Uh, Ginger? There's only one Rainbow Dash, but there's a whole flight team of Wonderbolts. Each Wonderbolt probably has a unique talent that we haven't seen yet. As a whole, they can outshine her, but Dashie is probably better than any single Wonderbolt.

@Enlong: I blame my old habit of Magic: The Gathering - learning the rules of spells interacting with everything else is practically a programming lesson in itself, especially once you start deckbuilding.

edited 10th Dec '11 10:22:32 AM by AceOfScarabs

nah, not anymore Death. Spike never looked anything like the bulk!spike from Cutie Mark Chronicles. I'm going to assume she didn't age him up, she just blew him up. This episode had actual aging.

even that, though. I mean Dash is good, but they're professional. Plus it could be aggrivating to see someone as egotistical as dash as straight up the best - she needs to get knocked down a peg.

Certain wonderbolts probably beat her in certain respects, like agility or reactivity or something. Hell, there may even be one faster than her - how many ponies have been stupid enough to fly at top speed towards the ground, after all?

edited 10th Dec '11 10:25:44 AM by kegisak

@Ace It's just an incredibly personal peeve that I have. I just don't like to think that the mane characters (in this show OR in others) are THE BEST at what they do BAR NONE. It just... annoys me. They can be in the top tier, just not THE TOP

The Gift, Superpower Lottery, Hard Work Hardly Works, Can't Catch Up. These are all tropes that I DESPISE

edited 10th Dec '11 10:26:24 AM by gingerninja666

I would point out how silly I think that notion is, but this is neither the time nor the place for it, and I'm not in the mood. So I'll just say I disagree with that, and leave it there.

@Ginger: Don't forget that Heart Is an Awesome Power, it totally validates the Lottery if you are creative enough to turn a seemingly useless power into something amazingly handy. Like, say, Reimu abusing the Hakurei Orb's power to let her gorge out without putting on weight to get the smallest hitbox of the Touhou player characters.

edited 10th Dec '11 10:30:12 AM by AceOfScarabs

Rainbow does spend most of her free time training.

edited 10th Dec '11 10:28:35 AM by Badwolfwho

Oh? I thought most of her free time was spent napping. (I'm half-joking here. She does seem to spend a lot of time sleeping.)

I hate (hyperbole) gifted characters though.

Yes, I know, it's a silly opinion to have, it's what happens in real, but I just dislike it

Ace, that just makes it worse. If she's better than skilled atheletes by simply being gifted, then what's the point of all their training?

Gifted people tend to be lazy and rely on their natural talents, whereas if you train to be skilled you have better mastery and can do things better than the talented ones. Dashie is awesome and gifted, but she's also one of the laziest pegasi I know of, even with her training she may not know the absolute minutae and subtle tricks of aerobatics that the Wonderbolts have mastered.

Even my own self is a good reflection of this. I'm supposedly above average in intellect, but am lazier than Dashie (no really stop laughing), so I don't exercise my brain to reach my maximum brainiac potential.

Dashie is nowhere near her full potential, you can see that in the mistakes she tends to make sometimes (she does get better gradually, and some of the crash landings are due to recklessness!).

edited 10th Dec '11 10:36:03 AM by AceOfScarabs

She did the sonic rainboom. She didn't accomplish that by training (she tried to train but failed every time)

No, she just DID it on the fly in the past then did it again years later.

But she eventually WILL reach her full potential, and then she'll be BETTER than them. Do. Not. Want.

edited 10th Dec '11 10:37:44 AM by gingerninja666

OK, finally back, seen it, and just posting my first thoughts before catching up on the thread .

I really liked it! I'm happy that it was instinct and not choice that made Spike go bad, otherwise it might have really made him unsympathetic for a long time. Instead, the opposite; his niceness in the beginning was awesome! We hadn't seen him in a while, and especially for me, who isn't a huge fan of Spike, it was great to show what a good guy he is.

Rarity's knowing gesture when Spike proclaimed his crush on her... very interesting. Not sure if it might change something, but...it's something.

King Kong nod was in there, of course, everypony predicted it.

Now we know Ponyville's first line of defense in case of imminent disaster: the Wonderbolts! Were pretty awesome, but.. hmm. A bit strange that Celestia wouldn't step in.

Lyra & Bon Bon moment was sweet, plus I finally caught the Derpy cameo ^^.

Lots of new ponies! ALWAYS good. I'm sure the fandom's gonna embrace them, doctors are always useful in fanfics.

That's my first scatterbrained impressions. I liked the ending with the ruby, was a bit predictable, but also believable. With all kinda unpleasant things this episode showed us about dragons, it also showed us that they're still capable of remembering friends and positive feelings and attitudes.

Just because she didn't do it during training doesn't mean that she could have done it without training. Every time she failed, she'll have gotten closer to succeeding.

edited 10th Dec '11 10:41:52 AM by Badwolfwho

I completely missed the Lyra/Bon Bon moment. Where was that?

She still just DID it when she was a FILLY!

edited 10th Dec '11 10:42:29 AM by gingerninja666

Honestly I think it would be nice for at least one of them to be better than her, or at least good enough to be her even rival. I wouldn't want to see her above and beyond the rest.

Really though Dash's main draw is speed. What we've seen her do aside from that has been... not terribly impressive, really. It may be she isn't agile enough (it's hard to be really agile at her speed, and she focuses on speed over everything else), or it may also be she isn't creative enough to come up with good tricks on her own.

She may need the wonderbolts to reach her potnetial. How does that sit with you, Ginger? Her needing somepony else's help to be truly amazing?

At Flight School a portion of her life where literally every day of her life would be devoted to training.

She manages a right angle turn at Mach 10. That's pretty Manoeuvrable.

edited 10th Dec '11 10:45:21 AM by Badwolfwho

@kegi

Not very. My issue is that I don't want her to become the best under ANY circumstances. She can be the 5th best flier in Equestria, she can be the 2nd. Just NOT the best with no peer.

So its fine for any pegasus to be the best other than Rainbow Dash. I don't see how that's fair.

It's not just RD either.

I'd be pissed if it turned out that AJ was the best Farmer in Equestria bar none too

Impossible, Dashie is the kind to have a rival-type to continually challenge her.

Somepony fund a rival for Dashie, now!

I would not object to AJ working hard to achieve the position of being one of the best apple farmers in Equestria.

edited 10th Dec '11 10:55:15 AM by AceOfScarabs

@kegisak

I wasn't refering to giant baby Spike but to picture of adult looking wingless dragon seen here here◊ That wasn't hard to miss, but it's look like allmost nobody sawed this.

Yes, ONE of the the best. Not THE best

I kind of see where he might be coming from (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, ginger).

Obviously someone in the world has to be #1. But Rainbow Dash is a primary character in this series, someone we pay close attention to. Someone our stories center around. And often, given the premise of the show, our focus is one someone's personal growth. Once you've reached the top, there's nowhere higher to go, really.

It's not that Rainbow Dash should be physically unable to be the best flier in all of Equestria, it's just that you have fewer options for potentially interesting stories once she's already at the top.

That said, aiming to be the best flier is far from Rainbow Dash's sole source of character-driven conflict. Beyond that, there's still the fact that she's often rude and selfish, and we've seen her struck with insecurity.

I see problem with Mane Cast being best at something. There are special, show is about them not some incidental ponies.

So how'd it go? Pretty good episode?

I suspect I may not be able to watch today due to peers not going out to do stuff.

Maybe tomorrow.

edited 10th Dec '11 10:59:08 AM by TheFreeman