At the beginning of the episode, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie are still getting to know each other better after the events of Nightmare Moon’s return. They bond through pranks, and Rainbow clearly enjoys having someone around who shares her sense of humor. But the next day, Pinkie finds Rainbow hanging out with Gilda, someone she has known since Junior Speedsters Flight Camp. Naturally, Rainbow wants to focus on reconnecting with her old friend, so she tells Pinkie to catch up with them later.
The problem is that Pinkie does not really give them much space. From Pinkie’s point of view, she is just being friendly and excited. But from Gilda’s point of view, this random pony keeps inserting herself into what was supposed to be private time between 2 old friends. Gilda’s reaction is rude and possessive, especially when she tries to keep Pinkie away from Rainbow, but it is not hard to understand where the jealousy comes from. She feels like Pinkie is intruding, and worse, like Rainbow is being pulled away from her.
This is where the episode becomes a little unfair toward Gilda. Pinkie’s concerns about her are not completely wrong, since Gilda later scares Granny Smith, steals an apple, and snaps at Fluttershy after an accidental bump. Still, Pinkie’s own behavior is also intrusive, and the episode does not really treat that as a problem. Instead of talking to Rainbow directly or giving Gilda space, Pinkie decides to handle the situation in her own way by throwing Gilda a party.
At that party, Gilda ends up getting hit by prank after prank. To be fair, the party pranks were not designed specifically to target her, and Rainbow Dash later reveals that she was the one who set them up. But from Gilda’s perspective, she is being repeatedly embarrassed in front of strangers while everyone laughs. For someone already feeling insecure, replaced, and unwelcome, that would probably feel less like harmless fun and more like public humiliation.
So when Gilda finally snaps, her reaction is wrong, but not completely irrational. She blames Pinkie because Pinkie had been following her, bothering her, and then throws this party where everything seems to go wrong for her. Then Gilda discovers that Rainbow Dash herself was behind the pranks. That moment probably feels like a betrayal. Not only is Gilda embarrassed in front of everyone, but her old friend now appears to side completely with her newer Ponyville friends.
This is where Rainbow Dash’s response becomes the real issue. Gilda was rude, yes. She treated Pinkie badly, snapped at Fluttershy, and acted possessive toward Rainbow. But Rainbow also had history with her. She knew Gilda personally, and she could have handled the situation with more care. Instead of only reacting after Gilda explodes, she could have pulled her aside, called her out privately, or at least tried to understand why the visit had gone so badly.
Instead, Rainbow rejects Gilda in front of everyone and lets her fly away angry and humiliated. The episode frames this as Gilda exposing her true colors, but there is another way to read it: Gilda was an insecure old friend who felt pushed out and reacted badly in a situation that kept escalating around her.
That does not mean Gilda did nothing wrong. She clearly did. But the emotional context matters. She was not a villain; she was jealous, defensive, socially rough, and too proud to it she was hurt. Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, failed to show much concern for what was happening beneath the surface.
A stronger moral might have been that loyalty is not about blindly defending someone’s bad behavior, but it also is not about dropping an old friend the moment they disappoint you. Rainbow could have stood up for Pinkie and Fluttershy while still trying to understand what was going on with Gilda. Because she does not really do that, her loyalty in this episode feels selective.
So Gilda is not innocent, but she is also not nearly as bad as the episode wants us to think. Her behavior comes across less like pure cruelty and more like jealousy, insecurity, pride, and fear of being replaced. She is flawed, defensive, and mean in the moment, but not irredeemable. Later episodes make it clear that there was more to her than just being a bully.
That and her design is pretty neat, she’s a bad griffon gurl so yeah, no wonder why some fans loved her attitude x)
It always intrigues me that there was so much for Gilda in the fandom after the episode “Griffon The Brush Off”, even though she was clearly portrayed as a toxic friend.
All that probably inspired the writers for the show to give Gilda a redemption arc with the episode “The Lost Treasure Of Griffonstone”.
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