History Headscratchers / MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicSeason5

Sombra future: Celestia wins against Nightmare, Discord isn't free, changelings also defeated, no Elements for war against Sombra. Tirek... should win? Unless either he doesn't get free or Sombra cuts him down before he can absorb much power, maybe?

** teahcers have used the wine-to-brandy transformation to demonstrate distilling. besides, Equestria may have more lenient rules when it comes to underage salt-licking.

* When does this episode take place? I ask, because Rainbow Dash's pet, Tank, is up and active. Does it take place before or after Winter? That's one issue with having episode that doesn't follow a timeline chronologically: it's hard to tell which episode should come first or second.

** Tank is not dead, he was just hibernating, so it could perfectly not be winter anymore and he may have already waken up.

** Many fans have theorized that it's ''inspired'' by the Nightmare Forces, but as a in-universe entity it has no direct connection. Blending storylines from the B-works could confuse the viewership, and is generally avoided as a rule.

** Because Luna didn't know. She was unaware the tantabus fed off her guilt until it was pointed out to her. Surely if Luna knew forgiving herself was how to defeat the tantabus, she wouldn't have created it in the first place.
* The Tantabus was very efficent at figuring out Rainbow Dash's worst fear and using it against her...why doesn't it use that against the other Five? Why doesn't it summon a giant quesadilla monster in Twilight's dream, or use Rarity's fear of becoming greedy and selfish against her, or use Pinkie's fear of loneliness against her, or torture Applejack with images of Apple Bloom getting hurt, or torture Fluttershy with neverending chants of "FLUTTERSHY, FLUTTERSHY, FLUTTERSHY CAN HARDLY FLY!"?

*** Chrysalis could have evolved after absorbing Shining and Cadance's love.

* "Like a bullet to keep up with me"...Equestria has guns, so why were they throwing food at each other?

* "Like a bullet to keep up with me"...Equrstria has gun, so why were they throwing food at eacvh other?

[[folder:[=5.20=] Hearthbreakers]]

[[folder:[=5.20=] The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows]]
Why does Pinkie Pie, the creator of the "break it and you're dead to me" Pinkie Promise, finding it so hard to keep Cadence and Shining Armor's secret? She has seemingly showed no problem keeping secrets for others all the way back to "Green Isn't Your Color".
[[/folder]]

* Why the ''hell'' is there a pony dressed as a griffon (another sapient race)? Isn't that, like, the pony equivalent of wearing blackface to a Halloween party or something?

* The Season 4 premiere showed that Zecora can make a potion that allows the drinker to view events from the past as they happened. Why did no one think of using that? Twilight even visits Zecora at one point during this episode!
** Forget that. Why doesn't Twilight ask Discord to use his powers to show what happened as he could do in the Season 2 premire?

**

** I'm pretty sure Discord's reign happened BEFORE Luna became Nightmare Moon. With all this chaos going on, she had no time to become jealous.

** Trixie and the alt-main 6 turned her back. Or maybe even Twilight and her friends, blooming a little later than normal. Unfortunately their friendship ultimately wasn't enough to take on Discord.

** So, let's draft out [[OccamsRazor the most obvious possibilities]]. Nightmare Moon future: Nightmare Moon was freed, defeated Celestia and imprisoned her on the moon. Discord was not freed because the Elements were not touched. Queen Chrysalis does not invade because there's no love anymore. King Sombra returns and is defeated faster than in the King Sombra bad future because of Nightmare Moon's different war tactics, possibly because she created a better military, something Celestia would not have done (considering she was surprised at the Empire's return, she wouldn't plan for war, unlike Nightmare, who would do that just because). Alternatively, he is welcomed by Nightmare Moon, as [[WordOfGod Faust says she planned to usher in an era of evil.]] Tirek either did not escape because the circumstances making Cerberus bored were changed, or he escaped and was defeated because Nightmare Moon found him in her dreams.
Discord future: Celestia finds alternative bearers that defeated Nightmare Moon. This broke his seal, but these bearers could not beat him. Alternatively, Celestia used the Elements on Luna, and this still freed him. Changelings want nothing to do with Discord, King Sombra is curbstomped, and Tirek is another victim of Discord's world as he can never amass enough power without Discord quickly noticing and shutting him down.
Changeling future: Nightmare Moon and Discord are defeated by Elements, Chrysalis' invasion is not circumvented. Alternatively Nightmare Moon wins and is defeated by Changeling infiltration, or Celestia won without the Elements against NMM and Discord wasn't released. Sombra is also defeated by changelings disguising as his army and teaming up on him. Tirek... er, hm, he should be able to drain changelings regardless... Maybe the love the changelings amassed made them each too strong for Tirek to ever drain?

