Twilight wasn't joking: all the ponies in that town really are crazy, including Twilight herself.
Pinkie Pie's also a bit of a fridge Tear Jerker: It's likely that she doesn't constantly throw parties just because she likes them. It's because she knows everyone else likes them, and it's the only way she knows to be sociable on a normal level. The Genki Girl randomness that she's known for is too much for most folks, who've probably actively avoided her for it in the past. But if she throws a party, suddenly everyone likes her, and she clings to that. So it's parties forever, and nothing else. Because if she stops, she stops being "That eccentric girl who throws awesome parties all the time" and reverts to "That annoying girl who talks too quickly about things that don't make sense." And then she's all alone. Again.
In the season 2 episode "Lesson Zero", Twilight's behavior in the episode becomes all the more horrifying given the fact that the previous episode had them dealing with Discord. Maybe his More than Mind Control of the ponies had some lasting effects...
There are characters in H. P. Lovecraft stories with more mental stability than the Mane Six. In particular, the common trigger seems to be a fear of not being appreciated. This puts Nightmare Moon in a new light. Sanity Slippage is the rule rather than the exception, and even a goddess isn't immune. What's to stop something like the Nightmare Moon disaster from happening again?
Is that the point of making Twilight the "Princess of the Magic of Friendship" because having understanding and supportive friends to real you in is Celestia's way of prevent the total sanity slippage seen in Nightmare Moon?
One of the implications of the Season 3 finale is that without Pinkie to keep them happy, the townspeople of Ponyville would be angry Jerkasses perpetually at each others throats.
They were probably cranky because of the screwed-up weather.
After Luna was transformed into Nightmare Moon, Princess Celestia used the Elements of Harmony to seal her away in the moon for a full millennium. Now, despite all the sad fanart depicting Luna stranded on a rock in the sky, it was Nightmare Moon that was stuck up there. However, Word of Faust says that Luna and Nightmare Moon were entirely separate entities. It could be interpreted that it was simply using Luna's form and powers as a host for its own intent. Think about that. Celestia locked away a monster, sure, but somewhere inside that monster was her baby sister. Confused, frightened, being leeched from and likely abused by a manifestation of pure emotional entropy. And she was left like this for a thousand years with absolutely nothing she could do about it. Even worse, she probably thinks all of it was punishment for what she did. And what she did was feel a little jealous. There's no way that girl doesn't wind up with a major Guilt Complex.
The entire case is pretty hard to give a satisfactory answer to. On the one hand, NMM was brought on by Luna's own anger and jealousy, and it's hard to not sympathize with her reasons considering all the hard work she must put into her nights. Even so, it's clear she fell so deep into her negativity that her powers were corrupted and she became the polar-opposite of Celestia. On the other hand, after the Elements of Harmony remove the corruption from her, it's clear Luna shows a great deal of remorse and regret for her actions and quickly jumps back into Celestia's embrace. Come Luna Eclipse, she even admits herself that NMM should be feared and that she was more than happy she was returned to normal, making this whole debate pretty difficult to put at ease.
Point of fact which adds to the fridge horror: Celestia did NOT, in fact, banish Nightmare Moon to the moon for a full millennium. Celestia banished Nightmare Moon to the moon. FULL STOP. The banishment would last...FOREVER! As you may recall, Nightmare Moon was not freed: she ESCAPED, with the stars aiding in her escape, and promptly reassumed the coup attempt until smacked down again.
If the comics count as TV canon, there is something on the moon that takes over Rarity and turns her into the new Nightmare Moon, so yes, it's a different entity. It needed the emotions as an in, kind of like Discord used, but once its in it takes over.
The fact that Spike has a crush on Rarity, and is great friends with all of the other ponies is wonderful, until you realize that dragons have a much longer lifespan than the average pony. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are basically Physical Goddesses so they're exceptions, but eventually Spike will probably outlive all of his friends. The fact that he's already younger than them supports this theory even more.
