Hello & welcome back to Trotting Through Life. Oh my goodness. Yay! You rock woo hoo! These are all things that have been said by my all time favorite character from My Little Pony. And if you've followed this blog from it's inception or just paid attention to some of my posts, you would know that Fluttershy is my favorite MLP character. And starting today, on Trotting Through Life, I'm starting what I'm calling Flutter Month (Yay!). What will Flutter Month consist of? A Fluttershy episode retrospective, where I review all the episodes of MLP, where Fluttershy was the main focus of the episode, a review of the Fluttershy Mirco comic from IDW and it'll conclude with my Top 6 Fluttershy Moments. And I couldn't be happier with how we are kicking off this event. Because not only I do get to review a Fluttershy episode, but this is also my favorite Fluttershy episode and my all time favorite episode of MLP. Yay! You'll be seeing that word a lot during the next few articles. With out of the way, let's get this Fluttertastic event started.
Episode Title
Dragonshy
Really, not much to say about this episode title. Though, I do think that it gets the point across that this is a Fluttershy episode dealing with dragons.
The Plot
The plot is admittedly rather simple as there is a dragon that has landed in Equestira to take a nap but all of his snoring is causing smoke. And if something isn't done about this, all of Equestira will be covered in smoke for the next 100 years. Princess Celestia assigned the Mane Six to go up and solve the problem. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, this really awesome montage sequence of the girls getting ready all this different gear.
And this is where the adorableness with Fluttershy really kicks in. As the poor girl is so afraid of everything that she has a hard time going up the mountain just to face the dragon. And this is evident, even when she tries to hop, skip and jump. This was a cute little moment as we got to Pinkie Pie help Fluttershy, and this was a great moment because both of these characters are voiced by Andrea Libman. Now most of the characters are relatively supportive of Fluttershy and understand save for one Rainbow Dash, who is easily frustrated by Fluttershy and comes off as a bit of a jerk. While I understand that and that is true to real life situations, I didn't care for that. And while Dash came off jerk like as I mentioned previously, Pinkie and the rest were understanding such as Applejack who recognized that Fluttershy was scared of going up the mountain and decided to take her up the long way around. Which actually leads to two of my favorite moments from the episode. The first being when Flutters and AJ meet up with the rest of the girls and right before that we were shown that Pinkie had beaten Rarity in 35 games of tic tac toe.
Which includes this line.
Pinkie Pie: Whoo-hoo! I win again!
Rarity: Ugh. That's thirty-five games in a row. Best of seventy-one?
I don't know what it is about this moment but it always seems to get a chuckle out of me. The second moment as previously mentioned is when Fluttershy and AJ meet up with everyone else.
I really want to know what AJ had to tie Fluttershy's tail around her head to carry her up, the rest of the way. A little ways after this, we see an avalanche occur just by Flutters softly yells the word and it makes the trek harder. And causes some of the ponies to fall such as Rarity falls on top of AJ and apologizes. Dash makes the statement of
Not your fault
Pretty much placing all the blame on my girl (Grr!) Okay to be fair, it is fair to place the blame on Fluttershy but anypony could've caused this accident and that's all it was. Rainbow Dash's frustration, again while understandable and even somewhat relatable drives me up the wall, a wee bit. Am I being biased because she's being a jerk to my favorite character? DUH! Look, this is shallow of me but I don't like it when someone is a jerk towards Flutters. And you may be wondering if I'm harping on this so much, why is this my favorite episode. We will get to that and I do think that this episode shows that Fluttershy will always have the support of her friends and sure, she may be scared by most anything but she really is a tough cookie, when push comes to shove. Why do I bring this up? Well, when the girls finally meet up with the dragon, Fluttershy finally reveals that she's scared of dragons and that's why she didn't want to come. Twilight lists off their back up plan and is the first to go and tries persuasion, it doesn't work. Rarity goes in next and tries charm, which as much as I love Miss Rarity, I have to freely admit felt a bit shallow as she wanted the dragon's treasure and Pinkie Pie tries laughter. He wasn't a fan of laughter. And Rainbow gets tired of this and just decides to go and kick him.
Fluttershy sees all of her friends knocked down and hurt and finds the courage to stand up to the dragon.
And this... THIS moment is why this my favorite moment. Here just watch.
And y'know what I just want to talk about this scene in all it's awesome glory. I feel the need to quote it.
Fluttershy: How dare you... How dare you! Listen here, mister! Just because you're big, doesn't mean you get to be a bully! You may have huge teeth, and sharp scales, and snore smoke, and breathe fire... But you do not, I repeat, you do not! Hurt! My! Friends! ...You got that? Well...?
Dragon: ...But, that rainbow one kicked me...
Fluttershy: And I am very sorry about that.
