Fridge Horror / My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic Season 9

The Beginning of the End

• The idea of the Mane 6 being handed the reigns of Equestria simply reeks of this due to the context:
  • Twilight's intended transfer of power not only came out of the blue, it also would have taken effect in a few days as originally planned. Such an abrupt shift in power is usually only seen in military coups. Delaying it to the end of the season mitigates this.
  • Not only will Equestria be losing two of their best politicians, they will be replaced by one princess with barely any experience with politics onscreen and five civilians with no experience in it at all. Their credibility is stemmed from being the vanquishers of evil. Sorry, but Asskicking Leads to Leadership is a very bad way to justify political power.
  • Not only is running a school different from running a kingdom as stated during Starlight's attempt to calm Twilight down, even with the MST3K Mantra and the Willing Suspension of Disbelief in full effect, the Mane 7 will practically break from the strain by having all their combined responsibilities of having a normal job, being teachers at the School of Friendship and running the country happening at the same time. And there is also the issue when they have to drop everything just to stop an Ancient Evil.
    • "Between Dark and Dawn" shows the Mane 6 learning the importance of delegating tasks to lessen their own workload while still getting everything done, so that's one problem hopefully solved.
  • The Friendship Journal being used as a justification of her strength and experience. Not only is it horribly outdated (it stopped updating after Season 4), it is more akin to an adventure novel/diary at best. Outside of friendship, there is nothing in there that shows actual experience in politics or even a coherent ideology.
  • Thankfully, "The Last Problem" puts all of these worries to rest, showing that, if anything, Equestria has become a Utopia under Twilight's rule.
• How bad was Equestria before the series premiere that Luna's statement about an era that practically undergoes a Sugar Apocalypse annually (The Season 4 premiere implies that all previous events including Discord and Sombra occurred during ONE year) being a golden age? What could have happened during the reign of the royal sisters and Celestia's solo reign that would justify such a statement?
  • From what we've been told: First the Windigos almost destroyed everything, then the Sirens spread madness and strife across the nation, then the Pony of Shadows went on a rampage only stopping with the cost of Starswirl and the other Pillars, Sombra conquered and ruled the Crystal Empire before the whole place disappeared, Tirek showed up and drained who knows how many ponies before being sent to Tartarus, then Discord turned Equestria into a living Nightmare until Celestia and Luna found the Elements of Harmony and then Luna attempts to plunge the world into unending night while becoming Nightmare Moon before being banished for a millennia by her own sister. And the whole time there were hostile dragons, yaks and changelings running around. Yeah, Twilight's really cleaned up the place since the series started as no threat has lasted more than a few days.
  • The idea of Equestria being in its most peaceful era rings hollow when you consider that the millennium before the start of the show was nothing but peaceful and uneventful, and the fact that so many old and new villains have been appearing since then.
• Grogar is powerful enough to make Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow, all top tier season-ender villains themselves, AFRAID... and he's NOT at full power yet!
• The Tree of Harmony getting shattered is even worse when you realize it's sentient enough to create holograms to speak. Sombra just committed onscreen murder.
  • Is the Cutie Map still functional now that the tree is gone? Or is the Mane Six now unable to do their biggest duty, leaving future friendship problems unresolved?
• Now we know where at least some of those beasts like the bugbear, the cockatrice, malwurf, tatlzwurm, manticore, or the chimera comes from; they were created by Grogar specifically to terrorize Equestria.
  • Even worse when you consider how when they had their magic taken out of them (temporarily) they reverted to normal animals, the implications of Grogar turning animals who would've been otherwise peaceful or not that dangerous, into evil and chaotic beasts to rule Equestria are terrifying.
• The Everfree spreads by its nature now, not beause of Discord's vines. And Starswirl had somehow tamed it before planting the Tree of Harmony. What this "promised land" was like when the three pony tribes arrived? Perhaps, it was Death World even more than now.
• Zecora lives in the Everfree Forest. She either spent the entire time fighting against the vines or got driven out only to be mind controlled by King Sombra.
• Sandbar lives in Ponyville. He had to be among the ponies hypnotized by Sombra earlier.
  • "She's All Yak" may or may not have hinted at this. The line of "Cozy Glow and Sombra" of course might've been just because he only was mentioning Pony villains, but they're also the only two he's faced first hoof. Perhaps he, and therefore, everyone remembers what it was like to be mind controlled by him? That's Fridge Horror worthy in itself!