** It's also possible, however very unlikely, that Starlight (whether as a blank flank foal, or a grown mare) may have tried to reconnect with Sunburst. One of two things could have happened:
*** 1: Sunburst looked down upon Starlight for her lack of a cutie mark, and ended their friendship like that.
*** 2: More likely, Sunburst may have come across as InnocentlyInsensitive to Starlight, and rebuffed him.
** The reason Starlight never saw Sunburst again is that he was magically gifted and got sent off to Celestia's school. Except, Starlight is also explicitly magically gifted. All Ponies are shown to get their Cutie Marks while young enough to go to school. Why didn't she end up at (or choose to enroll in) Celestia's academy after she got her Mark?
*** Celestia's school is shown having an entrance exam and notably Twilight is shown getting her cutie mark mid exam and Sunburst appears to have been drafted upon getting his. The Cutie Mark Crusaders are implied to be abnormally late but stand as proof that you do not have your cutie mark at any fixed time. Additionally while it's probably animation errors there have been adult ponies shown without Cutie Marks. Starlight may very well have just developed too late to attend despite her natural gifts. Additionally her town is shown to be out of the way and she went to extremes not to have anybody show off or gather attention. Flying under the radar accidentally or not would have been simple at that point.

* This has been bugging me for a while. But what ''is'' Starlight's cutie mark? A sparkle with two streams?

** While it is debatable exactly how powerful Starlight is, keep in mind that Twilight said she "has more talent for magic than ''almost'' anypony I've seen". Assuming she was excluding herself, this implies that there are other unicorns out there who possess immense magical talent, just like her. Candidates include Sunset Shimmer, Moondancer, and Sunburst (if Twilight ever met him). Also, it's not unprecedented for unicorns to gain insane raw power; King Sombra is evidence of this (though admittedly, we don't know exactly how he got it, dark magic and all).
*** Okay, as of "The Crystalling", [[spoiler: maybe not Sunburst.]]

* If Spoiled Rich is such a jerk, then how come in "One Bad Apple", Diamond Tiara got worried when Babs threatened to tell Diamond's mother about her being a bully?

** In fairness Spoiled Rich doesn't want her daughter to be a bully, she wants her to be a winner, with the proper decorum her status requires. Being a common bully would likely strike Spoiled Rich as embarrassing, undignified and a waste of time better spent hobnobing with the social elite and winning trophies.

* How the ''hell'' did that [[spoiler:changeling]] get past security? You'd think that after the big attack in Canterlot, Equestria would be a lot more paranoid about these creatures.

** Only time will tell what Starlight was doing in that restaurant, although spying on Twilight seems the most likely of options. Maybe she's trying to pick-up on some secret spells or abilities that Twilight might know, so she can try and steal them later.

** It makes her not knowing Shining Armor and Cadance were getting married a little less of a wallbanger. Twilight is clearly terrible at keeping in contact with ponies from her past (she likely has a 'letters from family, must read' pile arranged in alphabetical order).

** It's probably more likely that they are every bit as rich and important as Spoiled thinks they are, but she doesn't want to send her precious daughter far away, not unlike [[HarryPotter Nacissa Malfoy]] and why her son doesn't attend Durmstrang, which is more in line with their family beliefs, or Beauxbatons, which is more fancy. Since Filthy Rich seems on good terms with the Apples and with others in the town, it's possible he's content with staying where he grew up, even if he's about fifty rungs higher on the social ladder than anyone else in town except Twilight and maybe Rarity. I mean they have enough money to buy an entire playground for the school and a huge statue of their daughter and ''still'' be extremely rich.