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What happens when Ponyville finds out the truth behind Mare-Do-Well?
OMG, those Pinkie clones has messed everything up!
…Sort of thing. Every other time any of them had tried to talk some sense into her it had bounced right off her thick skull; they had no reason to assume they’d be able to talk her down from full Glory Hog Mode. It’s one of the reasons why MMDW is such a great and vitally important episode, because it was one of the first where Dash really had the character development of understanding that she’d been acting like an ass and actually learned something from it instead of immediately going right back to being a jerk again.
Okay…:
…now what? X3
the specific goal of upstaging Rainbow Dash
No, they didn’t. Just like they explicitly stated in the episode, they created MDW to show Dash that a hero could hero without also grandstanding.
mock and humiliate her
They never actually did that. In the scene at sugarcube Corner– a private party– they teased her in a far more gentle manner than the Mane Six usually tease each other, and when they saw that she was getting genuinely upset, they stopped teasing her. Their goal was never to make her feel bad about herself, but to show her that there was a non-gloryhog way to go about being heroic.
And they didn’t try to talk to her first
@Background Pony #E802
@Background Pony #E802
You keep saying they intended to humlliate her, but try to look at their actions from a storytelling point of view. There are many ways to establish that a character is trying to humilliate another:
-They could appear before she got a chance to try
-Toss her aside while she’s trying
-Not let her save a pony at the construction
-Stay and pose for pictures
-Direct people’s atention to her faliures
Nothing like this happened in the episode. Rainbow Dash had her chances, but waited to the last second, or wasted time, or goofed. The others just did the thing without even looking at or interacting with Rainbow Dash (except when Twilight saved her). The fact that their interactions with Rainbow Dash under the disguise were so minimal, that we only have the word of Rainbow Dash for it (because the episode follows her), and that the fame Mare-Do-Well got came naturally when they could have spread the word themselves or anything… It means that the accusations about the others being “passive-agresive”, “wanting to humilliate her”, “to upstage her”, “teach her a lesson”… well, they are way too indirect to believe. It’s ridiculous. Something out of Death Note rather than My Little Pony. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s the people who want to believe it so badly because of their emotional investement, and it led to people spreading misconceptions and feeding these misconceptions instead of simply paying more atention at the episode.
Hell, why hasn’t anyone simply asked the staff about this? Are they afraid of being wrong?
That’s not what they did. Look at it from their point of view. The ones present had no reason to think Rainbow Dash was bitter. Last time most of them saw her she was boasting at Sugarcube Corner, and none of them had seen her react to Mare-Do-Well before.
-Whoever saved the ballon pony was too busy running through the ceilings to notice Rainbow Dash below, and came first; Rainbow Dash crashed into the balloon after the fact; nobody saw Rainbow Dash being upset at “Mare-Do-Well”, not even “Mare-Do-Well”, who left the scene instantly.
-The same happened with Applejack and the carriage, she jumped to stop it from falling long after Rainbow Dash failed in her attempt.
-Twilight saved Rainbow Dash from the flood, and right away repaired the dam and left.
-With Fluttershy, see below. She didn’t notice Rainbow Dash. And if she did, it wasn’t enough to assume her reaction.
Each time enough noise was made to attract whoever was closer regardless of Rainbow Dash being involved. In all these situations Rainbow Dash ends up watching the scene from afar with nobody noticing her reaction to Mare-Do-Well. The only one who did was Pinkie Pie after the destruction, but she was not present during the scene you mention.
They never implied that Mare-Do-Well was superior, only that she was good at certain areas they considered important, wich doesn’t negate Rainbow Dash being a hero. It resonated with Rainbow Dash previously saying that only she could be a hero. But even if they assumed she was jelly for not getting to do those feats herself, none of them knew what Rainbow Dash was doing whenever they used the disguise, they didn’t know she was taking it so personal because she tried all those feats herself and failed (by her own fault), so when she loses it they are rightfuly surprised and confused.
Look at her during the scene, and pay atention to her only two lines in the episode. Given the context, both lines refer to what she did as Mare-Do-Well:
“She really cares about everypony’s safety.”
“Ooh, ooh! And I did the flyby afterwards.”
Her fligth somehow involved caring about others’ safety; and she used the word “flyby” especifically, a word that describes flying objects doing research while flying in circles, like satellites and planes.
Therefore, she heard the dam breaking and the flood, she went flying as fast as she could to see what was going on, she saw everything and everybody was fine (because of Twilight), so she did a turn and returned to where she came from. Rainbow Dash just happened to be on her way, crashing her was an accident. Nothing indicates she heard Rainbow Dash talking about her ability to fly. On the contrary; she, like the others, didn’t even have Rainbow Dash into account when saving ponies in disguise.
It succeeded after Mare-Do-Well had discombobulated Rainbow Dash to the point she was ready to listen. You really think she would have listened to her friends saying she needed to keep her ego in check when she was in the middle of basking in the glory of ponies feeding her ego?
The question isn’t “how much difference would it have made?”, it’s “how much difference did it make?” The answer is that it succeeded, while the plotting and mockery only served to upset her.
@Background Pony #FB9D
This is simply sugarcoating things, filling in gaps in ways that put their actions in the best light, while disregarding actions that indicate otherwise. The part with them personally boasting to Rainbow Dash about how much more awesome and heroic and humble they are leaves no room for sugarcoating, and Fluttershy flying past her serves no useful purpose except as a putdown.