Uprooted

• One of Gallus' lyrics is "If things don't stick / there's lots of glue". Probably not the best suggestion to be making near a population of horses in a show on its final season.
• We already knew Gallus was an orphan, so it makes sense that his permission slip had to be signed by Grandpa Gruff instead of a parent. Everyone else (that we see; we don't see Sandbar's slip being signed) had their slips signed by their parents...except Smolder, who had her slip signed by Dragon Lord Ember. This already carries poor implications about Smolder's family situation, but remember "Molt Down"? In that episode, Smolder herself said that dragon families tend to kick out molting dragons. Smolder's clearly post-molt as she has wings, so does that mean her family never took her back in? Considering being booted from the house during the process is apparently par for the course, do any dragon families take their children back in once they're done molting, or once the molt begins are they forever on their own?
  • As of "Sweet and Smoky", we at least know that siblings still stick with each other in their adolescent years. No sign of parents though.

Sparkle's Seven

• The trapdoor in the throne room closes as soon as somepony falls through it. They then and up in a pit with (seemingly) no way out, and hardly anypony would look for them. What if somepony fell down by accident?
• In Pinkie's Imagine Spot, The Little Prince's planetoid is overgrown with baobabs, on the verge of shattering it.

Frenemies

• Chrysalis implies that fully draining a creature of love could leave them incapable of ever feeling love again, hence why she always makes sure to leave some for later.
• Cozy Glow seems to have a Fridge Horror moment of her own (though one can assume she'd like for it to happen), connecting Chrysalis's comment that she cocoons all of her meals with the fact that she earlier cocooned Twilight and her friends, among others. With how she was able to go hoof-to-hoof with Celestia after just feeding on Shining Armor's love for Cadence, you get the feeling that, with how much love she could have drained from everypony she captured^note The Mane 6, The Royal Sisters, Cadence, Shining Armor, Flurry Heart, and later Trixie and Discord she could have easily gone hoof-to-hoof with Starlight, who is herself a walking magical nuke, even if her magic-draining throne didn't exist.
• With the amount of power Grogar would have gained upon getting his Bewitching Bell back, who's to say he wouldn't have decided he doesn't need the others anymore? Even if he had other plans for them initially, he's far more likely to decide that should he learn of their betrayal.

Sweet and Smoky

• If the teenage dragons weren't discovered, the next generation of dragons would have practically been wiped out for the sake of a lava pool.
  • Once the parent dragons found out, those teenage dragons would probably have had to sleep with one eye open, assuming Ember didn't deal with them first.
• Garble and his friends could have seriously injured or killed Fluttershy when they were throwing lava balls at Spike. Even worse, there's the fact she's friends with Discord, the very embodiment of chaos, who absolutely hates the idea of anything bad happening to her - if the dragons were to successfully harm Fluttershy and Discord were to find out, all hell would break loose and the dragons would probably wish they were never born.
  • Even without Discord, if word got back to Twilight, one of the reigning princesses and soon-to-be ruler of Equestria, that one of her best friends was injured by the dragons, Pony-Dragon diplomacy would become shaky at best.
• From what we know about dragon parentage, Fluttershy's caring might be the best the dragon babies are ever gonna get.
  • Only about a dozen dragons show up to warm the eggs, and since many of them are from "Gauntlet of Fire", we can assume at least most of them are the dragon equivalent of teenagers. This was presumably every dragon in the near vicinity, meaning the mothers basically laid the eggs and bucked off somewhere they couldn't be reached (apart from maybe the Call of the Dragon Lord, which Ember probably hasn't figured out how to use yet). Even without the "kicked out over their smell and left at the mercy of predators" bit from going through the Molt, dragon parenting clearly leaves a lot to be desired.

