the rules of the game don’t seem to specify skill level. It’s for anyone. Twilight had bad intent to get Pinkie disqualified whereas Pinkie had innocent intent to boot. In “Sunset’s Backstage Pass” however Human Pinkie has no excuse for her behavior to Sunset yet Sunset got painted as being wrong which ticked me off. Sunset had no bad intent and didn’t behave as Twilight did here either. Sunset just got angry.

 

How is this episode dogma? How would you like the episode to have ended? Do you feel Twilight was completely justified in disqualifying Pinkie? I’m honestly curious.

Yet Pinkie is fully capable of planning and patience as long as the plot demands it. She is not bound to a mental illness. She is bound to bad writing.

 

We're not talking about the rules of the game but the rules of a friendship. Pinkie didn't care that Twilight cared and she still doesn't. That's the problem.

 

It's not the episode but a friendship lesson. Friendship lessons in FIM are dogmas that do not work in RL. The foundations of this episode were rotten from the start. I'd just remove Pinkie and turn it into Twilight's accidental date with Sunburst and be done with it. No lessons. No friendship problems. Just nerd comedy. Buck the premise. It's shit anyway.

 

Was Twilight justified? She was acting like Twilight would under pressure in such an environment. Did she do an oopsie? Yes, but a real friend would understand her and would not push her this far. Is Pinkie justified to have her kind of fun to the detriment of everyone?

[StitchandMLPlover 930]

10 minutes ago, Goat-kun said:

Yet Pinkie is fully capable of planning and patience as long as the plot demands it. She is not bound to a mental illness. She is bound to bad writing.

 

 

 

We're not talking about the rules of the game but the rules of a friendship. Pinkie didn't care that Twilight cared and she still doesn't. That's the problem.

 

 

 

It's not the episode but a friendship lesson. Friendship lessons in FIM are dogmas that do not work in RL. The foundations of this episode were rotten from the start. I'd just remove Pinkie and turn it into Twilight's accidental date with Sunburst and be done with it. No lessons. No friendship problems. Just nerd comedy. Buck the premise. It's shit anyway.

 

 

 

Was Twilight justified? She was acting like Twilight would under pressure in such an environment. Did she do an oopsie? Yes, but a real friend would understand her and would not push her this far. Is Pinkie justified to have her kind of fun to the detriment of everyone?

 

I agree about Pinkie being bound by bad writing and of course MLPFIM does NOT operate like the real world. The pony world is MUCH much more innocent and has a totally different logic. If people take lessons from the show they need to apply them in a non literal sense. That's why the show is likable because its not operating as humans would. I don't think Pinkie was even aware this game was a big deal to Twilight because Twilight never communicates it in a way Pinkie can understand as far as I could tell.

Edited August 18, 2019 by StitchandMLPlover

[JH24 385]

That was a nice episode. Lots of fun moments and a very relatable story about losing sight of other things when you're focused on something.

They really went all out with the animation. It's like the animators said to each other "Alright, the series is almost over. How about a challenge who can animate the craziest faces?"

I can understand Twilight's worries about Pinkie Pie, but it was exactly because she was so focused on Pinkie that things went wrong.

Pinkie was a bit over the top at times but I still found her very likeable. She had that kind of innocence here that made it impossible for me to get frustrated with her when she gave the wrong answers.

Also that "Zap apple" bit with Applejack was gold.

8.5/10

Edited August 18, 2019 by JH24

[Rising Dusk 27,512]

This episode was a bit of a mixed bag.  Like enjoying a wonderfully delicious brownie but took too big a bite and choked a little.  There was a lot of like, but it was offset by a lot of things to dislike.  Another to add to our growing collection of Twilight-Freak-Out episodes.  I think it started out really well with a very excited Twilight in an adorable DJ Pon3 t-shirt (or PJs seeing the time of night).  That is the level of Twilighting that makes her adorkable.  The animation and expression once again, top notice and something that gives me continued excitement to see the artists do more with each new episodes.

We also get another curious case of Ponyville randomly spawning buildings.  The true size of Ponyville continues to elude me.

Once the actual trivia game started though... it got a little hard to swallow.  The only little bits of breath coming from the background interactions with the other players.  Apple Jack missing an apple question was priceless and even getting Twilight to say Apple Dash in conversation.  But when Twilight was playing, she went too far.  Playing rule lawyer when things weren't going her way?  Getting her own partner disqualified? 

