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I agree with that but I don't honestly see how it really relates to the conversation at hand. Being a fan of a team or living in a city and wanting to see it host an important event are both things that are about investment; you put time into that team or into your city and you become attached, and yeah, you want to see them win and the other side lose and seeing them lose can be a legitimately painful thing. Is it wrong to become invested? Is it preferable to just not participate or care instead of pouring time into something and becoming attached to the point where failures can be painful? I really don't think so.

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I find it hard to make my own decision.

Who pushed the crystal empire into the bid? How much of the possible disappointment is in Dash's head? She was the only one to cry out in anguish at the Cloudsdale ceremony. Perhaps it is she taking it too seriously rather than it actually being a terrible loss? The crystal ponies are basically just along for the ride, and that is where I struggle. They haven't invested anything so why would they be disappointed?

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hi hi

In general, I find that self destructive habits are a bad thing. If someone gets so invested in a game that losing damages their life, then in my opinion, they are in desperate need of some perspective on life. It is wrong to become so invested that your life suffers from a loss in a system where loss is necessary. Sometimes growing can be painful. Destruction is often painful. Growth is still good, and destruction is still bad. Sometimes which is which is up for debate, sometimes it is very clear cut.

I've been a photojournalist for a few years now. I've seen dozens of photos of crying athletes come across my desk. We print them, we put them up for sale, we get angry phone calls and letters, "how dare you?" they ask. Then, a few months later, the photo starts selling like hotcakes and we get letters from the players saying things like, "This is the best photo," and "I don't want to forget this moment." Its like clockwork.


At first, I thought it was kind of strange that Dash was the only one to react during the flashback in Cloudsdale, but now I'm thinking that it may have been a subtle hint that Rainbow Dash was taking things too far from the start.

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I find it hard to make my own decision.

Who pushed the crystal empire into the bid? How much of the possible disappointment is in Dash's head? She was the only one to cry out in anguish at the Cloudsdale ceremony. Perhaps it is she taking it too seriously rather than it actually being a terrible loss? The crystal ponies are basically just along for the ride, and that is where I struggle. They haven't invested anything so why would they be disappointed?

Watch the scenes where they're arriving at the Crystal Empire and you can see the investment the crystal ponies are putting into it in the episode. They're running around with excitement, they're working to make the city nice, they're all carrying those little flags around. They're going out of their way to make it look nice. Also recall the Crystal Faire and that the Crystal Empire is a city with a lot of pride invested in its traditions; I find it hard to make the assumption that they don't want to win this as much as they can. And that investment would make the loss if it happened more painful.

hi hi

In general, I find that self destructive habits are a bad thing. If someone gets so invested in a game that losing damages their life, then in my opinion, they are in desperate need of some perspective on life. It is wrong to become so invested that your life suffers from a loss in a system where loss is necessary. Sometimes growing can be painful. Destruction is often painful. Growth is still good, and destruction is still bad. Sometimes which is which is up for debate, sometimes it is very clear cut.

I've been a photojournalist for a few years now. I've seen dozens of photos of crying athletes come across my desk. We print them, we put them up for sale, we get angry phone calls and letters, "how dare you?" they ask. Then, a few months later, the photo starts selling like hotcakes and we get letters from the players saying things like, "This is the best photo," and "I don't want to forget this moment." Its like clockwork.


At first, I thought it was kind of strange that Dash was the only one to react during the flashback in Cloudsdale, but now I'm thinking that it may have been a subtle hint that Rainbow Dash was taking things too far from the start.

Yes, when it reaches extremes it can definitely become unhealthy. There is a such thing as becoming too invested. Perhaps in the show Dash as a child was one such case to some extent. I wasn't talking about extremes though. Something doesn't have to be crippling to be legitimately painful. It doesn't have to interfere with how you live your life to cause negative and unpleasant feelings in someone. I don't think Dash assumes that the Crystal Ponies losing this will devastate them forever or get in the way of how they live their lives, just that it will be a panful thing for them to experience. She got over Cloudsdale's loss and lead a positive life if seems, she just remembers the pain she felt back then. She wants to spare them that.

