My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Fridge Brilliance: Difference between revisions

* When I first saw the second episode, I thought that it was pretty stupid of Discord not to get rid of Celestia, seeing as how her sending the letters to Twilight Sparkle was what led to the mane six being able to defeat Discord. But then I realised, he naturally wouldn't have thought of a plan to get rid of her- he's the embodiment of chaos; the less planning he can do, the better.

 

* At first it might seem like Twilight has the first breakdown on the show that isn't related to her cutie mark in "Lesson Zero", but then you have to remember that Twilight's area of expertise is magic, and in this show, [[Title Drop|friendship is magic]]. She didn't have a lesson on friendship to report to Celestia, and when her attempts to fix any problems her friends had were going nowhere fast (as in, they didn't need her to be a "good friend" at the time), she really started to lose it.

** In addition, she mentions ''repeatedly'' that she might have to ''leave Ponyville and all her friends''. When you think about it that way, her breakdown ''really'' makes sense. It's not just her fearing being tardy, it's fearing being taken from her [[True Companions]]!

* Princess Celestia arrives at the end of the episode to resolve the crisis Twilight created. Sure, as the embodiment of the Sun (and being over 1000 years old) she's probably well-versed in magic, but what do other sun dieties get in their portfolios? ''Healing.'' - [[User:Alphacat]]

 

* Fluttershy isn't seen dressed up for Nightmare Night, she just stays in her home. On a night of scares and frights, it would be much worse for a pony that already gets frightened pretty easily as it is.

* Read the page quote on the [[Nightmare Fuel]] page. Now remember what Pinkie Pie says to Twilight that helps her realize how to help Luna.

* Twilight was the only one who knew Luna wasn't Nightmare Moon anymore. She was ''also'' the only one who recognized her when she ''was'' Nightmare Moon in episode 1.

 

* Sisterhooves Social shows us another example of [[Schizo-Tech]] in Equestria: smoke detectors and feedback-inducing megaphones, but Rarity has an old-fashioned scrub-tub in her laundry room and a clothesline out back. [[Schizo-Tech]]? Maybe, but then remember she's also a seamstress, and a mechanical washer and dryer are no good for all the delicate fabrics she has to wash after piecing a new outfit together.

* After rewatching "Sisterhooves Social," I realized that there was an ulterior motive for the scene where Apple Bloom accidentally covers Applejack with grape mush: it is not jusy a very sweet sister scene between Apple Bloom and Applejack, it allows the audience to see Applejack covered with something messy before the race later on. If you pause that scene and then look at a mud-covered Rarity at the race, they look exactly the same (except for the eyes, of course). The animators wanted to be absolutely sure that both Sweetie Belle and the audience would be completely fooled as to who was actually running the race by showing us what a messy Applejack looks like beforehand!

*** or maybe she added too little of it, which would make it something close to batter.

 

* Notice how pony bowling balls have no finger holes? That's paying attention right there!

** Except, oddly enough, in one filly's [[Imagine Spot]]. Well, 2 of the 3, anyways. Course, that could just be representative of the Crusaders themselves, but it's still a bit odd since the ponies have no reason for finger holes...

** In fairness to Apple Bloom, she did tell the truth in the end and it cured her, in a way...

 

* Rainbow Dash picking the tortoise as her pet in [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E07 May the Best Pet Win|May the Best Pet Win]] may confuse people. But then you remember Rainbow Dash's element of Harmony is Loyalty, so of course she would pick the pet that was the most loyal to her.

* [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1/E14 Suited for Success|" . . . Rainbow won't look like a Tank."]] [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E07 May the Best Pet Win|But her pet sure will.]]

=== Episodes 8 to 14 ===

 

* In "The Mysterious Mare Do Well", after the Mare Do Well constantly shows up Rainbow Dash and she utterly fails at looking like a hero again, she is shown lying on a black cloud rather than a white one while seeming rather depressed. She's on top of her [[Personal Raincloud]].

* In one scene, we have Rainbow Dash saying her middle name was "Danger." In the G1 opening, guess what Firefly says when she tries a stunt! [[Captain Obvious|Then again...]]

