Shout Out / Loved and Lost

• Jewelius is much like Prince Hans. As an inspiration of the "Love Is An Open Door" scene, he sings "Love is in Bloom" with Twilight and dances with her in Canterlot's streets.
  • Chapter 11 has a certain exchange from Frozen.
    Fluttershy: You won't get away with this!
    Jewelius: Oh, I already have!
• When cornered by the Royal Guards while standing over an exhausted Twilight who has collapsed from shrinking the Changelings, Princess Celestia orders them to stand down, only for one of them to retort with "We follow you no more, false idol!"
• While sentencing the heroes in the sixth chapter, Jewelius silences the pleading Mane Five before adding "You foals have had your fun, now pay for it!"
• When Shining Armor asks "Who's there?" in the Diamond Dogs' mines, Cadance steps from the shadows and answers "Somepony who loves you."
• Cadance tells in the 9th chapter an abbreviated version of the IDW comics' backstory on she met Shining Armor and started dating him while they were teenagers.
• The 11th chapter has a line that's quite similar to the one Darth Sidious makes about Count Dooku's death: "Soon I will have a new apprentice, one far younger and more powerful."
  Applejack: But if you two were partners in all this then why did you double-cross [Chrysalis]?
  Jewelius: I found somepony much younger and potentially more powerful to use instead.
• Once Cadance shoots Jewelius with a magic blast, she snaps at him "That was for ruining my wedding!"
  • Another Aladdin reference occurs in a flashback after Jewelius leaves Twilight to cry over her exiled loved ones.
    Vivian: How did it go?
    Jewelius: I think she took it- [changes his sympathetic expression into a sinister one] -rather well.
• At the end of the 13th chapter, Jewelius smacks one of his guards across the face while yelling "YOU IDIOTS!", like Lord Shen does. In addition to that, Hildread throwing sharp metallic feathers from her metallic wing brings to mind how Shen throws feather-like knives he conceals in his feathers.
• Spike reunites with the three alicorns at Unicorn Rock, and in the 16th chapter, Jewelius undergoes with Twilight an argument that has several blatant similarities to Scar's argument with Sarabi. He's also killed by the Changelings the same way Scar is killed by the hyenas as payback for double-crossing them.
  • During that same argument, Twilight states that she wasn't taught to lie. Jewelius retorts that she was taught to follow authority in a similar way to when Frollo tells Phoebus that he was trained to follow orders. He also uses Frollo's line "a lesson needs to be learned here" about Shining Armor's flogging.
• The scene in which Jewelius deduces that Twilight and the other heroes are hiding in Ponyville and decides to massacre all the townsfolk with them, as well as his exchange of words with Lieutenant Shackle, have borrowed elements from the scene from Robin Hood (1973) in which Prince John decides to use Friar Tuck in luring Robin Hood into a trap.
  • In the same scene, a guard dares to question if massacring a whole town of innocent ponies just to destroy a small group of rebels is a little extreme. In response, Jewelius kills the guard and says "No, it's A LOT extreme!"
• Twilight and Celestia's reconciliation scene in the 17th chapter has some similarities with that of Zuko and Iroh in the Grand Finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
• When Ponyville's being catapulted, Jewelius remarks "And that's how you scatter the roaches."
• Jewelius' "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the disgraced heroes in Chapter 11 is structured similarly to Felix's speech to the Reds and Blues when he reveals his true nature.
  Felix: Hey, whoa whoa whoa. I never actually lied to you idiots, okay? Well, except for once: you're some of the galaxy's greatest soldiers! (huffs) Now THAT couldn't be farther from the truth! But, you know, it did make you the perfect candidates to lead the people of Chorus. ... Does it hurt...? Knowing just how much death you've brought to this planet?
  Jewelius: Whoa, calm down. I didn't manipulate any of you into making yourselves look like fools. You chose to believe the lies of an imposter over the one pony who made any real sense during all that stupid nonsense. And in the end, Twilight was right about everything. Well, except one thing: she thought all of you were her friends! Now THAT couldn't had been farther from the truth! How does it feel to know just how much damage you've caused?

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