Rarity is thinking yes I’ll be your Catmare dashie!

The strawmanning in these comments are unbearable.

To this very day, people still insist in all that bullshit about the others being evil and manipulative and that their little Dashie is just a victim and should be untouchable… if they are so sure, they should be able to take some counter argument.
 
I think the fandom showed some of its worst side with the reception of this episode, and that it should be acknowledged.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH! WHEN THE MASSIVE RANTS ABOUT MARE DO WELL WILL END?! i wish i could wipe out evryone memories and make them stop overanalizing that episode…

Really, it’s all in the episode, it’s a matter of actually watching it. It’s one thing that it is confusing the first time, but it has gotten to a point in wich it’s the fans who desesperatly want to convince themselves that Rainbow Dash is only a victim and the others are pure evil, thinking that any assumption is valid, and conveniently ignoring everything that doesn’t suit them, even what is shown in the episode (Since they don’t like it or don’t want to like it).
 
For example, it would make more sense that the reason they used costumes was to avoid becoming famous themselves as heroes. They wanted Rainbow Dash to be a hero but they also had to save the ponies she couldn’t save, because otherwise they would have got hurt (And it wouldn’t have been good for Rainbow Dash either, failing and all). Mare Do Well could dissapear as soon as she wasn’t needed, wich would be as soon as Rainbow Dash started doing things right, as it was her wasting of time and getting distracted by the praise that made her inefficient. It would also make more sense that they assumed that Rainbow Dash liked challanges and competing, but didn’t expect her to take it the way she did, as they can’t see the same as the audience and they are clearly surprised when she runs away from Sugarcube Corner.
 
I also think the episode makes it quite obvious that the ponies are in danger and Rainbow Dash was becoming inefficient. When Rainbow Dash saves the baby, she is going to return her to her mother, but as soon as the photographers start taking pictures of her, she dangerously throws the baby, caring more about posing, to wich the others react with shock. With the carriage, we spend almost half a minute watching as it dangerously goes out of control, with the passengers screaming in fear, before Rainbow Dash appears, and then she clearly wastes time saying her line, one of the passanger explicitly asks her to stop talking and save them already. With the construction, we see her trying to say her line many times and starting from the beggining every time she is interrupted by falling objects. With the dam, it was Rainbow Dash who made it worse by congratulating herself and really, there was nothing else stoping the flood and Rainbow Dash herself could have drowned.
 
Many fans actively trie to demonize the episode and all the characters in it that aren’t Rainbow Dash, it gets especially ridiculous when someone claim that the others somehow put lives in danger by being Mare Do Well, and even caused the accidents themselves… And as I said already, Rainbow Dash didn’t put much thought to the fact that the ponies were in danger, she was distracted, but one has to wonder how she would have reacted if one single pony she tried to save got hurt, and it’s easy to assume that she gets to see the bigger picture by the resolution, but many fans don’t want to even acknowledge this as a possibility and end up making Rainbow Dash look selfish and way too celf-centered by making her go all victim complex. I could go on, but I don’t want to make the post larger.
 
They believe what they want to believe, but it’s quite counterproducent when they take it so personal and one of the storyboard artists even gets trolled in DeviantArt…

@BP: The problem is that it is very easy to second guess the Mane Six’s motives for the use of Mysterious Mare Do Well. Choosing an alter ego to try to reach out to Dash and/or save ponies brings out a lot of questions that are, sadly, answered quite easily if one assumes that they were being malicious.
 
As for people not caring about the lives put in danger. . .well let’s be honest the episode really didn’t care either. I decided to focus entirely on Dash’s ego and her friends response to it. Outside of the incidents themselves the consequences of her actions are given little thought.
 
This is why I said the episode suffered from lazy writing. The creative team did not consider the full implications of what was going on in the episode, and assuming things will just be read a certain way. The interpretations are just as much (if not more so) their fault as it is the people who came up with them.

