History Recap / MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E19CrusadersOfTheLostMark

* AdultsAreUseless: When Cheerilee sees Spoiled Rich emotionally abusing her daughter Diamond Tiara and insulting the CMC, she does nothing. Granted, Spoiled Rich is head of the school board, but Cheerilee could have stepped in and threatened to tell the other members what she saw to try and get Spoiled Rich fired. Cheerilee could have also threatened to tell Filthy Rich or child services about how she was treating her daughter. Cheerilee had plenty of witnesses since this happened in front of the whole school. She earlier bears witness to Diamond Tiara's bullying and disrespectful attitude amongst her peers, and does absolutely nothing about it.

* {{GASP}}: Several scenes in this episode have a group gasp.

[[caption-width-right:288:''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Cutie Mark Crusaders Forever!]]'']]

** Diamond Tiara's constantly bad attitude makes it so that ''no one'' votes for her because she so disliked.

-->'''Sweetie Belle''': We were just worried about you when you lost the election, and then you lost your friend, and then your mom yelled at you.

(''two minutes later'')\\

--->'''Silver Spoon:''' Am I? 'Cause I tried to help by mentioning your "surprise" statue, and suddenly I wasn't even allowed to speak! You could have actually won this election if you just listened to me. You wanna know how? (''whispering'') Sorry. I'm not allowed to speak.

-->'''Diamond Tiara''': Yeah, 'cause I ''have'' my cutie mark! And I'm not struggling at ''all'' to figure out who I'm supposed to be and ''what'' I'm supposed to be doing with this mark that's already on my flank!\\
'''Apple Bloom''': Uhhh... [[LampshadeHanging Are you sure about that?]]

-->'''Diamond Tiara:''' Yeah, 'cause I ''have'' my cutie mark! And I'm not struggling at ''all'' to figure out who I'm supposed to be and ''what'' I'm supposed to be doing with this mark that's already on my flank!

* YouCouldHaveUsedYourPowersForGood: After her HeelFaceTurn, Diamond Tiara uses [[TheLeader her natural leadership skills]] (her Cutie Mark is a Crown, after all) as seen in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E23PonyvilleConfidential Ponyville Confidential]]" and "[[MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E15TwilightTime Twilight Time]]", not to bully or harangue people, but to lead them to efficiently work towards a common goal of fixing the playground.

** The opening sequence shows Celestia reading a letter and Luna next to her looking at it. When that scene is redone at the end of the episode, Celestia turns to Luna and moves the letter closer to her, likely due to Luna's closer relationship to the Crusaders. She helped them personally with their nightmares ("[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS3E6SleeplessInPonyville Sleepless in Ponyville]]", "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E20ForWhomTheSweetieBelleToils For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils]]", "[[MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E4BloomAndGloom Bloom & Gloom]]") and their worries in general.

* PaintingTheMedium: The screen visibly shakes when Diamond Tiara yells "WHAT?!" upon finding out that she only received one vote in the election--from herself.

* GaleForceSound: The screen visibly shakes when Diamond Tiara yells "WHAT?!" upon finding out that she only received one vote in the election--from herself.

** The events of "Appleloosa's Most Wanted", in which the CMC help Troubleshoes recognize what his cutie mark really stands for, becomes incredibly poignant for this episode; the trio effectively do to the same for Diamond Tiara, and realize their talent for helping others to find/better understand their talents, thus bringing about their own well-earned cutie marks.

** Spoiled Rich expresses disappointment in Diamond Tiara for losing to Pipsqueak, a "transplant from Trottingham", but notes that it would be even worse if she had lost to a "blank flank". Pipsqueak ''is'' a blank flank.

** The lyrics for Diamond Tiara's song, "The Pony I Want to Be", are inspired by "When Somebody Loved Me" from ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory2''.

* VillainSong: Diamond gets several, though most of them are CounterpointDuet with the Crusaders. All of them express her

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Quite literally, in Diamond Tiara's case.

* FreudianExcuse: Diamond Tiara's attitude is due to her mother's high expectations of her.

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: At first, it seems like the school election is going to be the crux of the plot. And then Diamond loses barely halfway into the episode.

** Diamond Tiara goes through some pretty drastic changes of her own.

* TwoRoadsBeforeYou: After the CMC try to convince Diamond Tiara not to try to oust Pipsqueak from the class president, they come to [[AtTheCrossroads a fork in the road]]. To the left is the schoolhouse, covered in darkness, representing the choice to keep being mean. To the right is a well-lit gazebo, the path to being a better person. Diamond Tiara keeps heading for the school, but then throws expectations to the wind when she decides to stand up for her friends. A section of the finished playground equipment looks identical to the gazebo, including tiny little yellow flag on top. Diamond Tiara poses inside of it, showing which choice she really picked in the end.

* VillainSong: Diamond gets several, though most of them are CounterpointDuet with the Crusaders.

* WellDoneSonGuy: Diamond Tiara has spent most of her life as an AlphaBitch to earn the respect of her RichBitch mother.

** Pipsqueak's promise to rebuild the playground nearly falls through since, without the Rich family's financial support, a normal school-age child can't pull together the necessary funds. Turns out Tiara wasn't wrong that her money would be the key to rebuilding their playground equipment.

* MomentKiller: Pipsqueak comes running up to the clubhouse just as the CMC are starting to make friends with Diamond Tiara. They settle for doing it in song on the way to the schoolhouse instead.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: A well-off individual running for political office whose entire campaign is based on [[Creator/DonaldTrump narcissism and demeaning others]]?

* JustTryingToHelp: This trope is the reason Silver Spoon breaks off her friendship with Diamond Tiara -- Diamond kept snapping at her when she was just trying to help, to the point of telling her she can't speak anymore.

* {{Leitmotif}}: Aside from the back-and-forth campaign number, the lyrics of each song's chorus and melody get reprised in each successive tune. The lines "be somepony else" and "the pony I wanna be" frequently appear in different contexts throughout the latter half of the episode.

** The title is a shout-out to ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk''.

** The events of "Appleloosa's Most Wanted", in which the CMC help Troubleshoes recognize what his cutie mark really stands for, becomes incredibly poignant for this episode; the trio effectively do to the same for Diamond Tiara, and realize their talent for helping others to find their/better understand talents, thus bringing about their own well-earned cutie marks.

->'''Apple Bloom:''' Well, what do you think, Crusaders? Were these cutie marks totally worth waiting for or what?