My Little Pony

[evilsoup]

I wasn't really expecting to enjoy this episode, but it was actually very good. That falcon is a gentleman (gentlebird?), shaking hands (well you know what I mean) like that at the end. Oh my, what a fantastic song, that's already gone on my mp3 player; definitely up there with WWU and At the Gala, maybe even the best song from the show so far.

Now we just need to get AJ a starring role in a song and we'll be set.

Totally agree (you'll be shocked to hear ), but what could she sing about? Probably something to do with family (with little parts from Big Mac, AB and Granny Smith), that could potentially go in an episode explaining wtf happened to the Apple parents. Or maybe she could explain the finer points of crop rotation to Twilight via song?

It would be impressive if both AJ and RD did a song together, of course.

OTS lol.

Rainbow Dash was a lot less obnoxious than I expected, really. And really, Twilight, how can you not know the difference between coolness, awesomeness and radicalness? You'll never make the cut with an attitude like that!

EDIT: Zixinus, yes, finally a pony avatar!

[lordofchange13]

Decent episode. The tortoise may seem to be RD's opposite like most of the pets but really he got chosen for exhibiting RD's element of Harmony: loyalty. So although he's not athletic in the end he's still like her.

Also the name; Tank. Perhaps a coincidence but on of the line's in Rainbow's verse of Rarity's Art of the Dress song is 'Even though it rides high on the flank/Rainbow won't look like a tank/I'm stitching Rainbow's dress'

Brilliance on the writers part for both.

[Kuja]

This week's dark subtext: ponies know what tanks are.

[Rossum]

Decent episode. The tortoise may seem to be RD's opposite like most of the pets but really he got chosen for exhibiting RD's element of Harmony: loyalty. So although he's not athletic in the end he's still like her.

Also, properly caring for him could help her demonstrate loyalty as well. Rainbow does life in a cloud house and so far it seems that only pegasus ponies, griffins, and ponies with the cloudwalking spell cast on them can walk on clouds. Though I'm sure RD could get something like an enchanted bed that can rest on clouds for Tank, thats still an investment for keeping a landborn animal in the sky. Plus, she's going to have to keep his helicopter thing maintained if she wants him to fly with her. There's alot of responsibility in pet ownership and its not always the kind that Rainbow can pull off by doing things "In ten seconds flat."

I can't wait for future episodes to expand on this, showing if Rainbow Dash is being responsible about it or just dumping Tank off at Fluttershys place until the times when she wants to play with him or go to their weekly Pony Pet Playdate.

Speaking of Fluttershy, she's got a whole lot of animals at her place. Seeing how excited she was at hearing thar Rainbow wanted a pet, I can imagine she's overworked and really eager to get them sent off to good homes but is too shy to voice some of her problems to her friends.

But then again, those animals are pretty intelligent so they could be helping her out in maintaining her home. So financial/logistic issues might not be a problem for her.

[Crossroads Inc.]

But then again, those animals are pretty intelligent so they could be helping her out in maintaining her home. So financial/logistic issues might not be a problem for her.

Just how intelligent various other "animals" are in Equestria has always been rather hotly contested.
It may not be an issue within their world, but too an outsider its a bit unnerving.

[Zixinus]

This week's dark subtext: ponies know what tanks are.

Well... you see, it may be leg... dark history, post nuclear apo...

Oh, screw it. Let's not over-think it.

Though I'm sure RD could get something like an enchanted bed that can rest on clouds for Tank, thats still an investment for keeping a landborn animal in the sky.

Not necessarily a bed. I'd rather take a relatively small, 3x3 square meter are made of wood and enchant that to stay on clouds indefinitely (that may be easier than with a living being, I recall that various everyday building materials was seen in Cloudsdale). Assuming that Rainbow can expand the house herself or knows someone who does, she can make a little area just for Tank. Someone here (*hint* *hint*) who knows about tortoise-keeping may tell the requirements of keeping a tortoise.

It is even possible for Rainbow to simply lock her cloud-home to a nearby area that Tank may feel comfortable in.

Furthermore, it wouldn't be impossible to allow Tank to have access to his helicopter at any time, so he can get stuff himself if he wants to.

I can't wait for future episodes to expand on this,

To be honest, I have my doubts whether we will see Tank ever again.

can imagine she's overworked and really eager to get them sent off to good homes

Given that some of the animals are wild and are capable of self-sufficiency, it may be possible that they are around her just because they like her. She may be excited because she feels that several of the animals around her (or some of which she even raised) would like to be loved in a pony home or at least wouldn't mind.

