Headscratchers / My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic Season 2 Episodes 14 To 26

2.14 The Last Roundup

• In the beginning of the episode, Applejack's hind hoof hits the hurdle when she jumps it. Why didn't she think to correct this error? This could've very well been the reason why she lost the rodeo.
• So was the money to repair the town hall needed because Derpy trashed it, or was it already in terrible condition, which is why it fell apart even though she just bumped into it?
  • Hard to say really, but considering that AJ had already pledged prize money for repairs, the town hall was probably already in bad shape. Either way, Derpy did not help matters.
  • I think Rainbow Dash implies at the beginning that Derpy is the one who caused the initial damage in the first place. What we see on screen is just her making it even worse.
  • It's doubtful that Derpy was responsible for all of that, or even most of it. If she were, the consequences for her would probably have been much more severe than Rainbow Dash telling her to be more careful, and Applejack would have been unlikely to pledge to pay for the repairs unless Derpy was a very good friend of her, which is not the case from everything we've seen. More likely, the town hall had simply fallen into disrepair over time, and maybe Derpy crashed into it, causing its disrepair to become evident.
    • I dunno. "Applebuck Season", "Boast Busters", "The Best Night Ever", "Lesson Zero", and "Secret of my Excess" all contain examples of Equestrians causing major property damage or putting dozens of lives at risk, and facing no repercussions, or ones so minor they might as well not exist; it doesn't seem as though ponies get punished for their actions unless they're performed from actual malicious intent. Granted, there were mitigating factors in each instance, but Derpy's "special needs" status seems as least as good as any other. I kind of doubt they'd hammer Derpy with any severe penalty. As for why AJ would offer to pay for the damages, this is Poneyville's most helpful citizen we're discussing. Pledging the winnings from the rodeo, a windfall amount that she might not have already had earmarked for the farm, to help her community, seems pretty in line with her character to me.
  • If Derpy had been the original cause of the damage, I doubt they'd let her hang around the hall and cause even more damage. (Remember that AJ had apparently pledged her winnings to fix Town Hall before the episode took place, suggesting that Town Hall was already in need of repair at that time.) I say the whole thing had fallen into disrepair from termites or whatever, and Derpy just made things slightly worse.
  • Word of God is that she was responsible. As the writer originally wrote it, she (named Ditzy Doo at that point in the wirting) was supposed to have wrecked it while Bolt Bucking, getting careless and making the mistake of doing it too close to the town center, and mistaking Rainbow Dash's warnings as praise when they were rendered unintelligible by the noise of the thunder and lightning. The flashback was cut for time, as the Applejack storyline was more important.
• Where was Spike when all this was happening? Wouldn't he want to go look for one of his closest friends?
  • He might have still been sore at Twilight for being used as a file cabinet/bulletin board in "Baby Cakes."
    • Or he's taking care of Fluttershy's animals like he did in Dragonshy
    • He was in Canterlot on official business.
    • He was taking another seven hour bubblebath.
• There was no runner-up prize money in any of the events Applejack placed in? Isn't there usually a smaller purse for those who place? And hardly anyone at the rodeo remembered the pony who had placed in so many event?
  • It looked to me like they remembered her, but didn't know where she went afterward, which seems reasonable.
  • Repairs of the magnitude the Town Hall needed can cost upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even if Applejack did earn some consolation prizes, and even if it would cost less than what it would in real life, she probably still didn't have enough.
  • Why not send a "Staying here. Will send more money later. Here's some of it now. Bye."
    • The other ponies assumed that she had won all of the blue ribbons, and thus would be able to send all of the money at once. If she only sent some of the money it would seem like even more of a slap in the face to her family and friends, on top of her not returning to Ponyville.
    • Changing the wording of the telegraph doesn't change the fact that, from the perspective of her friends and family, Applejack abandoned her home with no explanation. They'd still be worried and probably still look for her regardless. Keeping the letter vague just ensures that Applejack doesn't have to either lie to everyone she knows or admit that she was (in her own mind) a failure.
  • For the first question, it may have been a winner-takes-all competition. For the second, the Canterlot rodeo seems to be much higher up in scale and rank than the Ponyville rodeos. A big star in Ponyville and its immediate areas like Applejack would be a nobody by comparison at the Canterlot rodeo. In addition, the ones asked about Applejack at the rodeo are all workers, not spectators. They would most likely be somewhere backstage or inside the structures during the competition except for the clowns, who would only go out when the competitors are not. Either way, they are required to work, not watch. They shouldn't be expected to recognize any of the performers.
• So Rainbow Dash has the word "guns" in her vocabulary. Does that mean firearms are now canon?
  • Given how Pinkie actually owns a large scale firearm in the shape of the Party Cannon, I imagine so, yes. Though trying to fit small arms around hooves would be difficult, so maybe only Artillery Guns exist.
  • WMG: Every firearm/weapon mentioned is actually "party" firearm in the genre of Pinkie's Party Cannon. So there are Party Guns, Party Tanks, Party Bullets, maybe a few Party Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, etc.. They're all perfectly harmless and are only used for throwing parties.
• When Dash competed in the Best Young Flyer Competition, the mane 6 attended and cheered her on. But when Applejack competes in a rodeo... her friends and family don't come along to watch?
  • Apple Bloom is easily explained; she was needed at the farm along with the rest of the Apples. As for the others, it's probably as simple as Applejack telling them didn't need to come because either 1. they were busy with other things or 2. the rodeo tickets were expensive. We known from her wish to make money at the Gala that the family doesn't always have enough money. This might also be part of why she was ashamed to have not won a money prize.
  • Two theories: Theory A. Maybe the Rodeo was on a weekday (assuming the Flyers competition was on a weekend) so the Mane cast needed to work. Of course, this doesn't explain why Pinkie, with her rather lax work ethic couldn't come. Theory B: Applejack identified the chaos that happened at the Young Flyers Competition was a result of the Mane Cast being about and politely asked them to stay at home to avoid a repeat performance. Bit out of character, admittedly, but the idea kind of amuses me.
  • I like this one better: the girls went to the Best Young Flier's competition because Rarity told them how much Rainbow Dash needed their support. She saw through Rainbow's bravado and knew that her friend needed the emotional support to actually get out and perform. Applejack, conversely, did NOT need the extra rooting. She was sure of herself, the others knew it, and while it would've been nice to go, they figured Applejack was in good shape and would come back with her hooves full of rewards.
  • It appears that Canterlot is a bit further away from Ponyville than Cloudsdale is, and the rodeo event was implied to take place over the course of several days, as many real-life rodeos are. The rest of the Mane Cast may not have been able to take that much time off.
    • Okay, but what about her friends? Not only did they have enough to go to Canterlot, but they also had enough to go to Dodge as well. Considering that it was an emergency matter, well, Applejack disappeared and they probably pulled out their savings for their friend.
    • It could also be that the show tickets were a lot more expensive than the train tickets.
  • In addition to that, it also seems that the rodeo probably wasn't quite as big a deal as the Best Young Fliers competition was. The latter is apparently a big enough deal that the uber-popular Wonderbolts and Celestia herself are in attendance, whereas it's never implied that the rodeo is such a big event. As far as we know, the rodeo is just one of several similar competitions (and given that AJ has won in previous rodeos, this would seem to be the case), and as such there's less reason for everyone to come along. To put it in modern perspective, the BYF competition is analogous to a huge, nationally televised championship game in a popular sport, whereas the rodeo is something more along the lines of a regional championship, or a championship in a less popular sport (like billiards or something) that might have a decent sized amount of prize money, but isn't nearly as popular as the BYF. And as noted, Rainbow Dash needs the moral support a lot more than Applejack does.
  • I thought it was implied that the rodeo was much more like the play offs in real life sports. She had to go to several different towns on her journey and we only catch up with her where she finally stopped. Rainbow Dash by contrast was invited straight into the Finals or whatever the equivalent is, the point being that hers was a one day event and Apple Jack was gone for at least a couple of weeks if not longer.
• So Derpy's cutie mark is bubbles, but she's a mailpony? What's with her cutie mark, then? I know that her being a mailpony (who likes muffins) is basically something that the fandom leaped onto, but do we have an in-universe reason?
  • You just answered your own question. her being a mailpony is entirely a fan-made thing, just like her addiction to muffins. If you want some kind of connection between being a mailpony and bubbles: bubblewrap. Besides, it's not like your cutie mark is explicitly indicative of your proffesion, else Rarity would be a jewler, Fluttershy would be an entomologist, and Twilight would be an astronomer.
    • Agreed that a cutie mark doesn't necessarily determine a pony's profession. A high majority of the ponies we've seen work based on their talents, and why wouldn't they? It's their talent and they wish to see it put to good use. It's more about choice than it is destiny, and there are bound to be some ponies who prefer to work in other professions, like Pinkie Pie who has a talent for parties but works in a cake store (which can be used for things other than parties), and Rainbow Dash whose talent is speed, and while she applies it in her work, her main job is weather management. However, the literal interpretation of the symbols of the cutie marks is off.
• Why couldn't Twilight and the others have figured out that Applejack didn't win at any event of the competition? Why couldn't they put the facts together to come to some conclusion on why Applejack decided to not return? With the way that Applejack was acting quite cold towards her own friends and keeping a tight lip on things, it should clue in to the girls why she's acting like that.
  • Twilight and the others didn't see winning second and third place as bad things, they didn't think that Applejack would be so upset at getting those ranks. In fact, they were actually excited to learn that Applejack got second and third place in many events. They probably assumed that Applejack was leaving over a much bigger issue.
    • It felt like this was an Idiot Ball necessary for the premise to stretch the 21 minutes needed. Not that it's a bad thing though. That, and bear in mind that the primary intended audience is little girls. It has to be obvious what's going on for them too.
    • Would you expect a generally levelheaded person IRL to run away from home because they got second or third place in a competition?
• If AJ had enough money to offer the stage coach ponies double to outrun her friends, then quadruple to counter Twilight's offer of triple, then why was she worried about returning home empty-hoofed? It seems like Miss Jubilee must pay her cherry orchard workers really well for one week of work!.
  • AJ wasn't acting rationally. Clearly, at that point she'd rather spend more money than she has than letting the others find out why she didn't want to come back home.
  • We don't know how expensive the carriage fare was. it could have just been a couple bits.
• The entire chase sequence. How is a horse-drawn carriage faster than a regular, unburdened horse? Rainbow Dash can fly faster than she can run, yet she stays on the ground. A properly motivated Pinkie Pie can run faster than Rainbow Dash can fly, yet she sits in the cart. Why didn't Twilight just magic one of the wheels off AJ's cart, or make hers go faster like in Winter Wrap Up? Heck, Rarity could have even used her "Oh boooys!" line on the carriage ponies.
  • RD can't carry the cart and fly at the same time, and neither can Fluttershy, for that matter, for all that her speed is comparable to Rainbow Dash's. They couldn't even jump the train using their wings until they lost the weight of Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Team Friendship all wanted to catch up to AJ, not just one of them. Knocking the wheels off the other carriage risks Applejack and the horses pulling it, and they already tried bribing the horses to stop.
    • I'd say Rule of Funny. As we have seen several times, a pegasus can fly while pulling a loaded vehicle, even stopping it in mid air (Feeling Pinkie Keen provides two good examples).
  • The reason for Applejack's carriage is simple: as soon as she tries to run on her own, it takes Rainbow Dash only a couple seconds to pin her down. She couldn't do that while Applejack was in a vehicle pulled by four other ponies.
• Applejack jumps the gun by trying to cross the tracks before the train gets there. There aren't many repercussions for her taking this great risk, never mind endangering four other pony lives into the bargain, so I've got two fridge logic moments:
  • Call me a Moral Guardian, but isn't this a bit of a bad thing to show on kid's TV? Crossing a train track is within their everyday experience, or at least will be when they learn to drive, and AJ is certainly the sort of character they could look at as a role model. It seems to be mitigated by the carriage ponies chewing her out for it, but still, a semi-comedic line doesn't seem like much of a punishment.
    • If you are old enough to learn to drive, and you still think that it's a good idea to race trains because of something you saw on a kid's show, you should not be driving. Also, where are today's teens supposed to get a horse-drawn carriage?
    • Presuming that last comment was an attempt at Comically Missing the Point, the fact is that people have tried crossing train tracks while the barrier is down, and some of them have been killed doing it. While it's not likely they'd be inspired to do it by watching one scene from a kid's TV show about fantasy ponies, and I'm not saying remove the scene, that action deserves a bit more than a "Lady, you're trouble," and something more like "What the hay, lady?"
    • Oooooor, the point could have been 'acting irrationally causes more problems'. We already know Applejack wasn't being rational at this point- she thought leaving EVERYTHING she knew behind to go earn money would somehow be better than a simple 'I didn't make the cut' admission. She was already panicking beyond reason, and acting even further past that. It wouldn't be hard to imagine that the point of this scene was to show that acting irrationally won't solve your problems (much less running away from them, metaphorically or physically), and can possibly endanger people around you- even complete strangers. Lesson Zero, anyone?
  • Why didn't the four carriage ponies just dig in their hooves and stop? It's just as much their fault as AJ's, and they seemed to have plenty of time to slow down.
    • They figured they could make it. And they did.
    • They looked pretty nervous about it (unlike AJ, who looked gleeful at the thought of getting across in time), and chewed out AJ for making them do it. If they were that bothered, they could have stopped. Yet they didn't.
    • They were part of a high speed chase. Higher speed = longer stopping distance, meaning they might not have been able to stop before hitting/getting hit by the train anyway, so in this stressful situation they decided to go with what AJ said. Was it unwise? Yes, but so are most decisions made during stress.

