Foalhood Friendships and Retroactive Narratives

Looking at an average slice of this site, most people would come away saying that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are lifelong friends, a dynamic duo that started way back from their first meeting at Flight Camp when Rainbow Dash stood up to, in her own words, 'Protect Fluttershy's Honor'.

I don't want to disparage this idea, because there are a lot of good stories which have been mined using the concept; the Rainbow-Flutter friendship forms an important plot element in a lot of stories that I'm a big fan of, such as the Shadow War Sequance, The Life and Times of a Winning Pony and Asylum... to say nothing of shipfics featuring the two.

I'm not trying to put a torpedo in the idea, or sink a ship; even if I had enough horsefame for what I say to be of influence, I wouldn't want this piece to be taken that way. I'm not trying to deny or denounce stories which use a presumptive Rainbow-Fluttershy friendship as their base; I just want to try and suggest an alternative viewpoint which I very rarely see.

That viewpoint being that Rainbow Dash? Fluttershy? They were very much not friends.

See how disbelieving Rainbow is? I'll come back to this.

Now, a part of this is due to my reading of MLP. Specifically, I interpret season one as having 'Making Friends' as the overarching theme... saying that two characters of the group were already lifelong friends undercuts that dynamic some, so I have a vested interest in trying to say that there was no pre-existing relationship.

However, it's a reading which I do think has some merit to it. I mentioned it briefly in my old review for The Ticket Master, but in summary, the early episodes of season one portray the Mane Six dynamic as five ponies who have a friend in common rather than liking each other individually.

Friends don't usually box themselves off from one another. Unless I've been doing it wrong.

Now, that tension amongst the group doesn't last for very long, and we very palpably see the bond between the group grow, both between individuals and as a whole.

However... it takes a long time until we see Rainbow treating Fluttershy with more than indifference. While the scene can absolutely be read as Rainbow Dash taking a misguided approach to protecting her -or even just open irritation born of frustration- it's difficult to reconcile Rainbow's disparaging comments in Dragonshy with the suppose 'protector' narrative she later presents to us. In fact, Rainbow's repeated incredulity - 'It is a mountain!', expecting Fluttershy to fly- isn't so far removed from the jeers Fluttershy heard at Flight Camp, in content if not in tone.

Now... season one Rainbow Dash is not the most emotionally acute of ponies. Is it possible that she really was terribly misreading a situation? Certainly a possibility. However, as I say, it seem's difficult to fit that aggression with the way in which Rainbow will present their relationship when explaining how she got her cutie mark. In fact, I'd say that, until they began to spend time together with Twilight, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash rarely interacted.

Rather, the role that people seem to attribute to Fluttershy in their childhood relationship was filled by someone else.

Rainbow Dash and her best friend, Not-Fluttershy.

Saying that 'Gilda and Rainbow Dash were friends' is obvious; there's been two episodes based around that fact. However, it's a fact which the fandom seems to gloss over... largely because, ever since the split between them, Rainbow Dash has glossed over it.

Who is Rainbow Dash? Well, Rainbow Dash is the Hero. She reigns it in in later seasons, but in season one, Rainbow Dash treats herself as the main character, the star of the show, the most important of important ponies. She's constantly telling the others (and the viewer) about what a great flier she is, how fast she is, how she's going to join the Wonderbolts some day.

That is masking for some insecurity issues, as we see during the Sonic Rainboom when, faced with an important performance, her reaction is less 'rising to the challange' and more 'curling into a ball and shutting down'.

So...much...shipping...

However, to me, this points at more than just a momentary confidence issue. In fact, coupled with how the Rainbow-Fluttershy relationship develops and the Rainbow-Gilda relationship ended, I think it's very telling about Rainbow's approach to history.

We are introduced to Gilda in a very Fluttershy-like fashion, right down to the same bully-figures tormenting her. Rainbow Dash dives in to the rescue, befriends Gilda, and we get an adorable moment of the two kids flying together.