In "Secret of my Excess", Spike says he's only been given one present each year for his birthday—a gift from Twilight. But in the first episode, he is seen with a present intended for Moon Dancer. So he's been giving all these gifts, but he's never received any for himself. Poor guy.
Though it is sad, it has the unintended consequence of him not giving into his inherent greed (as seen in the episode) so, so far the only thing that's stopped there being another fully grown dragon was Twilight's social ineptness. In fact, Celestia herself might have had Twilight do this without telling the latter why, so that Spike would not give in to his inherent greed.
Another Fridge Horror aspect of this is that it's never stated that dragons have another way of growing up. Sure we see adolescent dragons later on, but they may give into greed gradually as part of their maturing process. Spike may never grow up. He may be a baby dragon until he dies.
Perhaps he has been given the equivalent of clothes and socks (AKA boring stuff he would need anyway), and thus don't consider them gifts.
With the way Pinkie Pie eats, had she been a real horse, she should have died several times already. Especially after eating the "baked bads".
She's the cartooniest in a land of cartoons. Her eating habits should not be taken seriously.
We can see several times that Rarity uses glue in the construction of her dresses. Glue is made from horse hooves.
Stereotypically. Humans have several sources of glue, one we humans use with fabrics being polymer-based (which, if DJ P0N-3 is any indication, the ponies definitely have access to). Others, however, come from fish, cows (another FiM-sapient species), and... rabbit (used in bookbinding, a fact Fluttershy would certainly find horrifying).
The Spa ponies might recycle the clippings from pony pedicures and boil that up to make glue.
There's also a small possibility that ponies may harvest the hooves from dead ponies.
Though that would still be the mark of a sociopathic society, given that respect for one's dead tends to be a big deal, so fridge horror still applies if that's true.
Maybe ponies are given the choice of donating their hooves before they die (like how humans can choose to donate their organs or their bodies to science)?
One of the most popular glues in human world history was made from casein, which is milk protein. The white glue most people today are familiar with (for example, Elmer's Glue All) was originally made from casein (now it's made from a petroleum-derived plastic). Casein glue has the advantage that it is less prone to softening or degrading from the effects of heat and moisture than "hide glue" made from animal skins and hooves; and would therefore be the sort that Rarity would be most likely to use for her tailoring.
Why the hell is Spike (a dragon) being raised by ponies? What happened to his parents? Don't dragons eat ponies (and almost anything else not tied down)?
The creators had Spike eat gems to get around the "eating ponies" problem. Instead, they changed "dragons eating everything not tied down" to "dragons stealing everything not tied down (and even most things that are)".
Not that this is much of a change, considering that dragon hordes tend to be imagined as massive piles of treasure. Spike's greed is like certain bird species having a desire to make nests out of anything shiny they can find.
The whole cast having Sanity Slippages throughout the series giving fridge horror as limitless possibilities.
The stars themselves assisted in the escape of one of the most powerful villains of the series to date. This means that by either the will of the stars, or some other terrible will, a creature capable of plunging the world in eternal darkness was released. The stars, or something controlling, representing, or within the stars override the power of Celestia and the Elements of Harmony. The stars are alive, capable of judgement, more powerful than anything in Equestria. If Luna and Celestia are the gods of this world, the stars are the elder gods, and they do not want to be our friends.
Unless, of course, the one freed by the stars wasn't Nightmare Moon, but Luna. After all, she was freed (from Nightmare Moon) by Twilight Sparkle, who has stars for a cutie mark.
In that case it could also be referring to the stars of the show, as in the main characters.
Luna's rebellion was driven by bitterness that the ponies of Equestria did not appreciate the night she brought and more generally ignored her and took her for granted. Her complaint was with her subjects, not her sister. Celestia probably understood why her sister was upset and sympathized with her complaint; she probably agreed that their subjects were taking Luna for granted. And yet, Celestia still had her duty: she had to make war upon her own sister on behalf of their subjects, their ungrateful, selfish subjects. Is it any wonder that Celestia become The Mare Wearing The Princessly Mask afterward? Or heck, it's possibly the reason why she became the troll everyone interprets her to be.
