My Little Pony XCVIII: Still Haven't Caught Up on Season 7!

[b_jonas]

Ok, so now the big one, the season 8 opener, a double episode. As usual, I'm watching and writing my thoughts as I go, then I'll read what you wrote.

Spoiler: S8 E1…2

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Let's watch S8 E1…2: School Daze

• The first sentence is “This happened while we were gone?”, and we see ponies around the tree chest castle map. Surprisingly, it's not one of the legends from the S7 finale asking that, even though that would make sense.
• (Rainbow Dash pointing to a floating ship with rainbow sails: “The pirates! They were pretty awesome!”) What the? Ok, I was wrong. I was completely sure that the MLP movie won't be directly acknowledged in the main episodes. It is.
• Then Twilight goes even more explicit. (“Tempest! I invited her to Ponyville, but she wanted to spread the word of the Storm King's defeat.”) And Starlight Glimmer is there as an audience so the Mane Six can tell about their adventures.
• Twilight wants to open a friendship school. This sounds like a spectacularly bad idea. Especially when she says it in a season opener, so it might last for longer than twentytwo minutes.
• Not surprisingly, Princess Celestia likes that idea. It looks like Twilight is asking Princess Celestia questions about her school for gifted unicorns, which is a bit strange, since she went to that magic school at one point, and she could ask anyone else instead of the busy princess, but whatever.
• Princess Celestia tells Twilight about some sort of government board that oversees schools in Equestria. Is she trolling Twilight? Or more like trolling the viewers?
• Twilight appears in a scary courtroom in front of a committee of ten ponies, presumably telling about how she wants to open a school. She's bought a thick volume of documentation in ten printed copies. Nopony reads that of course, they only care about its format. This is more of a parody of real world governments than I was prepared to see in MLP.
• Twilight has apparently drafted the entire Mane Six as teachers. She still has way too much influence on them. They should learn to talk to Twilight and talk her off stupid ideas rather than always trusting her instincts.
• Twilight opens the school. Everything about this feels wrong.
• (The episode introduces some students, all children, and their parents or guardians.) Dragon princess Ember has grown since we've last seen her. All the kids are new characters, never seen before, as far as I know. Wait, is that a pegasus with a red maple leaf cutie mark?
• (Song.) Montage during song shows Twilight's excitement, then some classes the Mane Six are teaching. Applejack shows the picture of an orange crossed out, a picture of a strawberry crossed out, and an apple. Wait, what did Twilight say earlier about “respecting differences”?
• I wonder if this government organization was quickly set up by Princess Celestia to shut down Twilight's school, because she saw no easier way to talk Twilight off the idea once she got obsessed with it.
• Montage continues with a yak standing on three levels of stacked chairs, then more classes taught by the Mane Six. Then it shows Twilight telling all the Mane Six to do the teaching the board-approved way, which the students find rather boring.
• Twilight wants to make sure that the school gets Zesty Gourmand's three-hoof rating.
• (The students decide to skip Rainbow Dash's class. The changeling student impersonates a teacher.) Angel Bunny has his moment.
• The head of the committee decides to investigate the school. Twilight and her friends try to cover up their mistake. Then the committee head (called Chancellor Neighsay by the way) decides to do Umbridge's mistake when she insulted the centaurs to their face. (She insults the parents.) She actually gets away with it. That's a bit unexpected. This is the first time yaks didn't get mad when things are not perfect.
• Anyway, the committee head decrees that the school is closed. End of the first part of the episode.
• Twilight is miserable, her friends try to cheer her up.
• Starlight Glimmer convinces Twilight to restart the school.
• The guardians say that the students have disappeared. Together. Twilight and her friends now have to find them.
• Cut to the students hiding in the abandoned castle of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna in the Everfree forest. Also, it turns out that Twilight did teach a class, even though we didn't see that in the montage. I was wondering about that.
• A pack of vicious needle-shooting porcupines attack them. They try to defend themselves but can't. Then the Mane Six turns up and saves them from the porcupines. Guys, I'm not making this up, I swear. This is actually what happens in the episode, or perhaps I've got some parody recut from the internet.
• The Mane Six invite the students back to school. Reluctantly, they come.
• Princess Celestia comes to watch the grand reopening. Twilight breaks the seal on the school door. The committee head is magically summoned. He continues to insult everyone. I believe this time he won't get away with it.
• Well, he did. As in, he left without getting trampled by a herd of yaks and burnt by dragonfire. Princess Twilight protected her, perhaps because his corpse would stink up the school for a week.
• Another song, with montage of life in the restarted school. The guardians of the students decide to allow the kids to stay, so the school can continue. The end.
• I didn't much like this episode. The story sucks, the songs suck. I hope the rest of the season will be better.

