What we can learn from this week's episode of My Little Pony...
Well-written media has the most amazing ability to portray a poignant, important message in a fresh, original, touching, insertadjectivehere way. Kid's TV is no exception, and My Little Pony Season 2 Episode 22 is a prime example of this.
I do not like bullies. I have said it time and time again and I will continue to say it. I. Do. Not. Like. Bullies. Bullying is a horrible, nasty, lowsome, disgusting act, and the way that it continues to be glorified in many forms of media is nothing short of sickening to me. Now to be clear, I believe there is a difference between people who bully, and bullies. All bullies are people who bully, but not all people who bully are bullies. People who bully do it for a number of reasons, including being bullied themselves and figuring that it's the way things are meant to be, as a way of covering up their own insecurities, to be included in a group, etc. Bullies are people who deliberately and without any remourse set out to make other people's lives horrible, just because they can. And that is the exact opposite of OK.
This week's episode of My Little Pony featured Fluttershy, who is the demure, introverted, shy (the name is a bit of a no-brainer) character. In this episode all of the Pegasi Ponies (the ones with wings) have to band together to create a tornado, with which water from the earth is to be tunnelled to the city in the sky from which different types of weather are made. Rainbow Dash, athletic flyer extraordinaire, somewhat arrogant Pegasus and friend of Fluttershy, really wants Fluttershy to take part and Fluttershy is desperate not to. When Rainbow Dash asks her what the matter is, Fluttershy has a flashback to when she was little and bungled up an attempt at flying. Other ponies surrounded her and sang "Fluttershy, Fluttershy, Fluttershy can hardly fly." Rainbow Dash yells at her to suck it up (just the sort of thing my mum would do), then seems to realise that tactic won't work (something I wish my mum would do) and says that she needs Fluttershy to make this tornado happen. Extremely unconfident though she is, Fluttershy eventually agrees to do it.
Next there is a training day, and the Pegasi's wing speeds are measured. Everybody should be aiming for a wing speed of 10. When Fluttershy is being measured, the Pegasi around her start laughing at her speed, or lack thereof. She flashes back to when she was little and the other ponies laughed at her, and slows down dramatically, creating a reading of 0.5. When she finds this out she goes into a more haunting flashback and runs off. Rainbow Dash flies over to her and says "So some ponies laughed at you when you were little. You're not going to let that stop you, are you?" Fluttershy turns around, tears streaming down her face, and yells "YES!" It's at this point that Rainbow Dash seems to realise just how much this experience of Fluttershy's has affected her.
Fluttershy then proceeds to have a chat to her animal friends, who tell her that she needs to believe in herself. She decides to train hard and puts in a lot of effort. Then when she's next measured, she hits 2.3 wingpower - a fairly significant improvement, as other lead character Twilight Sparkle tells her, but still nowhere near 10. Rainbow Dash says to her "You did awesome, Fluttershy", and Fluttershy says "No I didn't. I thought I got over my nerves, but they still got the best of me." Rainbow Dash then tells her it's OK, and every bit counts, and Fluttershy says "How would you feel if everybody around you was flying with 10.0 wingpower and you only had 2.3? Exactly, humiliated!" She runs off again, and while it is pointed out to Rainbow Dash that there will be plenty of wingpower for the tornado, Rainbow Dash says "If only there was a way to lift Fluttershy out of the dumps."
The next day, or Tornado Day, comes, and several ponies are off sick and can't fly. The ponies try to make a tornado, but they're 5 wingpower short of what they need. Fluttershy and Twilight sparkle are watching, and Twilight Sparkle tells Fluttershy that the tornado needs her. Fluttershy insists that she can't make any difference, and Twilight Sparkle yells "Do it for Equestria (their country)! Do it for Rainbow Dash! Do it for yourself!" Fluttershy nervously puts on her goggles and gets into the tornado. The meter starts going up, but then she tires and starts hearing the voices from her childhood again. And after covering her eyes in fear, she suddenly yells "NO!" and flies away as fast as she can. Sure enough, the meter ticks over and all the water is tornado'd to the city in the sky. Fluttershy comes down and is congratulated, with Rainbow Dash saying "If you wanna talk guts, then you've gotta give it to my number 1 flyer, Fluttershy!" The moral bit at the end involves Fluttershy saying "If you just keep your head high, do your best, and believe in yourself, anything can happen."
