On the Topic of Rainbow Dash's Intelligence · 6:31am Oct 16th, 2015

During which I'll talk about common misconceptions about Rainbow as a character and how smart she is.

After the break, because I have a feeling it's going to go long.

I read a good number of fics on this site. Heck, what I'm going to say even applies to the show to some degree.

People have gotten it into their heads that Rainbow Dash is unintelligent. That because of her reckless plans and supposed academic problems, she's at least a good margin below average in the brains department.

I've seen quite a few stories do this, in my time, but this one is the straw that broke the camel's back. (Nothing against this particular story, it just struck while the iron was hot, so to speak)

Now, I understand Rainbow has said some things without thought. She does this a lot, actually. Heck, she acts recklessly too. Some of her more harebrained schemes (such as trying to stop winter) have been degrees of crazy or poorly thought-out.

...that's the point, though. They're reckless. Rushed. Poorly thought-out. Rainbow's commonly displayed poor decision-making is a result of impatience. A result of her Fastest Thing With Wings to Eleven lifestyle. It isn't that she doesn't have the capacity to think, she just acts too brashly.

In the episode Testing Testing 123, Amy Keating Rogers treaded a very thin line. A lot of the episode were things Dash couldn't do, and it painted her as a poor learner, or to some, an idiot. What some people conveniently forget was the fact that Rainbow can categorize and memorize everything that happens around her. EVERYTHING. Most people can remember roughly 20-30% of things that happen to them, give or take. Rainbow Dash remembered 100% of things not only in her immediate vicinity, but also a considerable distance below and away from her too. Oh, and before anyone says she must have forgot it, she aced the exam she learned by the exact same method.
Even going by rough numbers, Rainbow has three to five times the cognitive power of an average human being, at least while flying. Not to mention that in Daring Don't, she not only engaged in a literary debate with Twilight, (Who has been shown to be one of the most intelligent characters in the series) but she won. Sure, she might not drop a thesis on the Photokinetic Implications of Breaking the Light Spectrum at Celestia's school any time soon, but she is certainly quite intelligent.

Another thing of note is the Academic Decathlon in Friendship Games. Of the twelve students CHS chose to compete, Rainbow Dash at least got the sixth-best score in what must have been a more extensive academic trial. (After all, she wasn't eliminated.)

So next time you think of writing something based on the premise of "Rainbow Dash is Stupid", try to think twice, okay?