Update: replies to your posts.

Spoiler: S8 pony

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AI feel so terribly sorry for you, Princess, you’ll be begging for ALL the monsters before long, as you feel the last of your hopes, dreams and unique spirit slowly shrivel away under the relentless grind of the 9 to 5...

Spoiler: S8 E1…E2

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That might be a good way to explain why some premise like this, fighting bureaucracy, might be good. But that's questionable. When I watch pony, I don't come to see more of the boring stuff I have to deal with at work. Perhaps the theme could be done well, but I don't think this episode succeeded.

Spoiler: School Daze

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To be fair, I felt Starlight's role in this episode was much less jarring than it was in Shadow Play. Part of that was due to the fact that here Starlight felt more like just another one of Twilight's friends trying to find a way to knock her out of her funk, with Starlight's approach just being the method that worked. Whereas in Shadow Play Starlight was the only pony trying to find a friendship solution, with Twilight having been reduced to a simpering fanfilly.

Spoiler: S8 E1…E2

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I think Starlight's role was exactly the same. She's the pony who doesn't blindly believe everything Twilight says when she gets obsessed and makes all the Mane Six follow her plans. S5 E11 was the best example for Twilight doing this, and because Starlight wasn't present then, it was Gummy who questioned the blind faith.

The difference between S8 E2 and S7 E26 in my eyes is not what Starlight does, but what Twilight does wrong that has to be fixed. In S8 E1, I can understand Twilight's mistake. Princess Celestia tells her that she has to follow the rulebook of that school board. It is completely in character for Twilight to actually try to follow the rules in the thick book, even when they're bad rules. In S7 E25, Twilight's mistake isn't so easy to overlook. There, she forgot all she's learned about friendship earlier.

-----

And as for the leak, it looks as if S8 episodes 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 were available, but I could be wrong. The leaks appear to be early versions of the episodes that aren't final. Titles, which might be inaccurate, or the numbering could be inaccurate, in the spoiler box.

Spoiler: future episode titles

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• S8 E1…2: School Daze
• S8 E3 The Maud couple
• S8 E4 Fake it til you make it
• S8 E5 Grannies gone wild
• S8 E6 Surf and/or turf
• S8 E7 Horse play
• S8 E8 The parent map
• S8 E9 Non-complete clause
• S8 E10 The break up breakdown
• S8 E11 Molt down
• S8 E12 (unknown)
• S8 E13 The mean 6

[Toastkart]

Spoiler: school daze

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Considering how lackluster the last season of pony was, I wasn't really expecting anything great. It was mostly dull, and predictable. There was no sense of wonder or adventure or tension, because there was only ever going to be one conflict (Twilight doing things by the book) and therefore only one resolution.

The chancellor is interesting, if only in that he's a threat because of his beliefs and authority and not his power or 'evilness'. The hippogriffs are cool looking, but I'm guessing the formerly a seapony thing has something to do with the movie, which I have not seen yet. Was kinda hoping it would have come to netflix by now.

Does anyone else think that referring to the non-pony students as 'creatures' is kind of demeaning? I did like Applejack's everypony flub, but I'm kinda at a loss for a replacement.

Best line of the episode: Starlight: I'm not going to cheer you up, I'm going to tell you what you did wrong

I'ma just leave this here.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Spoiler: S8 E1&2

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Well, that was OK.

The worst of it was (as ever for me) the music: The first song was so-so but got slightly better as it went on - it did a reasonable job of showing how things slid from the high ideals to the grinding rules without having to sit through several scenes. On the other hand, the reprise left me cold. It compares unfavourably with the Failure/Success song from The Crystal Empire, where the original was quite good, and the reprise played off it beautifully.

Perhaps it is a result of being the only member of my immediate family who wasn't a teacher^*, but I was a lot more invested in this episode that I expected to be. Unfortunately, any comparison I could make with Neighsay and the EEA with the (now defunct) ILEA would hit the board rules very quickly.


^* My parents gave me an important piece of careers advice about being a teacher: Don't.

[Rater202]

Spoiler: S81&2

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So Twilight's School got closed down because the guy in charge of the group that accredits schools is incredibly racist, basically.

The solution to that is "screw you I'm a princess."

