#If Applejack weren't the queen of grand gestures and the judges hadn't tolerated getting kidnapped Rarity would have been DONE

[lullabyforbears]

I think another factor that really wasn't really addressed in the episode was that Applejack didn't just come on like a hammer because that's how she always is. She was very hesitant to do this in the first place and had to be flattered like mad, talk herself into it and help out Applebloom before she could even think about being candid about her fashion opinions, and was taking all her cues off Rarity. Like it was Rarity who was affirming her behavior right up until the point of major disaster, and building her up to the point of undeserved hubris. Like, it's not Applejack being a bad person, it's her being naturally prone to pride and being emboldened by Rarity's nepotism and enabling, and when she was confronted about it she got frustrated because fashion is something she just doesn't understand and before she hit the point of "fashion is ridiculous." Like there were so many stops along the way where Applejack could have course corrected, or BEEN corrected but Rarity, who she trusts as a fashion authority, told her she was all good. Like? If it feels out of character, it's because it isn't common that she's ever encouraged to get that out of line, but she legit thought she was just doing what Rarity wanted her to do- critique the designs for practicality in her blunt no nonsense way, and heaven knows she feels being too eager to please is one of her big character flaws. We saw a kind of ugly side of Applejack in that episode, but it wasn't necessarily an out of character one given the kind of monsters chronic nepotism creates and her predisposition to getting full of herself if the right ponies flatter her.

The way the Brony fandom reacted to Applejack's behavior in Honest Apple will always astound me. So many people thought that she was grossly out of character for how she acted, as if we didn't have an episode 3 seasons prior where she had a whole musical number that was basically her telling Fluttershy "I don't care if you're the animal expert. We're gonna deal with the bats the way I wanna deal with them."

Stop The Bats was essentially "It's My Way or the Highway: The Song." You would think with how much people gushed over that musical number back in the day that they would pay attention to what the song was actually saying, and what that says about AJ's character.

But nah. Honest Apple was "character assassination." I remember people thought I was crazy when I said it was the best episode of Season 7, but I'll stand ten toes down on that. It's the best season 7 episode and the best AJ episode, period.