Talk:Twilight Sparkle/@comment-4604642-20130919025611/@comment-5837525-20130920004438

If you look at it from a technical standpoint, yes, those are callbacks. But from an emotional standpoint, that's exactly what it is -- change. What if, after Applebuck Season, Applejack had gone back to doing everything on her own? She'd have refused her friends' help in Cider Squeezy and lost to Flim and Flam. Yeah, she still lost, but the moral would've been exactly the same as it was in Applebuck Season.

And you're wrong again -- Applejack isn't as stubborn as she once was, and if there was any indication in recent episodes that she still works a lot, it's because she comes from a very labor-oriented family. And yeah, Fluttershy is still afraid of a lot of things, but that didn't stop her from rising to the occasion in Keep Calm and Flutter On.

You can't want the characters to not grow up and expect every episode to be great. That's character stagnation.

Look at Pokemon. Over 700 episodes, and Ash is still 10 years old (as far as the English dub is concerned). When a new series starts, all the knowledge and experience Ash learned and learned from are chucked out the window. He's not getting older, and he's not getting smarter. This is character stagnation, and it's BOOOOORING.