Also, Naysayer looks like someone took the way Snape is depicted in the chapter illustrations in the Harry Potter novels and made it into a pony.

You couldn't make someone who looks more like an evil magical-school-person if you tried.

That is all.

[DigoDragon]

Spoiler: school daze

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Does anyone else think that referring to the non-pony students as 'creatures' is kind of demeaning? I did like Applejack's everypony flub, but I'm kinda at a loss for a replacement.

Spoiler: S8 School Daze

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It does feel demeaning to call nonponies 'creatures'. Not sure why not just with peoples or beings. Writers shouldn't try too hard to ponify every pronoun.

Spoiler: S8 E1&2

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The worst of it was (as ever for me) the music: The first song was so-so but got slightly better as it went on - it did a reasonable job of showing how things slid from the high ideals to the grinding rules without having to sit through several scenes. On the other hand, the reprise left me cold. It compares unfavourably with the Failure/Success song from The Crystal Empire, where the original was quite good, and the reprise played off it beautifully.

Spoiler: S8 School Daze

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I thought the song's first part was pretty decent. I had a good beat. Totally lost me on the reprise though. So.. yeah, I agree.

Spoiler: School Daze

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students were appealing and I even managed to pick a favorite (Ocellus, FWIW).

Spoiler: S8 School Daze

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Right on. :D

Not much fan art of her yet, but I like this hand drawn one.

[zimmerwald1915]

Spoiler: S8 E1…2

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Princess Celestia tells Twilight about some sort of government board that oversees schools in Equestria. Is she trolling Twilight? Or more like trolling the viewers?

Spoiler: School Daze

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Let's dispel the fiction that the EEA is a government department. It is not a government department. Take a look at its name: the Equestrian Educational Association. This is a private organization to which schools affiliate and pay dues, in exchange for which the organization provides a variety of benefits. Among these are accreditation - provided the member school conforms to the organization's standards which are meant to both reflect and drive educational best practices, and are informed by the experience of the "board of educators" that is the core of the EEA.

Schools may affiliate or not, depending on whether they value the EEA's stamp of approval. Most do, because accreditation is a marketing tool meant to attract tuition-paying students as it is an actual certificate of quality, so most do. But as Twilight shows at the end, you can operate without EEA accreditation as long as you have some other way of ensuring student attendance (for example, attracting prestigious backers) and revenue (for example, crown subsidy).

As a separate matter, Equestria may require its public schools to obtain EEA accreditation as a stamp of quality, and shut down those that don't have it. It may even delegate the power to discipline schools beyond withholding accreditation to the EEA. But that authority is very limited, and - again as Twilight shows in the episode - it can be revoked. Neighsay can't invoke any authority higher than his own to maintain the seal on the school. Not the armed might of the state, and not the authority of Princess Celestia.

[b_jonas]

Spoiler: S81&2

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Also, Naysayer looks like someone took the way Snape is depicted in the chapter illustrations in the Harry Potter novels and made it into a pony.

Spoiler: S8 E1…2

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I don't know, I never really thought of Professor Snape. And not only because I haven't seen those illustrations. We've already seen Professor Snape as a pony: he was the professor in S6 E8 “A heart's warming tail”, wearing a black cloak. On the other hand, both he and Twilight following the rules have obviously channeled professor Umbridge. (See Professor Umbridge's confrontation with the centaurs in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix chapter 33; and Umbridge explaining why his classes can be so boring in chapter 12. I'm too lazy to quote them right now.

Spoiler: School Daze

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Let's dispel the fiction that the EEA is a government department. It is not a government department. Take a look at its name: the Equestrian Educational Association.

Spoiler: S8 E1…2

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That is great, and it's quite possible that that's how it works in Equestria. I don't want to get into real world politics, especially not on this board, so let me just say I would not have guessed that from how education is organized here. And the names of such organizations are totally not indicative of anything. We here have a heritage in giving dishonest names to make anything sound nice.

[zimmerwald1915]

Spoiler: S8 E1…2

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That is great, and it's quite possible that that's how it works in Equestria. I don't want to get into real world politics, especially not on this board, so let me just say I would not have guessed that from how education is organized here. And the names of such organizations are totally not indicative of anything. We here have a heritage in giving dishonest names to make anything sound nice.

