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Mare in the Moon & The Elements of Harmony
- Nightmare Moon wanting to bring eternal night doesn't seem to bad at first, until you realise that plants can't live without sunlight, and ponies are herbivores. Also, no plants = no oxygen. Everypony would be unable to eat or breathe, and so would eventually DIE. Nightmare Moon herself might not be affected, though, considering she was able to survive on the moon. Thinking about her for a few minutes makes her a lot more menacing.
- Spike can eat inorganic matter like gems. If this is accurate, he would eventually suffocate, but that would be long after he watched every pony starve to death and saw his home turned into a barren wasteland.
- The planet would also freeze before long.
- This is somewhat alleviated in the Season 5 finale, where Twilight is shown an alternate timeline where Nightmare Moon defeated Celestia and conquered Equestria. She claims to have been in power for years, the Everfree forest shows no signs of dying, and her soldiers and hoofmaidens seem to be okay; it's likely she did have some plan of ruling a nation under eternal night.
- She also had the main cast attacked by a manticore and caused a landslide that might have killed at least one - not to mention, she presumably destroyed the bridge leading to her castle. Nightmare Moon does not seem to care for others' lives much.
- Pinkie laughed while she was inside an evil tree's mouth. What if it had disappeared in a *puff* like the others?
- Or more importantly... why didn't it!
- Nightmare Moon conjures up three pegasi who are essentially dark versions of Rainbow Dash's heroes, the Wonderbolts. They offer to let her join them, and is tempted, but refuses. Now, one has to wonder...since they were merely conjurings by Nightmare Moon, what would have become of Rainbow Dash had she accepted?
- Most likely they would have flown off together to keep her distracted while Nightmare Moon neutralised the elements and/or the remaining five protagonists, which she could have done safely with an essential part of the equation (Dash) dealt with. Once the elements were rendered a non-threat, she could have cancelled the Shadowbolts (who were just magic constructs) much to Dash's surprise and disappointment, not to mention heartbreak when she sees that if she chose them, Equestria would be doomed and it would've been all her fault.
- Except that it seems the Shadowbolts are Nightmare Moon transformed. Although the "Shadowbolt leader" (most likely the main Nightmare Moon) could have done all that while the other two Shadowbolts which she did seem to conjure up distracted Rainbow with some excuse)
- Rainbow Dash may also have been assimilated, or Nightmare Moon could've simply zapped her like she did with the guards a few hours ago, only in this potential instance, Rainbow would've only liveed a young life.
- If you watch the Shadowbolts' movements, they move in sync. Like one being in three forms. Think of Dr Who's prisoner Zero.
- Most likely they would have flown off together to keep her distracted while Nightmare Moon neutralised the elements and/or the remaining five protagonists, which she could have done safely with an essential part of the equation (Dash) dealt with. Once the elements were rendered a non-threat, she could have cancelled the Shadowbolts (who were just magic constructs) much to Dash's surprise and disappointment, not to mention heartbreak when she sees that if she chose them, Equestria would be doomed and it would've been all her fault.
- Rarity cuts off her tail. In Party of One, her tail is shown to be prehensile as she holds the cake box with it. So it's like she cut off one of her limbs. Can the ponies' tails actually feel pain? Sure, it grows back, but still...
- Presumably the tail doesn't feel pain as it's made of hair, not muscle.
- Real life equine tails are mostly hair, but that hair comes from a short, flesh-and-bone tail, which is why horses whose tails have been cropped do not regrow their full length. Also, traditional unicorns are often depicted as having long, whiplash tails with only a tuft or two of long hair at the ends. Either of these - or a combination of the two - could conceivably be the case with Rarity, especially considering that her tail is again shown to be prehensile and strong enough to carry something as blocky and heavy as a full cake box.
- Look closely at how short the nub is that's left after she cuts her tail. Now compare to a real life horse with a cropped tail.
- Had Twilight's friends not arrived when NM destroys the spheres, what would have she'd done with Twilight? Imprison her like Celestia, brainwash her into being her student, or, like what was mentioned with Rainbow earlier, lived a young life?
The Ticket Master
- When Twi teleports herself and Spike to the library, Spike comes out singed. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but then he mentions in "Griffon the Brush Off" that dragons are fireproof. If Twilight's teleport was enough to singe a fireproof dragon, imagine what would have happened if it had been a pony (or any other non-fireproof creature)!
- Probably just as much - the scorching may simply have been Arcane damage, bypassing Spike's fire resistance.
- It might be more user error, or Twilight still working out the spell's kinks. She teleports Spike more times, Rainbow twice, and Rarity once in season 2 (namely, in 'Secret of My Excess' and 'Dragon Quest').
- Also she was under considerable stress when she teleported, which could contribute to the mishap.
- It is still far better than the usual result of a not-quite-right teleportation.
Applebuck Season
- Throughout the episode, Twilight implores Applejack to accept her friends' help in harvesting the bumper crop that was wearing her out, and when Applejack finally accepts, we see Rainbow and Pinkie working together on one tree, Fluttershy on another, Rarity hauling full bushels, and Twilight...harvesting half the orchard by herself in seconds with her magic. Clearly, the involvement of the others was just a fig leaf. What Twilight really meant was 'let me use my magical powers to do this for you, effortlessly.' Think about that: what for an earth pony like Applejack is the work of her lifetime is to a powerful unicorn like Twilight nothing more than a minor nuisance. For that matter, is Granny Smith's "saggy old hip" the result of old age alone, or the result of age and a lifetime spent bucking apple trees? Now think about why Applejack was so reluctant to accept Twilight's help, and why Applejack was so upset that Twilight used magic a few months later in "Winter Wrap-Up," or why the earth ponies insist that in an earth-pony town, no magic is to be used to wrap up winter. Now, it has been implied that earth ponies get superior strength and endurance to compensate for not having magic or the ability to fly, but imagine if some people were born with the ability to use magic, some people were born with the ability to fly, but you were born an ordinary human being without any such abilities. Mightn't you have a chip on your shoulder, and always seek to prove that you were just as capable as any other person, even without magic or wings? Don't forget, we're seeing them harvesting the apples at that point. Who put in the work to grow them?