This episode hit a few important notes with me. If we talk about the bullying first, then might make things proceed logically. It's been revealed in past episodes that Fluttershy is quite a competent flyer. She's helped Rainbow Dash in various flying missions, rescued animals by pulling off spectacular nosedives, etc etc. But these occasions only ever crop up in emergencies, when she is not thinking. When she has time to think, what she remembers is being bullied as a child, and this significantly reduces her ability to perform. That is the sort of effect bullying has on a person (or a pony). Bullying stops people from realising their full potential, and certainly stops them from believing in themselves and believing that they can realise their full potential, like Fluttershy clearly thinks. It also stops people from seeing their amazing accomplishments. Instead of realising that she has made amazing progress, Fluttershy can only focus on the fact that her wingpower is so much lower than everyone else's. Seeing this confirms in her head that her childhood bullies were right all along, and she can 'hardly fly'.
I think Fluttershy's strength warrants mention here too. I often criticise authors for seeming to think that a character has to be outwardly strong (so, extraverted, loud, happy etc) in order to be strong on the inside. My Little Pony is a very clear example of how this is not so. Fluttershy appears to be a weak character, but when you see what she's done, the fears she's faced, the difficulties she's overcome, it becomes clear that she is possibly the strongest of all of them. It's easy to handle a spider if spiders don't bother you, but if you're so afraid of spiders that looking at pictures of them makes you start to cry, and you manage to tackle the spider anyway, that's true bravery. Compare Fluttershy to a character like Pinkie Pie, who is bouncy and extroverted and seems very brave. But when she gets upset, or frightened that her friends have lost her, she loses it, her hair goes straight, and she sinks into a pit of misery, and is unable to pull herself out. I wouldn't necessarily say that Pinkie Pie is a weak character. But I would say that Fluttershy is stronger than she's maybe given credit for.
This episode also highlighted how fantastic a friend Rainbow Dash is. She can be a pretty selfish and inconsiderate character at times, but when it comes to things that really matter, like the fears of her friends, she can be amazingly supportive. I think Rainbow Dash is an interesting example of the difference between not thinking about what you say sometimes, and being a bad person. Rainbow Dash often appears to be a bad pony, because she does tend to speak before she thinks, and laugh at other people's mishaps and the like, on the inside she's a very good pony. Loyal to the end, and not one to make jokes at all when the situation is serious and a friend of hers is in pain.
All in all, a VERY good, very poignant episode. Definitely one that I'll be watching again.
I do not like bullies. I have said it time and time again and I will continue to say it. I. Do. Not. Like. Bullies. Bullying is a horrible, nasty, lowsome, disgusting act, and the way that it continues to be glorified in many forms of media is nothing short of sickening to me. Now to be clear, I believe there is a difference between people who bully, and bullies. All bullies are people who bully, but not all people who bully are bullies. People who bully do it for a number of reasons, including being bullied themselves and figuring that it's the way things are meant to be, as a way of covering up their own insecurities, to be included in a group, etc. Bullies are people who deliberately and without any remourse set out to make other people's lives horrible, just because they can. And that is the exact opposite of OK.
This week's episode of My Little Pony featured Fluttershy, who is the demure, introverted, shy (the name is a bit of a no-brainer) character. In this episode all of the Pegasi Ponies (the ones with wings) have to band together to create a tornado, with which water from the earth is to be tunnelled to the city in the sky from which different types of weather are made. Rainbow Dash, athletic flyer extraordinaire, somewhat arrogant Pegasus and friend of Fluttershy, really wants Fluttershy to take part and Fluttershy is desperate not to. When Rainbow Dash asks her what the matter is, Fluttershy has a flashback to when she was little and bungled up an attempt at flying. Other ponies surrounded her and sang "Fluttershy, Fluttershy, Fluttershy can hardly fly." Rainbow Dash yells at her to suck it up (just the sort of thing my mum would do), then seems to realise that tactic won't work (something I wish my mum would do) and says that she needs Fluttershy to make this tornado happen. Extremely unconfident though she is, Fluttershy eventually agrees to do it.
Next there is a training day, and the Pegasi's wing speeds are measured. Everybody should be aiming for a wing speed of 10. When Fluttershy is being measured, the Pegasi around her start laughing at her speed, or lack thereof. She flashes back to when she was little and the other ponies laughed at her, and slows down dramatically, creating a reading of 0.5. When she finds this out she goes into a more haunting flashback and runs off. Rainbow Dash flies over to her and says "So some ponies laughed at you when you were little. You're not going to let that stop you, are you?" Fluttershy turns around, tears streaming down her face, and yells "YES!" It's at this point that Rainbow Dash seems to realise just how much this experience of Fluttershy's has affected her.