[evilsoup]

This week's dark subtext: ponies know what tanks are.

In the song, RD sings that her pet needs to be 'something real fast, like a bullet to keep up with me'.

What, you though Celestia became undisputed ruler of the world by asking nicely?

To be honest, I have my doubts whether we will see Tank ever again.

I'm sure we'll see him in a future episode, like how Owlouicious (?) reappeared in this one. But I don't expect him to become a regularly recurring character.

[Rossum]

This week's dark subtext: ponies know what tanks are.

In the song, RD sings that her pet needs to be 'something real fast, like a bullet to keep up with me'.

What, you though Celestia became undisputed ruler of the world by asking nicely?

Well, technically she became undisputed ruler of the world by defeating Discord (aka the reality warping physical embodiment of chaos and disharmony) and controlling the physical movement of the sun and moon (aka the thing that all living things need to survive, and the only available celestial body that can block it via solar eclipse). Oh, and she had Discords petrified body hanging around in her statue garden.

Right there I can see some of the longer-lived dragons and creatures of the world being at least a bit greatful or intimidated by anyone who could defeat Discord (even if they don't know how exactly she went about it) and her having his statue on hand runs the risk that if anyone tried wiping out her kingdom then she would just release Discord and let him turn the world upside down. Kind of like Mutually Assured Destruction except in this case instead of leaving a radioactive wasteland its leaving everything in a state of insanity and chaos until Celestia or someone defeats him again.

The manipulation of the sun and moon also gives her a decent WMD in the form of ensuring the sun doesn't shine on places she doesn't like (by ensuring a lunar eclispe constantly goes over enemy territory or she just moves the sun where it won't shine on them. Or not... I don't know how much control she has over the sun or if she can decide to selectively leave some parts of the world in perpetual night. If she can then its just a matter of casting her enemies into eternal night until they starve to death or accept her demands.

Of course, it would make sense if they still had bullets and tanks and guns in Equestria. Even if its assumed that Equestria under Celestias rule is a perfect pacifist pony paradise then that doesn't mean they didn't have weapons like that before. The reign of Discord could have had all sorts of nasty stuff going on and its no stretch of the imagination to assume he could have magiked up all sorts of plagues, curses, weapons, or monsters to amuse himself at the ponies expense. The ponies might keep them atound because they are cool and inspired them to design all sorts of other technologies (like flare guns or vehicles or whatever).

[evilsoup]

Celestia's been ruling for at least 1000 years, and we don't know how long she and her sister reigned before that. If guns and tanks and so on were a thing of Discord's era (which fits in nicely with the hilarious 'Discord showed up and turned all the humans into ponies' theory) and then there was a peaceful period of over 1000 years, then nopony would remember those things.

Even if some examples were kept in museums, I don't think some obscure antiques would be the first thing to come to mind when Rainbow Dash (the pony least likely to remember obscure historical stuff) tries to come up with a simile for speed, or what a tortoise looks like.

Furthermore, we have the useless aristocrat ponies. That implies feudalism sometime in Equestria's past; but they are clearly not a feudal society now. Maybe all the dukes and earls paid tribute to the princesses, but actually ruled fractious rival states? Maybe Celestia and Luna decided to bring them into line, because feudalism is fucking awful. Hell's bells, maybe they even managed to reach a peaceful resolution... but somehow I doubt it, feudal leaders would never give up their of power peacefully.

All of that could even have taken place during Celestia's solo reign. And I don't think she'd want to use what are effectively WMDs, even if she does have that kind of fine control over the sun; so tanks and guns may have been a necessity.

Also, I'd just note that Equestria isn't actually the whole world; the Everfree forest is not part of Equestria IIRC, so there may well be other nations.

[lordofchange13]

@evilsoup
Has the show ever made explicated that equestrian's have mechanical technology sufficiently advanced enough to create tanks? The most advanced device i can remember seeing was the train, which for what ever reason served no actual purpose,and may have just been for some crazy aesthetics thing.

[Kuja]

This week's dark subtext: ponies know what tanks are.

In the song, RD sings that her pet needs to be 'something real fast, like a bullet to keep up with me'.

What, you though Celestia became undisputed ruler of the world by asking nicely?

