Season 7 Episode Discussion [Speculation, Discussion, Spoilers] (SPOILER YOUR LEAKS)

@Anonycat  
Yes, and Gauntlet of Fire exploits all of that. “Adventure” episodes do not literally have to be about an adventure, they just need to be a proper fantasy story, and not a modern sitcom with magic in it.

@LeoNero  
I think the second act of it was pretty weak with them all arguing over what decorations to take down. Plus Spike having to stall Twilight made absolutely no sense at all. The reason why Twilight was out at the spa was because she KNEW that they were working on the castle. Spike could’ve just been like “Hey Twilight, something went wrong and they need a bit more time to work on the castle.” but instead we had Spike stalling Twilight to prevent her from seeing something that she already knew what was going on.
 
But besides that, I found it to be pretty charming and a nice little follow up episode to the library being destroyed. Plus the ending with the symbolism of the tree roots was really great and pretty touching.

@Darth Sonic  

 
C’mon, now.

@rdibp  
And i noticed some people say Saddle Row Review was Castle Sweet Castle done right.

@PonyPon  
There’s a reason I used scare quotes. Adventure Episode is Brony slang for lore/fantasy heavy episodes, as distinct from the “magical sitcom” stuff. Frankly, we should probably call them Fantasy Episodes instead, or Lore Episodes. But marking an episode down because it wasn’t a proper “adventure” is asinine.

@LeoNero  
I can kinda agree with that. It was essentially Castle Sweet Castle but without all that stalling bullcrap and characters arguing with each other. Not saying CSC is bad, but the flaws in that episode kept it from being “great” and just “okay”
 
On the lighter side, the bit with Bulk Biceps at the spa had me in stitches first time I watched it.

@rdibp  
The contrived coincidence of everyone visiting the place at once plus the dangers of Everfree Forest being sudenly ignored for plot’s sake and the ensuing cliche storm of “wacky” coincidences and confusions was a major dealbreaker for a lot of people.
 
 
@LeoNero  
I disliked Saddle Row Review but I will say it was an episode technically well made.
 
Also, whoever says that all adventuring is already done and finished clearly has forgotten that after 6 seasons we still know jack about Zecora’s homeland, or Saddle Arabia, or Celestia and Luna’s homeplace, plus Everfree Forest wasn’t explored but simply forgotten and there’s pending business at the Bison lands, Appleloosa, YakYakistan, Gripphon land, etc.
 
There’s a lot of unexplored stuff waiting for a writer who cares.

@Anonycat  
Why are you ignoring me?

@Anonycat
 
That’s Castle-Mania. Castle Sweet Castle is the one about the new castle and twi getting used to it.

I really hope the newer comics being connected to season 7 won’t be just references said by Twilight or Starlight.

@gingerninja666  
Aaargh you are so right.  
My bad.

@Anonycat  
Well those are unexplored areas, but your argument is about the adventure getting there, not the destination itself. This is why I prefer having the plot take place at the destination than spend extra time showing how the characters get to said destination.
 
Like in Party Pooped. As much as I like that episode, it spent way to much time showing Pinkie getting to Yakyakistan so that by the time she actually gets there, there is no time left and she is sent back literally skyrocketing to Ponyville. That also made the moral at the end pretty contrived since it didn’t really reflect on what Pinkie actually went through.

For what it’s worth, and I know that me and Anony don’t see eye to eye on a lot, but I marked down Gauntlet for it’s transition to the dragon land too. I remember being outspoken about that at the time, but it really bugged me.

@gingerninja666  
At least the episode itself was pretty good. I’ll admit that the sudden transition was pretty jarring, but I wouldn’t knock off points on the episode just for that.

@rdibp
 
The episode honestly felt smaller scale because of it to me. You need the shots establishing distance and stuff to get a sense of location and scale. I don’t think you would’ve needed to waste time with them either. In griffonstone the shots of them traveling pulled double duty as exposition with Twilight explaining things in a voice over. you could’ve done that here, with Tia and Luna explaining the call of the dragon lord and such.

@gingerninja666  
That’s… actually a pretty solid point.

@rdibp  
Spike’s traveling montage during Dragon Quest takes exactly one minute.
 
They could have used a montage of Twilight, Rarity and him aboarding a ship, arriving to a shore, walking, and even some gags where they use Spike as a compass to keep on the right path and later use him as a light source during a camping scene (attracting moths in the process) until eventually arriving at the gathering place if as I said, they could have skipped the running gag of Twilight and Rarity’s offscreen teleportation, which nerfed down the tension of the dragon competition just to fill some extra seconds with a cheap gag.
 
Yes, I fully understand they only have 22 minutes so every second literally counts. That’s why pointless gags or monumental wastes of time like Applejack’s general scenes during her day off episode can drive me over the wall.

@LeoNero  

 
Saddle Row Review was probably my second favorite episode of season 6. As for Castle Sweet Castle, I thought that episode was amazing as well but for different reasons.

@Anonycat  
No, seriously, am I on your ignore list or something? Can you even see my posts?

@Darth Sonic  
Don’t even try, Jarkes, me, and god knows what else tried to reason with him but nothing is piercing that ego, and ignores obvious holes in his criticisms.

@Vortaxonus
 
You can include me on that list.

@Vortaxonus  
I mean sure, but my first post was weak as PonyPon demonstrated, so I’m surprised Anonycat didn’t try to “pwn” me there.

Has it ever been confirmed whether Cloud Chaser and Flitter are sisters?

@Marx  
Nope! It’s just fanon for now.

@Marx  
If they are sisters then they already have a lot of incest under their belt.