>>12783
>Though not by much (barely a year) I am the older sibling and thus had the more responsible personality.
I'm also the oldest sibling in my family, and by a good two years and a bit, but I was not really all that responsible! I was more of the 'don't mess with my stuff' side of Rarity, but really I moreso kept to myself, but would join in to play when the younger two came up with games and things.
>When Rarity was trying to control things like a neat freak and taking command of things personally because she knew what she was doing, yeah, I felt that.
Again this applies more to my younger siblings than to me, ironically!
>I stress this episode is an alright episode in the sense I don't have anything that stood out as remarkable that I enjoyed but I think it is above serviceable and has a good lesson.
I think where we differ is perhaps the race itself, then, where I'd say the episode prior to it is moreso practical storytelling to build up to that goal. The race is mainly told visually, and gets across it's themes so strongly in doing so, both through Rarity being concealed by all that mud on her, and by how she and Sweetie Belle work together so naturally and so well at each of the race's tasks. It's just so well-done in my opinion and is a stand-out moment for frankly the season so far in my opinion.
>Rarity and Sweetie Belle's dynamic doesn't feel like some other shows where the younger sibling is completely insufferable and Sweetie Belle is purely navie over being a pest (I suppose if I wanted to be nitpickish, Rarity's parents might slightly suck in the regard, albeit they are slightly navie stupid cartoon parents stereotype)
In fairness as I noted in my review, I do quite like how the parents treat Sweetie Belle, they seem to get right what Rarity gets wrong in that regard. However, as I also noted, they do indeed treat Rarity somewhat poorly, so I think there's something interesting there in that Rarity perhaps slightly resents the special treatment Sweetie Belle gets, not that I think it's really an intended aspect to the episode.
>Pardon my memory, but is this the first speaking lines from any of the Mane 6's parents?
I believe so. We've seen Pinkie Pie's parents, but non-speaking in a flashback, and we've seen Twilight's parents in I believe the same episode we see Pinkie's, and in the same way as we see Pinkie's.
>>12784
>This review was on the shorter side but truth be told I can make any review longer if given enough time to think on it. For whatever reason I like this review compared to previous attempts I've made at shorter reviews and I can't tell you why.
Short is good, I could get my thoughts out quicker if I could condense them as effectively. However, I end up having long, open-ended thoughts about all sorts of things in each episode, so I almost write out my thought process and then, only by abdridging a series of longer thought-chains and cobbling them together do I get a review!
>>12789
>So my way I can make it make sense is that maybe the cow example I am thinking of is from Applebuck Season, where the cow tells Applejack that her heard got startled by snakes. Even with their apparent higher sentience instinct and animal psychology play a large roll and maybe the sheep aren't always (or universally) so easy and cooperative.
That exact example was part of what I had been about to bring up! It's about as confusing there as it is here, to me. There too I'm tempted to just say that particular cow took the time to learn Ponish. Or, potentially, since both examples involve Applejack, speaking to animals is actually an Earth Pony ability (one that Fluttershy learned how to learn?). But as I say, it's very much into the weeds for two scenes that are almost total asides/gags.