Student Counsel

• Cockatrice can be trained. Pray to whoever you believe in that none of them will get in the hooves of a bad pony.
• If something worse had happened to Silverstream, the international fallout will be catastrophic as she is technically a princess due to being Skystar's cousin.
• After getting turned back from stone, Mudbriar comments "...the experience has given me an even deeper appreciation for the density and permanence of rock". This suggests that Mudbriar was conscious the entire time he was petrified. On the brighter side, he was left with a newfound appreciation for rock.

The Last Crusade

• Scootaloo's parents are revealed to be a pegasus and an earth pony. Earth ponies are physically heavier and stronger than unicorns or pegasi. If Scootaloo has earth pony genes from her father's side, she might be too heavy for her wings to carry her. Is this why she can't fly yet?
  • Unlikely. Pound Cake's family tree is mostly earth ponies, and he doesn't have any problem there.

Between Dark and Dawn

• What could have happened in the past that made Celestia so afraid of chickens of all things? If any of the Legion of Doom found out about this fact...
  • She could just have alektorophobia.
• In the span of a day of rule, the Mane Six nearly crashed and burned from simply organising a parade if it wasn't for them picking the slack in the third act. Sure, they might be dealing with swans but this is a very bad first impression of what their rule will be like once Twilight assumes leadership. The future of Equestria looks pretty bleak for the most unexpected of reasons...
• You can briefly see Grogar's lair on Celestia's map. Had she went the wrong way and entered the lair out of curiosity, she would've been in HUGE trouble.

The Last Laugh

• Had Pinkie accepted to work at the factory, who knows whether she would suffer the same fate as Cheese?

A Trivial Pursuit

• The final time Cranky wakes up, he angrily yells, "Where are my morning haycakes?!" The only one who would make him morning haycakes is his wife Matilda, the love of his life, the girl he spent years traveling Equestria to find. The idea that he would yell at her like that over something so trivial is more than a little unsettling.
  • The more charitable explination is that he's just Not a Morning Person and is always crankier than normal when he first wakes up. Hopefully it's option B.

The Summer Sun Setback

• The fact there is a book on Grogar's bell in Canterlot archives' restricted section in the first place raises quite a few horrifying implications...
• The Legion of Doom just walked through Canterlot as if nothings changed despite attempts to do so. If it wasn't for them focusing on getting a book on Grogar's bell, let's just say the festival preparations would have gone a lot more worse...
• Given how easy Chrysalis manipulated the fireworks troupe has shown, it's safe to say the idea of being a Master Race hasn't completely vanished from unicorns as a whole in present day. Not to mention, it's safe to say that the other two races might share the same sentiment...

She Talks To Angel

• In the intro scene, Fluttershy is leading a Predator-Prey Support Group, to combat the issues of having animals at different stages of the food chain in one area. Her suggestion is for the predators to only eat vegetables while they're at the sanctuary. The predators we see are a bear, a raccoon, a snake, and a wolf. Some bears (it's not 100% clear what specific species the one shown here is) and raccoons are omnivores, so they might be able to pull it off. But wolves are obligate carnivores and simply can't survive on a vegan diet (a quick search will reveal several attempts of some to make their dogs go vegan with disastrous results). The different biology of snakes from the mammal predators also doesn't lend itself well to a vegan diet. Those two, and possibly more unseen, would become sick at best and end up dead at worst.
  • Though canines aren't as restricted to meat as felines are. They can gain nutrition from plant sources and there's always the possibility of using milk for animal protein. Wolves are also known to go days, even weeks, between meals. Though, granted, usually when they've had a particularly large meal. It's possible the writers and animators realized this situation as the predators who readily agree are the omnivores while the wolf looks slightly distressed and the snake seems to do a shoulderless shrug (reptiles, with their slower metabolism, can go without food for a lot longer than mammals, and he may have been planning to cheat, anyway).
• Fluttershy-as-Angel almost gets herself eaten at least once during her trip to Zecora's hut, and probably could have died from exhaustion if Angel-as-Fluttershy wasn't able to get to the carrot extract. If she died, would Angel have been stuck in Fluttershy's body forever, or would they have swapped back at the last second as a failsafe and Angel would have died from Fluttershy's mistake? Either way, whoever was left alive would have been left with some pretty bad Survivor's Guilt, moreso in the former case as Angel-as-Fluttershy would have to explain the whole mess to Fluttershy's friends. To say nothing of what Zecora would have thought of her trick once she heard the news.