I think this episode is meant to make us genuinely like Rainbow Dash by showing that she isn’t perfect and that her actions do have consequences. There is something wrong with assuming that if a character isn’t constantly glorified by the staff and the show, it must means we aren’t supposed to like it…
 
I’m more concerned about the morality of the fans. The episode is very clear in that the ponies were in danger and scared, and Rainbow Dash was becoming distracted and wasting time. The others didn’t atempt to “destroy” Rainbow Dash or “take her fans away from her” like many people twist it, they simply saved the ponies that needed to be saved, and it was the town ponies who naturally praised the hero that took it seriously and got the job done (Why wouldn’t them?), and expected Rainbow Dash to follow the example, not to go insane, that was accidental.
 
But according to fans, it’s all about Rainbow Dash, the safety of others doesn’t matter as long as Rainbow Dash keeps living inside her perfect cloud, she can’t grow up. In the episode she simply didn’t realize that ponies were in real danger and instead focused on competing, but according to the fans and their attempts at ““fixing”” the ending, Rainbow Dash wouldn’t even care, she would be too busy being offended and victimyzing herself… People miss the points of the episode in their desesperate desire to defend Rainbow Dash…

I really don’t think that the show is just blindly expects us to like RD. Especially not in the second season where they really stepped up the consequences for her actions.
 
Personally, I found that the episode suffered from some very lazy writing, particularly on the “morality” of the episode. I also found the superhero aspect to be “meh” at best. I wish they had some more variety in the situations rather then just accidents and disasters.

@BP
 
I know what you’re saying. The show itself seems to push the idea we’re supposed to like Rainbow Dash, but she’s never come across to me as any more then a rude, arrogant buffon.

@Trickquestion I didn’t like how she treated the animals the previous episode, and how they didn’t get anything. I liked that she goes through all this in this one, not because I dislike her, but because the show shouldn’t treat ger like she was perfect, it’s good that she can make mistakes and go through bad times, and it was her own fault here, not realizing how serious saving others is.
 
But this episode is told from her perspective, we understand her, it’s not supposed to antagonize her, but we can’t pretend that the others characters can know the same as us, or that Rainbow Dash is seeing everything as it is… I don’t like how fans would rather put all the blame in others, dissmising Rainbow Dash responsability in all this as if she was some kind of “special” child that can’t deal with anything and must be kept in a bubble or something…

@BP
 
I’ve seen some people say they liked it, including myself. I’m a big comic book nerd, so the superhero shout outs were nice, I genuinely was the surprised by the twist ending (the changelings were the only other plot twist that really got me) and this may be a bad reason to like an episode, but I hate Rainbow Dash, and it amused me greatly to watch her suffer. Season 2 definitly magnified all the Season 1 traits that made me dislike her, but this is the only episode where I fell she’s really being punished for them.

Rainbow Dash claimed that nopony else had the guts and the brains to be a hero, and told a filly that her drem of being just like her was impossible. Even if it wasn’t her intention, she may have ruined some ponies dreams of being a hero… Luckily Mare Do Well proved that there are many ways to be a hero.
 
Mare Do Well did what had to be done, otherwise ponies could have died, and it was Rainbow Dash own fault that she couldn’t save them. All Mare Do Well did was save lives, and it was enough for Rainbow Dash to go on a crusade against her, even after she saved her life, even dismissing her and trying to unmask her at her own parade… She would have done the same to anyone rightfully saving the lives she couldn’t save, someone that had her own reasons for wearing a mask, Rainbow Dash would have ruined her life. Luckily she was her friends watching over her.
 
I hope somewhere in the future the fandom realizes how absurd and unfair their reception to this episode was…

Not into the pit! It burns!
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0BgpVJl8Q

^  
Seriously I can’t wait to hear the DVD commentary on this episode. Still I bet somewhere in the future they’ll admit that it wasn’t one of their best.

If you ever wanted a window into the mindset of a bully, this episode is the ticket. Bullies generally think they’re doing the right thing by ganging up on behavior they find distasteful, even though it doesn’t harm them at all. Whether it is how someone brags, what clothes they wear or what their sexual orientation is.

My reaction to this episode.

That episode: NO!  
perfect summary

@Ace the Fox: Sixty-three.

No Harem for Dashie. :(

!oN

YES!