- Unicorns and Earth Ponies are a lot more balanced than you might think. In the occurrence it's not magic itself that is overpowered, it's Twilight. Most unicorns can only move or affect what they themselves can physically handle (i.e. if you can only lift fifty pounds with extreme effort by hoof you can only do the same with magic, but at range), but Twilight Sparkle is not "most unicorns". There's a reason she's been compared to Doctor Manhattan at times.
- Canon confirmation of this exists. Right after lil' filly Twilight turns her parents into houseplants and hatches a dragon egg into Spikezilla, Princess Celestia says flat-out that she has never before seen a unicorn with the kind of raw magical ability that Twilight has. Princess Celestia is over one thousand bucking years old. Twilight Sparkle is, literally, a once-in-a-millenium level of unicorn. It's like a pony such as Rainbow Dash who capable of breaking at least the sound barrier with physical effort alone or an earth pony who could knock down a redwood with one leg.
- Unicorns and Earth Ponies are a lot more balanced than you might think. In the occurrence it's not magic itself that is overpowered, it's Twilight. Most unicorns can only move or affect what they themselves can physically handle (i.e. if you can only lift fifty pounds with extreme effort by hoof you can only do the same with magic, but at range), but Twilight Sparkle is not "most unicorns". There's a reason she's been compared to Doctor Manhattan at times.
- Only earth ponies have the talent to grow delicious apples and their talent is very much appreciated by society (cuz the way to everyponies' heart is through their stomach). They have a special connection to the earth that pegasi or unicorns just don't have (Fluttershy being an exception). So while they might have a chip on their shoulders because they can't fly or do magic, they have a talent that makes up for it. Besides, putting in the work to grow the apples is considered more important (and less demoralizing) than the labor it takes to harvest them. T'aint so bad bein' an earth pony.
- The Ponies' reaction to the rabbit stampede ("The horror! The horror!") seems comically out of proportion. But think about what rabbits are to Australia and the fact Ponies are herbivores. Not so funny anymore...
Griffon the Brush-Off
- You will find several pieces of medieval mythology that describe gryphons as highly aggressive and territorial, building treasure hoards and jealously guarding them much like dragons. They absolutely hate horses in particular, having grown to associate them with knights coming to raid their nests for gold and emeralds, and will devour one if they have the oppurtunity. They also mate for life, and if they lose their mate, they quickly waste away from longing. Now lets consider Gilda; deep-seated and irrational aminosity of ponies? Check. Rainbow Dash being the only one who she sees as a companion and exempt from her meanness? Check. Her presence in the show and how she and Dash interact being the closest thing to evidence the shippers have to RD being a lesbian? Hoo boy, double check. Holed up in a cave somewhere seething at the loss of Rainbow's affections as the lights leave her eyes? Likely. Way to go, Dash and Pie, way to go.
- Fridge Logic: if gryphons hate ponies, why would Gilda's "mate" be Rainbow Dash?
- Hippogriffs, the result of a mating between a gryphon and a horse, are also a part of medieval mythology, so it isn't that far-fetched.
- Until one remembers that in medieval mythology, hippogriffs were symbolic of the absolutely impossible. They weren't "real creatures" like other magical monsters in the bestiaries, they were symbols of things that simply could not possibly exist. And this was coming from people who believed in the bonnacon... a sort of knotty-horned cow that defended itself by projectile-firing fiery cowpats at people.
- Hippogriffs are later shown to be real creatures in the MLP G4 universe, but their exact relationship to ponies and Griffons is unknown.
- 'Giggle at the Ghostie'. Firstly, 'Just laugh and make them disappear'. Think about it as two separate actions. Think of her dealing with Gilda, she laughed it off in public, if Gilda hadn't left, would Pinkie have 'made her disappear'? Could just be Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles) paranoia. And also, if laughing works to make her fears disappear works, her fears are hallucinated. More insanity!
- Maybe, but it can be interpreted like this: laughing only makes the fear disappear; what happened within the song aside, the "faces" in the tree remained, scary to all except the one who had a trick for dealing with fear. And once she taught it to the others, they could all see the "faces" for what they were: harmless holes in trees.
- Go back and read the first entry again. This is what everyone in Ponyville thought. Sure, she was a bitch who stole an apple, but she didn't actually try to attack anyone. Even before they knew she was mean, everybody in Ponyville seemed to hate her, except for Rainbow Dash. The reason she was such an Alpha Bitch is because she is a victim of Fantastic Racism.
Boast Busters
- Why does Trixie end her magic show when all possible hecklers disappear? Wouldn't it be more sensible to continue the show? Unless, of course, Trixie's entire act depends on having hecklers to humilate, and has no feats of magic that aren't centered around humilating neigh-sayers...
- Wouldn't be without precedent, and makes as much sense given that unicorns doing magic would be relatively common. The show itself gets interest (and maybe some income), and then you leave town with a wowed audience and some ego-bruised hecklers.
- Some have theorized that her special talent is temporarily copying anypony's special talent, hence why she invites the hecklers onstage to show them up at their own forte.
- Look carefully at the Ursa Major and Minor. They're made of stars. This is clearly a little astronomy joke, given both are actual constellations, but they're made of stars.