The direction I saw this going at the start was that Twilight would end up getting surprised that Pinkie was actually better at the game than her.  Pinkie always seems to know random facts and has even shown to have great memory recall in past episodes.  Twilight getting jealous and afraid she wouldn't be the star in her element.  Maybe even finding out much sooner what she was doing is wrong to show more growth in being prepared to be Queen.

This episode really felt out of place with how late in the series we are.  

 

[Oleks 1,993]

It was a really fun episode. I enjoyed the twilighting, the callbacks and references and the trivia event in general. The only small problem for me was the fact that some of the competitors didn’t get any lines, although I liked almost all of the duos and it would have been great if each team got their spotlight.
Also, I never really cared about TwiPie, but now… they are my favorite trivia team!

[Goat-kun 2,527]

13 minutes ago, Bas said:

How much did Twi care for her in return?
If you go to a game night with random teams and players, you better assume each of them has their own way to play the game and you can't dictate on them to play for the win (or even being able to do so).

This isn't an Epstein case people. It's just two friends that were supposed to know each other. It shouldn't be so complicated to understand the problem.

[Goat-kun 2,527]

10 hours ago, StitchandMLPlover said:

I agree about Pinkie being bound by bad writing and of course MLPFIM does NOT operate like the real world. The pony world is MUCH much more innocent and has a totally different logic. If people take lessons from the show they need to apply them in a non literal sense. That's why the show is likable because its not operating as humans would. I don't think Pinkie was even aware this game was a big deal to Twilight because Twilight never communicates it in a way Pinkie can understand as far as I could tell.

Non literal sense? You need to completely convert them in something else entirely. Not only that, these lessons can easily be added to a dystopian list of teachings for something along the lines of Church of Unitology. One doesn't even need to change anything to depict a Lovecraftian nightmare that cannot be denied by canon.

 

At the end of the episode Pinkie told Twilight that she knew Twilight wanted to win. She didn't care cause "fun" was more important.

[Splashee 28,563]

Hello episode! It was completely okay as a FIM episode. Entertaining, and well animated. Characters were in characters.

I find the Twilight competitiveness to be something new for this season? She had her freakouts since the start, and her ability to not trust her friends until the last minute since Season 1. It is entertaining to see how she can completely beat the hell out of her competition, and that is something I personally am taking advantage of (as well as her unique faces) in the upcoming weeks, so this episode is helping me with my own projects.

 

However.... This episode would have fitted better in Season 6 than in Season 9. Except for the crazy faces which is a new thing for Season 9, I cannot see anything that wouldn't have worked in Season 6 (maybe missing Starlight Glimmer). Do we really REALLY need this episode in Season 9? I say no. For Season 9 we need to make the Main 6 say good bye to their lives in ponyville and approach the princesses roles they were assigned in the start of the season.

[ChB 18,550]

I have only one minor problem with this episode: When Cranky slept in the game, both he and Sunburst got disqualified. But when Pinkie asked a question to another contestant, only she got disqualified. I know the rule book explains the difference, but that rule felt very contrived to me.

[Sparklefan1234 169,747]

1 hour ago, ChB said:

I have only one minor problem with this episode: When Cranky slept in the game, both he and Sunburst got disqualified. But when Pinkie asked a question to another contestant, only she got disqualified. I know the rule book explains the difference, but that rule felt very contrived to me.

 

Sunburst was also able to team up with Twilight a short time later. I think the rulebook was written with every possible scenario in mind. 

[ChB 18,550]

19 minutes ago, Sparklefan1234 said:

 

Sunburst was also able to team up with Twilight a short time later. I think the rulebook was written with every possible scenario in mind. 

In that scenario, it was written to reward bad behavior.  /  

[KH7672 1,604]

You know I'm going to do something different and give some slight praises and little nitpicks in the story execution. Mostly because I'm pretty neutral on the episode, mostly because humorous episodes like this are subjective.

The first one is Twilight's first chart:

Twilight's surprised at Pinkie showing up yet this chart seems to indicate that Mudbriar, Cranky, and Sunburst are also first timers and should have thrown her statistics out of wack.

However we get this second chart which does accommodate for each character yet:

There's a bunch of background characters like Daisy and Golden Crust and Cranky still isn't on there, also the layout the chart doesn't make sense for pairing as it's 11x6, also also it's interesting to note Twilight sees her best chances of winning when paired with Applejack if I'm even reading it right! 

However back to Sunburst. Both his line of saying that he didn't come down from the Crystal Empire plus his exclusion from Twilight's first list really makes it seem like this is his first time here at Trivia Trot. But then he's the one to talk about how Starlight used to do score keeping like he's been to this event before.