We don't know how soon Luna was taken over by Nightmare Moon after she and her sister took the throne. It's possible it happened not long afterwards, which means the civilian ponies could have just been too worn out to appreciate something like the night sky after being ruled by Discord for so long. (It's not like his chaotic rule would have let them have something as simple as a calm night for sleeping). It might have been a big misunderstanding.
You know, the mortal antagonists have done less to endanger people and property than the heroes and their neighbors. Trixie basically was trying to silence the only people dissatisfied with her performance, Gilda was a bitch and shouted at Fluttershy loud enough to make her cry (amongst other things), Prince Blueblood treated Rarity either like crap, and the Diamond Dogs kidnapped a pony and tried to force her into slavery (yes, this is a horrible thing), and Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara picked on the Blank Flanks. But compare to the Ponyvillians and Cloudsdaleans: Snips and Snails brought in a giant star bear which almost destroyed the town and in fact did destroy Trixie's home, Rainbow Dash almost killed Fluttershy, Twilight enslaved the minds of most of the town over her doll, Rarity was having her own expectations of her date thrown into her face, Fluttershy and Twilight did destroy the town by harboring the Parasprites and magically altering them, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie helped exacerbate an already tense situation into an all-out war in Appleloosa, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders released the most powerful danger to the realm.
There's some controversy regarding whether the Crusaders truly released Discord or whether they were actually the first victims of his corruption. In either case, Discord's prison was already weakening and was bound to break in a matter of days or months, Crusaders or no Crusaders. Fluttershy had no way of knowing the Parasprite she initially found was a dangerous pest (though it doesn't excuse the second one she kept), and Twilight was trying to stop the Parasprites, not to turn them into killing machines. Same for Pinkie, who was trying to explain in song exactly what the ponies and buffalo end up understanding by the end of the episode. Point is, all the mortal antagonists are jerks and proud of it, any havoc wreaked by the Mane 6 and friends (Except maybe the Want It Need It thing) was accidental.
Twilight clearly intended that spell to only affect the Crusaders and be easily reversible, so the extent of that crisis can be filed under accident just like the Parasprite alteration.
Some viewers may remember episodes such as Party Of One and Lesson Zero where Pinkie Pie and Twilight respectively went rather insane. Rainbow Dash seemed just on the verge of that kind of craziness while trying to get attention in The Mysterious Mare Do Well. Who knows what could've happened if that went any further? We've seen the kind of destruction she's capable of, and an insane Dash would make the constant problems around Ponyville this episode pale in comparison.
Where does Rarity get her cat food?! Ponies are vegetarian, they should have no business making cat food. And AJ with dog food, for that matter. And Pinkie Pie for Gummy? Although, Pinkie Pie is Pinkie Pie, so questioning that is probably a bad idea. But for the others - Vegan pet foods exist.
Actually, it's seen in the Sisterhooves Social episode that Rarity eats eggs. She makes some for herself and Sweetiebelle after they clean up the mess she made in the kitchen. So the ponies aren't constricted to vegan diets.
Humans feed their pets things we wouldn't eat ourselves all the time, so why should ponies be different in that respect? Just because herbivores are supposed to be "friendly"?
Dogs are scavengers, and compared to cats their diets are much less stringent. Still a weird pet for a cartoon horse considering they do need some meat, but Winona won't die from eating apples and bread.
Real life horses (and deer, and birds, and almost everything else) are opportunistic carnivores, meaning that they eat meat when and if they can get it. If the same holds for ponies, they probably don't have any problem keeping animals that eat meat, if not eating it themselves. Neither chickens nor fish seem to be sapient, and those are the two most common cat food bases.
What about a parchment? Which is produced mainly from a calfskin. Cows in this show are sapient. And if parchment there is fabricated from reeds, or another plant, why call it 'a parchment' then?