- In "Boast Busters", the Ursa Minor destroys Trixie's stagecoach. This is made even worse by the fact that Trixie is a travelling performer, so that coach was also her home. Great job, Snips and Snails, you just made your former idol into a beggar.
- Think about it. Snips and Snails lure an Ursa Minor to Ponyville in an attempt to have Trixie prove she can beat an Ursa Major. Twilight apparently could not defeat it in open combat. Then think about the fact that Snips and Snails must have been fairly close to an actual Ursa Major when they were attemting to lure one to town. Just think about that, in combination with the fact that Twilight describes an Ursa Major as "You don't want to know"
Dragonshy
- If dragons can take 100 year long naps, then can a dragon (like Spike) go to sleep one day and wake up to find everyone they know and love has died from old age? What do dragons who fell asleep before the migration (shown to happen later) do?
- Spike's a tiny baby dragon, not a full-grown adult. So he probably doesn't need to sleep as much.
- But will still likely greatly outlive everyone he loves and cares about (except for maybe the Princesses).
- In "Slice of Life", the Doctor mentions that his life's work has gone on for centuries; either this is acknowledgement of his similarity to Dr. Who, or it suggests ponies in Equestria have lives that span centuries, so dragon naps can easily elapse within living ponies' memories.
- Spike's a tiny baby dragon, not a full-grown adult. So he probably doesn't need to sleep as much.
- The sheer apocalyptic scale of the threat the red dragon represents. By producing smoke for over a century he would have blocked the sun over Equestria, dropping temperatures and causing massive crop failures. And when the smoke settles down it would lead to respiratory illnesses and potentially poisoning the land and the water. This single dragon could have made Equestria uninhabitable for decades if not centuries and ended pony civilization and he didn't seem to care all that much.
- Worse, this is just one dragon, and subsequent episodes show that there are a lot more of them around. How many of them take century-long naps that can cause ecological cataclysms?
Look Before You Sleep
Bridle Gossip
- In "Bridle Gossip", due to Rainbow Dash's flower-induced inability to fly straight, Spike calls her "Rainbow Crash". Later in the series, we learn that this was the cruel nickname she was saddled with by a group of pegasus bullies when she dropped out of flight school. Nice going, Spike.
- In Spike's defense, he probably didn't even know about it.
- Fridge Horror Horror (one I thought of while fiddling with the Fridge Horror page): Poison Joke is meant to be a 'joke'. Haha, I guess. Fluttershy's voice is funny, Rarity's style being ruined is alright, Twilight seemed to not suffer any actual magic loss from her flopple time. Then the other three..all three are completely rendered unable to do their jobs. Applejack couldn't knock over an apple in her state, and Pinkie being in the kitchen would get Sugarcube Corner shut down by Pony OSHA or something. And Rainbow? Her 'joke' puts her at risk for serious injury! Ha ha, I guess?
- Also: Pinkie can't laugh with her tongue hanging out. The Element of Laughter is rendered unable to laugh by a "joke".
- Sounds like Discord's idea of a joke... Maybe he created it?
- Doubtful. Seems too minor for something Discord would create. Plus, seeing as the plant intends no malice, it's safe to assume that the Mane 6 learned to take it lightly after the lesson they had learned at the end.
- We never get to hear how the transformations took place, whether they were instantaneous or took place over the duration of the night. Now growing extra hair, shrinking or your horn slowly going limp might not me a big deal, but Rainbow Dash's wings (muscles and skeletal structure) somehow reoriented themselves overnight. That could've hurt. Badly.
- When Apple Bloom discovers a shrunken Applejack calling out to her, she leaves her on a tree branch in the Everfree Forest and then goes off without her. For Applejack, going in the Everfree at her normal size is scary enough but since she has shrunken, the dangers have been amplified. She could have easily been trampled or eaten had she not found the Mane Six going inside as well.
Swarm of the Century
- After Twilight alters parasprites' behavior with her magic, they quit eating food and start eating everything else - they even go after Rainbow Dash. Of course she got away unharmed, but if parasprites tried attacking this one particular pony, it is obvious they would hunt other ponies as well even if we didn't see it onscreen, and we can't tell if everyone was as lucky as Rainbow. Who knows what the death toll in Ponyville was after invasion...
- They only go after her prior to the spell being cast. They do seem to be 'good' about not eating food or ponies after the spell, too.
- What if it's the contrary? What if to Parasprites, ponies too are potentially food? They don't seem all that picky...
- Twilight's spell accidentally made the parasprites start eating all the non-food inanimate objects in town. All of them. Clothing, tools, books (and the library probably had a fair few books that were very old and rare, or even irreplaceable; imagine how badly Twilight would have cracked if the parasprites had gotten into them), art (including Rarity's dresses), homes and buildings, infrastructure, family heirlooms, everything that makes up their civilization, including a number of truly irreplaceable sentimental items. If Pinkie hadn't been able to lure them back into the Everfree Forest, the parasprites would have eradicated the town completely and left the ponies with nothing but the barest of essentials, if that. If you've ever lived through a massive natural disaster or met people who have, the prospect of a town or city you've grown attached to and everything in it being utterly destroyed is even more dreadful.
- Even worse, given her spell was just meant to stop them eating food, they might be able to eat all of that anyway and just go after the food first.
- Not to mention that all they manage to do is lead them away. They are still out there and altered and could go on to eat subsequent towns or even the Everfree Forest itself.
- This may be unintentional, but Zecora seemed to recognize the parasprites straight away. Now that may seem innocent enough since she as a good understanding of flora and fauna, but consider that she's from a place hinted to very Africa-like (so more than likely very dry most of the time.) Now consider thousands of creatures eating at crops, and fields in a already arid environment. If history is anything to go by.
