My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Page 38

Over A Barrel is actually one of my least favorite episodes, despite having one of the better bits of dialogue with the "fluttershy isn't a tree". I think the main thing that makes this episode a bad starter is that the ponies don't actually achieve anything, at all. Had they not shown up the exact same showdown would have taken place, the same resolution would have been reached. In the end we have no reason to care, all we see is a town of ponies being dicks to the bisons and the bisons being equally unreasonable. Frankly if we weren't already invested in the Mane Six we wouldn't really give a damn.

Not everything about it is bad, and it's definitely got some really great moments. The part on the train is amazing, and Pinkie's song is hilarious provided the viewer takes the huge number of hints (stunned faces, comments afterwards) that it's supposed to be bad, plus there's the matter of her getup. Just about anything not related to the plot here is good.

But the core conflict of the episode is handled beyond terribly. The initial dispute sounds stupid to begin with; the buffalo want the land just because their forefathers had it, so they can stampede on it (stampeding is not exactly a necessity, and no reason why it is is ever stated in the show). Then the resolution of this land dispute and small war turns out to be, "Herp derp apple pie tastes good so we'll reason now." Then one minute scene and done, happy ending. Which, needless to say, is beyond stupid.

On top of that, the extremely obvious and intentional parallels to the Native Americans in the episode were borderline offensive, when you consider that what happened there was usually what could be called full-scale genocide. Bringing the message of "sharing and caring" to that historical context, along with the stupid simple reasons for the dispute shown here, is just childish, and it really goes against the idea of not talking down to anyone that the rest of the show holds. I'd say that this episode, if seen first, would lead someone to believe that the show is meant to be dumbed down for children more than any other episode.

Unfortunately I don't have the sophisticated argument your looking for. It had the most lines in it that made me smile, and I value that a lot in the television I watch. I don't find enjoyment in thinking "the characters accomplished something to day, good!" The "dickish" qualities of the settlers/bison weren't an attraction themselves, but served as a nice backdrop to highlight the cheerful qualities of the mane cast which can sometimes be muddled by equally (some times even more) happy people in ponyville. It didn't have the, for lack of a better term, "awwwww" factor that is counter-intuitively an appealing quality to so many in our demographic, but it came shortly after back-to-back CMC stories, which kind of over saturated me.

Without Pinki Pie's song, the chief bison probably wouldn't have charged, so they still played a role in this conflict ^^ even if this is true that they aren't really involved .

(Ps: I don't understand the chief, I love her song :D)

And RoKetha on the contary I really loved the fact that the reason of the conflict was really stupid because it is often the case in real life. ^^ This episode learn to take distance from the sitution when you are in a conflict in order to be able to solve it without any disputes later (even if it isn't always simple ^^") .

Im French so I don't feel involved in the native american episode and I don't know how it is seen by the americans so I can't argue about it.

I know you're trying to move on to another episode but I just watched Over a Barrel and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you. Will watch Feeling Pinkie Keen after maybe.

Anyway the first time I watched Over a Barrel, I thought it was pretty good but I specifically remember not paying too much attention at the time (was watching nephew). After the rewatch, there's still a lot of things that I really like. I think it had some of the best jokes of the series (the aforementioned "Fluttershy is not a tree" scene, horse-drawn horse-drawn carriages, and the Bugs-Bunny-esque scenes between Dash and the girl buffalo are what come to mind). So I honestly can't say I disliked the episode.

Still, there were a lot of things that I didn't really dig. In a super general (and minor) sense, I don't like how brown and kind of "sepia toned" everything was. Just don't like how it looks. Also yeah, I thought the plot was pretty weak. There's some buffalo and some ponies that both want the same land so they fight over it with pies (though I'm sure a lot of episodes could be super-simplified like that). On that same note, I don't really feel like a war scene (even a super silly war scene) really fits with the show.

Lastly, I'm not entirely convinced the whole theme of the episode is really okay. I dont think anyone's going to deny that it's a reference to the whole white man vs aboriginal issue. The buffalo were there first doing their thing and then the ponies show up with a sense of superiority (scary weapons of colonists vs crazy pony imba magic) and decide they're taking some of the land. I'm not Aboriginal so I can't say if this would be offensive to me if I were. But if it is, I would disagree with it being okay because it's a "fantasy" that "makes a really serious thing sillier." You wouldn't see a cartoon about the holocaust (yes I considered using a different genocide to avoid bringing Goodwin's Law in here but I think its really the more appropriate example, I hope people understand >_>), even if it was cute, animated parallel.

Edit: Proofreading that should have happened pre-post. TT

Edit 2: Spoilerssssssss

It kind of bothered me that the hydra had 2 legs and that twilight forgot she could teleport,

The moral of episode is to have some faith in things even if you may not have a particular reason to, and it's gotten a lot of flak from many people who said the moral was to not peer into understanding things that you aren't knowledgeable about, being close-minded to reasoning that doesn't follow your logic, or even something along the lines of forcing a "God agenda" to explain things you can't otherwise explain. Lauren Faust even apologized for the ambiguity of the episode and said on her DA profile that she didn't think people would misinterpret the moral.

Aside from being *slightly* ambiguous, the episode is rife with looney-toons style antics which are executed quite well (in all honesty this is to be expected, it's a cartoon about ponies). It also leads to a few loose ends:

1) If Fluttershy can FLY, why is the earth-bound hydra a threat? It's not something that can exactly sneak up on you without you noticing that there is a 100-foot 4 headed serpent seeking to devour you.
2) If Twilight can TELEPORT as clearly seen in previous episodes, why does she need to take a leap of faith?
3) Why is Celestia just randomly flying over Ponyville when she lives hundreds/thousands of miles away in Canterlot? I'm sure if Twilight can teleport so can she.
4) Can you explode... and then explode again?

The only teleporting Twilight that's ringing a bell is in Apple Bucking and I don't think she teleported very far. Though there certainly could be other times that I'm not remembering. Also we saw in Dragonshy that Fluttershy has some problems flying when scared. And I think I heard once that she's not a particularly strong flier. One last point on the loose ends is that the hydra was moving under water (sticking out a bit but maybe it could have went deeper).

I guess I should note that I'm not saying these explain the loose ends by any measure, just something to consider.

More to the point of the controversy: I personally don't really see a problem with it but, like Hackle, I'm Catholic (went to catholic school and everything) so that could be part of why. Also I dont think the intended audience of little girls really even got the message. Either way, I doubt an episode of a cartoon is going to have any real influence on a kid's religious beliefs.

It opens with Applejack facing hard work and being "manly" with the cows, plus Pinkie Pie doing the comical relief, then transitions into each pony doing its "specialty" starting with Rainbow Dash who is the next "manliest" pony.