2.15 The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000

• While I'm aware that this borders on a Hard Truth Aesop, it needs to be asked. It's established that not enough cider is made each day to serve all of the desiring customers. It's also established that Sweet Apple Acres needs its cider money to fund its way through the winter, which is one reason why they decided not to partner with the Flim Flam Bros. Isn't the solution obvious from a basic business perspective? Raise the price. Demand decreases to match supply and you have more earnings that can keep your orchard afloat.
  • The Apples never said they had any problems with the income their cider generates as of now; merely that they have a limited supply of their very popular product. Some customers were disappointed that they didn't get their share, but not to the point were they'd do more than grumble. In fact, they seem perfectly willing to start lining up for miles the next day just to increase their chances of getting a cup. There'd be no reason to deliberately drive some away, especially considering that the family depends on repeat business. Besides, the Apples are all straightforward ponies; they'd see such a tactic as dishonest and reject it out of hand.
  • The cider sales are what keep them afloat during the Winter. It's not supposed to make them a profit, so increasing the price would not be a suitable solution.
• Or, from a more benevolent business standpoint, shouldn't Applejack have learned one potentially valuable lesson from this whole ordeal? Aside from how the whole competition was a massive risk for her and did nothing but benefit the Bros. (if nothing else, she just gave them a field's worth of apples for free) and she should have refused to take part from the get-go, shouldn't she have learned that maybe Sweet Apple Acres would benefit from more employees? She could get enough manpower to increase supply to meet demand, and if they really do have enough apples to spare before they go bad, the increase in sales could easily pay the wages with no other lost costs.
  • Applejack boasted that she learned nothing at all from the events of the episode. She takes a lot of pride in what she does and how she does it to the point of illogical behavior through stubbornness.
• I get that Sweet Apple Acres is a family farm, and for the most part they can get by just fine with Granny Smith, Big Macintosh, and Applejack (and to an extent, Apple Bloom) doing all the work, but seeing how ridiculously busy Cider Season is, wouldn't it be a good idea to hire one or two temporary workers just for that time? Equestria doesn't seem to have high unemployment rates (lucky...) but surely they could find a couple ponies willing to do a little extra work for a few bits? Shoot, even if they got their friends to pitch in for a few hours for free (they seem to have a lot of free time on their hooves) they could probably get a LOT done. Even though it appears the farm and family do sometimes struggle for money, if they hired one or two extra ponies they would profit in the long run because of all the extra cider they would make.
  • Sweet Apple Acres is more than a business: it's an Apple family tradition. Letting in outsiders, aside from very good friends, would likely be seen as a violation of their values. It's not really logical, but that's the way these things go with close-knit families.
    • There should be an episode focusing on non-Apples working at the farm. Maybe a "sometimes, traditions need to change" lesson, perhaps.
    • That leaves the mule in Applebuck Season unexplained.
    • The mule wasn't working, though. He seemed to just be hanging out there for some reason.
• I can't help but feel that if the Flim Flam brothers had been even remotely fair or realistic with their partnership offer, or had been willing to negotiate the profit split, then it would've resulted in a mutually-agreeable business relationship. If they'd offered, say, 50/50, or even something in favor of the Apples since they're the ones growing and supplying the apples to make the product, then everyone would've made a profit, everyone would've gotten the high-quality cider (since it's implied that the cider the machine makes is just as good while the quality control is on), and everyone would've been happy.
  • Even a 50/50 split would be disadvantageous for the Apples because they still have to cover the overhead of operating a large orchard while the Flim Flam brothers only provide their cider machine. Unless the partnership produced enough cider to serve multiple times the normal amount of customers, the only ones who'd turn a profit from a partnership are the brothers. Besides, the Apples were still dubious about the quality of the machine's work compared to their homemade product (which we can only assume would be inferior even if the brothers didn't ignore quality for quantity). Either way, it'd leave them dependent on the work of the Flim Flam bros. for their financial futures; a very large amount of trust demanded considering that they just met.
  • How do we know that 50/50 would be disadvantageous? We just know that 75/25 in the twins favor would mean they lose money. And even assuming they make less per-sale on 50/50 than they would going solo, they'd also be making exponentially more sales. If the brothers had just considered negotiating a business deal that would be mutually beneficial (and really, as long as the twins get a percentage at all they'd benefit since it doesn't cost them a dime to run the machine), the Apples probably would've considered listening. They might not have come to an agreement immediately, but they lost any chance at one by threatening to drive them out of business because they weren't willing to take a deal that would also drive them out of business.
    • They probably could have negotiated something, but the Flim Flam Brothers were obviously looking to get rich quick and weren't interested in an equitable solution. You can't come to a reasonable deal when one of the parties is being deliberately dishonest.
    • Actually, I'm not so sure that a 75/25 split would result in them losing money in the long run. If you recall the beginning of the competition, the SSCS6K was able to fill six barrels of cider by the time the Apple family was finished with one. So even though they'd only be making 25% of their normal profit for each glass of cider they sell, they'd also be making six times as many sales (assuming they sold all of the cider they produced, and considering the town's massive cider demand, who's to say they wouldn't?). 25% x 6 = 150%. The end result is that they'd be making 1.5x as much as they usually do.
    • That's not how businesses work. Profit = Revenue - Expenses. What the Apples would be getting is 25% of the revenue, not the profit, or Profit = (Revenue * .25) - Expenses. In this scenario it would be likely that they wouldn't cover their expenses and their profit on every sale would be negative. Thus, by selling more they would actually be losing more money.
    • While that's correct, their expenses are pretty much 0. (Or if you prefer, a flat number based on the cost to maintain the farm and family through winter.) Nothing the machine does actually costs money to run except maintenance, which would be on the brothers. Basically, any money that goes into their pockets from cider sales is raw profit. If they had access to a device that makes six times as much product but only .25 times as much money per sale, and their expenses didn't scale at all with revenue, which it doesn't... Well, the math's already been done two bullets above this. At a 50/50 split, however, which is a much more fair deal, they triple their sales income, (50% X 6 = 300%) but their expenses still aren't directly related to how much product they move, so their expenses are still not very high. If their expenses scaled with sales, then they'd definitely lose money, but they don't, so they don't.
    • Hum... but... they didn't got the apples for free, so their expenses are not "0".
    • They didn't get the apples for free, no, but since their business is already an apple orchard, they already HAVE the apples, because they normally just sell them raw. It's product they're not going to move otherwise, since it's implied that the apples are going bad soon. Every cost associated with making cider is NOT one that scales as you make more, so as long as they make significantly more sales - and they would if they had taken the initial offer - they would've made more money in the long run.
    • But they don't have an unlimited amount of apples, so the long run might not be long enough to ensure profit. Furthermore, even if they would make a profit, the split just wasn't fair. The Apple family would be doing all the work maintaining the farm, growing the apples and harvesting them. Furthermore, even though they already have the apple trees, the farm still has a lot of expenses. They may have to purchase fertilizer, and of course, there's maintenance of the barn, fences, signs, tools, they have to buy things like barrels, and more. Not to mention they need enough money left over to support a family of four. Big Apple Acres is more than just the orchard, they have a lot more to support. And as seem in the episode, the Flim Flam brothers cared only about profit, not quality or integrity. Would you really want to work with someponies like them?
    • As stated a few times, the expenses from running and maintaining the farm, and feeding the family, are all expenses they make already, regardless of whether they make cider. The initial idea was that if the brothers had offered something that was more enticing (like a relatively-reasonable 50/50, since they're bringing unprecedented technology they literally can't get anywhere else to the table), then they probably would've been able to discuss a real business relationship with the Apples, instead of sparking an immediate feud. As for integrity, of COURSE nopony would want to work with them if they knew the brothers for more than 30 seconds. They're jerks, but if they HADN'T been jerks, they would've offered some a split that's not insulting, and could've made something great happen. Quality, though, is a different story. Until they "cheat" at the competition, their cider is implied to actually be delicious. Granny Smith drinks some and clearly looks worried that they actually have an equal product. They very clearly put great care into making sure their machine turns out a quality product consistently. They only stopped caring about quality because they started panicking about potential loss, and they probably figured losing would've made them look even worse than having an undrinkable product.
  • The Flim-Flam Brothers certainly had to pay money to do what they're doing too: They either had to purchase the machine or, if they built the machine themselves, had to at least purchase the raw materials needed to make the machine. The alternative would be that they stole the machine, though they wouldn't have been at pitching themselves for as long as they have if they did (and it's hinted that Flim and Flam have been trying to secure business deals for some time). They wanted to recoup the money spent to own that machine, and they wanted to do it as quickly as possible.
  • They could have been expecting the Apples to haggle the deal down. Therefore they didn't want the initial split to be reasonable, because then when it was haggled down, they'd end up worse off. They made the 75/25 offer, knowing full well that it was unreasonable, because then once the haggling was over, the end result would be reasonable. Also, they state that they plan to split the profits - in other words, what's left over after dealing with the cost of production.
• When she was speeding up the cider making, why didn't Twilight simply harvest the entire field's worth of apples with magic? We've seen her do it before in Applebuck Season, and if she had done this then they'd been able to put more energy into the quality control and juicing.
  • Because they'd hit a bottleneck with Granny Smith and Rarity inspecting the fruits and the mill only capable of juicing so many at a time. Better to split the crew among the various tasks according to their talents for better overall efficiency at all four steps than to attempt to focus on the sheer volume of one part of the process.
  • We don't know how magic works exactly. It's possible that certain spells can only be performed under certain conditions. For instance, maybe in Applebuck Season Twilight had to spend a couple hours preparing the mega-apple-picking spell before she could actually use it. If so, then such a spell would be worthless in a timed competition like this.
  • Alternately, it was just more efficient for Twilight to be helping with the tallying and the barrel moving. You don't always put the best pony on the job, especially if that pony would make the operation faster elsewhere.
• You know, the bet between the brothers and the Apples was only over the "exclusive cider-making rights in Ponyville." It wasn't over Sweet Apple Acres itself. The brothers themselves said two or three times in the episode that they don't have any apples themselves, and every time they demonstrate the use of the machine they have to borrow apples from the Apple family. Couldn't the Apples just sell the apples to the brothers? You know, the apples they need to make any money whatsoever? It would cost them much more to have them shipped from somewhere else, and it's cheaper to buy apples from them than buy their entire farm. The Apples might actually wind up selling their entire field's worth of apples and not have to have any left over they can't sell before they go bad.
  • They said they relied heavily on the cider sales to get through the winter. If they sold the apples directly to someone else instead of making cider, they probably wouldn't make as much money.
• They make a big deal about how important the traditional method of making the Cider is, but considering the demand for the cider, any moment they're selling the stuff is time they're not making it. Why doesn't the Apple family subcontract the selling of the Cider? They already do that with Zap Apple jam, why don't they ask, say, Filthy Rich to be their middle-man while they produce the stuff during the day so they can attempt to meet demand?
  • I was wondering that myself. However, it's mentioned that the family relies heavily on cider sales to get through the winter. If they sold it to a middle-man, they'd be getting a smaller portion of the profit.
    • But they can't make money on products they don't have. I was suggesting they concentrate on making as much product as possible and get someone else to sell it.
    • Selling cider directly from the source not only allows them to set their own prices, it gets ponies to come directly to the farm and familiarize themselves with the Apple family. Doing so ensures repeat business and allows them to move other apple products while the crowds are still there. They can combine advertisement, seasonal product selling, regular products sold, and the full portion of the profits all by cutting out the middle man. Of course we don't see any additional products sold, but it would be a perfect opportunity.
    • Well, rather than sell it to a middle man, why not spend all of their time making the cider while trusted, responsible family friends like the Mane 6 work the stand. Make the cider within eyesight of the stand, interact with the customers during breaks, but also make more product, thus sell more product, get a better profit, and don't leave anywhere near as many dissatisfied customers, so the Flim Flam Brothers can't get the entire town behind them. In fact, if they got the whole gang to help work the stand, they could run 5 lines at a time while they have enough stock, thus shortening the lines so even if you get turned away you haven't wasted as much of your day waiting on it. Or if they prefer, have the trusted family friends do the cider making while the family works the counter. Either way, they make a LOT more product, without losing any of that family business feel.
    • If this is the first cider season after "Applebuck Season" it might not have occurred to the Apples. There's nothing to say that they won't get the Mane 6 to help out in future cider seasons, now that they trust them and have seen the difference their help makes.
    • The problem with having the Mane 6 help is that they already have jobs. Even if they're willing to help, they may well be too busy next year or the year after that.
    • Yes, but this time they'll know it's coming and be able to plan accordingly.
• Flim and Flam's names are probably supposed to indicate their nature, but…how? They're certainly not nice, but they're not dishonest either. Their machine works exactly as they claim it does, and until they press that button, nothing indicates their cider is of lesser quality. Granny Smith tries some of it, and her reaction suggests that it is indeed as good as her family's, though she's not about to say so. Even when the brothers do put quantity over quality, they're perfectly willing to lower the price of the cider, if only to get ponies to buy it. So while they're definitely ruthless and callous towards the Apple family, what evidence is there that they're actually cheating anyone?
  • They could buy the apples, they could offer an actually fair deal to the apple orchard they join businesses with, they could sell/lend their machine, they could start their own orchard...but no, they simply go from town to town, offering a ridiculously one-sided deal that's almost certain to shut down the business they get the apples from. They don't want to invest a cent beside their machine, and as far as we know, their challenge might be a clever trick they pull on all the orchards they come across. Instead of starting from the beginning, they made their machine and tried to take over another business with it, take it as you will, but I doubt that's standard business in Equestria.
  • Their behavior prior to making the challenge and their deliberate outline of its specifics, in which they stand to lose far less than the Apples, suggests that the whole thing was planned from the beginning. Just look at what happened: they showed up right after the Apples had exhausted their cider supply, then they started offering to sell their cider made with Sweet Apples. When AJ objected, they started insulting the family's pride and offered a contest that they outlined the rules for (in which they risk nothing, but the Apples give up their vitally needed cider business), goading them until they not only accepted, but freely gave them the raw materials that they tried to "deal" for earilier. The whole thing was a ploy to drive the Apples out of business and let them take over. The Bros. might not have directly lied about anything, but that doesn't change the fact that they're dishonest about their intentions and running a scam.
• I found it kind of hard to believe that the Apple family has such a hard time getting through the winter when just a few episodes ago it was obvious they made a bunch of money selling Zap Apple products. Exactly how much time are we supposed to believe passed between that episode and this one? Also, if the cider is such an imperative part of their income, shouldn't the Apple family spend the whole season making it? As in, Applejack should not have left for that rodeo if the cider actually is a surefire way to make money?
  • I think this episode has shown that the Ponyville Apples seem to have demonstrably poor business sense. They let themselves be taken for suckers, they don't plan out their cider season better, they don't hire any type of help for this crucial time of year.
  • Well Granny Smith is senile and Applejack and Big Macintosh are in their early twenties at most, with no formal business education. It's made clear that they have two big products (Zap Apples and Cider) that come once a year, but as mentioned above they're too concerned with honesty and community relations to really make a killing on these products. The rest of the year they seem to struggle somewhat, and they seem to have quite extensive overheads. It’s possible that Sweet Apple Acres donates money to other Apple family ventures too, and in the name of entrepreneurship Applejack keeps their financial situation very close to the line so that their money isn’t just sitting around wasted.
  • And considering the fact that these episodes are supposed to be watchable in any order, and the fact that there are no references to the previous one, who's to say that this episode took place after "The Last Roundup"?
• I can't help wondering just how cutie marks work in the context of this episode. The Flim Flam Brothers have apple cutie marks, but wouldn't they have cutie marks that suggested their true nature better? After all, based on the quality of their machine they would have decided to be inventors first (and that's not getting into them deciding to be swindlers).
  • I frequently think that Equestria is a safer place than reality, since a hypothetical John Wayne Gacy Pony couldn't hide in plain sight because it's cutie mark would serve as a warning.
  • ...Safer place? With a forest of death next door? With the Spirit of Chaos? With baby unicorns getting bursts of magic? With the Windigos ready to freeze any loner or hater?
    • True, but you can identify a serial killer from across the room because their cutie mark... isn't.
    • Nup. Generally cutie marks are more abstract - see Cheerilee's, Twilight Sparkle's, Rarity's, Lyra Heartstrings's, etc. etc. It makes sense when the pony explains it, but it is usually not obvious. So, for example, Gacy? He'd have a clown Cutie Mark. Reflected in most peoples creation of a Dexter Pony, who has a splatter of blood for a cutie mark - which means both his work as a blood splatter analyst and his...hobbies. Incidentally, that clown cutie mark? Perfect for attracting young fillies and colts......
  • We don't know enough about the Flim Flam brothers to say for sure, but there are a number of possibilities. It's possible that cider-making itself is their talent, (most likely, judging by their cutie marks) and they made a machine for it later on to improve efficiency. And as we've seen before, a pony can have many talents. Fluttershy can sew, Applejack is good at sports, and so on. They may be good at swindling and building machines, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's their "special talent" that they get a cutie mark for.
    • The mere possession of a cider-mobile doesn't mean they built it. I suspect they got their cutie mark as apple salesmen, and in the course of their apple selling business encountered an inventor, and used their talent to take advantage of his.
  • They might have originally been farmers, and got themselves kicked out for dishonesty.
  • Or, the cutie mark is fake? They were selling apple cider, so something related to apples would have people think they're honest.
  • They're bad apples.
  • When you put their cutie marks together, they make a whole apple. It means they work well together. They just use their particular talents(special and otherwise) for swindling instead of good.
• Was that the whole town? So there's not a single adult pony in Ponyville who doesn't like cider?
• If cider was in deficit, why was Pinkie allowed to buy a whole armful of mugs? Wheter it was done intentionally or not, the whole setting strongly reminds me of the memetic Soviet-era beer lines, and believe me, if somepony'd tried to hog the beer like this, they would've been explained the wrongs of their way swiftly and painfully. Even taking the Sugar Bowl into account, shouldn't there've been an outrage from the line?
  • I think the best and only answer here is that Ponyville simply isn't Soviet Russia. The ponies are all forgiving, friendly, and closely knit. Even the bitterest ponies seem more likely to mope to themselves than actually start a confrontation.
    • Hogging cider is distinctly unfriendly, so by the transitive property so is helping someone hog it.
  • In addition, if this was a more cynical universe, Pinkie would be in the perfect position to scalp cider.
  • Pinkie Pie was the first pony to get cider. It's possible that, at the beginning, they overestimated the amount of cider that would be available, and thus they saw no reason to ration it.
    • Except they do it every year. They run out of cider every year, and they sell too much to Pinkie Pie every year. If they haven't realized the pattern now, then the Apple family is significantly stupider than we've been giving them credit for.
  • Pinkie was so enthusiastic about the cider that nopony wanted to tell her that she couldn't have her fill. (She was the very first in line, after all. In fact she's apparently always the first in line, every year, because she loves cider that much.)
  • There's also the fact that even though it's kind of jerkish move, Pinkie isn't doing anything explicitly wrong by buying a lot of cider. There's no rule that says she can't have as much cider as she wants as long as she pays for it. It's not very considerate, but outside of that there's no rule that says she shouldn't be allowed to buy more.
• Moreover. They know how much cider they've got, why the heck don't they announce it, so that everypony knows for sure whether or not they'd get any and not waste time?
  • I'm sure they don't know exactly how many mugs they'll be able to make ahead of time. Especially taking into account ponies like Pinkie, who buy more than one.
• Given how much cider they were able to make in 45 minutes (granted they were speeding up production tremendously), why don't the Apples alternate the selling days? One day is set to making as much cider they can and the next sell it. That way they could stockpile a large amount and not run out and risk alienating their customers.
  • Because then ponies like Rainbow Dash would get really impatient during the non-cider days.
  • The cider wouldn't be as fresh if they waited a whole day before selling it.
    • Particularly if they don't use preservatives. Which, as far as we've seen, they don't.
• The Flim Flam Brothers call Canterlot a "kingdom", but I was under the impression that the kingdom is Equestria (ruled by Celestia & Luna and all), and Canterlot is its capital.
  • Alliteration demands sacrifices.
  • And Equestria is a Principality since it is ruled by a princess. A kingdom is ruled by a king.
    • Thank God it's not a country.
• Flim and Flam WON. Not just the contest, but the whole situation came up in their favor. They'd taken control of Sweet Apple Acres and were in a perfect position to sell their high quality cider. The only reason that the situation turned out okay was because they believed that no one wanted their product, based on the reactions of those who received the cider that hadn't been under quality control. They were aware that they'd turned off the quality-control, and otherwise appear to be rather intelligent ponies, so why would they arrive at this conclusion?
  • It would appear to be a moment of fridge logic: Why on earth would two reasonably intelligent businessponies give the worst cider to the first customers? Then the switch is made to Fridge Brilliance when you realize that, since the barrels were stacked, all the good stuff was at the bottom.
  • The cider might not have been the issue so much as how pissed off the townsfolk were at that point. They were probably already upset (to some degree or another) by the brothers' cruel treatment of the Apple family on their way out, and that the two were willing to sell them crappy cider at all put the nail in the coffin. Flim and Flam likely figured that pushing the citizens any further would result in an angry mob, and that the only feasible option was to get the hell out of Dodge.
  • Flim and Flam didn't seem to be aware that they were giving out bad-quality cider. They didn't even seem to realize that speeding up the machine would screw up its quality. To them, the disapproval of the bad cider was equivalent to disapproval of their entire batch.
• As somepony already mentioned, the bet between the brothers and the Apples was only over the "exclusive cider-making rights in Ponyville." It wasn't over Sweet Apple Acres itself. So after the Apples lose the contest, why does everybody act as if they lost Sweet Apple Acres to the Flim Flam brothers as well? Granted, losing the right to make cider would have put the Apples in difficult financial papers, but they wouldn't go bankrupt instantly, would they? Heck, the apples the Flim Flam brothers would need to make cider for Ponyville would still be property of the Apple family.
  • I haven't seen the episode lately, but I'm pretty sure what happened Apple Bloom opened her big mouth and changed the terms midway through the contest, or just before it.
  • They just decided to cut their losses. They knew they'd have to give up the farm eventually, they just decided to do it while it could still be sold for a reasonable price, before it fell into disrepair because they couldn't afford maintenance.
• A minor one, but: when queuing for cider the first time, Fluttershy buys the last mug of cider and Rainbow doesn't get any. Fluttershy is the world's biggest doormat; Rainbow is the poster-pony for being inconsiderate of others' needs if they get in the way of her own, and she really wanted that cider. How did Fluttershy stay ahead of her in the queue for all that time? Rainbow was so desperate for cider she ate the dirt it fell on, but at no point did she think to go "Hey, Fluttershy, let me go ahead of you in the queue, I'm dying here!"
  • Well... for some reason, Rainbow Dash went way out of her way to make sure Fluttershy also got some cider. From the beginning she could have easily gone to the farm to get it first, but instead made a detour to wake up Fluttershy, and not only that, but she made sure that both of them got there at the same AND gave Fluttershy dibs. It would have been weird to see Rainbow Dash demanding cider from Fluttershy after that.
  • Throughout the scene, you see Fluttershy trying to speak, but she never gets to say more than "I don't mind..." before being cut off. I assumed she was about to offer some to Rainbow Dash, but couldn't get a word in edgeways.
• I think there's another aspect of this plot that hasn't been touched here. It's a bit subtle, but I think it makes a family unfriendly aesop when you think about it. At first it might seem like Granny Smith was an idiot for accepting the bet; she could just have said no and basically lost nothing (I have hard time believing that the townspeople would have thought any less of her or the Apples in general.) However, that wasn't actually the reason for accepting the bet. The real reason was so that no competing cider business would form in Ponyville. In other words, Granny Smith didn't want competitors on their market, ie. she wanted to keep the cider monopoly. The episode somehow paints this as a good thing, even though competition is usually beneficial for the customers (because the competing businesses will try to win customers by increasing quality and decreasing prices, which benefits the customers) while monopolies are generally bad for the customers. Competition is precisely what keeps monopolies in check. This episode seems to paint a picture that competition in the market is actually an undesirable thing.
  • It looks as though the Flim-Flam Brothers were intending on taking over Sweet Apple Acres. That is, they wanted a monopoly over Ponyville cider as well. The idea of competition seemed to have bypassed both parties. That being said, Ponyville seems to be a small town where everybody knows each other. In such an environment, a local monopoly tends to not only exist, but is enforced due to hostility towards outsiders (and Flim and Flam fit the bill perfectly). The events of this episode is basically the equivalent of the owner of the only general store in a small town getting challenged by Wal•Mart: It would provide healthy competition, but it would provoke some fiery xenophobia. This mindset is deeply ingrained into American culture, particularly rural people (and Ponyville is pretty rural), hence the positive portrayal of such behavior.
    • That's a pretty bad example. It's not just about xenophobia in that situation - the local general store simply would not be able to compete with the massive nation-wide chain, eventually forcing the smaller store out of business and once again, there's a monopoly problem.
• Wouldn't it have been more beneficial for the Flim-Flam Brothers to sell their machine to the Apple Family? One can reasonably assume that at least one of them knows how the machine works for maintenance purposes, and thus they can build another machine. Granny Smith realized the cider it produces is good, so having one of these machines around would let them produce enough good cider for everyone, and then some. (I would guess that someone in Ponyville would be smart enough to tweak the machine to make their recipe's cider — Apple Bloom has been shown to be really good at building things, so if they have to pick someone from the Apple Family, she'd fit the bill.) Meanwhile, the Flim-Flam Brothers could stand to make more money by selling these machines across the land than taking their one machine and unsuccessfully challenging apple farm owners over ownership duels, and they could be called over for repairs. The things I can think of about why this wouldn't be successful is that Granny Smith may feel the price of the machine will not allow them to make it through the winter (even if it makes six times as much cider as before, even if it's all sold, it may not be enough to pay back the amount paid for the machine) or if she doesn't trust the machine; or the Flim-Flam Brothers are convinced they can make more in the long run taking over someone else's farm than selling the machines. If it's the former, they can just try again somewhere else, and if it's the latter, they brought the problem in on themselves.
  • What makes you think the Flim Flam Brothers would even want to sell their machine? From the sound of things, the brothers probably wanted some sort of monopoly on cider making, which would be hard to do if everyone is able to make quality apple cider.
• If Applejack didn't learn anything, why is she even writing the letter? Because...
  "From this day forth, I'd like you all to report to me your findings on the magic of friendship, when, and only when, you happen to discover them."
  • Probably just to brag and reaffirm about knowing a lesson she already knew of.
• The story is focused on apple cider. ....... this would be the AMERICAN version of cider, because in the United Kingdom, apple cider is alcoholic! On wonders how the subtext of this episode would be received over there, especially if it results in hilarious bonuses!
  • Maybe, but cider needs time to ferment and the Apples and the Flim-Flam brothers were selling their cider the same day it was made, so it really couldn't have been hard cider (which, incidentally, certainly does exist in the United States).
  • Except that Berry Punch (Who, in fanon, is an alcoholic and in the actual show just likes to drink things) is the one who the camera focuses on when Flam says that "It's the same in every town. Thirsty throats, dry tongues, and not a drop of cider to be found." Her face is one of complete shock (about 5:10) to realize that there not just no cider in Ponyville, but since other towns are in cantering distance, maybe no cider ANYWHERE. There is nowhere for her to get her drink on, and she needs it... whether it's hard cider or not. Besides, we don't know if they add anything between the giant grindstone and the tap when they're making it in the competition, it'd be hidden behind the wheel, or within the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. If you look at Cheerilee's face after she drinks, she's definitely got a "I'm having a wonderful time with this cider" face at about 3:00.
    • Unlikely. Alcohol is never going to make an appearance in a kids' show. What magic substance would they be adding to the cider to transform it into hard cider, anyway? You can't just mix fresh cider and grain alcohol and call it hard cider.
    • Equestrian apples could conceivably have some natural alcohol content once ripe. That's straying into WMG territory, though; more likely we're just looking at an example of Frothy Mugs of Water.
  • For the record, unfiltered, unfermented apple juice would be called "apple must" in Europe.
• Alright, Granny Smith makes a foolish bet because she got called a chicken. If the Apple family lose their cider-selling rights they won't have the money to keep the farm during the winter. That's fine. That's a series of logical events. But by the time the contest has been lost literally everypony involved has made the bizarre mental leap that the bet was actually for ownership of the farm! The FlimFlam brothers talk about renaming Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack talks about packing up and getting out, and none of the Mane Six seem to realise the error. Yes, you might have to sell the farm eventually, but you don't have instantly hand it over to the FlimFlam brothers! That was never part of the deal!
  • Everypony also missed another important point in their eagerness to escalate the episode's conflict: the bet only involved the right to sell cider. The only source of apples in the region is Sweet Apple Acres. You might not be able to sell your own cider while the FlimFlam brothers are around, but you can just refuse to sell them the apples they need to make it until they go out of business and move on instead!
    • That wouldn't work. The brothers said that they could simply get their apples from elsewhere. They only needed the south field for the competition, because you can't have a race within one hour if one of the contestants is rushing off to the next county for apples.
    • Or do what any smart enterprise with a monopoly over resources would do: jack up the prices for their competitors. If the brothers keep buying Sweet Apple Acres' wares, then there's no need for the Apple family do produce the cider anymore to sustain themselves during the winter, and if they don't then they leave town and the Apples get back to making cider. Of course, this isn't strictly an "honest" way to do business, but it could've happened...
  • Applejack mentioned that cider sales is what keeps them afloat through winter. They lose the cider business, they essentially go bankrupt and have to end up losing the farm anyway. Perhaps they decided it would be best to cut their losses, take what they have, and use it to start up business elsewhere rather than have their funds slowly deplete until they can't even move somewhere else.
  • They didn't have rights to the farmhouses or any further apples, or even would have known that the Apples probably would sell them apples in the future — they were just being cruel and rubbing their victory in, and misjudging the crowd terribly when doing so.
  • Maybe the part where Granny Smith said (paraphrased), "If we win, I never wanna see either of you in Ponyville again!" it extended to if the Apples lost as well?
• Apple supplies. TLDR version: Where did the brothers get the apples for the cider batch on their second visit to Ponyville?
  • Expanded version: On their second visit to Ponyville, the brothers have a barrel taken off them by Applejack. Applejack insists that they can't sell the cider because it's made from Apple family apples (main four members, or all the apple family?). The brothers then say that they can simply get more apples elsewhere in Equestria and come back with more cider. If there's another orchard they can get to outside of Ponyville, how could Applejack know that the cider was produced from Apple family apples (i.e. from Sweet Apple Acres)? If Applejack means all Apple family members rather than just the four, how can she speak on behalf of absent family members with their own orchards, and if she can then doesn't that make it awkward for the brothers? They'd have no supplier, so they couldn't stay in Ponyville and their promise to bring more cider is an empty bluff. I am assuming that the Apple family are the only suppliers of apples, but given how extensive the family is and how no other suppliers have been shown to exist I see that as a fair assumption. Even if it wasn't, I still see some logical problems in this dialogue however I interpret it.
    • The most likely answer is that the initial barrel was made from the main four members' apples, and the brothers' claim to be able to get their own supply *was* an empty bluff. All part of their ploy to pressure the Apple Family into taking their bet.
• What the hell were the Flim Flam Brothers thinking treating potential suppliers like horseapples? I can genuinely see them taking a cut in Quality Control for more barrels if they were panicked and gunning for numbers, but you never make the product about ego. It's on par with Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat levels of ineptitude.
  • Seems to be the point. They were Con Artists first, business ponies second. All they cared about was making a quick buck and their actual business sense was zero to none. Even if they'd actually kept Sweet Apple Acres, they'd probably have had zero idea how to run the thing.
    • They'd probably just pick all the apples clean then sell the valuable farmland to someone else and head off with all the profits.
• Applejack, I know Sweet Apple Acres is family owned, but please hire some help if you can't meet demands year after year, or at least impose some simple rationing like "One mug to a customer."
  • Considering how big the Apple family is, they could very well bring more of them to the farm to keep it family owned!
    • They have their own farms to run. We've been over this.
  • The Apples could probably make more cider per day if they wanted to, as pulled off in the competition, and it's not an issue of the apples selling better than cider as raw material and labor saved, so maybe they're specifically trying not to meet demand and stagger out supply in order to keep cider a commodity? That's valid, right?
    • Applejack said they were trying their best, so probably not. They only managed to make so much cider by literally working themselves to exhaustion and more than doubling their labor force.
  • When it comes down to it, the Apples seem to have a VERY poor hand in customer relations and business sense. Even if hiring extra hands is out of the question, there are a number of solutions that wouldn't cost them any extra money to implement, nor impact profts. They could impose product-per-customer limits, put a delay on sales to make sure they have enough to satisfy all of their customers, or at the very least impose a "waiting list" for the ponies in line who didn't get to buy cider on any given day.
    • Or they could just raise the price. It's simple supply and demand. If there is more demand then supply raise the price until the demand willing to pay equals the supply. Welcome to economics.
• Why didn't Dash just camp out for the second day? Okay, I know she's pretty impatient but given how bad she wanted some cider, you'd think even she could wait. Or hell, maybe even ask Applejack if she could spend the night at her place if she didn't want to sleep out side.
  • When she came to the campout in the evening, she found a bunch of ponies already set up in front of her. If the Flim Flam brothers hadn't showed up, she'd have started camping out again at noon.
  • Or ask Applejack to keep a mug reserved for her.
    • An orchard owner giving special treatment to the weather team manager? No way that could have any nasty effects on both of their reputations. Especially not from the hundreds of other ponies who have to wait in line for hours without getting a drop.
  • If she REALLY wanted a mug of cider, she shouldn't have wasted time waking Fluttershy up, or should have used the Sonic Rainboom. Even if she wasn't first in line, a Mach 10 shockwave doesn't leave much evidence...
  • Well, she is one of the weather ponies for Ponyville. So maybe she had to work the next morning to make sure there were no clouds for the lines of people who would be waiting in line.
• The brothers seem to think there's not more to an apple orchard than harvesting and selling. They would have come back and begged the Apple family to take care of Sweet Apple Acres eventually.
  • Considering their characters, they'd probably be more likely to ditch the farm when they used up all the crop and move onto the next town.
• If the Flim Flam Brothers are, as described in their song, "world famous", what are they world famous for if their reputation as con artists does not precede them?
  • They're lying.
    • Given the rural nature of Ponyville and all, they may be playing on the fact that its citizens wouldn't have any way to confirm if the brothers were world-famous and all, to boast more about themselves.
  • Stage and musical actors?
  • Perhaps it's a spin on the truth. They're world-famous, but what they really mean is that they're known widely for being slimey businessmen.
• People seem to be labelling the Flim Flam Bros, and they seem to be portrayed, as con artists. But watch the episode again - what makes them con artists? They never cheated during the competition. They never sabotaged the Apple family's efforts. When offering the business partnership, they never tried to intimidate or strongarm the Apples - when their offer was declined, they simply decided to take them on as business competitors. They played everything fairly and by the rules, both during the actual competition and otherwise. And as far as the "selling an inferior product" style of con artistry goes, they only started doing that when the pressure of the competition forced them to forego quality control in order to make up numbers - before then, there was no indication that their cider was any worse than the Apples', or even that it was bad at all. So what exactly is it that makes Flim and Flam con artists?
  • This is a fan thing rather than an in-universe thing: they're never referred to as such in the actual episode.
  • They're more accurately slimy businessmen, given that they tried to foist a crappy deal on the Apples, tried to run a longstanding family business out of town, and they were willing to let quality control slip to meet the demand of the contest (something the Apples refused to do). But between their song parody of The Music Man (which depicts a pair of con men) and the fact that very few people noticed Granny Smith drinking (let alone liking) their cider making people think the even the quality stuff was crap, and the fact that "con artist" roll off the tongue easier, I think the term was originally misused and it more or less stuck.
  • If anything, they suit the "artist" part of "con artist" to a tee - they've got their act down pat, know exactly how to work the crowd, and the like. One can argue that they knew watch strings to pull to make the Apples agree to the contest as well. The only difference is that, before abandoning quality control, they actually had a product to sell as opposed to snake oil as most cons do.
  • Well, they razzle dazzled the crowd. Their names are Flim-Flam, and they wanted 75% of the Apple Orchard profits with the Apples doing 99% of the work and the brothers only doing the magic for the machine. There's a certain amount of con involved in turning an entire town's positive feeling for their beloved farmers into negative.
  • Unless they invented, built or financed their machine themselves. If they did that then they'll have done a fair share of the work, just as upfront investment rather than continuing labor. It would still be a really unfair deal but because the profit spit is unfair not the division of labor.
  • Interesting: perhaps they didn't invent, build or finance the machine at all. Maybe they won it in a game of cards (by cheating, of course).
  • They don't have to lie or cheat to be con artists: many of the most effective cons involve telling the exact truth, but simply preying on the pride or greed of the mark. That's what happens here (and it's coincidentally why Applejack, who's learned to swallow her pride before, is obviously unhappy about Granny Smith jumping on the bet). They're con artists because they tricked the Apple Family into a deal where the Flim Flam Brothers couldn't lose and the Apples had to give them something. In fact, the con is very elegantly tuned toward such a thing. Even if the Brothers had lost at normal speed, they'd have still have made a boatload of cider from free apple stock, all tucked away in a high-speed vehicle. And it's not like the Ponyville sales market was important to them, as you can see from how fast they leave. The only reason they lost in this particular case is their confidence and greed got ahead of them: they underestimated the townsponies' like of the Apple Clan (and presumably of the Apple Clan's influence outside of Ponyville), and when they thought they were only going to lose by a little, they weren't willing to let the Apples win.
  • This troper is on the fence about it. They didn't do anything dishonest throughout the whole episode, and there comeuppance comes from making a very understandable mistake (panicking under pressure and deciding to get the job done as quickly as possible). For me, they stop being sympathetic when they express a haughty attitude about the whole thing, and while I certainly don't consider them villains or even really that bad from what were shown of them, the fact is their hearts just weren't in the right place, and they let their egos get the better of them.
  • There is one bit of dishonesty in it, the Flim Flam Brothers can only make Cider faster than the Apple Family, since they don't have their own apple supply, in the end, they can't make more, even if that's what they seem to promise.
• Why does Rainbow Dash tear up the last time the cider runs out on her? The barrel is empty, but the next shot shows it wasn't the last barrel.
  • I didn't notice until just now. Maybe she didn't either and just assumed that the world was about to screw her over once again?
• At the end of the contest, Twilight collapses sweating and panting into the dirt next to Applejack (Get your mind out of the gutter). But....why? For the duration of the contest, she pulled a "You work, I'll supervise" and spent the whole forty-five minutes watching the barrels and keeping track of ratios. What, exactly, got her so exhausted? Did she forget to warm up her eye muscles?
  • She was moving the barrels.
    • She was doing that too, yes, but she didn't seem to be paying them much attention. Or any attention at all, actually. She had to dig her hooves into the dirt and grit her teeth to lift the water tower in Boast Busters, but here she just puts on a "whatever" face and absorbs herself in her checklist.
  • She had been holding her breath in the last tense minute of the competition. Stress could account for any sweat.
• The brothers didn't pay the Apple Family for the apples they used and the trees they destroyed with their machine, escaping after committing property damage. They could have been arrested.
• This is just a quip but Applejack says they won't stoop to cheating in order to win but says this in response to Rainbow Dash wanting to cut out the QC process. I wouldn't call lowering the quality of your product 'cheating', exactly. Maybe it's cheating yourself and your standards but it doesn't really have any bearing on the rules of the contest. Just seemed like the wrong thing to say or imply to me.
  • It's cheating because the implied terms of the contest were to make as much of your cider as you can; ditching the quality means it's not the cider they promised to make. The brothers' breaking that implied rule is one of the things that turns Ponyville against them, whether the citizens realized that's what the brothers had done or not.
• Why hasn't Pinkie Pie heard the word "nonpareil" before? Since she works in a bakery, she should know that nonpareils are a type of cake decoration. Possible explanations:
  • She's only ever heard the cake decoration called "sprinkles" rather than "nonpareils".
  • She's only ever heard of nonpareils as a cake decoration, and was confused by the Flim-Flam Brothers using it with the original meaning of "unparalleled". However, if this was the case, she would have been more likely to make a Sidetracked by the Analogy joke about it.
  • Who's to say she hasn't? She's enough of a cloudcuckoolander that even if she'd heard the word used a time or two before (and I agree that even pony bakers might well be content to call them "sprinkles" unless they want to be really technical about it and/or sound fancy), it could have simply slipped her mind.