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hi hi

The definition of legitimate pain that I am using is "pain that is damaging." If its not damaging, then its not a big deal. Pain can potentially be a sign of positive growth, "No pain, no gain," or so the saying goes.

Trying to protect children from hurt, pain and unhappiness may sound like a good idea to start with, but the reality of it is that kids need to learn through doing, and that necessarily means making mistakes and discovering ways to deal with that. (A very recent study published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies shows that students who reported having over-protective parents also had significantly higher levels of depression and lower levels of satisfaction with life.)

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So what is "damaging"? For Dash, Cloudsdale's loss caused intense immediate disappointment that survives in painful memories many years later. She was able to move on with her life and do many other things, but doesn't the fact that the memory is still vivid and she can recall the pain show that some damage was done?

She now sees a situation where maybe another foal might be poised to experience the same potential damage. I suppose she could decide its not her place to interfere and back away but that really doesn't seem like a rational response to the situation, especially not when she firmly believe one side deserves it more. The crystal ponies are the invested fans of their city but she is in turn a fan of them. it is in her invested interest to see their side win. I cannot see why she would remain apathetic.

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hi hi

There is no reason for Rainbow Dash to remain apathetic in either situation. In fact, if intense disappointment that causes long lasting resentment that lowers someone's quality of life is a possibility, then risk avoidance ought to propel her to even greater lengths to make sure that the competition is safe for both sides rather than perpetuate the cycle. The reason why people can normally get away with sports rivalries is because they are safe.

In the NFL there has recently been a couple of important controversies, concussions and bounties. The game is getting increasingly physical as people push the limits further, and now concussions are becoming a serious and regular problem for players. Head injury can cause damage that lasts long after their career is over. As this concern grows, the motivation to make changes to the game itself will also grow, just like what happened in NCAA football. Decades ago, before modern protective gear was around, college football reached a point where serious injuries stopped being a fluke and started becoming par for the course, and the sport came close to being banned. An ultimatum was delivered, 'either people stop dying on the football field, or the game is over permanently.'

Similarly with bounties, we expect that one team is going to want to win, and in doing so make the other team lose. However, intentionally trying to injure players and paying players who cause injuries is greatly frowned upon. The rules of the game are written to ensure that it remains as safe as possible for the participants.

(See also: Soccer/football fans, riots.)

The golden rule is often cited as one of the fundamental cornerstones of morality. Treat others as you would expect to be treated, and conversely, don't treat others in ways that you would not want to be treated.

If you want to do your best, hope that your opponent does the same. If you want to sleepwalk through the competition and luck out, hope that your opponent tries the same thing. If you don't want your team to be hurt, don't try to hurt theirs. If you don't want to lose, thats fine as long as you can accept that your opponent also does not want to lose, and you could handle being put in their shoes.

Being a sore loser is one of the primary qualities of poor sportsmanship, if not the first one on the list. Not wanting to lose can be a powerful, visceral emotion that can propel people to try harder, but it can actually be detrimental to winning if not balanced by positive motivators. Strong anxiety and worry can prevent people from getting in the zone, relaxing, playing loose and being in confident control. "Getting psyched out, panicking, falling apart," are just a few phrases to describe what happens when fear distracts an athlete from the moment.

What qualifies as loss can differ, depending on the individual. If I spend $20 on the Season 1 DVD, I'll miss that $20, but it will have been worth it. For someone who doesn't even like FiM, they probably wouldn't think its worth it. Similarly, waking up in the morning and going to class or work can be painful, but it is typically worth it, even if it is felt it on a regular basis.

Does Rainbow Dash think its a serious problem? I couldn't say, the episode wasn't clear on that. However, I have a hard time seeing the disappointment of not being chosen to host the Equestria Games being a life damaging pain. It seems far more likely that it was just idle banter, on the level of trash talk or boasting. (Which again, leaves me rooting for the other guy, as is my tradition.)

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I'm really not sure what you're even trying to get at anymore. I'd agree with much of what you said, but little of this seems to have anything to do with the overall discussion as I see it at all. It really feels like the discussion is being dragged away from its core on tangents.

