My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Headscratchers/Season 2: Difference between revisions

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*** I saw that too, at least with everyone but Fluttershy. He attacks Applejack with an uncomfortable "truth", he attacks Pinkie Pie by turning laughter into a negative, he hits Rarity with something she really adores to turn her into a selfish jerk, and he divides Rainbow Dash's loyalty to her town and to her friends. But with Fluttershy, he tries again and again (and fails) to get her to be unkind to her friends (talk about them behind their backs) but she NEVER DOES. And then he just hypnotizes her into being cruel. What gives? I feel like it was either an [[Ass Pull]] or a [[Deus Ex Machina]]. If the writers had gotten her to admit, even once, that her friends might not be perfect little angels, then I could see him abusing that chink in her armor... I dunno, I just feel it wasn't handled as well as it could have been.

**** I think the fact that Discord couldn't harm Fluttershy in that subtle way and had to be forced to rewire her directly is a testament to her strengths as a character and why most people love her as one; think about it. Twilight wasn't attacked, and Applejack and Rainbow Dash were corrupted quick by the double-edged sword they both have of taking things quickly and at face-value. Pinkie Pie resisted it because she's Pinkie and likes at least the humor that Discord brings, and Rarity resisted Discord's corruption at first because she was staying true to her element and the task at hand. Fluttershy? She was outright immune to his subtle magics and social advances. He had to ''STOP PLAYING'' in order to corrupt her. Its probably why they Fluttercruel needed to be tied down in order to be uncorrupted; she was too strong in the ways in both Kindness and Cruelty.

****** I have another view on that: Discord hopes for a more complete corruption instead of a quick but incomplete corruption. That's why Discord wants to gets them to expose a moment of weakness before he uses magic to zap. But, it doesn't work well on Fluttershy, and so Discord gets impatient.

****** It may also be that exposing a pony's weakness simply makes it ''easier'' for the corruption spell to operate effectively. Keep in mind that while Discord is just a few shades shy of a [[Physical God]], he still got out of a thousand-year imprisonment just several hours prior; it's not unlikely, therefore, that some of his powers might have atrophied in the meantime. Using a brunt-force attack as he did on Fluttershy against the ''entire'' Mane Six might've been beyond his comfortable power limit at the time.

*** [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|And what do Spike and Pinkie Pie have in common?]] They are the only two characters ''confirmed'' to be aware of the dull coloring. Twilight makes no mention of it, despite being aware that ''something'' weird is happening to her friends; and of course, she fails to consider that maybe the guy called [[Meaningful Name|Discord]] has something to do with it.

*** Hay, even ''Discord himself fails to notice that the tell-tale sign of his influence is gone.'' Clearly, the fact that Spike and Pinkie Pie notice the color change at all is the exception, not the rule.

*** Two of the ponies have been corrupted by turning their elements into something to be shunned in their mind (Applejack and Pinkie Pie). Rarity has been corrupted by using her weakness (pretty things). Rainbow Dash got hit with an impossible choice. Fluttershy got brainwashed by force, and Twilight was completely severed from her element (magic/friendship) by turning her friends into enemies. So yeah, there doesn't really seem to be a definite pattern to Discord's madness. [[Fridge Brilliance]], maybe?

 

* How is there room for that giant hedge maze near Canterlot? As far as we see, it's just one giant castle attached to the side of a mountain.

** This troper was under the impression that a [[Big Bad]] is going to be pulling the strings and unleashing ancient evils over the course of the season. Tirek possibly? It would also be a good way to introduce a new character for one of the ancient evils to have simply mellowed out during their imprisonment.

**** I think that's [[Word of God]] right there. Something corrupted Luna and weakened Discord's prison. I can't remember the details.

**** The WMG making a STARTLINGLY good case that the [[Bigger Bad]] who's been running around weakening Discord's prison, corrupting characters and unleashing chaos on Ponyville is none other than Cheerilee.