2.16 Read It And Weep

• Why doesn't Rainbow Dash sneak into Twilight's library and steal her copy of the book? She wouldn't have to deal with so many guards and have a way easier time breaking in.
  • Dash is too worried that Twilight might find out that she enjoys an "egghead" hobby to risk going directly to her home. Sure, it'd be easier, but RD's pride has always been able to override her logic.
  • Perhaps she'd rather rob an establishment that she had no personal connection to, than her friend.
  • Because RD has no idea where Twilight would keep her copy. Considering her disdain for reading, it would be hard for her to find a specific book no matter how well organized the library is.
  • Because that isn't loyal.
    • Well, the Elements of Harmony was under "E" and Pikie found it in 10 seconds flat. I would guess Twilight would keep Derring Do under "D".
• How the hay do the hospital ponies keep up with Rainbow Dash? She's shown that she can easily outrun all the ponies in Ponyville except Applejack and Pinkie Pie. They should be falling further and further behind.
  • Well, the pain from her wings could had crippled her running speed, and the one time we really saw her run against someone else was during a marathon, this was a sprint. Ponies also tends to demonstrate greater physical abilities when pushed, having a thief break into your establishment, especially after a patient claimed he was robbed sure seems like a great way to push the medical staff and a security guard... and an insane patient, apparently.
    • Indeed. Fall Weather Friends has already established that most of Dash's speed comes from her wings. Since she still needed to keep off her wing for the duration of the chase, she wouldn't have been any faster than an earth pony.
    • But that's just it: In that race she repeatedly demonstrated that she could go from way behind the pack to way in front of it, even without her wings. The only pony who could actually keep up with her was Applejack.
    • Doesn't stop her from still feeling pain from her crippled wing, though. Ever felt that stab in the ribs while running?
    • And she was just released from the hospital. She probably wasn't 100% recovered.
• How did Daring Do escape the strips of whatever it was that tied her down? She turned back the spiked walls and the quicksand by hitting the lever with her hat, but how did she rip through the ropes that were so strong a second ago? Lazy writing on the author's part?
  • Maybe the spikes tore up the rope a bit so she could break it?
  • Maybe the ropes were for some reason linked to the lever as well?
  • That's what worried you about that scene? What about the fact that the snakes and spiders simply vanish as soon as she gets her hat off, or even that they didn't bite her once despite crawling all over her for minutes on end? To answer the original question though, it could be that the bonds were weakened by her struggling, and only got weak enough to break at that point. Had she not stopped the trap beforehand, it would have been too late for her.
  • Remember - all of the Daring Do scenes are taking place in Dash's head, so they're not really bound by things like "logic" and "continuity". At any given moment, what goes on in Dash's head isn't an exact reproduction of what's written in the book (which likely is better at continuity), but a fantasy that simply uses the text as a good jumping-off point. These fantasies need to be consistent with neither the text, nor each other, so long as they keep Dash happy and excited.
• How did Dash get to her house, in the SKY, if she has to keep off her wing for at least a week? She tries to fly during the chase, and it definitely gives the impression that it really hurt her to even try. Did Fluttershy just carry her to and from her house until she could fly on her own?
  • We don't see her at her house until the end of the episode. It's possible she stayed on the ground until the theft ordeal was over.
    • On the other hand, though, she did finish the book in her bed, and given how excited she was about it, she probably didn't wait for a week to finish it. I assume that either Fluttershy helped her or that Twilight used teleport or that RD borrowed the hot air balloon. Or maybe Tank carried her.
    • That or maybe gliding downwards doesn't use as much energy as flying and therefore doesn't hurt as much.
    • But then there's still the matter of how she got UP there.
    • Why would she have to get down before the week was over? As I said above, before the attempted theft she probably stayed on the ground, and afterwards (considering the giant bookpile next to the bed) she most likely had everything she needed to stay home. As for getting everything there, Fluttershy and Twilight probably helped her.
  • Most likely used some kind of balloon or machine. When people in real life get injured, there are methods of helping them get around. In a world where there's a species that mainly uses flight to get around, they probably have various methods of getting around injured ponies. There are various flying mechanisms in the series that are all possible.
  • Or perhaps Fluttershy or some other pegasus constructed a stairway out of clouds for her.
  • She borrowed one of Pinkie's flying machines.
  • Emergency Pegasus Ladder.
  • It's logical to assume that there is some standard way to let earthbound ponies access a flying pegasus city if they have some business in there. One can surmise Rainbow Dash simply used that method, whatever that was.
    • The twinkle balloon, maybe? It's what they used to get to Cloudsdale earlier.
  • The comics answer this; in the Rainbow Dash Micro-Series comic, she injures her wings and her house is shown to be anchored to the ground.
• Is there a reason Rainbow Dash had to read the entire book out loud? If it was for our purposes, couldn't they have done it in a voice-over? And since she was reading out loud? Why didn't the rest of the mane six hear her before they even got into the room?
  • Same reason she and every other pony announces their thoughts out loud when they're alone: Rule of Perception.
  • She isn't used to reading, so it's very VERY probable that she didn't even realize she was reading out loud.
  • Or she's just the type of pony who reads aloud to herself when she really gets into a book.
    • This is a series aimed at children. It's an unwritten rule to have someone say everything out loud when reading something because most of the little kids watching this show will either be beginning readers or completely illiterate. This seems to apply even when the text is not shown onscreen.
• So the stallion who took RD's bed after she left the hospital, the one who thought she was stealing his slippers; was he supposed to be a cancer patient? I can't help but notice that his mane had fallen out (as though due to the effects of chemotherapy), and he seems to grimace in pain even in his sleep.
  • I just assumed that he had some catastrophic accident that broke numerous bones, not anything like cancer. I mean he was in a full body cast, they probably had to shave his mane to properly treat his wounds.
  • No no, not the purple one she was roommates with; the yellow stallion who was put in her former bed after she had been discharged.
  • Maybe it's just a minor lacerations and the hospital stuff had to shave his head to threat it properly? Alternatively he’s just a guy who likes this kind of hairstyle. We’ve seen ponies with mustache and long beards so a blad pony wouldn’t be that out of place.
  • You can see some slight shading where his mane was indicating stuble, which doesn't happen when hair falls out from Chemo (at least not unless it starts to regrow after ending treatment), so shaving is much more likely, also if it was something causing the hair to fall out, it would almost certinitly affect his coat as well, not just his mane.
    • He seems to be in good enough condition to toss a lamp with enough force to hit the wall on the other side of the room.
  • The pain could be from an achey leg or something. I doubt cancer exists in MLP. As other users have pointed out, shaving seems more likely than chemotherapy. As for grimacing in his sleep, maybe he was having a nightmare.
• So did Rainbow Dash stay up for three days? she stayed up all night reading then the following night trying to steal a copy and then reading in her own house.
  • Rainbow Dash naps a lot. It's possible that after getting ahold of her stealth suit, she spent the rest of the day relaxing in preparation for her raid.
• So is Rainbow Dash going to just go without sleep untill she's finished the series? she started reading the second book right away....even though she siad she wanted to finish the first one so she could get some sleep
  • For the first one-two books - probably. Then the initial rush should've toned down.
• Why does Rarity wear her false eyelashes for bed? We see them on when she's waken up by the chase.
  • So she can always look her best no matter the circumstances.
• Why couldn't Rainbow Dash just ask the nurses if she can find her book?
  • Same reason she couldn't ask Twilight for the book. Pride.
• What exactly is stopping RD from just, y'know, leaving the hospital? She's clearly an adult (or at-least has all the rights associated with one). Is there different ruling concerning a patient's right to deny treatment (of the physical kind, at-least), that stops her friends from saying, "Uh, Dash, you know you can leave whenever you want, right? Its not like you need your parent's permission – just sign the paperwork and you can be on your way."?
  • Perhaps she did want to get treated? As was the sensible thing to do? She might not be too happy about it, but she understood that it was necessary.
    • She made it blatantly clear that she wanted to leave regardless of whether it would have helped her recovery. "(Talking to her friends) "You guys have got to get me outta here! I'm gonna climb the walls!" And all she was seen doing was lying down, which is made needlessly complicated when she could just do so at her own home, at her own leisure, and at where she's not on the verge going stir-crazy.
    • She was in full panic mode when she says that. She likely accepted it after becoming more calmer. And hospital treatment is for hospitals, not their own homes.
• In the night-chase scene, why did Rainbow Dash stop in the edge of the river when she was being pursued as if she couldn't jump it? She can fly! In fact she could have perfectly flown home with the book once she was out from the hospital.
  • Her injured wing was still recovering. During the chase scene she does use her wings and ends up in pain due to her lousy wing.
• When Twilight gives Dash the Daring Do book in the hospital she tells her it's the first in the series. At the end of the ep, however, when Twilight gives Rainbow the book from her own shelf, it is the third along from the left. Twilight says "this is the first story in the series." Surely it should have been on the far left?
  • Twilight's books were for some reason in the wrong order.
    • We've seen Spike as being the one who reorganizes the shelves... maybe he got lazy?
  • The two other books on the left may have been reference encyclopedias for the series and Twilight chose to put them there before the first book.
  • The two other books were prequels and Twilight meant "first published" when she gave the book to Rainbow as opposed to "first chronologically" (like how The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first published Narnia book and The Magician's Nephew was the first chronologically).
  • They weren't Daring Do books.
  • They are awful, awful prequels. Twilight wants to spare Rainbow the horror.
  • Maybe the library has multiple copies of the book. It's quite common for a library to have more than one copy of a popular book.
  • Or the entire bookcase is devoted to adventure stories and the first two books on the shelf are by a different author.
  • The real reason, of course, is that it's more compositionally interesting to have the book be sandwiched between others than be at the very end when Twilight pulls it out.
• Why didn't Rainbow Dash just go see Zecora about her wing?
  • Why would she, Zecora knows some magic that others don't but she can't fix everything.
• "With the Sapphire Statue secured, the world was safe once again." Uh, from what? The book never mentioned any danger about Ahuizotl having the statue. Does it have some sort of mystical power that we're never told about? Judging by the title of the next book, it looks like we'll never find out.
  • A bad case of Show Within a Show Lost in Medias Res, although Ahuizotl does mention using it to Take Over the World.
  • Apparently, Dash read the entire book up to the last chapter in one setting, it's very likely we didn't see the entire book because there wasn't time.
    • Or she started in halfway intending to half-ass a read, since she seemed confused as to where Ahuizotl came from initially.
  • My theory is that those two books before are prequels, but they were filled with spoilers for the later books and would have spoiled future stories for Rainbow Dash. That or the first two books didn't have much in them that would be interesting to Rainbow, so Twilight picked a more action-filled one.
  • The impression I got is that the Statue is irrelevant. Ahuizotl says "With Daring Do out of the way, the world will suffer mightily at my hands." It's the fact that he thinks he's gotten rid of Daring Do that he is celebrating, not the fact that he has the Statue. The narration: "...with Ahuizotl defeated, and the Sapphire Statue secured..." also implies that his defeat is what has made the world safe. If the Statue was the more prominent concern, it should have been mentioned first.
    • Which all leads to one conclusion: Hasbro needs to hire people to actually write the books and settle these debates.
• Why would a mental patient pony be in the same hospital as ponies with injuries?
  • It's a small town hospital, they might not have a separate mental institution. Besides they can have different wards.
• Also, do hospitals usually employ security guards? Then again, seeing how they seem to have a mental ward which is, as seen above, Fridge Logic in its own right...
  • As at least one episode from any medical drama will teach you there is stuff worth stealing in a hospital, add the rather public nature of any hospital building, the possibility of children about and the need for security guards arises.
  • This Brony works as a security guard and I can assure you that we do have officers who work at the hospitals.
• Doesn't Pinkie Pie live at Sugarcube Corner? The house she was sleeping in during Dash's chase scene doesn't look anything like it. Does that mean this episode takes place shortly after Spike's rampage?
  • It's never stated where she lives before, and it's more been said she WORKS for the Cakes and they see her like a daughter. Otherwise why would they ask her to be a permanent babysitter in Baby Cakes if she was living with them?
  • Party of One explicitly shows she lives above Sugarcube Corners. The Cakes don't want her to be their permanent babysitter because they don't trust her, which is what the friendship report in Baby Cakes was about.
  • Word of God says that Pinkie does live at Sugarcube Corner, so either A) she's staying with a random pony (Derpy, maybe?) while her home gets rebuilt, B) She moved out so the Cakes could use her old room for the foals, or C) The animators forgot or for whatever reason couldn't fit the Sugarcube Corner model into the scene.
    • She may have been at a sleepover or late night party there, as well.
    • The whole "looks like a giant dessert" thing Sugar Cube Corner has could be a facade, or a "False Front." Such a technique was commonly used in more olden times to make a store look bigger and more impressive. It's still used today, but to a much lesser degree. It's easy to see this used when watching a western, and the stores and buildings have those large fronts, but small backsides.
  • In any case, she's back at SCC and her room is intact as of "A Friend in Deed".
• The Hospital staff and their security guard proceed to hunt Rainbow out of the hospital's premises and through the entire city, all by themselves. Are they... even allowed to do this?
  • Apparently so. And all over a pair of slippers.
• Why would ponies need hospital gowns (outside of Rule of Funny)?
  • A bedridden pony wouldn't be able to easily take a bath if their coat got dirty (for example, from a mishap with the hospital food), so the hospital gowns are a cheap and easily-replaced cover to block dirt and such.
  • All for the sake of Rarity's line about the gowns matching the curtains.
• Why did Rainbow Dash have to stay in the hospital to begin with? I mean, she had to go there to have her wing dressed, but if all she needed after that was bed rest, couldn't she do that at home?
  • She lives in the clouds. Transportation would likely be difficult.
  • Then couldn't she have gone to a friend's house?
  • If she stays at the hospital, she's more likely to receive better care, and they may want to keep her there for further observation.
  • She seems to spend her entire stay lying/sitting on her back. Wouldn't walking around with her four intact limbs be better than putting weight on the broken wing?
    • I agree here. Are pegasi wings sensitive to the point where there would be increased pain when a pony walks? Her legs are all fine, so I can't see why they can't just put medication on it inside a cast and let her walk freely.
    • She seemed pretty beat up in other respects too. Might have been some sprains and bruises that needed to heal up.
    • But then again, sprains and bruises can easily heal at home. And again, this troper just asked his mother about that part. Normally when you have broken something, you would spend the rest at home, because it would cost too much money. But then again, perhaps Equestria has a good health care system.
    • This Troper figured that they didn't want to give Dash the temptation of flying and messing up the healing of her wing. With such a stubborn mare, it's probably better to keep a closer eye on her than other injured ponies.
• How could Rainbow Dash 'never lose' in what is basically Battleship? You can only strategize so much in that game, and luck of the draw would dictate she would lose a game eventually.
  • Not giving away hints as to the locations of your ships and being able to see them in others would also accounts. Rainbow has show several times to be able to pick up on traits in the others, something that would certainly help in such a game. That and she might just be very lucky at it.
  • Either that, or she cheats.
  • Given that Fluttershy's entire reason for bringing the game was that she knows how much Rainbow Dash likes to win, maybe her friends always throw the game for her sake.
  • Or, she's surprised at how easily Rainbow Dash hates to lose, and knows that under normal circumstances, she would be far more aggressive and demand a rematch.
• Rainbow frets that enjoying reading makes her an 'egghead' — but she was reading a light-hearted adventure story, nothing that requires serious scholarship. Is the point of the story "Reading is for everyone, but the cool kids stick to fun stuff that isn't too far from what they already know and like"?
  • Which is more likely, trying to convince someone who doesn't read to read the works of Shakespeare, or convincing them that reading can actually be fun by convincing them to read an easy to read adventure story? The point is more likely "The right book for the right person."
  • Besides, who is to say that Dash can't one day consider more challenging literature? At least she is reading now and that's a start.
  • Daring Do could very well be Dash's Gateway Series in fact.
  • Rainbow's problem was that she thought any kind of reading was for eggheads. She probably still thinks the kinds of books Twilight reads are for eggheads. But at least she can enjoy the kinds of books that appeal to her.
  • My theory out here is this; I think that Rainbow Dash is Dyslectic. Given the reason why she reads her stories out loud. I think that she had tried to read when she was in school, back in Cloudsdale, but she didn't catch on. Fast forward to the date of the episode, she had enough of reading, plus the terrors of the bullying that endured still ring in her mind.
    • Jossed. Rainbow is capable of reading without having to speak it aloud, as shown in "A Friend In Need" when she's at the library, and again in "Wonderbolts Academy" when she reads a letter sent to her without uttering a word.
• This might just be one of mine, but I would have thought that Rainbow would have been more worried about Twilight being smug about her coming back and admitting "well, yeah, reading is okay," as opposed being terrified by the very idea of liking it. Seems more in character for the both of them, but maybe I'm just reading in-between lines that aren't there.
  • No, that's pretty much on the mark, and the first interpretation I made of events. After all, her immediate response to the egghead realisation wasn't to try to surpress her urge to read (presumably through jock-ish activities and saying "not an egghead" over and over); it was a harebrained attempt to regain the book so she could read it without having to go to Twilight.
• Why do all the hospital nurses have the same Cutie Mark?
  • Because all their special talent is nursing.
  • Clones.
• So the patient in the hospital thought Rainbow Dash wanted to steal his slippers. But why would any pony have slippers in the first place? They are never shown wearing shoes, except as accessories. How would they even put a slipper on a hoof?
  • The slippers are standard, in case there's a wound in their hoof that gets exacerbated. You'd put them on the same way you would the standard type of slipper, by sliding one's hoof into it.
  • Yeah, "sliding one's hoof into it" is where I see the problem. Hoof's anatomy makes it impossible for human-style slippers not to immediately fall off. They'd need to be strapped to the leg, or otherwise clasping tightly around the hoof, kinda defeating the whole idea of a slipper.
  • Maybe they were slippers for dragons or griffons or some other species with actual feet. He's keeping them at his side because he's very paranoid that someone will steal his rare heirloom slippers while he's at the hospital.
• Rainbow is released from the hospital with the strict warning that she shouldn't use her wing for a week thereafter. In fact, she accidentally uses it during the break-in, complete with a sickening "snap" noise. And yet, the next morning, she's shown in her house - which is in the clouds, implying it was well enough to let her fly up there? If anything, that snap would imply it'd be worse than it was before.

2.17 Hearts and Hooves Day

• Why would Twilight's book include the recipe for the dangerous love potion? I understand it was history and all, but it's incredibly irresponsible to just leave instructions for a potion capable of driving those who ingest it into a love-fueled madness lying around. Especially considering that it was simple enough for a group of fillies to construct without much effort.
  • The writer operated on the assumption that reading enough of the passage to see the results would prevent anyone from doing so. Oops.
  • Also, the love potion's effects aren't too hard to counteract; keeping the affected ponies from making eye contact for an hour wouldn't be too hard, if not for the fact that Big Mac was one of the affected ponies. I think the real question is, why couldn't the prince and princess in the original story be separated?
    • They may have taken a while to figure out how to stop the spell.
  • It could be a matter of recording things, as magic study to figure out how different things interact with each other in potions. Similar to real life science. If the effects of a dangerous potion are already recorded, some experimenting pony won't try to mix the ingredients together because they would already know what would happen. (and it wouldn't be that hard for a pony to eventually try and mix those things, considering there were only 3 ingredients and they were relatively easy to come by) There are probably a ton of potentially dangerous potions and spells.
  • If it was indeed a magic study book it was possibly from Canterlot school library (restricted section?), or some other place your average bored unicorn couldn't access easily.
  • As was pointed out elsewhere, the ingredients are around each other all the time in the Cloudsdale weather factory, and possible other places. The love poison is probably well known as a dangerous industrial byproduct to most adult ponies. The writers of that book wouldn't be concerned about people using the recipe because it wouldn't occur to them that they have to warn someone about drinking toxic waste.
  • Magic seems to be studied, experimented, recorded, and quantified the way science is like in the real world. If something has very dangerous consequences, it's all the more reason to leave a written record so future researchers wold know what would happen and history does not repeat itself. You could easily look up how to build an atom bomb or synthesize Agent Orange, for instance, but would you really want to knowing what happened when people of the past tried it?
• How is Big Mac supposed to pay for a precious diamond ring on what is essentially an impulse purchase, when his entire family can't seem to keep the farm maintained due to lack of finances?
  • Credit?
    • Sweet Apple Acres would give the family plenty of collateral for buying something on credit.
  • Weren't gemstones incredibly common in Equestria, and hence relatively cheap?
  • I'm sure that Big Mac does earn money from the share of the profits generated from Sweet Apple Acres. He doesn't seem to have any expenses or extravagant hobbies so he probably has quite a bit of money saved up. Maybe not enough to support the entire farm through the winter as mentioned in "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000," but more than enough to put at least a down payment on an engagement ring.
  • On that note, how is having a diamond ring for a pony plausible? Yes, Rarity imagined one in her daydream of Prince Blueblood proposing to her, but they're both unicorns and I guess could keep it on their horns or magically place it somewhere on their person. Earth ponies though...where would they put it?
  • I don't think we ever see the specific piece that Big Mac buys. When buying for an earth pony or pegasus, one could imagine earrings are the done thing. Or a necklace. Something noticeable but classy, probably in the face or mane area. It might even be that rings are actually very uncommon as proposal pieces because they're species-specific and look kind of silly. Or maybe, more likely, the writers were thinking about making the scene make sense from a human (the viewer's) perspective rather than making it make sense in-universe.
  • We've never seen any ponies wearing rings, not even ones canonically married (Aunt Orange and Uncle Orange, unless you count her necklace), though Candace and Shining armor wear their wedding rings on their horns at the wedding. It's possible that the presentation of the jewellery is the only time it is ever used.
• According to the backstory for Heart's and Hooves Day, the love poison caused a prince and a princess to fall so madly in love that they neglected their royal duties, resulting in the kingdom collapsing and "chaos reigning." Did... we just get a cannon explanation as to how Discord came to power?
  • It's possible. The story didn't make it clear where or when the event took place, so like a lot of things in the history of Equestria, it's open for interpretation.
  • Discord isn't strictly necessary for chaos to happen. It was probably just the figurative use of the phrase.
• Wait, if the spell breaks when the two lovers take their eyes off each other for an hour, wouldn't the spell be broken the first time they fall asleep? I might understand with the ancient couple, one was an Alicorn apparently, she could probably use her magic to keep them awake indefinitely, but Big MacIntosh and Cherilee have no such provisions? Or was it that the children didn't think of that?
  • Maybe the spell makes it so they can't sleep?
  • Even if they collapse from exhaustion in a couple weeks and the poison wears off afterward, it'd still be pretty devastating to the farm and to the two 'lovebirds'. Victims of the love poison can be talked into making life-changing decisions with the smallest nudge, and don't make rational decisions about their own interests; that gets into some really dark places really fast. Merely not being fatal would still be terrible. Apple Bloom's predictions are a little ridiculous, but that's cause she's a kid with terrible long-term planning ability. Even from a more adult perspective and even presuming the poison only lasts for a short time, it's still really nasty Magic Mind Control Juice.
  • Another possibility is that time passing only counts while they're awake. The spell would probably make them dream about each other.
• One silly thing that won't stop puzzling me: at the beginning of Sweetie Belle's song, she has a (sort-of) Imagine Spot with Cheerilee holding up an apple. What in Equestria is this scene supposed to mean? It reminds me strangely of Ryuk from Death Note.
  • Teachers received apples as gifts from students sometimes? It probably doesn't happen these days anymore, but it's more like that scene in Pinocchio where he gets an apple to give to the teacher.
  • Giving a teacher an apple is one of the oldest tropes around in American animation. It's reflected all over the place, how could someone not know it?
  • Dead Horse Trope. While it was prevalent at one time, the most recent showing of it that I can name was in The Grimm Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and that's only a vague recollection. I can imagine the latest generation of fans not being familiar with it, especially if they're more acclimated to anime where it never caught on.
    • It was used more recently in Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, where it was used in the logo itself. (The game show ended in March 2011, just a few months earlier than this episode's air date.) I think the classic classroom and its teachers are still associated with apples.
  • Holy Celestia; it just occurred to me. In trying to set Cheerilee up with Big Macnitosh, the entire episode was the Cutie Mark Crusaders trying to give "an apple for teacher". Pardon me; I need to grow drink as I process this.
• So why does every ingredient of the love potion has something to do with pegasi? Are they like pony cupids, or something?
  • As Granny Smith explained, magic can be strange. So maybe.
• Why didn't the CMC care that all the main characters were (presumably) dateless on Hearts and Hooves day, if Cheerilee's single status upset them so?
  • They are impulsive little kids who only got the idea in class they were in. Presumably they didn't think of it and got too focused on Cherilee. Also, they would only be interested in the Mane characters they are closest to (or want to be closest to). That would be: Applejack (who is too stubborn to accept help), Rarity (who does not seem to lack for boyfriends), and Rainbow Dash (who lives in the clouds and is therefore unavailable).
  • Because Cheerilee is their teacher, aside from Rarity and Applejack (being their sisters) they just don't have as strong a connection to the other Mane Six, and it could be speculated that Rarity and Spike might be doing something for Hearts and Hooves day. That just leaves Applejack and the reason to focus on Cheerilee instead (from a practical storytelling standpoint) is because there have already been two Applejack episodes this season.
    • Plus, It would be werid pairing up Applejack with her older brother...
  • The people behind the show have a relatively close relationship with the fandom, so I doubt they would want to start a shipping war just for an episode. Also, having one of the mane six enter a relationship would change the mood and focus of the series from Friendship to girls talking about boys. In story, because it would be unbelievable for the CMC to outsmart any of the mane six to be an hour separated of their special somepony (Regardless of involvement of Big Macintosh): Twilight can teleport, Fluttershy has the Stare, Rainbow is faster than them, Pinkie has offscreen teleport, Rarity is very cunning and clever, and Applejack would be basically the same as Big Macintosh.
  • Excuse me... but how do we know none of them have boyfriends? We don't see any of them on Hearts and Hooves day after all (except for Twilight, but she quite frankly screams 'uninterested virgin'). We rarely ever see them when they're at work, why would we see them on dates? We see them with their friends, because that's what the show is about. They could all be dating off screen for all we know.
    • For ponies who constantly get into trouble and need to learn a new lesson about friendship every other week, it would seem like too big a deal to just happen offscreen, don't you think? If they ever used that element, it'd come off as an Ass Pull and if they didn't, it's virtually the same as not happening. Besides, if the fandom is to be believed, at least half of them would have girlfriends instead of boyfriends, anyway.
    • Heck, if one goes off the fandom preferences/shipping then the Mane 6 would be dating amongst themselves, which would be even more impossible to shove offscreen. Just not showing what any of the Mane 6 were up to (aside from Twilight spending the day with her one true love, books) was the safest thing to do.
• What about the age difference between Cheerilee and Big Mac? Or is Big Mac supposed to be around the same age as the CMC's teacher? Cheerilee is the pony-equivalent of late-20s/early-30s, if her 80's hair photo is to be believed. I always saw Big Mac to be in his early/mid 20s, because he doesn't seem more than a few years older than Applejack. Did the CMC not think of the implications of an adult teacher dating a younger adult? Just something I'm confused about, especially with no real official age to go by...
  • Maybe it's a cultural thing, because I don't see any implication there. What does it matter that she's a teacher? He's not her student. Anyway, I do believe that Cheerilee is the younger one. Cheerilee is apparently around the same age as Rarity (Cutie Mark Chronicles). If we assume that all of the Mane 6 are basically the same age, +/- 2 years, this means that Applejack, who is Big Mac's younger sister is about the same age as Cheerilee, then he's probably older than her. But of course, it's still not clear by how much. Maybe they're the same age. Maybe he's 5 years older. Or maybe he's actually younger. However, even if so, it wouldn't be by much.
  • So, even if Mac is in mid 20s and Cheerilee is in early 30s, does this 5 or 6 years really make such a difference? Besides, you're assuming that "pony 80s" happened around the same time as our 80s, but there's no indication that it wasn't, for example, only 10 years prior to the show's events and Big Mac is the same age as Cheerilee. And the CMC may not even know Cheerilee's age, it's not something you'd normally ask your teacher about.
  • You say it as if she dated a foal or as if Granny Smith dated a pony from Big Mac's age, they're both young and legal so there are no implications.
• The ingredients for the love poison seem awfully common. A bit of cloud and rainbow coloring, with pegasus feather to stir. Seems like anyone in Cloudsdale could put that together without even meaning to.
  • Which comes as kind of Fridge Brilliance: The ingredients and the result are written in the book as a warning of what will happen if the mix is made.
• "Luna Eclipsed" and "Hearth's Warming Eve" are skipped in syndication on The Hub, certainly because they're holiday episodes and they save them for the appropriate times of the year. Why is this one not skipped? It's transparently tied to a holiday too.
  • Valentine's Day isn't nearly as big of a holiday as Halloween or Christmas.
• While the episode in general is quite enjoyable, the CMC's punishment at the end still leaves me scratching my head. Did they really deserve the punishment of doing all of Big Mac's chores even after they sincerely apologized for pulling that love potion on Cheerilee and Big Mac?
  • They basically drugged two ponies without their consent. Imagine what would have happened if the Crusaders never found out about the side effect of the spell. To me, the Crusders got off too easy, because drugging people in real life would get you thrown in jail. I'd pick the "chores" punishment over prison any day.
    • Oh, well, at least it's better than getting heartlessly shunned by the whole town in "Ponyville Confidential". Plus, now that I think about it, at least the CMC had the decency not to show any resentment when they were being punished, and at least Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were delighted to see them during their punishment.
    • I find it more weird that Cheerilee gave them the punishment in the first place. She's their teacher, she doesn't exactly have the authority to assign them extra household chores.
    • Cheerilee might have suggested it, but Big Mac's the pony who actually assigned it. He has the authority to do that to Apple Bloom, and wouldn't have any trouble getting the adults in charge of Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo to sign off on it either; assuming he'd even need to, as the kids were entirely agreeing 'Yeah, we bucked up and we totally deserve this.'
• So a holiday centered around love a romance is a celebration of a prince effectively tricking a princess into loving him and the chaos that ensued because of the over-effectiveness of the potion.
  • Oddly appropriate, in a way. Check Fridge Brilliance for the origin of St. Valentine's day.
  • Alternatively, it is a holiday celebrating true love instead of false, obsessive, potion-induced, destructive love. Only the information relevant to the story is ever revealed and the CMC wouldn't care about the rest of it because they're kids, who are freaking out about something they did wrong.
  • Not to mention that almost every other holiday seems to celebrate a time the world was almost destroyed. Seems like "We're still alive!" is a great reason to throw a party, and if its a good one throw it again next year!
• Why are love potion recipes are readily available to the public, despite the large amount of damage one such potion caused.
  • They probably expect people to read the whole story and included the recipe so that people know what to avoid doing by experimentation.
  • also, socially speaking, if something is readily available then it's generally either far less harmful than imagined or far more easily counteracted. By this point in their history they probably have thousands of love potions (of varying effectiveness) and thousands of kitchen-sink cures.
  • Plus, the damage caused in the past was probably just a little bit overstated for dramatic effect. Not that having the country's leaders out of commission even for a few days or weeks wouldn't cause a lot of havoc... but again, the CMC are little kids, freaking out about how they did something wrong, and dramatically over-exaggerating the consequences themselves. For the show's adult ponies, keeping the two victims separated for an hour would have been a lot simpler.
    • And Twilight was excited about the story from a purely academic standpoint because she's an academic. It probably never even entered her head that the CM3 would try to actually make the love potion, let alone without reading the whole story to find out the outcome of using it.
  • Let's also remember that the three components of the Love Poison (rainbow, cloud, and pegasus feather) are a combination that could easily come together by accident (think the Cloudsdale weather factory). It's probably more beneficial to make it widely known that the combination is potentially dangerous than it is to try to suppress the information.
  • Between that and Twilight's "Want It Need It" spell, it seems that Love and Tolerance plus up to eleven equals Potent Weapons for the Disruption of Harmony.
• Shouldn't the potion be unbearably spicy considering the amount of liquid rainbow used on it?
  • Maybe the cloud balances out the flavor, so it ends up tasting like punch.
  • Maybe it adds a little spice to the relationship.
  • It's not really liquid rainbow, it's just the rainbow's glow. Perhaps what makes it spicy is...whatever that greyscale stuff left over is.
• Why would the prince need to consume the love potion if he was already in love with the princess in the first place? Judging by the content of the book, he was clearly under the influence of the same love poison that he gave to the princess and too distracted to take care of his kingdom. All he needed to do was give the love potion to just her.
  • Maybe that's the only way it can be used? Or he wanted to be as devoted to her as she was to him?
  • Well the lesson would be lost if the kingdom didn't fall to ruin, not to mention the Unfortunate Implications of the royal relationship itself if only the princess was fed the drug. The Cutie Mark Crusaders reading something like that…
• The "love poison" is described as not being a love potion despite being a formula that induces love. So that implies that in the MLP universe, a love potion is defined as something specific. So what does a regular love potion do in the MLP universe?

