YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S8 E25 "School Raze – Part 1"

• Ass Pull: The idea that Tartarus allows its sapient prisoners to send unchecked mail, which is what allows the plot to happen in the first place. Also, how exactly does mail get in and out of Tartarus? It’s sealed off by strong magic. So strong that even the strongest magical creatures in existence can't escape it. But apparently mail can…
• Broken Base: Starlight Glimmer being defeated by Cozy Glow has split the fanbase apart. Was it a nice change of pace to have her be incapacitated throughout the finale after taking up the screen-time in the past few finales, or a lazy Ass Pull just to give an excuse to not have one the most intelligent unicorns who has managed to help defeat villains by coming up with plans and seeing through the facades of villains to stop a Pegasus child as an attempt to appeal to Starlight's detractors? There's also a third camp that thinks that even though Starlight didn't participate in the plan to stop Cozy Glow, she still got plenty of screen time that doesn't label her as a Spotlight-Stealing Squad that she is frequently labeled as by some people.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Cozy Glow turning out to be evil is not as big a surprise for the audience as it is for the characters, especially given the somewhat subtle foreshadowing of it in "Friendship University" and the even more blatant foreshadowing in "What Lies Beneath". Not helped by the fact that the synopsis for part 2 told everyone already.
• I Knew It!:
  • When the preview for the second half of Season 8 was revealed at SDCC 2018, some fans predicted that Tirek would return after the Season 4 finale. Their theories came true.
  • Cozy Glow being evil was guessed by so many people that it would have been a bigger surprise if it didn't turn out to be the case. And that's not counting the fact that they simply read the synopsis.
• Memetic Mutation: Sandbar throwing apples (and a tankard!) at the Apple family barn.
• Pandering to the Base: Starlight being easily defeated by Cozy Glow is viewed as this to some people, as they state that Starlight being easily defeated felt like nothing more than a attempt to appeal to Starlight's hatedom that comes off as an Ass Pull to not let Starlight after seasons of being built up as an intelligent and competent unicorn who has even managed to outwit Queen Chrysalis without having to rely on magic participate in the battle against Cozy Glow and felt like the writers could have squeezed her into the battle while keeping the Mane Six the main focus at all times.

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