Okay quick detour but here I actually want to praise Ms. Flores for is her ability to write characters out of episodes that they would make sense in. She did it for Spike in Once Upon a Zepplin and now here for Starlight. Giving her a logical reason to hate trivia events is such a smart move to even keep her out of being a background character at the event since she is just about as learned as many of the characters but now we know why she's not here.

Now back to the nitpicks because then there's Mudbriar who also wasn't on the original chart yet we get clear evidence that he's at these competitions when there's complaints about Maud and him being paired up for the third time.

And about that, with all the convoluted rules, how is that not a rule?! Like why wouldn't there be a rule about such a chance. It would be easy to write in just say there's a rule "that unless you are the last team picked, you're not allowed to have the same partner twice in a row."  Then just make Maud and Mudbriar the last team picked instead. This could have even up upped the comedy by Twilight starting to lose it calculating the possibility getting Pinkie when there's still the chance of Maud or Mudbriar; start the mental degradation early.

And then there's the rule that gets Pinkie disqualified, because she asks a question about sticks and stones to Maud, but that was already after Maud answered the question correctly for that category so wouldn't any questions about the category be void. Like we never see repeat categories read off so how is she really eliminated at that time in the competition?

Finally for now one last thing is how are Cranky and Matilda putting themselves in the pool if it's all cutie marks on the papers? Do they draw their heads? Why can't everyone just draw their head? The animators already have clear reference for head sketches so it's not like it's extra work. 

Anyway, this was fun little distraction to an episode I didn't have much to contribute to review-wise.

[StitchandMLPlover 930]

4 hours ago, Goat-kun said:

Non literal sense? You need to completely convert them in something else entirely. Not only that, these lessons can easily be added to a dystopian list of teachings for something along the lines of Church of Unitology. One doesn't even need to change anything to depict a Lovecraftian nightmare that cannot be denied by canon.

 

 

 

At the end of the episode Pinkie told Twilight that she knew Twilight wanted to win. She didn't care cause "fun" was more important.

 

I’m sorry, no offense intended, but I completely disagree that you would need such a drastic overhaul of the lessons.  My friend K aged 50 was able to apply the lessons from the show to a real life situation. He saw “Rainbow Rocks” on TV right after having an argument over email with a friend and when he heard Sunset’s speech “You’ve been letting little things get to you, if you don’t work out the problems right at the start the magic of friendship can be turned into something else.” He applied it to himself as “I shouldn’t have let what upset me about my friend’s behavior fester. I should have told him months ago that what he did was not right.” K and his other friend made up after a sincere apology and K went to buy “Rainbow Rocks” on DVD as a reminder. True story.

 

I’v seen a lot of other shows like the recent episode of “Lion Guard” that suggest venomous snake bites turn people/lions bad rather than the venom killing them as it would in real life that have TERRIBLE logic. The Lion Guard representation of snake venom is more harmful than ANYTHING MLP puts out, because Lion Guard uses more life like aspects of animals whereas MLP is a universe all on its own IMHO. Lion Guard might be taken more literally. If I'm to be completely honest I don't think bringing religion into this debate is the best way to analyze an episode of MLP like this. 

 

Honestly I think only at the end when she was disqualified did it click with Pinkie Pie that the competition meant something big to Twilight and Pinkie rightfully acknowledged that. Twilight should have been a better communicator to Pinkie, Pinkie could have picked up on things sooner, and Twi definitely should not have disqualified her. I think the problem you are getting at is a larger problem with the ideals of the DHX staff who prioritize fun over competition in unrealistic ways. I saw this pattern in the first BuckBall season episode where the lesson of fun over winning was hammered in and was unrealistic as it suggested that you don’t need to practice a sport, just have fun doing it as others on the forum have said. “Friendship Games” ending kinda falls into this same bad pattern when Principal Celestia say “After today, we are ALL winners” when Canterlot High clearly should have won IMHO. It was like an awful participation trophy ending! In a larger sense the problem you are getting at is a tendency in modern times to discourage competition for fear of competition turning into negative forms of competition, especially in children because adults want kids to stay fun oriented like Pinkie Pie rather than overly serious like Twilight was. Just my 2 cents. 

[Lord Valtasar 12,690]

i actually really liked this episode, yes Twilight was acting weird, but it's part of her character to go nuts on such stuff, making extensive lists of everything and being consumed by something so much that she can't see further(just like she ignored her family's visit to make the pudding on the special) seeing some secondary characters take spots instead of having all of the mane 6 was a great touch, and while i'd love to see Trixie take part aswel, i can't complain for the variety they had, the other nitpick i have is how they said taking score was so bad that it scarred Starlight, then proceded to have spike breeze through it without any problems

it was a quiet episode, not progressing the main plot alot but those are some of the best ones, it was fun throughout so it gets a 9/10 from me
 

[BornAgainBrony 2,397]

Wow... two character-breaking episodes in a row now? Yeeesh....

