Ginger Mint

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Gravy boat was awesome. That whole scene was pretty neat actually. It showed that Discord understood right and wrong well enough to troll everyone else by poking at their rudeness. This was actually part of why I said he showed more humanity in this episode even before he decided to play nice. In Return of Harmony, he ridiculed the mane six's strengths, but in this episode, he made fun of their flaws.

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There's no need to get personal TotalEclipse.

Discord displayed a drastically different amount of ability in Keep Calm and Flutter On, than he did in Return of Harmony, and it would have been advantageous for him to use the level of power he displayed in Return of Harmony. Why didn't he? "Because the plot said so," is a cop out answer. Did he have a copy of the script too? I mean, continuity isn't necessary, but at that point he's really a different character all together.

Fanon is not the same as canon. Nightmare Moon never killed anyone, and was never shown to be capable of doing so. In fact, she was actually shown as being incapable of doing so. She literally struck three ponies with lightning and all it did was stun them a bit. That is not the absence of evidence, that is the presence of evidence.

With Cadence in possession of the Crystal Heart, Sombra would have been defeated anyways, whether he advanced or retreated. That was the whole point of the Crystal Fair. Discord and Nightmare Moon might have been able to teleport away if they'd had enough time, but they clearly didn't. Nightmare Moon had to spool up into a little cloud first, and for Discord, they showed that the Elements of Harmony were already working before they actually hit him with the Rainbow.

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There are a lot of reasons for Nightmare Moon to confront Twilight. Unlike Discord who had seen the elements in action before, she didn't know all about the Elements of Harmony, or what each of the mane six was capable of. Unlike Discord, she didn't understand the spark, the elusive element of magic, or that she wouldn't be able to destroy the elements. While she could fly rather quickly as a wispy cloud, she wasn't that much faster than anypony else. The entire reason why she became filled with hate and bitterness was because she wanted ponies to pay attention to her, and you cant get attention when you're in hiding, or if you can't get a big enough head start. (Rainbow Dash was clearly faster than Nightmare Moon.) Unlike Discord, she had an opportunity to defeat her opponents before they even found the elements of harmony. Unlike Discord, Nightmare Moon needed to be present to do things, she needed a big billowing cloud to strike the guards with lightning. In Return of Harmony, Discord was able to cause chaos all across Equestria at once, and could observe, speak to, and mess with ponies without physically being present. Perhaps Nightmare Moon could have tried avoiding the Elements of Harmony by running away, but raising the sun and moon aren't exclusive powers of either Celestia or Nightmare Moon.

(I didn't used to have to turn my brain off, and I don't plan to start any time soon.)

Edit: In other news, I didn't get a chance to watch the credits, so I'm wondering if anyone else can confirm if this is legit or not?

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While I think Fluttershy was spot on and excellent, I may need to explain what I was saying about Celestia in a little bit more detail. (Fluttershy really one-upped the Princess in this episode)

Celestia never once suggests that she is trying to reform Discord for his own benefit, or that he might be happier using his powers for good. She says "I have use for Discord's magic if it can be reformed to serve good instead of evil." She may have a lofty goal in mind, but treating someone as nothing more than a means to an end is wrong. Its what Discord was doing to everyone else in The Return of Harmony, he had use for ponies if he could reform them to serve his own ends. All I can do for that is shake my head and assume that there is more to the story that we never got to see. Something like, "I'm sure you can make Discord realize that getting along is better for everyone involved." Because if the people who claimed that Discord needed to do those things he did in the past were right, on account of his inherent nature, then making him do otherwise would have been making him suffer. (And I'm not even going to touch on the ethics of spells that magically reform people... thats just, I can't even handle that, so I'm forced to assume that they were bogus spells in the first place.) But as I said, once they got past the part where they were setting up the premise, and the reasons for doing what they were doing (which seemed even more reckless than wagering the fate of an entire nation on one student's test) there was a lot of good stuff in there.

Also, concerning Discord's powers before and after: Discord had the ability to teleport himself all over the place in the past. If he still had that ability, there would have been nothing stopping him from just blinking away and causing chaos somewhere else, and ruining someone else's day. (And if the mane six ever tried to find him, he could just zip away again.)

What I appreciated about this episode that, as crazy and zany as Discord was, it was actually a rather down to earth episode for the most part. This version of Discord was actually a lot more relatable than he was back in The Return of Harmony. (Not that he wasn't an excellent character before, but he certainly had more humanity this time around, even before he decided to play nice.)