- And then there's the obvious question hanging over the whole episode: Where did all the Parasprites go when Pinkie led them away? There's nothing we were shown that stops their geometric reproduction, and we know that there's an outbreak in Fillydelphia, implied to have been caused by the previous effort to lead them away somewhere else. What stops them from devouring everything in Equestria in a few more weeks?
- To counter Fridge Horror with more Fridge Horror, parasprites are the least powerful creature we've seen come from the Everfree Forest thus far, implying they can only explosively breed outside the Forest. Of the hundreds and hundreds of parasprites Pinkie led back to the Forest, at least 90% of them are about to get chomped.
- Here's another bit of Fridge Horror: Pinkie Pie immediately recognizes the parasprite, and reacts with hostility. Nothing that happens in the episode surprises her... ergo, she's seen them in action before. As we find out in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", Pinkie Pie apparently grew up on a rock farm... could Pinkie Pie's family have been the equivalent of The Great Depression-era farmers who watched their farms reduced to dustbowls? Their entire livelihood eaten out from under them by a swarm of parasprites?
- Well they were rock farmers and the parasprites only ate conventional food until Twilight's interference, so they wouldn't have eaten the rocks. However it is possible that in the past they were normal farmers and parasprites were the reasons they changed livelihoods?
- Twilight said that the spell would stop the parasprites from eating anything, she never said it would stop the parasprites from starving. From the ponies POV, the parasprites are eating their food, and they're going to starve. From the parasprites POV, the ponies are eating their food, and they're going to starve...
- Not exactly. It stopped them from eating food. They still ate pretty much everything else.
- Pinkie Pie probably spent the entire night awake looking for musical instruments.
Winter Wrap-Up
- Applejack wants the snow melted fast, but Fluttershy wants it melted slow so that the animals' homes don't get flooded (and presumably the animals that haven't been woken up yet would die a horrible drowning death). Now just think about what happened in years prior when they had no organization; the animals' fate rested on Fluttershy winning a shouting match against Applejack.
- Fluttershy is meek and reluctant to stand up for herself. She's not shy about standing up for those she cares for. In years past Applejack almost certainly lost the argument.
- The ending of "Winter Wrap-Up" has Spike left asleep on a chunk of ice floating on the water. The other ponies, instead of HELPING him, just joke about how Spike is "in for a big surprise as soon as that there ice melts" and then laugh. Sure, Spike gets better, but he was wearing a towel and shivering, implying that the ponies let him fall in, continued to laugh as he was (presumably) thrashing around screaming for help, and then said, "Ok, we can help him now." What if Spike drowned or died of hypothermia?! Would it be so funny then, ponies?
- It's even more horrifying when you discover Spike is a reptile and reptiles are cold-blooded. If the girls allowed him to fall into icy water, he should be lucky to have escaped with just a mild cold.
- Spike probably has some resistance to cold and is probably also able to swim, he's a dragon after all. So I doubt he would have drowned or died of hypothermia. Still a pretty mean practical joke, though.
- Mean practical joke? More like criminal negligence.◊
Call of the Cutie
- Not a very bad thing, but consider this: Those cupcakes Apple Bloom made that looked like...something that rhymes with "spit"?...those were apparently the best batch made.
Fall Weather Friends
- Pony sporting events seem to lack certain features we take for granted. Things like, say, officials. Granted, it's a common trope, but still, shouldn't somepony have noticed when the commentary team starts talking about it? (Either that, or they get their judges from WWE..)
- Applejack knocking down a beehive and causing Rainbow Dash to be chased by a swarm of bees wasn't just mean, it was dangerous. It had been established that allergies exist, and it's not a stretch to believe that some ponies are allergic to bees. What if Rainbow Dash is allergic to bees and got stung by a swarm of them? She could have died!
- "Castle Mane-ia" has proven otherwise.
- There was a proper beekeeper suit between her and those bees, so that doesn't prove much. If nothing else, an allergy to their stings is still possible.
- Allergy or not, real life people can still die if they sustain a sufficient number of stings all at once (for adult humans, that number is around 1,000, depending on body mass and overall health) and even one sting can trigger the development of an allergy to later stings. Applejack kicked loose an entire swarm - there might very well have been enough angry bees after Dash to kill or seriously hurt her if enough of them managed to hit her.
- "Castle Mane-ia" has proven otherwise.
Suited for Success
- Applejack's outfit includes what seems to be a pair of leather cowboy boots. But in "Applebuck Season", we see that cows in Equestria are also sentient, talking beings. Wonder how that conversation went over?
- Rarity: Excuse me, sir! Might you be Moorice?
Moorice: Why certainly, little miss. What can I dooooo for you?
Rarity: Could you do me a teensy tiny, itty bitty favor aaaand..." *STAB*
- Likely she used fake leather for the boots.
- Or pig leather
- Considering that ponies wearing clothes of any variety isn't exactly common, I'd have thought that they could use the hides of cows that died of natural causes.
- From the Aesop of "Suited for Success": "In other words, you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth." So slavery is legal in Equestria?
- Or was. After all, the gift horse saying has lasted long since most people gave away horses. And maybe staring down the throat of someone who's giving you a present is considered to be rude anyway?
Feeling Pinkie Keen
- At the beginning, one of the frogs Fluttershy's carrying falls and lands on Twilight's face, barely avoiding landing on her horn. Twilight's horn likely isn't sharp enough for the frog to have been Impaled with Extreme Prejudice, but it at least would've been hurt.
- That horn's gone through a book. Frog would've been finished.
