Why "Rarity Takes Manehattan" Sucked For The Exact Reasons That "Pinkie Apple Pie" Didn't [Holy Plot Twist, Batmare, SPOILERS] · 5:15pm Jan 11th, 2014
Judging by my notifications, y'all are in for a deluge of post-episode posts right about now, so I'll try to make this as brief as possible. There's NFL playoffs on today, dammit. I don't have time to sit around talking about horses all the damn day.
As of uncharacteristic of me, I'll start with the positive: "Pinkie Apple Pie" was really good. Like, really good. Like, holy-shit-probably-one-of-my-favorite-episodes-ever good. And aside from the solid gags, great song, and Pinkie Pie winning the Selfie Olympics, it was good for a very simple reason: the plot progressed without contriving an excuse for each event or destroying somebody's character for the sake of a joke. Pinkie Pie and Applejack are polar opposites on the personality spectrum, but just playing the episode as a struggle for them to see past their differences and learn to love each other for who they are would've be moronic. This is Season 4. They're already best friends. It may be a bit of an awkward situation, but there's no way either Applejack or Pinkie would be genuinely perturbed by the behavior of someone they've been tight with for years already.
Instead, the episode focused on something very relatable and believable that hasn't been touched on too deeply before: Applejack's interaction with her family, and how sometimes even the closest clans can be dysfunctional in crazy situations. This is where the episode's strong characterization was even more readily on display. You could certainly tag the members of the Apple Family with a few simple descriptors: Big Mac's the strong, silent type; Apple Bloom's the hyper little kid; Granny Smith's the wise old elder; and Applejack's the responsible one who keeps the whole thing glued together. However, nothing about how they acted in the episode was at all inconsistent with what we've seen from them before. Moreover, the problems in the episode spawned directly from those developed personality traits: Big Mac overestimated how strong he was and didn't tolerate any talk suggesting otherwise, which led to a situation where Apple Bloom's impulsiveness and lack of body control could send the map overboard, which led to a situation where Granny Smith could assume she knew best as the eldest family member, which led to a situation where Applejack felt the need to step in and take control like she's tried to do many times before. And on top of all that, Pinkie's in the background just tickled pink (oh, like you wouldn't have gone there) that Applejack's family is so exciting, because to be honest it's such a welcome relief for her after the way she (purportedly, at least) grew up on her immediate family's rock farm.
All of this seems pretty basic when I phrase it like this. That's because it is basic, and yet despite being a critical underlying framework for a solid story to have, it's something that isn't always present in certain episodes. In a way, this episode's construction is almost a parallel of its central character: nothing about it is overly complex or ornate, but it's got a solid base from which the supporting cast and the puns can take root and build upon previous plot points towards a conclusion that feeds directly into the moral that's been hinted at all along. It's just constructed well from the bottom up, and that kind of attention to the essential details of the craft is what I love to see writers do.
Now let's talk about "Rarity Takes Manehattan", which did literally all of that wrong.
Rarity, as far as her characterization in the show goes, is a bit of an enigma. She's been the Element of Generosity ever since the pilot, and while the Season 4 premiere may have seemingly written out the physical elements, but her internal convictions have remained entirely unchanged... I would say, were I being sarcastic. In reality, Rarity's personality does a complete 180 whenever the writers remember, "Oh yeah, she's supposed to be generous, isn't she?" In every episode not centered around her, she comes off as self-absorbed, a little bit on the annoying side of egotistic, dismissive of the desires of other, and in a weird number of cases, downright selfish. On the other hand, what is she like when the writers focus on her in an episode? Well, still self-absorbed, a little bit on the annoying side of egotistic, and dismissive of the desires of others, but also wildly (and inexplicably) generous to anyone who so much as passes her by in the street.
(But not Spike. Never Spike. Spike still lugs all of her shit everywhere and gets paid in carrot dogs. Spike is always the group's butt monkey. No, I'm not still angry about that. I have moved on. I am the pinnacle of tranquility. I'm being sarcastic again.)
The central flaw in "Rarity Takes Manehattan" is that the entire episode is dependent on characters behaving wildly differently than is the norm for them, and on plot events that are almost hilariously (in a bad way) contrived. Rarity's rampart generosity gets her to the venue in time the first go-around, of course, but once her designs are stolen, everything goes out the window. Admittedly, yes, that's a huge problem, and I wouldn't behold anybody to not freak out a little bit in a scenario like that. But Rarity doesn't just freak out. Rarity freaks out and drags her friends in with it, to whom she spent the whole trip promising a trip to a Broadway show only to yank it out from under them at the last second under the expectation that of course they'll help her create a new design in time for the fashion show tomorrow.