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While the beginning and the end required a whole lot of suspension of disbelief and took a whole lot for granted, along with lots of yelling and freaking out without any preamble at all, the body of the episode was nice. When Princess Celestia first came on the scene and started talking about reforming Discord, as though he was just some kind of magic machine that needed to be fixed in order to work on demand, I thought the episode was going to make me cringe the whole way through. (Seriously, are they aiming for a reckless tyrant Celestia in season 3 now?) But thankfully, once Celestia departed for no good reason, the episode settled down and was a surprisingly smooth ride.

Now, if Discord had been as powerful as he was in "The Return of Harmony," I would have said this episode was founded on a patently insane premise, but I guess being recently zapped by the elements of harmony must have sapped him of some of his well neigh omnipotent abilities. And, in giving the characters the benefit of the doubt, I'm just going to assume that Princess Celestia realized that in advance.

I think my favorite part of the episode was how Fluttershy didn't have to put up with Discord at any point in time, but made the choice to do so anyway and stuck to it. Especially at the end, when Discord didn't fix the dam, it technically broke their agreement and she wasn't constrained by her promise to never use her Element against him, she decided not to use it anyway. Instead she just used regular old kindness.

The ending? Well, it was rushed, and Princess Celestia was acting weird and talking about Discord like he wasn't even there, right in front of him. But, eh... it was still a nice episode. Could have been better, but other than some oddities here and there, it wasn't bad.

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Twilight Sparkle doesn't seem to think that Spike's Dragon Code is a childish, personal thing. Has Twilight Sparkle finally made the leap from irrational and crazy some of the time to irrational and crazy all of the time? Anyways, I guess unless we ever meet any nice dragons, he probably wont get the chance to form a group of dragon code adherents. Might be kind of nice to see some other dragon characters though, or dragon characters that get some development at least.

Thats not to say that any of the other dragons we've seen so far are necessarily bad characters. While I think some people will make an argument against the teen dragons, I'm personally ambivalent about them. Its just that we as an audience haven't ever gotten a chance to know any of the other dragons on the inside.

Also, maybe Spike keeps bandages stored away somewhere that he can call up with dragon fire? That might explain where Twilight's bandages magically appear from, on any of the many occasions where she gets injured in a comical fashion.

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In other less controversial news, I'm beginning to think that Pinkie Pie is one of the greatest scientific minds in all of Equestria. It's like she sprung fully formed from the mind of Rube Goldberg. Her crazy plans and contraptions in this episode are just another example of her engineering prowess. Lets not forget her Pinkie Copter, either. One wonders what marvels she might invent if she didn't spend so much of her time designing parties, creating baked goods and crafting songs instead.

What other things do you suppose Pinkie Pie has invented, or could invent in the future? Do you think she made her own night vision goggles, or did those come from the bargain bin at the Canterlot Royal Guard surplus depot?

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Rosewind, I only really liked Raise This Barn a little bit at first, on account of the fact that it wasn't silly enough to not take seriously like Evil Enchantress, and it wasn't relevant enough to me like how I wish winter was over... but my stars, it has grown on me a lot. The more I listen to it, and the more I am able to make sense of the lyrics, the better it gets. (And yes, Sim Gretina is fantastic. )

I found another one that I really like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FmzLk7jkSA

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Phil the Time Wizard, I'm looking at this through the lens of the discussion we're currently having because we're currently discussing this stuff. I didn't bring up what happened to Spike in Secret of my Excess, but I felt obliged to respond to it. In Spike at your Service, Spike was objectifying Applejack, even if he didn't realize what he was doing. He was not concerned about her wishes, and was only using her as a means to an end, the end of being a noble dragon himself. She told him to stop, and he took it seriously enough to freak out, but he had no problems doing things for her that he wanted to do, like jamming a bellows in her mouth. (ick!)

Yes, Spike is a child. Children regularly do all sorts of horrible things because the don't know any better, but when they do, that is the exact time when they should be learning to know better. (If not sooner.)

The trouble is that the ending is so ambiguous, that I think you could make an argument for just about anything. Sure, Spike could have learned something valuable, but without the hows, whats, or whys, I'm not sure if any interpretation is stronger than another, including some rather unpleasant interpretations. Applejack's discomfort and insistence that he stop didn't change from beginning to end, and when Spike first learns about the fake timberwolf deception he is dismissive about it and openly mocks them, so its anyone's guess what actually persuaded him to change his mind. (If indeed it changed at all, which we also don't know, because he was given a chance to repay his life debt and got off the hook.)