It all comes down to the episode focusing on Rainbow Dash over the others, either because it was her episode or to not make the reveal too obvious, or both. But there is still a story going on with the other five, and when it’s revealed that Mare-Do-Well was them, we are required to look back at their side of things. But instead, people just assume wathever makes Rainbow Dash look better out of emotion (“Rainbow Dash felt that way, so it totally was their intention”), no matter how little it fits.
They never said they “created Mare-Do-Well”, or that they meant to upstage Rainbow Dash, and at no point do they talk about teaching her a lesson; that’s just what people like you assume without looking back at the episode.
The other five admired Rainbow Dash for saving ponies, but didn’t like the way she reacted to the atention. Because of this, they wanted to avoid atention if they ever saved ponies, getting a disguise that could hide their appearence and race, with a hat for the horn and a cape for the wings.
Their actions in disguise were not directed at Rainbow Dash, they did their own thing, leaving her alone because she was ok with the atention. Each time they heard something bad was happening, they rushed to help, risking their own lives to do so, and left as quickly as possible, under the protection of the disguise. None of them even noticed Rainbow Dash except Pinkie Pie after the construction incident.
But while they used the disguise to avoid atention, Mayor Mare gave the suit the name of “Mare-Do-Well” and turned it into a persona, a persona wich got atention just like Rainbow Dash did.
When they are in Sugarcube Corner, they aren’t “boasting about how much more heroic they were”, they feel good about their deeds and are celebrating them. What they did as Mare-Do-Well wasn’t meant to upset Rainbow Dash or compete with her, so they are surprised when she takes it so badly and leaves. Only Pinkie Pie, the one who saw Rainbow Dash being upset at Mare-Do-Well prior, is not present in this scene.
It’s here that they think something is bad regarding Rainbow Dash, and latter they lead her to an alley and talk to her. Before this they were only saving ponies their way.
Nothing they say at the end implies that they humilliated or upstaged her. They talk about humility and stuff because it has come to that. When they say Rainbow Dash was bragging and rubbing it, they meant how she couldn’t save ponies because she bragued too much and how she annoyed others by opening jars and mowing and all that. And when they say that celebrating their accomplishments is natural, they are refering to what they actually did at Sugarcube Corner. That is all.
tl;dr the first time they are at Sugarcube Corner, they see Rainbow Dash and it motivates them to avoid getting atention when saving ponies; the second time they are at Sugarcube Corner, having saved some ponies, they see Rainbow Dash and realize they have to talk to her.
Now, the townsfolk aren’t at fault for anything. They celebrated when Rainbow Dash saved ponies, they got annoyed when Rainbow Dash became invasive, and they celebrated when Mare-Do-Well saved ponies. Simple as that.
Rainbow Dash, on her part, originally saved ponies because she cared, and it was good. But eventually she only did it for the atention, and so she failed. It was her own fault, her faliures weren’t caused by Mare-Do-Well, Mare-Do-Well was simply more competent because they cared, to the point of risking their life to save others.
Plenty assume that, but we’ll never know, because the effort was never put forth.
I love how people say they should have talked to Rainbow Dash first, as though that would have any more of a difference than a gnat’s fart in a hurricane.
Oh yeah, pretty much. The first few fics give you catharsis, but after the next few fics, you’re sick of them. Especially when they harp on minor stuff.
I just feel that many of those fanfics dealt with it very poorly. And it annoys me even further when fanfics that have nothing to do with those episodes suddenly grind to a halt so that the author can use an OC as his mouthpiece to bash the characters for their actions in the episode.
Hah… Don’t worry about it. If I didn’t make it, chances are someone else would have.
That and I think I made the group because there were quite a lot of fanfics dealing with ACW’s consequences and there needed to be a collection.
There was no such line in the episode itself, though. They didn’t decide to humiliate her to teach her a lesson about how to save people’s lives, they decided to humiliate her because she was being boastful in front of her fan club. And the mockery wasn’t an unfortunate consequence of a perfectly well-intentioned plan, it was something they personally participated in. And they didn’t try to talk to her first and resort to their secret plan when that failed, they decided on passive-aggressive scheming immediately and resorted to talking things out when that failed.
…Aaaaaand this just got really awkward.
And let me add some more sadder news: I’m the one who founded the group.
Except… she was being arrogant about it and was caring more for the attention.
And you know, I’ll admit, there should’ve been a line in there about her endangering others. Just one line pointing that out probably would’ve made this episode a lot less divisive. But the actual intent is still clearly there, and the way certain events play out (like the chase scene) indicate that the mane five probably weren’t INTENTIONALLY trying to humiliate her, it just sort of… happened.
They said it was because she was being too arrogant. The “life-saving heroics” aspect was never mentioned, as much as people bring it up to defend their actions; it’s treated as a framing device at most, not as their actual motive for embarking on a revenge scheme without even trying to talk to her about it first.
Where in the episode does it say that the mane five were trying to mock and humiliate her because Rainbow “annoyed them?” Oh right, it doesn’t. At all.
And I actually like Rainbow Dash. She’s my favorite of the Mane Six. But I’m not gonna pretend that her flaws don’t exist.