@Background Pony #C25E
They certainly did, but I still think it’s a really good episode. In fact, I think it’s a shame that the moral seems to be the focus of criticisms of that episode, because I think the majority of it is decent. It was funny, it had a good chase scene, and established some key character traits. I’m of a mind that very few episodes are overall bad, off the top of my head I can only think of three that I think are objectively bad (Princess Spike, Fame and Misfortune, and No Second Prances), but none of them are bad because of their moral. Even ones that people like to cite as “the bad ones”, like Feeling Pinkie Keen, Mare Do Well, Magical Mystery Cure, and Spike At Your Service, I think have either enough redeeming qualities that they make up for their flaws, or their flaws aren’t enough to make the overall episode bad :P

@WaynePonePone
Yeah, I agree with that. I actually appreciate too, how their morals tend to not be super preachy. They’re willing to use some nuance. I can excuse a bad moral, but I can not stand a preachy one. I would take a bad moral in a good work over a good moral presented in a preachy way. The episode that won me over with this show was Bridle Gossip, because that is an episode that would have been super preachy and morally aggrandizing in 99% of works that showed it: rather than use strawmen they use established characters as the ones who were in the wrong, and they actually gave them valid reasons to act the way they did toward Zecora while still presenting them as wrong by showing how they were misguided. Instead of just having Twilight be “the only good one” who was going to preach a bunch of strawmen into a moral high ground they actually had her start out like “you’re wrong for acting like this”, then be convinced by “evidence” that her friends were right, and THEN learn that evidence was wrong. Meanwhile, Apple Bloom just goes and hangs out with Zecora in the background. It’s great XD

@Badumsquish
That’s actually a thing about MLP. Its moral is just too complicated sometimes that it doesn’t do it well. It doesn’t have a moral that’s just “be nice”, instead tries to go deeper and look at things in a more complicated way. Sometimes things just aren’t as simple and as such the moral could be flawed. That’s always something I admire about MLP. It does moral more than “just be a good person” and actually looks into and talks about it. That’s one of the reason why I like it so much.

@Badumsquish
They did screw up the moral in Feeling Pinkie Keen due to having to make it be about friendship.

@WaynePonePone
@Dirty Bit
I actually can’t think of any episode that was ruined by a shoddy moral alone. Even One Bad Apple, which I quite genuinely think has the worst moral in the entire series, was STILL an otherwise good episode. Like, at least Bats followed through with its moral and stuck with the idea that Fluttershy’s plan was the right idea, explained how and why it could work, and showed it working in the end – the issue came from how the writers didn’t consider that Applejack’s plan was better and made more sense, rather than Fluttershy’s plan just being a bad one. One Bad Apple is like “standing up to a bully is wrong, just go tell an adult” yet had the adult do nothing, every alternative to standing up for themselves failed, and standing up to Babs is what stopped Babs’ bullying long enough for them to talk it out. Then Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon come back for more bullying, the adult present does nothing, and Babs stands up to them which is shown as satisfying, funny, and solves the problem. So in other words, even IF “don’t stand up for yourselves; tell an adult” was a good moral, which it’s not, it’s shown in-universe that adults will do nothing and that standing up for yourself will solve the problem. AND, that’s not even getting into how characters in-universe stand up for themselves against bullies all the time and it’s presented as right and satisfying, or how Babs’ was a unique case where telling the adult helped because the adult had a unique relationship with the bully and knew extra information about her, rather than because the adult could prevent the bullying. Like, the writers must have been under a studio mandate when they wrote One Bad Apple or something XD

I’ll grant the episode that much: Flutterbat was fun.

@Badumsquish
That’s actually how it went but the credits didn’t roll. It’s all Twilight and the writers being like “We’re gonna turn Fluttershy into a bat because that would be cool!” and you know what, they’re right.