Dragon Dropped

• Rarity's possessiveness to Spike ends up having a few creepy implications, like if she most likely returns Spike's feelings and fondly looks back on all the times they've been together (not helped by the fact that she gives a flirtatious look at Spike in his bedroom in the Cold Open). She most likely would have entered pedophile territory if her jealousy to Gabby went farther than it did.

A Horse Shoe-In

• Trixie shown that a powerful enough unicorn can casually summon entire places with a thought. That's totally not going to be abused in any way...
• Trixie bringing in a random part of Foggy Bottom Bog could have easily either brought in the nearby Swamp Fever tree or Portal Cut the local hydra(s).
• A minor example, but it seems like Starlight straight up murdered the Flash Bees. Despite them being very territorial and angry animals, they're still, well, animals. Phyllis being trashed is gonna end up being the last of Starlight's issues if/when Fluttershy hears about what happened to those bees!
  • Or maybe she just teleported them back to the swamp, no harm done.

The Big Mac Question

• During Big Mac's and Sugar Belle's wedding, why don't Sugar Belle's parents or family show up? She has a cousin mentioned in "The Break Up Break Down". That she left them to join a cult which they never reported doesn't suggest she was on good terms with them, if she has any.
  • Or she could have no family at all besides the mentioned cousin, having been an orphan prior to joining Starlight's cult.
• For that matter, why isn't Starlight at the wedding? You'd think she'd be on Sugar Belle's guest list. Was Sugar Belle not as ready to forgive her as she initially seemed?
  • Alternatively, she DID invite Starlight but Starlight didn't feel confident enough to come, or hadn't forgiven herself yet for what she did to Sugar Belle and the rest of her cult.
    • Or Starlight was simply too busy with the school to attend.
  • Considering none of the Mane Six were invited, not even Pinkie who is a possible blood relative, despite their close friendship and honorary family status, it's not surprising that someone like Starlight wouldn't make the cut. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo likely wouldn't have been invited either if they hadn't been so involved in the relationship's development.