My entire argument is that Rainbow Dash's motivation in the episode is not incomprehensible or flawed given what is presented. The episode makes it clear that she: 1) believes that the Crystal Empire deserves to win the bid for the games more than the competition, and 2) was deeply affected by Cloudsdale losing the games in her youth in a way that she still vividly recalls. Considering both of these two points, she feels particularly motivated to support the Crystal Empire and help them win. You could argue that Dash is wrong to believe the Crystal Empire deserves to win more or wrong to be so affected by the Cloudsdale loss, but really that is beside the point as that is how she is written in the episode. Given how the episode shows her to feel and what it shows her to think, her motivation is clear and reasonably supported.

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hi hi

Some rare exceptions aside, nobody wants to lose. Nobody wants to get stopped by a train either, but most people just accept it as necessary and get over it. It is the people who can't accept it that have issues, especially when they do dangerous things to try to get around it.

1: Rainbow Dash believes the Crystal Empire deserves to win more. This is debatable, but ultimately moot. That reason is never mentioned or addressed ever again in the episode. Nobody mentions it to the games inspector or the not-inspector, and none of the Crystal Ponies show any signs of having issues.

2: If Rainbow Dash was deeply affected by Cloudsdale losing the games in her youth. By choosing to deeply affect someone else, she is doing something that is morally wrong. By her own measure, she is willingly hurting ponies.

I cannot abide that. When people are willingly hurting others, I am compelled to hope that they fail. If an institution is willingly hurting its members, that institution needs to be changed.

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hi hi

1. I could enjoy an episode about walking down the street if they gave me a reason to think walking down the street was important.

2. If a prestigious set of games involves a regular competition where one side must suffer emotional trauma in order to continue the prestigious set of games' existence, it would be an immoral prestigious set of games.

(I can think of some examples of real world organizations that do this, and of course, they invariably believe that their side is more deserving.)

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1. Aside from the entire point of the episode being how they want the games to be held ther I guess they thought the small children who watch the show could fill in the gaps without the characters looking at the camera and saying "The games are very important. That is why we are acting like the games are important"

2. Yup, nothing should ever exist if it can't be given to everybody. Olympics should be cancelled because it can't be held in every city. Resturunts banned unless you buy food for everybody in the world. Better get off the internet, some people don't have internet. You are basically murdering them with dissapointment

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hi hi

See, here's where there is some conflation happening. There's Rainbow Dash's point of view, and then there's reality. In reality, losing out on something trivial like that doesn't hurt anyone, but for the sake of argument, the issue was Rainbow Dash's point of view in the context of the episode.

In my experience, the only people who get emotionally traumatized by entertainment are people who have pre-existing emotional issues or who develop an unhealthy obsession. When a soap opera star gets attacked in public because of something their character did in the show, the actor is not the cause of the problem, it is the attacker who has issues.

(I am going to refrain from taking the bait and debating world hunger and poverty, because it will quickly become not appropriate for this forum, not because I don't have an answer.)

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hi hi

See, here's where there is some conflation happening. There's Rainbow Dash's point of view, and then there's reality. In reality, losing out on something trivial like that doesn't hurt anyone, but for the sake of argument, the issue was Rainbow Dash's point of view in the context of the episode.

That's the fundamental flaw of the argument -- this is a cartoon. Reality is and never was a focus, just the message (which wasn't even what this debate was about). That's not to say that the implications of the episode should be ignored, just that it might be taken for what it is. It was written for a viewership that thinks and reacts on a different level, as I've pointed out in other such episode threads.

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hi hi

Exactly Rosewind, that is why in the context of the episode, Rainbow Dash is doing something wrong. If reality did factor into it, then we could just assume that the disappointment is actually harmless. When taken for what it is, Rainbow Dash is suggesting that it is a good thing to hurt strangers.

Then at the end of the episode, we learn that helping a stranger is a good thing. (And Harshwhinny demonstrates that missing out isn't so bad.) However, for about half the episode, the question of "will helping a stranger be bad?" doesn't get asked, which led me to be confused about what was going on.