Spoiler: School Daze

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Orwellian mystifications aside, the system I described above is basically how accreditation works in the USA (though no American DoE or school district I've ever heard of actually delegated the power to shut down a school to its accreditation agency; simplicity is probably for the best for the purposes of making a TV show, however). Which is probably where the writers got their inspiration, being both North American and too time-strapped to build a bureaucracy from the ground up. We can't all be GhostofHera****us.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Spoiler: School Daze

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We can't all be GhostofHera****us.

Spoiler: A Ghost of a chance

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Oh, I do hope GoH sees this character and decided to write something about him. I have been avoiding anything that looks like some sort of revenge fic (they didn't take long to appear) but I suspect that he would do a really good one. I can see Dotty, Leafy or Spinny taking the guy apart with great (and understated) glee, each within their own field.

[Adderbane]

I actually forgot about S8 starting yesterday until about 10 minutes after the episode finished.

Spoiler: School Daze

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Overall, I've learned not to expect too much from premieres, and they are poor indicators of what is to come. Aside from S2 and S5 they really haven't been anything special. This was a lot better than Celestial Advice, so there's that. I like most of the new students (particularly the changeling!), and I may be in the minority on this, but I enjoy Starlight's role as Twilight's aide/minion/lieutenant.

On the subject of songs, I suspect they are required by the show executives to have them at some points (see S7E2).

[Elanasaurus]

Spoiler: Random reactions to School Daze

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My favourite part was when Spike says "Who are you, and what have you done with Twilight Sparkle?"
I'm interested to see more of Silverstream. There's probably more to her than what she showed us in the premiere.
Hey, Shannon Chan-Kent voices Smolder! Now I want Smolder to sing a solo.

Spoiler: school daze

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It was mostly dull, and predictable. There was no sense of wonder or adventure or tension, because there was only ever going to be one conflict (Twilight doing things by the book) and therefore only one resolution.

Spoiler: School Daze

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Well, I couldn't predict the resolution. I was thinking that maybe Twilight will find some way to make the school fun while keeping by the book, or that Celestia might "restructure" the EEA, or that Neighsay might just get "reformed" and amend the rules.
I guess my own dullness helps me enjoy the episodes more.

Spoiler: S8 School Daze

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It does feel demeaning to call nonponies 'creatures'. Not sure why not just with peoples or beings. Writers shouldn't try too hard to ponify every pronoun.

Spoiler: School Daze

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I thought "everycreature" was used to refer to every creature including ponies (except maybe when Celestia said it.)

By the way, has anyone other than b_jonas seen the new EQG shorts?

[Rater202]

Spoiler: School Daze

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Orwellian mystifications aside, the system I described above is basically how accreditation works in the USA (though no American DoE or school district I've ever heard of actually delegated the power to shut down a school to its accreditation agency; simplicity is probably for the best for the purposes of making a TV show, however). Which is probably where the writers got their inspiration, being both North American and too time-strapped to build a bureaucracy from the ground up. We can't all be GhostofHera****us.

Spoiler: School Daze

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Actually, since the solution to his shutting down the school is "this is friendship school, we don't need your acredidation" and "screw you, I'm a princess" and his reasons for shutting down the school being that he's a racist bastard, it's entirely possible that EEA doesn't actually have the authority to shut down schools.

[zimmerwald1915]

Spoiler: School Daze

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Actually, since the solution to his shutting down the school is "this is friendship school, we don't need your acredidation" and "screw you, I'm a princess" and his reasons for shutting down the school being that he's a racist bastard, it's entirely possible that EEA doesn't actually have the authority to shut down schools.

Spoiler: School Daze

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I defaulted to that interpretation at first, but it means that Neighsay shutting down the school was an overstep of his bounds right from the start, and was never ever legitimate. I think I prefer the interpretation where Twilight is reclaiming delegated authority to the one where no authority was ever delegated and Neighsay's just so jumped-up that he thinks he can defy a princess and get away with it.

Ultimately, it makes little difference. We know where the power lies in the end.

[Rater202]

Spoiler: School Daze

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I defaulted to that interpretation at first, but it means that Neighsay shutting down the school was an overstep of his bounds right from the start, and was never ever legitimate. I think I prefer the interpretation where Twilight is reclaiming delegated authority to the one where no authority was ever delegated and Neighsay's just so jumped-up that he thinks he can defy a princess and get away with it.

Ultimately, it makes little difference. We know where the power lies in the end.

Spoiler: School Daze

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Neighsayer insulted the leaders of several allied nations, two of which are personal friends with the princesses, to their faces becuase they're not ponies.

Couple that with how he couldn't look eviler if he tried, and that his entire reason for shutting down the school was that it admitted non-ponies, and I think it's safe to assume that he's definately that jumped up.

