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Sad will be the day when Merriwether Williams decides to get a Twitter account. Or decides to Google herself.
Well apparently AJ is really big on her farm not being a “big business” thing, but still. There are rows. There’s SOME order to it all.
I just think it was simplified in a poor way. I personally would have done it differently (say, have Fluttershy find another place for them to all go where the fruit is even better than AJ’s) but I guess that’s why I’m not a freelance cartoon writer.
It makes the most sense you could say, but look what happened. Aj saw how her actions transformed her friend, and at that point her orchard was no longer first priority.
Well, just because they call it an orchard doesn’t mean the show treats it like one. The trees aren’t really in rows. They’re just kinda in ‘clusters’, AND in real life that is how seeds are spread (except… bats shit them out not spit). The purpose of an orchard is not to be super organized (ideally they can be) but their purpose is to grow their crop. It doesn’t matter whether a tree is growing out of a row, what matters is it’s growing and isn’t going to potentially cause harm to the trees around it. Besides, nature does a pretty good job of making sure they’re ordered enough so they don’t strangle each other with their roots, that’s why it’s good that they’re strewn around everywhere in large abundance since there’s a bigger chance more trees will grow. While planting them orderly some may die and now you don’t have as many as you purposefully planted.
The problem with Fluttershy’s solution is that the farm may not be able to survive the short term consequences to reap the rewards of the long term benefits. However, by keeping them contained to a certain section the farm can continue to grow while the bats destroy one part and sow the seeds everywhere meaning more trees. We also have to understand that this is a children’s show and sometimes things need to be left out or simplified to keep things from getting waaay to complicated. Yes saying it’s a children’s show is not an excuse for bad writing, but this wasn’t badly written; it was just simplified. also remember, they’re constrained to maximum 21 minutes (including credits). For what she had to work with, I’d say Merriwether did a good job.
Except “the short sighted way” is actually the way that makes the most sense and is to the benefit of AJ for the longest. Let’s be honest here: given a choice of ponies or wild animals, Fluttershy will pick the latter most of the time. I don’t care how smart the bats are, they’re clearly not as smart as ponies.
But really, my biggest problem is this:
Pray tell, what is the benefit of having your seeds randomly strewn everywhere in an orchard, where the point of it is to have even rows that all are at the same stage of development.
The single, sole benefit that Fluttershy gave to AJ for letting the fruit bats stay defeats the entire purpose of having an orchard. That is why the episode is so weird for me.
Oh definitely, heck if there were a bat in my attic I’d be beating it out of my house with a broom. The episode wasn’t saying it was bad to dislike them and want to get rid of them, the ponies see them as monsters so they’re actions are understandable. However Fluttershy suggests keeping them contained in a part of the orchard like the fruit bats, but Aj’s having none of it. You know it’s like this saying my mom would say tell me “el uno que lo hace de manera flojo: trabaja doble” which roughly translates to “the one who does it the lazy way, will end up working twice as much”. Replace that with “the short sighted way” and we have pretty much what happened to Aj. I don’t think the way it was done was explained as well as it could have been, but time constraints and all.
Sorry, I’m just the kind of guy where if it’s between a person (pony) and a swarm of pests, I’ll side with the person. Would take a lot to convince me that the bats should have been allowed to stay, and I don’t really “buy” the way it was done.
I also think there are occasions where if neither side wins, both sides should lose.
What do you mean?
She was never implied to not know what an orchard was. and if so, when? Applejack was too short sighted. By coercing Fluttershy into using her stare and using the quick (and non time consuming) solution she only created more problems down the road which almost cost her her friends life (not death-wise, but you know what I mean). AJ was never said to be in the wrong for wanting the bats out of her orchard, it was how she wanted to deal with them. The episode taught that there isn’t always only one right solution, and that you have to think about all your options, consider long term benefits, and try suggested solutions.
“except for maybe anthropomorphizing the bats” when did they make the Bats look more human? if anything Aj made them look more like hideous beasts. While Fluttershy made them look like furbies.
