Season 8 Episode Discussion [Spoilers, possible leaks, rumours etc.]

Anyone else worried about Father Knows Beast?

@Background Pony #000B
 
I’d rather not worry about anything until the episode comes out.

@Background Pony #000B  
Slightly.

Somehow since Friendship University I have to think all the time about how thickheaded ponies actually are. And that in the end, the solution of the problem is just stupid.
 
Conflict? Ponies want to learn friendship. Don’t go to Twilight’s school because… ? Too far? Won’t be clarified. Ponies pay for their lessons. They say it’s bad. For whatever reason. Friendship U is closed. Ponies should go to Twilight’s school now, because… Wait, wasn’t that too far away somehow? What was the problem here?! Except the absence of brain cells in the average background pony. Sorry to say so.
 
Besides, isn’t the school aimed at a younger audience?
 
Seriously, characters like Cozy Glow, Chancellor Neighsay, even Flim & Flam grow on me more than the average citizen of Equestria. They just seem to be following every trend. In the truest sense of the word, the brain-dead masses. That Equestria has survived 1000 years, is a miracle of biblical proportions. Thank Celestia.
 
The solution should have been to force Flim & Flam to make their university available to the west of the country free of charge. They themselves could have learned a lot, but at the same time demonstrated their administrative skills. So once again good potential was wasted to make Twilight look better than she actually is. The Princess of Friendship is failing more and more from season to season and can be glad that she has a personal student and friends who helps her to assert herself or not to go completely crazy.

Why does it feel like the new writers only have a faint grasp of the characters?
 
This show really suffers from not having a consistent group of writers.

Now I wanna know if Gilda was the one who found Gallus, saw how alone he was, and sent him off to Twilight’s school.
 
All the foreign students seem to have been handpicked by their country’s rulers rather than choosing to go themselves. So they must have picked Gallus for a reason.

@DarkObsidian  
Twilight did offer to let Flim and Flam continue, and even use her book, so long as they stopped charging for it. They weren’t interested, because it was already proving too much like hard work.

Did Friendship U have a lesson? The events that took place in that episode felt convoluted. Was it about education?
 
In Japan, education is free. At least up to high school. Its your discretion to go to college if you want but then that’s out of your pocket and most people can already get jobs after high school. In the US, I know a lot of people get buried in debt due to their college studies.
 
The Flim Flams didn’t want to teach for free because its hard work. Of course its hard work and you’re supposed to get paid for hard work. So what exactly was the episode trying to convey?

@gingerninja666  
Here

@hironakamura  
Learning Friendship should be free. Go make money somewhere else.

@PonyPon  
Isn’t that what taxes are for

@Miss Shy  
Presumably.
 
Come to think of it, that’s probably what accrediting is for.

@hironakamura  
It was a little bit convoluted, but in essence their main crime was charging money for a plagiarized work. A badly plagiarized work at that. They were also lying about the profits going to the school.
 
It’s also clearly ‘pay to win’ which while not illegal, is a hot button topic among the target demographic. Advertising something as ‘free’ and then introducing hidden charges is a rather douchy move.

@Philweasel
 
But like you said. Flim & Flam would have quit anyway. So the Friendship U would have been closed anyway, whether Twilight intervened or not.
 
Without being able to say exactly how the economic system in Equestria works, I consider all accusations against Flim & Flam to be unfounded. I can understand that they did not want to continue the effort, and they have already made enough money to expand their resort. Twilight’s lesson seems artificially dramatized here and even the sentence “friendship should be free” only shows how stupid (actually more blind and naive) ponies are when they are willing to pay for it.
 
I don’t want to get upset. I’m just a little disappointed. Once again, potential for (a little) world building is being wasted. Or at least not as used as it could have been possible. That’s a pity. Well, what the hell. It can only get better. I certainly liked Chancellor Neighsay’s performance. And Star Swirl was okay too. I understand the criticism of him, but I like him now better than before. Already had the impression at the end of Shadow Play that he wasn’t necessarily himself during the two episodes.

Flim and Flam weren’t lying when they said its a lot of hard work and costs money to run a school. That’s just reality. When you think about it, there were questions before about how the mane 6 could run a school amidst their other jobs. And then its assumed they make money from the tuition that they get from the students but Twilight made it look like the students go there for free now.

@hironakamura  
I think the issue is the whole ‘hidden fees’ thing, which is like most of Flim and Flam’s schemes, legal but heavily dishonest.
 
Schooling seems to be subsided by the government anyway, which might well make the scheme illegal. They appear to be presenting the extra material as ‘optional upgrades’, but that clearly isn’t the case.

I miss Silver Spoon.

@Oddball64  

 
I miss both Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara.

I miss Diamond Tiara. Except for Cameo appearances. ;-)

I had a small little hope for a Moondancer appearance.

I just realized that Friendship University’s initials are FU.

I really like that Novo seems to be totally on the ball when it comes to re-establishing her kingdom. She has a whole board of tourism built and seems to want to educate any who might be interested on the customs of her people.
 
I’d say Thorax should also get on that, but I suppose he’s still busy trying to get his own race settled before worrying too much about foreign relations.

That Limburger cheese must have smelled really bad if Spike couldn’t take the smell of it. This is a dragon who likes to smell his own feet!

@Philweasel  

 
Conventional education, I’d think, could be funded by taxes. Y’know the same kind of schooling Cheerilee teaches the CMC. But friendship is extra curicular like a masteral or a Phd. Its optional so the student has to fund it themselves.
 
That episode is all sorts of messed up.

@Philweasel
 
Would the word “embezzlement” be along the right lines for what they were doing?