Official Discussion Thread - S04E07 Bats!

[SteelEagle]

I'm sure Fluttershy will be glad to lend a hoof in keeping the Vampire Fruit Bats in check.

You know...I kinda wonder why they haven't asked Fluttershy to help them reclaim the west orchard.

Okay, Fluttershy is seriously under-utilized as an animal expert.

Animal Expert does not mean she can automatically make all animals do as she wishes. That is why she needs the Stare. And even then, she would want to do it when all evidence seems to point to Fluttershy almost valuing Random Animal of the Week on the same level of her friends.xd

[Cadabra]

Something I really wish would have happened in this episode is for Fluttershy to have seen the damage that she had caused just by herself as a bat pony. We are having Fluttershy's point of view crammed down our throats this whole time, which for such a two sided argument where both have good points really bothers me. I can understand that if you take care of the environment it takes care of you, but if you don't take care of it, you can't take care of yourself. Applejack has a responsibility to Ponyville to feed it, and as the past has shown us, there was a past infestation.

Two red flags popped up for me. One, what did our young Smithy (my nickname for young Granny Smith) and her family do for the first infestation? We know that the past infestation caused a devastating shortage of apples, but not what happened after that? Second, Fluttershy admits that this is her encounter with the vampire fruit bats. She herself is just as quick to jump to conclusions about them as Applejack.

While a moral of peer pressure among friends is a good one to learn, that could have been better suited for a Princess Twilight Sparkle royal duty decision making episode due to peer pressure from Celestia, or even a CMC episode. While this is a good thing for Fluttershy to learn, she's already learned the importance of politely saying no in Putting Your Hoof Down. While I understand Iron Will isn't a close personal friend like the mane six are, both Applejack and Fluttershy could easily have learned this lesson and shown that just because you don't agree with your friends doesn't mean you can't still be friends. They could have worked out a resolution together, one that would have been better and more mutually understanding than "I cave to you because bat pony."