Those memes are a delight

@WaynePonePone
That’s why they should have just listened to Applejack. Tell Fluttershy politely, but firmly, “I am not comfortable gambling my livelihood and am going to move them elsewhere”, spritz Twilight Sparkle with a water bottle and say “Bad pony! Stop sinning against nature!”, round of the bats, and dump them elsewhere. Moral stays the same: don’t let others pressure you into doing what you don’t think is right, and tell ’em no. Episode would have ended in 13 seconds XD

Though, if Fluttershy was REALLY confident in letting the bats stay, she could have leveraged her animal sanctuary. If the bats go wild and destroy the farm, she sells off the animal sanctuary to pay for the damages. And yeah, it seems a bit harsh to ask her to gamble her life’s work for the sake of the whims of someone else, but hey, that’s what she was asking Applejack to do :P

@Badumsquish
But they didn’t really. Building a sanctuary and literally taking away their nature are completely different thing. They decided to look for an easy way out instead of working on a solution. Clearly from what Applejack said, she never truly experienced the bat infestation but was only told about it through Granny Smith, which means of course she never tried the sanctuary method ever. She never knew if it would work and seeing how it goes at the end of the episode, it clearly did. The problem wasn’t they were pressured. The problem was they wanted to have the easy way, rushed through things, and thought it would be done and done like nothing. Not only that but they also pressured Fluttershy into the method she clearly never agreed with but could only submit because not only is she Fluttershy, she was in a 5 vs 1 situation where her voice would be quieted down. Fluttershy never really asked for a compromised method which is not actually compromised. It leans into the other side which only wanted an easy way. Because of that, they paid the price. I do agree Applejack probably should have just consider not asking her friends for help the next time, but the episode did give a reason for the rest of her family’s absence. I’m guessing she would have dealt with it by herself and her family if it were for that reason. The point is Fluttershy was never really pressured and she was never really in the wrong. She gave an idea and her opinions but was severely shot down. Being her, Fluttershy eventually compromised despite finding it to be wrong. And while she didn’t really suffer for it, she was definitely turned into the scapegoat unfairly. The others may not be able to predict the effect of their method, but they still wanted things their way and it’s a rushed way at that.

@WaynePonePone
That’s the odd thing about the whole thing, is they effectively DID go with Fluttershy’s strategy of “keep them around”. Twilight just altered it so it was less likely they’d destroy the farm, and that backfired in a way nobody could have reasonably predicted. Between that and the damage ultimately done to the farm, Applejack should have either outright rejected Fluttershy’s plan with a second-dose of “I didn’t learn nothing I was right all along”, or still rejected it on the simple principle that now she can’t afford the risk of them destroying her apples since Flutterbat devastated her farm. If they had just gone with Applejack’s solution of “remove them”, or any of the solutions I suggested, literally nothing bad would have happened. It’s why it’s so weird that Applejack was framed as being in the wrong, and Fluttershy in the right :P

Though, how I would have ended that episode is Applejack runs to the recovered Fluttershy and says “Fluttershy, I want you to promise that you and Twilight will never help with my farm ever again”. Then end with Applejack giving the moral of “You shouldn’t let anypony pressure you into doing something that you don’t think is right. Sometimes you have to tell even your closest friends ‘no’” while all the vampire fruit bats are now living in Fluttershy’s Cottage XD

@Badumsquish
Honestly the moment Twilight is like “let’s remove their most natural animal instinct that helps them survive” and Fluttershy never went “Bro what if I remove your love for burgers? How would you feel?”, this episode went out of logic. And I mean Applejack called her friends over to help. It’s kind of her wish for them to give her ideas on how to save her farm. If she really wanted to deal with a problem that is plaguing her farm, maybe she shouldn’t have asked ponies outside of her farm to deal with it, especially one that particularly loves animals. If they weren’t her friends, she’d probably have to pay them for pest control. If I was called over to help someone with a problem but they don’t accept my solution anyway, what’s the point of calling me there? Or let’s say I hire a professional to deal with some pests, I would still have to let them do it however they want no matter how much it would keep the pests alive since I hired them.

Fluttershy was never really pressuring Applejack. She was more like “Hey, maybe we can go with a more peaceful route. It’s at least worth a try.” and she eventually submits afterward. She was trying to ask nicely too since she is Fluttershy, but she was rejected harshly. The only reason Applejack actually submitted was because her and Twilight’s solution eventually caused something way more devastating for her farm than what Fluttershy suggested. Applejack basically got all her wishes until she realized her way actually didn’t work while Fluttershy never really even convinced anyone to try hers. She never pressured anyone. She asked, no one listened, so she compromised and went alone. Her friends pushed her, she submitted, she went along, it backfired, she was the scapegoat, and she never even said anything about it. “Finally trying her method because we accidentally turned her into a giant bat” doesn’t really count as being pressured. Really the idea of Fluttershy pressuring anyone is actually pretty absurd.

