Twilight's Behavior in No Second Prances · 3:36pm May 3rd, 2016
Before you read, obviously:
SPOILERS FOR NO SECOND PRANCES
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With that out of the way. I may or may not do a full write-up on my thoughts of No Second Prances. This post will hone in on Twilight's character for the episode (modified from a post on a group thread).
A lot of people complain about Twilight's behavior in this episode. Perhaps not everyone, but definitely most of the outspoken minority think she was basically being a huge jerk for most of the episode, between her trying to break up Starlight and Trixie, and inviting three ponies who didn't know Starlight at all to the dinner to put on a slapdash show for Celestia.
What bothers me is that term that's been thrown around: 'out-of-character'.
As much as it seems Twilight is 'out-of-character', I don't think so. I think it feels more like the natural continuation of events that took place in Season 5.
Season 5 is an interesting case, where Twilight is subjected to the reality that she is not the only pony who can be relied on for when it comes to repairing relationships. Note how antsy she gets in Lost Treasure of Griffonstone and Made in Manehatten when she isn't called upon by the Cutie Map. Then in Hoofields and McColts she practically barrels over Fluttershy to leave Ponyville once she's finally called, then gets so anxious as to actually tear out pages from a book when her solutions don't work, only for Fluttershy to basically solve everything. Plus there's Party Pooped, wherein she accidentally instigates through what appears to be a sloppy understanding of diplomacy, only for Pinkie Pie of all ponies to save the day and make friends with the yaks. In Amending Fences, she reunites with her old friends and makes up with Moon Dancer, but also has it practically thrown in her face that she did in fact used to be pretty antisocial, and that she inadvertently ended up making Moon Dancer a shut-in (that really shouldn't have been too much of Twilight's fault, but she ends up feeling like it really is all her fault).
And finally in The Cutie Map, it's Twilight's charge through Equal Town and lurking around and talking to the ponies there that causes Starlight to attack them and remove their Cutie Marks (this isn't so much said in words but my interpretation of the first episode, but one I think can be pretty strongly argued just from Twilight taking the lead for the most part in Part 1), and yet she's practically useless in Part 2. After Fluttershy reveals Starlight's Cutie Mark, it's the townponies that rise up against Starlight and the Equal Four that chase after her. Twilight doesn't even get to make her friendship speech before she's interrupted.
We don't really see this much in Season 4. In Season 4, Twilight takes a backseat in several episodes as the CMC and remaining Mane 6 each get at least one episode as the leading character. Even still, Twilight is still a major participant in some of these episodes, sometimes seeing the solution to a problem before the main character does - Rainbow Falls, for instance. The one major exception to this could be 'Three's a Crowd'. There's a theory floating out on the web that Discord attempted to manipulate Twilight in this episode to learn her own friendship lesson so she could get a key, given that in Twilight's Kingdom he's genre-savvy enough to link the five Key episode incidents together in their journal, but Twilight didn't take to it the first time.
Going back to Season 5, it's only Amending Fences and The Cutie Re-Mark in this season where Twilight actually got to put her friendship-making to work and succeed on her own terms. So no, I don't think she's OOC, because if it happens multiple times over an entire season, that's character development, even if it's negative development. I'd say between this, and having to go through two sets of big problems close together twice in a season and a half (Tirek followed by Equal Town, since there's not that much time separation between the two, and then time travel plus the Crystal Heart incident) where she was all but useless in two of them (or three of them if you count Rainbow Rocks), she's probably more than snippy and probably suffering from mental problems dating back to Lesson Zero that have never been shown on-screen to be rectified outside of a garbage breathing method.
Then Trixie is 'the one that got away', who managed to supposedly reform on her own with no real need for help from Twilight beyond beating her in a Magic Duel and getting rid of the Alicorn Amulet.
I think you have a great point. I think there are a lot of people out there who think "oh, Twilight is a Princess now, she doesn't have character flaws anymore." If Twilight could buck up friendship so dramatically in "Amending Fences" After already being the Princess of Friendship, then yeah, she can keep screwing up the thing she is princess of for many seasons to come.
Very well said. Just because you are a princess, you can be unperfect... Is that even a word? Probably not the best way to word it either. A better way would be "Just because you're a princess, it doesn't mean you're perfect." Oh great, I'm rambling now...
Very well-said. Starlight stole this episode, but Twilight was also great, and I think most of Celestia's disturbing silence was thinking, "Okay, okay, how badly has Twilight messed things up this time..."
Ooh, this is an interesting point.