Princess Twilight is ready (and Firebrand Flare?)

---Season 9--Episode 17---
After years of reading people's hot takes, "Idiot Ball" seems to have become a more succint, and somehow nicer, way of saying that the writing for a character is badly and contrived. It should mean that their actions are so contrived, it takes the viewer out of the story. But that issue is so recurrent and expected that critics have just turned it into a story beat of Friendship is Magic.

(Yes, DWK is satire).

The Mane 5 (I'm including Spike, but subtracting Applejack's correct decision) trying to keep Twilight in the dark was pretty brilliant. Not because it was going to work out, but listening to them reason it out sounded like the writers were drawing inspiration from Brony threads. "If we tell her all this right now, it might regress her character! It's a fate worse than death!"

I knew Twilight's tiny notecards and bemused reaction would be weird for some people coming immediately after Twilight flipping her lid in Trivia Trot. But it's not a biggie for me. This episode was commentary on Twilight managing her anxiety from the burden placed on her by Celestia. The week before was her single-mindedness at winning, and showing off her brain-dick to everypony else. “My intellect is larger, and my recall is highest performing.”

Pointless trivia is just going to have to be something that Equestria will have to accept as a facet of their newest Princess. Just like the older models had their weird fixation on the mail and scholastic sports.

The weakpoint of the episode (not just by process of elimination, but is actually pretty weak) is the unicorn firework team. How does Chrysalis get them to go back on a contract with the Equestrian Crown? I can buy that Chrysalis is able to put someone down and ruin their sense of accomplishment with a few observations. But this team isn't acting like people riddled with doubt. Even weirder is how they're all taking the same action like the heads of a hydra. With so much confusion over their life's value, wouldn't it be more natural to be acting is DISharmony? Breaking up? They're all acting strongly opinionated, and all their actions and facial expressions match up to the whatever the leader (her name is Fire Flare) has switched to.

Besides the questions of motivation, it just isn't interesting to watch. The dramatic point is watching them walk down a road. The point is they're suppose to be looking on to greater things. So how about instead of the these unicorns just giving up, and leaving to do seemingly nothing more interesting, go the other direction! "Pointless fireworks are beneath us, Princess! We're changing our routine to Balrog Summoning!"


Then that thread is Twilight and Pinkie going "No, don't do."

But the problem with them goes beyond just their screentime. It... seems like they're suppose to be evidence for Cozy Glow claim that "all those Earth Ponies, Unicorns and Pegasi were so willing to turn on each other." Whaaaaat? The fireworks team's egos and fixation on magical power could definitely be interpreted as a supremacist attitude. But neither of the other races did ANYTHING to falsely elevate themselves. They didn't even do anything MEAN. The Earth Ponies were just dealing with what they thought was food poisoning. The Pegasi team were dealing with bad weather, and the manager having a panic attack. I've been avoiding the leaked finale, but I've seen Hasbro's trailer involving a shot of the Windigos. If this episode was meant to foreshadow racial tension in Equestria, than this is a complete mess of it. Clumsy storytelling is made even worse when trying to tackle as important as ethnic division in society.

Although on the subject of finale predictions, Discord's ending observations were very interesting to me. He knows what's coming. Grogar. The "Father of Monsters." And last season, we saw how magical power was used to fuse disparate animals into crazy chimeras...