Though it’s not like I disagree with Applejack’s method. it did give us Flutterbat. If we can have permanent Flutterbat in the show, I wouldn’t mind either. :D

That’s pretty much my thoughts on the matter.

@WaynePonePone
@Dirty Bit
The main reason I sided with Applejack is it’s her farm. She’s the one who gains or loses from the decision they make. So while I still do think Applejack’s argument of “play it safe, remove the threat, keep what you have” is stronger than Fluttershy’s “take a risk, invest in the threat, potentially receive gains later”, honestly whoever has the stronger argument simply doesn’t matter: it’s Applejack’s farm. She owns it. It’s not like it was Applejack and Big Macintosh arguing over what to do; Fluttershy and the rest of their friends have no stake in the farm whatsoever. If Applejack wants to play it safe and remove a threat to it, rather than invest in the threat on the chance that it pays off in the future, that’s her decision to make and Fluttershy has no say in the matter no matter how much it bothers her. Besides, Fluttershy tends to make poor decisions when she thinks an animal is cute (Swarm of the Century) or when she’s trying to look out for it (Bird in the Hoof), while Applejack has dealt with destructive vampire fruit bat infestations in the past, so that ALONE I think gives Applejack the stronger argument :P

Though, that’s not why the episode doesn’t make sense. The episode doesn’t make sense because its own moral runs completely opposite to what happens. The moral, spoken word for word, is “You shouldn’t let anypony pressure you into doing something that you don’t think is right. Sometimes you have to tell even your closest friends ‘no’.” Yet Fluttershy spent the episode pressuring Applejack into doing something she didn’t think was right, and was shown to be in the right for it, while Applejack spent the whole episode telling her closest friend no yet was shown to be in the wrong for it. And, that’s not even getting into why don’t they move the bats to a sanctuary elsewhere, like Fluttassic Park here, plant some apple trees, and bring them apples until said trees grow, or relocate them to a wild grove of apple trees elsewhere. or how Twilight Sparkle thought they could take advantage of the better apple seeds from the apples the fruit bats eat after she mindfucked them into not eating apples anymore, or why losing a massive swath of her farm would make Applejack more inclined to risk what she had rather than double-down on playing it safe until her farm recovers, or why they thought a solution using a mirror would work on a vampire. The list goes on, but it’s still a fun episode XD

@Dirty Bit
That’s because Applejack didn’t try Fluttershy’s method before. Listen to Fluttershy!

That may be true, but no matter how good they could potentially be in the future, they were still a huge problem for the present harvest and even moreso in the past.

@Dirty Bit
Nooooo, she offered a solution that doesn’t involve hurting the bats. She is the animal expert so we should always listen to her about animals. I mean what if Fluttershy tries to tell Applejack how to harvest Apples, right? And like, all the stubbornness and insisting all just resulted in Flutterbat…

Actually now that I think about it, that’s not so bad anymore.

I feel the same way

That was one of the episodes where I couldn’t stand by Fluttershy. She was defending literal pests.

@Badumsquish
The voice of reason is Fluttershy! They should have listened to Fluttershy!

@Background Pony #C25E
@Just Wayne
Still not my jam though. I’m a way bigger fan of spooky Halloween-themed episodes. It’s why I love Bats! even though the plot makes zero sense and it’s one of those episodes where nothing bad would have happened if they’d just listened to reason. Reason being Applejack XD

@Dirty Bit
I saw the gif of that. My working theory is that Marble becomes Opaline because of that XD

@Background Pony #9659
:D

@Badumsquish
I enjoy Badumsquish lore and worldbuilding.

@Badumsquish
Other than the gift thing which happened because of Derpy so it makes sense, the other ones aren’t really in this special. Unless the asshole thing is talking about Discord but that’s besides the point. It’s really worth watching though, especially since it introduced Pistachio and has the aforementioned Derpy scene. :3

Funny enough, the special is 90% gift drama, but it’s still an okay watch.

@Badumsquish
I highly recommend this specific christmas special. It’s really good, features some adorable characters that never show up anywhere else, has wonderful songs, and in general is just so comfy. Even if it does land in the top-left portion of that chart, it does it really well.

GO BACK TO THE FIRE NATION! D:<

@Just Wayne
@hawthornbunny
@Background Pony #C25E
Oh, lol. I thought you were talking about the changeling who moves into Brownie Bun’s house XD

Admittedly, I never watch Christmas specials of shows, because:

He studied the needle.