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Saturday, August 17, 2019

MLP Episode 916: A Trivial Pursuit

Alright, this review and the next one could be my most anticipated yet. Ever since they were leaked early in China, I sounded off against both episodes a bit. The pressure's on, so let's knock A Trivial Pursuit out of the way.

A Trivial Pursuit
Written by Brittany Jo Flores

I hate this episode. Like, so much. I said this in my analysis post for season nine, as well as previous reviews, but it bears repeating; the writers cannot keep with rehashing older ideas and try to pass them off as "new". They've been using it as a crutch far too often in this season, and it's become tiresome really fast. Not only that, but Twilight's behavior continues to prove why she's unfit for taking over from Celestia and Luna. Like Between Dark and Dawn, this episode takes both problems and make for a completely unpleasant viewing experience.

There is so much going on with A Trivial Pursuit, that only one word registered in my mind when watching it: Why? WHY?!

Why does this episode exist in the first place? Why did they have to regress Twilight's character to a marefilly just to allow this stupid excuse for a plot to take place? Why is this in the same season where she is expected to take over for Celestia and Luna in the finale? And why is all of this over some stupid trivia challenge that we never heard about before?!

Actually, I can answer the last question; it's because she wants to get three wins in a row and freaks out because she's afraid Pinkie Pie will screw up her chances of winning. I'm not even kidding; that is literally Twilight's motivation in this fucking episode! It gets to the point she outright gets her disqualified just for a stupid fucking win! This is not Twilight being the Princess of Friendship, this is her being a fucking asshole!

Back when I first got into the show, Twilight was my favorite character, but when No Second Prances around, in hindsight, that was the first sign that she would drop from the top spot. This was not the Twilight I knew in the first five seasons; she was replaced with a jerkass who was Twilight in name only. A Trivial Pursuit was the final nail in the coffin for Jerkass Twilight. It didn't help that this was in the same season that she tried to preserve a reputation we knew nothing about for eight years for the third time! (The others were Sparkle's Seven and The Point of No Return by the way.)

"Oh, but Twilight apologized to Pinkie and saw the error of her ways! Doesn't that make it any better?"

Well, no, that actually makes this episode worse! Because this episode wrote Twilight's character just to teach her a lesson that she didn't need to re-learn. Not only that, but I've watched the show long enough to know that the next time Twilight either geeks out or freaks out, it's all going to end in disaster for everyone involved. Character development is about learning from your mistakes, and Jerkass Twilight has not learned anything from the mistakes that Twilight made in the first five seasons.

I know that the episode's lesson is meant to be "it's better to have fun than to win", but the lesson I got from Jerkass Twilight's behavior is that "you can bully your friends and they'll still come back to help you". That is one of the most disgusting lessons this show has taught, especially for one targeted at little girls!

Final Thoughts
Can I just bet $10 in American money that the finale is going to do everything possible to make us root for Jerkass Twilight despite her past behavior in this season proving otherwise? At this point, she deserves for everything to go wrong for her! I kind of owe my apologies to Frenemies, mostly because I want Jerkass Twilight to fall in the hands of Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow.

Fuck this episode. It should be sent down to Tartarus and locked up in the deepest, darkest cave so human eyes can never look at it again. It is that awful, and it has officially earned the title for the worst ever episode of the entire series.

Rating: Atrocious (-10/10)

5 comments:

  1. Whenever I look at Jerkass Twilight Sparkle nowadays, especially seeing how she's been from season 1, all I see is a stressed, unfriendly, irritable mare who wants to make friends but doesn't care for anypony but herself (what she did here was just as bad, if not worse than how she responded to Pinkie in the movie), has serious anger issues, and can't find her zen in both royalty and in regular life.

    Is that accurate as to say what Twilight's become?

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    1. You've pretty much hit the nail on the head with this one.

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    2. Yeah. I wonder how Lauren would react to this, she probably would he horrified at seeing what her character she put effort/heart into making has become...

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  2. I'm tempted to ask the main VAs of the show if they wish they had a say in the ways their characters were written (aside from Sparkle's Seven, which showed that that could be a great thing, but I know we disagree on that episode). However, I wouldn't want to come off as being disrespectful to the writers, and they might also refrain from saying anything to avoid coming off that way to someone or some group of people.

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  3. "Why does this episode exist in the first place? Why did they have to regress Twilight's character to a marefilly just to allow this stupid excuse for a plot to take place? Why is this in the same season where she is expected to take over for Celestia and Luna in the finale? And why is all of this over some stupid trivia challenge that we never heard about before?!"



    Bruce Wayne: It just raises too many questions.

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