Parchment is also a type of high quality paper similar in color and texture to old-style calfskin parchment.
Because if they called it reedpap we'd be confused.
The whole "Spike loves Rarity" subplot is kind of weird, and not just because he's a baby (although seeing how he matures by hoarding, there's probably some funky genetic loophole going on there). There's been griffins on the show, sure, but how exactly would a canon dragon-pony relationship work out? Could they have children? Then it hit me: We've seen a dragon/equine hybrid already. A dracon-equus: Discord.
There exists a mythological dragon-horse hybrid—it's called a kirin/qilin in Chinese and a longma/ryoma in Japanese. This species has been used as the dragon-pony lovechild (usually of those two) in many fan works. Plus, Discord is a reality-warping god, meaning either he's some exception to the genetics involved, or his kin (even if they look just like him) wouldn't be as dangerous as he.
As of season 3, Discord is good. Magic of Friendship. (OK, he had a relapse in season 4, but he's even better now.)
In Season 1, Spike does not hesitate to mock and poke fun at the misfortune of the Mane 6 while they're under the influence of the Poison Joke. He laughs openly and berates Twilight in her failures to help out in the Winter Wrap Up. Now, in Season 2, Apple Bloom's suffering through the effects of the Cutie Pox disease, running the risk of death by exhaustion or obtaining a cutie mark that could spell instant death for her and the people around her. And Spike is watching with a bag of popcorn, watching nonchalantly.
He's rather young, so he might just not even be aware of the mortal danger Applebloom is in.
Adding to this, dragons are basically flying, flaming bricks. And Applebloom is an Earth Pony. He wouldn't have felt any kind of flight-or-fight response, and considering what Applejack and Pinkie Pie do in a day's work, likely never considered she could drop dead.
It is shown later in Dragon Quest that dragons are extreme Jerkasses in general. Spike may have just had his tendencies muted to Comedic Sociopathy thanks to his living with ponies.
Also Spike is the Butt-Monkey of the series, especially in the fourth season, So one could say his Schadenfreude is legit because he's usually on the recieving end.
The exterior of Rarity's house is supposed to look like a carousel, complete with artificial horses with rods going through where their ribcages would be.
Maybe, but we have a game that portrays rows and rows of humans impaled horizontally. What is this horrific game? Foosball. It would be on the same order as garden gnomes are to us.
What if a pony discovers that her/his talent is to kill, or to steal, or to manipulate minds, or to lie? And what are the authorities are supposed to do with said pony after such discovery?
And in relation to that; what if you don't like your talent in general? Rarity's talent is finding gems even though she dreams of being a fashion maker and hates dirt and getting sweaty (which is normal when digging gems up) and it was pretty much 'forced' on her with a spurt of unicorn magic. Sure, she puts her talent to good use, but still...
Characters have capabilities that aren't purely based on their talents. Twilight, despite having the talent "magic" works as a librarian instead of a court mage, and has a lot of skills in organizing others. Just because something is their "talent" doesn't mean they are irrevocably shackled to said talent.
Ponies get their cutie mark when they find something that they are good at, and that they like doing, which means that even if this hypothetical murder pony is good at killing,note which is a skill set that would have more than one application it isn't going to be their life's purpose unless like doing it. Which is a whole different piece of horror.
Bloom and Gloom explicitly covers this piece of Fridge Horror. A pony's cutie mark does not define them; they define their cutie mark. Therefore, barring serious magical intervention (think Tirek, Starlight Glimmer, or that botched Starswirl the Bearded spell), it is impossible to get a cutie mark that one "does not like". This means that a pony who gets a cutie mark in violence or something would already be predisposed to violence in the first place. Even then, there are still constructive ways to spend your time that involve beating other ponies up, like MMA or the police or military.
Related to the above, what if a pony earns a cutie mark in something they like, but later in life feel that they don't like their special talent anymore? They'll have to live the rest of their life with a cutie mark that no longer identifies with them.