*** It's not clear if Celestia personally is responsible for imprisoning all of them, but there's apparently enough that there's an entire realm (Tartaros -- they distinctly pronounce it with the Greek "os", not the Latin "us") dedicated to holding them, and they can potentially get out any time Cerberus decides to wander off.

** Remember the way Applejack talks, though. The deeper you go into the South, the more likely you are to run into double/triple/quadruple negatives. Twilight would probably have just ended up with a splitting headache if she'd tried this on her.

*** Um, gross generalizations about the South aside, Applejack doesn't actually use a lot of double negatives, as far as I can recall. Her grammar may not always be perfect, but it's not so bad that you can't understand what she's trying to say, or that she doesn't understand what others are trying to say. Twilight might get a headache from trying to penetrate her constant lies, but grammar shouldn't be an issue.

 

* Did anyone else think that when Twilight Sparkle got corrupted, that she would become a techhead instead? After all, the obvious offense against Magic is...but my real Headscratcher comes from the lesson of this story; Friendship is hard, but if you work at it you will persevere. This is all well and good, but the problem rears its head when we look at the circumstances that their friendship is threatened. It was totally from an outside force for which they had no control over their actions and weren't acting in their frame of mind. If they had been led into those corruptions from a sense of need to lie or be cruel or be greedy or grumpy in their own personalities, then one could argue that it was their personality and they could be held responsible, but not in this case.

** Twilight was corrupted because she gave up. That's why fighting for their friendship is the lesson. Twilight didn't try to fix them, she just pressed ahead on her own.

*** She definitely knew ''something'' was wrong, and that it was Discord's fault, but she pegged all her hopes on being able to befriend the crap out of him with the Element Cannon. When that failed, she just gave up until Celestia spammed her with her own letters. To more directly answer the opening 'scratcher, for all of Discord's [[Mind Rape]], he was taking a trait that already existed and turning it [[Up to Eleven|up to about fifteen]]. As one WMG on the Mane Characters page put it, each of them (except possibly Rainbow Dash) had already acted against their Element at least once - all Discord did was let that part out to play for more than a CMFIS (Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome, in case you aren't in the know)-induced breakdown (OK, Applejack's lies were mainly to keep a surprise party secret). Meaning that yes, they ''were'' lead into those corruptions from their own flaws, just aggravated by Discord.

*** That also assumes that the opposite was there to begin with. I would feel bad if the girls were brought low because of this apparent weakness. I will certainly agree with Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and (sorry 'bout this, cutie) Fluttershy though I would call her more psychotic and desperate more than cruel. They certainly showed the opposite traits. Twilight hadn't before Season 2, and I don't think Pinkie did. She was paranoid and schizophrenic [[Played for Laughs]], but I'm not sure I'd call her grumpy, would you?

*** And as for Twilight, she absolutely ''did'' demonstrate her "Discorded" traits in Season 1...way back in the pilot. Meeting the other members of the Mane Six allowed her to get past that mindset, but with them all having abandoned her, there was nothing left to keep her from reverting to the introverted loner with no time for or interest in making friends. The additional signs of depression can be attributed to the old aphorism "you never know what you've got until you lose it."

 

*** Also, because we have yet to see Earth Ponies with any form of supernatural advantage that Pegasi or Unicorns have, it only makes sense for Discord to use that lack of current advantage to prove his point. What got to me in that episode was why Rainbow Dash wasn't freaking out because her wings were gone? A huge part of her character goals hinge directly on the fact that she is a Pegasus.

**** She did freak out and give a [[Girly Scream]]. She probably tried to pull herself together for the sake of her friends, but once she was alone and Discord offered her her wings back, she crumbled.

 

* Couldn't the girls have walked through the hedge walls? They're literally just tall bushes...

** This troper was under the impression that a [[Big Bad]] is going to be pulling the strings and unleashing ancient evils over the course of the season. Tirek possibly? It would also be a good way to introduce a new character for one of the ancient evils to have simply mellowed out during their imprisonment.

**** I think that's [[Word of God]] right there. Something corrupted Luna and weakened Discord's prison. I can't remember the details.

