Well, the fact that they were smiling, laughing, and had a really condescending sounding tone while doing it made it feel like they were being assholes and teasing him and stuff. Also, Rarity even says "isn't he adorable when he waddles off in anger" which pretty much implies she acknowledged that Spike was offended (not to mention, they were still smiling when Spike was walking away for some reason).
but if they feel too biased, I'll change them
Edited by SesameMalcolm99
Does that include Twilight? From what I’ve seen, she’s been nothing but supportive for the rest of the episode.
I know some troper on DMOS and another on Wall Banger consider Spike's possessing the pheonix egg at the end to be kidnapping, but is there any positive justification to Spike's claim of the egg? I really need to know.
Edited by taylorkerekes
The Tropesaurus
So I see Ship Tease has been removed. To be fair, I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what the writers were trying to do with Spike and Rarity in this episode. It's the first time they've had any significant interaction since "Secret of my Excess", in which Spike admits his crush. In this episode, Rarity has become more affectionate towards Spike than ever before... but she's also basically treating him like a little kid. (Which, to be fair, he is.) But then during the group hug at the end there's that squeeing sound Rarity makes... I'm a little confused is all.
Grand Admiral
It looks surprisingly deep. I expect the lesson to be something about how the ones who raise you are your true family.
Unironic Irony Hide / Show Replies
As much as technicolor kidnappers who use you as a free slave can be considered family...
^^Take that shit to your Dark Fics, buddy. It has no place here.
Shamelessly plugging my comics, Oh yes.
Sorry, but Red Foal does have a point. The Unfortunate Implications in this are problematic. Not only is it "the ones who raise you are your family" but "good thing we raised you and not your own kind, because look how awful they are."
I can't support that the ponies are "kidnappers" since somebody [as far as Twilight knows] found Spike's egg and gave it to the school, who then gave it to Twilight as a test.
But ponies consider dragons fierce and scary (and dragons consider ponies weak and dainty) so it stands to reason they would not try to return him to his clutch or family.
But the Ponies do treat him pretty much like a medieval page — which really is barely different from being sold into indentured servitude. Parents would send their children into doing this so they could grow up and have a better life, theoretically. And they do treat him kindly, but it's usually "Spike!" or "Spike take a letter". Twilight is pretty much the only one who says "please" when she asks him to do anything. Everypony else just uses him as a secretary/chef. Even in this episode, he brought a nice tea service to the trench, and nopony thanked him. (Though they have thanked him before in the "Owl's Well That Ends Well" episode when he went to a special effort for a special event, so...)
It's not the happy Sugar Bowl the show goes for. But this is not the first time the show has tried to give a nice lesson only to have it veer into Unfortunate Implications and uncomfortable territory.
Bridle Gossip and Over A Barrel both did it too, with the sub-message of "not a pony, not like us, not good/nice". Only with the Dragons is the "not good/nice" part reinforced rather than debunked.
Edited by ParadiscaCorbasi We don't have to be mean. Remember - no matter where you go, there you are. —Buckaroo Banzai
The fact that he's happy to be considered something he wasn't biologically designed to be (I really hope they were just aiming for the attitudes here and not bending to the occasional stupidity of the Periphery Demographic) is not a good insight.
In fact, it shouldn't be an insight at all! He should be content with being a dragon whilst appreciating the fact that he learned some good morals from ponies. That's part of growing up. I can't put interracial matters here (because it's a question of species and not color) but I think you get my point.
But since he's still a baby, I'm going to let it go.
YMMV though
Actually, the insight, now that you've drawn my attention to it, is that if Spike can be a sweetie pie and capable of behaving in a cultured, intelligent, and multifaceted manner, any dragon is probably also able to behave that way.
Which makes the Ponies wrong for characterizing the dragons universally in the sweeping generalization of being fierce and intimidating and scary, and Rainbow Dash especially wrong for making it out a weakness that Spike is not displaying those traits. (And Rarity wrong for not pointing out that when pressed, he does display them — he tried very hard to be fierce in "The Dog and Pony Show")
Either that, or Spike is a mutant, but that's another troublesome line of thought.
Edited by ParadiscaCorbasi We don't have to be mean. Remember - no matter where you go, there you are. —Buckaroo Banzai
We have a trope for this whole thing: Teens Are Monsters. We've seen two adult dragons: Steven Magnet (a sea dragon so not sure if he counts in this case) and the one from "Dragonshy". Steven Magnet seems like an alright guy, and the latter wasn't a bad dragon, he just made a bad decision. The young dragons in this ep are just a bunch of delinquent shitheads, and Spike had the misfortune of picking the wrong group to talk to.
He doesn't really seem to mind being kept around doing chores for twilight. He gets food and a bed, and he isn't particularly unhappy
Enter the void
Oh god, the justifying edits, they burrrrn.
Do what the clock does, keep going.
When Rainbow Dash shows the picture of the butterfly migration
, shouldn't it be just a bunch of monarch butterflies? Or is there some other species of butterfly that migrates?
I'm unsure if this warrants Misplaced Wildlife, Somewhere, an Entomologist Is Crying, neither, or both. (Even though it should be Lepidopterologist and not Entomologist.)
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Nothing really forces the butterflies in the show to be exactly like butterflies in the real world. After all, real life ponies don't fly or use magic. (Captain Obvious, I know.) I'd say neither, although you could put it under the crying entomologist if you really wanted to add the trope.