Look at Elderly!Snails' CM in Magic Duel. The snail sports a beard. The emblem changes as the pony matures.
A bit of dynamic between Rarity and Twilight Sparkle is really horrid when you think about it. We've seen in several episodes that Rarity dreams of, and it some cases actively pursues, acceptance by the Canterlot nobility. However, take what we know about Twilight. Her brother is captain of the Canterlot guards, her parents were able to get her a chance to get into the best unicorn school in Canterlot, and Twilight is pretty chummy with Celestia. Twilight's family is pretty up there, socially, even moreso following Shining Armor's wedding to Cadance. Twilight is already Canterlot nobility. Status-wise, she's everything Rarity wishes she could be. Unfortunately for Rarity, being born and raised in Ponyville makes Rarity roughly equal to a nouveau-riche southern belle, which weren't looked at kindly by the English aristocracy. It really makes Rarity's wish to be accepted in Canterlot a lot like a Tragic Dream she can never see come true.
She may not have the inborn status, but Rarity clearly has the skills and talent to be accepted in Canterlot. There was a whole episode about it.
Not to mention, she has the support and backing of one of the most influential ponies in Canterlot - Fancy Pants, who more than likely considers Rarity a good friend. That connection and support alone really boosted her standing in Canterlot society in "Sweet and Elite". Not to mention the part where one of her best friends is now an alicorn princess, and three other alicorn princesses are socially acquainted with her on a first name basis.
Another thing: despite all the things that Twilight's been blessed with, she is also a very modest pony who wouldn't dream of flaunting the things that make her "special". "Boast Busters" was all about that. She has the knowledge and political power to easily become the town's leader, but is much more comfortable being treated like a normal pony.
Twilight Sparkle is never a mare who holds a grudge even after all the crap happening to her. But what happens if it's just bottling it all up until she snaps?
We've seen her snap, it was called "Lesson Zero".
Also, as a direct result of random crap happening to her, "Feeling Pinkie Keen".
Though we did see her hold a grudge in No Second Prances.
Here's something to point out about Fluttershy. Every episode starring her has consistently shown her bonding with animals like they're ponies, and having a difficult time bonding with any pony outside of her circle of friends. It has been made canon that she was bullied and picked on as a foal, due to being a weak flyer (which may be a result of low confidence), and the fact that she's the only pegasus pony to be connected to the earth rather than the sky. Maybe she is a mis-pony-pe (like a misanthrope) who considers animals better friends than ponies. She equated foals with animals, only to find out that it's not as simple as that. That's why she had that Freak Out at the Grand Galloping Gala, because she needs the love and attention that she can't get from other ponies, and when the animals there wouldn't bond with her, it just meant that she would be the lonely and loveless foal she was back then!
The show makes constant references to "Tanks" (RD comparing Tank's build to that of A tank), "Bullets" (Where a certain pony is compared as being like one), and "Cannons" (Pinkie Pie's "Party Cannon"). Why? Unfortunate Implications arise. Could it be that equestria is recovering from a horrible war, one where widespread slaughter and death took place? Could this be the reason why Celestia has so many goddamned guards, aside from being mere in-universe set decoration?
Well, you didn't expect the likes of Nightmare Moon, Discord and King Sombra to go without a fight did ya? Its quite possible that any of the three would have an army. Albeit one of medieval knights and such instead of soldiers and war vehicles.
The word bullet can be referred to the projectiles launched by slingshots. The word tank is a bit less solid. Historically, the word was used to disguise Britain's enemies from the actual war vehicle being developed, trying to pretend they were "water tanks" instead of "land battleship" or whatever weird word they were planning on using. Tanks stuck instead. Maybe armored water silos? Battle wagons? /shrug
What happened before the mane 6? During the few scant years where they have existed, at least a dozen events threatening lives have occurred, about three of which are potentially world-killing? NM, the extensive damage that somehow happens in Ponyville... What about if Rainbow Dash hadn't intervened during the first half of The Mysterious Mare Do Well? What if the bearers hadn't been there during the return of Nightmare Moon? Even worse, what if they'd been different ponies and failed? Assuming this happens this often normally...