**** The WMG making a STARTLINGLY good case that the [[Bigger Bad]] who's been running around weakening Discord's prison, corrupting characters and unleashing chaos on Ponyville is none other than Cheerilee.

*** It's not clear if Celestia personally is responsible for imprisoning all of them, but there's apparently enough that there's an entire realm (Tartaros -- they distinctly pronounce it with the Greek "os", not the Latin "us") dedicated to holding them, and they can potentially get out any time Cerberus decides to wander off.

** This troper was under the impression that a [[Big Bad]] is going to be pulling the strings and unleashing ancient evils over the course of the season. Tirek possibly? It would also be a good way to introduce a new character for one of the ancient evils to have simply mellowed out during their imprisonment.

**** I think that's [[Word of God]] right there. Something corrupted Luna and weakened Discord's prison. I can't remember the details.

**** The WMG making a STARTLINGLY good case that the [[Bigger Bad]] who's been running around weakening Discord's prison, corrupting characters and unleashing chaos on Ponyville is none other than Cheerilee.

*** It's not clear if Celestia personally is responsible for imprisoning all of them, but there's apparently enough that there's an entire realm (Tartaros -- they distinctly pronounce it with the Greek "os", not the Latin "us") dedicated to holding them, and they can potentially get out any time Cerberus decides to wander off.

 

* Why weren't Twilight's parents at the ceremony at the end? They live in Canterlot, their daughter is basically getting the Medal of Honor for saving the world from the pony equivalent of the Devil. So where are they?

*** Besides, they could've been in the crowd.

 

** Rainbow Dash has a lot of flying moves that cause impressive physical and visual effects other than the Sonic Rainboom, such as the Buccaneer Blaze. It could be a new move she developed over the summer. It doesn't look much like a Sonic Rainboom, really.

* Even though it was in Twilight's imagination, why was there an Alicorn filly in Magic Kindegarten? No, seriously, go check in that scene. The yellow filly with purple hair closest to Twilight's right has wings and a horn.

** Also, it's an animation error.

*** Also? Possible Celestia's Dream Offspring?

*** The Spike super sizing and parent polymorphing was the result of a burst of raw magic.

**** Irrelevant. If she can do it unintentionally then it can be done purposefully. Magic is magic, and if she can do things like that, it only makes sense that she'd be to alter minds. There's no reason Celestia wouldn't teach it to her. Such a spell could have infinite practical uses.

* Probably missing a joke here, but when Twilight saw Fluttershy apparently beating up a bear, why is her reaction 'she's finally grown a spine' rather than questioning why her meek and patient friend is choosing violence over her usual kind-but-firm approach. Moreover, why didn't she try to help if she thought Fluttershy was in a fight? Fluttershy is the [[Silk Hiding Steel]] type to be sure, but that kind of violence - from Twilight's perspective - is wildly OOC, and one wonders why Twilight wasn't more concerned for her friend. Unless Twilight would be if she were in her right mind, and brushing it off as a missed opportunity for a 'lesson' was down to her frustration at the time.

** While she hadn't gone completely off the deep end, Twilight had just pretty much announced her intent to take advantage of Fluttershy's meek nature ("Fluttershy ''always'' has some fear she's trying to get over, as a good friend I should be able to help her") which kinda implies the crazy had already started to take hold. Plus out of character or not, would you really want to confront a friend who'd just "killed" something several times her size and was probably still angry? I also imagine being hit by the debris from the Tactical Rain Nuke probably didn't help any. Maybe it wasn't madness, more severe concussion...

** you're probably right. and a lecture is probably punishment enough considering how much Twilight wants to please Celestia. but on the other hoof, just a lecture does seem like to light a consequence. and Celestia's dialog does suggest that she would have punished Twilight somehow if the others hadn't convinced her that they actually leaned something from the incident.

** Am I the only one who never thought Celestia was going to punish Twilight at all, and she was simply letting the others plead in their friend's defence so that ''they would learn and admit the lesson''? That sounds like something Celestia would do, rather than spoon-feed them with "Ssh, it's okay." Either that or she was just letting them sweat, in a subtle nod to [[Alternative Character Interpretation|Trollestia]].