It's very much a moment in-line with how we saw Rainbow save Fluttershy... except, when we look at the scene in detail, it isn't. Because while the Gilda rescue sequence focuses on Gilda and ends with the two of them together, the Fluttershy rescue sequence... doesn't. Rainbow Dash describes the race as having been 'for Fluttershy's honor', but the competitive look on her face, the fact that she (supposedly) placed Fluttershy's honor above Fluttershy-falling-to-her-death, the fact that Rainbow Dash (apparently) never knew that Fluttershy got her cutie mark thanks to an exploding Rainbow at the same time Rainbow pulled off a sonic rainboom...

Well, it all speaks to Rainbow Dash as an unreliable narrator. Rainbow's pride, motivated by her competitive nature, was clearly more important to her in this scene than she is willing to admit to the Crusaders. Painting herself as the hero saving the beleaguered Fluttershy... well, that was just good publicity.

Right Rainbow. You were just doing it for Fluttershy. You clearly weren't interested looking for an excuse to show off.

And I feel confident calling it an excuse... because we've seen Rainbow spin narratives. Her relationship with Gilda was clearly a significant one; they were presented as close as kids, Gilda was one of the first creatures we saw Rainbow very openly enjoy spending time with- a particularly important point giving that Rainbow's role in the early episodes was to be the contrarian one and point out how cool and 'not girly' she was.

And, while some anger over Gilda's explosion at her friends might be expected... the coolness with which Rainbow regards her in their second meeting seems to hint at a lot more bitterness than just "You were mean to my friends". The fact that she seem's to have gone so far as to stop talking about Gilda period is the icing on the cake.

Look at her expression. She's already shipping Gilda off to the memory hole.

At the same time, she moves from open animosity for Fluttershy to being willing to spend time with her in private, to training with her in preparation for Hurricane Day, to bringing Fluttershy to Cloudsdale to serve as emotional support while she competes, and even thanking her for it.

And, at the end of all that -at the end of the first season, when they have started to become friends, and Rainbow starts to like Fluttershy- that is when Rainbow suddenly reveals that what she did was done for Fluttershy's sake. That is when Rainbow reveals herself as Fluttershy's knight-in-rainbow-armor, defending poor, innocent, helpless Fluttershy from the bullies?

"Yes. Which is why I treated her with open disdain before."

Here's what I believe. I think Rainbow Dash see's herself as the hero.; consequently, she has a vested interest in maintaining an heroic narrative, at least for herself. We see how she moves from regarding Fluttershy as a coward afraid of her own shadow, a pony who will "only slow us down", who expresses disbelief at her not flying up a mountain... to somepony who is willing to stand by her, do things with her on a personal basis rather than as part of the group, and even put her own enjoyment aside to do things that Fluttershy enjoys.
Rainbow's mindset moves from, at best, indifference towards Fluttershy to regarding her as a friend - possibly her closest friend amongst the Mane Six.

Meanwhile Gilda - rotten Gilda, the rude, arrogant, not-cool jerk of a griffon who Rainbow Dash doesn't like? Rainbow did like her. Rainbow stood up for her, defended her, befriended her. And yet, Rainbow never mentions that, never mentions that she was protecting a kid abused for being a griffon. After they stop being friends, Rainbow never mentions her period until the map forces her to.

Also, if Rainow was friends with Fluttershy too, then Gilda would know better than to do this.

All of this taken together is why I believe Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy's friendship as children to have been largely a retroactive one on Rainbow's part. Fluttershy clearly knew who Rainbow was, and respected her; she was happy to credit her cutie mark to Rainbow (despite Rainbow's involvement being, to the best of her knowledge, tangential at best).
However, for Rainbow? For Rainbow, after they became friends, they were always friends, and Rainbow Dash was her childhood protector and defended her selflessly and was an all around awesome pony.

Rainbow Dash might say that she and Flutetrshy were always friends. If you were to point out the times she was cruel to her, the times she ignored her, the times she wasn't Fluttershy's friend? Well, sh'd react the same way she did in that first picture: complete disbelief.

...But as I say, this is just my headcanon. And the last thing I'd want is for this to be confirmed or denied because either way, there's fodder for good stories. If Rainbow Dash is a pony who does re-edit the past to make herself look better? That's an interesting issue that could be addressed. And if Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy really were best friends? Well...

This might not be canon. But it sure is heartwarming.