According to folklore, Griffons are enemies of horses, which also happen to be their favourite food... Remember Gilda? The ponies were lucky she only stole that apple...
The “Scootachicken” meme has become an Ascended Meme. To understand this Fridge Horror, it will take understanding about sex chromosomes—starting with the well known XY system, in which every organism is by default female, but if a Y chromosome is present instead of a second X, then male parts are formed. Now, the ZW system, which is used in chickens and other avians, works the other way (male by default, but a W instead of a second Z makes a female). Back in the XY system, we notice that males have more sex-linked disorders because the Y chromosome can’t hide any alleles on the X, and vice-versa. Since the ZW system is inverted, this means females should have more sex-linked disorders… and Scootaloo is (believe it or not) female. Is that why she can’t fly?
Horses use the XY system, so sex-chromosome linked disorders in them do follow males. However, some of the possible symtoms of Triple X syndrome (a female having three X chromosomes instead of two) include weak muscle tone and poor cooridanation, and it is quite possible to have just those two problems; some women with XXX have hardly any problems at all.
As of the later seasons, we see that Twilight has a bit of a problem with falling back on mind-altering spells (Discord and the fruit bats). When you consider that the foalsitter she adored and idolized made a habit of magically "fixing" the personal lives of complete strangers, this begins to make sense.
We have seen that Princess Celestia has been alive for thousands of years without showing any sign of wear, presumably making her immortal. However, In Magical Mystery Cure, we see that Twilight has become an Alicorn, just like Princess Celestia is. Well, if Twilight has become an Alicorn, and Princess Celestia and Luna are Alicorns that are presumably immortal as stated earlier, Twilight should be immortal, right? Wrong. Word of God states that Twilight will not outlive her friends, and the Mane Six are all young adults (as seen in Pinkie Pride, where there are about 21 candles on Rainbow Dash's cake), so that means that they might live for about seventy-something more years. Twilight might be immortal as in "She could age forever, but she could be killed". Out of that, there comes a spine-chilling question: "What's going to kill Twilight, and how?"
Remember that the staff are epic level trolls and love playing with Exact Words. "Twilight will not outlive her friends" has two possibilities — either her lifespan will be cut short or her friends will also become immortal. Given what happened in the season 4 finale what with everyone becoming one with their Element of Harmony, possibility #2 just took a hell of a jump.
Where are they in Make Your Mark then? We did see Twilight’s message but are they still alive somewhere or gone?
Twilight's cutie mark is all over the place and Celestia has been guiding her, knowing that the pony who had that cutie mark would be significant to Equestria and may have had plans to make whatever pony had it into the next Princess, whoever it would have been. That's fine, but then there's Sunset Shimmer, who functions as a sort of dark foil for Twilight because, apart from her crappy personality, they're thematically identical: their names and cutie marks are part of the daily cycle that falls between the sun (Celestia) and the moon (Luna), and they both prodigious magical talent, a thirst for knowledge and a love of learning. We're supposed to blame Sunset for being impatient and arrogant and look down on her for being jealous of Twilight's success, which is fine... But then we find out in season 4 that Celestia has known about Twilight's cutie mark since before Twilight was even born, and she only took Twilight on after seeing her cutie mark appear. Sunset Shimmer never actually had a chance, no matter what her personality was or how patient she might have been: it wasn't her cutie mark on the Tree of Harmony, so Twilight was always going to replace her as Celestia's top student.
Making matters worse, it's entirely possible Sunset knew this, or at least suspected it, if she learned anything about the Tree of Harmony from her mentor. It could have played into her Face–Heel Turn, knowing she wouldn't get the outcome she desired no matter how hard she tried with Celestia's method.
