For what is worth I didn’t gave it any vote, I just came here to make honor to my personal title. I do like to make sense thought, is just that when I found something that capture my interest I can’t stop myself to speak (well, write) my opinion.
Making stats about characters is usually harder than it looks, but intelligence is by far one of the most ambiguous and controversial ones, mainly because of the “book” and “street” smarts thing. It shouldn’t be a surprise that several opinions tend to clash.
Also, LOL, the limit break makes more sense than almost other explanation, specially since that explains why Fluttershy is usually very weak except when she’s pissed peeved enought.
…I get the feeling that quite a few of these comments aren’t taking the idea of ‘relative’ into perspective.
Since we don’t have a sense of scale, we don’t know if “Intelligence” is measuring extremes. For the matter, it could just be measuring ‘book smarts’ here. I would argue that Rainbow Dash is the least intelligent of the allotted, if ‘least intelligent’ comprised of at least a high school diploma and thorough understanding of one’s job (weather worker, in this case).
Beyond that, there’s also the point of keeping ‘balance’ in check, if I may take this as a VG roster. This chart doesn’t do a very good job of it (AJ’s and RD’s Strengths should be reversed, etc.), but the idea’s there. (Except for Twilight, though I believe it’s commonly agreed that Alicorns have higher stats than each of the individual races, and even then that would only account for +2 in Strength)
Also, for the Fluttershy complainers, Limit Breaks don’t count. And who says RD was actually using her full strength when trying to muscle Flutters out the door? She wasn’t even using her wings! ;P
I’m happy to see I’m not alone. Yeah, I never understood why Dash is treated as a dumb jock. She’s a jock, she’s not exactly an academic girl, but she definitely not dumb at all. Somewhat impulsive and probably has problems learning things from books, but when she learns something she can put a two plus two out of it. And if you think about it, wouldn’t a speedster and a risk taker need to be a quick thinker so she can avoid dangerous mistakes on the march? She would need to process thoughs very quick to take quick decitions.
This is phenomenally wrong. Rainbow Dash is no dumb jock just because she’s not studiously book smart. She’s a very quick thinker, in fact, and knows a lot about the things she DOES know. Not having an encyclopedia in your brain doesn’t make you stupid.
Likewise, Rarity is no dainty little flower. She did a flying kick on a manticore, for crying out loud! She straight up right hooked a changeling! She complained about it, but she was perfectly capable of pulling a cartload of gems. And let’s not forget how she carried a BOULDER around with ease compared to Twilight.
Rarity is perfectly capable of handling herself in a fight, where Twilight had to use magic to move a snow plow. And while Rainbow Dash is a simple thinker, generally so is Pinkie and neither of them are stupid.
Well, it’s obviously just wrong!
Firstly, it was established as early as “Fall Weather Friends” that Dash and AJ are roughly equal in physical strength. AJ has stronger hind hooves, but Dash has very strong wings.
Secondly, while Dash is not as book-smart as Twilight, she’s far from stupid. She was shown to be able to learn things pretty fast in “Testing, Testing, 123”, she managed to excel Twi in Daring Do lore (“Daring Don’t”) and she was brilliant at planning pranks in “28 Pranks Later”.
So, for Dash 6 in strength and 3-4 in intelligence are more correct estimates IMHO.