- Not to mention we didn't see from how far up the frog fell. High enough up he'd have been impaled purely from the acceleration regardless of how dull her horn is.
- All of those poor frogs that Fluttershy put in the bog are probably going to be Hydra food after it returns.
- It's a good thing Pinkie had that huge shutter that led her and her friends to Froggy Bottom Bog. Considering Fluttershy often doesn't use her wings to run away, there is a possibility she could've been eaten.
- Also considering this was before she learned to tame larger animals in the later seasons, the likeliness of her being eaten is heighten.
- It's a good thing ponies have tons of Toon Physics, otherwise Twilight could've died or seriously crippled from all the things that happened to her. Which include: falling down a flight of stairs, getting strung from bees (which the Fall Weather Falls section of this page points out how dangerous bee stings are), and getting crushed by clearly heavy objects.
Sonic Rainboom
- Remember that scene where Pinkie Pie tastes the rainbow? Well, in the very first episode, we saw Pinkie eat a cupcake covered in hot sauce, and it had no affect on her, so what would've happened if a normal pony besides Pinkie tried some rainbow?
- Assuming anypony else would have even thought of it...
- Or even worse: fell in. No guard rails, right next to a public walkway, probably looks from the side like nothing more than a hole in the cloud that could well be an exit...
- The implication was that it was really, really spicy, considering that in Hearts and Hooves Day, the CMC were able to handle vacuuming the rainbow without too much trouble. It would probably be like that scene in The Simpsons when Marge became an officer and Homer used her pepper spray to spice up his meal, except more. Though they probably could use it in police actions as a non-lethal weapon.
- Pinkie found it to be too spicy. Most pepper spray is diluted to about 200,000 SHU (which is less spicy than a great many human-edible peppers), so perhaps it wouldn't be lethal if used as a diluted spray, but falling into that stuff would be excruciating if you have even the smallest opening in your skin. Which you do.
- Horsehair would protect them. Also, the ponies who mostly go around those pools have wings. Falling isn't as much of a danger to them.
- But young ponies (Fluttershy for example) may have a hard time flying and hurt themselves.
- Alternatively, considering how much she enjoyed the spicy cupcake, it puts the cupcake fanfic in a new perspective...
- Rainbow and Rarity have to perform at the same time. Normally you'd think "how do they not have time for everyone in their own competition?" but what would have happened if they had gone at different times? Rarity would have plummeted while Dash was cowering in the lobby, would have knocked out the Wonderbolts and they all would have fallen to their death while everyone else would have sat back and watched them die.
- See the Other Wiki for that one.
- Also, they don't have time for everyone in their own competition because Rarity was an unplanned addition.
- See the Other Wiki
- Speaking of, what the buck was Celestia doing just sitting there? The three Wonderbolts and Rarity were just about at the ground before RD swooped in!
- People sometimes overestimate the abilities of Celestia. She's not omnipotent nor omniscient. She was probably frozen in horror at what happened, like mostly everypony else.
- Considering that RD was going at near-supersonic speeds aready, one interpretation is that what viewers saw was slowed down, not real-time. Add that to the fact that it's doubtful Celestia is trained in rescuing people falling from midair; then if Celestia noticed before Dash was already heading for them, she probably was staying where she was because she could actually have done more harm than good. Plus, the Wonderbolts were probably there for this kind of situation (the Mane 6 weren't the only non-pegasi there you can see Lyra in the background) and by the time the Wonderbolts were knocked out, any rescue attempt would have been either too low to avoid hitting the ground themselves or wouldn't have reached them in time.
- Also, as the Fridge Brilliance side of this page said, there is a chance anypony using magic to catch her incorrectly or just directing doing it without thinking might have snapped Rarity's spine (or gotten her injured in another way).
Stare Master
- In "Stare Master", when Fluttershy is chasing the girls chasing her escaped chicken through the Everfree Forest (which most of the ponies generally avoid if they can help it) they run across Twilight Sparkle after her encounter with a cockatrice. The Fridge Horror kicks in when you realize that Twilight may have been there a very, very long time if Fluttershy's chicken hadn't escaped.
- One would hope that, at the very least, Zecora would have happened upon her during one of her trips to Ponyville, given that Twilight was on her way to visit Zecora herself and thus should have been on the path between the two places, but who knows how often or regularly Zecora makes those trips, or if she takes detours along the way to look for herbs or something? So, yeah, it still could have been quite a while before Twilight was found. If nothing else, at least Twilight didn't seem to have been conscious during the time she was turned to stone. If she had been aware during the whole experience, however... *ugh*shiver*
- Also, Celestia would have noticed that something was awry when Twilight's report did not arrive on time.
- Also, Fluttershy seemed perfectly willing to just leave her there.
- Less 'willing' and more 'fleeing'. Fluttershy isn't normally one of the stronger ponies, and the Crusaders are probably not to be trusted in statue transportation. Her plan was likely 'get foals to safety', 'find better ponies', 'rescue Twilight'.
- Some food for horrible thoughts; the way Fluttershy talks to the cockatrice implies that it's only a baby. Now, if cockatrices are anything like actual chickens, the babies are much smaller than their parents (a picture for comparison◊). Now, the cockatrice appears to be almost the same size as Fluttershy, a full grown adult pony◊. How big would its mother be?
- A little bigger than Celestia, but not bigger than a normal house. According to the comic, anyway.
The Show Stoppers
- Fridge Horror in "The Show Stoppers" episode (and possibly others): The ponies are raising pigs. Why, so that they can eat them? What would a pony want with a pig if not to eat its flesh as humans do.