It's a good thing no one ever questioned Celestia on the small details like how Changelings managed to infiltrate Canterlot undetected, how the Crystal Empire nearly got taken over by Sombra, the crazy weather and arguments that erupted in Ponyville (along with other things), or how Tirek nearly managed to rule all of Equestria. Mainly because they'd probably find out that she had something to do with that. It's best not to worry about the possible treason accusations they may throw her way because of it.
Considering the ponies know just how powerful she is and considering how three of the Mane Six have feared banishment for irking or failing her on three separate occasions, it might have less to do with ponies not knowing what's going on and more to do with being smart enough not to call out the Physical Goddess who could think them to death and have everyone believe her when she claimed "Nightmare _insert name here_" had to be sealed on the moon for the sake of Equestria...
Donkeys, mules, cows, griffons and the like are unable to earn cutie marks. The earning of a cutie mark is a VERY big deal in pony society, as we have seen, so how do creatures of other species feel about being left out of this important aspect of society, especially if they grew up in a predominantly pony society, like Cranky or Matilda (assuming they've lived their whole lives, or at least a large portion of their lives, around ponies)? Have any of them gone through existential crises like Gummy did in "Slice of Life"?
How often does Cerebus actually leave Tartarus unprotected? Also, why are there no other guards to keep the prisoners from escaping if Cerebus is absent?
If you pay attention Twilight's destiny is looking more and more like the attack dog for Harmony and not Princess of Friendship, most of her episodes focus on her stopping some grand evil. Her Cutie Mark is the main part of the blast the disharmonious causing bad guys set of artifacts. Celestia sends her after Dragons or Evil Kings. The Map sends her to places that to solve problems with ponies that either a cult or feuding families.
The Royal Guards are shown to be weak, poorly trained, under-equipped, and laughably stupid, to the point that they've basically failed in every single thing they've ever even attempted to do. Their captain, while heroic and a powerful Barrier Warrior, isn't much better. Surely Princess Celestia can't be so stupid that she thinks they're doing a good job, and while one could argue many threats that take them out are simply too powerful, you'd think they'd be either trained or empowered to deal with such threats since their existence is common knowledge. Does this mean they merely exist to create an illusion of security to the citizens, or worse, exist as Cannon Fodder to slow down threats until they can be dealt with by the real power forces such as the Mane Six or the Princesses? Let's hope the poor schmucks have a decent Life Insurance package for their widows and orphans...
The main reason for this is most likely that Equestria is a pretty peaceful place in which, aside from threats like Discord or Crysalis which are just to powerful for them, there is not really anything that they need to fight. It is not too unreasonable that being a royal guard means as much as just having a safe, well payed job which gets you a nice bit of prestiege and some nice skills on top of that, just like other peaceful countries in the real world see their military. West German (before reunification) people saw their military like this and it is usually seen like this up to today in Germany.
To add weight to the illusion of safety theory, Equestria really isn't a peaceful place at all once you take an objective look at how frequently they come under attack by even generic monsters, to the point that the citizens are so desensitized to the threat they say things like "Let's get to the salon before the monster destroys it", and how the guards are never actually seen dealing with monster attacks that should be within their pay grade. It really makes it seem like they actually are just meant to make it appear like there is some semblance of security and safety in their world, and all the times they've attempted to fight were done to save face since they were put on the spot like Trixie attempting to fight the Ursa.
In Lesson Zero, Twilight Sparkle thinks Celestia will send her back to magic kindergarten or even the moon if she fails to turn in her weekly report. Twilight Sparkle spent her whole life with Celestia as a teacher, so she should know Celestia better than anyone other than Luna. So does Twilight Sparkle having such thoughts stem from her OCD, or would Celestia actually do that.
On top of that, Princess Celestia has sent someone to the moon before... Nightmare Moon! This means that Twilight genuinely believes that Princess Celestia would give her own student the same treatment as a world-destroying tyrant.