[zimmerwald1915]

Spoiler: School Daze

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Neighsayer insulted the leaders of several allied nations, two of which are personal friends with the princesses, to their faces becuase they're not ponies.

Spoiler: School Daze

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Each of the Mane Six has done the same or worse at one time or another. Twilight herself is particularly given to fauxes pas, having provoked the hippogriffs and the yaks and having at first endorsed the Crystal Empire's witch-hunt against changelings. And the thought behind the Friendship School is the toxic "imperialist's burden" we've come to know and love. I think it's safe to say that Neighsay's attitude and behavior isn't actually that exceptional.

[Rater202]

Spoiler: School Daze

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Each of the Mane Six has done the same or worse at one time or another. Twilight herself is particularly given to fauxes pas, having provoked the hippogriffs and the yaks and having at first endorsed the Crystal Empire's witch-hunt against changelings. And the thought behind the Friendship School is the toxic "imperialist's burden" we've come to know and love. I think it's safe to say that Neighsay's attitude and behavior isn't actually that exceptional.

Spoiler: School Daze

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Yeah no.

"Imperialists Burdon" doesn't apply--Equestria never invaded or conquered Yakyakistan, Griffinstone,
or any other nation, and the non-pony students aren't being forced to come to the school by their new pony overlords to be indoctrinated into the ways of equestrian culture while surpressing their own.

[zimmerwald1915]

Spoiler: School Daze

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Yeah no.

"Imperialists Burdon" doesn't apply--Equestria never invaded or conquered Yakyakistan, Griffinstone,
or any other nation, and the non-pony students aren't being forced to come to the school by their new pony overlords to be indoctrinated into the ways of equestrian culture while surpressing their own.

Spoiler

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Please. We literally got the lines in the beginning saying that no other peoples besides ponies knew friendship, and that it was the ponies' job to give it to them. Compare it to Kipling's doggerel, you'll see the ideas are exactly the same even if the method is different.

[Rater202]

Spoiler

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Please. We literally got the lines in the beginning saying that no other peoples besides ponies knew friendship, and that it was the ponies' job to give it to them. Compare it to Kipling's doggerel, you'll see the ideas are exactly the same even if the method is different.

Spoiler

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And the last couple of seasons and the movie did, in fact, establish that friendship the way Ponies know it is in fact pretty freaking rare outside of equestria. Note how the changelings apparently never once thought to share each other's love over stealing it from others, for one example, r Griffinstone's entire culture being based on being selfish, rude, and greedy excepting a brif period of time where their king had one particular treasure.

[zimmerwald1915]

Spoiler

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And the last couple of seasons and the movie did, in fact, establish that friendship the way Ponies know it is in fact pretty freaking rare outside of equestria. Note how the changelings apparently never once thought to share each other's love over stealing it from others, for one example, r Griffinstone's entire culture being based on being selfish, rude, and greedy excepting a brif period of time where their king had one particular treasure.

Spoiler: School Daze

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That's rather their business, isn't it? Who are the ponies to pronounce their way of life enlightened, and their neighbors benighted? It's just arrogant presumption.

[b_jonas]

Spoiler: School Daze

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That's rather their business, isn't it? Who are the ponies to pronounce their way of life enlightened, and their neighbors benighted? It's just arrogant presumption.

Spoiler: S7 E1…2

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You're making it sound like back in S7 E11 “Not Asking for Trouble”, when the ponies decided that they don't care what the yak prince wants, they're going to give aid to the yak nation because they know better than the yak prince. But this school is more silly than that. It reminds me more of S7 E21 “Marks and Recreation”, where the ponies with responsibility decide that they know what the blankflank foals need, and send them to Camp Friendship where they have to socialize with the other unfortunate campers and do whatever activities they lined up, no matter what the foals want.

[zimmerwald1915]

Spoiler: S7 E1…2

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You're making it sound like back in S7 E11 “Not Asking for Trouble”, when the ponies decided that they don't care what the yak prince wants, they're going to give aid to the yak nation because they know better than the yak prince.

Spoiler: School Daze

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Yak prince wanted help. Yak prince accepted help with joy and grace. Yak prince just not want to ask for help. Yak episodes about listening to subtext.

[Elanasaurus]

Spoiler: School Daze

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But the students are attending because either they or their nations want them to. Also, maybe the school will try to upgrade its activities to meet the students' needs better?

