My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E21 Dragon Quest/YMMV


 * Aborted Arc/They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A lot of the questions that Spike goes on his quest to answer are pretty much ignored. Sure, he decides that some of them aren't important, but that doesn't cover everything.
 * Sequel Hook: They haven't been answered yet.
 * Alternate Character Interpretation: To the dragon species as a whole. One can easy see the teen dragons as Jerkass and the adults as uncaring of the situation of what they do, but it could be seen as a dragon's way of life. With the teens not being mean to Spike but actually toughening him up. Most reptiles have little involvement in child-rearing. On the other hoof, Spike may have just chosen the bad crowd when it came to dragons and the teens are just sadistic bullies.
 * Also, since phoenixes are apparently immortal, smashing their eggs may just be a way of keeping their population in check.
 * Did the dragons accept Spike into their gang and respect him? Or was did they just want to use him as bait for the phoenixes and not give a flying feather on what happened to him?
 * And the Fandom Rejoiced: A lot of fans were excited for the fact that Spike got another episode, and the sheer potential it had in regard to dragons and their role in Equestria.
 * Complete Monster: The teen dragons could count (especially their leader Garble), if you don't consider their behavior a species thing. They're disturbingly realistic bullies who's emotional and physical abuse of poor Spike is not Played for Laughs. Sure, they DO accept Spike into their gang, so they can use him as phoenix bait to distract the very dangerous parents so they can raid the nest. What really makes them this trope is unlike all other antagonists so far, they actually try to kill baby phoenixes and eggs, with no other reason given other than they want to.
 * Ensemble Darkdragon: Crackle, memetic character from even before the episode was aired.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: The teenagers think that anything that has to do with ponies is sissy and girly. Hmm, how ironic.
 * The Cold Opening has Rainbow Dash and Twilight try to convince Fluttershy to conquer her fears to join in on a group activity. Guess what the plot was for the very next episode.
 * Jerkass Has a Point: Fluttershy's rather violent stand up to Rainbow Dash, as impressive as it is, comes off a bit harsh considering, as the latter pointed out, she had Dash join in watching Butterfly Migration in a very similar circumstance beforehand (a group event Dash visibly didn't enjoy either).
 * Left Hanging: We still don't find out about exactly where Spike came from. It fits in with the aesop though.
 * Memetic Mutation: The shot of Rainbow Dash holding a photo to Fluttershy has become an visual exploitable. Same with Garble reading the letter from Princess Celestia that Spike belched up.
 * Some people assume that Crackle is the dragon version of Derpy.
 * Crackle is best dragon.
 * Moral Event Horizon: The teenage dragons were already giant Jerkasses,.
 * One Scene Wonder:
 * Crackle, who had fan art before the episode even aired (due to being shown in the second preview clip).
 * Likewise Spike's pet Phoenix, Peewee, was an instant hit with fan art trickling in less than an hour after his debut.
 * They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A lot of viewers were hoping for some world building. This episode didn't even tell what the point of the migration was, and finding out that the dragon life cycle has a teenager phase didn't answer much of anything.
 * However, it did reveal that dragons must usually grow their wings before their teenage years.
 * Not even really implied, sadly. Garble did give Spike a hard time about his lack of wings and being young, but he was hassling Spike about every weakness that he could think of. That doesn't mean that Spike would grow wings later. Also, another one of the teenage dragons, the one with the giant tail, didn't have wings. Given the extreme variety in bodies presented, the implication seems to be that some dragons just don't have wings, which is still a less extreme variation than Crackle's extra limbs.
 * If you look carefully at the picture on the cart which held Spike's egg in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", you can see that the dragon drawn there has no wings. Spike is probably a wingless species, assuming this isn't Jossed by him growing some later. Which is also unlikely, since all "adult" versions of Spike so far are also wingless.
 * Ugly Cute: Crackle, the only dragon named in the show, manages to look so terrible that it is adorable.
 * Viewer Gender Confusion: What gender is Crackle supposed to be anyway?