Realistically, though, aren't her friends themselves a little bit in the wrong for not sympathizing with her problem and jumping to help her anyway? Isn't it selfish of them to be so fixated on that musical that they're willing to abandon Rarity in her time of need? There's a fair argument to be made there, but it plays into my point: everyone at this point is out of character, and it's only through them being out of character that the episode even has a plot. Let's say Twilight and co., having been very close friends with Rarity for years just like I mentioned with AJ and Pinkie this week, decide to immediately drop everything and promise Rarity that helping her is more important than some silly play. The dresses are made, strife is avoided, and the episode has no plot. Let's say Rarity calms down a bit, remembers that she's been friends with these ponies for years, and openly admits that she's in an awful spot and really needs their help. They accept as her friends, strife is avoided, and the episode has no plot. Let's say Rarity is the slightest bit generous as her Element would seem to indicate, and remembers that she's making her friends miss the reward she promised them for coming to Manehattan with her in favor of working them to the bone to make her new line. Instead of being ungrateful, dismissive of their feelings, and all around an awful pony, Rarity behaves as her character presumably would, strife is avoided, and the episode has no plot.
I assume you see where I'm going with this by now. Without these drastic changes to how the show's central characters would act, "Rarity Takes Manehattan" simply couldn't have happened. Even the damn moral doesn't work: Twilight and co. miss the show not because they were angry at Rarity for mistreating them, not because of anything relevant to previous events in the narrative, but because they overslept (to which Rarity replies by saying that she really doesn't even care about winning the show they stayed up all night slaving away at dresses for). Yes, you can argue the entire point of the episode is that Rarity learns that treating her friends like that is wrong, but here's the thing: that behavior she's correcting? That's more typical of how she normally acts that all the generosity that comes out of nowhere for every Rarity-centric episode.
Every Element-centric episode is slightly repetitive: AJ's always dealing with honesty, Rainbow Dash with loyalty, etc. But those episodes tend to involve unique circumstances where maintaining that essential trait isn't always easy: Applejack has to deal with various awkward family matters as the de facto matriarch of Sweet Apple Acres, and Rainbow Dash has had issues with whether to be loyal to ponies who can grant her a dream she's had her whole life (the Shadowbolts), old friends who turned into jerks (Gilda), new friends who turn out to be irresponsible (Lightning Dust), and if the rumors are to believed for Rainbow Falls, her own hometown. Beyond those rare occurences, these characters are, with a few rare but understandable exceptions, consistently characterized in accordance with their Elements. Rarity episodes are about learning how to perfect Generosity, but she's never generous outside those episodes to begin with. And that's my major problem with her as a character, and with how the writers of the show have tended to treat her post-Season 1.
tl;dr Applejack is unabashedly and objectively best pone, and I will hear no arguments to the contrary
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This is actually only #2 of my weekly new-episode-deluge. Applejack must have rendered them all speechless. I mean, there's no way she's criminally underrated and derided for being a background pony. Nope, nada, chance: nonexistent.
Also, I think Fluttershy and Rarity AND Spike AAAAND Pinkie suffer such problems: that most of their flaws can be explained by the writing. Rarity is only generous when she's the focus (for some unknown reason); Spike becomes incompetent and a butt monkey, especially when he's the focus; Fluttershy never learns from her episodes; Pinkie becomes an out of control jackanape when there needs to be a joke, which is all the time; and any other edge case when the plot would not happen without out of character actions. I'm not bitter at all. Let me join you in the Extraordinarily Unbitter League of Unbitter Gentlemen.
Well, I liked both episodes anyway, so...haha?
You have explained my exact views on Rarity far more eloquently than I ever could have. I applaud this post.
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ASFD
FCUK
I DIDNT
I DIDNT KNOW
HELP ME
PERMISSION TO MAKE THIS A TUMBLR POST WITH CREDIT
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Uh... sure. I guess.
You're absolutely right about Applejack. Even though she's not my favorite, she really is the best and most admirable of them, not to mention she's pretty much the only completely sane character in the series.
Thank you for nailing down why I didn't like "Rarity Takes Manehattan." The fandom was losing its shit over how amazing it was, and I wasn't feeling it... this may be why.
Even if it's cliche at this point...
"Well, that's just like, your opinion, man."
I really don't feel like there's that much out of character behaviour in that episode. It's true that Rarity is quite selfish at times, but pretty much only when it doesn't really matter. Rarity is my favourite character in the show, just because of how incredibly relatable it is to have somepony that can be selfish with the little things, but generous as can be when she's really needed.
Well, except for with Spike. That does kinda annoy me a bit as well, especially considering that Twilight didn't say anything about it(even if she looked a bit pissed in the beginning of the episode).
Regardless, neither is it out of character whatsoever for the other ponies to get annoyed about the fact that they are going to miss the thing they've been looking forward to their entire trip. And they do help Rarity without a second thought, until their plans collide with Rarity's desires, which is completely believable, too. They even continue helping Rarity after she has been very harsh to them.
What you describe is what would happen if all of the characters were perfect. Which would be boring. We've seen that all of the ponies have flaws, and the flaws portrayed here are very easily relatable to me. Yes, Rarity was overdramatic about the whole thing. Yes, her friends were slightly egoistic about it. Is that something that seems out of the question for either of them? I don't think so.
I completely agree about Pinkie Apple Pie, though. That episode was great.
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Thanks for saying that. All of this Rarity hate is making me kind of bitter, though I can't decide if I'm bitter at Aquaman or the show right now. "Suited for Success" is my favorite episode of the show and probably always will be.