Even if that's just her OCD talking, it's still very unsettling
Cadence, Celestia and Luna are incapacitated with regular intervals. Fine and dandy for Cadence, but Celestia and Luna are essentially physical gods over Night and Day. If they were incapacitated, and there was no one of equal or greater power to take over their duties, eternal night, eternal day or something in between would follow shortly. The death of all life would likely be avoided, since the world seems to operate fine in the NMM timeline (though that may be Luna's magic), but it's still frightening. Especially considering that several deadly monsters in Equestria are nocturnal.
The name of the Crystal Empire implies that it, at least at some point, controlled a far larger land area in the past, potentially large parts of modern Equestria, or even colonies.
At some point of Roman history the word "Empire" meant something like "the land under the rule", and the Crystal Empire has a lot of Ancient Grome in its appearance, so the name can be related to "rule" of the Crystal Heart.
Upon the return of the Crystal Empire, Cadence, Celestia's adopted niece, became its ruler. The existence of a monarch, and the empire's isolated location, plus Celestia's description heavily implies that the Empire is a sovereign nation. In that case, Equestria essentially annexed an independent nation.
So, are they independent nation like people of Somnambula or those China ponies from where two Pillars had come? This new facts can either support the version of Celestia annexing everything, or deny it if at some point of about a century before Nightmare Moon and Sombra's banishment Crystal Empire joined Equestria willingly.
The way the sheep, cows, and other farm animals are treated is highly suggestive of slavery or that they have much lower social status than the ponies. They are treated the same as in our world; kept behind fences (with no houses to live in), sheered, milked, herded, etc., but have been shown to be just as intelligent and capable of speech as the ponies are. Even Spike's treatment in earlier seasons was uncomfortably reminiscent of a House Slave, being subservient to Twilight Sparkle but clearly being treated worse than the ponies. Either intentional dark subtext or the writers just very badly didn't bother to think this one through, but either way they apparently realized it was too dark or that they hadn't thought it through as the farm animals were quietly put out of focus and the show became more insistent on how Spike was family to Twilight as the seasons went on.
In hindsight, every time Equestria is in danger, the human world runs a certain risk too. If Equestria falls, Princess Twilight would be unable to communicate with Sunset Shimmer. And since the human world has been used practicvally as a dump for anything dangerous by several people througth centuries, the Humance Seven need to communicate with Twilight to have an idea of what they are dealing with whenever said danger shows up. That dosen't necessarily mean they would be doomed, but it sure would make things a lot harder.
If that wasn't enough, Queen Chrysalis was dangerously close to learn twice about the human world. First, in the season 6 finale when she arranged the Mane 6 to be replaced by Changelings, and later in "The Mean 6" when she created clones of the Mane Six. All that she needed to learn about it was whoever was posing as Twilight findijng the diary and/or Sunset writing a message (and in the second case, for the fake Twilight to go to the castle).
Equestria doesn't seem to have any form of legal system outside of "whatever any one of the princesses felt like doing at the time" with no form of limitations or liabilities. It seems they're free to do whatever they feel like doing on a whim to a suspect or criminal, are able to pardon and erase from records the crimes of those they favor, and are free to indefinitely incarcerate or use capital punishment on those they don't. This isn't limited by age or circumstance of the criminal or the severity of their crimes, those taken into custody aren't entitled to any form of trial or legal representation, those harmed by the actions of criminals aren't entitled to closure or justice or compensation (either morally or financially), and the least severe form of prison they have is caged in a cave without age or gender separation without even the most basic forms of bedding, clothing, hygienic facilities, or any form of care whatsoever. This paints an utterly horrifying picture of just how few basic "human" (equine?) rights the citizens actually have, as it's in line with the way a dystopian dictator would treat their people, and is particularly scary given that the princesses frequently make emotionally charged decisions and/or have lapses of judgement when deciding what to do. Even when holding onto the MST3K Mantra as tightly as possible it is genuinely frightening to sit down and take an objective look at Equestria's legal system.
of that particular word of Faust.
