YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S4 E6 "Power Ponies"

• Accidental Innuendo: Applejack's alternate persona of Mistress Marevelous combined with her mastery of a psychically-controlled lasso can easily be seen as fetish appeal.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • The Mane-iac — evil supervillain or in-character Dungeon Master? Is she throwing things at the Mane Six / Power Ponies to be nasty, or to get them to engage her like they're supposed to? Did she pause to Breaking Speech Twilight about Spike's supposed incompetence to Kick the Dog, or to trigger a Kirk Summation that would restore his confidence and get him to spring the others for the final battle? Did she swat that firefly for petty evil, or because she knew it would trigger the beatdown Fluttershy was supposed to give her to end the comic?
  • Does the Power Ponies in the comic book have a low opinion of Humdrum or they truly think of him as one of them? Mane-iac claims that everypony knows they only keep Humdrum out of pity, while Spike states that his only purpose is to make things worse and be a Plucky Comic Relief. But both has some clear bias; Mane-iac being a super-villain who can't understand why they would keep him while Spike is clearly projecting his insecurities. Does Humdrum always saves the day and serves as The Heart like Spike does towards the Mane-six, and we only see it through our heroes' perspective?
• Bizarro Episode: The premise of the episode where the Mane Six and Spike get sucked into a magical comic book and become superheroes is certainly out there considering the show's universe.
• Broken Base:
  • Many people really enjoy the episode for all the shenanigans that ensue as a result of the Mane Six being superheroes. But there are also many people who dislike it for various reasons, such as the gimmicky concept, the excessive Exposition, and the poor explanation for the comic book being magic.
  • Flutterhulk. It's one of the more praised aspects of this episode, yet one of the most criticized. Some loved the juxtaposition of timid, adorable Fluttershy and The Hulk. Yet there were others who lambasted the design as well as her trigger.
• Creepy Awesome: Fluttershy is equal parts awesome and scary when she finally loses it. And then nearly Adorkable when she starts apologizing in her Hulk form.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: As divisive as Power Ponies were to the fanbase, most everyone agreed that Radiance was excellent, as Rarity really took to her powers; they seemed so natural for her.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • As if Daring Do didn't give us enough of a metafictional setting to make a reality.
  • The existence of Enchanted Comics in general, particularly given it's unclear if the comic was actually a trap or some kind of magic roleplaying game and Spike simply missed that part.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Mane-iac refuses to use her Hairspray Ray of Doom to freeze Spike, the only boy on the Power Ponies team. When she teases him over the thought of this being "pointless" she briefly tickles him under the chin with her mane and her tone of voice almost makes it sound like she is flirting with him.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • First thing Fili-second does after dodging a large piece of flying debris is find a bakery and get some cupcakes. You're tempted at first to write it off as her "just being Pinkie Pie", but when you consider how much energy she must burn traveling at near-relativistic speeds...
  • Spike's character is clearly a reference to Robin, who—depending on which specific version or adaptation you're talking about—is an expert gymnast, martial artist, detective, strategist and/or hacker. Of course he wouldn't be useless.
  • Fluttershy's superpower makes sense if you think about it. The Hulk seems to be the very last hero one would associate with the sweet, delicate Fluttershy. However, when you take into account her previous rage moments in episodes such as "Dragonshy", "Best Night Ever", and "Putting Your Hoof Down", you realize that Fluttershy is similar to Bruce Banner, and Saddle Rager is equivalent to The Incredible Hulk. Fluttershy is the emotionally repressed, socially awkward wallflower, while Saddle Rager is the bold, assertive, and occasionally bullying side that emerges when one pushes one of Fluttershy's Berserk Buttons. Plus, what sets Fluttershy off in the first place is the fact that the Mane-iac was bullying something small and harmless for no good reason. Fluttershy has good reason to hate bullies, considering that she was a victim of it in her childhood.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Remember all those Flutterhulk pictures in Derpibooru? It all came into fruition with this episode. Even more hilarious when you remember that the Incredible Hulk theme was used in "Putting Your Hoof Down".
  • Also, Mane-iac is voiced by Ellen Kennedy, who voiced Daffidazey in G3. Daffidazey, the stylist.
  • Masked Matter-Horn is an Expy of Cyclops, able to shoot various forms of magical beams from her horn. James Marsden (film), Cyclops' original actor in the X-Men Film Series, played Hitch Trailblazer in the G5 Movie My Little Pony: A New Generation.
• Memetic Mutation: After Twilight's speech about how Spike/Humdrum always comes through when his friends need him, Spike comes up with a plan that takes half of the Mane-iac's Mooks out of play. It's a tarp!

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