@Dr Outback  
Trained Soldier? Twilight?  
I would have thought a soldier would have some measure of trigger discipline and weapon safety. Twilight has neither.

@Mayojar77  
again magic isn’t a gun. It’s more like hands. people have the ability go out and kick someones ass but for them to be able to do is well they have to learn how. Besides Twilight isn’t like an idiot with a gun she’s a trained soldier who does whatever feels right.

@Techy Pony  
While true, it doesn’t excuse her actions in the past.  
This was a freak accident, granted it was avoidable.

@Mayojar77  
The point is it really wasn’t a bad or I’ll advised solution. As far as you know Celestia would’ve said sure go ahead, it’s not like she would’ve known that Fluttershy’s state would’ve transferred the cravings since she couldn’t possible have seen that before.

@Dr Outback  
There is a difference. It’s the difference between having just the gun and having the gun with the bullets.

@Techy Pony  
At least she wouldn’t be making ill-advised decisions like using magic to solve a simple problem.

@Mayojar77  
not really. You need one for to do the other. Celestia isn’t the only to teach magic. If a unicorn is strong enough they would be able to self teach themselves through those numerous magic books at the library.

@Star Cavalcade  
Sure she could definitely take greater care, and really probably should take more opportunities to consult the other princesses. I bet you though that if every other episode Twilight was asking Celestia for advice everyone would be saying she’s helpless, can’t do anything on her own and need to grow a pair and take some initiative and learn/fail on her own.

@Techy Pony  
As a leader though, Twilight has access to a think tank of two 1000 year old princesses and a shaman with knowledge about nature that is unrivaled.  
Her first thought was ‘here’s a spell I found that’d be perfect’, seeing it as an opportunity to showcase her booksmarts than get a second opinion, especiially since you’d assume Celestia has seen this problem before, since it happened to the Apple family long ago.
 
I think the reason that people are so hard on Twilight is that she is that damn powerful, even before being an alicorn, and even greater care is needed with her talents.

@Dr Outback  
Unicorn Magic and Unicorn Magic Spells are two different things altogether.

@Dr Outback  
Not even when you have powerful firearms for hands?

@Star Cavalcade  
Yeah, I chock some things up to the fact that it is a cartoon after all.
 
However, if I go into it assuming this isn’t a cartoon then you realize that they’re not perfect, Twilight not being an exception. Twilight has far more power so it is expected that she is doing a lot of the work sometimes and being the one to try and enact some sort of solution. If she’s the one trying to solve things all the time it’s understandable that when things don’t go as planned it’s often her fault. These discussions have showed me that people expect leaders to be perfect (but not too perfect) and when they mess up they want someone to blame. They want a solution but no chance of risk, people just have unrealistic expectations and get mad for those expectations not being met. Twi’s plan backfired, Fluttershy’s plan sucked, and AJ sounded like she wanted to kill the bats. From that list I think I’d choose the one that had a chance of working any day, meaning Twi’s plan. (not the best plan, but the best of the plans offered)

@Mayojar77  
Unicorn magic isn’t the same as a weapon. you don’t need a license to use hands.

@Techy Pony  
Anything of that magnitude was always going to have some fallout, intended or not, and it’s kinda frightening to see how readily Twilight keeps restoring to these extreme solutions.
 
It’s like instead of just flying to rescue a kitty from a tree, Superman uses his heat vision or time travel.
 
@Mayojar77  
Sweet Apple Acres is almost destroyed on a regular basis, either from animals, poor weather or the Apple family’s gambling. Yet ponies seem to rely on apples even more than the Vampire Fruit Bats do.

@Questionmarktarius  
It was kind of already legitimate, this wasn’t the first episode with some kind of bat pony. I’ve always found little incisors on ponies in fan art kind of cute, so I’m not complaining.

@Mayojar77  
I don’t see how one pony eating the apples is worse then a hoard of them eating them. It was nearly destroyed either way because the vampire bat ponies invaded. Making Fluttershy a bat wasn’t worse for the fields, it just didn’t help. We also really have no idea what they were eluding to with Fluttershy having a fang. A vampire and a “vampire bad pony” are different. The bats sucked the juice from the apples, as far as we know that’s why they call them “vampire” bats, not really a big deal.
 
 
@The Twelfth Doctor Whoof  
If Twilight were put in jail then ponyville and all of equestria would have all died multiple times over. She has saved ponyville and equestria single handedly on many occasions with no negative side effects, why does everyone seem to focus on the bad, which end up really not being that bad?

@Techy Pony  
Seems the real consequence was, um…
 
..legitimizing batpony fanart?

@Techy Pony  
Still, Fluttershy’s now a Vampire, and Sweet Apple Acres nearly was destroyed because of Twilight using a spell she’s never used before. The only way this situation isn’t as bad as the one with parasprites is because this time they don’t have to deal with the aftermath of Twilight’s monsters.

@Mayojar77  
Possibly, but when it comes down to it the plan they had was perfectly fine. It went wrong not because twilight didn’t know the effects of the spell but because it somehow transferred to Fluttershy completely by accident. It was purely an accident that none foresaw but all agreed on the plan. Really no one deserves much blame. What were the consequences? Some more apples were eaten and Fluttershy now had adorable fangs, no big deal.

@Techy Pony  
She’s not getting the blame for the creatures, she gets the blame for making them worse. Hell, if Fluttershy hadn’t intervened in ‘It’s About Time’, she might have turned Cerberus into an absolute beast, as opposed to a soft-hearted but fiercely loyal guard dog.

@Star Cavalcade  
Okay, so they all agreed on the brainwashing. So why is that solely Twilights fault? If the president tells you to fire a nuke and we go to war do you blame the one pushing the button or the one who made the decision? I’m this case though they all made the decision, they all share the blame.

@Star Cavalcade  
Twilight didn’t make the parasprites and had they moved the bats again Twi didn’t make them. They weren’t a problem because of Twilight, she simply screwed up and made them a different type of problem. I don’t see why she’s getting all the blame for all the ridiculous creatures in equestria.

@Techy Pony  
Fluttershy was against the brainwashing as well, but only went along when she was convinced by everyone that there was no other option, and the lesson of the episode was that she was wrong to do so.

@Zennistrad  
But seriously, they don’t even let you fire a gun in most western countries unless you’re trained to not fire randomly on everything.

@Background Pony #23C9  
Yeah, that’s cartoon continuity.