@A Sad Pony  
I’m just trying to be the voice of reason here.

Yeah, same here.
 
These arguments are so pointless and so bitter.

@Background Pony  
Agreed, Spitfire wasn’t at her best during this episode. She should have looked into things sooner than that.
 
It seems to me that most Pegasi have trouble with thinking straight and whatnot.

RD was told LD was better than her and put under her command with something that she desperately wanted (being a wonderbolt) on the line, it is not a surprise she went along with LD’s ideas (albeit with obvious reluctance at times) and it was commendable of her to challenge an authority she perceived as being in the wrong. The presence or absence of the rest of the Mane 6 was really incidental as regarding the punishment LD deserved, an out-of-control tornado is a credible threat to anyone in the area seeing as how it’s all uncontrolled - it sent their training officer running - she put all of the rest of them at serious risk because she couldn’t keep control, and she is the one who should know her own limits.
 
_{But this is crazy over-analysis and we should really calm down.}

@Deserter  
Yeah, I would think that would make them equals, somehow.
 
And this is derpibooru.

It’s not like Spitfire helped much either “I know you shaved half a second off her time but she did it on harder conditions so basically: She’s better than you.”  
Gee, that’s not gonna have repercussions or anything!  
I’m going to sleep, try not to burn down Ponibooru while I’m gone.

I did read your comment, and I actually kind of agree with it. I’m just not sure how fair it is to impose such expectations on a work of fiction.

@Background Pony  
I referenced TV Tropes because you did for another topic, Designated Hero to be exact.  
Yes there is a chain of command, they gave them badges and titles to designate their ranks. I’m pretty sure in such a serious setting that those weren’t trivial details. And if she had objected to Dust’s suggestion then she may very well have persisted with the suggestion. Plus, they didn’t have much time to think since that activity was timed.  
And as far as “I was obeying orders” not being a valid excuse. We’re not talking about war or anything, this is a training camp. What was on the line was something that Dash really wanted; to be in the Wonderbolts. Obeying those orders may have been the difference between her being one or not, at least she thought so. And we’ve seen before how determined she is to be a Wonderbolt.

Jesus Christ, internet goes down for 20 minutes and someone is already at my throat.  
That’s an academy record.

@Sad, if you’d finished reading the fucking sentence, you would know that RD should be punished alongside LD because she fucking did everything that LD did.

@Background Pony  
->If LD is gonna get expelled/demoted/whatever the hell happens, RD has to do the same
 
Says who?

@sixtyfour, Lightning Dust presented the tornado as a suggestion, she didn’t say anything to the effect of “we’re gonna do this, that’s final”, There is no actual fucking chain of command for the pairs, what the fuck does tvtropes have to do with what i said about scapegoats, read my fucking post you blind cunt, and what I’m trying to say is this:
 
If LD is gonna get expelled/demoted/whatever the hell happens, RD has to do the same, bacause she was an and accomplice to every single action, and if you’d kindly look up something like the Nuremburg Trials or some other high offence military court, you’ll see that “I was just following orders” is not a valid excuse anymore.

@And Brother I Hurt People
 
No. I’m not surprised at all.

@CreakyCreek  
The dynamic appears to be created between the leader and wingpony. The other teams probably decided to be equals on their own. But they were clearly designated as different ranks, meaning one had more authority than the other. Generals, for example, are clearly superiors to other members of the military. They are no equals to them unless they say so.

@And Brother I Hurt People
 
Maybe, and I’d be more than glad to amend my views if they show a more sympathetic side to her like Trixie. But, until then…

@And Brother I Hurt People  
Dash didn’t know about that because that was revealed at the end, after everything that Dust had forced her to do. In her mind she probably thought that all that might have been necessary during all that. But she obviously learned not to think like that when her friends almost died.
 
And about having someone die, she might not have cared as long as she didn’t know them. She seemed to get over Dash dismissing her relatively easy, despite them appearing to be somewhat friendly in the episode. So it seems that she doesn’t even value friends that well.

Am I the only one amazed that a photo of an adorable little LD turned into a brawl of sorts?

@sixtyfour, that’s a ridiculously childish, outdated, and just plain misinformed argument; from what we see in the field, Leaders and Wingponies are near equals, with barely any power dynamic leaning one way or the other, Spitfire never at any point “told” Rainbow to listen to Lightning unquestioningly, and nothing was stopping her in the field from telling Dust “no this is a bad idea, can we just consider an alternative.

@Background Pony  
Dash did everything the same as her because she was ordered to.  
She was a wingpony and had to follow Lightning Dust’s lead, no matter what. If she objected she would most likely have been kicked out of the academy or something.  
And about saying Lightning was a Scapegoat. I think you don’t do TV Tropes much because they say that a Scapegoat is someone who “takes the blame and/or punishment for something for which he or she wasn’t responsible.” Lightning was to blame, she ordered the tornado be made. Dash couldn’t object because she was ordered not to.

BP, chill.

@sixty
 
No, she didn’t have to. As shown by the little “reckless=/=being a good wonderbolt” scene in the end, Dash held the power to say no. And saying she “had” to obey is bull. Nobody can really stop her from disobeying this rule, though it would probably lead to her being thrown out of the academy admittedly.
 
@Sad
 
Sometimes, it takes a large shock to actually change a person. If they had died, Lightning might of actually had a somewhat remorseful side. We could also go down the route of “abusive childhood”, though that’s bit of a beaten, worn path for villians of this show honestly. LD is focused on herself; perhaps she just doesn’t realize the magnitude of the situations she causes. It’s sort of like Rarity in a way, honestly; she can be a bitch yet most of us don’t complain about it because it’s just Rarity being Rarity, she sees life differently.
 
Like I said, LD wasn’t exactly explored well and all we really know about her is that she apparently likes attention and is willing to go to the extreme at any cost.

@Deserter, you delective hearing cocksucker, did you not read what I wrote? I did not say Lightning was blameless, I said Rainbow was a Designated Hero (You know what that term means right? You, should, since you think Tvtropes makes you such a hot shit.) Yes lightning did not care for the safety of others, yes she put people at risk with her showboating, but guess what twat, RAINBOW DASH DID EVERY THING THE SAME AS HER! And she did while offering up nothing more than minor and short lived reluctance. Pinkie pie and crew had an almost insultingly trivial and stupid reason for going to the academy, and they went there unannounced and in the middle of a busy air field being used for a high intensity training exercise. It is not Lightning Dust’s fault that Pinkie is batshit to assume that “ZOMG Dash hasn’t written me in 3 measly days, I should go up there and make a fucking obnoxius nuisance of myself to make sure she hasn’t forgotton me, and make her wish she had”, or that the other main mares are enabling enough to go along with her schizo antics. The only major thing anyone can fault her with that they can’t fault on RD, is that she didn’t freak out over “what could have happened”. LD needs a priority readjustment yes, but she was made a goddamned scapegoat for RD, and that’s what I can’t stand about this episode.
 
And as an aside, military academies in the past have covered up deaths in their grounds, and noone got seriously hurt because of LD in any way.

@And Brother I Hurt People
 
The difference there is Rainbow Dash voiced reluctance and concern in both cases, and the only thing that really kind of stopped her was the sort of internal conflict going on, whether or not that was what being a Wonderbolt was about and if it was worth it.
 
And maybe we don’t know how Lightning Dust would have acted, but that’s just an argument from ignorance. I, for one, am calling it how I see it.

@And Brother I Hurt People  
Dash didn’t disobey her because Spitfire told her not to.  
She had obey Dust because she was her wingpony. Dust was the one in charge of their team.