Eeehhhh, you shouldn't have to pretend that sort of thing (especially when the episode doesn't give you much reason to think so) to like an episode.

i've disliked MMDW since day one and have disliked it since. i think it's one of the biggest examples of the incongruity between the events of an episode and the lesson it's supposedly teaching, which is an issue that FIM definitely has every one in a while

I don't like Rainbow Dash as a character in general (I 100% consider her the worst pony of the mane six.) but I didn't really have a problem with MMDW? Though I'm not the type to rewatch stuff so I can't say for sure that my opinion is the same now.

Mysterious Mare-Do-Well is the kind of story where everyone involved in it kinda sucks.

The non-Dash Manes suck because they saw their friend becoming egotistic and went, "Clearly, she needs to be knocked down a peg. Let's gaslight her!"

But the only reason the plan worked is because Rainbow Dash is the kind of person that could see another person legitimately saving lives and managing crises and go, "That FUCKING WHORE is stealing my thunder! This must be corrected."

End result, Rainbow Dash is a self-centered jerk and all of her friends are terrible. Unfortunately, only one of those things is the intended message of the episode.

The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well is effectively the Fist of Karma. Her role is to knock Rainbow off the #1 Most Popular Pony slot, thus facilitating her jealous fury. But the problem there is twofold. The first problem is that it's a very weird character choice for the characters to deliberately, on purpose, decide to act as the Fist of Karma. Seems kind of mean-spirited.

The second problem is that the writers clearly had no idea how to end that story once all the non-Rainbow Manes set out to gaslight her in the first place. They did it to teach her a lesson but what lesson were they actually teaching?

The story only reaches a head when Rainbow Dash successfully hunts down Mare-Do-Well in a jealous fury, discovers that she's her friends, and then abruptly stopped being mad (which is not a particularly common or reasonable response to finding out your friends are gaslighting you). At which point everyone tells her that being a jerk is bad and she's just like, "Ahh, I get it, don't be a jerk."

Rainbow Dash only understood the lesson when they explained it to her face, and they only did that because she backed them into a corner. If anything, the Mare-Do-Well antics only served to escalate Rainbow Dash's egotism into violent jealousy. They only accomplished their goal once Mare-Do-Well failed, so what was Mare-Do-Well supposed to accomplish?

The reason they don't just sit Rainbow Dash down right at the start of the episode and tell her not to be a jerk is because then there wouldn't be an episode. In order for a plot to happen, either the solution can't be that simple, or there needs to be a reason why the characters cannot try it. Mysterious Mare-Do-Well makes the mistake of doing neither. The solution actually is that simple in the end, and the only reason they don't try it is because they would rather do wacky hijinx instead.

There's nothing wrong with wacky hijinx. Wacky hijinx make stories fun. But you gotta justify the wacky hijinx and in that, Mysterious Mare-Do-Well failed miserably.

EDIT: When writing stories about teaching moral lessons, a necessary weasel is that the characters must be people in need of learning moral lessons. In this episode, it was Rainbow Dash's turn to have a moral deficit that needs filling by the platitude of the day. But when writing a story like that, you should always take care that the characters delivering the moral lesson do not come across as deficit themselves.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 27th 2020 at 10:21:47 AM

yknow, when you put it that way it almost seems like a better episode would be where the mane 6 talk do talk to rainbow dash about how she's being a jerk [the obvious solution], and then she gets so depressed^note it's more in dashie's personality to get mad, obviously, but she could get mad first before shifting over to depression :p over needing to be told not to be a jerk by her friends that she stops saving people [the obvious solution goes wrong]

then, instead of becoming MMDW to stop problems, the mane 6 become the MMDW (Mysterious Mare Do Wrong) to cause (fake) problems [hijinks] in order to get Rainbow Dash to do something again. except now dash's afraid that people will start thinking she's a jerk again if she gets too arrogant from saving people. except they keep failing at making dash feel better and thus keep making bigger problems [escalation]

and then the climax of the episode has something to do with rainbow dash saving her friends after they put themselves in real danger and it's important that the way to save her friends is to be humble about it. maybe a macguffin that prevents pegasuses from flying or whatever if they end up too full of themselves. [lesson?]

and i'm sure there are no plot holes or contradictory lessons whatsoever in what i just wrote up at 2am, this show writing stuff is easy. yup.

Edited by EpicBleye on Nov 27th 2020 at 2:37:59 PM

In the Rainbow cookie episode, they actually sit her down and try to talk her out of her behavior before moving on to fucking with her, with the entire town in on it.

I always saw it as they tried to tell Rainbow, she ignored them. They decided to show her an example of how she should behave while doing some good of their own.

So I never got the idea that the rest of the Mane Six were being nasty. I always considered that take ridiculous

I don't think they tried to talk to her in Mare-Do-Well, but they did in 28PL.

They did try to talk to her. She was ignoring them

Post of the Day #3077

Posted by darkabomination on Sat, 11th Jan '14 6:50:45 PM - Post #37549 in the new thread

The Parasprites episode had a very similar problem, where the message was that everyone should have listened to Pinkie, but Pinkie didn't try to explain herself or even stop long enough to be asked. And the only reason why is that that would have solved the plot immediately.

Clearly the writers were still figuring out how to delay the solution for a plot without undermining the lesson or their characters.

That's actually one of the reasons for my dislike of Pinkie. That's a common problem with her. She makes things worse and the writers expect us to side with her

It's why I kinda like a lot of her more controversial later episodes like Maud Couple and Rock Solid Friendship. I'd rather Pinkie be obnoxious and in the wrong than obnoxious and in the right.