- Word of Faust says they can be used to find truffles (which ponies really enjoy), and actually need a place to stay as much as any other animal. However, the existence of pigs also explains the appearance of footballs and possibly other leather in different episodes.
- When Sweetie Belle says "Break a leg" to the other ponies, Apple Bloom responds with "Sweetie Belle! What a thing to say!" Sweetie Belle knows the phrase means "good luck" and so do we the viewers, but since horses with broken legs are often put down because of how hard it is to rehabilitate and the likelihood of breaking again, Apple Bloom probably thought she was telling the other performers to go ahead and die.
- In "Read it and Weep", the hospital has facilities for broken limbs. While broken legs might be more serious in Equestria, it's not an automatic cause for euthanasia.
- And if it was, that would play to the origin of the idiom. The tradition citing it was bad luck to wish play performers good luck which people inverted by wishing them misfortune instead.
A Dog and Pony Show
- Why do the Diamond Dogs have so many pony-sized harnesses for their carts lying around?
- They were probably stolen from ponies in the first place.
- We've known for a while that Spike enjoys eating gemstones like candy, but this is the first time we actually see him eating gems; rather than swallowing them whole, he effortlessly bites into them like they're apples. Just how powerful are this little dragon's jaws, and how hard can his teeth be ? The Diamond Dogs can consider themselves lucky he didn't try biting them...
Green Isn't Your Color
- Does anyone else find it slightly menacing that in Green Isn't Your Color, Twilight Sparkle can ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL over Fluttershy, including her speech? I mean, sure Fluttershy was willing and all, but what if Twilight suffered a psychological breakdown and another pony wasn't as willing?
- Maybe it only works if the pony is willing.
- I would imagine it works like Borrowing in Equal Rites.
Over a Barrel
- A bit of meta-Fridge Horror: There is an episode where bison don't want to share their land with the ponies. Cue Fantastic Racism on the part of both.
- When Applejack mentions that the trees are on the only flat land around, the view cuts to a scene of the desert, complete with a staple of any cartoon desert scene: the buffalo skull in the foreground. Of course, in Equestria the buffalo are intelligent beings....
- In the scene where the buffalo are preparing to trample Apploosa, there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cut to a buffalo sharpening his horn on an axe grinder. Which means that they were really going to skewer anypony unlucky enough to get in their way. Anypony else disturbed about the possibility for ponies to die gruesome deaths?
- Oh it gets worse, watch closely as the ponies build their makeshift barricades: they hammer in the nails facing outward! Yes, the buffalo are running headlong into improvised Spikes of Doom. It's pretty clear both sides were out for blood here.
- Pinkie's song about sharing mentions Hoof-and-Mouth Disease. Imagine what a disease like that would do to Equestrian society. Is that what happened to Applejack's parents?
- I'm pretty sure she meant hoof-in-mouth disease, equivalent to saying someone "put their foot in their mouth" when they say something dumb.
A Bird in the Hoof
- "Over a Barrel" establishes that pies can be used as weapons are are thrown during combat. In the next episode, "A Bird in the Hoof", Pinkie throws a pie at her own head. Did... did Pinkie just shoot herself in the face? Yes.
- A phoenix' immortality takes the form of an endless cycle of death and rebirth. Being a kids' show, Philomena doesn't look terribly bad when we first see her, and her death is rendered as a quick burst of flame that reduces her to a pile of light grey ashes - much friendlier for little ones than whatever nightmare she might have looked like were the show given a more realistic style.
- The above also makes it easy to forget that Fluttershy was attempting to heal an animal on death's doorstep and failed. On screen. Over the course of an entire episode. No wonder she looked so horrified before Philomena came back.
The Cutie Mark Chronicles
- Fluttershy falls out of the sky in full view of a large crowd and no one tries to save her. Does Cloudsdale have some kind of Sparta-like eugenics policy for pegasi who are weak fliers?
- Presumably, she was recovered sometime after; she's shown with her cutie mark in 'Hurricane Fluttershy' back in flight school (and wishing she was NOT there). Then again, pegasi are also shown as having martial traditions similar to our Greek ... huh.
- The Sonic Rainboom's shockwave easily shattered the massive rock in front of Rarity. Now imagine what would have happened had said massive rock not been there to shield Rarity from the shockwave... By extension, imagine how many ponies are at risk of dying every damn time Rainbow Dash pulls a Sonic Rainboom so close to the ground.
- To be fair, the rock was probably already cracked or at least very weak, since the other rocks were more or less fine, though that still doesn't mean that nearby clouds (from which all of Cloudsdale is apparently constructed) went unharmed.
- Not to mention Pinkie Pie came into direct contact with the Sonic Rainboom, and all it did to her was style her mane and tail the way we know it. So it probably wouldn't have killed Rarity.
- Twilight's magical outburst during her entrance exam. Not only did she overwhelm three of the Academy's instructors (presumably, anyway), but she turned her parents into potted plants. Oh, and managed to hatch a dragon egg and accelerate its growth to the point where its head broke through the roof. Think for a moment about what would have happened had the Princess had not been there.
- Or what a similar outburst would cause with Twilight's current power.
- Note that, assuming E=mc^2, Twilight making Spike grow to that size means she was unleashing power roughly equivalent to a 750 kt nuclear bomb.
- In some ways, Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom seems to be comparable to an atomic bomb and the radiation it unleashes for miles. Pinkie Pie was essentially at ground zero and unprotected when she got hit by the Sonic Rainboom. It messed up her hair, and dramatically changed her personality. Thanks to Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie is now insane, brain-damaged (possibly) and mentally unhinged!
- Or Rainbow Dash's rainboom showed Pinkie Pie The Power Of Happiness.