Fluttershy then proceeds to have a chat to her animal friends, who tell her that she needs to believe in herself. She decides to train hard and puts in a lot of effort. Then when she's next measured, she hits 2.3 wingpower - a fairly significant improvement, as other lead character Twilight Sparkle tells her, but still nowhere near 10. Rainbow Dash says to her "You did awesome, Fluttershy", and Fluttershy says "No I didn't. I thought I got over my nerves, but they still got the best of me." Rainbow Dash then tells her it's OK, and every bit counts, and Fluttershy says "How would you feel if everybody around you was flying with 10.0 wingpower and you only had 2.3? Exactly, humiliated!" She runs off again, and while it is pointed out to Rainbow Dash that there will be plenty of wingpower for the tornado, Rainbow Dash says "If only there was a way to lift Fluttershy out of the dumps."
The next day, or Tornado Day, comes, and several ponies are off sick and can't fly. The ponies try to make a tornado, but they're 5 wingpower short of what they need. Fluttershy and Twilight sparkle are watching, and Twilight Sparkle tells Fluttershy that the tornado needs her. Fluttershy insists that she can't make any difference, and Twilight Sparkle yells "Do it for Equestria (their country)! Do it for Rainbow Dash! Do it for yourself!" Fluttershy nervously puts on her goggles and gets into the tornado. The meter starts going up, but then she tires and starts hearing the voices from her childhood again. And after covering her eyes in fear, she suddenly yells "NO!" and flies away as fast as she can. Sure enough, the meter ticks over and all the water is tornado'd to the city in the sky. Fluttershy comes down and is congratulated, with Rainbow Dash saying "If you wanna talk guts, then you've gotta give it to my number 1 flyer, Fluttershy!" The moral bit at the end involves Fluttershy saying "If you just keep your head high, do your best, and believe in yourself, anything can happen."
This episode hit a few important notes with me. If we talk about the bullying first, then might make things proceed logically. It's been revealed in past episodes that Fluttershy is quite a competent flyer. She's helped Rainbow Dash in various flying missions, rescued animals by pulling off spectacular nosedives, etc etc. But these occasions only ever crop up in emergencies, when she is not thinking. When she has time to think, what she remembers is being bullied as a child, and this significantly reduces her ability to perform. That is the sort of effect bullying has on a person (or a pony). Bullying stops people from realising their full potential, and certainly stops them from believing in themselves and believing that they can realise their full potential, like Fluttershy clearly thinks. It also stops people from seeing their amazing accomplishments. Instead of realising that she has made amazing progress, Fluttershy can only focus on the fact that her wingpower is so much lower than everyone else's. Seeing this confirms in her head that her childhood bullies were right all along, and she can 'hardly fly'.
I think Fluttershy's strength warrants mention here too. I often criticise authors for seeming to think that a character has to be outwardly strong (so, extraverted, loud, happy etc) in order to be strong on the inside. My Little Pony is a very clear example of how this is not so. Fluttershy appears to be a weak character, but when you see what she's done, the fears she's faced, the difficulties she's overcome, it becomes clear that she is possibly the strongest of all of them. It's easy to handle a spider if spiders don't bother you, but if you're so afraid of spiders that looking at pictures of them makes you start to cry, and you manage to tackle the spider anyway, that's true bravery. Compare Fluttershy to a character like Pinkie Pie, who is bouncy and extroverted and seems very brave. But when she gets upset, or frightened that her friends have lost her, she loses it, her hair goes straight, and she sinks into a pit of misery, and is unable to pull herself out. I wouldn't necessarily say that Pinkie Pie is a weak character. But I would say that Fluttershy is stronger than she's maybe given credit for.
This episode also highlighted how fantastic a friend Rainbow Dash is. She can be a pretty selfish and inconsiderate character at times, but when it comes to things that really matter, like the fears of her friends, she can be amazingly supportive. I think Rainbow Dash is an interesting example of the difference between not thinking about what you say sometimes, and being a bad person. Rainbow Dash often appears to be a bad pony, because she does tend to speak before she thinks, and laugh at other people's mishaps and the like, on the inside she's a very good pony. Loyal to the end, and not one to make jokes at all when the situation is serious and a friend of hers is in pain.
All in all, a VERY good, very poignant episode. Definitely one that I'll be watching again.