2.18 A Friend in Deed

• Pinkie claims that Cranky Doodle Donkey is the first person to refuse her friendship. Apparently, she forgot about Nightmare Moon, Gilda, Discord, the Flim Flam Brothers, etc...
  • She probably means out of ponies that she wanted to be friends with; bullying her friends, driving the local branch of the Apple family out of business or trying to take over the world probably get you disqualified from her friend list (and Gilda turned out not to be worth the effort anyway).
    • Alternatively, she's referring to residents of Ponyville (Cranky was settling in), while passers-through and non-Ponyvillians are left out of the calculation (I would imagine the Canterlot elite hate her for her involvement in destroying at least two major social events).
• Why didn't Matilda simply put the note for Cranky outside her door, to make sure he sees it? Why didn't Cranky look for a note? For that matter, why did Matilda leave a note instead of telling him in person?
  • Because then we wouldn't have the character's Start of Darkness.
  • It didn't occur to them, mistakes like that happen all the time much to the insanity of everyone involved.
• This episode dealt with Ponyville's token Donkeys and also had cameos by Ponyville's token Zebra and Cow. While I'm sure this was unintentional... It can't help but make me wonder about the state of minorities in Equestria.
  • You mean minorities that get invited to the Grand Galloping Gala?
    • By a ruler who has been known to invite certain people to "liven up the party" yes, yes I do.
  • It's possible that certain places in Equestria are more accepting of minorities, such as small farm towns like Ponyville where herds of cattle and groups of pigs are usually found; also, that Celestia herself would accept anyone with open arms. But given what we've seen of Canterlot ponies, I doubt a donkey would be quite as welcome by the general populace.
  • I'd say the episode actually attempts (little clumsily, but still) to dismiss some of the earlier Unfortunate Implications in the series. We see the cow shopping in town, as opposed to being rounded up into a barn, and the donkeys are treated quite respectfully, despite "mule" having been used as an insult in at least two episodes.
    • And the mule doesn't mind.
  • Maybe there's just not a lot of minorities that live around the area. It is called Ponyville, after all.
• "Nopony calls him Doodle." "Nopony...but Matilda." It's adorable and this is nitpicking, but...Matilda isn't a pony.
  • Ponies use the term "nopony" and the like when referring to characters like Spike. The "-pony" suffix has simply replaced "-body" in Equestria.
• As awesome as the first song was, at the Jump rope bit, it did look incredibly like Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle (who just gets a look in) were ignoring Apple Bloom for some reason. Some kind of Cutie Mark Crusader falling out going on?
  • They're little kids, so probably.
  • I rather got the impression that Apple Bloom went off by herself because she isn't good at rope-jumping, which depressed her. I think Apple Bloom is more sensitive when it comes to failure.
  • I wouldn't give much significance to anything that happens during the Smile song. Why was Big Macintosh just waiting with a wagon for Pinkie to jump into with the two foals? How does the rope keep skipping when no one is holding it? How can Pinkie Pie share the screen with a sad version of herself? Why is there a sudden ticker tape parade that vanishes the second the song ends? The answer is that the song in its entirety runs on Pinkie Logic.
• Just how do cows get milked in Equestria?
  • We know they can be milked using magic, presumably in the same manner humans would, as Twilight demonstrated in "Boast Busters".
  • Squeeze the udders by the hooves?
    • Except that the cows seem to live at Sweet Apple Acres, which is entirely run by earth ponies. Maybe they just use a milking machine.
• When Pinkie wanted to apologize to Cranky, he stubbornly refused to accept her apology. The obvious question is why? All he had to do was say "I accept your apology" to get her to leave him alone, even if he didn't really mean it.
  • He was too mad, and a little scared, to think of it. He wanted her to know that she wasn't welcome around him.
  • Up until that point, Pinkie had showed that no matter what she did, Cranky just couldn't get rid of her. In Cranky's mind, there was no reason to believe that once he had accepted her apology, she would go back to annoy him.
  • Just because he is cranky doesn't mean he would be okay with lying about accepting her apology. He has standards.
• Daisy Jo was in the bakery buying cookies to go with her milk. It's implied she's going to eat the cookies...does that mean she's going to drink her own milk?
  • It could have been coconut milk or soy milk.
  • Sure, why not? Just because human woman don't tend to...
• Why do Matilda and Cranky lack cutie marks? It seems odd that they don't have them when we've seen Zecora the zebra with a cutie mark showing that non-pony equines should have them. But what bothers me is that ponies can still apparently breed with donkeys as indicated by the mention of mules indicating that they're similar species, but donkeys are entirely realistic save for their sentience while ponies are magical animals. Come to think of it, when we did SEE a mule, he had all the traits of donkeys and no colors, wings/horns, or cutie marks indicating he inherited anything from the pony side. I know pony genetics is weird, but this point is really bugging me.
  • Maybe the fantasy world just isn't fair. Ponies are Fair Folk with their magic, and donkeys are mundane creatures who have none of it. Also, it's a wild guess, but maybe pony/donkey interbreeding doesn't produce "halves" as such - a mule basically appears either full donkey or full pony. It would seem consistent with rules of interbreeding between pony types, from what we've seen. Or perhaps half the magic is never enough and a mule will always just be a donkey.
  • To be fair, we've only seen one mule. Maybe he was just unlucky with the genetics.
• For an episode featuring Pinkie Pie singing about how much she loves her friends, this ep sure was light on Mane 6 presence. Most of them only receive a brief scene during the song, and Twilight and Rainbow Dash are the only other main characters to receive speaking roles.
• Why didn't Cranky look in Ponyville before giving up? Why did he come to Ponyville to give up? Maybe its because it's supposedly a boring middle-of-nowhere town.

2.19 Putting Your Hoof Down

• Is it just me, or did those goats look way too evil for just being hired help for a guy who's no worse than a bit of a Jerkass who gave advice that essentially equated "being assertive" with "being a creep"?
  • Well real goats can have a bit of an evil look about them some times, so maybe it's kind of Genetic?
• So... how exactly did Fluttershy manage to nail boards across her door on the outside, whilst ending up inside her cottage?
  • Get someone else to do it.
  • She could fly through the window.
  • Maybe Angel did it.
• Why was everyone so mean to Fluttershy at the beginning when they've been at worst neutral towards her in the past. A special mention goes to Angel, who went from impatient but lovable pet foil to Fluttershy to Domestic Abusing Jerkass.
  • Rule Of Aesop. If we don't have this, we should.
  • Over on Fridge Brilliance there's an entire theory to the effect that this is a Whole Flashback Episode. Nothing shown onscreen is incompatible with the idea that these events occurred before the show started; Twilight Sparkle doesn't appear at all, and the only other ponies seen together are those known to have a prior social connection before the Mane Six were a going concern (or who, like Pinkie, explicitly had a social connection with everypony). Likewise, this episode ends with Angel starting to learn some damn respect; if this is a prequel episode then everything fits as he used to be a horrible spoiled brat, but finally wisened up a bit once Fluttershy learned how to stand up for herself.
    • Only problem with that theory, however, is at the end of the episode, Fluttershy had written a letter about her lesson to Celestia. As far as I'm concerned, she and the others didn't start writing to the princess until long after Twilight showed up. Sure, it's very well possible the events of the episode happened in the past and the letter she's writing down is taking place in the present as a reflection of the lesson she learned, but there's no solid proof to suggest that.
• The Stare. Nice of it to appear as a call-back to "Stare Master" at the end of the episode, but really the question is, why did Fluttershy not use it in the first place!? Yeah, yeah Forgot I Could Fly and all of that, but it was used in another situation where Angel was being a picky eater. I know she even says that she doesn't have control over it, but in situations where it's most appropriate she's used it without hesitation. Instead she decided to give into her picky hare's demand, and in turn she got kicked out of her own cottage as a result. What the hay?
  • It isn't just that she can't use the Stare, it's that she doesn't like to use it. If her friends are in danger, or if it's for the good of her own animals, then she has no trouble doing everything in her power to help, but if it only impacts her, then Fluttershy prefers to dance around issues that the Stare could solve, rather than actually work through them. By the time she actually had the willpower to use it, she didn't need to-nopony would put up with her by then. Long story short, not using the Stare was part of the problem, not a potential solution.
  • Plus the previous times we've see The Stare in action, it's in situations where she ponies up. It seems like an unconscious side-effect of her making a stand. Deliberately using a lite version of the Stare on Angel in the final scene could be taken as an indication the assertiveness training stuck, even if the jerky side-effects was removed..
  • All the previous uses of the Stare have been on creatures of less intelligence than ponies (chickens, cocktrice, and Angel). The dragon is a bit more of a question, but given that the dragon's intelligent enough to talk - but otherwise acting as a wild creature - the Stare had to be enunciated with vocal threats as well. What this all means: it may not be possible for the Stare to work on fully intelligent creatures like ponies.
  • I don't think that was so much her using The Stare at the end of the episode and more her showing Angel she wasn't going to give in so easily this time around.
  • At the beginning of "Stare Master" Fluttershy tells Rarity that she can't really control the Stare; it just happens sometimes. The fact that she is able to use it at will at the end of this episode shows that she has gained (at least some) control over it, probably due to being more willing to stand up to a challenge.
  • Yet another option is that the events of the episode gave her The Stare. This episode could have happened before Twilight came to Ponyville. Because of the training, Fluttershy gained The Stare. So that was the first time it has ever been used. Fluttershy's frendship report was written months after the events as a response to Celestia letting anypony write the reports.
• Iron Will is a minotaur (half-bull/half-human) does this mean humans exist on this show?
  • ...that would raise some squicky implications. However, Minotaurs don't necessarily have to be literal human/bull hybrids (the ones in Dungeons & Dragons, for instance, are just a species like any others.).
  • Why can't he just be a bipedal bull? I know traditionally they're half human, but with old mythology there's room for new interpretation, particularly in a world with no humans.
  • The lower half of his body looks like the hindlegs of a pony/horse, so he might just be Equestria's version of a Minotaur.
• So, does this mean that Fluttershy's assertiveness will supercede her kindness? I mean, that Element of Harmony is quite important, and even an Action Girl like Fluttershy-when she wants to be-should still be as kind as kind can be.
  • Kindness and politeness aren't necessarily the same thing, to say nothing of being an outright shrinking violet and/or doormat. If anything, then inasmuch as the show has a continuity I'd expect Fluttershy's new assertiveness (assuming it sticks) to help her reach out to and help more people that she'd otherwise have felt too intimidated by.
• If Iron Will feels the need to introduce himself by name to Pinkie Pie and Rarity, then how does he know they're friends with Fluttershy?
  • They were talking to her through the door, and they are around the same age as Fluttershy, so he assumed they're her friends and happened to be right about that. Plus, Fluttershy lives outside of town; there's no reason for them to be standing in front of her house at all unless they've come to visit her.
• Why was Bon Bon hauling garbage?
  • a. That's her personal and/or business' garbage she's hauling. b. Ponyville ponies have rotating garbage duty, and it was her (and Cherry Berry's) turn.
• Why didn't Fluttershy just fly over the two ponies on the bridge? She's a pegasus, she has wings...they weren't ACTUALLY blocking her path. At all.
  • If she flies over them, she will be still "doormat". If she is asertive, she would not do that.
  • Add to that, there might have been a non-pegasus, or a tired or injured pegasus, who wanted to cross the river. It would have just been common courtesy to clear the bridge before trying out a comedy routine.
• Meta-complaint: Why is everyone complaining about Rarity robbing the nerd-pony of his asparagus? She paid him back for it! You can see her flip a coin onto his nose!
  • I think the complaints mostly come from Rarity using her beauty and charm as an unfair advantage to get what she wants (kind of like the G-rated equivalent of when some females show their breasts or offer themselves sexually to get what they want), which is generally seen as a cheap and unethical way to go about it. Asparagus and payment be darned, just manipulating a poor, nerdy guy automatically staples you as a witch for some. Rarity paying was perhaps a way to say to the audience that she wasn't completely heartless and respected him, which softens the blow somewhat.
• Fluttershy gives a very unsettling "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Pinkie Pie and Rarity, saying that both of them were wasting their lives of pointless pursuits that nopony cares about. Their pursuits, parties and fashion naturally, are the things that got them their cutie marks. And as we all know; a ponies' mark determines what they're secret talent and passion that they'll do for the rest of their lives. How could they be wasting their lives on pursuits that they were destined to do/be anyway?
  • You're assuming 'Shy was acting logically, instead of just tearing a strip off them because of the rush from being assertive. And remember, Rarity's a seamstress and Pinkie Pie's a baker. Twilight is a librarian. Their jobs are related to their cutie marks, but don't revolve around them.
  • Your talents and passions determine your cutie mark, not the other way around.

2.20 It's About Time

• Twilight is surprised that time travel is possible, even though she traveled through time in The Return of Harmony, Part 2.
  • I don't think that was time travel with Discord. Rather he took Twilight in an out-of-body experience in her memory, or that it was a Discord recreation. OTOH, those may be just rationalizations to dismiss what Discord did.
• If you've got an assistant, then shouldn't he be the one to manage your schedule? Panicking over the fact you haven't planned your next month's itinerary should fall to Spike, not Twilight herself.
  • Spike is only a baby dragon, though, and Twilight is probably the type to constantly make several changes or add things to the schedule, so maybe he can't keep up with it? After all, Twilight's workload is part of the reason she has Owloysius as well.
    • Spike, if told to organize a schedule, would likely do it the way normal people do: listing out tasks that have to be done sometime during that day. Twilight wanted that schedule down to the minute, something Spike would likely eschew and Twilight basically has been doing for herself since.
• Why didn't Future Twilight just use the time travel spell, again? Did it say you have a limited amount of chances to use the spell?
  • Who cares? That's Past Twilight's problem now.
  • If she didn't go through that ordeal she would probably never have learn her lesson about not worrying about the future.
    • Indeed: she had to try to warn herself not to worry, because she did tried; yet she couldn't succeeded, because she didn't succeeded^note And yes, I'm conjugating into the double past. What of it?
  • Actually, it did say the spell can be used only once.
    • Why only once?
    • It could've meant that you could only go back to a certain time once.
    • If Twilight had a time-travel spell that could only be used once, why use it for something as trivial as telling her past self to worry less...as opposed to saving it for some real emergency?
    • Presumably there was a real emergency in the original timeline that caused Twilight to time travel in the first place. Maybe to warn herself about Cerberus, who may have caused more damage when no one knew anything was wrong. Twilight's paranoia may have actually solved whatever problem she originally time-traveled over.
• Why does Twilight conclude that the disaster was supposed to happen by sunrise on Tuesday morning, instead of any time over the following five or six hours?
  • All of the "signs" (her injuries) had come to pass; no disaster was needed to explain them.
    • That doesn't explain why seems to treat dawn as a deadline, and is immediately relieved when the sun rises without incident. For all she knows at this point the disaster could be any time before 12 noon.
  • Future Twilight specifically mentions she's from next Tuesday morning, so whatever disaster past Twilight thought happened couldn't happen after that point in time.
    • Which, as I've pointed out, does not rule out the disaster happening at any time before 12 noon. So at sunrise, Twilight should still have another five or six hours before she can be certain.
    • Two points: First, Twilight would know her own (and thus her future self's) idea of what constitutes "morning" better than we do, and it may not actually be "any time before noon" as far as she's concerned. And second, after all she's been through trying to prevent the disaster she's worried about it's no surprise that by the time the sun comes up she'd be just plain exhausted and ready to call it quits.
• So, Cerberus exists in Equestria guarding the entrance to some world full of evil spirits. Did they really just imply that there's Hell in the My Little Pony world?
  • Eeyup. Does it matter? The show isn't exactly a utopia.
  • Well, evil spirits doesn't have to mean it's related to Hell as in a form of afterlife. Maybe Princess Celestia just banished a bunch of creatures like the Windigos or spirits of disharmony like Discord (just weaker) into that place at some point and then set up a guard-dog.
  • Tartarus in Equestria is not necessarily Hell. It could be a prison for ancient and evil creatures, or maybe regular monsters like the ones in the Everfree Forest.
    • Twilight explicitly describes the creatures in Tartaros (Twilight distinctly pronounces it in the Greek, rather than Latin fashion, with an "os" rather than an "us") as ancient evils, so they aren't just run-of-the-mill creatures.
  • OP here. It just seems weird that such a location exists, but only now has it been referred to. Seriously, what kind of implications does that hold about Equestria? We've seen a few evil creatures, but those seemed to be anomalies. But the existence of Tartarus implies that there are a LOT of those things, so many that there's a whole area to lock 'em up in.
    • Some sort of underworld prison for ancient evils existing doesn't necessarily imply that it has a lot of occupants. Just that the ones it does have are too dangerous to let run free (and considering what sorts of monsters do still roam the Everfree Forest and the occasional other part of Equestria that's probably saying something). Discord probably didn't end up there because before he was turned into a statue nobody could've so much as forced him to enter (let alone stay) and afterwards there was no need, and Nightmare Moon gets a bye on grounds that no matter how bad things got Celestia wouldn't have wanted her sister to be imprisoned with the 'other' horrors.
  • The fact that Tartartos hasn't been referenced before or since just goes to show that Cerberus is doing a damn fine job.
  • The season 4 finale makes it explicit that a) there are some really nasty ancient evils in there and b) when there's an interruption of service with Cerberus, bad things happen.
• When Future Twilight gives the location of the time spells. Did Twilight not know that the Starswirl the Bearded wing even existed, or did she just not know that is where the time spells are kept? Her comment after they "break into" the building, "If my calculations are correct, the Starswirl the Bearded wing should be right here," seems to imply the former. So how did either Twilight come to learn of this wing and the spells it contains? The only reason Past Twilight knew is because Future Twilight told her. Does this not make sense to anyone else?
  • Twilight said Starswirl had a wing of the library named after him in Luna Eclipsed, so she knew it existed. Presumably, she'd never seen a reason to visit the high-security part of the library before.
    • No, what she said in Luna Eclipsed is that a shelf has been named after him.
    • To be even more pedantic, Twilight says that Starswirl had a shelf named after him in the "Canterlot Library of Magic". In this episode, she calls the place they visit the "Canterlot Archives". It's entirely possible that the Library and the Archives are two different locations. There's a shelf named after Starswirl in the former, and an entire wing in the latter.
  • Yes, the time loop is based upon a problem it caused. Depending on one's perception of time (which is to say, highly subjective and open to interpretation), it might imply that there was a time when the loop wasn't initiated. This particular Twilight might had simply stumbled upon the spell and used it, creating an alternate timeline which eventually stabilized into a loop. For the sake of simplicity: original Twilight goes back in time as herself for some reason, something causes her past self to become 'future Twilight', then she goes back to the past for the reason we saw, poof, the loop is made.
    • It is not as much subjective as it is just a choice the writers made. I for one am very satisfied they went for a bootstrap paradox and sticked to it, with no Grandfather Paradox nor alternate reality being thrown into the mix.
    • Maybe there actually WAS a disaster before she started the loop, but it was averted by disaster-proofing Ponyville.
    • Word of God (tongue in cheek as it may be) is that Equestria was saved by trimming Pinkie's hair.
• Okay, it was cute and all, but Fluttershy giving Cerberus tummy rubs after he runs off and leaves the gates of Tartarus unguarded? Isn't that just encouraging him to hop over the fence and run off to play again? I really think a somewhat firmer hand (hoof) might have been more appropriate here.
  • The implication is that Cerberus has an actual job over at Tartarus that he ran away from, which implies that there's some other pony there whose job it is to keep things in line. It's their job to keep Cerberus from running away, not Fluttershy's. Fluttershy's priority was "get Cerberus out of Ponyville before he pees on everything."
• Why was Celestia in the locked and secluded old library before sunrise? And why do neither she nor the guard question WHY Twilight is there. The guard is understandable, because maybe, he didn't even know that Twilight left Canterlot. Celestia, on the other hand, casually walks by Twilight, greets her, then leaves, no questions asked. Was she not wondering why her student looked like she was cosplaying Snake? Did she not wonder why her most faithful student decided to sneak/break into the castle (even though she could've just asked) in an impromptu "visit," and not to visit her mentor? I guess the automatic answer is "Trollestia," but still!
  • Because apparently Twilight was allowed in that section, even if Twilight herself had forgotten about it, and honestly, what can be more natural than a Twilight Sparkle in a library? Or maybe Celestia knew what was going on and didn't want to interfere in the time loop.
  • We may also want to take Celestia's age and position into account. She's over a thousand years old (how much older exactly hasn't been revealed, but it's at least that) and she's been, as far as we know, the sole Royal Princess of Equestria ever since she had to banish her sister back then. That's a lot of experience, both in general life terms and in wearing the queenly mask — of course not many of the "surprises" that her little ponies might happen to throw her way by accident or design would faze her anymore!
    • TL;DR version: Celestia's seen some shit in her time.
  • The simple answer is that Spike told her what Twilight was up to. That's what he did in Lesson Zero.
• So how did all this situation started? It's pretty obvious that this paradox was generated by future Twilight, so what necessity had the future Twilight to travel to the past in the first place if it was just a series of simple non-serious accidents? Wouldn't she have saved herself all that concern if she avoided doing that?
  • It's a Stable Time Loop. Alternatively This is when Tirek escapes and whether it was the good guys nudging events to keep Twlight from stumbling into a fight she was wholly unprepared for or bad guys nudging events to keep Twlight from engaging in a Curb-Stomp Battle with one of their biggest players hindsight would suggest that the events of that day were a lot less random than they seemed at the time.