- Super-fast travel does generate ionization radiation, so it is disturbingly plausible...
- Fluttershy mentions that she was at flight camp with Dash in her flashback, despite looking older then the other ponies there, so presumably her parents sent her there as a drastic measure to improve her flying capacity...and instead, Fluttershy plummeted to the earth and discovered her talent for communicating with animals. If she hadn't have fallen to the ground, would she have never found her cutie-mark, or would she have actually become a good flier? In "Hurricane Fluttershy", she does improve with a little training, but it's still pretty weak compared to the other Pegasi. This has a little Fridge Horror for Scootaloo- Is this going to be Scootaloo's fate as well, bearing in mind that other fillies her age have been shown flying (specifically Thunder Lane's little brother in "Hurricane Fluttershy") Fluttershy almost is an Earth pony anyway, not being a good flier and having a talent that is very unusual for a pegasus, so it probably doesn't concern her, but Scootaloo is a much more active, energetic character who idolises Rainbow Dash, the fastest pony around. Is Scootaloo doomed to an earthbound existence, and if so, will she never get a cutiemark or be forced to developing a pedestrian skill to make a living in Ponyville?
- It's been speculated based on her capabilities on that scooter that her special talent is ground-effect flight. That would make her shit at flight at any real altitude but capable of Rainbow Dash level speed and maneuvering at ground level thanks to required secondary powers.
- It's been strongly implied both in the show and Word of God that Scootaloo will never fly, that's she's effectively handicapped. Hardly something that cannot be overcome, and definitely not something that would prevent her from getting an awesome cutie mark.
Owl's Well That Ends Well
- As Spike is going around town to find a quill for Twilight, he goes over to Pinkie Pie, who among the list of items that begin with a "Q", tosses him a quince. A quince is a fruit that is poisonous to equines (aka PONIES).
- But not to dragons.
- She had it....readily available and this is a Pony that they trust implicitly to bake for them
- Ponies in the show don't seem to have a problem with chocolate, chili pepper, and tomato, which are toxic to real equines.
- But not to dragons.
- In the scene with the ponies all looking at Spike at the same time and smiling, Pinkie petting him, etc... it's clear that Spike was enjoying the attention. It's interrupted when Twilight says that's enough; but perhaps the reason she said that was because she doesn't want him to get too used to that much attention from them. When Spike does get used to it, seeing that attention go to an owl instead makes him jealous enough to temporarily become a villain. (Albeit an ineffectual one.) Perhaps that kind of addiction to their attention is what Twilight was trying to prevent...
- Spike tries to set up Owlowiscious by tearing a toy mouse apart, and spraying red sauce on the floor, to pretend that Owlowiscious killed a real mouse. Despite ponies are in charge of nature in Equestria, and ponies like Fluttershy trying to make sure that every creature is happy, being torn apart by owls is still a real threat for mice.
Party of One
- When Pinkie interrogates Spike, it's implied that he only told Pinkie that her friends don't like her parties and that they don't want to be her friends anymore because she told him to say so—implied, but never actually stated. Meaning that he could've been correct.
- If you look at the attitudes some of the other Mane Five have towards Pinkie, it can leave you with doubts. Twilight in particular is often very condescending to Pinkie Pie and in "Feeling Pinkie Keen" she sounded almost like she was relishing the idea of Pinkie being humiliated. Applejack frequently brushes her off, and in "Swarm of the Century" dismisses her as being "A few apples short of a bushel." Fluttershy would later tear her to shreds (along with Rarity) in "Putting Your Hoof Down", and it's not unfeasible to think Rarity might be annoyed with how many horrible things seem to happen to her when Pinkie's around ("Return of Harmony Part 2", "The Last Roundup".) Dash is the only one who seems to genuinely bond with Pinkie over being a fellow prankster, and even she is pretty rude towards her on occasion (but then, at least you can't argue that Pinkie is the only one of Dash's friends to get this treatment). If you think as well that Twilight is the "Hero", Applejack is her "second-in-command", Rainbow Dash is The Lancer, Rarity is The Chick, Fluttershy is The Heart, and Spike is the Tagalong Kid, where does that leave poor Pinkie Pie? Is she the de facto Omega of the group who only manages it because of her positive outlook and Sarcasm-Blind nature? And, as this episode suggests, is she aware of this or is she one hell of a Stepford Smiler?
- Furthermore, what's going to happen the next time Pinkie Pie decides she wants two parties in a row, maybe even more? What if her friends really did make excuses, and with good reason? Is she going to go completely out of her mind again?
- The evidence in the episode suggests she would be okay with them not attending a party if they had legitimate excuses, considering she's okay with everypony not coming due to believing their individual excuses. It's only once she starts to suspect that they're intentionally avoiding her and her parties that she becomes upset.
- If Pinkie Pie reacted LIKE THIS when she thought her friends had rejected her, you almost wonder how she'd react if someone legitimately rejected her.
- As someone said on ponibooru, Party Of One suggests Pinkie's codependent with her friends and needs their love and attention... to the point that her parties are almost like attempts at validation. "People love me! Because they come to my parties! PLEASE, PLEASE come to my parties!"
- That kind of insecurity typically doesn't come out of nowhere. In all likelihood, the reason why Pinkie's so hurt when she jumps to the conclusion that her friends are coming up with excuses to avoid her is because in the past she had "friends" who actually did come up with excuses to avoid her and enjoyed deceiving her.
- And we get to see exactly what happens when she loses that validation again in Pinkie Pride; when Cheese Sandwich upstages her. Although she does not deal with it particularly well at first, she also doesn't go full-on crazy-town Pinkamena this time either; and shows quite a bit of character growth as a result.
