Defending Rainbow Falls

So my last attempt at defending a derided episode didn't turn out to have me disagreeing with the majority, however this time... well the story on Rainbow Falls seems to be that a lot of fans love it, but a good number of analysts hate it, so I guess either way I go I'll be in good company.

The fans tend to love this episode and have a number of really good reasons for doing so. First the moral of the story, that loyalty requires you to actually make choices, not just try to keep from disappointing anyone, is a really good moral. It also shows Rainbow Dash being likable rather than just an idiotic prick, which in many episodes she starts leaning in that direction.
We see some pretty decent character growth here too. Think about it. Rainbow Dash has apparently NEVER liked seeing other ponies get genuinely hurt.

However in the past she hasn't been very good at picking up on nuance. For instance she wasn't always quick to pick up on it being bad to take advantage of others.

Rainbow also has a hero complex and always wants to be the one to make everything better. (Why I maintain, whether you think she'd make a decent mom or not, she would totally adopt Scoots if she saw the filly in a bad situation... heck if she were taken to an orphanage she would probably set about trying to adopt or in some way save every foal in the building.) Over time Rainbow has been learning to pick up on less obvious signs of distress, like in Sleepless in Ponyville. Now we take little miss hero complex who's just learning what it means to care about ponies who AREN'T crying, and give her a no win scenario where no matter what she does she lets ponies down. Rainbow is actually showing concern for what her actions will do beyond just being self serving or taking an obvious moral high ground.

But the critics are still here. Lets look at a few of their objections.

1. The background pony Bulk Biceps was earlier called Snowflake!
No, that name was never used in the show, only supplemental material. Not even the comics at that. It's nice that you bought one of the apparently terrible Darring Do chapter books, but no, that name isn't cannon according to the show.

2. Bulk Biceps is shown to be a decent flier in Wonderbolt academy, in fact he even got in to Wonderbolt Academy, which is really tough!
Oh where do I even begin with this? There wasn't a single doubt in Rainbow Dash's mind she would get into that academy and none of the other ponies there seemed to be anywhere near as skilled as her and Lightning Dust, meaning getting in probably isn't that hard-
But they're an elite flying team!
No, according to the series they are primarily a military force, probably a lot like an air force. Bulk Biceps might have been considered based on his intimidation factor, not his flying ability. Forgetting that the Bolts are supposed to do things outside of flying fast and doing tricks is kind of like how a lot of fans characterize Rainbow Dash in general. They only every remember that she likes going fast however both she and the Wonder Bolts have more to them than they're love of pulling stunts.
Bulk is never shown to be anything but an "okay" flier who has a terrible time with relays. He has a lot of enthusiasm, but no where near as much skill. Also other episodes show wing ups being necessary to increase the speed of a pegasus, something that would be flat out physically impossible for Bulk to do. Basically, according to what we've seen, Bulk is an okay flier who can probably only get worse over time.

What? I'm sorry but that's where the the implications lead. Bulks was accepted because the WBs are a military unit that can use the intimidation factor and his flying skill was never good and is likely going down hill. Even worse, for all we know, he was kicked out of the Wonder Bolts. He apparently later takes on a job as a masseuse so one can only guess is dreams of being a Bolt went no where.