** I'm just saying that wile there are valid reasons to think Celestia was always going to let Twilight off the hook, Twilight had never screwed up this bad before and the consequences may have been a bit more harsh if the rest of the Mane Six hadn't shown up. it also should be noted that Celestia usually makes a point that she is not going to punish anypony who thought it was coming. but this time she says she'll let it slide on the condition that they all write the friendship reports now. being tough on Twilight wouldn't automatically make her [[Alternate Character Interpretation|Tyrant Celestia]]. plus I saw a [[Fanfic]] that wile technically (soft) Rule 34,(a [[Spank the Cutie]] premise) shows a great deal of respect for the show and cannon characterizations and is a pretty heartwarming [[What If]] that wile unlikely, isn't beyond the realm of possibility in my mind.

*** Which fic is this? PM Aurabolt if you don't mind, and I can't really see Tyrant Celestia as a proper characterization considering that theirwhole society is based off the enduring values of the Elements of Harmony.

*** She was going to decree that for her crimes, Twilight must atone by facing the Tomb of Horrors! The scene cuts to a table in a basement where Twilight is forced to play D&D with Snips, Snails, and Twist. Just to make sure she doesn't have any unintended fun, the Great and Powerful Trixie will be [[Killer Game Master|DMing]]. Twilight has a long night of re-rolling characters ahead of her.

*** She actually ''was'' going to send Twilight back to Magic Kindergarden in Canterlot. However, to Twilight's surprise, it quickly grows on her. She's getting three juice boxes a day, a comfy mat on the floor to nap on, and her classmates look on her in awe as the genius she always knew she was. Upon seeing that her punishment isn't working, Celestia will announce that Twilight is being exiled, to serve out the duration of her sentence in a small town in the middle of nowhere that was founded by escaped mental patients, and is also surrounded on all sides by dangerous, carnivorous monsters... The next day Pinky will throw her a "Welcome Back" party throughout which Twilight is noticeably quiet.

*** [[The Stand|"M-O-O-N. That spells criminal justice!"]]

*** She would ask Twilight if she [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4f9m4OYkCY likes bananas]....

 

** Could easily be simply a tradition the ponies themselves started, at first starting as an actual appeasement. Later simply a tradition. Luna might have simply heard of it and went 'oh, I need to FIX this'.

** It's highly unlikely Celestia is the origin of Nightmare Night; Luna's original transformation into Nightmare Moon 1000 years ago was probably a big scary event, and after Celestia fixed the problem the ponies of the world probably continued to tell or dramatize the story. One millennium later and it's a festival.

*** Because ponies feared and shunned the night, Celestia singled out one night to focus their fears and anguish, leaving them with peace the rest of the year. It also got them out of their homes on that night, so they would realize the night isn't that bad.

** They weren't quite saying that being scary was a good trait to have, but more like it was a good thing on that particular holiday, it being modeled after Halloween and everything. A good thing, too, since Luna's demeanor would have scared everyone on any ''other'' day. So it's good timing that she decided to show up on the day on which scares are ''expected'', increasing the chances that misunderstandings can be cleared up/she can play it off as part of the celebration, and the townsfolk can see her for who she is under the Traditional Royal Voice.

** Another theory: ''lesser of two evils''. On the one hoof, cannibal pony who can be appeased by offering candy. On the other hoof, [[Omnicidal Maniac]]. Pick one!

* Is everypony carrying the [[Idiot Ball]] in the first episode? No one knows who Nightmare Moon is, even though she is the pony boogyman and the is a HUGE STATUE OF HER NEARBY?!?!?!

* Is Pinkie Pie just so far gone now she was blind to the trouble she was causing, or was she just selfishly ignoring it for her own amusement?

** Pinkie Pie likes to have fun and thought acting scared was fun. She might've assumed that the other scared ponies were playing along (the foals were, at least) and didn't realize how much trouble she caused.