What happened? Things were going so good.

Is Twilight's anxiety getting WORSE? She seems to be wigging out in almost every episode now.

[Goat-kun 2,527]

1 hour ago, StitchandMLPlover said:

I’m sorry, no offense intended, but I completely disagree that you would need such a drastic overhaul of the lessons.  My friend K aged 50 was able to apply the lessons from the show to a real life situation. He saw “Rainbow Rocks” on TV right after having an argument over email with a friend and when he heard Sunset’s speech “You’ve been letting little things get to you, if you don’t work out the problems right at the start the magic of friendship can be turned into something else.” He applied it to himself as “I shouldn’t have let what upset me about my friend’s behavior fester. I should have told him months ago that what he did was not right.” K and his other friend made up after a sincere apology and K went to buy “Rainbow Rocks” on DVD as a reminder. True story.

 

I’v seen a lot of other shows like the recent episode of “Lion Guard” that suggest venomous snake bites turn people/lions bad rather than the venom killing them as it would in real life that have TERRIBLE logic. The Lion Guard representation of snake venom is more harmful than ANYTHING MLP puts out, because Lion Guard uses more life like aspects of animals whereas MLP is a universe all on its own IMHO. Lion Guard might be taken more literally. If I'm to be completely honest I don't think bringing religion into this debate is the best way to analyze an episode of MLP like this. 

 

Honestly I think only at the end when she was disqualified did it click with Pinkie Pie that the competition meant something big to Twilight and Pinkie rightfully acknowledged that. Twilight should have been a better communicator to Pinkie, Pinkie could have picked up on things sooner, and Twi definitely should not have disqualified her. I think the problem you are getting at is a larger problem with the ideals of the DHX staff who prioritize fun over competition in unrealistic ways. I saw this pattern in the first BuckBall season episode where the lesson of fun over winning was hammered in and was unrealistic as it suggested that you don’t need to practice a sport, just have fun doing it as others on the forum have said. “Friendship Games” ending kinda falls into this same bad pattern when Principal Celestia say “After today, we are ALL winners” when Canterlot High clearly should have won IMHO. It was like an awful participation trophy ending! In a larger sense the problem you are getting at is a tendency in modern times to discourage competition for fear of competition turning into negative forms of competition, especially in children because adults want kids to stay fun oriented like Pinkie Pie rather than overly serious like Twilight was. Just my 2 cents. 

It really depends on the person you're dealing with. Friendships are quite versatile and I can assure you that this shall not work on them all. Moreover, I wonder what the behavior was. What if the other party still believes that they are in the right and the other one who bought the merch was a fool all along? There are other benefits to human relationships. I cannot just assume that what you are describing is true since I did not observe the individuals. What you describe happens at workplace too, sans friendships and impulsive purchase of unnecessary items.

 

Just because something is shit doesn't alleviate the shittiness of another IP. I'm not bringing in just any religion. I'm bringing in the Outer Gods and all the Ruinous Powers at my disposal, and there is no canon argument that can counter this summoning. The enigmatic and indestructible Harmony that dictates everything and holds the power of life and death over all that it surveys, the blind following of Friendship teachings that do not work, the cautionary tales that one falls to ruin if they do not follow the teachings of Friendship, it all comes down to the pattern of malignant gods. Those who follow without question are believers.

 

Now you are beginning to see. However, again, you see only one side. See both Pinkie and Twilight and understand what they want. What you describe is indeed a problem that, among others, needs to be conveyed to our glorious writers. The other problem is that friends understand each other. Mane 6 do not. What good are lessons to strangers that did not find it within themselves to get to know each other in the span of 9 seasons? Both Twilight and Pinkie have operated on the principle of "All for One" while they both ignored "One for All". And it's not just this episode. All the ponies do it quite consistently while preaching Friendship. They're quite selfish and prejudiced little bastards, all of them. That is why the lessons do not work. They are a part of a social program that ignores the needs of an individual, not of a journey of discovery between individuals. That is why, whenever a lesson is involved, it ignores the specific characters quirks since it is assumed that everyone who cannot abide by the lesson are wrong by default. That is why Twilight is not so much at fault here cause it should have been taken into account that her version of having fun is completely different, but that was not the case. The fault should have been distributed between the two characters for different aforementioned reasons.