Edited by GNinja on Nov 28th 2020 at 4:27:41 PM

Oh I absolutely agree there

Also, I'm not sure if this is an unpopular opinion, but I think Pinkie's Present from A Hearthswarming tail is just as good as Smile. It gives me the same warm, bubbly feeling inside that I associate with Pinkie at her absolute best.

In addition to actually trying to talk to Rainbow Dash beforehand, another difference between Mysterious Mare-Do-Well and 28 Pranks Later is that the protagonists have a clear purpose for their wacky hijinx. They want Rainbow Dash to experience how bad it feels to be the butt of a sinister joke. They pull a horrible prank on her so that she experiences firsthand what she's been doing to other people, and can thus draw the episode's moral conclusion from that experience.

In Mysterious Mare-Do-Well, there's no clear purpose for provoking Rainbow Dash to violent jealousy. It's never clear what the Manes thought they were accomplishing by being Mare-Do-Well, before Rainbow Dash confronted them and made them explain themselves.

Mare-Do-Well would have worked best, I think, if the superhero Mare-Do-Well hadn't been a cunning plot to trigger Rainbow Dash's ego and make her as jealous and angry as possible. And instead. Like. Mare-Do-Well was just a superhero that people liked very much. Just play the episode's premise straight and have Rainbow Dash get violently angry about Mare-Do-Well being popular without some grand conspiracy behind it.

For all its flaws, the first half of The Washouts revisits the concept behind Mare-Do-Well and does a better job with it.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 28th 2020 at 8:43:42 AM

Clearly the whole point of Mare Do Well was to deflate Dash's Ego by being better than her. But they sorely underestimated Dash's competitive streak, which resulted in her getting even more abrasive and needless when it came to saving people.

Still wasn't a great episode.

They DID talk to Rainbow in MMDW. Noone remembers because Rainbow shut them down instantly.

In addition, in MMDW, the purpose was to show Rainbow a good example. Whereas in 28 pranks later it was "Let's ALSO be evil!".

28 Pranks Later is absolutely the worse episode.

EDIT: Again, it was to show her a good example. NOT to show her up. I don't understand why other people don't get that.

Edit: Rainbow only FELT showed up as she's that bad of a pony

Edited by Sereg on Nov 28th 2020 at 4:26:19 PM

"They DID talk to Rainbow in MMDW."

Sereg, I'm providing you with the transcript and gallery below.

"https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/Transcripts/The_Mysterious_Mare_Do_Well"

"https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/The_Mysterious_Mare_Do_Well/Gallery"

Please, point out for us where that happens using those two pieces of evidence.

Here is the appropriate music.

Edited by fredhot16 on Nov 28th 2020 at 10:57:18 AM

"Rainbow Dash: And then I zoomed into the well. I knew it would be dark and dangerous, but I didn't let that stop me. Danger's my middle name. Rainbow 'Danger' Dash. Thinking back on it, I acted pretty awesomely heroic that day. Spike: That day. Applejack: Awesomely heroic that day and awesomely arrogant ever since. Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle: Mm-hm. Rainbow Dash: Hey, Applejack. How'd you like to be immortalized as my friend? Applejack: Immorta-what? camera clicking] Twilight Sparkle: Are you taking notes? Spike: Yup! I've been hoof-picked by Rainbow Dash herself, to write her autobiography! Twilight Sparkle: Umm, autobiographies are supposed to be written by the pony they are about. Rainbow Dash: Maybe for your normal, run-of-the-mill ponies. But I'm far too busy saving lives to stop and write. That's why I hired Spike as my ghost writer."

There it is

Edited by Sereg on Nov 28th 2020 at 6:02:10 PM

Well, yes - the autobiography thing was all they ever said directly to Rainbow Dash - they never actually confronted her about the whole "hero" thing going to her head. Some reviews of that episode justified that by claiming that Rainbow's character is such that she likely would have brushed them off. Still, it would have been nice to have them try and fail rather than jumping straight to "complicated plan to deflate her ego".

What always bugged me about that episode was that the strategies the others developed without Pinkie's input worked, and would have gotten rid of the parasprites very easily had the plot not required them to fail.

The first time, when they roll the 'sprites into a ball and roll them into the forest, they actually succeed in their goal — the only reason the episode doesn't end then and there is because Fluttershy, for God knows what reason, decides that even though keeping a single parasprite is what led to the whole mess to begin with surely keeping a single parasprite couldn't hurt. If she had thought things through there and not smuggled that one specimen away, the episode would have had a very different ending — mostly involving Pinkie turning up hours after the fact to find out that the others had gotten rid of the parasprites without her while she was off collecting instruments for reasons she refused to explain.

The second time, the stratagem fails — but it only fails because Pinkie messed it up. There's no indication it would have failed otherwise, but it is clearly shown that Pinkie barging in partway through disrupts the attempt and releases the bugs. Then she blames the others for not listening to her and leaves.

I get the impression a lot of this was because the episode's writers just wanted to include some zany misadventures like the show usually does, but didn't really think about how these affected the story.

Not to mention it kind of undermines Fluttershy's status as "animal expert". One would expect that someone like Fluttershy would be familiar with the term "invasive species".

Then again, she also feeds vegan food to a snake in "She Talks to Angel". Though given that this is a world with high-octane magic all over the place, it might be possible that they've found a way to synthesize nutritious snake food out of plant parts.

Not only is that an issue from a story perspective, but the actual point of contention is a badly written one.

Twilight's beef is that autobiographies are supposed to be written by the person they're about. This is true. But there exists a separate type of book written by a separate party about the person of interest. Those are called biographies. Twilight is a book nerd. She would fucking know that.

So Mysterious Mare-Do-Well happens because Spike is bad at language and Twilight somehow doesn't know that third-person biographies exist. This is not a very good inciting incident.

Ah, classic Designated Hero. Pinkie is just insufferable there.