[Aotrs Commander]

Ya can tell how bad it is, New Pony will still have to wait until tomorrow.

Still, att least I was able to play some Witcher 3 again today...

[zimmerwald1915]

Ya can tell how bad it is, New Pony will still have to wait until tomorrow.

Watching pony on a workday?

That's a shame.

[Aotrs Commander]

Watching pony on a workday?

That's a shame.

Not really.

Monday is not a work day even under normal circumstances and doubly wouldn't be at the moment.

And I mean, it's not like I don't set my own hours anyway.

Edit:

...

...

Which is probably as well in both circumstances, since I just noticed clocks went foward and it is now officially Way Too Late At Night...

[t209]

Spoiler: School Daze

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Yak prince wanted help. Yak prince accepted help with joy and grace. Yak prince just not want to ask for help. Yak episodes about listening to subtext.

Speaking of Friendship School, part of your conversation reminded me of this panel that the writer thought was good criticism while ignoring the fact that they hoard technology, close borders, and being hypocrites.
Think of my commentary as this,

Spoiler: Abridged

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Narration: This is why the neighboring countries are poor because we and the writer still haven't got the thought that technically it's our fault.
Executives: SO...
T'Chaka: We decided not to sell them because you are unenlightened even though we are not.
Executives: Why are you calling us irresponsible children even you just invited us just to insult us and not to mention why you haven't thought about asking help to Third World DIRECTLY
T'Chaka: Because the writers said so.
(Forward)
Feather lady: So we decided not to sell magic rocks because they will make weapons just like iron for swords and coppers for guided weapons. Not that we've done so..Oh that reminds me, what of our sonic weapons.

At least the movie happily pointed out with Killmonger's main peeve being them being reclusive jerkwads. Otherwise, the ending to that film will be "Nope, we didn't learn our lessons".
Brotherhood of Steel and Adeptus Mechanicus had done this, but the former fallen into a reclusive bunker community with powerful enemies while the latter caused much suffering in WH40k.
I don't mean it as an insult but this was what I was thinking: A good-meaning commentary that ended up as unfortunate message, albeit BP's writer had a sense as a newt.

[Rater202]

Spoiler: School Daze

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That's rather their business, isn't it? Who are the ponies to pronounce their way of life enlightened, and their neighbors benighted? It's just arrogant presumption.

Spoiler

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The fact that the Griffon's are miserable and we've seen a couple griffons want to spread Equestrian values in Griffonstone.

And the fact that most of the changelings seem happier this way than they did before when they were parasites.

[zimmerwald1915]

Spoiler

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The fact that the Griffon's are miserable and we've seen a couple griffons want to spread Equestrian values in Griffonstone.

And the fact that most of the changelings seem happier this way than they did before when they were parasites.

Spoiler: School Daze

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And that is also their business. Still doesn't give ponies license to do what they're doing.

[Rater202]

Spoiler: School Daze

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And that is also their business. Still doesn't give ponies license to do what they're doing.

Spoiler

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They don't have the right to invite non-ponies the oportunity to expand their perspective and learn about and make friends with members of other races?

Again, the ponies aren't forcing people to come to Twilight's School.

Other nations don't have friendships the way the ponies of Equestria do.,

Other nations that adopt Equestrian Friendship end up happier.

Thus, open a school and invite people of other nations to learn about Equestrian Friendship.

No one is being forced to do anything, they're they because they, or at east their leaders, want to learn about Friendship in equestria.

It is not at all like imperialism.

[zimmerwald1915]

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They don't have the right to invite non-ponies the oportunity to expand their perspective and learn about and make friends with members of other races?

Spoiler

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They don't have the right to call what they're doing that.

Spoiler

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Again, the ponies aren't forcing people to come to Twilight's School.

Spoiler

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Ember and Thorax owe their positions to Equestrian-sponsored coups d'etat, you think they don't know where their bread is buttered?

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Other nations don't have friendships the way the ponies of Equestria do.,

Other nations that adopt Equestrian Friendship end up happier.

Spoiler

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And we're back to arrogant presumption. Beings like Pharynx and Garble were not happy with the new regimes, and neither were Gallus and Smolder. In fact, all the students expressed some actual attachment to their own cultures and ended up running away from the Assimilation Academy. I gather sentiment among Carlisle School alumni was similar.

Spoiler

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No one is being forced to do anything, they're they because they, or at east their leaders, want to learn about Friendship in equestria.

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Bread and butter again.

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It is not at all like imperialism.

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Is too.