Harsher In Hindsight / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• "Mare in the Moon":
  • Here, we get the Establishing Character Moment of Twilight brushing aside a party invite to focus on her studies with Nightmare Moon's imminent arrival. Several seasons later, in "Amending Fences", it turns out the party that she was invited to was for an old friend of hers named Moondancer, and by snubbing it and moving to Ponyville without even saying goodbye it effectively ruined the entire pony's life. Moondancer's scene where she breaks down and delivers a tear-filled reason you suck speech is easily the most heartrending thing the show has ever produced.
  • Twilight says "All the ponies in this town are CRAZY!" By the end of the season, every main character has suffered a nervous breakdown at some point. And then in the season 2 episode "Lesson Zero", Twilight goes completely (if temporarily) over the edge.
• Season 1's "Griffon the Brush-Off" ended with Gilda ditching Rainbow Dash as her friend. Four seasons later, "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" establishes that griffons literally have no concept of friendship, putting everything involving Gilda in a much different light. Rainbow Dash is the only friend she's ever had, and she has little idea how to reconcile that with Rainbow having other friends. They become friends again in the end of the episode.
• In Season 1's "Look Before You Sleep", Twilight says that she's never had a sleepover before and calls out Applejack and Rarity when their bickering almost ruins her first slumber party. The Season 5 episode "Amending Fences" puts the whole episode in a different perspective when we see that Twilight had friends in Canterlot and her context implies that she never had a sleepover with any of them. It becomes even worse when we see that Twilight leaving Canterlot left an emotional scar on her old friend Moondancer.
• In "Bridle Gossip", Spike gives Rainbow Dash the nickname "Rainbow Crash", due to her temporary clumsiness. In "Sonic Rainboom", we learn that this was the very name Rainbow Dash's childhood bullies labeled her with for years. In "Newbie Dash", Rainbow Dash gets hit with the same nickname at her first day on the job as a Wonderbolt, and her desperate attempts at getting rid of it place her career in jeopardy — showing that she was still carrying some serious emotional baggage from said nickname. However, "Read It and Weep" shows it may not be a completely undeserved title.
• Season 1's "Call of the Cutie" sees Scootaloo tell Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon they're "stuck being stuck up". "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" would later reveal that Diamond Tiara's mother is practically abusing her to act like a proper 'rich pony', which basically translates into being a stuck up snob to anyone beneath her, meaning Scootaloo was more right than one would think.
• In "Boast Busters", the young unicorns Snips and Snails enter a cave in search of an Ursa Major (in hopes of getting to watch Trixie fight it), and end up with a pissed-off Ursa Minor chasing them back to Ponyville. Several years later, the 2017 movie would introduce Tempest Shadow, who had been attacked by an Ursa Minor as a foal and as a result had her horn broken, rendering her unable to cast spells normally (and for which Equestrian medicine does not appear to have any meaningful remedy). Taking that into consideration, things could have gone MUCH worse for Snips and Snails.
• The Scootachicken (Scootaloo/flightless bird) jokes which originated in Season 1's "Stare Master" became considerably less funny when it turned out that in Season 4's "Flight to the Finish", Scootaloo has trouble flying in canon and Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon tease her for it.
• The Season 1 episode "Over a Barrel" has Fluttershy's memetic statement of her desire to be a tree. In Season 7's "A Health of Information", she is one of the victims of the "Swamp Fever" disease which ends with turning into a tree.
• The Season 1 episode "Owl's Well than Ends Well" involved Spike having an insane fit of jealousy over Twilight seemingly replacing him with an owl, cumulating in him running away because he felt she didn't love him anymore. The Season 3 premiere "The Crystal Empire" puts his actions in a new light, as we find out that Twilight no longer needing him is Spike's worst fear.
• Happened with the Season 2 episode "Hurricane Fluttershy". Fluttershy pretends to be sick to get out of training, painting spots all over her body and calling her ailment "pony pox". In Season 7's "A Health of Information", the same colored spots turn out to be one of the symptoms of the aforementioned "Swamp Fever" disease.