Maybe I'm reading too much into this (or not enough), but I thought there was some sort of similarity between the dragon friends/pony friends conflict and that of a boy being friends with girls (the mane six) or other boys (the dragons). Both seem to be in their teenage years, so they're older than Spike, and both are possible role models for him. It just happens that this group in particular were "the wrong crowd", so to speak. Then again, from what has been established about the maturing cycles of dragons so far, this troper wonder if a right crowd of adolescent-stage dragons could even exist.
I think I went off on a tangent on some point.
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That was my feeling too... It was as much about GENDER as about his race or background. Let's face it, even if he was a pony Spike is pretty much a lone dude in an estrogen brigade, and has been most of his life. He has no real male role models, the girls all coddle and baby-talk to him (even though if the girls are adults he's at LEAST in his teens), he drinks tea from a teacup and wears a frilly apron.... when the other dragons put him through the hazing it's all "tough man" stuff, as well. Competitions and physical challenges and double-dog dares. If one examines the episode too closely it does start to look a lot like subtle misandry....
This episode was really good, but one thing that has been bothering me is, why didn't Twilight simply ask Celestia where Spike's egg came from? I'm sure she would've known, or used her connections to find someone who does know. All Twilight says is that he was given to her as an egg and no one knew where he came from. She never mentioned the Princess knowing anything or not. Did that letter that the red dragon burn, have any significance, and possibly play a role in a later episode?
Also, I kinda have to agree with Paradisca Corbasi, when he they said, While the mane 6 care about spike, they tend to use him often, and never fully appreciate him. Heck, even in the beginning, he's serving them food, and they never thank him, just make fun of his apron (only real men wear pink). It's only in Owl's Well that End's Well, that really shows that they can appreciate him, but later in that episode they give all this attention to the owl. I mean, there's a difference between living with the people who raised you, and living the people who love you. Twilight and the others are in a way raising him, and value him, but sometimes it does make me wonder, how they really feel about him. they just don't seem to show him much love. while he's cynical on occasion, you have to give credit to him, for all the work he does, and for FREE.
Merc With A Mouth
of course this is YMMV, but it seems to me that everyone is overreacting to the teenage dragons. yes, they aren't particularly nice with Spike at times, but they are acting like a lot of teenagers, and nothing they say or do is particularly malevolent or bullyish. yes, they try to eat the eggs, but they are omnivore predators
How Many Deadpools would Deadpool pool if Deadpool... ah forget it Hide / Show Replies
There is a reason why "Teens Are Monsters" is a trope. It is common in children's cartoons to portray most teenagers as bad influences.
And maybe a good bit of Truth in Television, too. It's argued whether this is due to age, or due to being in an environment that forces it on them* but teens are highly clique-ish, hierarchial and tend to force newcomers to undergo a gauntlet of hazing before acceptance.
- (restrictive environment with minimal supervision, little mental stimulation, no meaningful interaction with the larger world, and nothing to do but form a pecking order based on internal, arbitrary standards. You see it in many environments..... high-society social circles, prisons, public schools)
Trapped in a Human Body
Does Cranky Doodle's cameo count as Off-Model?
After all, the dark toupee he came to town with was destroyed by Hurricane Pinkie Pie, and replaced with the golden Rarity special.
But we see him with the same dark mane when he's rafting Spike. Did he put Pinkie's gift away for special occasions and then go out and re-buy the same one?
We don't have to be mean. Remember - no matter where you go, there you are. —Buckaroo Banzai Hide / Show Replies
To be honest, I don't think that was actually Cranky Doodle. It's just a random donkey with the exact same character model.
Take note that season 1 was not exactly the most chronologically-ordered season. (Winter Wrap-up vs Fall Weather Friends, anyone?) It might really be him still traveling the countryside.
If we are taking note on how Season 1 went, then it should also be noted that the animators have used the exact same character models for seemingly different characters. Crowds were sometimes even copy-pasted.
It would make sense for Cranky to have gotten a replacement toupee of the original kind, since it matches the hair on the tip of his tail.
Why the heck is everyone assuming that the donkey in the cameo is Cranky? It's not like he's going to be the only donkey in the entire land of Equestria.
Because it looks exactly like Cranky, and while we've seen different types of dragons, multiple sheep, different cows, different goats, one griffin, one mule and one Minotaur, we have only seen Cranky and Matilda as representing donkeyknd.
We don't have to be mean. Remember - no matter where you go, there you are. —Buckaroo Banzai
Trapped in a Human Body
Hm.
It occurs to me that Spike is the only dragon of his age at the migration. Apparently even if it only happens once in a generation (because of how long-lived dragons are), that there is a cutoff age, and the group he hung out with was probably on their very first migration.
Spike was too young to migrate, but having never been around other dragons, he had no way of knowing that (though the fact that all the dragons who can migrate have wings should have ben a clue).
We don't have to be mean. Remember - no matter where you go, there you are. —Buckaroo Banzai
Should we add Stepford Smiler to the list of tropes? Twilight, Rarity, and Rainbow sure look like they're trying to be happy in screenshot #43, though it's obviously fake.
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Not really. Stepford Smiler is generally supposed to be more of an aspect of a character, rather than a one-shot moment when they're attempting to reassure themselves or somebody else.
These new Out-of-Character Moment and With Friends Like These... entries seem much too biased. I’m not convinced that the ponies were fully aware of how upset they made Spike.
Edited by BrianKT Hide / Show Replies