* A lot of people are upset with Scootaloo for her role in the episode, but remember [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1/E04 Applebuck Season|Applebuck Season]]? Rainbow Dash was perfectly content to attend a party declaring somepony else to be the most reliable friend in Ponyville without feeling like the town was calling her a worse friend in comparison. Scootaloo had no reason to assume Rainbow Dash would feel differently about this parade, especially since the 'who's the better hero' competition was all in Dash's head.

 

* "Sweet and Elite": One would think that the others would know better than to crash a big, fancy party in Canterlot and make a huge mess of it. Then again, they ''had'' "livened up" a [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1/E26 The Best Night Ever|boring, stuffy Canterlot party in a similar fashion before]], ''and'' with Celestia's seal of approval, at that.

* In "Sweet and Elite", part of the reason Rarity gets caught up with the Canterlot elite is the ponies inviting her actually say things like "it'll be a disaster without you" or how much they ''need'' her there. It wasn't just her wanting to be part of the elite crowd, but trying to ''help'' them. So not only is it appealing to her personal interest in high society, but also to the Element of Generosity.

** It's also a measure of the individual personalities involved. Applejack and Apple Bloom are both calm, down-to-earth sorts of ponies, with differences largely caused only by differing maturity level. So they get along very well. Rarity, OTOH... as much as we love her, she's a highly-strung diva and she knows it. Sweetie Belle's also lovable, but more than a bit of a ditz. And so, friction.

 

* So, I’m thinking to myself, the first words in the description for the episode [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E10 Secret of My Excess|Secret of My Excess]] are as follows: “Spike gets greedy on his birthday…” Now, at first glance, this seems like severe [[Out of Character]], even for Spike, when all of a sudden, it hit me. Dragons, by nature, are natural hoarders ([[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1/E07 Dragon Shy|as has been]] [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1/E24 Owl's Well That Ends Well|demonstrated before]]). Being greedy is, in turn, a sign of Spike growing up, a (presumably) central theme in this episode. You never know what you’ll come up with if you just think about it.

* The entire episode of [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E10 Secret of My Excess|Secret of My Excess]] had multiple scenes of Spike receiving affection from Rarity after he gives her his treasured Fire Ruby that he was saving for months to be eaten as his birthday dinner. Rarity was obviously moved by his gesture, because she's the element of generosity, but there's more to it than that when you remember that Spike occasionally breaks the fourth wall, and that the one thing Spike has wanted more than anything is for Rarity to notice him, which happened a lot on an episode about ''his birthday''. The whole episode was a tribute to Spike and Rarity, as well as an actual gift from the writers to him on his birthday as sort of a fourth wall inversion.

* Spike simply getting a book for his birthday is likely the reason this hasn't happened before.

 

* The Timber wolves in [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E11 Family Appreciation Day|Family Appreciation Day]] are easily scared off by Granny Smith's banging of pots and pans. But these wolves live in the Everfree forest - home to dragons, Cockatrice, the Ursa Major, killer pony cults.....who knows what. They've learned long ago that if something is making that much noise, it is something that poses a very, very serious danger to them.

* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E11 Family Appreciation Day|Family Appreciation Day]]'' is one of the few episodes to end without a letter to Celestia.

* Silver Spoon is the first pony to start clapping for Granny Smith. [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|Looks like there's a reason for the heart in the handle of her Cutie Mark.]]

 

* In ''Baby Cakes'', Rarity doesn't even provide an excuse as to why she won't babysit the twins.

** Though it's easy to figure out what reason exactly: [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E05 Sisterhooves Social|she knows her shop isn't child-safe]].

* Rarity refusing to babysit the Cake twins was actually generous of her; as a seamstress, her house is FILLED with needles, scissors, pins, beads, spools, and countless other things hazardous to babies. Combine that with the power of Pumpkin Cake's magic spurts, which Rarity knew was going to start happening soon, and you have a recipe for disaster.

