Unpopular opinion time

@Meanlucario  
@Meanlucario
 
It annoys me how it seems like there’s… a fundamental disconnect between what her character is, and how a lot of fanon portrays it.
 
I mean, going off of canonical evidence, you can make a good case that she doesn’t actually seem to care much about ruling over her hive again, in particular.
 
I could elaborate on that train of thought…

@AC97  
She still cares, that’s why she wanted to take over all of Equestria, so she could rule over and torture her disobedient slaves for all eternity.

@UserAccount  
The worst type of caring.

@AC97  
Change your mind about Twilight and Spike? No, my opinion is largely in accord with your’s. It just has more detail (like, six paragraphs of it).
 
And in my head, Chrysalis is DONE with followers of any kind. Which, given that she can’t abide rivals or superiors, paints a quite bleak picture of her ideal world.

@Meanlucario  
The best* type.

@Latecomer  
I remember a video Silver did on the Nightmare Moon timeline, and how Moon and Chrysalis are shadows of the queen, with Chrysalis’ being the shadow that sabotages others to make herself feel better due to a fragile ego.

@AC97
 
It makes me dislike Chrysalis a lot.

(I’ll pretend I got prompted to elaborate, I suppose)
 
@UserAccount
 
I mean, don’t get me wrong, she does care about ruling, it’s just that I’m not at all sure that it’s predominantly centered around her former subjects.
 

 
(The Mean 6)
 

 
(The Beginning of the End, the only thing that remotely supports the implication she wants to rule over her hive once more, regarding dialogue… but… more on that)
 

 
(The Ending of the End, Part 1)
 

 
(Part 2)
 
Overall, I think she’s a lot like Sombra, in that she ultimately wants to rule over others with an iron hoof, and she doesn’t care too much about who it is she’s ruling over, nor what she has to do to get there, so long as she has power. And she definitely isn’t averse to abusing said power, by any means.

@Latecomer
 
Ah, okay then.
 
I thought you meant you believed in mother/son.

@AC97  
I believe in very mixed-up - but no, Twilight raising him alone is ridiculous under those circumstances.
 
(Also ties into the “boarding student or not?” debate a bit too.)

@AC97  
But she does want to make her former subjects pay! When she split up slaves betwen her, Tirek and Cozy, she definitely would’ve called dibs on all of the Changelings.

Sorry I forgot I had company coming over today. Here’s two replies and I’m out :D
 
@Tirimsil  
I wonder if maybe Twilight Time was like the CMC adult episode where it was originally conceived for much earlier in the series for that same reason :P
 
@Latecomer  
Honestly it’s never really mattered to me if people like or dislike the things I like or dislike, like I don’t get upset when people trash on parts of the show I like or anything. I’m interested in WHY people like or dislike things though :D

@Badumsquish  
I’m interested in the why’s too, and I recognise there are several episodes I don’t like out of just personal taste. Others, however, are just bad… but then, everyone says that about Rainbow Falls.

@Latecomer  
I remember that ep being alright.

@Latecomer
 
@Meanlucario  
I wouldn’t even call it the worst episode of S4, I liked it more than the Breezies or Leap of Faith at least

@Kiryu-Chan  
I didn’t think any of the key eps were bad, to be honest. (Cept maybe Twilight’s Kingodom, but that’s not quite the same?)

“Rainbow Falls” has been said and I am summoned! It’s a horrible episode because Twilight is a terrible friend in that episode. Flying with the Wonderbolts is Dash’s lifelong dream, and Twilight says “but Applejack baked some things so you’re a horrible person for flying with them.” It makes no sense and is a horrible display of loyalty on Twilight’s part, the episode should’ve ended with Rainbow Dash accepting the invitation to joint the Wonderbolts.

@GenericArchangel  
Yeah, no. The fact that it’s her lifelong dream is what makes it a test.

@Latecomer  
My point is Rainbow Dash cares about joining the Wonderbolts a lot more than Fluttershy or Bulk Biceps cared about playing in the games. Telling her to abandon the one thing she wants from life so her friends can do something they guess is sorta cool is a horrible thing to do to someone you care about- honestly, it’s kind of abusive, telling her her dreams don’t matter.

@GenericArchangel  
The conflict of the episode was more “would RD live out her dreams and abandon her friends?”
 
The biggest problem with the ep was Twilight. She should’ve just let Dash decide what she wanted to do instead of guilt tripping her into staying on team Ponyville.

@GenericArchangel  
Her dreams matter, and she’s pursuing them - she got onto the Bolts anyway, didn’t she? In fact, flying against them at the Games might have impressed them more.
 
But she has a loyalty to Ponyville too - perhaps a stronger one for choosing it rather than just being born there. Cloudsdale has the WOnderbolts, and probably many other top flyers besides - how many awesome pegasi does Ponyville have?

@rdibp  
That too. The ending I would’ve liked is Twilight realizes that Dash can’t find the guts to tell her friends she won’t fly with them, so Twi explains the situation and they tell Dash it’s okay for her to go. She gets the key from coming back to help them train their new flyer, because even if she changed teams they’re still her friends.
 
@Latecomer  
Twilight had no way of knowing they’d take her after that. From Spitfire’s perspective, Rainbow Dash just turned down their offer, why should they make it again? Nothing about joining the Wonderbolts runs counter to her duty to her friends, in this case they owe it to her to let her fulfill her dream.

@GenericArchangel
 
… Did we watch the same episode? Are you being ironic?
 
In Rainbow Falls, Rainbow Dash had to abandon her friends to fly with the Wonderbolts; they were opposing teams in a competition.
 
Twilight noted that everyone was putting all their faith into the Ponyville team (not just Applejack with her baking) and would be heartbroken if Dash went “yeah you guys suck, bye”.
 
What’s more, the reason Dash was even offered to join the Wonderbolts was because they thought she was better than Soarin’ and wanted to ditch him for her. Soarin’ had bashed into something earlier and they were hamming up the severity of his injury both to him and to Rainbow Dash.
 
Rainbow Dash’s final decision was based not only on the fact that the Element of Loyalty couldn’t just abandon her friends, but also that the Wonderbolts were doing just that. She was heavily disappointed in them and decided they were not the star team she’d wanted to fly with since she was a filly.
 
The Wonderbolts agreed with her, and shaped themselves up by the time she got around to joining.
 
Almost every Rainbow Dash episode has a similar formula:
 
Thing Dash Wants: You can have me if you abandon your friends  
Rainbow Dash: OK  
Friends: Rainbow Dash pls  
Rainbow Dash: Half-OK?  
Thing Dash Wants: Did I mention you’d be a traitor?  
Rainbow Dash: Oh right, well then I take my OK back

@GenericArchangel  
I also don’t like that moment when Twilight says, “Is that Rainbow Dash… walking!?” when she clearly knew beforehand that she was faking.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Rainbow Falls, but I rate it 0/10 for being an RD episode.