Season 7 Episode Discussion [Speculation, Discussion, Spoilers] (SPOILER YOUR LEAKS)

@Background Pony #DC1E  
Season 1 and 2 Spike was a hypercompetent sidekick with his odd moments of stupidity to remind the audience he was a little kid. This is one of the reasons why Spike at your Service felt like a punch to the gut.  
Basically, remember how he was supposed to work as Twilight’s other half to compensate for her abysmal lack of physical and social skills? Well, the writers forgot.

@Anonycat  
Hypercompetent sidekick with occasional bouts of sudden stupidity seems like how he is written even to this day…

@Background Pony #BA71  
That’s because most don’t. The idea of romance NOT working out (Which is an incredibly common thing IRL) is not something shows, much less animated shows, show because ironically it’s not the romanticized ideal, that love conquers all and you know it when it happens, not the more realistic “Well let’s experiment wildly and pray something works” method people really use.

@Background Pony #DC1E
 
Yeah, I’m not really seeing this huge difference in characterization.
 
Like I said, he was GREAT as the snarky straight man in the first three episodes of the season.

@EotD  
All of Rarity’s crushes ended up as failures though.

@Background Pony #DC1E  
Season 6 actually surprised everyone by giving Spike episodes that didn’t treat him like he was suddenly incompetent or a total idiot.

@Anonycat  
Those are minor things though played up for comedy, not romance, or connecting with someone in a relationship

@09MurphyM  
Gauntlet of Fire had him literally carried around through the episode so he could get things done.
 
Thorax’s debut had Spike nearly dying because of his own stupidity and nobody cared about his claims about good Changelings until Twilight intervened, and even this was taken away from him after the season finale.
 
Nothing compares to Lesson Zero Spike or him breathing fire at Rainbow Dash at the beginning of Over a Barrel.

@Anonycat  
Spike is looked at by everyone in-series as a kid. A very young kid at that. Even by such characters as the CMCs who are children themselves. He hardly does anything without help and / or being spied on by Twilight. He usually isn’t taken seriously by anyone. His attempts to help usually fail and make the situation much worse.
 
He gets a few bones thrown to him here and there but that doesn’t make up for how he’s been written.

@Anonycat  
He was never carried through GoF; he swam to the lands, cooperated as a team to fly upwards and ultimately got the staff for himself. The only time he wasn’t doing the work himself was when he literally couldn’t and even then he still contributed.

Wait was episode three’s title just A Flurry of Emotion? I was always calling it A Flurry Heart of Emotion

@EotD  
Nope the episode was heartless.

I still think the worst Spike got was in season 4. MAybe princess spike as an isolated case, but just in terms of how much slapstick he was thrown into and made to suffer for the sake of comedy, I mainly remember stuff from Season 4.
 
Lately I think of him as beleagured, but otherwise acting as Twi’s voice of reason again.
 
Twilight helping Spike out in The Times I thought was a great moment of showing just how much trust Twilight has in Spike. She believes him because of how heartfelt he was being, and then she actually used her status as the Princess of Friendship (which people always want her to do more often) to more neatly resolve the issue.

@EotD  

 
Ikr. Anyone remember Feather Bangs? Sure he lost to Big Mac but it was hard to feel sorry for him because there were 3 relatively pretty ladies that already liked him from the start. So even if he didn’t get “the” girl, there were still other girls available. And after realizing this, the guy didn’t look like he was heart broken at all.

@gingerninja666  
I think it also had to do with the simple fact that Twilight has been with spike since the day he was hatched from his egg and knows him better than anyone, even her closest friends. This likely helped her realized that Spike was being honest about the changeling being good.

@NoBronyInParticular  
Wait AJ was going to be blamed as well? Huh that’s a random thing to take out.

@Background Pony #F781  
I think they cut it for time iirc.

A Royal Problem is just over 24 hours away.
 
I don’t think I’ve ever been as anxious over an episode like this one.

I will say that at least Triple Threat will have Spike interacting with characters besides Twilight or Rarity.

@Background Pony #9284  
Why? Okay I’m guessing you like Starlight in which case you’re going to be fine cause you’ll find something to say how good she is. If the drama that’s going to be kicked up is really going to affect you, stay away from sites like this for awhile.
 
Honestly I’m far more nervous about the third EQG special than tomorrow’s episode

@EotD  
I actually don’t like Starlight that much. I’m more worried that tomorrow’s episode is going to be more of the same that’s come before.
 
And I think Mirror Magic will be good but somewhat disappointing because it’s only 22 minutes.

@Magma_ERuptiOn  
They did. In the scene after the mystery solved Twilight congratulated Applejack for having great self control only for her to admit that she also ate some of the cake while not leaving behind any evidence.

@Anonycat  
That’s also because maybe she doesn’t understand what really goes into a love relationship…

Oh boy. Tomorrow’s judgment day.

@Background Pony #9284  
Oh well sorry for my assumption then. In that case well I guess you’re SOL. Just remind yourself that there’ll be a new episode the following day.
 
No the 22 minutes run time is not something that bugs me cause it’s the Season 6 finale with all the filler fat trimmed away. No my concerns are on how similar it is to that episode