FiM Rewatch: Boast Busters · 12:56am Sep 10th, 2020
Sorry... didn't mean to put this off a month.
Well, here's a historic episode. The introduction of Trixie, and the beginning of antagonists that the fanbase inexplicably falls in love with. Okay, Gilda had this too, but not as much
Granted, this episode could have established Trixie better, seeing as how she seems to be a traveling performer and should be expected to show off. But the sheer amount of glee and pettiness she shows when she humiliates Twilight's friends, her egging Twilight on in public, and her undeniable ego... yeah. I didn't even find Trixie very interesting. She grows into a better character, but here? If it wasn't for the fanbase, I probably wouldn't have even remembered her.
Not to mention, this episode seems padded. I was surprised when I got to the part where Rarity gets humiliated and realized that the episode was half over. I seem to remember more happening in the middle.
Yeah... this was a pretty meh episode to me. No stand out jokes, actually pretty boring. Let's just move on.
Honestly, I think Trixie comes off as near saint-like compared to half our main cast who are heckling her during her performance before she's even done anything. She's a performer, it's her job to draw a crowd by whatever means necessary. Exaggeration is part of the act, and she's never said to be holding them hostage, they can just leave if they have a problem with her attitude instead of trying to one up her.
Thank you for pointing this out. Yes, it was wrong for the ponies who heckled her to do so, but Trixie's retaliation went WAY too far for me to really be that sympathetic to her, or understand why people were so quick to paint her as a defenseless woobie who was screwed over by no fault of her own.
5352170
She literally ties Applejack up at one point. This is assault under the thinly-disguised premise "anything you can do, I can do better."
It really gets my goat when people defend Trixie on the basis that they imagine performers to have no sense of propriety, ethics, or self-respect. You can tell these people have never been in show business.
I really didn't like Trixie in this episode. Way too egotistical and eager to humilate others. And she was a liar on top of all that. Thankfully, she got better over time.
Though it was nice to see a display of Twilight's magical power, and we got a nice lesson about how you shouldn't be afraid to show off your skills, as long as you don't make others look small doing so.
I remember I wasn’t much of a fan of Trixie when I first saw her. Maybe it was because she was a liar and she humiliated Twilight’s friends, but I thought it was a bit surprising that fans liked her so much. Probably because of her “rivalry” with Twilight? Though she eventually grew on me, after she got some much needed character development years later.
I do remember I loved seeing Twilight take care of the Ursa Minor in a magnificent display if power, which really only scratches the surface of what she can do. I also personally loved the glimpse we got of a real Ursa Major, followed by Twilight saying “you don’t want to know” about it.
5352170
Yeah, no. First off, even if we grant that heckling justifies what she did to them, which is a hard sell anyway... literally only Rainbow actually heckled her. Applejack and Rarity did no such thing. They privately conveyed her dislike to their friends but, guess what? You're allowed to do that. That is, until she actively drew attention to them (and incidentally, not only does that indicate she's a terrible performer, since the one thing you never do with a heckler is draw more attention to them, but the sheer speed and readiness she had to challenge them, not to mention the glee she took while doing it, seems to suggest that, at best, this is an outcome she'd expected and was looking forward to, if not one she'd intended).
And even if you want to say "Oh, well, you shouldn't say anything during a performance, even saying something negative yourself is wrong", that might be valid... if they were in an actual theatre, where silence and attention is part of the established rules. But they're not. Trixie just plonked her stage in the middle of the town square and started performing. She doesn't get special dispensation for silence in those circumstances. Heck, she might well have been disrupting things herself.
And on that subject, regarding this little nugget:
Ignoring that they didn't try to one up her until she actively asked them to (which, again, is something any competent performer would never do)... this isn't some space she reserved or where she should expect to have sovereignty. She just set up in the middle of town, she doesn't get to declare the whole place a "Trixie Speech only" Zone and you can't just tell people to leave if they don't like it. That's like me breaking into your house to do a comedy act and then telling you to leave if you don't like it.
And as for the whole "she's a performer, she's supposed to exaggerate" thing, that fails for three reasons. Firstly, no, that's not how either performers or stage magicians work. Stage magicians have patter, certainly, but the whole point of it is to draw attention to the impressiveness (and distract from the workings) of the tricks and feats they perform, not to simply extol their own greatness.
Which leads to the second point: of she was billed at "Trixie, orator and storyteller" or "Trixie, master bull**** artist", that might justify it, because there's an assumption there that the exaggerations and falsehoods are part of the act and aren't to be taken seriously. But Trixie... well, actually, Trixie didn't bill herself at all, she just turned up and started doing magic, but that implies she's billed as a magician. And so, they expect magic, not lies, in the same way that what's accepted in a story wouldn't be acceptable in a documentary. If she wasn't actively trying to deceive ponies, she would have established things appropriately.
And finally, on that subject... she doesn't just stick to her lies on the stage. She keeps up her persona and boasts even after the show finishes. Heck, she keeps it up during an actual Ursa attack. And that, to me, puts paid to any notions that it was "part of the show" and just an attempt to entertain ponies instead of deceive them: if that were the case, literally the first thing out of her mouth would have been, "What?! Are you insane?! I can't handle an Ursa, that was just part of the show." But she doesn't, she keeps her BS going and actually tries to convince ponies she can act when she can't. So either it was an active attempt to deceive... or she just wasn't confident anybody didn't take her seriously, so she was okay deceiving them. Either way, she's not innocent in this.