*** The adults were most certainly afraid, not merely playing. They wouldn't have destroyed half their celebration in their frantic attempts to get away if they thought it was all a game.

** Neither. She was always away whenever Luna did stuff, only showing up at the end of a scene to scream and run off again. Think about it. Luna first showed up at the tail end of Zecora's little show. Pinkie probably thought that Luna was getting into the spirit of the holiday. After all, she made an amazing entrance and had an evil chariot and everything. She was ''playing along'' with Luna, or so she thought. She wasn't around for any of Twilight's lecture-sessions with the princess, not until Twilight jumped her.

** Maybe the princesses work on similar principles to the gods on [[Discworld]]. Luna was trapped on the moon for 1000 years, so people stopped believing in her, making her smaller. Now she's back, belief has made her stronger again. She might end up as large as Celestia yet!

** The darker part might have to do with Luna Eclipse taking place at night.

** Being the princess of the night, it might be that she's big, loud and powerful at night and small, timid and weak during the day. Celestia seems normal at night, but maybe it took time for her to reach that point.

** Or maybe her powers - along with her appearance - are tied to the moon phases, changing in parallel.

** Whenever we see Celestia, she's busy. (Royal duties, scolding an irresponsible student, etc.) Maybe she hasn't had time to teach Luna etiquette. Or, [[Wild Mass Guessing]], Luna insisted that she catch up on everything by herself.

** Think about this, if she ''had'' just told her about it, then she'd just be going through the motions. She'd have been ''told'' how to behave, not ''learned''. And even more important, she'd not have bonded with her subjects in the process. Celestia is the older and more intelligent sister, but she's also a [[Trickster Mentor]], just telling someone how to act isn't her style if learning themselves will work a lot better.

** Rainbow's wearing a Shadowbolt costume. Which means that the idea's fresh in her mind… from when she met them in episode 2. Assuming the Summer Sun Celebration is around 21 June, and Nightmare Night is 31 October… that's barely over 4 months to get caught up on one thousand years of culture and changes.

** Would Celestia [[The Fog of Ages|even remember]] how they behaved a thousand years ago, and did she even know Luna would act that way in public? The only other time we see her she acts completely differently. Either it was [[Characterization Marches On]], or she simply doesn't act that hammy around her sister.

** This lends some credence to the theory that Nightmare Moon was a completely separate entity that was possessing Luna.

*** I'm not sure this counts as a "theory", given that Lauren Faust said something to this effect -- that although her jealousy and resentment provided the opening for something to do so, the transformation was due to some outside force.

** Another possibility: ''Nightmare Moon'' really couldn't have cared less, but when ''Luna'' paid Ponyville her first major return visit she wanted to make the best impression she could and so took pains to be on her very best royal behavior -- formal speech as she remembered it from happier times and all. That is, she doesn't ''actually'' still talk like that all the time (she doesn't seem to when we see her again at the end of the season in "A Canterlot Wedding", though she doesn't have many lines there either), but she dusted off her old lessons on proper princessly protocol specifically for this occasion.

 

* The demon-winged pegasi that brought Luna in, is that a costume? Or are there demon-winged pegasi?

** There are no solid facts since we never got to see how Luna's return affected the palace, therefore we can only guess their origins. Makes you wonder where such a pony would find employment while Luna was exiled, but there again, we didn't see much of Equestria and beyond, so they may just be a foreign race. That or Luna simply cast an illusion/shapeshift spell on regular royal guards.

 

* Rainbow Dash dressed as a Shadowbolt, a pony that only appeared in an illusion created by Nightmare Moon. Is there an acutal group called the Shadowbolts that are rivals to the Wonderbolts? How did anyone understand Rainbow's costume?

* Why did Apple Bloom keep saying "just for one day" threateningly, if she was in on the trick and knew Applejack was never going to run the race with Sweetie Belle at all?

** Sure, she was in on it -- but ''Sweetie'' wasn't. And after Sweetie had raved about wanting Applejack as '''her''' [[Cool Big Sis]], she was probably more than a little worried she'd take the 'lending' too seriously.

