Season 6 Episode 6: No Second Prances · 11:27pm Apr 30th, 2016

Well, everypony deserves a second chance. - Rarity, "No Second Prances"

^ This. This is why I love this episode. It contains the important message of forgiveness.

Here we have Rarity. Standing behind the mare that enslaved a whole village full of ponies. Who brainwashed them. Stole their identities. Forced a harmful ideology on them. And that probably for years on end. Who even let foals grow up with her doctrine. Who tried raising them with her ideology. To raise a new generation of ponies who believed in her equality. To create a society where nopony questions that ideology anymore because it has become the norm.
And behind the mare who almost completely destroyed her world, turned into a burnt wasteland, and killed her and everyone dear to her who lives in this world.
And she tells her: Everypony deserves a second chance.
And how casual she says that! She is almost hoofwaving this statement. To a murderer and world destroyer.
She says it like that's nothing. And it is. For her. You hear at her voice that she's used to it. Used to forgive ponies who did evil things in the past. It has, indeed, become casual for her. It's nothing special for her.
Because being generous also means to bestow forgiveness to those who try to earn it.
This is an incredible important lesson, message and moral. Especially in a world like this where people care less and less for each other.
And to get this fully across, the episode of course doesn't leave it at it to just show Rarity saying this, no.
It gets directly demonstrated what consequences it can have to not forgive someone who deserves it and how it can lead to harm for other people. Even to those who are dear to you.
When Trixie was presented as her new friend by Starlight Glimmer, Twilight was unhappy about it and it quickly became apparent that she still hasn't forgiven Trixie.
And it got in the way of everything.
Twilight began to fear that Trixie could have a bad influence on Starlight Glimmer, got afraid she could pull her back to the dark side, due to the own dark past she has.
So she didn't trust Starlight in her decision to be friends with Trixie. She tried it a little at first, but failed.
She went and tried forcing other people as her friends on her; Vinyl Scratch, Derpy and Cranky.
WIth this, she caused a chain reaction:

Starlight Glimmer was disappointed in her and lost her own trust into Twilight as her teacher, ran away, was clinging even more to Trixie, did not come to the dinner with Celestia and chose to stay with Trixie instead and when Twilight furiously went to her to confront her about that, she provoked Trixie, who had heard how she talked about her, and made her so angry that her jealousy and desire to defeat her flared up again.
Trixie lost it for a moment, focused too much on it that Starlight has decided for her and that she achieved a victory over Twilight with that and hurt Starlight's feelings, by making her think she never really wanted to be her friend and only became it to outshine Twilight, which caused Starlight to run away, despite honest assertions by Trixie that she really is her friend, and so Starlight lost her new friend again and in turn, Trixie lost her first and only friend when it turned out that she never even had one before.
Twilight's unwillingness to forgive Trixie destroyed a blooming friendship here, all because Twilight couldn't let Trixie's past go.
Worse than that, it caused Trixie to initiate drastic steps:

With Starlight, her only friend, gone and lost, she became desperated and hopeless. She didn't wanted to be alone anymore and yet, Twilight brought her into a position where she was again.
Too much for her, she decided to perform the trick with the manticore, despite knowing that she won't survive it without Starlight's help. Why became apparent when she was in the cannon, uttering a desperate plea to Starlight to both save her life and return to her and become her friend again, even though she knew Starlight can't hear what she says.
Trixie was hoping that Starlight Glimmer would still be around somewhere, seeing what she does, and that she would decide to help her and save her life, because of realizing that Trixie still means something to her and that she doesn't want to lose her.
What Trixie did here was a classical attempted suicide, a cry for help to demonstrate how horrible she feels and that she needs help by someone, by trying to kill herself. All in hope that Starlight Glimmer, the one she needed this help from, would step in and save her and then realize how much Trixie needs her and that losing her would destroy Trixie and rob her off of any desire to live.
This is how horrible Trixie felt, to make the decision to either get her only friend ever back or to die.
And this is what Twilight drove her to do, by having brought her into this situation where she had lost Starlight.
The chain reaction Twilight caused here with her unforgiveness towards Trixie drove two friends apart and almost caused one of them to kill herself.
This episode provides a realistic and believable example for how complicated and fatal such situations can become.
That's something important to keep in mind. Our actions can always affect others. Even if we think that not forgiving someone who tries to make up for his past sins is only our business and no one else's, life can proof us fatally wrong and there is no way to determine when this decision to not forgive causes a disastrous turn of events for others and when not.
Every time we decide to not forgive it can cause us doing something that brings havoc to other people.
Forgiving someone who tries to earn it after having committed evil deeds or crimes in the past is important, to not cause an even worse future.
Twilight learned this lesson and we should to.
If we don't, life could turn on us and others and show a side of itself that is as mature and dark as this episode of a TV show about colorful, magical ponies.
Let's never forget this.

Disclaimer: I usually don't publish my episode reviews here on FIMFiction.net. Usually, they only go up on my Deviantart account.
But after a certain conversation I just had a short time ago, I felt a deep need to make an exception for this one.