(And I admit that it is quite possible that it is my own personal experiences that end up filling in the blanks.)

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You don't need to be at risk of turning into a big scaly monster in order to have a code of conduct, but if you are at risk of hurting your friends by turning into a monster, does it make sense that objectifying them as a means to an end and making them uncomfortable is a solution instead? I think that the more valid Spike's concerns become, the more unfortunate it is that he never learned a real way to address them. (I appreciate that hard things can give substance to a story, but stories also usually benefit from having a denouement for those things.)

And since helping others really is an important skill, deciding to only help out a single person that you know and trust isn't really a good solution either. The whole knight in shining armor trope may have richly deserved being turned on its head in Dog and Pony Show and Canterlot Wedding, but there are real ways to figure out how and when to help someone out.

For the record: While I might be sounding like a particularly critical neighsayer, I did enjoy a number of aspects of this episode, there was just something missing that I think it needed for me to enjoy it as a whole.

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Having Spike come up with a random Dragon Code out of thin air wasn't so much of a problem in and of itself. As you say, he is a kid, and kids do silly things like that. However, when Twilight validated it, it became a valid rational adult thing. When Twilight said "Do you know how important that is?" I'd have said, "Yes, I do. Its not as important as my wishes that he stop."

When someone is harassing you, allowing them to fulfill their desires is not a valid solution. Its just not. It doesn't matter if they think they're being nice, and it definitely doesn't matter if they think you'll enjoy it. (Whether its scratching your back or whatever.)

Its not a problem in and of itself that they played out a scheme to allow Spike to fulfill his code by saving Applejack, the problem was that the ending was left really ambiguous as to whether or not that was a valid solution. Applejack had been asking Spike to stop the whole time, and Spike only really seemed to begrudgingly agree to not do it again, should Applejack ever save his life again. (And to be fair, Spike's desire to serve Twilight was one of the major points of contention in Owls Well That Ends Well too, for a lot of people, it feels kind of unnatural.)

Personally, I don't really mind that characters struggle or make mistakes on their journey, but if they do, I'd really like for them to be able to reach their destination. So to speak.

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Saying "This author is a horrible person," is an ad hominem attack, saying "I don't like this author's writing style," is not. For example, no matter how much effort they put into them, I don't watch Quentin Terantino's films, Uwe Boll's movies, read Robert Anthony Salvatore's books or read John Joseco's tumblr, nor am I obliged to try. Not liking someone's work is not the same thing as hating them, they may very well be perfectly decent people. (Personally, i've been trying very hard to give people the benefit of the doubt. There isn't any other show that I would actually watch an episode again when I didn't like it the first time. And I've been going out of my way to not look at who the author is until after watching the episode.)

In the past, the show has done a lot of silly random cartoon things, but they also would hang the lampshade when they did. For instance, back in season one, when Pinkie Pie started singing a song out of nowhere, ponies would say things like, "Tell me she's not..." or "Here we go." Or in Season two, when a random pot falls out of nowhere, Pinkie Pie looks up and ponders, "Now where did that even come from?" I think if they'd had somepony say something like "Wow, Spike's usually not this clumsy, you don't suppose he's getting carried away, do you?" A lot of people would have been able to salvage their suspension of disbelief.

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While any individual element might be awesome, the art of compositing is required to make them all fit together seamlessly. That seemed to have broken down a little bit here with the Timberwolves, though it might not have been so bad if they weren't shown so very close up. And as Whitehawke points out, the thin black outlines were out of place. Honestly, I think they could have stood to make the timberwolves' animations more stiff and wooden. (pun intended.)

Still, I can't help but like them in concept at least. (Image spoilered for size.)

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If Friendship is Magic was all awesome 100% of the time, that would be awesome if you ask me. I for one love awesome things, like flying in airplanes, typing on fantastic nigh magical boxes that perform automatic computations, and being able to produce light with the flip of a switch. (I particularly appreciate it when the airplanes that I'm flying in work 100% of the time.)

At least as far as I've seen in season 3, some episodes are really awesome and some are really not very awesome, but there's not many that are middle of the road. Why that might be the case, though, I can't even begin to fathom.

