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>>/6073/ > Storywise I consider it to be okay on paper but the dragons are rather uncompelling as antagonists. They are extremely generic, just archetypes over personality. the episode is quite average both in its execution but like you say here, it become painfully generic and you don`t see the dragons as awfully cliched as this episode portrays them here. In its first debut, you see their special traits like being rude, rebellious and more disorganized (because of their free will) than the ponies. In later episodes, the gang doesn´t change all that much their attitude so they were in character: they are jerks and keep their cool among them. So far, this doesn´t sound troublesome but the way that this episode presents them... > still enjoyed how the dragons were presented as a mysterious and scary in the first part but there wasn't much to follow up. if someone reads posts I wrote here: >>/5726/ and >>/5733/ >>/5734/, while the debut episode for the dragons themselves have an air of mystery when they are flying over Ponyville, the ponies (mostly Rarity, RD and TS) imply that they are big, tough and scary. The quest starts for Spike and it looks like they are located far away (we´ll talk about that later) and it seems that we are following the same path that they would apply for Mt.Aris /Seaquestria, Hope Hollow and even the Kirin village. Alright, so the air of mystery was set up in the first third of the episode because of the ponies point of view and lack of information about them (Twilight didn´t find any single book related to them. This could explain why Neighsay or other ponies would look down or would have fears towards other species). How much time does that sense of mystery last when Spike arrives at the Dragonlands? Less than a few seconds. That´s a new record. All the mysterious/scary aura was absolutely ripped as soon as we saw the gang. Besides swimming in pools of lava, what kind of new lore does this episode add about the dragons? The gems don´t count by the way. So, we are going directly to the slice of life territory in an episode where it deals with native dragons for the first time. The movie, Rainbow Roadtrip or Sounds of Silence turned out to be more sophisticated in this regard. We have to rely on the interactions, traits and the message here. > The main controversy around this episode though is obviously its moral. I actually remember seeing people back in the day connecting this to race more than masculinity, but it is clearly the second one they were going for here. > The teenage dragons are supposed to represent stereotypical negative male behavior. these lines explain why it is the only episode with dragons that featured rock music and a try hard mentality that replicate the cool teenagers of the 90s. However, I am going to connect you the message with the race but with a different perspective. Just wait and see... > The point of the moral is that Spike's more pony, more feminine, behavior is not a side of himself that he should reject but embrace and that such masculine traits maybe negative. > I actually think it was written still under a mindset of being a girls show toward the young boys watching it and maybe feeling insecure. except that Sweet and Smoky dealt with that moral much better without having to establish a masculine vs feminine duel in terms of attitude. What´s even funnier is that one of those toxic masculine characters that were displayed in this episode for backing up that claim, he also turned out to be insecure at showing a more sentimental side of him with poetry without using the feminine argument, just that he looked uncool towards the rest so he needed to feel superior from the outside. Reading this in hindsight, if you didn´t mention Spike here, I would imply that you could be perfectly talking about Garble.