* Maybe it's just me, but the portrayal of Applejack's and Apple Bloom's relationship in this episode didn't seem to fit with how they related to each other back in "Call of the Cutie". In that episode, Applejack seemed [[Adults Are Useless|much more distant and out of touch with Apple Bloom's life]], whereas Apple Bloom saw Applejack as a faraway idol who she wanted to grow up to be like (which is much like Sweetie Belle and Rarity in this episode). In other words, the two seemed much, much closer here than they did in "Call of the Cutie".

** Well, it's not like Applejack could just give Apple Bloom her Cutie Mark. That might be why she seemed more distant. Or maybe they ''were'' distant and have simply gotten closer since "Call of the Cutie".

*** Given that the only candidates we see for "the ponies in charge" are Big Macintosh and Granny Smith…

 

** It's not that hard to imagine that "each outfit is a different color of the rainbow" simply hadn't occurred to her before; she was always busy with her other ideas.

** Its not unbelievable. She calls that room her "Inspiration Room", which means that it's the place where her ideas come to her. She also notes that it had never been so ordered before. Simply put, she'd never before had a rainbow arrangement in the special place she sets aside for inspiration, which is why the idea didn't occur to her before.

** I think it's kind of been established that the ponies really don't know much about zebras. It shouldn't be too surprising that they still have some weird misconceptions.

*** AJ has unfortunately proven herself to be kinda racist. Just look back at her reactions to Zecora in ''Bridle Gossip''.

** As for the French thing, I didn't really take that as racist. AJ's horrified because her little sister's been rendered unable to speak any other language ''at random''. I could imagine that being genuinely creepy in real life. The fancy talk comment could be either playing up the idea that French is archaically seen as a refined language when compared to rural American-English (which stems from French being the traditional court language in many European monarchies, such as Britain's) or trying to avoid naming France directly due to Equestria not being on Earth. And yes, I know Fluttershy name checked the french previously.

*** And from the "Cutie Mark Chronicles", we can guess Applejack associates French with the snotty upper class she dislikes.

*** It could be that in the ponyverse, French is actually called "Fancy". It's not likely there's a country called France in this world, after all.

*** Explain this line then...

**** She doesn't know how to properly pronounce the name.

*** Alternate explanation: perhaps we misheard her line and she said "She's speakin' ''Francey''!" As in Applejack just knows that's how they speak in France but doesn't actually know the name of the language? Or maybe she's mispronouncing "Français"? Well, okay, maybe not. But [[Gratuitous French]] words ''are'' used a lot by high society snobs, so I guess it could be "fancy" too…

** No one ever said that Twilight raised Spike from birth, or that he sees her as a surrogate mother. In fact he refers to the mane 6 as "my friends", rather than "my five friends and also my mom."

** Twilight and Spike's relationship has always seemed more like a surrogate brother/sister thing than parental.

** It could be possible, but every single one of them would have had to eat it while wishing with all their hearts that they had cutie marks. Not to mention the fact that Applebloom brewed the Heart's Desire into a potion, though if she just ate the plant herself it might have had the same cutie pox effect. Although, if all the ponies who got it (or at least the first one if it is actually infectious), wouldn't they have noticed that it started after eating that flower? Not to mention it never says where the outbreak first happened - just to "a population of ponies in the Paleopony period".

** The original sickness probably had nothing to do with Heart's Desire. The Heart's Desire potion seems to make the drinker's most dearly held wish come true magically. However, it's been shown a number of times that a real cutie mark cannot be conjured by magic. Since the spell couldn't do something impossible, it did something that was possible (if unlikely) and gave Apple Bloom the Cutie Pox instead.

*** You mean you ''should'' only receive a cutie mark once...

** Not to mention that Trixie was a total stranger, while Apple Bloom was a little kid who lived in town.

** Plus, Trixie was all hat and no cattle. Applebloom was hat ''and'' cattle.

* Again with Twilight's hair gets snipped to match Rarity's. When Spike immediately falls in love with Twilight for a brief time (Well, only due to her mane), and he mostly loves Rarity.. Does Spike only love Rarity for her mane?