“made more sense when you consider that if she hadn’t chosen everyone would have lost everything.”
and how is that a good thing? Tell me, how is it being true to her element by choosing not to be disloyal to either team when by doing so she’s dooming both teams to failure. Thus not helping her friends and not being there for them when they needed her.
I just can’t get over the fact that Fluttershy apparently doesn’t know what the point of an orchard is. Applejack literally did nothing wrong except for maybe anthropomorphizing the bats too much. Although Fluttershy did that WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more and to the detriment of her friends’ livelihood.
When I was talking about morality, I meant the “choosing not to choose” thing. Which worried me when I first heard it, but made more sense when you consider that if she hadn’t chosen everyone would have lost everything.
Did they now? I heard no one complaining when it was supposedly McCarthy’s episode. Some person thought Power Ponies was by Merriwether and stated in a blog that they hated it and called it the worst episode, when corrected they did a 130 and said it was an ok episode. Yeah, people don’t like her episodes because they’re her episodes.
Oh please, Powell’s Rainbow Falls was just a mess: the humor fell flat, all the characters were annoying, the running gags were stupid, Dash’s dilemma doesn’t even have any weight since she never doubted she would lose with either team (she wanted to fly “with the best team” and that was just incredibly selfish and shallow). Literally the choice before her was: “we’re cool” vs. “we’re your friends”.
It wouldn’t be questionable morality if it “fit in contex”. If it did then the morality shouldn’t have been questionable; you, just contradicted yourself.
Watch TheMysteriousMrEnter’s review of the episode. He explains very well why ‘Rainbow Falls’ is a complete flop.
Uh huh. Yeah, I think that was just a few Adventure Time fans.
@Leapingriver
Yeah, no. People had a LOT more problems with Williams’ episode in S4 than with Powell’s. Powell had questionable morality in Rainbow Falls, but it made sense within context.
Indeed they do. I think it’s unfair to judge whether a writer is good or bad based solely on their first attempt. I mean look at Corey Powell: everyone lauded her as an amazing writer after SiP. but both her following episodes were very poorly written, yet people still idolize her. The opposite is for Merriwether, especially with the episode ‘Bats!’: near universally loved and adored by many. That is until it was revealed that Williams wrote it. All of a sudden half the fandom hates it and pointing of minuscule plot holes and blowing them out of proportion just to justify their hate for her and her episodes. I find it aggravating, when TMMDW “fix it fics” pretend Dash did nothing wrong and close to villainize the Mane5. I think it would have been a good episode if only we were able to see it from the Mane5’s pov in another episode or something.
People assume too much, speak without knowing; ever since TMMDW fans have been fictionalizing her and spreading words to make her look bad and better pass their fanfiction as the real thing.
@Itsthinking
So you were just making shit up. I’m not surprised.
didn’t she only write like two episodes for Angry Beavers? She wrote for SB before it went bad, her episodes are among the fan favorites. I think Merriwether liked writing Squidward, considering she wrote two of his best episodes. I think she also wrote for Camp Lazlo, one of which won an Emmy! MLP seems to be her kryptonite, since she’s also written really well for LPS. But she does seem to be improving and warming up to the fandom.
This comment. I would do the same.
You and me must have similar tastes in writers. She’s my 4th fave.
Meh, probably was wrong.
The hell are you talking about? She was one of the main forces behind Adventure Time, she helped define it.
Adventure Time and especially FiM are radically different shows from SpongeBob and Angry Beavers.
And yet, unless I’m mistaken, she wrote one of the best SpongeBob episodes of all time.
Not just this fandom, either. Don’t think Adventure Time fans liked when she was on that show very much.
Knowing the fandoms general opinion about her that’s no wonder.
I’m sure it would be the first of many calm, level-headed, and rational discussions she’ll have with this fandom about her work.
Merriweather Williams: She sometimes does okay or even great!
Also this interpretation of her ponified OC is fairly cool. I can just imagine her mumbling about how she’s a great writer, wants to impress McCarthy-senpai, and sometimes gets into fights with Corey Williams.