May the muffins be forever in your favour."2, 4, 6, Greaaat" Review: Rainbow Dash and the Lesson in Empathy · 12:26am Aug 11th, 2019
By all fillies in Equestria..... Rainbow Dash was a MASSIVE douche today. I mean, it's not exactly surprising. We've seen her like this in the past. Rainbow Dash always had a douchebag attitude in certain moments. She even used to be a douche to Fluttershy (!) and to Scootaloo (!!) way back in the past. That is her. That is Rainbow Dash. That is one part of her and we all know that some things never change.
But today, she cranked up her douchebag attitude to 11 so hard that she broke the scale and that she broke the feelings of Ocellus and Yona alongside it. She made them both cry, Yona, who had so much fun with the cheerleading (Iikely, because Yakyakistan probably isn't huge about cheerleading and she wants to make as many experiences as possible), and Ocellus, who wanted to participate in the Cheer Squad so that the ponies in Twilight's school would notice her for more than her ability to shapeshift and for whom it was so important to be a part of the team because of that (which is a really interesting reveal about Ocellus, I wonder if we can still get an episode that focuses on that).
That's a completely new douche level for Rainbow Dash.
And it even got worse. After Ocellus ran away crying because of her, she did not bat an eye over it, didn't even acknowledge that she just hurt her feelings and was instead busy being fake-offended over Smolder's remark that she doesn't care about being their coach. And she ridiculed Ocellus and made fun of her for crying, when she said that the Cheer Squad would be interesting if Ocellus "would always cheer like that". That was a particularly low comment even for Rainbow Dash and I didn't expect her to stoop so low. I'm glad Ocellus didn't have to hear this, but she sure found out later by her friends, who definitely told her everything, and Rainbow Dash better apologizes to her and does something for her to make up for it, both for making her cry AND that cruel remark.
We've seen her at her lowest in this episode. However, regardless of that, there is one thing I have to defend Rainbow Dash against:
Her perceived lack of loyalty.
Rainbow Dash, during these events, wasn't disloyal. She did not betray her Element of Harmony and her most distinctive and characteristic personality trait.
I ask you, who are the people you feel loyal towards? Your best friends? Your parents? Your work colleagues? That other author you collab with on a ponyfic?
Usually, if you feel loyal towards someone, there is a certain connection between you and that person. You love your friends. You love your parents. You sit in the same boat as the other guys at your job. You aim for a shared goal with that author you're working together with. It can be an emotional connection or a professional, work-related connection, but there is always something that makes you feel connected with that person. And it's that connection that makes you feel loyal towards someone.
More than that, it's that connection that makes it possible for loyalty to exist in the first place. Did you ever feel loyal towards your neighbor on the other side of the street who you aren't related with, who you aren't friends with, who you have no shared interest with and about whose life you don't know anything? Ever felt loyal towards someone who is literally just another face for you?
Without some kind of connection to a person, there is no loyalty and no need to feel loyal.
Now, who was in the Cheer Squad? Yona, Ocellus, Smolder and two mares, Shimmy Shake and Lighthoof. Rainbow Dash did not even know the names of the latter two and had trouble to recognize their faces, which probably means they are in classes she doesn't teach, so let's cross these two off. She doesn't have a connection to them.
Yona, Ocellus and Smolder remain and Rainbow Dash is indeed connected with them in certain ways. They are her students. She works together with them on a shared goal, to become good at the subjects she teaches them about and to pass in Twilight's school, so there's a professional connection between them. And teachers spend a lot of time with their students, they get to know them quite well, so there is an emotional connection, too.
But let me ask a question now, were any of these two connections really present during the events? Did Rainbow feel these connections?
Rainbow Dash did not feel the professional connection. We know that for a fact. She was supposed to work together with them and to make the Cheer Squad awesome™, yes, but Rainbow Dash didn't do that and she didn't want to do that. She was hoping to coach the buckball team and was disappointed when she was chosen to coach the cheerleaders instead, because she doesn't care about cheerleading, so there was no shared goal here.
And the emotional connection? She does care for her students, right? Yes, but that's not something she felt during these events. Since we saw her for the first time, we know that Rainbow Dash has a massive ego. She's the best at everything, the world rotates around her, ect. ect. She managed to reduce that ego quite a bit over the last few years and became more humble and subdued, but it never went away completely. It's still a part of her and sometimes rears its head.
Here, in this episode, we saw Rainbow Dash suffering from something. She wanted to coach the buckball team, something she's deeply interested in, but only got dealt the old, boring cheerleader team. She sees herself as the best pony for the job of buckball coach and there's no room for the fact that Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Snails have more buckball experience than her and are, therefore, the best possible coaches, in her mind. Twilight chose ponies as the buckball coaches who are better at buckball than her. That hurt Rainbow Dash's ego deeply.
