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>>/12513/
> The animal caretaker who is supposed to understand creatures as timid and fickle as animals can be couldn't handle when animals rejected her, and during a busy event when wild animals would be understandably a bit more afraid to make themselves known.
Here, I think, is where an easy fix could have been made: Fluttershy underestimates the animals in the garden and ends up irritating them with her attempts to befriend them such that they are the ones who chase Fluttershy into the palace, rather than the other way around. It helps keep her more in character and achieves the same result.
> There is one saving grace that prevents her from looking completely bad: the idea that ponies go a bit crazy when they can't fulfill their cutie mark's purpose, which we have definitely seen with Pinkie Pie this season.
Even so, that occurs after remarkably little stress, relatively speaking. It took the better part of a day to break Pinkie, and that with the apparent rejection of her very best friends. Plus I had sort of figured that Pinkie had a more fragile ego. I don't think Fluttershy has much of an excuse at all, really.
> I am used to Fluttershy having a bit of a dark side as a partly show, partly fandom driven trait
I don't even feel that we've seen that dark side up until now in this season ('the stare' aside). If anything, I'm tempted to call this the inciting incident of her 'dark side', and it essentially stems from a weird writing quirk, something I'm even tempted to call a writing mistake. Either way, Fluttershy very strongly deserves her MUATGGG trophy!
> Would Princess Celestia be a contender if she knew/was hoping for some disaster to occur?
The way I figure it, she expected for something like a bit of disruption from the other five turning the dance hall into more of a rave, whilst having Twilight by her side would help her with the greeting process for all the attendees. I don't see how Celestia could have been aware of their individual ambitions for the night, except of course for Twilight's, so I take her initial predictions to be less chaotic, and I think I'd even read her saying that the commotion improved the evening as partly intended to soften the blow for the Mane 6.
>>/12514/
> I could say that Fluttershy's was out of character.
The only way I can possibly figure it would be to say that Fluttershy had to come through crowds of people to get to the gardens and that wore her down considerably, to the point where she was desperate for less threatening companionship. It isn't consistent with what we're shown in the episode, but essentially I think Fluttershy would have to already be on the verge of a nervous breakdown to even begin to justify her actions. I'm tempted to go so far as to say that if this reaction was a cutie-mark thing or spurred on by wanting animals to like her, she ought to have snapped a least a little bit like this at Angel Bunny in a few scenes.