 

* In ''Hearth's Warming Eve'':

** There's an in-universe [[Casting Gag]] in the fact that the mane six end up all with roles that are almost completely identical to their regular personalities, which seems amazingly coincidental. Then we remember that Princess Celestia, who has already had her fair share of interactions with the mane cast, gave them the roles in the first place. Of ''course'' she'd have them play characters with similar personalities to their own!

* When Princess Platinum returned, Clover the Clever asked, "Did the other pony tribes see reason as I predicted?" Now, the meeting Platinum had just been to ended without solving anything; ''however'', her prediction does come true by the end of the story...

 

* The Last Round Up finally has Derpy Hooves as a canon character with her own voice lines and if it weren't for her constant appearances, such as in Luna Eclipsed when she bobs for apples and drains the tub, or has a costume of paper bags or any of her other similar appearances, there would be nothing to base her on. It would be like they introduced a character for very little reason, but in reality they brought a background pony to the front that everyone had known all along.

* Why is Derpy so clumsy? She has no depth perception due to her eyes facing different directions!

=== Episodes 15 to 21 ===

 

* The moral of the story in "Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" seems to be more directed towards the citizens of Ponyville, as they are at first ungrateful towards the Apple family for not having enough cider for everyone but finally realize the value of quality over quantity in the end.

* The fan-dubbed Dr.Whooves (Named for his David Tennant-esque hairstyle and hourglass cutie-mark) Is the official ''time''-keeper of the competition in "Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000." At a small stretch you could say that it's being acknowledged that the rules of time are his to control.

* A small one but the scene where Fluttershy covers herself in embarrasment after Rainbow Dash throws rips her covers away is a little more than a call back to when Rarity didn't want to let Spike in when the girls are getting dressed from an earlier episode. [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1/E20 Green Isn't Your Color|Think, who does Fluttershy hang out with the most from the mane cast?]]

 

* "Read it and Weep". Why would the first "Daring Do" book be the third on the shelf? Anachronic order. It's a little-known fact even today that ''[[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom]]'' is placed chronologically ''before'' ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]''.

* Of course Daring Do is a [[Palette Swap]] of Rainbow Dash. We're seeing the events filtered through Rainbow's imagination, and RD immediately empathizes with the novel's heroine. She's putting a bit of herself into the reading.

* Daring Do seems awfully sweaty when she's in the room with the Sapphire Stone. At first it might be because she's nervous, which would make sense, what with being in a temple full of death traps and all, but don't forget - that room only has a thin floor separating her from a pit of boiling hot magma. It has to be ''hot'' in there.

 

* Fans have wanted Big Macintosh to have a larger role in the show pretty much since the beginning and in season two he starts getting a little more attention, but here's the thing: most of the stuff he gets to do is showing off his softer side, such as his love of Twilight's old Smarty Pants doll, helping his granny with the Sisterhooves Social, or crying [[Manly Tears]] when he finds out his sister won't be returning to Ponyville (and then tears of ''joy'' when she comes home) it's all well and good until you find out {{spoiler|a future episode will revolve around the CMC attempting to set him up with Cheerilee. They're showing us that he's just as sweet and sensitive as he is big and tough, pretty much the perfect boyfriend!}}

* In "Hearts and Hooves Day" Doctor Whooves gets two quick appearances, and in one of them he's shown ''running'' - if you're at all familiar with the 9th-Doctor-and-onwards ''[[Doctor Who]]'', you'll know why the simple word 'Run' became [[Arc Words]] for three Doctors in succession.<ref>Incoming [[Info Dump]]: The 9th Doctor ([[Christopher Eccleston]]) met his companion Rose while fleeing, so the first thing he said to her was "Run", which was how he identified himself to her after regenerating into the 10th ([[David Tennant]]). Down the line, the 11th ([[Matt Smith]])'s [[Badass Boast]] to his enemy boiled down to "Basically: '''Run.'''"</ref> That and the whole "I've always been a runner" or something like that.

