Still Salty · 4:54pm Jun 20th, 2019
Ya know, I never did get on board with the School of Friendship. The Student Six aren't all that interesting to me (except that griffon), and it seemed just, I don't know, too... too something that friendship is so poorly understood that we need an academy for it. When Twilight was learning friendship lessons at the beginning of the series, it seemed more like a personal journey of a pony who needed to come out of her shell. Now it seems like all of Equestria is just full of creatures that don't grasp that being nice is the better option. Seems weird to me.
Okay, that aside, one of the things that chaps my hide about the School of Friendship is the total lack of Cheerilee. I mean, I guess that they are making a distinction between general education and a specialized concentration in friendship, but just look at the difference! Poor Cheerilee has to make do with a shack that barely fits nine foals. The School of Friendship is a vast. multi-leveled estate! What the hell, Twilight? Throw poor Cheerilee a bone and give her a classroom! Does she even have any students anymore? Which one would you send your foal to? The shack down the road, or the glistening, majestic palace of learning that's run by a literal princess and has classes taught by the greatest heroes of Equestria?
What it boils down to is a tendency that I dislike in long-running series. Instead of using the available tools, the writers that come in later want to go with their ideas. That's natural, I suppose, but it leaves the audience feeling like the characters that we know and love are forgotten. That's how I feel about Cheerilee. She was at least a B-tier character for the first two seasons, but is now relegated to background status. I wouldn't complain too much about it if the last season's focus hasn't literally been on schools and education, but c'mon! At least acknowledge it!
As I understand it, the whole friendship school thing is another case of toyeticism.
Well, if Cheerilee grows wings and a horn and saves the world, she can magic up a school in a mountainside too.
I don't mind the concept of a school in general. Celestia has one, so it would make sense that Twilight would both be able to manage one and want to follow in her mentor's hoofsteps. The real problem is that the writers approached it in all the wrong ways. I could understand if the school was described as being a sort of rehab for creatures who clearly didn't grasp friendship, which would make it a sort of villain reformation facility. Twilight's shown she excels at that to an unrealistic degree.
5077162
Oh, it for sure is. I just mean in terms of making the in-story logic work. Ponyville now has two schools. One tiny shack and a gigantic academy. Seems like you could at least give a sentence or two explanation that Cheerilee will teach her classes there, too. Even just putting her in a background shot as the main characters walk by her classroom. Something!
5077173
Unfortunately, the only magic that Cheerilee has is the Magic of Adorableness. I'm not sure how far that gets her along the alicorn path.
5077190
That's not a bad idea. It would have been far more interesting to me if it was used to help those that were more like Twilight was at the beginning of the series. A place for the Gildas and Garbles of the world. Instead, it feels like no one in Equestria understands friendship, and that's weird.
5077193
Sadly, I think the first earth pony alicorns will be Pinkie and Applejack. The world is not yet ready for princess of learning.
5077196
Well, we did have Big Mac as the Princess of Stoicism.
Also Cheerilee's school is accredited and Twilight's is not, but Twilight's school is still clearly paid for by the taxpayers at a cost of like 100 times Cheerilee's even as Cheerilee needs to rely on students to fix things like broken playground equipment.
5077325
Clearly it's governmental favoritism!
Another idea would have been to make Twilight's school more like a highschool or college. The student six do seem to be older than the CMC and friends, so I'd even make that argument, if not for Cozy Glow and the episode where the CMC crashed it. Making it a secondary education or university also could have made the general public seem less dumb: these are ponies who want to specialize in friendship. Pope Twilight's future clergy, basically.
5077607
I would be down with that idea. I don't think it was such a great move to make it look like the same age range. It's weird to have two schools, and it definitely makes me think that the current batch of writers had basically forgotten or didn't care that Ponyville already had a school.