The Ending of the End

• With the reveal that Discord was impersonating Grogar this whole time, what became of the real Grogar? The bell itself is proof that he existed in the past, and we all know that he was banished by Gusty the Great, but it was never specified exactly where he was banished to. Was it only out of Equestria or to another dimension like his G1 counterpart? Could he became an actual threat in the future?
  • Worse still, all of Grogar's personality that we saw was either from the fake one, or in the backstory. Who's to say that the real Grogar's personality isn't even worse? Same goes for his power level. Given all the villains but Cozy Glow have heard of his tyranny, he might have had some inspiration in their villainy and inability to comprehend friendship in any form. Hopefully, he is either dead by now or he really is powerless without his bell. Otherwise, Grogar will be one heck of a threat to deal with.
    • Jim Miller addressed this by saying "I guess he's still out there somewhere."
• The implication that Discord knew where Chrysalis was all along and didn't do anything about her. Especially if you remember he has a really good reason to wanting to hurt her.
  • He was setting her up to get killed off by Twilight and the girls. She, Tirek and Cozy were supposed to get the same treatment that Sombra got, it's just that Celestia and Luna deciding to put things off gave the villains a chance to change things.
• It’s likely one day, the story of the statue the three villains became will be just a legend. And maybe one day, someone might decide to see if the legend is true and try releasing them...
  • Also, given that it was some ponies arguing that set Discord free the first time back in the season 2 premiere, who's to say that a similar incident won't happen with the villains as well?
    • Actually, it was the Elements of Harmony changing hands that broke the spell on Discord. The CMC arguing may have been the last straw but he was going to escape eventually no matter what. They didn't use the elements to turn the Trio to stone, so that won't happen again. And even if they did somehow escape, Discord will still be around to put them right back.
• If one pays close attention, Captain Celeano and the pirates, Grubber, and the reformed Storm Creatures the only movie characters not seen amongst the cavalry. None of them are even seen at Twilight's coronation. What could've happened to them?
  • They likely just don't live close enough to even have heard what was going on or be able to get there in time. Most of the other species only showed because of their closer friendships with the ponies.
• Dare one ask what the villains did to the Canterlot Royal Guard so none of them showed up for the so due-or-die Final Battle practically every other good guy showed up for? Nor were present for Twilight's coronation next episode?
• Let's hope the part of Canterlot Castle blown up by the villains was uninhabited.
• When you think about it, Discord's plan going awry is at least partially Celestia and Luna's fault. Discord's plan was built around their original statement that Twilight's ascension to the throne would happen in "a few days", which was when he planned for the villains to launch their attack. When that was altered, Discord was left to string the villains along, causing them to resent "Grogar" for seemingly doing nothing, and for him playing the role of a Bad Boss to keep them in line, ultimately driving them to turn against him (and having plenty of time to prepare their own plans). While their intent was to give Twilight more time to prepare, Celestia and Luna unknowingly helped to make the events of the finale happen.
• As Sawtooth Waves points out, the punishment of the villains, no matter which way, is something that is downright detrimental in the long run one way or another. It is a simple case of looking at whether they are conscious while petrified and how long the spell lasts.
  • Permanent/Unconscious: It is no different from an execution. It is a case of Dead Guy on Display unlike Discord who was actually conscious for his imprisonment.
  • Permanent/Conscious: Fate Worse than Death.
  • Non-permanent/Unconscious: They will just resume what they were doing as if nothing has changed, making them a Sealed Evil in a Can.
  • Non-permanent/Conscious: They will be stewing in their anger in throughout the time they were imprisoned. This means that it is the same case as above but even worse.
    • Discord's exact words were "Together forever. I can't think of anything that they would want less." This implies that the intent was Permanent/Conscious; he clearly meant for this to be indefinite, and them being stuck together the whole time wouldn't matter if they were unaware of that fact.

The Last Problem

• During "The Magic of Friendship Grows", several characters are strangely absent. Granny Smith, Goldie Delicious, Grand Pear, Angel, and Winona are at least implied to have died of old age, but Cadance, Shining Armor, the Cakes, and even the Royal Sisters are nowhere to be seen.
  • Jim Miller later mitigated this by stating that "We already had so many characters to show, so we weren't able to fit in everyone, or design and build older versions. Just because some aren't on screen doesn't mean they're dead."
• The fact that Twilight's friends have viably aged but Twilight hasn't, seemingly confining the long standing Fridge Horror of her outliving her friends. Here's the real horror, the series, especially the episode just prior, showed how dependent Twilight is on her friends to function on the capacity that made her worthy of ruling Equestria. What will happen to Twilight, and the peace under her reign, once they're gone for good?
  • Given Luster Dawn is clearly set up to mirror Twilight herself at the start of the series, it's likely Twilight is grooming her to take her place when she's ready to retire herself. Twilight has aged; her body type has completely changed during the time skip, something it hadn't done in the five seasons she'd been an alicorn; she's just done so gracefully. The show never established that all alicorns were immortal, so it's likely in a few more decades Discord and Spike will be the only ones left.
    • More "possible" than "likely", since her body becoming more like an alicorn's over time isn't a sign that it has an expiration date.
• Between the food cart on the train and possibly quickly searching Canterlot, Fluttershy only gets her hooves on a carrot. Are the crops still reeling from what the villainous trio did?
• Given that it seems like Twilight is grooming Luster to become her future successor for when she retires, who's to say Discord won't try to set up a test for her like he did with Twilight? Let's hope he's truly learned his lesson since then.