>>12708
>I think the question of the ponies mental maturity is relevant here.
I would still argue that absent the matter of maturity, one thing that very strongly defines ponies is a moral sense of right and wrong. Pony villains even seem more acutely aware of the wrongness of what they're doing than other species. A lapse in judgement is certainly possible, but this would be a lapse in judgement affecting the most intelligent pony in ponyville, amongst the most mature of her peers, lasting over a course of many hours. And if we're not to take this as typical behaviour (which I don't think we possibly can given how well-ordered Equestrian society is, societies made up of people having meltdowns don't look like this), then we need some sort of explanation. Neuroticism and some kind of trauma involving Magic Kindergarten go some way towards this, but it all falls a little flat compared to Party of One, which much more naturally explains Pinkie's meltdown. Pinkie's more the type to be overly panicky, neurotic and so on I would say, and yet her actions during her meltdown are overwhelmingly less severe and harmful than Twilight's, a pony that we absolutely know for a fact knows better than Pinkie and is much more mature than Pinkie. It's not to say it can't happen but the justification is quite small and the consequences quite large.
>The protocol to please her teacher and her obsessive fear of pleasing Celestia being something far longer in her then her living in this newfangled moral universe of friends mattering.
Whilst true to an extent, even by her old set of values what Twilight chooses to do is extremely wrong, she's falsifying a report, and doing so in such a way that it directly contradicts the intended direction and impact of the assignment. That in itself I'd find a little hard to believe without it being established that she had previously lied to gain Celestia's approval. In fact, just saying that makes me think it might have worked better as a premise. Twilight becomes worried that certain recent events in Ponyville might end up uncovering in some way her past lie(s), and so she seeks to misdirect and cover her tracks, escalating further and further in her desperation to keep people from finding out about her dishonest, even unacademic cheating, ending up in much the same way with Celestia ultimately forgiving and imparting a lesson about how lies, even when seeming to have no downside, can eat away at you in a way that makes you act worse and worse the more you lie and the more you try to lie about lying (i.e covering up your lies).
>I don't what to turn this into Bridgefag's therapy hour but I know the feeling of knowing when something is wrong but having learned patters of behavior from years overriding it often without even thinking.
As do I, but even herein you touch upon my central issue:
>knowing when something is wrong but
Twilight isn't actually shown to know that what she's doing is wrong, except by the very end, by which point one could well think it's more about the disaster that ultimately resulted. When in situations like this, what has actually happened is that the stress or anxiety causes me to take an action that I know in advance is wrong, believing it's what desperation has driven me to. And that's exactly what I think is missing to fix the believability: (even if I think it would still be a little stretched) just a momentary hesitation or questioning herself, to show that desperation is making Twilight go someplace she knows she shouldn't. Even from a very, very early age I could tell right from wrong, even if I couldn't reason why, even if it was only right or wrong because I had been told that it was so by some authority figure. So I don't think either maturity or desperation is sufficient to explain Twilight's lack of moral foresight. To be perfectly honest I think even from a writing perspective it was simply overlooked. It would detract nothing and add so much vital depth, in my estimation.