And since Rainbow Dash's enormous ego of the size of a whale makes her quite often think that the world only rotates around her when she is in a really good mood and thinks that everypony and creature looks up to her as the most awesome flier the world has ever seen, that naturally doesn't change when Rainbow Dash is suffering from something and feels bad either
Rainbow Dash started suffering from being rejected as the buckball coach and, suddenly, it was all only about her anymore. Only she suffered from that moment on. There possibly couldn't be any other ponies or creatures who suffer, as well. Ocellus cried, so that means she suffered from something, too? Nah.
Due to her ego, Rainbow Dash was blocking out the feelings of those around her when she felt bad. She did not even notice how she hurt Yona and Ocellus, because she only perceived her own suffering and her hurt ego this entire time. She didn't feel empathy nor any kind of emotions towards the members of the Cheer Squad. It was all about her and how awful it was that she had to put up with them and that she got denied what she wanted to do. She wasn't emotionally connected with them there. She did not feel any emotional connection.
Rainbow Dash felt neither emotionally nor professionally connected to the Cheer Squad. A professional connection wasn't felt by her, because she didn't share a goal with them. An emotional connection wasn't felt by her, because her (hurt) ego blocked that out.
Above, we have learned that loyalty needs some kind of connection. But Rainbow Dash didn't have any connection with the Cheer Squad, she got coaching them assigned to her and her emotions and empathy for creatures she actually cares about under normal circumstances got drowned in her ego, so she didn't see it as her duty to be loyal to them. And since she didn't feel any loyalty, she couldn't break with loyalty.
Rainbow Dash wasn't disloyal because, in her mind, she wasn't supposed to be loyal towards them anyway. That's why she did neither betray her Element of Harmony, nor her own personality.
What Rainbow Dash learned here was to care about the feelings of others, even if she thinks she (and everyone else) should only care about her feelings right now. This wasn't a Lesson in Loyalty for Rainbow Dash. This was a Lesson in Empathy.
I like this episode. It's not what I hoped it would be; Lightning Dust didn't return for revenge, Wind Sprint didn't come to watch the buckball game and Lemon Crumble wasn't part of the buckball team (and she didn't even have a single appearance in this episode, sadly), but I like it. It's one of those episodes with nice, subtle writing where you have to do some serious thinking to understand the motivation of a character and the reason for their behavior.
Huh, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is actually a deep and thought-provoking show. Who would have thought after eight and a half seasons.
Continuing with some smaller things, I am really impressed of Twilight after watching this episode. And moved. With arranging all of that, assigning the task of coaching the Cheer Squad to Rainbow Dash just so she can learn to be more caring to others, because Twilight knew she's lacking in that department and because she knew that Rainbow Dash would react like that, she did the same thing that Celestia has done countless times before. She put a pony on the right path without letting that pony know they're on the right path and taught them a lesson that way.
Twilight has learned so much. She truly is ready to become her mentor's successor.
With this episode, it happened for the first time to me that my eyes got immediately glued to a name in the credits, a VA, who didn't even voice a mane character: Kelli Ogmundson.
That name stuck with me, because she voiced a sweet and awesome filly before, Petunia Paleo. For this episode, she voiced Lighthoof and I'm astounded that she managed to do a completely different voice. Petunia's voice is very high-pitched and has such an exciteable ring to it, while Lighthoof's voice is quite deep and rather subdued in comparison. Kelli Ogmundson is a very talented voice actress. She deserves just as much credit as the big VAs of the show. If I could meet her, I would totally bring something with Petunia Paleo on it to let it getting signed by her.
And now, let's end this review of "2, 4, 6, Greaaat" with one more thing that is thought-provoking. Or, should I say, something that raises many questions?
This is the first time that Silverstream is, as the only one of the Student Six, not seen in an episode despite her five friends are all in it. There are only Smolder, Yona, Ocellus, Gallus and Sandbar. This is an odd thing to do for Silverstream, not joining her friends, not even coming to watch their cheerleader performance.....
Stay easy as a filly! (And watch the skies.)
~ Fluttercheer
You learn something new every day.
Well said, friend.
5103960
Thanks.^^ Just something that needed to be said.
5103589
Unless you're Rainbow Dash.
5104749
That's harsh to say about her. She got her ego turned down a lot over the years since Twilight came to Ponyville due to several events, like at the Wonderbolts Academy. I'm sure the fact that Spitfire beat her at the Equestria Games contributed to that, too.
Also, it was just recently that Rainbow Dash's ego was massively spoiled. It was only a little while ago that she was in Hope Hollow and was made the centerpoint of an entire festival there, while at the same time meeting two foals who adored and loved her and had made her to the centerpoint of their lives.
That made her ego go through the roof once more, which made it all the more hard for her that she wasn't chosen to be the coach of the buckball team. It's no surprise that she temporarily forgot to keep her ego in check.
And now that I think about all that, it also makes more clear why Twilight assigned coaching the Cheer Squad to Rainbow Dash. She knows Rainbow Dash, so she already figured that her ego would create some trouble in the near future after it was fed so much in Hope Hollow.
So she arranged that situation before Rainbow Dash's ego blows up in a moment where it would be a much bigger issue, like, when a villain attacks.
Twilight's really filling Celestia's steps.