And even if all of that wasn't true, Trixie loses anything approaching the moral high ground when she specifically targets and points out Twilight, who has not only done and said literally nothing towards her, but actively denied being anything special. As far as Trixie knew, she was just an innocent bystander. But Trixie intentionally and without provocation challenges her in order to humilate her too.
So, no, Trixie isn't anything close to saint-like. At best, she's, it TVTropes terms, an Asshole Victim. But really, I think she's just a fraud who sold her BS in the wrong town and got it shoved down her throat.
Sorry about the long and... probably overly-confrontational comment, it's just the sheer apologism Trixie gets... kinda irks me sometimes.
5352252 Well except there's one problem. Trixie didn't outright tell Snips and Snails to bring an Ursa Major to town. When confronted with this and in front of Twilight she willingly confessed to making up the story, which anyone with half a brain probably could've deduced. And because of that Trixie gets her wagon, her way of life destroyed, and Snips and Snails the actual perpetraiters get off with a slap on the wrist. All Trixie had to do was tell the town what happened instead of running off.
Yeah, when she reappeared in Season 3, I would have found it so hilarious if Twilight had responded to Trixie's challenge with "And you are...?" and need a moment to remember her, given the insane crap she's been through since the early days.
To be honest, the part of the episode that always bugged me was the humiliations of AJ, Rainbow and Rarity. Not because they excessive or unpleasant... but because they were so transparent, nobody should have been fooled. She claimed "anything you can do, I can do better", but literally every one of those "betters" consisted of "Oh yeah? Well, I can do basic magic. Hah!" They weren't remotely impressive and I honestly don't think anyone but the dumbest should have bought into them, even in an earth pony town.
5352254
Um, very little of that actually exculpates Trixie from anything I said, it just says there's more blame to hand around.
Oh, don't misunderstand me, Snips and Snails were definitely culpable and should have gotten much more of a punishment, I don't debate that for a moment. But just because they're guilty doesn't automatically make Trixie innocent.
"She didn't tell them to bring an Ursa to town"? No, but that's kinda how it works: when you tell a lie, you are explicitly hoping and expecting for people to believe that lie and, thus, you take some blame for the consequences of them believing it. Lying isn't wrong solely if you get caught.
And she only "confessed" after it had been explicitly demonstrated that she was full of crap and it was literally impossible to keep the lie up. And even then, she took the first opportunity to try and spin it when she heard it was an Ursa Minor, and not in a stage-show context this time. Yes, "anyone with half a brain" could see through it, but frauds and con artists aren't famous for targeting canny and wary people. And she was explicitly shown using her "status" to get stuff from the dumber members of her audience. Just because a lie is ineffective doesn't mean it's okay.
And the thing is... it didn't have to be an ursa that happened. It could have been a house fire, a natural disaster... some other monster coming in from the Everfree as has been known to happen... anything! Trixie was explicitly painting herself as being able to help in situations where she knew she wouldn't be able to. And I'm sorry, but that's... wrong.
So, yeah, the justice for Snips and Snails was severely lacking, but I think Trixie was just reaping what she sowed.
5352170
Something that was confusing about Trixie in her premiere is that the magic she shows off is ACTUAL magic, not staging and illusions. It feels a bit strange to pass that off as mind blowing in a possible in the world where a demigoddess rules over everyone, and runs an entire School for high-powered Mages. Also, it could be seen as sort of... awkward to be showing off that ability in front of Earth ponies and Pegasi.
And here we see that Trixie discourse never dies. It just sleeps until someone pokes that particular Ursa.
Suffice to say, Trixie's introduction did more for Twilight than Trixie herself. This was the episode that established not only how unicorn magic works, but also Purplesmart's game-breaking special talent. (Indeed, I think this may be the first time "special talent" is used in the show.) In D&D terms, Twilight is a wizard in a world of mostly sorcerers, and this episode showcases both her versatility—her greatness, if you will—and her incredible power like few others.
Actually, this is one of the most magically creative episodes of the season, if not the whole show. Even putting aside Twilight pacifying the Ursa Minor, Rarity transmutes curtains into a dress, Dash performs some incredible weather manipulation, and Applejack lassos an apple off of an apple tree that either wasn't there a few moments earlier or was halfway across town, the kind of space-time funkiness usually associated with Pinkie. And then there's Trixie herself, with neon illusions, controlling rainbows, summoning lightning, and invalidating the premise of "It Isn't the Mane Thing About You" years before it was a glimmer in Josh Haber's eye.
It also provided an invaluable tool for the early fandom by giving Twilight a canon foil, leading to countless stories of rivalry, romance, and everything in between. This may not have been the best introduction for Trixie, but it was a very important episode given its overall impact in world building and story potential.
5352351
Haven't the numerous attempts to port FiM into D&D established that skilled unicorns are wizards in a world of people with a few racial SLAs?
5352894
Definitely how it works in Ponyfinder, both the Pathfinder 1e and D&D 5e versions. But sorcerers work well as an analogy for the whole "You can cast a few spells intuitively and next to nothing outside of your specific niche" thing. Rarity isn't casting divinations through solid rock thanks to a racial ability.
5352304
Thinking these things through was never the show’s strong point.
5352955
They switched it over to stage magic and props, so I think smartly switched over the audience appeal to be more like “Wow, how does she do that without magic?”
5352908
Of course not, she does that using the SLA granted by the Special Talent feat (in Ponyfinder) :P