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The idea that in Rainbow Dash supporting one side over the other she is suggesting it is a good thing to hurt strangers is entirely ridiculous. That is a bizarre train of thought. Almost no one keeps that in mind when they're picking sides in something. It's about doing good for the ones you want to see succeed; what happens to the other side is entirely immaterial. Given two struggling restaurants with roughly the same quality of food and service, one of which is owned by a friend and the other a stranger, one doesn't eat at their friend's restaurant thinking it will be a good thing to see the other restaurant fail; their only concern is seeing their friend's restaurant succeed, even though, yes, the livelihood of both owners and their families might depend on success of the business. Making a choice there is not wrong, and the same goes with Dash's situation; she wants to see her side succeed-- it isn't about seeing the other side lose at all, even if when that does happen it may cause disappointment.

Maybe her actions will result in someone in the other city getting hurt as she did, but so what? Given the situation, someone has to lose, someone has to get hurt. What is the other option here? Remain neutral and afraid to take a stand? That's a ridiculous stance considering she possesses a clear bias. In this case, there is nothing wrong with picking a side to support and sticking with it. Dash has picked her side, she does her best to help it win and it does. There is no reason for her to beat herself up over the other side's fate or for that to even enter the scope of the episode.

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hi hi

One person going to eat at a certain restaurant isn't going to make others fail, usually multiple restaurants can succeed simultaneously. The only time a restaurant failing is going to be the terrible is if the people running the restaurant foolishly took the risk when they couldn't bear the loss.

Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I shouldn't have given the show the benefit of the doubt. Rather than, "It's good to help strangers, and missing out is ok because you can still enjoy it," Maybe the message really is that "its ok to disregard the feelings of strangers, whether they are little children in some far off city, or whether they are the feelings of someone who doesn't like to be held captive in enclosed spaces, because you'll be rewarded for it."

Since that seems to be the lesson people are learning from this episode, I believe I'll have to downgrade my rating of the episode from an amusing, "so bad, its good," to a disappointing "So bad, its horrible."

And since that thought makes me sad, I think perhaps I've gotten too emotionally invested in a television show. I'm gonna go walk it off. Ciao.

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If you choose one restaurant over another you are telling the owner of the other restaurant you want him to fail and his children to starve. Doing something for one person or group is the same as activly hurting the other, at least that is what you are saying in regard to Rainbow Dash wanting to help the Crystal Empire

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hi hi

One person going to eat at a certain restaurant isn't going to make others fail, usually multiple restaurants can succeed simultaneously. The only time a restaurant failing is going to be the terrible is if the people running the restaurant foolishly took the risk when they couldn't bear the loss.

Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I shouldn't have given the show the benefit of the doubt. Rather than, "It's good to help strangers, and missing out is ok because you can still enjoy it," Maybe the message really is that "its ok to disregard the feelings of strangers, whether they are little children in some far off city, or whether they are the feelings of someone who doesn't like to be held captive in enclosed spaces, because you'll be rewarded for it."

Since that seems to be the lesson people are learning from this episode, I believe I'll have to downgrade my rating of the episode from an amusing, "so bad, its good," to a disappointing "So bad, its horrible."

And since that thought makes me sad, I think perhaps I've gotten too emotionally invested in a television show. I'm gonna go walk it off. Ciao.

:sleep:

Your entire argument seems set to extremes. In your arguments it seems pain is either something insignificant that can be brushed off simply or completely crippling with nothing in between. It's not going to always be clear cut. With the restaurant, yeah, maybe some owners could bear the loss of the business failing, but that doesn't mean it won't be a painful blow to them to see the business they put their time and money and hopes into not work out in the end. People react to things differently and while a millionaire restauranteur might just shrug it off and a poor man taking an unwise last ditch gamble might find himself homeless and destitute at a failing restaurant, most people are going to be somewhere in the middle in regards to the pain they suffer. The same goes for the ponies in the losing city; some may get shouting angry and suffer lasting emotional scars to their memory like Dash did, some might not care in the slightest; most will probably suffer something in between, but even should the lasting damage not be especially large, that doesn't mean it's not significant for those who go through it.

Additionally, "It's okay to disregard strangers" is not something anyone here is taking from the episode. It's not about disregarding anyone. it's about standing by who you want to support and helping them achieve something.

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