I'm inclined to think that this is mostly a situation where the show's use of vague ages kind of bit it in the ass. In the first season, where Spike's crush and Rarity's kinda-sorta-maybe-who knows knowing about it are established, most characters are hovering in a sort of "teens? adults? who knows?" sort of area, and are established as having interests that are both kid-like and adult-like.

The thing is that rest of the show then ended up splitting off the childhood plots to the CMC — take the sleepover episode, which would absolutely have been a Crusaders story in or after Season 2 — which in turn established the main characters as much more firmly adults with their own homes, businesses and such. Spike instead ended up being settled into the CMC's age bracket and also ended up doing mostly "child/teen/young-person-dependent-on-older-adults" plots — take "Dragon Dropped", which very clearly establishes him as a peer to Gabby, who is also broadly in the Crusader's "generation group", but also "Molt Down", which was about him going through puberty, or "Father Knows Beast", your "will the kid characters choose his deadbeat bio parent or loving adoptive parent?" plot.

This left the writers in a very awkward position where two characters established as potential sorta maybe one-sided love interests back when the show could conceivably never have progressed past the first season are now established as very much a kid/teen and an adult.

The best solution, if you ask me, would've been to just quietly drop the matter and not mention it again. Instead, what ended up happening was that the show ended up dancing around it perpetually in a way that's very much coded around romantic jealousy but which never spells it out loud even though it's obvious what's going on.

They would be an official couple if the writers could have gotten away with it. That much is pretty clear, I think.

Also, it was Twilight who really wanted that sleepover because she never had friends to have one with, and Rarity and Applejack were just humouring their friend. It also was due to external circumstances: they were stranded at the library due to the storm, and Twilight decided to have an impromptu sleepover.

Besides, it's not like adults never sleep over with friends and do fun stuff, either. I do so regularly with one of my friends who lives rather far away these days.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 18th 2024 at 9:17:35 PM

Optimism is a duty.

The question I've been meaning to ask is did the writers ever seriously think they could get away with making them an official couple? (I argue maybe they thought so early on when their ages/maturity were vague and they had no idea it would attract the kind of fans who'd analyze it enough for the issue to seriously come up.)

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Apr 18th 2024 at 8:31:30 AM

Creator and season 1 showrunner Lauren Faust said she personally saw Spike as a child and Rarity as an adult with Spike's crush on Rarity being in line with a kid crushing on a babysitter and that he would grow out of his crush and Rarity doesn't want to hurt his feelings because she has a fondness for him and thinks his crush on her is cute.

Granted Lauren Faust stopped being showrunner after season 1 and left completely at the end of season 2 so it's unknown of the rest of the crew was on the same page as her, but seems Spike was never seriously going to end up with Rarity.

Edited by SpongeGuy11 on Apr 18th 2024 at 12:40:44 PM

That last line seems to suggest she didn't mind the ship, though, even if it wasn't official.

And yeah, of course it was never going to be official, but that doesn't mean the writers didn't push it as far as they felt they could get away with, just like with Applejack's dead parents.

Optimism is a duty.

Post of the Week #3603

Posted by storyyeller on 18th Feb 2015 08:56:38 PM - Post #107093 in the new thread

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

And yeah, of course it was never going to be official, but that doesn't mean the writers didn't push it as far as they felt they could get away with, just like with Applejack's dead parents.

I'm not sure why people keep pushing this, because it seems clear that it was meant to just be a precocious crush that was only used for the sake of humor, not something that was ever meant to be serious. And that was before someone posted the Lauren Faust tweet that conclusively confirmed this.

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

I agree, but that breakup episode pushes it into the other direction, hence why I don't like it. I wanted it to stay a precocious crush, and that the show just phased it out as both characters matured.

Optimism is a duty.

I mean Spike's age is weird in general. Twilight Sparkle hatched him as a kid and is an adult by the start of the show (I don't know where the idea that their ages were ambiguous back then comes from. The Mane Six all have jobs in season one and not the sort of jobs that teenagers would have.) but is still established to be a baby dragon in episode one. Somehow. This despite the fact that he doesn't act anything like a baby, not even in his more immature moments. And while we don't know how much time passes during the events of the show I don't think it can be that long as the CMC are still in what is presumably their world's equivalent of elementary school during season eight despite all the other changes in the status quo. And Im pretty sure that's the same season where Spike goes through dragon puberty.

Spike's age is all over the place and it's probably best not to think about it or his relationship with Rarity too seriously.

Edited by Chariot on Apr 20th 2024 at 11:59:10 AM

Oh yeah, speaking of the first episode, that was another thing that was mentioned there and nowhere else in the rest of the show. Fluttershy likes baby dragons a lot more than the adult ones. Which Spike liked and frustrated Twilight, thanks to his talking up a storm with her. XD

Flora is the most beautiful member of the Winx Club. :)

Sweet and Smoky actually played into that! Fluttershy came along specifically to see a bunch of baby dragons hatch and squee'd over their cuteness. This also took Smolder's throwaway line about having a brother into a bigger deal by making her and Garble (who, perhaps suddenly reformed,) related. I did predict both "twists" and felt a bit proud about it, lol.

see my completed Tangled (Varian) fanfic collection! https://archiveofourown.org/works/24467056/chapters/59049532

Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. ^_^;; Though I do remember Garble turning out to be Smolder’s brother made me say “Whoa, talk about your soap operas. ” XD

Edited by Demetrios on Apr 20th 2024 at 11:34:12 AM

Flora is the most beautiful member of the Winx Club. :)

I mean Spike's age is weird in general. Twilight Sparkle hatched him as a kid and is an adult by the start of the show (I don't know where the idea that their ages were ambiguous back then comes from. The Mane Six all have jobs in season one and not the sort of jobs that teenagers would have.) but is still established to be a baby dragon in episode one. Somehow. This despite the fact that he doesn't act anything like a baby, not even in his more immature moments, and he's clearly portrayed as older than a baby.