• In "Trade Ya", Twilight Sparkle decides not to sell her books, saying that just because they don't need to be read again doesn't mean they don't possess value; they're a part of her history and what made her who she was, and were quite precious. Four episodes later in "Twilight's Kingdom", they along with the rest of the Golden Oak Library were destroyed by Tirek.
• Season 5's "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" had Big Macintosh turning himself into an Alicorn princess during the Dream Sequence. It was seen as nothing more than a funny gag at the time... then later that season, "Brotherhooves Social" reveals that Big Mac developed an inferiority complex as a result of Applejack becoming a hero of Equestria and being adored by his baby sister Apple Bloom, while he was ignored. This puts his dream in a very different light.
• In "Where the Apple Lies", the hospital scenes include a brief shot of a unicorn with half of his horn missing. The 2017 movie would have Tempest Shadow establish that such an injury renders a unicorn unable to cast spells normally. And given that Tempest had turned to villainy on the promise of getting her horn restored, it's reasonable to assume that Equestria's medical community has no meaningful solution for that.
• In "Parental Glideance", Scootaloo justifies siding with Rainbow Dash's Amazingly Embarrassing Parents by stating that she wishes she had parents as supportive as them. "The Last Crusade" established that her parents are rarely home (spending most of their time off on various adventures), leaving her in the care of her aunts. Except her aunts also don't live in Ponyville, leaving Scootaloo to be mostly raised by a revolving door of babysitters. Which would readily explain her comment here - Rainbow Dash was pretty much the only adult who spent enough time with her to get meaningfully involved in her life.
• "Marks and Recreation" has Rumble being afraid that getting the wrong cutie mark will destroy his chances of becoming a Wonderbolt. One season later, "The Washouts" would have Short Fuse mention that he was kicked out of Wonderbolts Academy over anger management issues, and his name, cutie mark, and behavior would strongly imply that his special talent (so to speak) is "anger management issues". That is, having the wrong cutie mark destroyed his chances of becoming a Wonderbolt.
• "Shadow Play":
  • Twilight is arguably at the peak of her Character Development when she solves the problem by putting her friendship and trust in Stygian, even when everyone else assumed he was a traitor beyond redemption. Immediately afterwards came My Little Pony: The Movie (2017), which saw Twilight becoming so fed up with her friends' antics that she becomes disillusioned with friendship, commits an underhanded deed, and dismisses her friends as liabilities to their faces. Halfway through the next season, "Marks for Effort" would have Twilight jump to the conclusion that the Cutie Mark Crusaders had sabotaged Cozy Glow's studies to get themselves into the School of Friendship, not giving them a chance to tell their side of the story. It's quite jarring to see one of the highest points of her characterization followed immediately by her lowest.
  • Starswirl, when he makes his reappearance, becomes a Broken Pedestal by bringing up that "once a villain, always a villain", something that contrasts Twilight's way of thinking... Final season shows that Strawman Has a Point as the villain end up being Beyond Redemption and Taken for Granite as punishment.
• A lot of the various Spike gags became somewhat sadder in hindsight after "Equestria Games" revealed he has serious self-esteem issues.
• One scene in "Family Appreciation Day" has a bee land on Apple Bloom's nose while Granny Smith is harvesting honey. Four seasons later, Apple Bloom is revealed to be allergic to bees.

• Considering the episode was produced long before Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles) was written, Pinkie Pie's psychotic break in "Party of One" is rather eerie, doubly so considering Rainbow Dash is the pony to visit her during her episode.
• In the Canterlot Wedding two-parter, the need for increased security at the wedding seems a bit more eerie in light of the issues with insufficient security at the London 2012 Olympics. Keep in mind that the Canterlot Wedding was based off the Royal Wedding between William and Kate... Which also happened in London.
• In "It's About Time", Twilight is repeatedly concerned about a possible disaster in the future. As we find out much later on, a disaster was brewing ever since Cerberus temporarily left Tartarus.
• In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic Comic Book Issue 74, when Zephyr Breeze appears, he and Fluttershy's relationship seems to be much better than it was previously, with the two having affectionate nicknames for each other and playfully joking around. She even calmly helps pull him out of a panic attack. Come Season 9 episode "Sparkle's Seven" when Fluttershy mentions him to Spike, she says that he (Zephyr) could learn a lot from Spike about being a good little brother.

---