You won't find any apologies for Mysterious Mare Do Well here, as far as morals go, MMDW is the only episode that I think was truly bad. As in, kids shouldn't watch this, bad. I may have thought that Owlowiscious was an unbearable mary sue in Owls Well That Ends Well, that Twilight Sparkle killing all those Pinkie Pie clones in Too Many Pinkies was horrifying, and in this episode, that Twilight betrayed Applejack and Spike didn't learn anything as evidenced by his clinging to Twilight at the end; but there's always at least some kind of redeeming quality to the episodes that manages to pull them back from the edge.

When Spike asked "How will I know that I'm a noble dragon?" what he needed was a real answer so that he could determine that for himself. But a lack of an answer is not as bad as a positively wrong answer, so in this case I suppose I can call the moral of the story rather neutral. (As children, many dependent people are encouraged to rely solely on authority figures for direction and approval, and on reaching adulthood, are unable to rely on their own beliefs and actions to function independently. Generally speaking, I think if a kid is old enough to be worrying about it, they're old enough to be learning about it.)

Up until they dropped the ball on the moral of the story though, I was enjoying the episode. (And I can admit that its partly personal preference for me, on account of my interest in philosophy.) Rainbow Dash was excellent this time around too, her confidence and then utter bewilderment when her plan failed was very well played. I liked the consistency of Applejack's discomfort, and was really looking forward to a real resolution. I was actually rather unnerved when Applejack apparently killed the timberwolves at the start, and was glad that it wasn't the case. Applebloom, Spike and the giant pig was a great little bit too.

Also: I noticed that no pegasi went after the runaway balloon, is perhaps the Everfree Forest scary enough that ponies don't even fly over it?

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On second watching, it would seem my impression has not improved. I think I'm going to have to rate this episode as "At least its not as bad as Mysterious Mare Do Well," on account of the good humor between Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Applejack. After watching them try and fail to get Spike to give up, I was feeling pretty optimistic that we'd see a real solution before the resolution.

However, a real solution never really showed up, and it doesn't seem like anything in the second act of the story had any bearing on the resolution. Applejack had made a number of reasonable arguments for why Spike should stop giving her unwanted favors, arguments that were just as good as her final argument about respecting her own code, but if I didn't know any better, I'd almost be compelled to think they're suggesting you should actually allow someone to complete their unwanted favors as a way of getting them to stop. (Which, if true, would be extremely uncool.)

After the second watch through, I was able to pinpoint the moment where the episode was lost beyond hope for me. When Applejack goes to seek Twilight Sparkle's help in talking some sense into Spike, I simply couldn't believe Twilight's response. I was thinking: "This is your friend Applejack you're talking to Twilight, are you seriously going to tell her that creepy stalker behavior is more important than her own wishes on the matter? What is wrong with you? Applejack is not the one who's at fault here."

There are very few things worse than when the people you trust don't take you seriously. (I'll never forget when a friend of mine had to flee her home town and not tell anyone where she was going because her parents didn't believe her when an ex-boyfriend started stalking her.) Maybe if Twilight had apologized, but at the end, she just digs herself in deeper with a lame, "I thought you were right behind us," line. (A far cry from the caring Twilight Sparkle in Feeling Pinkie Keen, when she turns back and risks herself to save both Spike and Pinkie Pie from the Hydra.)

I really hate to be such a downer. I would much rather write about how awesome I thought the episode was, so I'll try to end on a positive note.

Do you suppose Applejack is really writing a novel of her own? She sure seemed to respond when Rainbow Dash brought it up. (And if so, what do you suppose its about?)

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I'm afraid my impression of this episode was: "What the hay did I just watch?"

There were some funny moments, especially in the middle when Rarity and Rainbow Dash got involved, but I found myself enjoying those moments particularly because they pulled the spotlight away from Applejack and Spike's totally awkward and incomprehensible dilemma. I guess the whole concept of Spike's "Dragon Code," broke my suspension of disbelief and it never recovered. And he was still doing it with Twilight at the end, which left me with a really skeezy feeling to wrap things up with. I mean, who actually does that? People with dependency issues need to learn how to function on their own, not just bounce from one giver to the next. I was surprised that Applejack didn't grow a backbone, because even Fluttershy figured out how to say "No," in Putting Your Hoof Down.

I dunno, I guess there wasn't anything that I found particularly bad about this episode, but there wasn't anything that I particularly liked either.

(Also: The 3D models felt weird and out of place, but not terribly so.)

