Unpopular opinion time

@Background Pony #72E7  
Well the last one should certainly have been earlier, yes (dunno about that early though). And some of the others might have breathed better without the pressure of a final season. (On the other hand, several just sucked, or are inextricable from their context… and some are just fine where theu are.)

Honestly, while action itself sounds like a great way to keep up the pace, I’m just content with the heroes winning one way or another.

@Latecomer  
Which episodes do you think qualify for the latter two?

@Background Pony #72E7  
Just sucked? Stuff like Fake It ‘Til You Make It, Yakity-Sax, 2, 4, 6, Greaaat and Daring Doubt.
 
Inextricable? Surf and/or Turf, A Matter of Principals, Friendship University, Uprooted, Sparkle’s Seven, She’s All Yak, Sweet and Smoky and so on.
 
Fine where it was? The Maud Couple,The Parent Map, The Break Up Break Down, Molt Down, The Mean 6,The Hearth’s Warming Club, The Washouts, A Rockhoof and a Hard Place, What Lies Beneath, Father Knows Beast, Common Ground , Student Counsel, The Big Mac Question… much more 8 stuff with only a little 9.

@Latecomer  
I didn’t think Fake It ‘Til You Make It was that bad tbh. Although, I agree with you on the other three (especially Daring Doubt).
 
Inextricable, in a way that it’s fine where it is? Or even if it aired earlier, it’d still be bad?

@AC97  

 
Only if you’re not trying to insult everyone’s intelligence.

@Latecomer  
GUIHTD feels like it’s before The Cutie Mark Chronicles, the CMC are treated on the level of Stare Master. CMC in CotC, SM and GUIHTD = 7, CMC in every other CMC episode = 14.
 
@Latecomer  
@Background Pony #72E7  
Daring Doubt wouldn’t have been so bad if its message wasn’t contradicted by the finale. Graeme MacDonald and Desirae Salmark don’t appear to be in the credits for any other episodes, so it’s likely by then the finale was 100% finished but hadn’t been seen so as to not spoil the Grogar is Discord twist (which while perfectly in-character for Discord is still probably worse than anything Shyamalan has ever come up with), this is further supported by the only S9 episodes outside the main season arc (1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 24, & 25) to be referenced was Common Ground. In fact, I still stand by my theory (not hypothesis) that The Last Problem is episode 9 in production order (The Ending being 7 & 8 and GUIHTD being both 11 and 27).
 
Also, Yakity-Sax is the worst episode of the entire show and about second worst of the whole IP, at least NCC had some funny moments and Ocellus as a piranha to ease the pain.

@Wiimeiser  
I don’t hate Daring Doubt because the message contradicts the finale. I hate it because they completely destroy the Daring Do legacy by turning her into the “real” villain all along just to justify two villains’ redemptions (who previously had never shown anything hinting at their true natures) and so Fluttershy can be right.

@Background Pony #72E7  
Welcome to why Fluttershy episodes tend to fail when someone has to be wrong.

@Background Pony #72E7  
I’m pretty sure that’s not what the episode says at all.

@rdibp  
“This character who has never before been hinted at being sympathetic suddenly has all their villainous deeds justified because it turns out they were actually protecting their property. Oh, and your idol is in fact a horrible pony making things hard on this poor creature.”
 
Daring Do should’ve remained a fictional character.

@rdibp  
“There are two sides to every story, and you shouldn’t write someone off before hearing their side of the story.”  
I get what the moral they’re trying to teach us is. The problem is how they executed it. Because by the end of the episode, two villains are retconned so they can have redemption, and Daring/AK Yearling’s reputation as both an adventurer and author are completely destroyed. What’s worse is that this is the last Daring Do episode so there’s absolutely no chance at all to fix or address it. But hey, who cares right? As long as Fluttershy gets to show that she was right all along and is able to impart an important moral to us, that’s all that really matters in the end.

@Background Pony #72E7  
Inextricable in that they center on late-season characters or situations. Although personally, I didn’t really love or hate any of the listed eps for that category - they were just kind of there.

I don’t really like Daring Doubt all that much either, but I think it gets way too much hate.

@Background Pony #72E7  
I think Fluttershy just went up JoshScorcher’s hated characters list, to between Brian Griffin and Lucien Fairfax.

@rdibp  
When you turn everything people thought they knew on it’s head, it can get pretty bad.

@Latecomer  
I only find the very ending to be bad. Also Fluttershy doesn’t bother me at all.

I hate it because it’s something that Fluttershy should be doing more often. At that point in the series, she’s more known for light to explosive browbeating.

@Background Pony #72E7  
Me neither, I liked seeing Fluttershy get overtaken by the three alter egos and I didn’t mind the ending of the episode either.
 
@Background Pony #72E7  
Agree on this too. I never cared for Daring Do at all as a character nor the whole controversy whether she should’ve been fictional or not, but I still can’t help but feel put off that that’s the note that they decided to end it on for her. Oh and Fluttershy being right again because she HAS to be right in order for it to be a proper Fluttershy episode.

@WyrmSpawN  
Shouldn’t you be glad she’s living up to her Element for once then?

@Latecomer  
Not at the expense of putting her in this moral high ground where she always has to be the one who’s right.

Hurting Fluttershy or even TRYING TO could be considered a massive Moral Event Horizont.

@[Ω]  
And that was ESPECIALLY true in the early days of the fandom.

@The Equestrian Zodiac  
I think that is still prevalent until now.  
Not even the show dared to hurt Fluttershy.

Can anyone think of occasions where she was actually wrong/on the receiving end of a lesson?