YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S6 E5 "Gauntlet of Fire"

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Torch explicitly discouraged Ember from entering the gauntlet of fire by asserting she was too small and weak to do it (despite saying "all dragons are welcome to compete") but after she completes it, he's rather quick to overlook her disobedience and accept her as the new ruler. Perhaps his discouragement was actually a Secret Test of Character to see whether or not Ember is worthy. After all, if she's brave enough to stand up to him she isn't so weak in the end.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Princess Ember is the first-ever female dragon with a name and a major speaking role seen on the show^note Another female dragon appears in crowd shots in this episode before she shows up, and she also shares Spike's My Species Doth Protest Too Much mindset.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Worldbuilding for dragons, a new dragon character that has Ship Tease with Spike, the possible redemption of the dragons as a species with the idea their race could be shown the virtues of friendship...
  • The royal sisters talked about having seen a glowing dragon body before.
  • Now that Twilight and Ember are penpals, who knows what they'll write to each other?
  • Since Spike was the first one to touch the Bloodstone Scepter and all the dragons save Torch witnessed it, that technically means he's rightfully the king despite giving Ember the job. Potential for Succession Crisis shenanigans via Loophole Abuse perhaps?
  • Maybe Garble secretly hates being an Ineffectual Loner. Wouldn't it be fun if his complaint about hugging everyone on the way home being "super embarrassing" was really Briar Patching?
• Fridge Brilliance: How were Twilight and Rarity able to easily bypass all of the dangerous traps of the Gauntlet and stay ahead of Spike and Ember? Well, It makes sense when you realize the gauntlet was specifically designed to test Dragons. It didn't say anything about testing Ponies. Basically, there wouldn't have been anything to keep Twilight from teleporting herself and Rarity past the obstacles.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • My Little Pony Friends Forever Issue 14 already featured Spike both discovering that not all dragons are complete Jerkasses and befriending an Ensemble Dark Horse female dragon.
  • Garble said that Spike "can't even fly." Yeah, give it 58 more episodes.
  • Spike won the title of Dragon Lord and held it for only a few seconds before immediately passing it on to Ember. However, we find out in the next generation Spike somehow regained the title and is Dragon Lord Spike again.
• Narm: The name of the dragons' most revered volcano? The Flamecano. Sounds just like a Totally Radical spinoff of Sharknado, doesn't it?
• Salvaged Story:
  • After "Dragon Quest" received numerous accusations of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot by having hardly any examination of dragon culture in favor of a simplistic peer pressure moral, this one is far more of what people wanted back then.
  • The episode also introduces Princess Ember who, while not as open to friendship as Spike, is easily the nicest among the dragons, helping break the stereotype that every dragon is a Jerkass through-and-through. It's also revealed that most dragons, while definitely harsher than most ponies, are ultimately Noble Demons of sorts instead of outright jerks like Garble.
  • Spike's episodes so far have either focused on his negative traits, or consisted mostly of him screwing up in embarrassing ways. This has led a large portion of the fanbase, especially Spike fans, to dislike (or at least have mixed feelings for) them. For once, we get an episode that portrays Spike as competent, while putting the focus on his positive qualities.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: When this episode was announced to be a Spike Episode, fans expected yet another humiliating episode for poor Spike, another episode where he is handed the Idiot Ball, or an episode where he is second banana to one of the ponies on throwing a spotlight on his inferiority and flaws. When the episode aired, people were pleasantly surprised, and regard this episode in high esteem for finally cutting Spike a break.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Garble was already disliked for being a stock bully who didn't get much of a comeuppance in "Dragon Quest". In this episode, he gets tossed around several times by the hazards of the Gauntlet of Fire, is bested in combat by Ember, and is given the humiliating task of hugging every dragon he comes across when Spike obtains the Bloodstone Scepter.
• Tough Act to Follow: "Gauntlet of Fire" is considered one of the finer episodes of season six, for its Worldbuilding of Dragon culture, letting Spike have his day to shine for once, and introducing Ensemble Dark Horse Ember. Most of the rest of the season's episodes left a Broken Base or were considered So Okay, It's Average.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: This episode aired during the 2016 US Presidential primaries, which had an unprecedented number of candidates for both major parties. Just as Spike said most of the Dragon Lord hopefuls would have been bad for ponies, most primary candidates said their opponents would have been bad for America, and the Gauntlet of Fire, the dragons' fire breath, and their "dragons don't do helping" culture could all be seen as parallels to the "scorched earth" campaigns of the front-runners and their supporters.

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