- The infamous fanfic Cupcakes is about Pinkie Pie using her friends as baking ingredients. Of course, it's ridiculous that Pinkie could confuse a friend with baking ingredients - except in this episode, Pinkie is friends with a bag of flour.
- "All you have to do is take a cup of flour, add it to the mix..."
- She was insane by that point. She uses flour to entertain the babies in "Baby Cakes," though. And, well...
- She was insane by that point. She uses flour to entertain the babies in "Baby Cakes," though. And, well
- "All you have to do is take a cup of flour, add it to the mix..."
The Best Night Ever
- Another Fridge Tear Jerker: At The Gala is a Crowd Song, right? But the way the other ponies are singing, it implies that most of them were also hoping to have the best night ever. And most of them seemed to be succeeding a lot better than the Mane Cast before the party got ruined. That means hundreds of ponies also had their dreams destroyed in a space of about five minutes.
- Fluttershy runs into the gardener pony twice. Two things pop into mind when you see him: he's the oldest pony we've seen since Applejack's grandma, and he has no cutie mark. So the Cutie Mark Crusaders DO have a reason to be concerned, this pony's existence has confirmed that it is possible to go your entire life without finding your lot in life. That is kind of sad.
- The groundskeeper looked more like a donkey or mule than a pony, similar to Cranky Doodle Donkey and Matilda from "A Friend in Deed", neither of whom have cutie marks either.
- Wasn't it a goat?
- WordofGod has said that they never designed a cutie mark for the gardener, because his flank was always cover by a blanket.
- For anyone denouncing Princess Celestia as a thoughtless Troll for setting the mane cast loose on the Grand Galloping Gala, consider that she has had to attend the same boring, stuffy, dreadful ball gala with the same breed of arrogant, supercilious aristocrats... FOR TEN CENTURIES.
- One night a year. In a nation where she is the uncontested ruler and divinity. Where the population worships the ground and clouds she walks on. The fact that she opted to screw with hundreds of relatively innocent ponies instead of bearing with it or, say, simply asking the party planners to spice things up tells us that Princess Celestia suffers from pretty severe passive-aggressive tendencies, which is Fridge Horror in and of itself. One wonders if she had the Mane Cast do the wedding plans for Princess Cadance because someone called her out on this crap.
- Implying that beings who can live for tens of thousands of years have the same perception of time as we do. One night a year to Celestia may be much more often than it would be to us. Consider if you had to put up with some people you found insufferable on a weekly basis. Also, implying Celestia even wants to be worshipped.
- The point of mentioning the worshiping aspect is to emphasize that she is the ultimate secular authority, the ultimate religious authority, and people just plain like her. She does not "have to" attend. She could probably have the bloody thing cancelled, or remove herself from any obligation to attend (or at least, having to greet everyone) and ponies would be tripping over themselves to accommodate her. Instead, she lets her friends ruin things for hundreds of ponies who don't know she has a problem because she doesn't mention a damn thing to anyone except her friends. Basically imagine if you found out the ruler of the land, whom you love, respect, and depend upon holds you in complete contempt, will let her friends run roughshod over you, and wouldn't even tell you she had a problem.
- Also, this is assuming she knew that the Mane 6 were going to end up destroying the place in the first place. She probably just thought that their presence would liven up the Gala, and had no idea of the extent to which they would take their behaviour. After all, she looks just as shocked as Twilight when she walks in on the scene of destruction in the main hall.
- However, she does let them get away with it with her approval. It might have inspired them to think trashing the Canterlot Garden Party was also fine.
- New horror to support the case that Celestia is a passive-aggressive troll: In season 5, Twilight has taken over some of the planning from Celestia. Which means the reason the Gala is a boring affair is because she's been the one planning them that way. And rather than making the party more to her liking, she instead lets her friends (and in season 5, Discord) run roughshod over the party attendants.
- One known arrogant, supercilious aristocrat. And a few others who look the part. And many of the same nice ponies we've seen in Ponyville, who found that they chased Twilight all over town for nothing.
- This troper thinks you guys are taking this way too seriously. She's not a megalomaniac or anything, she's just bored of attending the same gala for 10 centuries and clearly doesn't prank people out of actual malicious intent.
- One night a year. In a nation where she is the uncontested ruler and divinity. Where the population worships the ground and clouds she walks on. The fact that she opted to screw with hundreds of relatively innocent ponies instead of bearing with it or, say, simply asking the party planners to spice things up tells us that Princess Celestia suffers from pretty severe passive-aggressive tendencies, which is Fridge Horror in and of itself. One wonders if she had the Mane Cast do the wedding plans for Princess Cadance because someone called her out on this crap.
- Baked goods are sometimes used as weapons by ponies. In this light, Prince Blueblood's using Rarity as a equine shield against a flying cake takes a grimmer overtone.
- Doesn't that also mean Applejack smuggled in a large number of weapons into a formal event?
- Smuggled, nothing. Those weapons were commercially available. The Grand Galloping Gala is probably already the perfect place to assassinate nobility, and now they'll give you the murder weapon themselves!
- Baked goods can have great stopping power, yes. But only something truly contrived can make them lethal. Neither Rarity nor Blueblood were in mortal danger. Though it didn't stop either of them from getting iced.
- Not that it effected them that badly since y'know, they're cartoon ponies.
- Doesn't that also mean Applejack smuggled in a large number of weapons into a formal event?
- According to Princess Celestia, this year's gala is the best they've had. That means that either 1. The grand galloping gala was worse than a wild animal attack every year for centuries, or 2. Princess Celestia would rather see the noble class get attacked than watch them socialize.
- The obvious implication is that she found all the previous gala's to be boring.