In season 1, there were two kinds of dragons shown. Giant centuries-old dragons, and Spike. It seems like the original vision was the fairy-tale esque view of dragons as giant monsters that live for centuries and grow only slowly. By that standard, it makes sense that Spike could be a "baby dragon" for many years, even if he's more like a kid than a human infant.

The later seasons do introduce humanized teen dragons, but you shouldn't treat later season worldbuilding as part of the original vision for the show. By season 1 standards, Spike being a "baby dragon" makes perfect sense.

Edited by storyyeller on Apr 20th 2024 at 12:38:28 PM

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Yeah, Garble being Smolder's brother was definitely a soap opera twist. Same for "My brother is marrying my babysitter?? Oh yeah, I have a brother!", really.

Agreed, that's how I interpreted it too. And I'd honestly much rather have that kind of baby dragon than Sparky.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 20th 2024 at 8:37:01 PM

Optimism is a duty.

Overlooking the biological age question (which has enough evidence/arguments either way it comes down to what the writers want).

Consider the age gap between Big Mac and Cheerilee/Marble Pie, which is uncontroversially small. The latter two are around the same age as the Mane Six, who were children/teens when Mac was a teen/young adult respectively, I'd put that at about 5 years. This could work with the maturity they're portrayed (low and high end for teens), but the M6's age when Spike hatched puts the time at closer to 10... I'll give Word of God on character ages if we continue this discussion.

For now it comes down to:

• When are dragons sexually mature? (A topic too removed from anything the show's willing to touch upon for a canon answer.)
• Can the crush last until they're old enough for age gap to no longer be an issue? ("Dragon Dropped" is evidences against and the finale where many other ships were confirmed/hinted suggests not.)

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Apr 20th 2024 at 3:12:14 AM

Even Cheerilee's own age is kinda weird since she's apparently close in age with Rarity as a pony, but the human counterpart on Equestria Girls is still an adult teacher despite Rarity being a teenager.

We should disregard Equestria Girls for ages, as those are all distorted to fit the school setting, and says nothing about their relative ages on the main show.

Optimism is a duty.

I disagree. Maybe if he was portrayed as a baby it'd make sense and hold up but he doesn't. Say what you will about Sparky and how G5 being related to FiM has its own issues, he at least actually acts like you'd expect a baby dragon to. Spike being a baby makes no logical sense and the one thing season one, later seasons, and G5 all have in common is that dragons are long lived so even if we take the idea that dragons are meant to age slowly Spike still should've acted more like a baby than the (pre)teen he's usually portrayed as.

Granted time in FiM is hard to measure in general but Spike's age specifically is weird in and of itself.

Yeah, Spike doesn't add like a toddler but like a ten-year-old boy. And that's rather consistent (and adds up to the fact that Twilight hatched him when she was a child), so I think whenever he's referred to as a "baby" may actually be just a figure of speech.

Edited by Snicka on Apr 21st 2024 at 9:29:33 PM

Here's the Word of God on the matter:

• Lauran Faust: Spike is 8 in maturity, Mane 6 are young adults but 12-18 in maturity.
• Jim Miller: M6 are 17-21 and CMC 8-10, 7-10 Spike is at least 7-10 years younger than Twilight in "pony years", Spike wings up him to pre-teen, Sparity is difficult not impossible
• EG ages: Timber Spruce was 16 in "Legend of Everfree" and 1.5 years younger than human Twilight, the EG Girls are about 17 (this was stated by the specials which are 1 and 2 years after that).

So the EG ages do correlate, ponies apparently just take adult responsibilities sooner, but personality wise it's still close.

Given this data, any way to add it up to get a workably small age gap?

Admittedly I do buy the Mane 6 acting a bit more like teens in their young adult years (you don't just mature right away; in fact our brains don't even reach full maturity until we're twenty-five). Still, I don't think all that would stop Spike and Rarity at least getting weird side-eyes if they ever got together.

A workably small age gap? No. This is and remains a relationship that just cannot happen.

Optimism is a duty.

So, given these numbers specifically, the minimum potential age gap Spike and Rarity is about seven years, with specific potential age ranges being 7 and 17, 10 and 17, 11 and 21, 14 and 21, and thereabouts. That about right? Because that does not really strike me as "difficult not impossible", I'm going to be honest here.

It's not just the age gap, it's the maturity level. My parents were 10 years apart when they married, but they were both adults (and adults 60 years ago, at that) when they married, and then suddenly such age gaps matter a lot less. A decade apart is nothing for adults, but it is everything once children and teens get involved. Especially when preteens are involved.

Optimism is a duty.

If it comes down to maturity level as opposed to ages (which the show is inconsistent about), consider.

While the writers state he's the same age tier as the CMC, he's functionally a maturity tier above that given he has a full-time job as Twilight's assistant and it's demands (realized this discrepancy explains why Spike's focus episodes oft had him OOC inept), thus he comes off at lower-end of teen to Rarity's higher-end which seems workable.

Yes later developments discredited that (M6 upping maturity tiers before Spike solidifying the problematic gap), but that would explain why it seemed viable enough early on it remains though inertia if nothing else.