2.21 Dragon Quest

• Why are Twilight, Rarity and Rainbow dash so shocked that Spike wants to be with his own kind?
  • 1) Because dragons really are dangerous. The only one he's ever interacted with tried to kill him. 2) Because Spike doesn't really know anything about "his own kind". 3) Because it means that he, one of their closest and youngest friends, is leaving without any guarantee that he'd return.
• So is there some kind of "Finders Keepers" rule in place between the sentient species of Equestria when it comes to offspring? Princess Celestia had a dragon egg she was using as a test for Luna knows how long (and let Twilight keep Spike, despite not knowing anything about dragons and their needs) and Spike apparently get to keep the newly hatched Pheonix, even though he knows it has a family out there. Just a little bit bothered by that.
  • Well, we still don't know where his egg came from, so it's still up to interpretation where his egg came from. But as for the Phoenix, the nest his parents were staying in was destroyed, and they were being chased by vicious dragons, so they probably won't go back to their old nest, looking for their egg anytime soon. Birds usually just move on to another location and stay there. So Spike taking the egg, probably saved the egg's life.
• The teen dragons were not the only dragons, why didn't Spike try find some who were nice to baby dragons? Perhaps there were dragon his own age (those dragons were definitely older than him)?
  • That's even if baby dragons were there in the first place. If there were other baby dragons there, they would have likely been guarded by their parents. As we've seen many a time, adult dragons can be hostile for even little reason, so they might not take kindly to other dragons, even young ones, approaching their young.
  • Perhaps Spike went for the first smaller dragons he saw, and later was too proud to back off?
  • Part of Spike's mission was to prove that he was tough. He didn't want to wimp out when the teen dragons acted unfriendly; he wanted to stand his ground and prove himself.
• Shouldn't Fluttershy know better than to stomp on Rainbow's rib cage? Fine, she was flying, so it was probably less severe, but the sound wasn't the most pleasant one. She could have broken her ribs that could have pierced her lungs!
  • That's why you don't mess with Fluttershy. But seriously, she was careful enough not to hurt Rainbow Dash. And Rainbow Dash was not hurt. What more was she supposed to do?
  • Ponies are Made of Iron.
    • And this being Fluttershy, I'd be surprised if she could anything more to Rainbow Dash than that vase.
• Did it bother anyone else that all the young dragons were unanimously declared Jerkasses? They're crude and uncivilized by pony standards, but they seemed to treat Spike fairly well considering. As for raiding the phoenix nest, that seems to be instinct and a natural cycle of predator-prey more than conscious cruelty or sadism. Not to say Spike should have conceded to peer pressure or sold out his own values, but he didn't say, "This lifestyle isn't my thing, and I don't feel like I belong," he flat-out said the ponies were better and the dragons inferior. Are we supposed to believe that dragons are naturally Always Chaotic Evil?
  • To be fair, the red dragon in Dragonshy seemed like an okay guy. Just grumpy from having woken up.
  • He was interacting with the douchebag teenage dragons, it probably would've gone differently had he interacted with a more mature bunch of dragons.
  • No, we're supposed to believe that teenagers are Always Chaotic Evil.
  • Spike never said ponies were better than dragons. He said that his pony friends were better friends than those three dragons. They were trying to get him to smash a phoenix egg, not for predatory instinct, but pure malice. Most might have written the dragon teens off as simply toughening him up with their trails and whatnot had it not been for them trying to kill phoenixes entirely for fun.
  • Was it entirely for fun? It seems to be more of a rite of passage. For all we know, smashing a phoenix egg (or doing something similarly callous) could be something every dragon has to do, including the one from "Dragonshy", who clearly wasn't meant to be too bad. Spike's right about the ponies being better friends, as the dragons' friendship is recinded when he doesn't follow orders, but despite that, it still seems more like a bad case of Values Dissonance than much else.
    • Which ranges into pure speculation. From what we've seen, there was nothing hinting that the egg smashing was anything official, let alone some dragon rite of passage. It appeared to be just a trio of teenage dragon punks being destructive for fun.
• Seeing the teenage dragons call Celestia a 'namby pamby pony princess' I wonder of the relationship between her and the dragon community.
  • It would be the same thing as the relationship between the president of America and teens from another country, say, Canada. The teens can badmouth the American president, but that doesn't mean that the U.S government is going to suddenly declare war on Canada. Unlike what most fanon would like you to believe, Princess Celestia is not as thin-skinned as she's made out to be.
    • Mostly accurate, except that the U.S. President isn't personally responsible for Canada not being cloaked in everlasting darkness due to the sun never rising. As for why they disrespect someone who's the sole reason they're alive... haven't you ever seen a teen (or been a teen) who was disrespectful to their parents?
    • They probably have no idea who Celestia is or what she does. They're probably assuming she's the kind of princess you kidnap and force to clean the cave, not the kind who personally kicks you out with her phenomenal cosmic powers if you invade her country.
  • Given how little ponies canonically know about dragons, it's entirely possible that the same holds true in reverse: the ponies consider the dragons too dangerous, the dragons don't bother to pay attention to mere ponies unless they become a nuisance (which for the aforementioned reason isn't often), and so anything like purely social pony/dragon interaction just doesn't happen. (This runs counter to some fanfics in which the dragons have their own kingdom(s) and formal diplomatic ties to Equestria, but those were generally written before this episode.)
    • I had the impression, from this and the numerous challenges to Celestia's rule, that she is not the only one able to move the sun and moon—with sufficient strength and magical ability (perhaps not even that), anyone could do it. The dragons don't respect Celestia's authority maybe because they can do it themselves or can live with a stationary sun and moon. That being said, the offical map does say that dragons originate and largely live elsewhere, meaning Celestia doesn't have any political power over them, and thus they don't feel the need to respect her. (I have not seen "Hearth's Warming Eve," but according to what viewers say, that episode indicates someone of Celestia's power is not needed.)
• Why is it that being in correspondence with the leader of a powerful, sovereign nation, despite his immaturity and youth, not considered cool for the dragon teenagers? I understand that "She's a pony, and thus, uncool," but... Well, I'm not a Celestia fan, but she's still pretty important.
  • Do you really think juvenile delinquents would really care?
  • Yeah, they're trashy, rebellious teens. They're not going to respect Spike being an almost=literal teacher's pet to some frilly pony princess...thingy.
  • He himself honestly doesn't see the Princess as a big deal since he's grown up around her presence; the dragons on the other hand have grown up completely independent of her power, and therefor have no reason to respect her...the sun aside.
    • Does Celestia even have that power outside of Equestria?
    • Are you suggesting there is more than one sun?
    • Given that the sun has to be lifted by an outside force (Unicorns/Celestia), there is definitely something weird going on.
    • Why would the teen dragons care about the sun if they can survive wallowing around in Lava? Granted, something like eternal night would have screwed everypony over, but Dragons should be okay so long as they have gems and a heat source.
    • Dragonkind as a whole probably would care if something serious happened to the sun. Those three in particular, though? Not necessarily so much until they actually saw it happen — and they might simply be ignorant of exactly which namby-pamby pony princess (of however many there are exactly) is in charge of that job, to boot.
• Twilight spends all night scouring books for a lead on dragons, yet she doesn't send a letter to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns and ask them where they got Spike's egg from?
  • That's even if Celestia knows about Spike's heritage. Ponies know very little about dragons, to the point where even TWILIGHT couldn't find anything about them, which indicates that ponies and dragons have had very little interaction. It is a possibility that Celestia doesn't know who found the egg, and even if she does, that doesn't necessarily mean she knows where the egg was found, or who Spikes parents are, or even what type of dragon he is. (the fact that he was pretty much the only dragon there without wings indicates he's not like them)
    • But Twilight only searched in her library which doesn't contain all the books in the world, also she was unaware of the Starswirl the Bearded wing and the time spells, so it could be possible that Celestia had books and/or knowledge that would've aided in their research.
  • Maybe they're saving the truth of Spike's origins for a future episode.
  • Perhaps Celestia had explained to Spike about his history in the letter she sent to him...which was thrown in the lava pool. The migration seems to be a big event, and it would be reasonable for Celestia to think that at that time Spike might want to know something about where he's from.
  • Maybe Celestia has some good reason not to tell Spike about his origins.
  • They could have sent a letter to Celestia. But the dragon migration was right there, and would have passed them by if Spike didn't make a quick decision. He wanted to learn about being a dragon first-hand, not read about it in a letter or hear about it from the pony princess. And that's even assuming Celestia knew - if she didn't, then by the time she could send a reply, there's a chance the dragon migration would have left and Spike would be completely out of options.
  • Most likely she was tired from spending all night looking and then going through the whole Spike finding himself that she hadn't thought of that.
  • It's also possible that Twilight just didn't want to send a letter in the middle of the night, and was waiting for the moment, but Spike decides to set out as soon as morning comes. It's odd that she didn't at least mention it, though.
• Why couldn't Rainbow Dash fly with Twilight and Rarity in the dragon costume? She didn't seem to have any trouble at all carrying four ponies back in "Sonic Rainboom".
  • The geometry of Rarity's dragon costume obviously wouldn't let Rainbow Dash to do it, the lower part of the costume is open so the ponies could walk on their legs
    • Even so, Dash was unable to take off at all, clearly struggling with the weight. Was the costume itself just ridiculously heavy or something?
    • She wasn't able to accelerate properly with two ponies holding her down and the costume futzing with her aerodynamics. If she had been able to get some more speed some how, or arranged the other two better, she would have been able to get them into the air.
    • Besides, that time was a case of Heroic Resolve.
  • She had already built up a ton of momentum because of the Sonic Rainboom. That's a very different situation to taking off with two other ponies and a presumably heavy costume already in tow.
• Phoenix are immortal (they are reborn from their own ashes). Yet we have seen they lay an entire clutch of eggs at a time. Why isn't Equestria overflowing with them? No matter how slow or infrequent the mating instinct may be, no permanent deaths would mean no way to compensate for the birds that are successfully hatched. For that matter, what would eat a phoenix? How many animals would enjoy a meal of ash instead of meat?
  • Dragons are probably the only creatures that could. We've seen Spike eat some pretty gross/inedible things.
  • Doesn't the Phoenix rebirth thing only happen once every thousand years? If they die due to other causes, they might actually be killed off for real, or at least until the next thousand years is up.
  • A phoenix is reborn after dying of old age. Whether they can be reborn after dying from being eaten or otherwise mauled is yet unknown.
    • There is a real world species that has biological immortality, the immortal jellyfish. They can still die from disease and injury.
  • Maybe they only get reborn a limited number of times before they die permanently.
    • So...phoenixes are Time Lords?
  • Could harming the eggs do any damage?
• Why was Fluttershy scared of dragons when she defeated one in Dragonshy?
  • Fluttershy's dracophobia was established in that episode. It was only when he was directly threatening her friends that she got over it. As it stands, the dragons aren't doing much aside from collateral damage.
• How come no one thought about asking Zecora about dragons? The Secret of My Excess shows that she does know a thing or two about dragons.
  • Spike wanted to actually meet and interact with dragons and participate in their society, and maybe find out about his parents. Zecora couldn't have helped with that. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity just wanted to keep tabs on him, so Zecora couldn't have helped there either.
• Why does Spike sweat? There is no environment on the planet that would make his body need to cool down...
  • And sweating is a mammal thing, not a reptile thing, but that can be chalked up to Most Writers Are Mammals and Funny Animal Anatomy.
• "Teenage" dragons? As in, dragons between 13 and 19 years old? Sure, we don't know much about the draconic life cycle, but given their long lifespans, one might expect Garble and his gang to be a little older than that. It may have just been Translation Convention for a more nebulous term for "adolescent dragons", though.
  • Spike doesn't hang out with Dragons, so he's probably just using that term since they're equivalent to teenage ponies (Yeah, I know, Vague Age abounds but still). The Dragons probably have their own term for this stage in their development.
• It's established that very little is known about dragons since they are too dangerous to study up close. If that's the case, then why would hatching a dragon's egg and subsequently raising him be part of Celelstia's entrance exam for her academy? Does this mean there are multiple companion dragons in Equestria for all of Celestia's students? And if THAT'S the case, wouldn't there be more information on dragons?
  • According to Word of Faust Princess Celestia didn't give the other foals that test. She suspected Twilight as an Element Bearer and substituted the regular entrance exam with the dragon egg test to confirm.
  • Also in "Dragon Quest" we get to see a phoenix nest with half a dozen of eggs. And since it is targeted by a dragon raid, thay must be pretty common. A phoenix is powerful enough to fend off all regular predators, it doesn't die of old age... why would they need a breeding rate of regular birds?
    • A group of juvenile delinquents don't count as regular predators. Also, there was no real indication that phoenixes are common. How many times have bird species been wiped out because of poaching?
• Why were the teenage dragons making fun of Spike when he's obviously a very young dragon? That's like a group of high-schoolers mocking an eight-year old for not being able to keep up. It makes no sense! They must have known that he was decidedly not in their age group, and most teenage guys would be more likely to adopt "the kid" as their mascot than make him "prove" himself.
  • Not all teenagers are nice. Some, like the ones spike met, can be very rude, immature, and jerky. Spike was just unfortunate enough to meet them. And besides, considering the fact that the other adult dragons aren't even monitoring what they're kids are doing, they probably felt that they could have a little fun with poor Spike, and knew that they'd get away with it. The jerks...
  • For that matter, why didn't Spike just find some dragons his own age rather than trying to be like ones who were clearly older than him?
    • Spike is a teenage dragon. He's stayed small and wingless because of his environment, but he has the intelligence and yearnings of a teenager.
    • Spike went to the smallest dragons he could see, which were the teenage dragons. Baby dragons, like him, would most likely be with their parents. And dragons are known to be very protective of their stuff, so if any stranger, even another baby dragon, went up to their kid, they'd most likely try and chase him away.
    • Technically, Spike already reached adulthood and has voluntarily age regressed himself. He might actually be chronologically older, given how quickly dragons can grow. He's certainly more mature emotionally. Even if he's actually younger, dragons don't seem to give other dragons special treatment for youth or lack of size. The adult dragons in the migration made no move to help, and the green adult that Spike dealt with previously was fully willing to kill him.

2.22 Hurricane Fluttershy

• As much as I love Fluttershy conquering her stigma to push past her limits, it doesn't make much sense when she seemingly blitzes past a few ponies who ask "Who was that?" It's not like she got to Rainbow levels of wingpower. It's hard confirmed she only got to 5 wingpower compared to what should be 10 or more for everyone else, so her outstripping ANYONE inside that tornado shouldn't be happening.
  • No, Spike and Twilight just stopped measuring once she'd reached the necessary 5 they needed. As was pointed out in this very episode, and shown outright in past episodes, Fluttershy can be extremely fast when the situation calls for it and her anxiety doesn't get in the way.
• So Bonbon's a pegasus now?
  • There was also a Pegasus Lyra in one of the previous episodes, so maybe Bon-Bon has a pegasus twin too.
  • There's a Pegasus version of Doctor Whooves who competes in the Best Young Flyers competition. Apparently a lot of background ponies have doppelgangers of a different pony type.
  • Changeling.
    • As much as I like this theory when applied elsewhere, I gotta question the idea of a changeling being so incompetent as to not only get the species wrong, but to risk drawing attention to that mistake by participating in a town-wide event.
    • It might not matter. If you're not in the middle of infiltrating a specific group why not take a fairly generic form? Something common enough not to raise eyebrows and specific enough that you know when someone is talking to you. Though the real obvious answer is that the artists have the basic pony model saved and when they create a crowd they just slap colors and cutie marks around.
    • Also, if it was a changeling, then it worked—nobody in-universe noticed anything off.
• Why didn't Spitfire do anything to help? They were one pony away from getting the water spout created, and that's to provide water for all of Equestria. How come Spitfire didn't just jump in to help? If Rainbow Dash is pushing a 16 wingpower, I'm sure that Spitfire would have broken the required 5 no sweat and is probably about equal with Rainbow.
  • It's an important job that provides Equestria's rainwater, but there's a definite element of competition to it, with prestige going to the locale that performs the best. If a town/city is really incapable of producing a tornado, more serious steps are probably taken.
    • The solution was simple, Spitfire should have joined the group and finished the job. Then she'd have added, "Unfortunately, I am going to have to note that you only reached 795 WP before I joined you in my official report." Maybe add something about also noting in the report that they did pretty well considering they were down 8 flyers (Which seemed to be able 8-10% of the towns pegasus population). It may be a competitive thing, but it's still a job. Get the job done, but disqualify them from any competitive recognition.
    • It's not like there was an emergency, like a fire or something. And competition or not, it was still a matter of pride for the town. It would be impolite for Spitfire to just barge in uninvited. Besides, Fluttershy was there, and perhaps Spitfire understood that it was an important chance for her to overcome her fears and earn respect. Now, if she'd flat out refused to join, then maybe Spitfire would've done it.
    • It was not an emergency, but it was necessary. They were filling up Cloudsdale's reservoir, which was going to be used to bring rain very soon. Failing to bring water there would mean a drought in Equestria (and possibly elsewhere) until a successful attempt.
    • You guys seem to be under the impression this is some sort of Cosmic Deadline, something that could only be done at a specific time and day, like on the fifth crescent moon of the year while it's between the Big Dipper and Draco. It isn't. If Ponyville failed, rain production might get delayed a day, but nothing is stopping Cloudsdale from bringing in a couple hundred Pegasi and getting the job done the next day. They probably have some reserves in case the locals fail.
  • But why was Spitfire there in the first place? It just doesn't add up!
    • Spitfire was there to oversee the water transfer and record Ponyville's top tornado windspeed.
    • That explains the first time, but when it was clear they weren't making the record, why not help when they were just doing it to prevent a drought?
    • With Rainbow Dash inspiring all the pegasi that they can do it, why jump in? They really wanted to prove that they can do it so she probably let them have that chance. If they really couldn't pull it off on their own, Spitfire would probably report it back to Cloudsdale and either join in and maybe call in some of the other Wonderbolts or get another town to do it.
    • Providing water from the various towns' reservoir seems like part of a social duty across Equestria to assure the weather system is maintained. As such, Spitfire here would be acting as a government employee — assuring the process is completed but unable to get involved.
  • Spitfire had not trained with the others. Jumping in in the middle might have done more harm than good.
• When Thunderlane coughs, Twlight's response is to... spray his mane with something? What does it have to do with coughing at all?
  • Its a disinfectant spray. She's cleaning the germs from Thunderlane's cough. She even says it.
  • Yeah, but did she think Thunderlane coughed on his mane somehow?
    • She didn't target his mane specifically, rather his general direction.
• Is it just me, or is this the first time in the entire series that Rainbow Dash actually acts kind and caring to someone? Even when defending her friends or doing them favors, she's still pretty loud and obnoxious about it. Here, she's soft spoken and rather supportive of Fluttershy throughout much of the episode, returning to her loud and boastful variety of friendliness when she's playing up Fluttershys performance. She's not exactly perfect (She's still begging Flutteryshy to help), but this is probably her first incident of being actually sensitive. It almost seems Dash went through a bit of character development off-screen, and we missed a friendship letter somewhere.
  • How about The Last Roundup, where she was also quite nice to Applejack? Or last episode, where she was protective of Spike? The main problem here probably is that her first two episodes this season portrayed her as an asshole.
    • Or when she shows genuine affection towards Tank after he proves his worth? Or when she graciously accepts her defeat in Fall Weather Friends? Or when her actions in general in Sonic Rainboom? I could go on, but the point is, Dash has always been a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, not a callous Jerkass like a lot of people are painting her as lately.
    • I did not intend that Dash was not capable of being nice. But there's a difference between her good traits manifesting loudly and energetically, like they usually do, and her being relatively low-key in this episode. To be fair, she was somewhat quiet when trying to calm Tank down when he got scared towards the end of Best Pet. However, I'm pointing out that, normally, she's more like she was at the end of the episode, where she was giving the credit to Fluttershy in her usual boisterous manner. It's not that Dash can't be kind and considerate, it's that in this case, she behaved in a much more subdued way here. It seems like a younger Dash might have tried to be a lot more energetic towards Fluttershy, rather than her much more downplayed than usual behavior here. It's like if Pinkie Pie threw a party, and it was just a quiet affair, maybe with a single cake and basic food, and it was much more about the guests simply enjoying each others company than the actual party itself. It wouldn't be completely out of character, but it would be odd, and signify positive character development and better empathy on the part of the character (Dash in the episode, Pinkie in this example).
  • Her character development indeed seems to have improved over time, especially in 'Read it and Weep', in which she learned to stop hating what she doesn't understand, a lesson she truly needed. There's a few moments in which RD was actually caring to someone else, but the rather poorly planned two episodes in a row dedicated in showcasing her absolute worst features, almost making her seem like a villain in 'May the Best Pet Win' and 'Mysterious Mare-Do-Well' did a great job of changing the opinion of the community regarding her. It took some time, but it seems like she was eventually redeemed by becoming a more open-minded pony and being the target of most jokes in episodes.
  • You may recall that when RD first learned of what Fluttershy's problem was, she started out being rather abrasive, but then stopped herself, and continued on more gently. I simply took this as her realizing who she was dealing with. She knew she was talking to Fluttershy, and needed to be a bit more sensitive than normal. Compare it to Griffon The Brush-Off - Rainbow and Pinkie pranked every member of the Mane Cast except Fluttershy, because Pinkie declared that she was too sensitive for that, and that even the lightest prank would hurt her feelings. Rainbow agreed to this rather quickly. Similarly, there's not much of a problem when RD's brash with a Pinkie Pie or an Applejack, because they're not very likely to get their feelings hurt by it. But Flutters is the sensitive one, and she knows to be easier with her.
    • Yeah, dumping cold water and scaring her? Yeah, that's being kind. Hell, its not like RD needed Fluttershy anyway; she had most of the people in Ponyville riled up like her and could easily do the tornado without Fluttershy. The only thing that prevented their ability was the other ponies getting sick.
    • Fluttershy pulling out a cheap, obviously faked, "sick" excuse is understandably going to aggravate Rainbow a little bit, and as said above she went easier on her afterwards. She wanted Fluttershy to be in the tornado not because she had to be, but because she really, really, wanted her to participate and be part of the group. When Fluttershy acquiesced, it became more about helping her overcome her confidence and self-esteem issues. Fluttershy giving up and staying home wasn't the end of the tornado project, but it was a big disappointment and a loss for both Rainbow Dash and her.
• How does Roid Rage fly with these itty-bitty wings?
  • It's been implied at times that Pegasi rely partially on magic to fly, so maybe wing size does not matter that much.
  • Rule of Funny
• With all the drama of Fluttershy only clocking in at 0.5 and 2.3 wingpower, why didn't anyone remind her that she was able to outrun Rainbow Dash while pulling a hot air balloon loaded with passengers earlier in the season?
  • They outright point out an offscreen incident where she saved some falling baby birds. She's just got serious performance anxiety. Despite the tendency for the fandom to overreact to every little thing, there's nothing at stake here except town pride. Even if the town screwed up so badly they lost the reservoir, there's nothing stopping Cloudsdale from finding another water source and sucking up the water there.
• What exactly is one Wing-Power? It seems to be a pegasi version of horsepower, but one horsepower was defined as the strength of a typical horse, whereas Rainbow expects all pegasi to get at least 10 wing-power.
  • Wing-Power is a currently undefined unit of force based on what we see in the episode. It's measured by how quickly the weather vane is spinning which equates to how much wind is moved by the pegasus. Which in turn is primarily a result of their raw speed but a large pegasus like Bulky Biceps probably creates a larger current than Pound Cake would. Without knowing more about Equestrian (and possibly pre-Equestrian) history it's impossible to know what the unit of measurement was set at or even how universal it is. Even in the modern world (mostly stubborn Americans) still have Standard and Metric systems for most measurements. Wing Power could be based on griffons, dragons, phoenixes or standard birds just as easily as pegasai. It could be like marching where one Wing-Power is what's created by whatever the pegasus equivalent of walking is and Rainbow Dash expects them to all be able to "run" with ten times more force than they walk. It's extremely unlikely we'll ever know for sure but maybe that same guy who figured out how fast Rainbow Dash can go can figure out how many miles per hour are necessary to spin a standard weather vane as quickly as it was going and work from there.
  • Much like horsepower is a measure of continuous (and not "burst" or "peak") force, so one wingpower is likely to be the force a healthy pegasus generates in sustained flight i.e. an average pegasus generates one wingpower when flying continually for an hour or more. A real-life horse can easily generate over 10 horsepower in short bursts. Rainbow's expectation that each pony should be able to hit 10 wingpower for the minute or two it takes to generate the tornado is not unreasonable.
• How would 8 pegasi missing lead to a drop of over 200 wingpower?
  • It could be that some of the remaining pegasi were weakened, though not sick enough to drop out completely.
  • It could also be that Dash was overconfident in her excitement and came up with a high estimate.
  • Or, there's some multiplication of wingpower from all the pegasi joining in rather than just straight-up addition of each individual's wingpower.
  • The wingpower readings are done while sprinting a short distance, creating the tornado relies just as much on endurance. Rainbow Dash in her eagerness to set a new record probably didn't think about this and simply added the readings together. When Twilight did her calculations she would take endurance into consideration and came to a lower number than Rainbow, but decided not to tell her (maybe they'd have enough to have a stab at the record and she wouldn't want to risk rattling her confidence). When the 8 pegasi have to drop out, Twilight suddenly realizes they'll not have enough power to get the job done and fills Rainbow in on the bad news.
  • Actually, the jump from 10 wingpower to 25 is pretty easy to figure out once you look at Fluttershy's numbers. To hit the minimum to work, Fluttershy's wingpower would have to increase by 218%. This can actually be explained through a perpetual slipstream, in which the leader of the group is in the slipstream of the last person in the line. Without the air resistance, the group can go faster, netting a potential increase by 2.5 wingpower. This would also mean that there are approximately 40 eligible pegasi living in Ponyville.
  • Given Rainbow Dash's own problems with performance anxiety in the past one would think she would have been better able to give be of more use when it came to training Fluttershy not to worry about crowds…
  • Except that Rainbow got over her performance anxiety only when an emergency situation came up. Which Fluttershy has proven capable of doing already. There's not much advice she can give to Fluttershy since in this respect they are ironically similar.
  • Fair enough, but it would have been a nice Call-Back if Rainbow had at least brought up the fact that she knew what Fluttershy was going through having experienced it herself.
  • While it would be a nice Call-Back, Rainbow Dash isn't really the type of pony who could openly admit her own weaknesses, like suffering from performance anxiety.
• Aside from the obvious reasons, why would Fluttershy try to avoid having to go to a meeting in the library by hiding in a tree right outside the library?
  • Maybe she decided to go, then changed her mind while she was near meeting place, didn't want to be seen fleeing, so she hid in the closest tree she could find.
  • She'd at least be within earshot and know why Rainbow called the meeting. What if it was a meeting to help all the birds in area?
• Why doesn't Rainbow Dash give it HER all? This is well after she figured out that she can do the Sonic Rainboom on demand-even accelerating up to face-bending speed but not allowing the shockwave to occur would have added massive amounts of power. Indeed, during the tornado generation, she's not even generating her trademark contrail.
  • Her contrail would probably be invisible among the others in the funnel, and she does have a supervisory job, as shown when she breaks off to check the water's funnelling through. The boom is really at the very limit of her ability: even without it, she packs more wingpower than the others by a hefty margin. Not to mention it's not clear how much control Rainbow has over the boom at this point. Mistime it, and the whole twister gets blown apart either by an unplanned boom or by the recoil.
  • um, assuming by contrail you mean the rainbow that follows RD at high speed, I would imagine that it would be a distraction, and one they can't afford- it's heavily implied that Pegasi can get hurt doing this. RD was probably deliberately not leaving a contrail. Also, note how close they got- they were, IIRC, about 10 wing power short before Fluttershy finally joined in. For all we know, RD was giving her all.
  • Also, generating the tornado requires performing a constant banking turn, in tight formation with other pegasi who are not as good flyers. High speed in open air and plenty of straightaway is one thing. High speed formation flying with a crowded sky full of rookies is something else entirely.
• Rainbow Dash calls a "Mandatory meeting for all Ponyville Pegasi", the event is repeatedly referred to as "Tornado Duty", Dash seems very hostile to anypony who she thinks might be trying to get out of it, and when she finally relents in Fluttershy's case, there is a strong implication that this is a very unusual exception that she wouldn't give anypony else. Does Ponyville have the right to conscript its citizens into performing tough and dangerous jobs? Do other municipalities force their citizens to do similar things? Is nopony bothered by this?
  • Something tells me the only reason they do things that way is because of that competition. If there wasn't anything personal at stake, whether it was winning or just not having the stigma of needing help to do it, they probably would just call in a bunch of Weather Factory workers to handle it.