* The [[Fridge Horror]] entry points out that one: the recipe for the horrifying Love Poison is printed in an easily accessible book, and two: clouds, rainbows, and pegasus feathers are all in close proximity at the Cloudsdale weather factory and could easily be accidentally mixed. Maybe the potential to make the poison accidentally is ''exactly why'' the recipe is so accessible - as an all-too-likely industrial accident in the making, it is necessary that the product safety warning be ubiquitously available.

 

* [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E18 A Friend in Deed|A Friend In Deed]] shows how Pinkie really feels the need to be best friends with every pony in Ponyville. But if thats the case, what was with her behaviour with Rainbow Dash in [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1/E05 Griffon the Brush Off|Griffon The Brush Off]]? After all, Rainbow Dash was certainly acting like they were not friends at the beginning. And thats why Pinkie was trying to get her to go pranking - to fix just that. Given Pinkie's persistence, suddenly Rainbow Dash running off when she hears Pinkie is looking for her makes a bit more sense....

* There is a ''reason'' for Pinkie Pie remembering everypony's birthday in "A Friend In Deed": the last time she forgot her own birthday was a disaster! She just doesn't want anything like that to happen ever again. Alternatively, remembering all those birthdays was why she forgot her own in the first place. Of course, she apparently remembers her own birthday ''now'', so she's still learned her lesson.

* The reason why Pinkie's thoughts are shown as felt animation could be a Stealth Pun. The Cuckoo-lander Pinkie has "fuzzy" logic.

 

* It seems somewhat strange that Iron Will would hold his assertiveness training course in a hedge maze, but [[Greek Mythology|when you consider the original myth of the Minotaur...]] Also making the hedge maze location a perfect choice for the site of his seminar: remember where Fluttershy originally [[Took a Level in Jerkass]] back in "The Return of Harmony?

* It's kinda easy to understand why some ponies keep calling Iron Will a monster: Who else is depicted as a bipedal figure with horns and hoofed feet who is associated with goats? Oh right, [[Satan]]. [[Our Demons Are Different|Or in this universe]], [[Eldritch Abomination|Discord.]]

* In Putting Your Hoof Down, we see that a lot of the background ponies have become Jerkasses. At first, this seems like a cheap plot device to get Fluttershy in Iron Will's assertiveness class. However, in Iron Will's class we see that there's an enormous crowd of ponies there. Since Fluttershy became a bully after the class, its safe to say that other ponies could have been affected that same way. Now if Iron Will has held previous classes this could explain where the meanness of the background ponies came from. More Jerkass ponies would result in more ponies feeling like doormats and deciding to take the class, creating a viscous cycle. This means that Fluttershy was probably the first to realize the flaw in Iron Will's program and explain it to him, likely ending (or at least reducing) the cycle of meanness.

 

* In, "It's About Time", the [[Stable Time Loop]] may seem like a [[Shaggy Dog Story]]...except that because Twilight was worried about a disaster, she ended up fixing a lot of potential ones, as shown in the montage, and making Cerberus go back to his post. So in actuality, messaging herself from the future actually helped a lot.

* Same episode-it may seem Twilight's gone back to [[Super OCD]]...except that from her POV, she's trying to prevent a catastrophe she knows next-to-nothing about, and is legitimately worried rather than anal-retentive. Once she realizes there really wasn't anything, she calms down instantly and actually goes back to give herself a chill pill, rather than worrying more.

* Twilight has taken a lot of flak for leaving Spike alone during this season, but in "Its About Time", he says he ''likes'' it when Twilight goes off on adventures because he can catch up on his sleep.

 

* Knowing that dragons can swim in lava certainly makes Spike's once using all of Ponyville's hot water on a seven hour bubblebath a lot more understandable. It's also a nod, to the episode [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1/E05 Griffon the Brush Off|Griffon The Brush Off]], where he says that dragons are fireproof.

* In one of the pictures, during the end sequence, you see that Spike cut and pasted a photo of himself into a group photo of the Mane six. Why on earth wasn't he in the picture with them? Because it was in Canterlot during [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E09 Sweet and Elite|Twilight's Birthday]], and he was absent, for some [[What Happened to the Mouse?|unspecified reason]].