Unpopular opinion time

@Background Pony #FC15  
Twilight gets on my nerves a bit, yet I still really enjoy that episode.

It annoyed me a bit that Tirek never got his stronger form despite the supposed significant power from the bell. Though I suppose it would mean Cozy and Chrysalis would become (even more) irrelevant.
 
Twilight’s Kingdom still felt like the “highest stakes” point the show ever got to me, despite the several subsequent finales having a lot more characters more directly involved in the villains’ defeat.

@Josh103  
I think that School Raze and To Where and Back again (in that order) had higher stakes due to the Mane Six being MIA for one reason or another, though that’s just me.

@Background Pony #FC15  
I still need to rewatch that episode to see if my opinion has changed

@Background Pony #FC15  
It’s one of those things were the claim that it’s repeating the same lesson from an earlier episode is like totally objectively true, but whether or not that negatively effects the episode is a matter of opinion :P
 
I would have done it through flashbacks. Like, Sunburst would have learned he was going to be Princess Twilight’s partner, and been all excited like “We can’t lose!” and then Shining Armor would be like “Oh she can’t lose alright, you poor bastard” and he’d be like “What?” So Shiny would tell of the time they were partners in that game, cut to them as foals, where Twilight’s being a complete maniac and just making a scene and ruining it for everyone. Then cut back to the present day and Sunburst is like “She’s not that bad, right?!” Then have Pinkie Pie try to stand up for Twilight and tell of the time THEY were partners in it, but being innocently insensitive Pinkie she makes Twilight out to sound even worse. Cut to unicorn Twilight and her being partners a few years back and she’s being a complete rules-lawyering tool and ruining it for everyone. So now Sunburst is scared and he wants to weasel out of it, but cut to like him imagining what that would be like and Twilight’s just being a complete psychopath about it because THAT’S AGAINST THE RULES. So he bites the bullet and does the trivia match, and to his surprise she’s a little intense but a totally good sport and a complete pleasure to be partners with :D
 
So basically, all the jokes from the episode would have been in-tact, with the added benefit of getting to make Twilight be even WORSE in Sunburst’s imagination, but would have shown Twilight’s character development from over the series and even would have ended on the lesson that people change and mature over time and that you shouldn’t base opinions of people on the second-hand gossip and stories from other people which I think are really good lessons :D

@Badumsquish
 
And plus, it’d spare us the OOC Sunburst we got…

@Mildgyth  
Exactly. Someone being scared that someone they barely know is going to give them a hard time is pretty relatable. Like, we’ve all dreaded having to deal with someone since we’ve expected it to be a terrible affair, only to learn that it totally wasn’t bad at all XD

@Badumsquish  
I mean aren’t the lessons, “don’t rely on second hand gossip” done with Bridle gossip” and you should trust that people over time develop done in “Summer Sun Setback”?
 
 
@Mildgyth  
How exactly was he OOC? The guy might not be that into it to other things, but a trivia test could get him.

@landshark15  
I don’t think that it counts if it’s an ep or movie from EQG.

@landshark15
 
Plus it’s honestly FUN seeing him act like that. (Didn’t he also end up pulling the “overexaggerates behavior to teach another character a lesson” card there too? I don’t remember)

@Meanlucario  
“Bridle Gossip” the episode where Zecora debuts in Season 1, and “Summer Sun Setbacks” the episode where the legion of doom infiltrate Canterlot to get a book on Grogar’s bell, are parts from the EQG series and not FIM. Okay my dude.

@landshark15  
Not that I really got out of them. I got a “Don’t judge a book by its cover” and a “We can do it if we work together” kind of vibe out of them respectively. Besides, they’ve redone lessons over before: literally every Fluttershy episode was “grow a pair” for like the longest time XD

@landshark15  
My mistake than, Summer Sun Setbacks just sounds like an EQG title.

@Badumsquish  
I mean if you’re stretching how it is, then yeah it sounds different, but “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is the same thing as “don’t believe in second hand gossip” both are saying you shouldn’t rely on pre-conceived assumptions. How did you get the “We should work together” lesson from the latter episode? A big highlight at the end of the episode is that Twilight shows she calmer in dire situations now, and that her friends could have fix the solution sooner if they just trusted her to handle it well.

@landshark15  
Because they’re working together and stuff works fine, then Chrysalis convinces them to not work together and stuff goes to hell, then Twilight takes charge and makes them work together again and everything is fine again, and Twilight literally says “Panicking won’t solve anything. But we can handle whatever problems come our way as long as we handle them together!” at the end :D

@Badumsquish  
Chrysalis didn’t say to make them not work together nor does it look like she was trying to do that considering Tirek just absorbed magic from ponies and Cozy gave bad advice to the pegasus managing the weather. Chrysalis did try to appeal to the fireworks unicorn’s pride, but none of the other two villains tried something like that and they never tried causing strife between the Mane 6. Hell the Mane 6 never really felt apart from each during that episode, their main concern was to not worry Twilight, when Twilight could have just handled it well. Fluttershy even says to Twilight “We tried to fix it ourselves.” I’m starting to doubt you remembered that episode well considering that line Twilight said came after the part where Twilight’s friends admitted they were trying to avoid worrying Twilight.

@landshark15  
Exactly. If they’d worked together none of that would have happened. Besides, Twilight literally says that’s the lesson (it’s one of the quotes on the wiki article) and “There are many things you can’t do alone” is the listed aesop on the TV Tropes article. You can certainly argue that people took the lesson wrong, but a LOT of people took “work together” as the end lesson :P

@Badumsquish  
And what exactly was preventing them from trying to get Twilight to help them, oh yeah that’s right, them not trusting her she wouldn’t handle it well. It was last thing they talked with each other in that episode where they apologized to Twilight and say they’ll try to believe her in the future. TvTropes isn’t exactly canonical god when saying things. If working together was the lesson of this episode then why is Twilight the only one “not working together with them” as opposed to all her friends “not trusting Twilight”? The focus of the episode leaned towards the latter more than the former.

@Mildgyth  
OOC?  
I liked Sunburst in that episode, I liked seeing him act that way.

@Myoozik  
People use the term “OOC” when they mean, “character does an action that I personally don’t agree with”.

I liked “A Trivial Pursuit” personally, mainly because I do competitive trivia. And yes, it is that stressful. And if I had to play with Pinkie Pie, I would’ve lost my damn mind. So yeah, I can feel Twilight’s reaction so hard- most people in that sphere would’ve behaved similarly.

@GenericArchangel  
It’s not the greatest episode ever made, but I just love the concept of putting a bunch of characters into a room and see how they react off of each other.

@Myoozik
 
Also it’s amusing how they actually played Starlight’s usual PTSD tendencies for laughs without her even being there (I’m pretty sure it was the only time Sunburst ever appeared in an episode WITHOUT Starlight).

I don’t think ATP is bad beyond Twilight being OOC with her treatment of Pinkie, but it really is a waste of a slot for Season 9.

@rdibp  

 
It’s happened with Rainbow Dash, it’s happened with Starlight (then again, the case I’m thinking of [didn’t happen on Derpi] right now for that one was a complete nutjob even aside from their opinion of “I understand her better than the writers do,” not to mention their horrid way to cope with dissent), it’s happened with Applejack I’m sure, it’s happened with Pinkie, Twilight etc, so on, so forth.
 
 
@Jarkes
 
 
To my knowledge, I’m not sure Sunburst had ever had an episode without her (other than that one, you mentioned); for a pair of the “not sure they’d even remember to eat” variety, Moondancer would probably have that as a guaranteed outcome if you paired them together (if they, you know, didn’t have her mostly be a one-off character).