2.23 Ponyville Confidential

• Dear Gabby Gums: How do you type with horseshoes on?
  • Gabby Gums didn't use a typewriter. Anyway, the typewriters had two hoof-sized buttons and what looked like a space bar. That changes the question from how they hit the buttons to how they fit all the functions into such few keys.
    • I've got it! They type in... Horse Code!
    • A) Pun of the year. B) The keys probably function something to the effect of "select letter", "type selected letter", and a space bar. It would be slow going (or would have to be magically enhanced), but it would probably work okay.
    • Perhaps it works in a similar principle as the chorded keyboard.
• Cheerilee's involvement at the end felt off for a few reasons. Most significantly, what was the reason why she decided to step in and demote Diamond Tiara? If it was because of public annoyance with the articles, shouldn't it have happened before the Crusaders wrote their resignation letter? If it was due to the resignation... note that the Crusaders didn't actually blame Tiara for their actions and instead said that public feedback drove them to continue, so why would Cheerilee find her accountable? The blackmail apparently never went public, so that wasn't a nail in her coffin.
  • As the editor, Tiara had final authority over whatever was printed. The Crusaders could've written whatever they wanted, but it would've never made it in the paper without Tiara's approval.
  • Cheerilee must not have known, maybe not actually paying attention to the contents of the paper. Then Diamond Tiara blackmails them and Featherweight took a picture. Since it wasn't used for the paper, he must have given it to Cheerilee as concrete evidence of what Tiara was doing.
• After the entire episode revolved around the Crusaders attempting to write stories that met with Tiara's approval so that they could get printed, and after she blackmailed them into continuing... Tiara approved the publication of their next article without ever looking at it? And was caught completely off guard after the papers were circulated? She knew they wanted to change their format or leave their position, so why would she relax her editorial mandates? It's true that the deadline was approaching, but that still felt like an Idiot Ball on her part to reach the episode's conclusion.
  • Tiara was probably too over-confident in her blackmail keeping the girls in line.
  • They also seemed to be right at the paper's deadline, and she probably figured any Gabby Gums piece would be better than publishing the photos and cutting ties with the CMC forever.
  • Tiara's been consistently shown to be mean — not necessarily smart. (It's not like she hasn't been hoist by her own petard before.) Plus she's for all her attitudes still not an adult herself, so some Genre Blindness can be excused. Also, yeah, the two points above.
  • These explanations would be acceptable for a purely print piece. However, the article actually has a picture of the Crusaders front and center, instantly implying that they are owning up to their actions as Gabby Gums, and we see during the later montage that it quickly caught the attention of those who were spiting the group. Even if Tiara didn't pick up on that implication, she'd have to wonder why they were writing a defamation article against themselves. For her to publish the article and put it on the "newstands" without realizing that it wasn't their standard fare, she must have not even glanced at the thing from the moment they handed it to her to the moment when everyone was reading it, and that would include not being anywhere near the printing or distribution process, especially so close to deadline when you need to make sure everything goes without a hitch. That's a pretty extreme reversal from earlier.
    • Oh, definitely. The equipment were either far away from her desk or facing a different way, so from where she was sitting, all she really could do is tell her classmates what to do. She'd have to get up from her chair to watch everyone, and by that time, she trusts the technicians to do things right (which they were) and has probably become weary of getting up out of her chair all the time. That, and she doesn't really care what the articles say as long as they get a good readership—if it has a picture of Apple Bloom and the others on them, and it's a made-up defamation piece about themselves, so be it.
• Why does a one-room schoolhouse have its very own newspaper?
  • Given how far more colts and fillies are shown about the school than are ever shown in classroom shots, the school is clearly larger than we've been led to assume.
• Why didn't Cherilee step in earlier? The newspaper was going all over Ponyville and in Cloudsdale, surely she would've heard what stories were being printed. Is she just that irresponsible?
  • Maybe she wanted to hang back and see if the kids would solve it themselves. Which, of course, they did, and they learned a valuable lesson along the way. It'd be a risky move, but some teachers are like that, especially in fiction.
  • She did take her students on a field trip which resulted in unsealing an ancient evil and having Equestria descend into total chaos, maybe she's really that terrible a teacher.
  • Sadly, the above. In the past, Cheerilee has let students be teased in front of her and watched the CMC get into a physical scuffle without intervening. She's sweet and loves her students, but she's never been a terribly reliable teacher.
  • We don't see her after the first meeting until the end of the episode. Perhaps she was out of town on sabbatical, or at a teacher's conference. She might have been unaware until she came back and found out what had happened.
• How did the CMC manage to dig up dirt on Trixie, if she had left Ponyville a long time ago? For that matter, how did the CMC - or at least Featherweight - manage to dig dirt on Princess Celestia?! They managed to hop a train to Canterlot without any supervision?
  • "Document everything." Not just "everything in Ponyville"; "everything". (Who knows, maybe his talent is to be wherever the wind blows or something.)
  • Celestia tends to eat out in very non-royal places—including Ponyville. She had a tea party at the Sugarcube Corner in "A Bird in the Hoof", there's no reason to assume she doesn't visit the town every so often to unwind.
  • They had an interview with Spike, who does know Celestia quite well.
  • Some of the stuff is stated to be made up. Also, they have access Spike and Twilight, so they may have grabbed an old photo. As for Trixie, I'm guessing that it's one of those "Breaking the Magician's Code", only done via ransacking or talking to those who have ransacked through her wrecked carriage. Alternatively, they might have gotten hold of Trixie's diary (assuming one exists) from Snips and Snails, who had themselves recovered it from the rubble.
  • It's almost certainly made up. Every other column they did was a picture and a caption that didn't even necessarily have to be related to the picture. (like claiming Fluttershy had tail extensions) They could've easily gotten a random picture of Trixie and added any accusation.
  • As we find out in later episodes, what Gabby Gums is reporting seems to be about on the mark. Trixie had returned to Ponyville's outskirts some time before "Magic Duel" to work on the Pie Family's rock farm. Celestia is also shown to indeed love cake a bit too much in "MMMystery on the Friendship Express." (And that Featherweight can sneak up on and surprise Celestia.) Three fillies (and a friend) can hop on a train without any supervision, as they did so with the even younger Spike in "Just for Sidekicks," and that train went to The Crystal Empire, which is further away than Canterlot.
• Building nests is part of the Winter Wrap-Up chores - yet we have birds who only need a bit of help to do the same in "Ponyville Confidential". Wat.
  • In the latter episode, they aren't helping to build the nest, but to repair and reinforce an older one.
  • The Ponies' nest-building in "Winter Wrap-Up" doesn't mean the birds can't make their own Nests. It's likely due to the Ponies thinking that the birds, after a long migration, deserve to have a place to sleep upon arrival rather then having extra work making a nest afterwards.
• Why didn't Spike tell the mane cast the CMC were Gabby Gums? He had been interviewed by one of them, and later that interview appeared in Gabby's column. He should have been able to put two and two and two together and get Matilda- er, the fact that the CMC were Gabby Gums.
  • Diamond Tiara pulled that article. She said it was too nice. While the mane six know that he knows who Gabby Gums is, they never actually ask him. The CMC might have asked him to keep it a secret. Or he also might have told the others off screen.
  • He probably did. Someone had to have told the town who Gabby Gums was, since they all knew. It had to have been Rarity or Spike, since Rarity figured it out and Spike was interviewed by them. Rarity seems unlikely because 1. It's her sister, and 2. She'd already heard how guilty Sweetie Belle felt about it. So we can probably guess that Spike exposed them.
• This one's kind of a nitpick, but it's also central to the entire episode, so I think it bears saying. The girls create the shared alias of "Gabby Gums" because they can't fit all three of their own names in their one section of the paper. But why not just sign it "CMC" or "the Crusaders" or something? It's not like their club name's a secret or anything; plenty of other characters have acknowledged it before.
  • Maybe they just liked the name.
  • Maybe they heard about the idea of pen names and figured that using one would help them earn their cutie marks.
• When Rainbow Dash kicked the cloud in the episode it unleashed a torrential downpour but in past episodes Rainbow Dash has kicked clouds and they dissipated
  • Pegasi magic?
  • Probably a different type of cloud, a heavier kind meant to bring rain.
• Although I do not like the way the Cutie Mark Crusaders were shunned after the gossip, why did they have to target the Mane Six ,their friends and family, and people like Trixie, Princess Celestia, and the Mayor to gossip about anyway?
  • I think that was simply showcasing how their gossip was largely indiscriminate. We hear about these characters because they are recognized characters, but they were probably getting dirt on everybody, hence why everybody was angry with them.
• Here is something that always bothered me and I don’t get why nobody else seems to have noticed it: Rarity discovers the Gabby Gums column in Sweetie Belle’s bag and asks her whether she can borrow it so she can show it to her friends because “they just love Gabby Gums.” But she is holding the only Gabby Gums column that had been printed at that time! Anyone who loves Gabby Gums would already be familiar with it! What is the point of showing it to them?
  • Perhaps for discussion and to show that she is in the loop like the others.
  • You misheard. Rarity says "They'd just love Gabby Gums!" None of Rarity's adult friends has read the column yet; Rarity is saying they would love it if they were to read it.
• If the CMC's wanted to quit the paper/change to writing something nicer, why didn't they just tell Tiara "if you keep Gabby Gums up like this, no one's gonna buy your precious paper anymore"? For that matter, should Tiara have realized that "piss off everypony in a small, everypony-knows-everypony town" isn't exactly a sound business strategy?
  • Diamond Tiara seems to have some sort of personal vendetta against the CMC (or at least Apple Bloom). She'd probably be willing to sacrifice the paper if it meant humiliating them. The Foal Free Press no longer making money would be a return to the status quo.
• When the CMC publish their apology, why don't they oust Diamond Tiara for blackmailing them?
  • The whole point was them taking responsibility for their own actions. Not shifting the blame to someone else.
• How could a school newspaper become popular with the whole town? Wouldn't the writings of schoolkids be largely insignificant to grown adults since children usually don't write about subjects more interesting to that demographic?
• Why put Rarity in the right to chide Sweetie Belle for stealing/publishing her diary even though she clearly didn't object to the gossip (despite the Mane Six being openly hurt by it near her) until she was written about? ^note Granted, she acknowledges she had invaded her sister's privacy earlier, but still Also why didn't Sweetie Belle say "I didn't like it when you snooped through my belongings!" and cause Rarity to have an epiphany about why it was wrong instead of her being a condescending moral Hypocrite who aggressively kicks down her little sister's bedroom door?
  • This is Rarity's diary we're talking here. There's something about if your diary entries - the one place you can express your thoughts and feelings without backlash or scorn - being leaked to the public that makes it far worse than some other embarrassing event or fact being leaked out. That would be a violation of trust in its purest form.
  • Also, Rarity came across Sweetie Belle's newspaper copy by accident, while Sweetie Belle knowingly leaked her sister's diary for the newspaper.
    • For that matter, this is Rarity talking about. She probably thought something like having her diary entries leaked would never happen to her.
• Why doesn't Fluttershy talk? I mean, this episode is about Mane 6 being humiliated, and she is the only one to not say a single word?

2.24 MMMystery on the Friendship Express

• I know that this is a show that revolves around the main characters, but why is Pinkie the one to deliver the cake? From what's said, the Cakes made the cake and Pinkie never once calls it HER cake or OUR cake, but only as the Cakes cake, implying she didn't even help to make it. And yet Pinkie is being sent off to deliver the cake for the contest. Yes, plot has to happen, but it just bugs me that if the cake meant THAT much to them and they spent the hours making it why they'd use a proxy to deliver it and have it judged. Couldn't they have just closed the shop for a day, or leave Pinkie in charge of it? I mean, she's shown running the register during Flutershy's assertiveness episode.
• Where the heck is Spike during all of this!? I mean, besides the "Last Roundup", and "Sweet and Elite" he's the only one of the mane cast that keeps being left out of the group's fun. And we know for a fact that in this episode he wasn't on official business in Canterlot, or else he'd make a cameo. Was Twilight really making him stay behind to do chores at the library, rather than hang out with his friends and see Celestia, the one that helped Twilight raise him, and in a way, a mother to him?
  • Well, it was a rather spontaneous invitation, wasn't it? I was under the impression that they didn't even go home.
    • They had tickets, or at least rooms. Either they had warning before hand, or they were able to make some arrangements.
  • With Twilight gone, someone has to man/pony/dragon/whatever the library. Spike's also said that he likes it when Twilight goes on trips, since he gets to slack off.
    • This raises the question of what she did during "Dragon Quest." Was she able to find a temp librarian, or did she just close the place down?
  • Spike obviously stayed home because he has to take care of his baby phoenix pet, which he didn't have at the time of "Dragon Quest"

• Why would Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity eat the cake? It would at least make some sense if the Elements of Laughter, Magic, and Honesty decided to eat the cake (though AJ would have confessed). But the Elements of Kindness, Generosity, and Loyalty would never do that! It wasn't kind for Fluttershy to eat the cake without asking first. It wouldn't be generous to the Cakes and Pinkie Pie to eat their cake and disqualify them from the competition. It's not loyal to Pinkie Pie if you eat their cake and disqualify them. Why would they do this? Did they become jerks just for the sake of the plot or is there an underlying instinctual behavior regarding ponies and cakes.
  • Because those are their redeeming qualities, not their only ones. If they always acted in accordance with their Element, we wouldn't have much conflict and there wouldn't be much of a show.
    • Eh, I've kinda agreed with that Friendship is Witchcraft joke, at least the part about Applejack being more deserving of the Element of Loyalty than Rainbow Dash is.
  • I don't have much of a sense for Rarity's motivation, but... Rainbow Dash doesn't have a lot of impulse control. And perhaps, after being denied cider year after year, she's developed a habit of snagging whatever sweet thing she feels like. As for Fluttershy, she strikes me as quite impressionable - hearing the cake talked up like that, and then hearing that somepony else was getting some of it (or at least attempting to), may well have induced her to a little nibble. Which then turned into considerably more, of course.
    • Plenty of previous episodes have shown Rarity having trouble keeping her greed and other vices in check. That was just another occasion where she failed.
    • I agree, Rarity has been shown a few times that while she's the Element of Generosity, she has slips ups and sometimes her greed gets the better of her, like in Dragon Quest. Discord even used this to his advantage. As for Rainbow Dash, that cake was being guarded by Pinkie Pie and quite a bit deal was made of it...maybe (along with her impulsiveness, as mentioned above), she just couldn't resist the challenge of getting a bite of the super-important cake. As for Fluttershy, she is the Element of Kindness, but there are plenty of times when she's either Innocently Insensitive or is straight-up insensitive, like in "Suited For Success."
• Pinkie Pie's immediate forgiveness and understanding baffled me. If all of my friends conspired to ruin something that I worked really hard on and might bring my town some recognition I'd be really pissed and call my friendship with these people into question.
  • Well, "conspired" is the wrong word, but yeah, at the very least there should have been some indication that the three intended to work off the debt somehow.
  • Why? The cake is already eaten. It can't be made whole again.
  • My initial thought upon first viewing was that it was another "chalk it to Pinkie's weirdness" thing - she is SO EXCITED and SO OBSESSED with the food that her descriptions are literally mind-altering, turning even the ponies of loyalty, generosity, and kindness to sneaking a bite. As such, I found it hilarious.
  • Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Rarity broke their promise to not eat the cake Pinkie Pie tried to protect, but given how Pinkie earlier described the cake in such a vivid and delectable way, I'm not surprised that they fell to their temptations. It's like that South Park episode where Butters allegedly commits suicide, a Pet Sematary grave digger arrives at his parents' home and warns them not to try and bring back their son, despite giving them specific instructions and locations. Also, the mane 6 don't always follow their elements to the letter: Fluttershy was seen to be mean and angry when she took advice from Iron Will; Rarity tries to take gems from that dragon from Dragonshy and guilt-trips Spike into handing over his gem to her on his birthday; Rainbow Dash isn't necessarily the most dependable of ponies (as she's often seen napping and generally being lazy unless called upon). The ponies are fallible, make mistakes and can give-in to temptation (especially if unintentionally goaded into doing it).
• Rule of Funny aside, wouldn't it been better for the girls and Big Mac's back if they use a carriage to take the cake to the train station?
  • Too bumpy.
• Why not teleport it in?
  • Spike got scorched when Twilight teleported the two of them into the library. If teleportation can scorch a dragon...
    • It was explicitly said in that episode that Twilight didn't teleport on purpose. When she teleported in Dragon Quest, she teleported herself, Spike, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash and nopony got scorched. As long as she'd INTENDED to teleport the cake, it should have been fine.
  • This Troper imagines that teleportation over such a large distance would be very difficult, probably impossible due to the mass of the cake, how unstable it seemed to be, the distance it would have to travel, and not being able to see or visualize where she's going. And if she doesn't know where exactly the dessert judging is taking place, she'll have to teleport everypony who needs to help move it, as well.
• Isn't Canterlot only a few hours walk from Ponyville? How would a train ride take all night?
  • The bakers seemed to be the only passengers on the train. If it was being chartered specifically for contest entries it may have been traveling slower than usual to avoid jostling and turbulence.
  • The train travels at the speed of plot.
  • Ponyville to Canterlot is a short trip by Pegasus carriage, not by train or by hoof. In Hearth's Warming Eve, we don't know when the trip started, so that doesn't say anything. In It's About Time, they left while the sun was still up, and arrived maybe an hour before dawn. If the Mane Six left late afternoon and arrived early morning, that would be consist with the only other time shown.
    • My calculations were based on the episode The Best Night Ever, where they left by hoof in the day and arrived by evening.
    • Also, remember the two-parter The Return of Harmony, in which the mane six simply walk to Canterlot and back in a matter of minutes.
    • This was during Discord's reign, only Faust knows what he did to the space-time continuum.
    • Maybe in an emergency situation Twilight can teleport all of them between Ponyville and Canterlot, but she doesn't do it at other times because transporting that many ponies over such a distance is tiring?
  • Canterlot is also sticking out of a mountain. The Friendship Express probably has to spiral around quite a few times to make it up there, and seeing how it's a coal-driven steam locomotive and probably doesn't have modern braking technology, it's not going up there very fast.
• In Hearts And Hooves Day, Big Macintosh was pulling an entire house without breaking a sweat, and now he’s almost collapsing under the weight of a cake. Just how heavy is that cake?
  • I think you'll find it's a lot harder to carry something heavy that's putting a great deal of pressure on your spine than it is to drag something heavy along. It's like some people being strong enough to pull a loaded car with a rope, but they wouldn't be able to carry even half that weight on their backs.
    • Still, it’s a frikkin’ cake, and the house didn’t even have wheels. Also, this raises further questions: Why didn’t they simply put the cake on a trolley?
    • Have you ever tried lifting a cake that big by yourself? Cakes can weigh a ton, especially if they have multiple tiers and you have to make sure it doesn't topple over.
    • Aside from being a different type of movement, Big Mac wasn't just holding a cake, he was balancing it by himself. After getting Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy to help balance it, you can tell he's under significantly less strain, given that it doesn't seem either of them was really lending any muscle to the task.
  • I've kinda assumed that ponies had magical weight reduction abilities that can make their apparent strength go all over the place.
  • It could just be a very heavy cake.
  • The MMMM's main ingredient is a neutron star. A tasty, tasty neutron star.
  • The time he pulled a house he was crazy with magically induced love. I don't think Cheerilee is normally able to punch through walls either, enhanced earth pony strength or not.
    • Truth in Television, as The Power of Love gives you extra adrenaline, with added physical strength.
  • Rule of Funny.
• If Fluttershy was imitating the engineer operating the locomotive after taking a bite off the cake at night, where was the actual engineer?
  • Driving the train? Technically one person (the fireman) shovels the coal into the boiler and a second person operates the engine controls.
  • Taking a break. Fluttershy was nice enough to take over for him, after all.
• Why was the multi-tiered cake fully assembled while they were transporting it? When transporting, say, a tiered wedding cake in real life, you're supposed to have each tier in separate boxes to be transported, then put it together at the destination. If the Cakes were so worried about the cake falling over, just have each tier in a box, being pulled by a cart. It would be easier to get it on the train too.