== 2.07 May the Best Pet Win ==

* Right at the beginning of the song there is a vulture sitting on a fence in the background. Why didn't Fluttershy show that to Rainbow Dash? Vultures can fly and (in my opinion anyway) are incredibly cool so I'm sure Rainbow would have liked it.

*** Tank managed to last as he did for two things: He was accepted in the first place to humor Fluttershy, and he never let the little fact that Rainbow Dash told him he had lost(several times) intimidate him.

*** No, it wouldn't. The vulture shown in the episode isn't depicted as awesome at all, or at least, Dash didn't find it so.

* Fluttershy taking care of otters and seals. Okay, its probably a river otter. But a seal? How is she taking care of it that far from the ocean?

* How's Tank going to live with Rainbow Dash in Cloudsdale despite being a turtle (thus, can't walk on clouds), or is it going to stay the night with Fluttershy?

** Twilight can probably just cast that cloudwalking spell on it, and it has the helicopter to get from cloud to cloud.

** Umm... [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Shellicopter]], anyone?

*** And that weird little sound he makes when Pinkie first introduces Gummy in "Feeling Pinkie Keen".

** Gummy has the same [[Reality Warper|reality warping]] powers as Pinkie, and consciously inserted himself into the dream world.

*** Why would people be upset about somepony showing up Rainbow Dash? Dash shows people up all the time, her whole shtick is being more awesome then everypony else. [[Badass|She is somewhat excused by the fact that she usually IS.]] But this also means that she herself never gets brought down to earth, and that leads her to become extremely obnoxious sometimes. Therefore, to be frank, Rainbow Dash ''deserved'' to be showed up a bit. She needed to learn more than just "being a hero without making a fuss of it". She needed to get hammered into her rather thick skull just how annoying it is when somepony demonstratively can do anything better than you.

**** Because trying to make your friend feel bad is a horrible thing to do? Plus, as stated before, for Rainbow Dash being the best is the same thing as being good with animals is to Fluttershy or being able to work her farm properly is to Applejack. When something messes with that, she gets panic attacks and depression and then starts acting ever more irrationally.

** The basic problem with the costume is that it ''wasn't doing its job.'' It didn't cause Rainbow Dash to think that she should focus more on her heroics and less on the bragging. It just made her feel bad because she apparently believed that Mare Do Well was trying to drive her out of heroics altogether. Every time it showed up, it made Rainbow Dash even ''more'' desperate for others' admiration. She only finally learned her lesson when her friends ''explained'' it at the end.

** I think the main problem people had with the rest of the Mane 6 was the motivations behind their actions and the general logic that lead them to do what they did. The impression that I and others got from the rest of Mane Six's actions in this episode was that they found Rainbow Dash's bragging and boasting to be more annoying than usual. So in order to correct this they decide to hatch an under-handed scheme behind their friend's back that involved trying to one-upping her at every opportunity possible, and they even went so far as to remind said friend how they have one-upped her without her even realizing it. All because they thought their friend was annoying. If that doesn't sound at least some what illogical/dickish then I don't know what is.

*** She wasn't just annoying. Even before Mare-Do-Well stepped in, she was ''already'' showing herself to be dangerous irresponsible. Pay attention when she rescues the baby -- not only does she needlessly worry the crowd to fish for extra praise by saying there's something wrong with the baby... but once the photographers show up, she carelessly tosses it aside to pose for the pictures. Then she wastes time showboating with a pose and catchphrase before rescuing the elderly ponies. More than just being insufferably obnoxious, she was letting her arrogance get in the way of actually being a hero, and was endangering lives as a result.

