YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S6 E13 "Spice Up Your Life"

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: While the main aesop is about viewing things your own way and interpreting it based on your opinion, there are some who see it as a cautionary tale on how critics don’t always have the best of intentions when they aren’t giving what they’re reviewing a chance given Zesty’s rather biased views on what’s considered a good restaurant.
• Broken Base: Rarity's characterization in the episode. Some fans complain that she seems to have forgotten the lesson from "Canterlot Boutique" and conforms the restaurant too easily to Zesty Gourmand's standard. Few might even note that Rarity trying to change a cultural restaurant could come off as racist. Others, in her defense, say that Rarity is not a chef and she only knows what works in Canterlot (indeed Pinkie found only two customers with her different approach), so she acted in good faith to save the restaurant.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Saffron Masala has become one of the one-shot characters with a fanbase thanks to her unique cute design and a good personality.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • When the map is activated again, it briefly flickers other pairs of ponies in other locations before settling on the episode's. The way Pinkie even phrases them sounds like fanfic prompts; "Rainbow Dash and Twilight in Yakyakistan" for instance.
  • There are designs for Gordon Ramsay, Julia Child, Jamie Oliver, Rachael Ray, Mr. Food and Cat Cora. That could mean that there are pony versions of other famous chefs and likely contests for cooking.
  • What kind of Friendship Problems have not been solved thanks to the map being disabled? Has it gotten to a point where it's too late to fix the problems? And how would this affect Starlight Glimmer's psyche?
  • It's now confirmed there's a pony equivalent of India. What would a pony version of Mumbai look like?
  • What other countries or cultures have Equestrian equivalents?
  • Given that bad things tend to come snowballing from one single incident in the show, and given Rarity's ominous Ironic Echo, how will Zesty Gourmand's way of life be affected now that the Restaurant Row's owners have openly discarded her judgment, taking out the reverence for her reputation?
  • Rarity explains that Zesty Gourmand is a renowned food critic because "[she] grew up around fine cuisine". How she came from this to a Caustic Critic who only approves of restaurants that serve food with "a subtle taste, the barest hint of a sensation" is a story that demands exploration.
• Genius Bonus: Saffron Masala's cutie mark is the purple crocus flower from whose stamens saffron is made.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: At the start of the episode, when the crystal map starts showing cutie marks all over the map, it shows two of Twilight's mark at the castle, with Pinkie Pie even saying "Twilight and Twilight at Twilight's castle". Then it comes the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls special Spring Breakdown, in which Equestria native Sunset Shimmer and Twilight and Rainbow Dash's human counterparts are transported to Equestria and, lo and behold, end up meeting Princess Twilight at her castle.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The reason for why this season hasn't had an episode until now where the ponies are summoned by the map is a rather interesting one (it had been disabled thanks to Starlight's time travel shenanigans) and could be used to flesh out an episode, but instead, it's used as a hand wave with minimal discussion regarding the subject, instead used as an Excuse Plot to have Pinkie and Rarity go to Canterlot. Indeed, having Starlight and Twilight work on a spell together, perhaps with another appearance from Sunburst, where Starlight might shed light on how she knew to use the time travel spell on the Cutie Map in the first place, would have a strong mythos appeal.

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