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I've seen enough people getting escorted to the office for detention that, in a show where punishment is meted out in the context of punishment for children, that was what I assumed was happening. I would have thought that if she was actually being kicked out of the camp, it would have necessarily been a bigger deal.

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Nowhere in the episode does it state that Lightning Dust got kicked out. She lost her lead pony status, that much is certain, but that is the extent of any explicit punishment. Everything else is pure imagination on the part of the viewer.

That being said, I do like how the original ending made it more clear that she was simply being demoted, and that she was getting a second chance, but the original ending seems like it totally fail to address the negligence of Spitfire and the way she was encouraging Lightning Dust's behavior. I would have probably been upset if the original ending replaced the current ending because it marginalizes Rainbow Dash's actions. (You did what you were supposed to do, you actually lifted a hoof to help someone in dire need, let someone know about it.)

On the other hoof, if it was meant to be played after the current ending and simply got cut because of time constraints, then it is a serious shame. Since that would have contained the best of both worlds.

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Or maybe some of them are just not married at all? When you're dealing with genetics, its the gambler's fallacy to assume that you will have an even distribution rather than a random distribution.

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The episode wasn't just about Applejack doing too much, it was also about Applejack splitting people up and missing the purpose of the activities in general. They were means to an end, not an end in and of themselves.

(If they hadn't already had an episode about a wedding in Season 2, a wedding would have been an excellent example of a common situation where people ought to learn the lesson from this episode.)

In other news, this little comic cracks me up for some reason.

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I was expecting a "the barn doesn't matter," message too, but I didn't mind the message that they had. I thought it was more of a "It doesn't matter what we're doing, as long as we're doing it together," kind of message.

Applejack had tried to control every aspect of the event, and had everyone separated and compartmentalized off doing their own things. And it wasn't even as if the events weren't things everypony had wanted to do and enjoyed in the past, they had always had races, cooked apple fritters and stitched quilts. The point was that the work gave them something to do with and for each other, rather than for its own sake. In other words, the activities were supposed to be there for the Apple family, rather than the Apple family being there for the sake of the activities.

Fixing the barn at the end was important because it showed that the rest of the Apple family was there for her, just as much as she was for them, which is why it was unfair of Applejack to put all her heart into it, and not let anyone else put theirs in as well. I think it was the song and dance routine at the end showed us, rather than telling us, the difference.

Its actually kind of a bit like our own community here, or any kind of online community. We're here to enjoy ourselves, but we're also invested in the enjoyment of others. If we can't contribute in our own way, it doesn't feel like our community, instead we just become spectators in someone else's fancy production. Its important to have someone coordinating and facilitating things, but everyone has to be able to give something of themselves to the mix, or they're not really a part of it at all.

Sometimes sharing involves learning when to accept something from others. I still remember a good friend of mine once brought a desert to dinner with her friend and his fiance. The friend's fiance took that as a huge insult, saying "what, you don't like my cooking?!" and has pretty much held a grudge ever since.

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Once again, MandoPony makes some awesome music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ChZYB9o4fM

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I knew as soon as I found myself wanting to cover my eyes and not watch the unfolding train wreck that Weesh was going to hate it. It was one of the first thoughts that popped into my head.

For me though, the payoff at the end was worth the discomfort. I guess Applejack gives folks like me courage, that we don't have to accept things the way they are, we can work and do to change what the truth of the matter is. There was a time in my life when, if I had been in Applejack's position when the barn collapsed, that I might have just accepted defeat and given up. And perhaps I still might, but maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to borrow a page from dependable Applejack and keep going.

As Emerson once said: "A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer." Perhaps if her family hadn't been there for her, if she had given up a little bit earlier, she'd never have pulled victory from the jaws of defeat.

Even if you don't succeed, I think that when you do your best, failure can still be one of those things you look back on and laugh about later on in life.

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They look like little fruits.

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I don't know how Ashleigh Ball does it. She did it to me at the end of Last Roundup, and she did it to me over and over again in this episode. Every time she starts spilling her heart about her hopes or worries, and I start tearing up so much I can't even see. What an emotional roller coaster ride. Tears, cringe worthy awkwardness followed up by tears and then some heart warming smiles at the end.

This episode showcases so much of why honest Applejack is so awesome. She doesn't need a soliloquy to express her feelings, she just goes out and says it, and even when she messes up, she's making an honest effort. Actually, now that I think about it, it reminds me an awful lot of Winter Wrap Up.

Also, flying Earth Ponies. HA!