3. Rainbow Dash has already faced a challenge like this and passed without hesitating.
Oh boy, you mean in the series premier? Again, where do I even start with this? First, that premier has all kinds of problems, but let's look at the trial in question, the trial of Rainbow's loyalty.
On her quest to save the world, Rainbow Dash has to hook up a bridge for her friends to get to the dark Castle of the Two Sisters. She is approached by three ponies from a group she's never heard of who are apparently members of the elite flying group known as the shadow bolts. They want her to be their captain but in order to do so, she must leave her friends and the world to perish in darkness right now! So Rainbow can take their offer and doom the world, likely losing their offer in the long run anyway and feeling incredible guilt, plus again, she doesn't know who they are, or she can save the world and be loyal to her friends, getting the ego trip of being a hero and feeling good about herself for "resisting temptation". Honestly, Rainbow's "trail" couldn't have been easier if Celestia herself came down from the clouds and said "don't fuck the planet!". I'm sorry, that was not Rainbow's best moment, it was just a moment. Please never reference it again. All I can like about that scene is that Rainbow wasn't stupid enough to think that was a hard choice.
Next, this trial was FAAAR more difficult.
First off, people who say this are completely forgetting Rainbow's character growth. In the past perhaps Rainbow might have chosen Ponyville based on taking the quick moral high ground. However over four seasons Rainbow Dash has had to learn to care about the feelings of ponies before they start balling in front of her. Remember, she almost lost her biggest fan because she wasn't paying all that good of attention, she shaped up, but that experience had to open her eyes a bit. Now she's thinking about the feelings of the bolts. If she leaves them, they won't be able to compete. If she leaves Ponyville they won't place. No matter what she does, she hurts someone and now days, she does care about that.
Second, she actually knows who the Wonderbolts are, they are REALLY her dream team, not just some random strangers who approached her out of the blue.
Third, the choice isn't as obvious. She doesn't know at first about the issue with the Wonder Bolts just flippantly throwing out Soarin. On the one hoof she has the good ponies of Ponyville who have become her friends and fans. On the other she has her home town where her mom and dad and the rest of her family no doubt live, plus the team she has looked up to most of her life. Neither one of these choices involves something stupidly obvious to make it the wrong choice, like somehow the planet will implode if Rainbow chooses the Wonder Bolts. Either Rainbow joins the Bolts, lives a life long dream and is loyal to her home town, or she chooses Ponyville, who currently supports her and has friends she knows have put a lot of effort into helping her. The choice only seems obvious to us because of our own prejudices for the main six.
Finally, Spitfire never just comes out and says Rainbow should to abandon her friends for essentially selfish reasons. She actually plays a decent devil's advocate. She immediately points out that Cloudsdale is her home town, so she really isn't betraying her element by helping them. Plus she doesn't have to choose, no, she can just practice on both teams. Spitfire waits to spring the choice on Rainbow until Rainbow has already had a taste of her dream. The Shadow Bolts pretty much just flew up to her and said "be a bitch for no good reason!" and she said "no.". Essentially Spitfire made a good Biblical Satan, twisting Rainbow's understanding of her element and making things sound better if she rebels.

4. Soarin sure forgive the Wonder Bolts easily!
As opposed to choosing unemployment and disgrace for a mistake his friends just apologized for... This is supposed to be a show about love and friendship right, not just being a prick? Spitfire just admitted she was wrong right in front of Soarin and apologized publicly. Plus Soarin apparently loved his job, the only reason he would turn them down would be out of rather poorly justified spite.

5. The Wonder Bolts being demonized was entirely unnecessary. Especially after they were the villains in Wonder Bolt Academy already. Them turning on Soarin came out of nowhere and only served to make Rainbow's choice an easy one.
Oh boy... so much right and so much wrong.
Let's start with what's right in this statement. The Wonder Bolts could have been portrayed as honest in their intentions and had they been, the moral choice would have been entirely on Rainbow Dash's shoulders, her having to just live with whatever the consequences were. That's much more mature than just vilifying one side or the other. Yes, even when there is no villian, often times you still have to choose whom to be loyal too. Rainbow learning this lesson is a good thing for little girls to see. Think of all the stories we've all heard about a teenage girl trying to date two guys at once and it blowing up in her face when they both find out. As is, this episode only helps her if one of the boys slaps her upside the head for breathing wrong or in some other way outs himself as a complete jerk. If they're both good guys what does she do?
This is an illustration of something I do have an issue with with this series. Not allowing the characters to just live with the consequences. Often the writers of this series will write in a quick detail to keep a character from experiencing a harsh reality. Okay so I can see not letting Scootaloo fall to her doom in Sleepless in Ponyville, but in Wonderbolt Academy for instance, Spitfire's reform is completely unnecessary and robs Rainbow Dash of learning about life changing choices. No one had to die there, nothing was at stake except Rainbow's feelings, which her friends in the next episode could have helped with. However this show is too committed to wrapping up it's stories in the allotted time rather than allowing time for things to manifest properly.
However, there are several things wrong with this statement as well. First, no, the Wonderbolts weren't villains in Wonderbolt Academy. They just had a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding that a decent number of military units and sports teams have. Placing results over morality. Winning at all costs is something many people have trouble with. It leads to some of the worst atrocities in history precisely because it is so easy for even the best of people to justify. If you lose the war, everything you're fighting for perishes. If you lose the game, all of your team members take a cut in pay and lose reputation and fans. You don't have to be evil to fall into a mode of thinking that the ends justify the means.
Next, um... no, this plot was NOT out of nowhere. Nor was this a pointless lesson as I think the implication of this statement is. Spitfire set out to be deceptive, trying to bias Rainbow's decision by first trying to make her think she didn't have a choice to make at all and by twisting her values and then springing the choice on her once she's already had a taste of her dreams. A person like that is basically trying to win without honor. Honor is often thought of as a silly notion of making a fight arbitrarily fair. In reality, honor is supposed to be a statement of earning your reputation via behavior that deserves it. The reason you would decline a fight with an untrained child, even if he deserves it, is because the victory would be hollow and prove nothing, not even the strength of your convictions. Here Spitfire didn't care if she was crippling the competition and undermining Rainbow Dash's values, she just wanted to win. That IS the character of an individual who would leave her own team member out to dry. Staying true to those who got you where you are is also part of honor. A person without honor may value the lives and safety of others, but not so much their feelings, nor will they likely value fair play and just compensation. Too often these days characters without honor are shown as superior to those with. Soarin just got a sample of what being friends with a person like that is really like.