Actually I was talking about it with a friend-

5:54:34 PM Her: Also "fast like a bullet"
5:54:38 PM Her: ponies have … guns?
5:54:44 PM Her: HOW DO THEY OPERATE THEM
5:55:11 PM Me: well the unicorns can use magic
5:55:17 PM Me: ...about all I got
5:55:20 PM Her: …
5:55:30 PM Her: So what you're telling me is that only unicorns can have guns.
5:55:49 PM Me: they've gotta compete with the pegasi somehow
5:55:55 PM Me: and think about it, it fits-
5:56:05 PM Me: earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns
5:56:12 PM Me: infantry, cavalry, artillery
5:56:39 PM Her: That's dark, bro.
5:56:44 PM Her: …ny.
5:56:46 PM Me: BUT IT FITS

[lordofchange13]

5:56:05 PM Me: earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns
5:56:12 PM Me: infantry, cavalry, artillery

Well...pegasi, assuming Rainbow isn't the pinnacle of all pegasi, can make 50% angle changes while going at mach `10 as well as being able to make tiny nuke blast's with seriously harming them selves. they may have the unicorns bet on sheer destructive power.

[RogueIce]

Or maybe she could explain the finer points of crop rotation to Twilight via song?

Hey, they gotta keep that E/I thing going somehow, don't they?

But then again, those animals are pretty intelligent so they could be helping her out in maintaining her home. So financial/logistic issues might not be a problem for her.

Fluttershy did get a bunch of her animals to help clean up Twilight's library in "Ticket Master" so this is not out of the question.

Well...pegasi, assuming Rainbow isn't the pinnacle of all pegasi, can make 50% angle changes while going at mach `10 as well as being able to make tiny nuke blast's with seriously harming them selves. they may have the unicorns bet on sheer destructive power.

Well, the sonic rainboom was just an "old mare's tale" and Rainbow herself had some difficulty doing it initially, though she's gotten better at it. So most pegasi may be limited to subsonic speeds.

[18-Till-I-Die]

I love how like EVERY episode that Rainbow Dash has a leading role in ends up being a "Break the Haughty" episode.

Like, me and my girlfriend were discussing this (yes she knows I'm a brony) and she commented how Rainbow is this kind of stereotypical "bitchy popular cheerleader" archetype and how we're supposed to see this as catharsis, but obviously something went wrong because Rainbow Dash is now basically the MLP Wolverine: she's the public face of the series now. Hell Rainbow's face is the symbol for MLP on the Hub website last I checked. And yes my favorite too, I'll admit, and my girlfriend's oddly enough. Yet everytime she shows up she has to be taught a lesson in humility.

My better half pointed this disparity out to me today. She says to me "You know, I get the feeling someone writing the show doesn't like Rainbow. Gee, you'd think that, due to her being the breakout favorite of the fans, maybe someone (someone perhaps named Lauren Faust?) is a little peeved that her author insertion fantasy persona Twilight Sparkle, ostensibly the show's star, is not as popular. Echoes of high school Lauren? Still getting stood up for the pretty athletic girls? Bitter tears staining your animation cells as the producers tell you to do another Rainbow-centric episode?"



I don't really agree, but I do see how Twilight was obviously supposed to be the big selling point (and an almost archetypcal author insertion mary sue) when suddenly Rainbow stole her thunder. Lol, unexpected fan favorite character is unexpected. Anyway, I would have gone with the bat myself. Tank is...nice, but "stick-to-itness" is going to be a hallow comfort when you realize how little fun having a pet turtle is when you're a horse whose chief exports are flight and memes. That bat was just adorable though. And now I want that bat! I already named him "Foxglove".

Old Disney Afternoon fans get that joke, everyone else, NO idea what the fuck that means.

Also I never noticed how much Rainbow and Scootaloo look alike...and considering they're not related, that's saying something. Which is creepy in a kind of teenaged celebrity stalker kind of way. That implies Scootaloo went to a hair dresser, and specifically requested a similar hairdo just to match her stalking victim idol.

"Yes, I want to look just like this picture".

"You mean the pegasus with the fauxhawk dyed like a rainbow?"

"That's the one!"

"Aww, that's cute. She your sister?"

"No, she's my idol."

"Oh, you don't say."

"Oh yes sir, I want to look just like her, and be like her, and take her home to live with me forever where no horrible man will spoil her virgin body! And I'll love her forever! And she'll love me! She'll love me! LOVE ME RAINBOW DASH LOVE ME!!!"

