Thoughts on Sweet and Elite · 1:00pm Dec 30th, 2020
This episode, in particular, was fun mostly because it introduced another side character Fancy Pants, a noble stallion living in Canterlot. Unlike the other posh ponies, he seems more intelligent and more welcoming than the others and I find him to be a character quite overlooked. Even though Rarity lied to him basically the entire time I think he knew she was and he simply let her continue so he can get to know her and her friends more. I also see them establish a relationship even after she reveals her friends not being as posh and sophisticated as the other noble mares and stallions. This may, in turn, have helped him in court as she established at the beginning of the episode her relationship with princess Celestia. I do wish his character was explored more and where his backstory, if I would give an educated guess he may have been somepony who had to work his way up the social ladder to get where he is. Overall it's a missed opportunity to have him be in more episodes and to maybe have him even help Rarity in Canterlot.
Other thoughts
I like how these ponies have no idea that Twilight and her friends saved Equestria twice now which is pretty ironic.
Applejack made me laugh as she was pulling weeds at the "garden party" you have to admit she has a point.
I feel like we could have taken this episode as an opportunity to help better expand Unicorn culture or the idea of expanding more about Rarity's family at large, maybe even try to slowly introduce us to characters like Cadence and Shining Armor very early on in the season and slowly have it be revealed that they have connections with Twilight Sparkle.
A good way of setting this up would be to have Rarity going to Canterlot not with Opalescence, but with Sweetie Belle. The reason for their trip is different than before. In this case, the two of them are going to Canterlot in order to retrieve some personal effects and belongings that their mother left when she moved out of Canterlot to instead live near Ponyville. While there, they both run into some familiar faces; in this case Vladimir Blueblood.
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The reason why most of the fandom seems to cosign Blueblood with a pompous twit is because he never got a chance to showcase himself outside of his one appearance in Best Night Ever, he never got anymore appearances at all which defeats the purpose of having even created him in the first place and gave him his own VA and a supposed connection with Celestia. We honestly had no possible reason to continue to negate Prince Blueblood if we had a few more episodes with him involved.
Anyways, the sisters meet with Blueblood, Blueblood apologizes for his actions with Rarity; having believed her to be another Gold Digger or an attempted suitor for him assigned by one of the other Nobles trying to use Blueblood to curry favor with Celestia in order to gain more power at large. Something that he doesn't abide by as it goes against his personal morals. His behavior at the Gala as a jerk was meant as a mask to prevent himself from becoming another political tool and that he's actually a nice guy outside of social events.
We could reveal that the reason why Cookie Crumbles sent her daughters to Canterlot was because originally Cookie was a prominent heiress to a branch Noble Family who was cast out and formally banished from Canterlot via magic spell for disgracing and disobeying her family. Cookie Crumbles estate was burned to the ground and her possessions seized by the family Guards. Only a few items were kept safely away in Canterlot, but by the time that Rarity and Sweetie arrive at the place they were kept at; the contents were being taken to be sold off or destroyed by the same noble that had banished Cookie those many years ago, her own sister and both Rarity and Sweeties' aunt who is a big-shot in the royal court that can get away with much of what she does because of how much political power she can wield underneath the notice of Princess Celestia. Rarity and Sweetie are determined to retrieve their mothers' belongings and starts up a plan to get it back with the help of Prince Blueblood, Major Shining Armor (whom Rarity remembered as a Lieutenant who was promoted after Discords' rampage and doesn't know is Twilights' older Brother), Cadence (who has hidden her guise as an Alicorn Princess to appear to us the viewers as a Unicorn), Photo Finish and Hoity Toity (would be seriously nice to see some callbacks to the first season and to give some characterization to them and some degree of connection and familiarity they both apparently have with Spike to have came down to Ponyville as they did) in order to help boost Rarity and Sweeties' reputation enough to gain an audience with their Noble Aunt.
The whole Becoming Popular Song could have been sung as a duet between the two sisters as they engage in social circles thanks to both their own moxy and the words of their Canterlot friends in order to gain the audience they need, and there would be massive stakes involved instead of just trying to become popular like Rarity wanted to do in the original episode, we would have been treated to seeing Rarity and Sweetie Belle working off of one-another as a tag-team, we already got a hint of it back near the end of Sisterhooves Social, and here we have it in full-effect to showcase how awesome they both are together.
The day of their audience arrives as Rarity is brought before the Noble House where she finally meets with her aunt, who reveals that she had to cast out her older sister for being a disgrace to their family for refusing an arranged marriage to instead be with "some Mud-Mucker yokel from Ponyville." She would also reveal that she knew about Rarity and cites her as having wanted to belong to Canterlot all of her life, to be with her real family and surrounded by all the praise and adoration that she truly deserved. Rarity is swept into this madness as she is actually being hypnotized to renounce Ponyville to instead stay in Canterlot with her dear and loving aunt. Sweetie realizes that her sister is being mind-controlled, and with the help of a Pegasus filly that she had briefly met manages to help undo the mind control and expose the lies and treachery that her aunt was responsible for causing to Princess Luna who was in attendance. A brief scuffle breaks out as the sisters chase down their aunt as she tries to escape aboard a yacht.
Cornered, their aunt tosses Magic-suppression rings onto her nieces' horns which would make them more subservient and obedient after a few months stay with her in isolation, and that Luna wouldn't even dare to interfere with her afterwards. Only to be bested when Rarity and Sweetie both resort to good old fisticuffs to deal with their Aunt, showing that unlike her who prides herself in her purity and her Noble pedigree, Rarity and Sweetie are self-made ponies that got where they are through grit and hard work (along with the fact that their father had a hoof in raising them).
The sisters deliver their aunt to Princess Luna who vows to see that she pays for her numerous crimes of extortion, bribery, and treason and offers her thanks to Rarity and Sweetie for exposing this to her, and promising that whatever curse their family is afflicted with preventing them from returning to Canterlot is properly removed when next they visit. Looking to one-another, the two sisters decide to get what they came up to Canterlot for and head back home to Ponyville, waving goodbye to their friends along the way. Sweetie however is unable to find the Pegasus she befriended that had helped her out, unaware that she is watching them in secrecy far above them.
Returning to Ponyville with their yacht, their parents are gathered around their children as they look through some of the things that were taken away from them as they linger on a photo album showing a pregnant Cookie Crumbles in Canterlot with her Earth Pony husband Hondo Flanks (hence explaining why Rarity tried so hard since the start of the series to get into the Canterlot Elite to begin with: she's half-Earth Pony, and it gives her an explanation to why she is more hands-on in her approach to combat as opposed to using magic like Twilight Sparkle does)
Instead of a a "Lier-Revealed" Cliché plot, we could have had something much more that helped to both expand the world at large, redeem prior characters and to explain why they are and who they know, and to set things up for the rest of the series.