Fluttershy: But you're bigger than she is and you should know better. You should also know better than to take a nap when your snoring can become a health hazard to other creatures.
Dragon: But I?
Fluttershy: Don't you but I me mister. Now what do you have to say for yourself? I said, what do you have to say for yourself?
Dragon: (crying)
Fluttershy: There there. No need to cry. You're not a bad dragon, you just made a bad decision. Now go pack your things. You just need to find a new place to sleep. That's all.
You want to know why I love this episode so much and in turn love Fluttershy so much. Because of THIS moment right here. All throughout the episode, Fluttershy was scared and intimidated by the dragon but when she saw her friends knocked down, she was ready to stand up and tell the dragon off. She found the courage within her to face her fear. And this moment is when I declared Fluttershy, my favorite character and verified my love for this show with that moment. Is it wrong to love an episode just for one moment? No, I don't think so and I've pointed other things besides that moment that I love about this episode.
Characters
Now, I'll be breaking this down into Main, Supporting, & Antagonist. With that out of the way, let's begin.
Main Character
Fluttershy voiced by Andrea Libman
I loved Fluttershy in this episode because throughout most of the episode, she was scared of everything around her and even though, this story has been done in other cartoons, I loved it here as it felt genuine and when she stood up to the dragon, it was great because it showed how frightened she was by everything but when push came to shove, it showed how much she cared about her friends and this is one of what I consider Fluttershy's first step into overcoming her fears. Which is something her episodes focuses on a wee bit. Mind you, that isn't the only thing, Fluttershy has to face as we will see with the next review.
Supporting Characters
Rainbow Dash voiced by Ashleigh Ball
Dash as much as I may complain about her in this review, her role does make sense as she was in a way, the one reflecting all of the complaints and criticisms that one would have with someone that is afraid of her own shadow. She is the frustrated one and while I may not like it, when she gets angry. It makes sense.
Twilight Sparkle voiced by Tara Strong
As mentioned above, Twilight tried to use persuasion to get the dragon out of the cave and that didn't go over too well. Something else, that I noticed with Twily, the last time I watched this episode. It really showed her leadership skills quite well. Which we will see more in future episodes but I liked that so early in the series as this was only the 7th episode, her leadership skills were shining through quite well. I mean, she was the one that planned out the journey going up to the cave.
Applejack also voiced by Ashleigh Ball
Admittedly, AJ is my least favorite of the Mane Six as I just find her boring but thankfully, I was actually able to enjoy her in this episode because she was very understanding towards Fluttershy's fears and was willing to help her. I mean, he already saw that.
I mean, that's some dedication to your friend right there if you are willing to drag her up a mountain with her mane tied to your forehead.
Rarity voiced by Tabitha St. Germain
Now this wasn't Miss Rarity's best showing as it did show a bit of her shallow side as she wanted the dragon's treasure. I mean, she did use her charm to try and get the dragon out and did succeed at first until he caught on. Which was rather funny and led to one of my favorite Rarity moments.
Rarity: I was this close to getting that diamond...
Twilight Sparkle: You mean getting rid of that dragon?
Rarity: Oh. Yeah. Sure.
Pinkie Pie also voiced by Andrea Libman
I really liked Pinkie in this episode as she had quite a few funny moments such as this one right here. Where she found out the dragon wasn't a fan of laughter. Or earlier in the episode, where she helped Flutters cross with her hop,skip, & jump song. It showed how much she really wanted to help her friend and I liked that because in her own little Pinkie way, Pinkie knows how to be there for her friends.
Antagonist
The Dragon voiced by Blu Mankuma
The Dragon wasn't so much a character as it was more of an obstacle that Fluttershy had to overcome. He was a repersantion of her fear and she couldn't face him until she had seen how badly, the dragon had hurt her friends which pushed her to the edge and brought the tongue lashing from Fluttershy that the dragon received. Fluttershy was the only one that could get the dragon to move in part because of her innate abilities with animals and nature in general. I mean none of the other ponies that attempted to get rid of him came close. Well okay, Rarity almost had it until her true nature was revealed. Which this brings me to something that is going to be brought up a lot throughout Flutter Month, the writers seem to like to place Fluttershy into difficult situations, that test her and this was a clear example of that as all of her fears were being tested and she had to find a way to stop the dragon and she did.
My Final Thoughts
I love this episode. This is my all time favorite episode. Everything about it just works for me. How much do I love this episode. I hold this as the bar for every other Fluttershy episode to live up to and thus far in my opinion, none have surpassed Dragonshy. Maybe there will be a future Fluttershy episode that I will consider as great as this one. Man, I'm not making it easy for the next episodes. So now that Flutter Month (Yay!) has officially been started, I hope that you enjoyed the review of my favorite episode. Hey, I see you there. What do you think you are doing? Do I have to use The Stare. Of course, I can't beat the...
Stare Master
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