"Oh..."

a pause

"When we find her body in your room a few months from now after she spurns your advances, will I have to testify?"

"Doubtful."

"Ok, take a seat and we'll get started."

[Rossum]

Wait a sec, during the song it showed several birds sitting on the clouds. So I guess the ability to rest on clouds is pretty common (or universal) among flying creatures.

[18-Till-I-Die]

It's adorable, until you notice the feather. Then it becomes a scene from "The Roommate".

[Bright]

but obviously something went wrong because Rainbow Dash is now basically the MLP Wolverine: she's the public face of the series now.

I'm pretty sure Fluttershy is slightly more popular.

Actually, this episode made me notice the similarity between Rainbow Dash and Rarity. Both of them have hatedoms because of their respective flawed personalities (i.e. "Rarity is a self-centered bitch" and "Dash is an insensitive douchebag."). I'm a fan of Rarity but less so of Dash, mostly because I find that Dash gets away with her behavior far more often than not. So I'm very glad for this episode and I hope that there will be others like it.

[Zixinus]

18tid

I don't think that there are necessarily such ideas regarding Rainbow Dash or that Lauren Faust has written Twilight as a Mary Sue. She is liked, but she has been shown to be somewhat stupid and even insane, which makes a mary sue not. Not to mention that occassionaly she has shown that her super-magical powers help nothing. She is liked by everybody, but that's normal for such a show. If anything, the only weird thing is how the main cast in Ponyville befriended her so quickly.

As for Rainbow Dash, not all the episodes that feature her are about humbling her. Remember Sonic Rainboom? Furthermore, it would be fairly natural to have episodes where she is humbled a bit: she is the most headstrong of the bunch, next to AJ. But I doubt that it was a revenge fantasy because it hardly looks like it: Rainbow realizes her errors (usually) by herself and admits them. She isn't violently thrown down, broken and utterly humiliated.

That, and keep in mind that Lauren Faust written the episode about a year ago. Your theory about what her fandom likes or not makes little sense.

[Zixinus]

To add to this (I found this while trying to search for Word of God stuff on the show): Lauren Faust actually loves Dashie. Dashy is her interpretation of one of her favourite ponies from the older show.
http://ponibooru.413chan.net/post/view/ ... uren_faust

[Molyneux]

I haven't yet watched the episode, but my pre-episode thoughts on Dash's personality:

She's an arrogant cuss, with an inflated view of her own importance and skills. I can completely understand how that could annoy people, and I'm a little surprised that she doesn't have a substantial hatedom (except from the refreshing lack of hate in general among the MLP fandom).

That said, she is cool, she is extremely skilled at what she loves to do, and while she's headstrong and sometimes thoughtless, she generally counters it with the positive aspects of her personality - I don't think I've ever once seen her be less than supportive of her friends, and indeed, she seems the type to be overprotective of those she values - which is fully in keeping with her "Loyalty" virtue.

[Revy]

I actually quite like Rainbow Dash (I like all of the ponies) but this episode made me like her less. And it's the only one to do so. I liked the episode in general, but seriously, Dash was a bit of a jerk this time around.

I guess I was wrong about this being a Scootaloo episode. Still, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle both got their own episodes back to back, and Scootaloo ... zip. Maybe later.

MLP needs about 20% more Pinkie Pie. Want more Pinkie randomness! Also, Twilight's really taken a back seat lately, hasn't she? It's starting to look like she's learned everything she can about friendship.

[Serafina]

Also, Twilight's really taken a back seat lately, hasn't she? It's starting to look like she's learned everything she can about friendship.

That's a really nice thought
Also, certain people have to learn different things. Rainbow Dash needs to learn different things than Fluttershy, who needs to learn different things than Rarity, who needs to learn different things than Twilight. Which is why i really like the new "let's all report to the Princess"-approach.

[lordofchange13]

I actually quite like Rainbow Dash (I like all of the ponies) but this episode made me like her less. And it's the only one to do so. I liked the episode in general, but seriously, Dash was a bit of a jerk this time around.

I guess I was wrong about this being a Scootaloo episode.

I was seriously waiting through out the episode for Scootaloo to make an appearance.

[lordofchange13]

on the 17TH we will learn how Equestria was created politically.

[evilsoup]

Spoiler

Politically? I thought it was supposed to be about the actual-factual creation of the world, as told through a play.