2.25 & 2.26 A Canterlot Wedding

• When Twilight went to Shining Armor and the others to tell that Cadance is evil because Twilight saw her do some things that made her look evil, and then Shining Armor tells her that the things Cadance was doing was completely different, the others dismissed her. Did Twilight's friends and Celestia forgot about the lesson from Lesson Zero: that you shouldn't dismiss your friend's worries even if they are blown out of proportion, and that you shouldn't let your fears turn a small problem into a big problem?
  • In Lesson Zero nopony could actually directly say that Twilight was wrong, and were just dismissing her concerns because they seemed silly. In the finale, the rest of the group had actually had their own experiences with Cadance, and while they didn't find her particularly pleasant, they all seemed to like her okay enough. And Cadance had already offered them a plausible explanation for why she would want the gang as her bridesmaids BEFORE Twilight came in spouting that she was evil.
  • This also ties with the fact that the rest of the group don't know Cadance personally; they naturally assume she's a good pony who's just experiencing pre-wedding stress. Plus, it never occurs to Twilight to explain to them who Cadance is and what she is/was like. If Twilight had said something like "I've known Cadance since I was a filly, and even if she was under stress she would never act this way!", she might have had an easier time swaying them to her side.
  • There's also the fact that this time around, there was an alternate explanation for her behavior; the entire first half of episode 25 where Twilight goes on and on about how important her brother is to her and how mad she is that he's getting married without telling her could easily come across as possessive. Adding to that is that they aren't there when it's revealed that Twilight knew Cadance, or when she made peace with her brother. Add in the fact that (fake) Cadance treated the rest of the cast pretty well (putting people you don't know into your wedding party is a pretty big gesture) and it's pretty clear that from their perspective, Twilight is being insanely possessive of her brother, and making up excuses to dislike the pony who's taking him away from her. They didn't just brush her off; they heard her out and made an (wrong) informed decision that she was just jealous.
    • Which actually leans more toward the idea that they did forget the lesson learned in "Lesson Zero".
    • The lesson was to listen to the concerns of their friend, not humor paranoid ranting. When Twilight first started talking to them about Cadance's actions, they were listening to her, but Twilight ran off rather than discuss things, and actually said that she was going to try to stop the wedding. In this case, Twilight was the one that wasn't listening to her friends, as she blew off anyone that tried to talk to her. And keep in mind, in both Lesson Zero and About Time Twilight was making a fuss over nothing. In this episode, Twilight had even less to be upset about. It really was dumb luck that Twilight's accusation was even in the ballpark.
    • Twilight was just as guilty of forgetting the lesson of "MMMystery on the Friendship Express" which was not to jump to conclusions. She was even worse about forgetting since it was more recent. That would account for everyone, especially Celestia, being as upset with her as they were.
• Where did the Changelings come from? Where do they live? And why do they feed off of love?
  • Tartarus. Wherever they can hide^note They're shapeshifters. They could be hiding in your own closet without you knowing.. And love tastes sinfully delicious, without being fattening in the slightest.
  • Or maybe... ever notice how there's more than one Bonbon? or Derpy? Changlings live everywhere and act just like normal ponies.
    • .... Is it possible they just gave a canon explanation for all the duplicate background ponies?
  • There's a whole planet outside Equestria that's largely unknown and unexplored. Alternatively, it's been proposed that Chrysalis was originally the love-poisoned princess referenced in Hearts and Hooves Day.
• If Shining Armor is Twilight's BBBFF (Big Brother Best Friend Forever,then why does it seem like the others don't seem to know who he is until Twilight tells them? Wouldn't she want to tell them everything about the guy she looks up to?
  • I guess the relations between the two got distant after Twilight left Canterlot.
• Where was Luna during the fight? Was she asleep (ya know, she rules at night)?
  • They showed Luna flying in at night, so wherever she spends her days is outside of the shield. The event also went down fast enough that they didn't have the time to send word to her after the shield fell, and if Canterlot fell, then she would have been needed to rally forces elsewhere in Equestria.
  • Luna is shown to relieve Celestia at nightfall, and when she shows up for the wedding asking whether she's missed anything it's once again evening. The Changelings also never seem to have found her while swarming all over Canterlot^note [[Fridge Horror, at least as far as one can ever tell when shapeshifters are involved,]], which together with her earlier arrival through the shield would indeed suggest that she spends her days elsewhere and may in fact simply have slept through the whole thing.
    • Still strange that Luna would leave Canterlot at night even though Canterlot is explicitely under threat of attack. Wouldn't it make sense to have both powerful alicorns at hand to repel the threat? Not to mention Luna's presence at the wedding itself would have resolved the plot immediately.
    • I think the possibilities of there not being enough time for Luna to receive word about the chaos or Luna having slept through the chaos seem plausible enough.
• Shining Armor's Twilight's BBBFF (Big Brother Best Friend Forever), then what about Spike? Does that make him her LBBFF (Little Brother Best Friend Forever)?
  • I actually think the introduction of Shining Armor hasn't ruined the theory that Twi and Spike are like bro and sis. It's just that their relationship is different. With Shining Armor, he was someone she could look up to, and play with. Spike was just a baby at the time. And probably spent a lot of time with Celestia (seeing as she taught him that "fire-magic sending thingy"). But Spike loves Twilight as family (confirmed in Owl's Well That Ends Well, and Dragon Quest) and shows that she returns the feelings.
  • One Word of God suggested that Celestia took to the initial raising of Spike, given the general lack of pony knowledge on dragon raising, only giving her to Twilight as an assistant when both were mature enough for it. Hence, the Twi/Spike relationship - prior to being sent off to Ponyville - would be more formal, and becoming more sibling as they both learned to adjust to Ponyville. This would also be consistent that leaving Shining (whom she still probably saw every day while at Canterlot), her relationship with Spike would be upgraded to the sibling nature to make up for not being around Shining.
• Why was everyone so quick to take Cadance's side? They all completely snuffed Twilight, as if her opinion didn't matter. The other ponies completely dismiss Twilight without a thought. I genuinely thought they were being mind-controlled/influenced like Shining Armor was. Even Celestia leaves in a huff without actually talking to Twilight about her concerns. It gets really egregious when Shining Armor tells her off so utterly... considering the relationship the siblings are supposed to have, that should have set off alarm bells. Yet her supposed friends just leave her without saying anything?
  • They all saw Twilight get into a bad mood because Shining Armor didn't tell her about the wedding personally. They assumed she was overreacting because of that. And as much as her friends try to take her concerns seriously, Twilight obsesses over the smallest of things.
    • I'm not so sure that holds water. This is Rarity and Applejack we're talking about, and the dress and the apples were snubbed by the bride. Even if she wasn't a changeling-much less the queen-we're talking about someone who basically disrespected the very foundation of what those two characters have based their lives and liveihoods on. Applejack would normally defend her own apples to the death. Rarity is not someone you screw around with when it comes to dressmaking. If Cadance was realistically acting in this manner, it makes perfect sense to call her out on her bitchiness, especially from the Mane Six. Struck me as a little out-of-character for them to hold back and instantly forgive her. I may be a guy, but I know a 'bridezilla' when I see one.
    • Rarity doesn't always reject criticism. Remember when she made dresses for her friends, and they didn't like them? She worked overtime re-making the dresses according to their requests. It's no surprise she would do the same for a princess's wedding gown.
    • It's entirely possible that any of those characters planned to talk to Twilight some more after she had a chance to calm down. They tried to find her a few minutes later, but she had already been imprisoned at that point and thus could not be found (and they assumed she had run off). And you can't really count what Shining Armor said, considering he was under some sort of mind-control influence.
    • Rarity has actually got lots of prior evidence for being a total pushover when it comes to being talked back to about her dresses. Applejack I might expect to be a little harsher, but she didn't lose her temper with Prince Blueblood either, and was remarkably civil with the Flim Flam Brothers too.
    • Being a fashion designer and a farmer/caterer respectively, it's understandable that they hold a professional attitude when dealing with a fussy client.
    • To be fair, Twilight never actually accuses "Cadance" of being an outright fake — just vaguely "evil", which does make her sound more than a bit irrational and desperate. Since she doesn't even bring up her alleged former favorite foal-sitter blithely failing to recognize her at first, it seems that the idea that she might be dealing with a genuine impostor (rather than the real Princess Cadance simply turned somehow 'bad') didn't occur to even her.
    • Could be justified, though, since the idea of of "Cadance" being an imposter would most likely be the last thing to ever come to Twilight's mind in the first place.
    • Okay, but then we still have the rest to consider if we ignore the superficial threat; Twilight was not irrational by the scope of the lessons she has had in Ponyville as well as the others that relate (Best Night Ever, Parasprites because of listening and respecting others, Putting Hooves Down, etc) and reactions she has learned about her friends. The Changeling Cadance was extremely rude and dismissive of all these people-towards people who would never accept that behavior from anyone else save for a poor excuse over the said perpetrator's wedding. One's wedding is not an excuse for her actions especially against the Elements of Harmony and the idea of the show, and Twilight was right to call her out on it...and she would have left it there, if that was just the case and there was no evil afoot.
    • Ever seen Bridezilla? Yes, some people do act that way about their wedding.
    • I'd also note that from the rest of the cast's perspective, fake Cadance wasn't being that bad. Applejack doesn't know that she hated the food (she doesn't hear it until Twilight tells her later), Rarity takes her criticism of the dress in stride (and it really isn't that weird for a bride to be nitpicky about her dress), and her critiques of Pinkie's reception plans and Fluttershy's bird chorus are shown to actually be accurate: Pinkie's ideas for a wedding reception (party games, pinatas) are unbeffiting for a wedding (even if the real Cadance is okay with it), and the bird really was singing off key. That and while we saw all the times Chrysalis was being a bitch, each of the cast members only saw individual occasions of it and chalked them up to wedding stress. Then you have the fact that frankly, it's kind of an enormous goodwill gesture to let five ponies you don't know be your bridesmaids, so that probably got fake Cadance a lot of points with the other five of the group. Add in the fact that Twilight acts rather possessive and unhappy about the wedding from the get-go and doesn't back up her accusations with proof, and it really isn't a stretch for the rest of the cast to just assume that she's horribly overreacting.
    • Twilight was shown to be very possessive of Shining Armor as far back as the beginning of the episode, when she threw a complete fit over hearing about his wedding secondhand. That in and of itself was probably a surprise to her friends, since she doesn't seem to get very angry often. They also don't have the intimate knowledge of Cadance's personality Twilight does. To the rest of the mane 6, Twilight started getting out there when she first heard about the wedding, and only got worse from there. And whether she had reason to be or not, Twilight wasn't at all calm or rational when she accused Cadance of being "evil". They'd be hard-pressed to assume anything other than, "She's off her rocker, and it's because she's clingy about her brother".
    • Don't forget that Twilight didn't even bring up most of the worst evidence about Cadence - not only did she not mention that she didn't recognize her, she also didn't mention the argument she had with her brother. The only real problems she brought up, other than vague accusations that she was "EVIL!" could easily be explained away by saying Cadence just wanted her wedding to be perfect.
    • To put things into perspective, the fake Cadance did quite well by manipulating Twilight's friends, brother, and mentor like that, so it's more of an underhanded tactic on her part when you think about it. Plus, in all fairness, Twilight's lack of proof is actually justified by the fact that she had no possible way of showing any proof in this case to begin with (Granted, she could have tried her exposition beam that she pulled in "Return Of Harmony: Part 2", but it most likely would have still done no good, considering how it could still likely be contradicted.), and Twilight did lose all feelings of possessiveness and unhappiness after learning that her brother was marrying her favorite foal-sitter, so when you think about it, Twilight had every right to accuse "Cadance" of being evil, even if it never occurred to her that this "Cadance" was an imposter.
    • What would've happened if Twilight had gone to Princess Celestia to talk with her in private instead of barging into the rehearsal? It seems to me that another reason that Celestia was angry at Twilight after her outburst wasn't just that she accused her niece, but rather because she was disappointed that Twilight didn't come to her first. Celestia is essentially like a second mother to Twilight, and surely, she would've known that her most beloved student would never ever lie to her.
    • At the very least, Celestia would assure Twilight that if Cadance was still acting badly after the wedding, she would talk to her.
    • Better yet, what would've happened if Twilight had actually managed to gather solid proof to back up her claims or had handled the situation rationally? Instead of calling Cadance "evil", she just called her out be saying that just because it's her wedding, she has no right to act like a spoiled brat? Would everyone have believed her then, or would they have tried to come up with a bad excuse?
    • For me the problem isn't that they didn't believe her, it's that they completely walked out on her after her "Big Brother Best Friend Forever" basically disowned her. While there is no denying Twilight behaved badly, look how forgiving she has been of their more mean spirited behavior in previous episodes (Bridle Gossip and Luna Eclipsed for example). Not to mention after all she's done for them (particularly Fluttershy in "A Bird in the Hoof" and Rarity in "Sweet and Elite"), you'd think that the ONE time she acts up, they wouldn't just turn their backs on her. They were right to be angry, but all this talk about they probably tried to find her afterwards to work things out ignores that none of this happened onscreen. For a series that is very good about onscreen reconciliations, seeing Twilight's friend turn their backs on her with no indication they still cared for her is more then a little jarring. Compare "Party of One", Pinkie has a massive outburst and is extremely nasty to her friends because she believes they no longer care about her. Rather then getting mad, they all sit there sadly and wait for her to realize her mistake. When Twilight has an outburst because she thinks she saw her brother getting hypnotized, everyone turns their noses up at her and walk out, despite her expressing remorse on the spot, and having just been essentially disowned by her brother. There was no "Twilight, we love you, but this behavior is inexcusable" speeches, they just leave. Plus, once they realized Twilight was right all along, Applejack gives a very weak apology for not believing her, NOT for abandoning her, and the others never apologize at all. Celestia implies an apology, and Shining takes Twilight as his Best Mare again, but the others never say anything. Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness showed no compassion for Twilight, Pinkie Pie, the Element of Laughter left Twilight to wallow in misery and despair. Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty abandons Twilight without a moments hesitation,(even more poignant when you remember that she herself not only said she'd never leave her friends hanging, but also that she claimed to have never even met Cadance), Applejack, who has a brother herself and showed the most concern earlier for Twilight's worries over Shining, etc., and Rarity, the Element of Generosity, tries to get into the good graces of royalty instead of comforting her friend. The problem isn't that they didn't believe Twilight or disapproved of her behavior, it's that not one of them hesitated to abandon Twilight at a very low point in her life without giving her a chance to apologize, atone, etc.
    • Twilight sure didn't look like she needed any support, but Cadance did. Twilight had just accused her of being evil and ruining her brother's life, while smiling at an obviously distressed Cadance, using evidence that was disproved seconds later. Cadance, ostensibly an innocent mare, ran off in tears. Add to that the fact that Shining Armor just explained that Cadance's previous bridesmaids had basically been using her, and it looked to everypony like the princess could really use some friends right then. Please set aside the Fourth Wall Myopia for a second. To any one of the Mane Six, Cadance needed their help. Twilight needed to think things over, as Celestia said.
    • What I don't understand is that everyone keeps saying that Shining Armor disowned Twilight after her outburst at the wedding. But I don't recall him ever explicitly telling Twilight "You are not my sister anymore!" or "I want you out of my life forever!". He just took away her Best Mare title and told her not to come to the wedding. Shining's anger towards Twilight could be justified in that he saw his little sister lashing out at who he thought was his fiance the day before their wedding, but would he really go that far as to cut Twilight from his life?
    • His outburst could be justified. While We don't know exactly how MUCH of what he said was Chrysalis brainwashing him and how much was his own doing, but as husband-to-be, his loyalty is first and foremost with his fiancé.
    • As noted above, it's entirely possible that they just wanted to let her cool off a bit before talking to her. She's only alone afterward for maybe five minutes tops before Chrysalis banishes her, after all. Things were getting pretty heated, so the rest of the cast thought it was prudent to take a break before confronting her again so they wouldn't say anything they'd regret. And then by the time they came back for her, she was already gone.
    • They're leaving Twilight had nothing to do sides. With Cadance having left, there was no way to have the necessary discussion to take sides. For all we know they left to get Cadance back to get them to work this out.
• Why was Applejack the only one who apologize and her apology sound half-assed at best?
  • Twilight herself said Chrysalis had fooled everypony very well; she was mature and knew her friends had good reason to not believe her. Plus, the more pressing issue of defeating Chrysalis was at hoof, so it wasn't the time for apologies.
  • It wasn't any worse than any other feuds they had, save for completely unforeseen consequences that it's unfair to hold against them.
  • Applejack was the one who proposed they leave her; she's the most, if not entirely, responsible for that.
• Nobody noticed the giant army right outside the force field? None of those guards noticed the changelings and thought to notify Celestia? Nopony glanced outside and saw those black ominous looking ponies? What?
  • The changelings didn't start attacking until Queen Chrysalis revealed herself. And an army of shapeshifters is very, very, very easy to hide.
• In "Return of Harmony" It's explicitly stated that only Celestia can release the lock on the door to the tower of Canterlot (where the elements are stored). Celestia seemed fully drained after her battle with Chrysalis, in no state to be doing anything with her magic, and she had to insert her horn in the door to unlock it anyway. What were the Mane 6 gonna do when they got there, if they weren't captured by the changelings? It seems their plan was doomed from the start.
  • They are the elements of harmony. So the spell wouldn't work on them.
  • Either Celestia was delirious from getting the snot kicked out of her, she made the Elements accessible to them.
  • It is possible that what unlocks the door isn't Celestia's magic, but an specific spell, something Celestia could have taught to Twilight after the accident with Discord. Twilight Sparkle saw the spell Celestia cast to open the door last time. And part of Twilight's special talent is being able to copy other spells.
  • It's also possible that while only Celestia herself could actually undo the spell, the magic is still designed to let certain authorized ponies simply pass without interference. After all, not only could the Elements always be needed when the Princess isn't conveniently around to fetch them (as seen in the very series pilot, which isn't something she's likely to have forgotten about already), but she can't use them herself anymore anyway and knows it, too.
  • For yet another alternative, we don't even know for certain that that spell is still there. It failed to keep out Discord, after all; Celestia may have replaced it with something else in the meantime.
  • Another possibility: The spell is supposed to work as a "dead mare" switch. If Celestia ever loses the ability to use her magic, the spell deactivates. Because if that ever does happen, the Mane Six won't have time to wait for Celestia to regain her power to unlock the vault for them.
  • Perhaps she just doesn't keep the elements locked anymore. After all, the last time they needed the elements, they found out that lock doesn't work for anything- not only were they abducted from their chamber, but they wound up in Twilight's book. That's not very good security, really. Seeing as how this lock can be broken, maybe they just keep the elements there under guard. It's implied that even Celestia is surprised at the empty box where the elements were supposed to be. Having guards keep watch over them, on the other hand, would mean that she be absent in case the Mane Cast absolutely needed them (like in this episode, where she's beaten down by the baddie). Also, if someone attempted to steal them again, even if the guards were defeated, at least they could tell her what took them and possibly where- that's already more warning and help than the group got when they went into the chamber last time.
• How were the hypnotizing the original bridesmaids lured off by a BOUQUET OF FLOWERS?
  • Apparently, Studio B did enough research on this subject to know that you cannot just rewrite someone's core personality through hypnosis. Given the proper stimuli, the subject's true personality can and will still override the hypnosis, no matter how much magic is involved. In that scene, the bridesmaids saw the bride throw a bouquet. That was enough to break their hypnosis long enough for them to remember the wedding tradition and dive after the bouquet on their own volition.
• Why would the changelings shape-shift into the ponies they're fighting? Now they have no idea who's friend and who's foe.
  • Neither do their opponents.
    • Except that their opponents can all quite easily attack the ones that look like them, and can also attack any group of two or more clones of the same pony who appear to be fighting together. The only way this might give the Changelings an advantage is if they themselves had the ability to spot the difference, but judging by Fluttershy's trick they clearly don't.
    • There are so many there that determining who's the focal point of a particular cluster is gonna be taxing, especially if you're being attacked yourself. Given that, each pony is pretty much forced to fight only the ones that look like them, lest they knock out an ally. And none of the guests can really help, for the same reason. They're kind of isolated.
  • Judging by the changelings' habit of slamming their faces into things (either the shield or the ground), perhaps they're not very intelligent.
  • Psychological warfare, they did it hopping to mess with the Mane 6's heads a bit.
    • Exactly. Yeah, it didn't work in their favor, but most of them seemed to enjoy messing the Mane 6's heads, notably when a group of Changeling!Twilights mockingly repeat Twilight's "They're changelings, remember?"
  • The comic series shows how the changelings prefer to fight, and it's by using subterfuge rather than direct force. The changelings took their forms out of habit, because they usually approach their targets in disguise.
• How did the Queen manage to get past the force field?
  • She probably went in before it was even put up.
• At the climax, Shining's having trouble making his magic work due to being drained earlier, and Cadance says she'll help empower him with her love. The Queen's response? "What a lovely but ridiculous sentiment." It's a common villain trait to underestimate The Power of Love, but doesn't that sound wrong from the mouth of a villain whose entire plan up to that point involved growing more powerful from someone's love?
  • The point may've been that she'd drained Shining Armor so much that they could not possibly have enough combined power to defeat her. The way she worded it still sounds off though, I agree...
  • It could also be that Chrysalis thought only Changelings could benefit from The Power of Love. To her, it was as if Pinkie had gone up to her and said "I'll defeat you with my magic"
  • It is also possible she saw love as a source of food and nothing else, only Changelings can "eat" love and she wasn't expecting it to be weaponized against her.
  • Cadance was weakened from imprisonment, so Chrysalis probably had no idea she could still do magic
• So, the threat to Canterlot. The one that caused Shining Armor to beef up security. What was the deal with that? The implication is that it was a threat from the Changelings, but that doesn't make much sense. They're shapeshifters who did their very best to hide the operation until it came time to invade. Telling them that they're planning to attack only made their job harder. The only explanations I can think of are that they were ridiculously confident or that the threat was sent by Shining Armor before he became brainwashed, who'd figured out what was happening and sent it to himself in an attempt to thwart their plans. Yeah, I don't know either.
  • I think they let slip that something unspecific was threatening Canterlot, and between him constantly keeping up the forcefield and the Changeling Queen draining him, they were trying to run the source of the defenses out of power, so the shield generator would be completely tapped out for their invasion.
  • The simplest explanation is that the Changeling Queen herself made the threat after switching places with Cadance. Her plan required him to be too distracted to notice her changes in behavior, and for best results she would want him too exhausted to really fight back. Forcing Shining Armor to keep the shield up for an extended period of time accomplished both of those things, and claiming to heal him gave the Queen an excuse to cast spells on him repeatedly.
  • Just because "a threat has been made" doesn't mean the changelings announced themselves. It's possible they accidentally triggered some sort of warning system earlier. There could be a spell that detects various non-pony races approaching Canterlot and sends a warning to the guards, but can't determine any more specific information.
    • Given that Season 3 opened with The Crystal Empire, an unknown amount of time passes between A Canterlot Wedding and The Crystal Empire and the lack of any accurate way of judging how far away the Crystal Empire is other than you can get there by train it's at least possible that they sensed King Sombra and Queen Chrysalis just happened to be past the point of no return in her plan by that point, thought she could defeat/negotiate/avoid King Sombra or was working for/with him in some capacity. The Mane 6 and the Princesses are capable of being wrong and I see no reason they couldn't have gotten two threats mixed up to their benefit. Heck it's even possible that Sombra intentionally made himself known to spoil Chrysalis' plans since she might very well have been unstoppable had she captured the love of Canterlot.
• In the end, the Changelings are still alive. What is going to keep them from infiltrating towns with no massive force fields, like Ponyville or Manehatten?
  • Nothing, but it don't make strategic sense, Celestia could easily send a well-organized army to take the city back, and if it fails, send the Mane Six with the elements of Harmony to defeat them, the main objective of taking down Canterlot first was so the rest of Equestria would offer little resistance.
    • Said army would need to find them first and then be able to tell the shapeshifters from the real ponies. There are still a lot of Changelings around, too, to say nothing of their Queen; they could probably take, say, Ponyville by strength of numbers alone, and if they were even halfway sneaky about it nopony outside of town would be any wiser for a good long while. And they have every reason to come back: there's food to be had in Equestria and starving on purpose would make even less sense, strategic or otherwise... — Essentially, while their latest plot may have been foiled, the Changelings are far from actually defeated. Sequel Hook, anyone?
    • Yes they would need to find the towns, but they wouldn't need to change into real ponies. In a city they could walk right in with good forged documents (or legit documents gotten through some means), and claim they have always been citizens. In a small enough town where the locals know most of the other people in their town, they would be some random pony moving in from out of town. Real world spies don't normally need to impersonate real people when they infiltrate, why would changelings? Of course they would have to do this on a gradual scale.
    • It IS a Sequel Hook, we finally have a villain evil enough to be an actual problem and not too strong to be to dangerous to let free, I am just saying, the Changelings don't NEED a large scale attack to feed thenselfs, they are shapeshifters, they could just sneak on a town, eat as much love and whatever other emotions they might also enjoy as they want and get away from there as fast as possible.
  • Keep in mind that the Changelings were likely disorganized from being blasted over the horizon, and demoralized from their recent defeat. They'll probably return eventually, but at the moment, fighting them is less war, and more pest control.
  • I figure they do indeed lurk throughout Equestria, but for reasons mentioned above know they would lose a large scale battle and so keep themselves hidden. Unicorns can destroy their illusions remember, if she wasn't empowered the (significantly more powerful that her subjects) Queen would have been totally flattened by Celestia. Her plan was likely to zerg rush Celestia and the royal guard, while they were both exhausted and had their guard down. Doing so takes away the main threat to domination of the whole country.
  • Now that Canterlot is aware of a changeling threat, they may develop spells to detect changelings, and send out patrols around Equestria to find them and stop them from causing too much trouble. (They knew there was a threat before the changelings arrived, but I don't think they knew anything specific. Now they do.)
  • And, of course, Chrysalis and the Changelings already existed prior to this episode, presumably—they'd just go back to whatever they were doing before. If they intend to attack again, it will have to take some time.
• Is Vinyl Scratch related to Shining Armor and, by extension, Twilight? She looks an awful lot like him - white unicorn with dark/light blue mane and all.
  • Judging relations in Equestria by mane and coat color might be a bad idea, none of the families we saw so far have identical colors (Big Mac and Apple Bloom, for example, go so far as having inverted colors).
• When did Cadance foalsit Twilight? Before or after she became Princess Celestia's apprentice? If she lives with the princess as her apprentice, then why would she need a foalsitter? Wouldn't celestia keep an eye on her?
  • Before, if you check the flashbacks, Twilight didn't have her Cutie Mark yet, I personally like to think Cadance went to the same school as Shining Armor when they were teens and became friends, at some point Shining Armor complained about not being able to do something(such as do the test to join the royal guards, for example) because he had to take care of Twi, and Cadance offered to foalsit her, she liked Twi enough to start foalsitting her whenever possible.
    • Following that theory, it is possible Cadance had a crush on Shining Armor ever since back then, which is why she offered to help him in first place, First Girl Wins, anyone?
    • The lack of cutie mark could have just been an animation mistake, considering that we see little Twilight unpacking her things (including Smartypants) in what appears to be a castle chamber, which would imply that Cadance foalsitted her during her years as Celestia's personal pupil.
    • It's also possible that that was Cadance's castle chamber, not Twilight's, and she only brought along a box of toys for the day. The chamber itself also features many heart motifs in its decorations, which makes this interpretation more likely.
  • The season 3 premiere may have shed some new light on this one. There are some very heavy hints dropped that Twilight has some important destiny that Celestia is grooming her for. If this is the case, then it's certainly possible that she has been paying attention to Twilight for a long time, even before she got her cutie mark. If so, then connections between the royal family and the Sparkle family start to make a lot more sense.
  • Celestia is the ruler of Equestria. She can't really be expected to have the time to look after both a foal and a country.
• The direction in which Chrysalis and her minions got blasted off too looked absolutedly barren. Is that Tartaurus? Or is it someplace else entirely?
  • Could be Appleoosa, actually. Or just someplace we haven't seen before. (And besides, I got the impression that the changelings were blasted in all directions.)
    • There is a good chance that it is not Appleoosa as that place did not have dark clouds hovering over it. Furthermore, if you look closely the river stops just before it hits the barren place. Rivers don't do that, they keep on going and going. You can also see a rather distinct line where the forest quite literally stops. The only place thst ever happens is in the Sahara Desert
    • If you actually pay attention, the river, with all its twists and turns, keeps going toward the left side of the screen, and just bends away from that place. As for the forest, it's hard to tell what's actually happening there.
  • It would kind of make sense to assume it's just part of the frontier lands where Appleloosa and Dodge Junction are located, especially since The Last Roundup reveals that this part of Equestria is visible from Canterlot - but it seems pretty clear that writers wanted to imply that it's some sort of Mordor-like wasteland where changelings come from and now were sent back there.
• If Shining Armor was considered Twilight's only friend, then what about Spike? Based on dialogue from previous episodes, it's implied that they always had a strong bond- Owl's Well that ends Well he was afraid that Twilight didn't love him anymore. And that knew each other ever since they met- Secret Of My Excess mentions how for every birthday he had, Twilight always gave him a gift. And the picture of baby Spike with Twilight in the final scene from Dragon Quest, implies that she knew him from the moment he was hatched. Is it because he was a baby for most of the time, that he wouldn't be old enough to play the things she wants to? Or is it out of ignorance, since he's younger, she looks down on him (like any older sibling would on a younger sibling)?
  • What is with you and your constantly demonizing the ponies as dragon abusers??
    • They don't abuse Spike. If anything, Twilight definitely cares about him. I just find it odd how she only counted Shining Armor as her one friend in Canterlot, while Spike was hanging out with her too. I'm just wondering where exactly does he fits in her circle of friends? Does she see him as another brother, a friend, a son, or just an assistant?
  • Shining Armor was probably her only friend before she became Celestia's pupil, and thus also before she met Spike. Twilight mentioned they drifted apart, and that's probably the point in time when the drifting happened - when Twilight became Celestia's pupil.
    • Now that you mention it, I do notice how she didn't have her cutie mark in those flashbacks. So you're probably right. I bet Twilight sees Spike and Celestia as her second family. Seeing as she drifted apart from her own, Celestia became a second mother, and Spike a second brother. But she always kept in touch with her parents and shining armor.
• If Shining Armor was her friend, then why is it in past episodes Twilight said she never had friends in Canterlot?
  • Because Twilight exaggerates and is prone to massive errors of perception. She also forgot about Spike. Both are perhaps family, which don't count for reasons of proving a point.
  • She probably meant she had no friends outside her family. When she's spoken of a lack of friends in past episodes, I'm pretty sure it was to exemplify how she never tried to make friends. She didn't need to socialize to make friends with Shining Armor because he's family and she didn't need to; it was just an automatic bond.
• Does anyone else think Chrysalis, powerful as she had become, was doomed from the start? After all, the silly not-a-pony forgot to account for Luna, whose first act once she found out they were being invaded would likely be to free her sister. Could Chrysalis have taken both alicorns at once?
  • If she could, then hoo boy.
  • The Queen's original plan was derailed when the real Cadance arrived. We don't get to see her original plan in its entirety, but she didn't want to face Celestia until after the wedding, at the earliest. Assuming that she had been able to pick and choose her confrontations, she could have abducted one sister, then taken her form and led the other into a trap.
• If changelings feed off emotions, why do they have fangs?
  • Because they're cool.
  • Because they can eat actual food in addition to love.
    • Actually, I don't know if they can. The only time we see her actually eat anything she doesn't enjoy it and promptly throws it away (true it's suppose to add to her jerkassness, but there could be more to it). Even beforehand she looks like she's doesn't look forward to eating the food (whereas with the other wedding aspects she just has a look of disinterest to her)
  • Rule of Symbolism. They are essentially vampires, after all.
  • The comic shows them feeding. They suck love in through their mouths, so the fangs are probably to help hold larger, stronger prey in place during the process.
  • Besides, if they passively feed off emotions, they wouldn't need mouths either.
  • For fighting.
• When did Chrysalis replace Cadance? My first thought is that it must have been several months ago, before Shining Armor even proposed marriage. I figure this because, as Twilight says, Shining Armor would normally discuss such a big decision with his sister before actually getting engaged. He didn't mention it to her, so I can only assume Chrysalis was messing with his mind at the time, which means she had already replaced Cadance. (We're going with the theory that Chrysalis intentionally prevents Shining from contacting Twi, right? And not just that he's "really busy"? Because really, how hard would it be to send Twilight a letter?). But, if Chrysalis has been Cadance for so long, what has Cadance been eating down in those caves? And how does she know about the wedding?
  • How about this: Chrysalis replaced Cadance months ago. She's been keeping Cadance fed because she wants Cadance to keep generating love that Chrysalis can indirectly feed on. Cadance knows about the wedding because Chrysalis told her, via villainous gloating. Fortunately, Cadance is just as willing to marry Shining Armor as Chrysalis pretended to be.
  • While possible it is unlikely that Cadance would just go ahead and marry when it wasn't even her that was proposed to. It seems more likely that she was taken around the time she was proposed to. The chaos of such a thing would be the primary reason they might have forgotten to message Twilight and by the time they would have remembered Cadance had already been replaced and the threat made aware.
  • Given how poor a job the Queen did of acting like Cadance, it was probably around the time the threat was made. If it wasn't for the excuse of additional stress from planning the wedding on her own, the Queen would have been made easily, even with Shining Armor brainwashed. Shining Armor probable didn't tell Twilight about the engagement earlier because he wanted it to be a surprise. He also couldn't tell her in person because his job kept him in Canterlot.
  • It was probably after the decision had been made to have the Mane Cast help in the wedding preparations, and after the point where she could refuse them without suspicion. Having the Mane Six close by exposed her to one of the ponies that knew Cadance well, and risked them being able to use the Elements.
• Okay, can someone PLEASE tell me how the Royal Guard was so easily subdued? All throughout the first episode we see dozens of them stationed all over the place, so how is it that the Changelings won so quickly? It's not like they had the element of surprise by the time they broke through the barrier, unless the Guards happened to not be looking up for the minute or so it took the Changelings to finish off the barrier. On top of that the Mane 6 who, while they have proven to be exceptionally Badass time and again, manage to defeat a large horde of Changelings between the 6 of them. In fact we only see two Royal Guards who are of course bound and useless, so what about the rest of them? Are you telling me 6 ponies are a more capable fighting force than the ENTIRE ROYAL GUARD minus Shining Armor? Even if their commander was getting married, it's not like they wouldn't have sub-captains and lieutenants directing the various units. Now of course the more obvious reason was to allow the Mane 6 to have an epic battle sequence, but wouldn't it have been even MORE epic to have the Royal Guard lending a hand? I just find it hard to believe a trained army could be so easily defeated.
