Season 9 Discussion Thread [NO SPOILERS, DF airings only]

@AC97  
Oh, I’m determined to see this show to the very end.
 
Funny thing, actually. I was just thinking about “Once Upon A Zeppelin”, and how you can make an entertaining episode by sticking a bunch of characters in a room and letting them play off each other. I thought the setup felt familiar.

A small change that would’ve heavilly inproved the episode was giving Twilight a better motivation for winning. Like say a lifetime supply of books, or a very expensive one of a kind quill set, or money that could go towards the school.
 
Having it be her third win in a row just makes Twilight look egotistical. A better motivation would’ve also been a better explanation towards her insanity.

@DerpyFast  
Once Upon a Zeppelin is easily in my top 5 favorite episodes. I still like todays ep, but I guess I was just being too overly optimistic.

 
Pinkie is still OP. She can casually do stuff like that, yet apparently be in good shape.
 
Must be some magic involved.

Finally watched the episode.
 
Before I continue, a little fun fact: I was team captain of my high school’s varsity trivia team. We competed at the national level.
 
With that out of the way, I have to say that I get why Twilight’s supposed to be wrong, but she’s abso-fucking-lutely well within her rights to criticize Pinkie Pie’s playing. We had a rule where certain people on the team weren’t supposed to hit the buzzers unless it was a category you knew beyond a doubt, to prevent exactly what happened in this episode. While getting Pinkie disqualified is too far, she was saddled with an unfair disadvantage by playing with her at a competitive event. This clearly counts for something, given how seriously everybody took it. The best solution would be to tell Pinkie to sit it out unless it was something she knew she knew, like cupcakes. As is, I feel Twilight. What she did was wrong, but like I get it. Trivia is a very stressful environment and frustration with teammates comes with the territory.
 
Edit for clarity: I liked this episode, because I get it, I really do. I have never sympathized with Purple Smart so much.

@GenericArchangel
 
(Another) frustrating part of the episode was the blurring of the line between a casual and competitive environment.
 
It would be easy to chalk off Twilight tryharding the hell out of a casual event, but it turns out it is quite competitive… cept when it comes to the ways you can get fucked over out of nowhere by literally anyone participating which you didn’t account for.

@GenericArchangel  

As someone who takes his trivia seriously, I couldn’t agree more.
 
Honestly I think I would find all the complaints more compelling if Twilight had been outright running roughshod over the proceedings and the only one taking things that seriously, but that’s not really the case at all. It’s clear from the start that the only thing more competitive than Applejack and Rainbow Dash teamed together is the two of them on separate sides, and Sunburst cares so much about his correct answer percentages he tries to pull the same trick Twilight did (albeit less successfully). And while it’s true that Twilight’s characteristic obsessiveness is kind of turned up to maximum, I can’t help but feel the fact that the only stakes at play were ones personal to Twilight (i.e., being extremely knowledgeable) kind of makes the whole situation a bit understandable. This isn’t something like the Running of the Leaves, where the event itself has importance beyond mere competition, and even knowing the lessons on good sportsmanship from that time, it’s still easy to go overboard in situations where there is no larger goal of victory than personal pride.
 
And on the subject of personal pride, it is a bit surprising that Pinkie herself was not more helpful in this situation. As someone who is herself an expert on the likes and dislikes of pretty much everyone in Ponyville, who as a long time friend of Twilight has seen her get this way more than a few times and knows the importance Twilight would place on a victory like this, she certainly should have know how seriously Twilight would approach this and could have put more of an effort into focusing as well. Twilight did at least put some effort into trying to meet her halfway, providing instructions and giving her the opportunity to answer even when she herself clearly knew the answer. And while it doesn’t excuse her later behavior, it’s not like she threw her under the bus question one and never looked back either. Plus in the end she not only embraces Pinkie’s “let’s just have fun” approach, she willingly throws away any chance she has of achieving the very goal she was out to accomplish by way of apology.
 
Frankly when it all comes down to it I can see why some people might find the episode a bit off-putting, but I don’t think it was bad by any means. It’s a character study that once again pairs two of the show’s most diametrically opposite personalities together and lets the situation play out, for good and bad. I find it hard to find fault with that.

Man, what’s going on with Twilight the last couple episodes? They REALLY forced the Twilighting in this episode. If you like that kind of stuff, good for you. I didn’t. it felt so forced and exaggerated. Also, who the hell won? That was the most abrupt ending i think i ever saw. It’s like the episode wasn’t finished!
 
F

@DerpyFast  
I like your new avatar, and I like the fact that it’s similar to your last one

@LeoNero
 
You have no idea what it’s leading into.

This twilight episode… Is something… I guess :/

@AC97
 
Well, at least she triggered the “cartoon fatness” gag. If you truly want OP, consider Sunset….
 
>>2067141p (merged)
 
She ate all of this in one sitting and didn’t gain so much as a single pound.

@Spinny  
My arteries are getting clogged just looking at that

@Spinny  
That’s not what makes her OP. It’s that she did that without being Pinkie Pie.

@Spinny  
I mean, she is a horse disguised as a human. I’d assume her caloric needs are proportionally higher as a result.

@LeoNero  
All you need to know about who won was that it would’ve taken an asspull for it to have been Team Twipie.

@Vivace  
I’ve seen some pretty impressive comebacks in competitive trivia. Depending on how many questions were left, it’s very possible.

@GenericArchangel  
So an impressive comeback, which the trajectory suggested to those unfamiliar with this kind of competition was unlikely, especially since a win by them would probably get mentioned.

You know the fact that we saw more freakout from Twilight in this episode about a silly Trivia game, than her actually becoming the ruler of an entire land is just downright absurd.
 
Seriously, if you asked me to become a new ruler of a country out of the fucking blue, i would have anxiety like a motherfucker and probably throw up all over the place to have that kind of responsibility put on me like that.

@Vivace  
I’ll add that whether or not they won is irrelevant, since Twilight had stopped really caring about that.
 
@LeoNero  
I mean, competitive trivia is pretty intense, man.

@LeoNero  
Ok, when you put it like that, it reminds me of getting all your laughs out ahead of time so that when something funny happens, you’re poker-faced. Makes me think that a Doylian reason for this episode was to get all the rest of the Twilighting out of her system now so that when she’s put in charge, she’s not going Twily-nanas, publicly nor privately.

On the upside of things, I kind of like being able to enjoy an episode that a lot of people hate.
 
Makes me feel special. C:

@rdibp  
That’s how I feel about To Where & Back Again, though I don’t feel special about it and just more “I like something that a lot of people hate”

I actually liked the trivia episode. I’ll agree that its placement in the series is kinda odd when you think of the major events going on, but the episode itself was pretty solid. Honestly one of the better episodes of this season for me, though that may say more about the season rather than the episode.

@RaineV1  
It, like ELTSD, would be better [received if] placed earlier in the season.