6. This episode makes it look like Spitfire learned nothing in Wonderbolts Academy. She already learned about winning at all costs!
Um... a few points here. First, the Wonderbolts are a military unit. This means that Spitfire's attitude likely didn't spring forth from the ether. In order to reform she likely had to go against many military customs that lead to where she was. That's not an easy transition. Necessary, but it's understandable if she's having a hard time.
Also Spitfire only learned about winning at all costs, she didn't learn about honor.One could even argue she never intended to fire Soarin, just have him not compete, that's all. She was cheating him out of all his hard work, but not really hurting him in the long run. She wasn't being loyal and honorable but that's it. Also, the last lesson was about obvious situations where the costs could be the lives and limbs of other ponies. This lesson for Spitfire was far less obvious because the costs weren't as tremendous. In fact, to be fair to Spitfire, losing fans, reputation, possibly funding and various other possible costs of losing, being honorable may have had a higher cost than being dishonorable. Learning that you have to stand for your morals even if they don't have the most favorable outcome is a hard lesson, much harder than, "try not to kill people to get ahead okay?".

7. The Wonderbolts are looking more and more incompetent and undeserving of their reputation.
They instantly lost to Spike without even making a decent showing. Face it, they lost their reputation in Secret of My Excess long before this episode.
That being said, does anyone actually know what their reputation was, beyond showing off and winning sport competitions? If season one Rainbow Dash was modeling herself after her idols in the bolts, maybe that explains who she was rather well. Taking her fans for granted, not being very wise, not having much of a grasp of integrity. She was always eager to save the day from physical danger, but whatever reputation she had, she also arguably didn't really deserve.

8. Rainbow, after all this, should really just turn her nose up at the bolts and stop idolizing them. She's better than them!
Oh dear Lord, that is such a stuck up delusional attitude.
You want the definition of a self righteous prick? How about someone who shuns others for not fully understanding values she herself had problems with in the past even after being shown said individuals are willing to change. I like that Rainbow still wants to work with the Bolts. And no, I don't want her to suddenly start looking down on them because of some over blown sense of moral superiority. This basically makes Rainbow look like people who try to discount everything Martin Luther King did for positive change because they found out he cheated on his wife. Yes, every living person has done bad things, however looking for reasons to shun them just makes you a jerk. I call back to Jesus saying "he who is without sin, cast the first stone,". Really, the pony who made her most loyal fan take out her trash, gave Pinkie the cold shoulder after they saved the world together, made animals compete for her affection after basically trying to give one of them an inferiority complex and who's first greeting of THE student of Celestia, was to cover her in mud and laugh at her, THAT is the pony who has the right to look down her nose at the Wonderbolts? (Isn't her ability to grow what made so many people like her in the first place?)
Also, just how realistic is that? Only the most delusional of people doesn't know their idols have flaws. We continue admiring them anyway. Rainbow is positively influencing her idols for the better, isn't that better than just writing people off because they screwed up? I used to think this way too about Rainbow and the Bolts but really thinking about it, that is a doozy of a bad attitude.

At the end of the day, I'm sure this episode isn't flawless, but it’s actually chalk full of good morals such as being loyal requires making choices and don't trust a person who tries to sway your decisions for self-serving reasons. I also think Rainbow's love of the Wonderbolts is a decent moral in it of itself. Role models are a good thing to have, especially for children. Writing them off because they make mistakes is not a good attitude, it’s better to accept the bad and learn from it and model yourself after the good. That's what Rainbow appears to be doing. She's learning that her idols aren't perfect and doesn't make it into a crisis of faith every time. Also, the bolts ARE an example of good role models, yes, you read that right. They make mistakes and when they're confronted with them, they actually try to change. Too many sports teams and military units just stay the course because that's what they've always done. The Bolts seem to actually be trying to change because of realizing what they've done wrong.
I will admit that Spitfire's attitude when admitting she was wrong could certainly stand to show a little more humility, but just like in Mysterious Mare Do Well, someone not reacting perfectly is just more realistic. Apologies and reforms come as they will, if you always hold out for them to be perfect, you're gonna have a rough road ahead of you as people get mighty pissed off at your attitude.

On the whole, Rainbow Falls isn't one of my favorite episodes, but it's not bad by any stretch of means, it's actually pretty good. It was even worth having to re-watch for this review. It definitely doesn't deserve the crap it often gets.