  • Even by the end, the Mane 6 were subdued by the Changelings. On top of that, the Changelings can shapeshift, making it very hard to tell them apart and fight them. If they used the same technique they used on the Mane 6 on the guards, it would be a lot harder since the guards all look the same.
  • Remember too that the Queen had their captain brainwashed. She knew exactly where they were deployed, where they were weak, what the individual members were capable of... her minions were likely under order to finish them off first, only going for the group of six unarmored ponies runing through the city when they went for the elements of harmony. It was also likely that groups of them were indeed still fighting, but it wasn't plot important enough to show them.
    • Come on, let's be honest. The Royal Guard hasn't really proven themselves to be effective save Shining Armor's impressive barrier. I mean, when you live in a matriarchal society where your main leaders are triple-aspected Gods, you don't have much to do normally.
  • When have the Royal Guards ever proven themselves to be more than a Redshirt Army, anyway?
    • Fighting a co-ordinated battle, in a city, without central leadership, against a foe with air superiority, enough power to break down your supposedly indestructible fortifications and no apparent regard for civilian casualties or collateral damage... good luck with that. My best guess is that the guards decided that the changelings were out of their league, and went off and did something useful, like evacuate civilians.
  • FYI, we only see two defeated, not enough to say it's representative of their overall effectiveness. There's enough explosions to suggest there was still fighting offscreen.
• Is it spelled Cadence or Cadance? The former is what I thought it was (and the way this site spells it), but the closed captions and the MLP Wikia spell it as "Cadance".
  • Cadance is the official spelling.
    • Closed captions also spell Manehatten as "Mainhattan." They also spell Zecora's name as "Zakora." It looks like Vitac is given key information regarding how certain things are spelled, and everything minor is up to the CC listeners' interpretations.
• Where did that bouquet that Cadance used on the bridesmaids come from? I would normally just say Rule of Funny except the plot hinged on them being able to get out of the cave. It's not exactly something you'd find lying in a cave, or even something you'd be carrying around with you. And there is no sign of it during the song. It's not like this is Pinkie Pie either, this is Cadance, whose only personal magic has been to be the Equestrian version of Cupid.
  • It's possible it was simply an illusion or some other conjuration by Cadance. She is a winged unicorn after all. One way to justify this is that her talent seems to be love/matchmaking which often includes a bouquet of flowers as a key item for such rituals. ** We see Trixie conjuring a bunch of flowers out of thin air earlier in the series, and it's treated like quite a simple trick.
  • It's possible that one of the bridesmaids was transported into the cave while she was arranging the bouquet, and then dropped it after her arrival.
  • On reviewing the scene, Cadance and Twilight are both backing up worriedly and looking around for something to use, and then as Cadance turns her head her expression goes 'a-ha!'. Then she pulls the bouquet into frame. It does very much look like one of the bridesmaids had just absent-mindedly kicked it into a corner.
• Why doesn't Twilight just teleport out of the caverns? Or did she forget that spell again?
  • I get the feeling Twilight needs to know the distance she's teleporting. It's not as simple as, "I want to go there," if she doesn't know where 'there' is in relation to where she is.
  • Twilight's teleports are almost always short range and line of sight, and she couldn't see an exit. Teleporting straight up as far as you can go, even with someone that can fly right next to you, is always a very desperate plan, and they never got quite that desperate.
  • Also, the only time we really see her teleport a long distance to someplace she can't actually see that I remember, she was under massive stress, admitted she didn't know she could do that, and nearly fried Spike when he came along. She may well not have mastered doing it at will, and even if she did, Cadance is a squishy pony, not a scale-covered dragon — there's no guarantee she'd survive the side effects.
• Queen Chrysalis's handling of Twilight. Seriously; all of it. I understand that the writers needed something for Twilight to found her suspicions on, but the most basic common sense infiltration tactics say that when you encounter a close relation to the person you are imitating, you play along until something about that relationship is revealed that you can use to allay suspicions. Instead, Chrysalis is instantly dismissive of Twilight to such a degree that it provokes an immediate response that eventually causes her to confront her brother. I mean, why? Her exchange with Applejack proved that she at least had the capacity to grit her teeth and force out politeness, so why didn't she do that with Twilight? What could she possibly gain by this? Even if that put off was supposed to be part of some scheme to get rid of Twilight after she publicly humiliates herself and no one would want her around, it's a plan she wouldn't even have to use if she just acted the part like she should have in the first place.
  • Because that was all part of her plan. Her plan was to goad Twilight into murdering the real Cadance down in the caverns. First, she'd do everything possible to make Twilight think Cadance had a Face Heel Turn somewhere along the way. Then, when the time came to send Twilight into the caverns, she'd taunt her, whipping her into a frenzy, before having her blast her way through to the real Cadance. At which point an enraged Twilight, she expected, would kill her right then and there.
    • Do we even know if that was her plan? This is the same villain that went "HOLY CRAP! That actually worked?" when she punched out a freaking Princess and went "Meh, I don't see anything happening" when the exact same power to punch out said Princess was going to be used against her.
  • On top of the previous, keep in mind Chrysalis still had the Elements to fear. Getting rid of one of the Elements of Harmony Bearers neutralizes their threat to her. Problem? Doing it in a way that won't draw suspicion until it's too late. So she picked one of the group out of it, namely the one who actually KNEW Cadance, and made her suspicious, trying to goad her into a confrontation of some kind she could twist around and make her look like the bad guy. Sure, Twilight seeing her Mind Rape probably wasn't part of the plan, but she adapted to it.
    • If that's the case, why not just kill Cadance herself? Or Twilight? I'll assume for the moment that before she started feeding on Shining Armor she lacked the capacity to do this herself. She somehow has knowledge of these secret caverns beneath Canterlot that no one else knows about, right? To the extent of knowing where the entrances and exits are, because she knew where to have her hypnotized bridesmaids stand guard. Presumably other ponies don't search these caves, because Cadance was simply left down there for an indeterminate amount of time without being found. Once she has herself set up as Cadance, she smuggles several dozen of her followers into the city (y'know... shapeshifters?), and send them to wait in the caverns. Then once she sends Cadance down there, they devour her alive. Same plan for anyone else that needs to be taken out of the way.
    • Because she's a sadistic monster, that's why. She deliberately wanted to torture Twilight both by having her kill someone, and even worse, realize she out and out murdered her friend when she heard the wedding going on as planned above.
    • Claiming that Chrysalis was deliberately risking her cover like that seems a stretch. While she took full advantage of Twilight's distrust, purposefully estranging Twilight like that would have been an incredible risk, with little-to-no reward over over keeping Twilight on her good side.
  • Maybe Chrysalis just screwed up. Maybe she just assumed Twilight would mirror her brother's opinions. Thus, she didn't try very hard to fool Twilight.
  • It's possible that she didn't have the time to study Cadance, or that Cadance is just that opposite in character, or maybe she's just plain a bad actor.
  • It looked like Chrysalis was annoyed by the sheer presence of the Mane Six. She had successful isolated Shining from his family, who would’ve been the first ones to noticed that something was wrong, but then Celestia invited Twi and there wasn’t much that Chrysalis could do about it. At first she barely could contain her frustration and wasn’t rational. It took her a while to calm down and adjust to the new situation. At the point she probably get rid of her old bridesmaids, so that Twi’s friends could take the free spot in an attempt to win them over.
    • Chrysalis didn't kill Cadance because she was powering herself up by absorbing Cadance's love for Shining Armor. Kill her, and that power/food sources disappears.
    • As for why she didn't make an effort to fool Twilight, here's my theory: Chrysalis' plan involved going incognito for an extended period of time (she must have replaced Cadance before the barrier went up), so she studied Cadance's relationships with Celestia and Shining Armor to imitate Cadance better. There are two reasons she didn't do this for Twilight: First, she didn't realize Twilight knew Cadance that well and as such didn't prepare to fool her. Second, by this point she's probably been undercover for a good amount of time and she's getting sick of pretending to be Cadance. Shining Armor and Celestia have been interacting with her on a frequent basis, so they write off her bitchiness as wedding-related stress (when Chrysalis first switched in, she likely acted far more like Cadance) when in reality it's just Chrysalis making less and less effort to act like Cadance. When Twilight shows up out of nowhere, Chrysalis is ill-prepared to deal with her, and really can't be arsed to get back into character just to deal with one pony. So she takes the shortcut of physically removing Twilight on the assumption that it'll keep her out of the way long enough for the plan to come to fruition. Keep in mind that Chrysalis' plan is literally a day away from completion, so it's not that weird that after months of working on it Chrysalis just went "Screw it, I'll chuck her in the dungeon" rather than going to the trouble of figuring out how to get on Twilight's good side.
    • It felt to me like Chrysalis had a personal dislike for Twilight and her mere presence there. She seemed to go out of her way to antagonize Twilight. Me, I would reason that Chrysalis didn't study Cadance too well and didn't know Twilight was so close to her. Twilight immediately tried the "Sunshine, sunshine" thing to Chrysalis—Chrysalis figured that Twilight could easily blow her cover if Twilight keeps trying to recall personal memories and Chrysalis didn't know how to properly react. As she could no longer study Cadance at that point, her only option was to get Twilight out of the way as she would very likely become the Spanner in the Works (and she did, though in a different way than Chrysalis would have anticipated).
    • Here's another theory: Chrysalis probably did her research on Cadance, and then deliberately acted in a manner that was OOC to Twilight, so as to raise her suspicions. With that in mind, she was also aware that Twilight would try to confront her at some point, so she won Twilight's friends over by making them her bridesmaids, all in an effort to set Twilight up to be humiliated and abandoned by her loved ones.
    • For what? What would she have to gain by turning them against her as opposed to winning Twilight over? If it was to kill Cadance, why not do so herself to be sure?
    • Because the reasons Twilight was so suspicious beyond the Bridezilla alibi (not remembering their Secret Handshake and seeing them cast an obvious mind control spell on Shining Armor) was something no amount of fake politeness would be able to explain. That's why she focused on discrediting and getting rid of Twilight.
• What's up with Shining Armor's sclera being light blue? Everypony has it pure white except for him. A disease, maybe?
  • Maybe because he's white too and it would look as if he doesn't have any scelera? Most other white ponies (Celestia, the guards) have rimmed eyes, so the issue doesn't arise.
  • Prince Blueblood actually has blue sclera, too. Make of that what you will.
    • I make of it that they used the same eye type (if not the same body-except-hair type) for both Blueblood and Shining Armor.
• If the changelings feed on love, than why openly invade and terrorize the population? People who are being attacked by horrible monsters usually feel terrified, not loving. Wouldn't it make sense for them to do exacly as their queen did, i.e. infiltrate pony communities under disguise, hook up with ponies or probably abduct and replace their loved ones and then leech on their love?
  • It's only a guess, but: consider how many changelings we actually see on screen. There really are a lot of them making up just this one swarm. That means that in order to feed them all they'd likely also have to replace a lot of ponies if they wanted to go the 'subtle' route...which would increase the risk of being caught in the act and bringing the wrath of the princesses and whatever forces they have at their command down on them anyway. So it's not inconceivable that Chrysalis could have decided to take advantage of the royal wedding (where pretty much everypony who was anypony would be present) to launch a preemptive decapitation strike at the Equestrian government right away — the changelings could then always go back to playing their disguise games at their leisure after taking over, after all.
    • Except that's a terrible plan. They feed on LOVE. The entire plan from beginning to end is pants on head stupid when you think about it. Frightening the population is like invading a country for food and setting the farms on fire during the invasion. You simply wouldn't do it. My guess is they can feed on fear just fine just love is better.
    • And replacing a bunch of ponies way too many would also be the terrible plan for the reasons stated above.
  • It's only a WMG, but it's possible the changelings have more direct means of feeding off their victims, once they're incapacitated. We saw them gather around cornered ponies. And really, we've never actually seen how they feed.
  • That they feed on love doesn't necessarily mean that anybody needs to specifically love them (or whoever they're pretending to be at the moment). We can't necessarily generalize from the sole example of Queen Chrysalis — she had reasons to take the subtle approach beyond just looking for a meal. For all we know, threatening one victim to tickle out whatever love and concern anyone else nearby may be feeling for them could be a perfectly fine standard changeling feeding method.
  • It could also foreshadow the season 6 finale, which shows that Chrysalis doesn't truly care for the changelings and is purposefully lying to them to stay on top. Letting them attack inhabitants and spread fear while giving them a more plentiful but still temporary source of food would be in character for a sociopath like her.
• Twilight says that before the mane six she had no friends except for her brother. Wouldn't young Cadance count as a friend?
  • A babysitter would probably count more as a parental figure. It's unlikely that a small child would think of an adolescent/young adult as a friend, especially since Cadance was looking after her, so they weren't exactly on equal footing there.
• What were Celestia and Luna looking at/for through the telescope? The fact that it was pointed downward suggests it wasn't for astronomic purposes.
  • For enemies.
• Why did Fake Cadence imprism (no that wasnt a typo) Twilight? Twilight believed that she was evil, but everybody didnt, including the Mane 6, her brother, and Celestia. She has no one to turn to, and Fake Cadence could easily have her banished and then thrown into a dungeon where she banished her too if Twilight tried to stop the wedding again, especially if Twilight used violence
  • It was probably Chrysalis being on the safe side, which was a smart move. Twilight's friends may have been put off by her erratic behavior at the rehearsal, but Chrysalis should know as much as anyone how close they all are and how important friendship is; the rest of the Mane 6 would never turn their backs on Twilight completely. Princess Celestia is arguably closer to Twilight than Cadance herself (at the very least, they've had more on-screen interactions). It's conceivable, perhaps even likely, that Twilight would have been able to convince everyone of the truth if she had a little more evidence and/or was calmer. Chrysalis couldn't take that chance.
• (Ignoring this is a kid's show.) If she was going to trap Twilight, why didn't she just kill both of them? Keeping witnesses alive is generally a bad thing for Big Bads I mean, if you're basically a team of Spies, then why not backstab the ones you are trying to impersonate?
  • She may have kept Cadance around to milk her for more information, and got so caught up in planning the wedding, buttering Celestia up and making invasion plans, she never got around to the killing part. Killing Cadence was probably a low priority, since having her hidden in the Canterlot caves was almost as good, and she only needed to be gone until after the invasion. She could also have planned to just leave them both down there and let them both die of thirst. No need to get your hands dirty for no good reason. Or her control freak-side just loved to watch them squirm.
    • Yes, but Cadence can fly, and can carry twilight. Other than looking cool, the mine-cart rollercoaster ride was pointless. They definitely had an escape route. Also, (different question) why the FRUIT did Fake Cadence put the exit to her portal at the castle?
    • Actually, Cadance may not have been physically able to fly a whole lot due to her confinement. The mine cart hit the dead end, they both flew into the air a good distance, and Cadance glided to even out their trajectory and make sure they landed safely on the opposite side.
    • Was the exit at the castle? We didn't see where Twilight and Cadance came out, and rearranging an entire forgotten mine without anyone noticing is not an easy task. She also had guards on the exit, who she expected to do a better job, as well as the caves being a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. She probably didn't expect them to be able to find their way out that quickly.
  • Changelings feed off love and Cadance is an Alicorn with love as her special talent. Chrysalis probably wanted to make her use her magic to make love for them to feed off of.
• If Chrysalis did intend Twilight to kill Cadance, for what? Wouldn't they be more valuable alive as food sources or hostages?
• Shouldn't Chrysalis have sent Twilight somewhere else entirely? The caves may have been forgotten, but they're still RIGHT UNDER THE CASTLE. Not to mention the Queen saw for herself that Twilight can break the crystals with her lasers. And the real Cadence (i.e. Twilight's only way to prove that there's something wrong with this wedding at all) is there. If she had sent Twilight anywhere else, I think she would have succeeded. Or, maybe she might have needed to send Twilight anywhere at all. Twilight WAS getting rather remorseful about her behavior, and even if she wasn't, she would have just gotten into more trouble if she kept trying to bust the queen without the real Cadence there, doncha think?
  • Chrysalis did not know Twilight Sparkle well enough to know better. The show established that right up front in their initial interactions. If she had, she would've just murdered Twilight and smuggled in another changeling to replace her if necessary.
  • She was trying to lure Twilight into attacking and/or killing the real Cadance in her blind rage. As pointed out, Cadance was Twilight's key to escaping and clearing her name. Chrysalis was willing to take the loss to secure her victory, which backfired.
  • I guess I can understand if she wanted to trick Twilight into beating down the real Cadence. But still. That was a big gamble she made there given the circumstances. She might not have known Twilight very well but I can imagine that Chrysalis knew Twilight knew Cadence somehow. What with the little dance Twilight did when they met. I'm just saying, sending Twilight somewhere else sounds like a much better plan.
    • Chrysalis was being groomed for a wedding set to occur in the next few hours. Canterlot was still under lockdown during a national security alert. Ponies had already noticed their peers had started to disappear without a trace after opposing "Princess Cadance" in some way. Chryssy didn't have anywhere else to send Twilight, and wasn't in any position to find a place without blowing her cover.
    • Also, the episode pretty heavily indicates that Queen Chrysalis is working on very limited intel, and really doesn't know a whole lot about Equestrian ponies in general. Power of Love, Power of Friendship, all that be damned. They're all just prey to her.
  • Most likely Chrysalis can't just send ponies to places she doesn't know herself, and the spell likely has a range limit as well. In other words, Twilight ended up next to Cadence simply because that was the one "safe" place Chrysalis knew where to leave her — neither simply dropping her off anywhere in Canterlot proper nor sending her beyond the city limits were options.
• How was Canterlot protected before Shining Armor was around? He's only been around to cast the protection spell for only a few years. What was keeping the Changelings from attacking in the decades or so before he came around? It can't be fear of Celestia, the loss of the shield wouldn't keep her from intervening.
  • The previous commander of the royal guard also knew protective spells? Some other wizard? The changeling weren't strong enough to mount an attack? There could be many factors and we have no information, so it's pretty pointless to guess.
  • Who's to say it ever needed protection on the scale that Shining Armor is capable of producing? It was Chrysalis' idea to raise the barrier, for whatever reason she had for doing that.
• Aren't bachelor parties supposed to come before the actual marriages? Because it's implied by Spike that they haven't actually gone through with it before the end of that episode. I mean, I know Spike didn't really know what a bachelor party was but shouldn't Celestia or someone explained it to him?
  • I think that's the joke.
• Really minor nitpick, but ignoring Rule of Funny, who lets a BABY dragon organize a bachelor party?
  • Spike's only a baby by dragon standards. He's right up there with ponies in terms of intelligence and maturity.
    • He's approximately the age and maturity of a relatively mature prepubescent child. That's still not someone you want running a bachelor party.
    • Keep in mind the setting here as well as the fact it was played jokingly. A bachelor party is only a problem for those under the age of 18 if the plan is to have 'adult entertainment as is commonly shown it would seem to happen during bachelor parties. That and as Spike was planning it there clearly wouldn't be anything inappropriate going on, ignoring the fact or perhaps enforced by it that Spike had it planned for after the wedding.
    • Also, considering he didn't seem to have any idea of when the bachelor party was supposed to occur, the Mane Six were probably just humoring him, in the sense of "oh that's so cute! Moving on..."
• So... were Twilight's friends, mentor, and brother seriously going to leave Twilight for dead in those caves? I wouldn't doubt that no one would find her after the wedding was said and done.
  • I am almost positive that they were planning to talk things over with her once she calmed down, but it seems as though not a whole lot of time had passed between her outburst and the wedding.
  • Let's also not forget that after Chrysalis sent Twilight into the caves, naturally nobody else knew where she was. Even if her friends had gone looking for her and quizzed "Cadence" whether she'd seen Twilight, Chrysalis could always have feigned ignorance herself (optionally even delivering an excuse along the lines of "I tried to talk to her, but she ran away and I don't know where she went") with nopony any wiser...
  • Add in that according to Chrysalis nopony knew about those caverns, even if they had gone looking for Twilight, they wouldn't have know where to look.
    • Hah. Wonder what that says about Celestia. Lived in Equestria for 1,000 years, don't even know that there's an underground mine. Actually, she said that most ponies forgot about it.
    • Living for a thousand years doesn't make you omniscient, especially concerning matters that are neither useful nor interesting. Well, until the two of them were imprisoned down there.
    • Adding to that, knowing that there's an underground mine and somehow concluding that Twilight and the real Cadance were both sent there are two very different things. As said, "she just ran off, given that her mentor is disappointed with her and her brother uninvited her from the wedding" would be a more reasonable guess, given the information they had.
• How would Chrysalis, an outsider, know of a chamber inside/below the castle that Princess Celestia herself didn't know about?
  • There's nothing to suggest Princess Celestia doesn't know about it. There's also no reason for her to mention the caves or enter them, so it doesn't come up.
  • It's mentioned that they're forgotten. And you're assuming Chrysalis is an outsider when she may have very well been there longer than Celestia.
• How the hell was Celestia fooled by Chrysalis? I mean, aren't Celestia and Cadance supposed to be close? I mean, with the Mane Six, it's because they never saw her before (or in the case of Twilight, for a long time), and in Shining Armor's case, he was brainwashed. But how was Celestia, someone who should know Cadance more, fooled by someone who is clearly bad at disguising as her, going as far as to laugh evilly during her freaking wedding?
  • I never got the impression Celestia and Cadance knew each other well at all. They're both called "Princess" granted, but Celestia and Luna are the rulers of Equestria; Cadance seems more like a noblemare who actively interacts with the commoners outside of ceremonial duties. As for Cadance being Celestia's niece, well, Blueblood was supposed to be her nephew, and they didn't seem to know each other well either.
    • Huh. Well, I guess that explains it. Thanks.
  • It's also worth noting Blueblood was originally meant to be a Duke, not a Prince, and Cadance was originally meant to be a unicorn, not an Alicorn, and thus was probably not originally intended to be royalty, so this theory holds up well.
• Why are some people surprised that Twilight never mentioned her brother to her friends? Maybe it's just me, but I have friends that I've been friends with for over 5 years, and I've never told them about my own older brother, or any of my siblings in fact. It's a real-life You Never Asked thing for me, and I think it was the same for Twilight. It never bothered me that she never told her friends she has a brother.
  • I guess some people are just disturbed by the fact that a character we've never heard of before appears completely out of nowhere to shoehorn himself into the already established backstory of a much more developed character
• How retarded is Chrysalis, exactly, to put bridesmaids between her captives and the exit of the caves? Unless her Mind Control spell gives supernatural strength and stamina, seems like they'd be the most incompetent jailors ever. A few of her changelings would be better guards. Why not take control of a few Royal Guards, at least? As Red Shirty as they are, they would have to perform better than bridesmaids. Chrysalis holds the Villain Ball for all the duration of her plan, but this has to take the cake!
  • Maybe she was just using what she had, and she could easily pass off their absence as "doing a favor" and claiming a falling out as why they never showed up. An outright absence of Royal Guards would get noticed (well, she could just grab some off duty ones...). Since they are Cadance's friends, she's hoping she would hesitate enough for the bridesmaids to subdue her, and tossed Twilight in their on the fly without thinking of how it'd render her bridesmaids useless. Still, that's grasping for straws, and anybody else would have been better retainers.
  • I'm going with the "she used what she had available" theory here. Her swarm wasn't there yet, the Royal Guards presumably at least keep tabs on their own making it hard for any of them to "disappear" for any significant length of time...so putting the bridesmaids she no longer really needs because she has a new (if not necessarily welcome) set anyway to use actually makes some degree of sense.
  • I'm thinking Chrysalis had those bridesmaids put where they were in an attempt to slow down either Twilight or the real Cadance, should they escape their imprisonment, and prevent them from stopping the wedding.
  • To build off of the previous point, using undisguised changelings would be inviting Twilight to just blast them and move on. But ponies who might look vaguely familiar? Are they changelings or just mind-controlled? Surely Twilight would hesitate more to attack because of the uncertainty. If the latter... "Girls? Why does it look like we're bridesmaiding at the bottom of a pit?"
• Why did Celestia even ALLOW the wedding to take place? Clearly, everyone in Canterlot is aware of the threat that is assumed to be the Changelings. It doesn't matter if the wedding plans were made before or after the moment of the threat announcement. Whereas it is entirely plausable that Chrysalis controlled Shining Armor to want to have the wedding ASAP, Celestia is not mind controlled, and it would be absolutely absurd to approve and foresee the wedding of your Royal Guard Commander and your niece in the middle of a crisis when it could easily be postponed and rescheduled. Don't even throw the "weddings are hard to reschedule after so much planning" argument, because seriously, she's the Princess, there's a bucking crisis, and they ended up being clearly able to reschedule it to a later date, and it was at least two days later, considering that they used at LEAST one more day to repeat all the preparations again.
  • It's a royal wedding — as much a major political event as anything else. You don't lightly cancel those just on account of a random vague threat or three because it'd set a bad precedent and make your government look weak; instead you do your best to tighten up security and then go ahead as planned anyway. Which is exactly what Celestia did. (And if her security measures had in fact been sufficient to meet the threat, we would be seeing compliments for her quick thinking and decisive statesmareship rather than the complaint above. Of course, then we'd have needed something else to fill the second episode with at the very least...)
  • I'm more bothered about why the mane six weren't given the elements as soon as they arrived, or at the very least, make Rarity work the fancy necklaces and crown thingie into the fancy dresses they'll be wearing anyway. If they get attacked, the elements are ready, if they aren't, hey, the elements of harmony attended the royal wedding!
    • Ties into the question why the Elements aren't being used more often to begin with. For example, right at the start of the next season? When Celestia sends Twilight and friends off to help out in the Crystal Empire? She doesn't get the Elements of Harmony out of their vault for that mission, either...and while there's always the out-of-universe argument that just blasting King Sombra with the Prismatic Friendship Cannon at the first opportunity would have made for a pretty short story, alternatively it could also point at the Elements having some in-universe constraints on their use that just haven't been spelled out yet.
• It's been established that 1) Twilight has a far greater magical potential than any other Unicorn, having enough strength to create a lullaby and lift a Ursa Minor from Ponyville to a cave, and 2) that she can create shields just like Shining Armor. Why doesn't she offer to take up Shining Armor's spot in creating the shield?
  • One possible theory is that Shining Armor is more talented at the shields than Twilight, despite her great magic potential. We've only seen her use the shields on her own house whereas Shining Armor could create one that can encompass an entire city. It could be that Twilight is simply a Jack of All Trades, Master of None, where she can learn these spells, yet she can't master them as well as someone whose special talent is that spell alone.
  • Shining Armor seems to be able to calibrate it to leave ponies non-affected, while her version shown in "Ponyville Confidential" might not have that feature.
  • Alternatively, it may not even be that she couldn't master that spell just as well as her brother — simply that she hasn't yet and wouldn't have the time before the wedding, either. (She's also younger than he is and so may for all her raw power and potential be less able to sustain that kind of effort.)
    • It's also not out of the realm of possiblity that Shining Armor himself is more powerful then the average unicorn. Heck, for all we know, he's the second strongest Unicorn after Twilight, so naturally he'd be more powerful in his specific area. If so, that family seems to produce some pretty badass unicorns.
• Twilight can perform a smaller scale version the same spell Shining Armor used to protect Canterlot. Why didn't she ever try using it at all when fighting the changelings?
  • Using the spell on a small scale would have only protected a small amount of ponies, and attracted the attention of the changeling hordes, who would just break it down like they did with Shining's barrier. It would probably even draw the attention of the Queen, who had just beaten Celestia.
• It's very brief, but at the end of "This Day Aria", just before Cadence goes: "Oh the wedding we won't make, he'll end up marrying a fake" we see Twilight and Shining's parents in the lower right corner. Why are they seemingly unconcerned that their daughter isn't present at her brother's wedding.
  • They were only onscreen for a couple of seconds. Not really enough time to show a complex mix of emotions, and they were probably trying to focus on the positives at the moment, rather than dwelling on strife between their children. Kinda disappointing that they didn't have a scene where they talked to their children, but only so many minutes in an episode.
  • It's possible that Shining Armor had to lie to them, saying that Twilight couldn't make it because she was sick/injured.
• Let's also bring up the fact that she said "Marrying a fake" in front of said parents... And possibly everyone else.
  • Cadance sang that line. Chrysalis just ends up saying "Mine, all mine" (presumably with zero context).
• What happened to Shining Armor's helmet after he took it off?
  • He left it on the wall. Pure and simple. He doesn't seem to do anything else in the story that necessitates that helmet, so he never puts it back on. Presumably, the guards who work for him put it back where he'd normally keep it when not wearing it.
• Is this story based on the Scottish folk tale of Tam Lin? Tam Lin = Shining Armor, Janet = Cadence, fairy queen = Chrysalis.
• When Twilight found the real Cadance in the caverns, Cadance performs their childhood rhyme to Twilight prove that she is who she says she is. Thing is, Twilight had already performed the same rhyme to fake Cadance. Didn't Twilight consider the possibility that it was really fake Cadance trying to fool Twilight by recalling the rhyme Twilight had recited to her earlier?
  • Except she'd have no reason to, and the mean "Cadence" was able to best Twilight straight-up.
  • Well how in the world would Chrysalis know that was a way to fool her? Twilight had done the rhyme to who she believed was Cadance earlier, only for Cadance to not respond - implying she didn't remember it. Nothing else is said about the matter. The thing about the rhyme is that it's theirs and nobody else would know it. Twilight only said it once and not explained the significance of it, so why would Chrysalis commit it to memory? And Cadance didn't just say the rhyme; she did the proper hoof movements to go along with it. Remember that up until now, Twilight just believes that Cadance has become nastier as she grew up. All of a sudden the Cadance that trapped her being an impostor seems much more plausible. So to summarise, only the real Cadance would know the rhyme and the hoof shake - so that pretty much proved she was the real deal. And considering how much trauma Twilight was already going through, she was probably relieved at the thought that it was just an impostor Cadance rather than her old friend actually being evil.
  • Immediately after the dance Cadence said that Twilight was the filly she loved to foal-sit the most. The imposter knew that Twilight was Shining Armor's sister, but probably didn't know that the real Cadence was her foal-sitter or that she was the favorite.
• Does it seem that most of the episode was written so that Twilight and Cadance were complete strangers (in a sense that she almost never gets suspicious because fake Cadance isn't acting the same way real Cadance would, but merely because fake Cadance was acting weirdly)?
• Where do non-unicorn mares and stallions wear their wedding rings?
  • Well, Pegasus ponies their wings, but the questions stand for Earth ponies...
  • Earth ponies could just put the ring on a necklace and wear it that way.
  • Hoof ring.
  • It's possible that they use something else to signify their married status; many human cultures have done the same thing. Unicorns use rings on their horns because it's easy to show them off.
  • Hearts and Hooves Day confirms that the grooms buy jewellery for the brides. Big Mac was taken to the jeweller's to find a diamond in preparation for the "wedding" he and Cheerilee were about to have.
• Both Twilight's and Rarity's parents (or at least her mother) are unicorns, but they don't have visible wedding rings on their horns, as with Shining Armor and Princess Cadence. Are wedding rings a temporary formality in Equestrian weddings, are they just for royals, or have the other couples never been married?
  • Considering traditions such as Handfasting do exist in our world, it most likely is a temporary ritual for the duration of the ceremony. I would imagine sizing rings for a horn to say where they are full-time would be difficult to pull off... No clue on Earth Pony/Pegasus wedding rituals, though.
    • We know the Cakes are married. They're referred to explicitly as Mr. and Mrs. We've seen ponies wear necklaces. Maybe the wedding rings are necklaces. Or maybe they're tiny and braided into their manes in a way we can't see without looking very close.
  • We see Big Mac shopping for a diamond for Cheerilee in Hearts and Hooves Day. While this was more like an engagement present than a wedding one, it does suggest a few alternatives, since they were intended for an Earth Pony. We see a couple of oversized rings that look like they could be worn like bracelets, a necklace, and a couple that are harder to identify (brooch, maybe?). So perhaps any sort of nice jewelry will do.
  • My best guess is that most ponies just don't wear the rings all the time the way humans do. I can't imagine that a ring would stay on the horn if they ever lowered their head, and having a ring on your wing or a giant bracelet on your leg would probably be uncomfortable or annoying after a while, so most married couples just don't wear the rings 24/7. As specifically regards the Cakes, it's pretty standard practice to remove all jewelery when working with dough, and given that they run a bakery it makes sense that they wouldn't wear the rings all the time.
  • As later shown in Season 3's The Crystal Empire, neither Cadance or Shining Armor continue to wear the rings, making them more a formality of ceremony.
• The marriage ceremony was officiated by Princess Celestia, who is not only the ruler of Equestria, but the closest thing to a (benevolent) deity in the series. So, was that a civil ceremony or a religious ceremony?
  • In a theocracy is there a difference? ^note  Yeah, yeah. Technically a theocracy is rule by a priesthood, rather than the deity itself.
  • As stated, Celestia is both ruler of Equestria and its chief deity figure. That answers the question right off the bat; it's both.
    • That sounds like cheating. Pick one. And now I'm wondering if Celestia uses a religious exemption to avoid paying taxes on her income.^note  Her legal status has got to be all kinds of weird.
    • She's the head of the kingdom. Taxes are her income!
    • As noted earlier, theocracies tend to make state matters religious matters, and vice versa. Therefore, yes, 'both' is a valid answer. While the US Constitution is a fine example, it's hard to separate church and state when the head of government has an entry in the God-Emperor article. And how often on Earth have we had a provable literal deity in charge? (Yes, provable.) And who said that religious exemptions exist in Equestria? Remember how she felt when Rarity kissed her hooves in gratitude: pony was squicked. Houses of worship might end up paying the special Stop Worshipping Me Tax.
    • Wait. Does this imply that in Equestria, the closest thing to churches are Celestia/Luna fanclubs?
    • What are churches in the real world but God Fanclubs?
  • Technically we don't know that ponies even have a religion; the topic has never come up on the show. They have a magical and long-lived princess who's a Universally Beloved Leader, to be sure, but it's not clear that they literally consider her divine — Celestia raising and lowering the sun is impressive, yes, but then every pony has his or her own special talent and that may well simply be hers.
• Why are the Cutie Mark Crusaders the flower girls at the wedding? They are never brought up, and it's not like they know Shining Armor or Cadance.
  • The reason isn't obvious? CUTIE MARK CRUSADER FLOWER GIRLS!
    • Celestia got letters about and from the CMC. She may have wanted to meet them in person. Since neither Shining Armor or Cadence knew any fillies the right age, they were offered the positions.
• Not sure what Chrysalis has to gain by acting like a spoiled bitch all the time. I mean, your impersonating one of the nicest characters ever. So maybe you should try being a little more in character when your at least in public. If I'm missing something here, please tell me. And please don't be mean.
  • 1. She had an alibi (wedding stress) that let her get away with it. 2. She acted nice enough to get ponies on her side when need be.
• Spike was at the rehearsal Twilight crashed, but we don't see him leave with the rest, and he's the last character who'd walk out on Twilight. He disappears before fake Cadance reveals themselves, otherwise he would have warned everyone, what happened? On the subject why didn't he flea with Twilight to get the Elements or even try to do something?
  • Considering Chrysalis was able to overpower Celestia, there's not much he could have done in her presence.
• Why did Chrysalis engage Celestia in a Beam-O-War she wasn't expecting to win as opposed to fleeing at least until her army reinforced her?
  • Maybe she just wasn't excepting to win as easily as she did.
• So the night before the wedding Twilight sees "Cadance" cast a mind control spell on Shining, only for her friends to be unconcerned causing Twilight to go "Looks like I really am on my own," then the next day she crashes the wedding prep to call out Cadance as evil. What was she doing in-between and why didn't she do so sooner? Twilight didn't use the time to come up with evidence or a better way to convince them. And if she were too irrationally angry to think blowing up like she did wouldn't convince anyone, how/why would she retain herself and wait as long as she did?

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