*** I'd like to point out that Mare Do Well ''saved ponies'', including ponies that Dash would not have been able to save by herself. (Remember the dam? And the cart that Dash couldn't stop?) The Mane 5 have an obvious moral imperative to save those ponies whether or not Dash is being a braggart. So it was a question of either saving ponies (and thus embarrassing Dash) while wearing a costume, vs. saving ponies (and thus embarrassing Dash) while ''not'' wearing a costume; Dash was going to be embarrassed no matter what they did. They went with the costume idea because they wanted to demonstrate the idea of humility to Dash, because Dash had been a braggart recently. That effort unfortunately backfired, until the Mane 5 revealed their scheme and Dash learned her lesson. But the Mane 5 were always simply trying to save ponies and teach their friend a much-needed lesson; they weren't trying to be dicks about it.

 

 

* This is a relatively minor issue, but I've noticed that Fluttershy's flying ability seems to fluctuate over the course of the season. She's canonically described as a poor flyer, but while disguised as MDW we see her whiz past Rainbow Dash at a speed so great it makes her (briefly) dizzy. Combine this with the fact that she was able to keep up with Rainbow Dash ''while towing a 500+ pound hot air balloon'' just earlier in the season; it seems like she can magically turn into a competent flyer whenever it's convenient to the plot.

*** I assumed RD wasn't going at full speed, but was flying fast enough that she assumed Fluttershy would never catch up to her.

** Fluttershy described herself as a poor flyer back when she was a filly. As an adult, she seems to be a perfectly competent flyer. Nothing amazing ([[Let's Get Dangerous|normally]]) but still able to handle herself in the air. She just prefers sticking close to the ground for all the animals and plants.

** Basically, her poor flying ability is an [[Informed Flaw]], nothing more.

* Why didn't Rarity bring up any of her or her friends' genuine accomplishments? Twilight Sparkle is Celestia's personal student and prize pupil -- there's very few other ponies in the series who are even ''possibly'' closer to the Princess than her -- and she's defeated an Ursa Minor. Rainbow Dash is a likely candidate for the Wonderbolts -- as seen in "Sonic Rainboom" and "The Best Night Ever", they distinctly have their eye on her and are impressed with her abilities. Although the Apple family isn't upper-class, it surely has '''some''' influence (not to mention their famous zap apple jam). Fluttershy single-handedly stopped a dragon and is a former famous model thanks to Photo Finish. Pinkie Pie stopped the first major Parasprite infestation in so long that even Princess Celestia didn't seem to know what they were. Rarity herself has had Hoity Toity and Sapphire Shores as clients. All of them have saved Equestria '''twice'''. And that's just going into the accomplishments the upper-class ponies may have heard of or care about. They may not know their names, but it's hard to believe they don't at least know their reputations.

** If nothing else, several of those ponies were at the Grand Galloping Gala, and were in the receiving line to pay their obeisances to Princess Celestia, where they shook hooves with Twilight Sparkle. Wouldn't the fact that Twilight was standing at Princess Celestia's side throughout the premier social event of Equestrian society, while Celestia was receiving her subjects' homage, have already marked Twilight Sparkle as "a pony everypony should know?"

** I have thought of a theory re: why Rarity never mentions Twilight Sparkle being Celestia's student. It's possible Twilight Sparkle simply does not want that fact advertised, and there are many good reasons why she wouldn't: it could come off as bragging. It could bring her the kind of attention she doesn't want, or cause people to perceive her in a light she doesn't agree with. There's so many other possible reasons as well. As for everything else, I have no idea.

* Also, why was Rarity so desperate to go to ''every'' high-society event she was invited to? Anyone who's ever tried to make it in high society knows that if you just go to everything, you cease to be seen as being in any way exclusive or desirable as a guest. You want to be a catch. You want to always have something more important, and more exclusive, to be going to. Why didn't Rarity just say, 'Oh, you know, I would love to, but Princess Celestia's personal apprentice is having her birthday party--it's very exclusive, only five ponies got invitations--and I simply have to put in an appearance. You know how it is.'?

** First, you gotta understand how you form an image for yourself in these things; you go to as many events as you can until you're a common feature in all the high profile functions, once the invites are really coming thick and fast, you start being picky on where you go from now on. Second, no matter what you do, no matter how world changing the effects of your actions are, it's all about how stylish you are with the kind of people you see Rarity deal with in Canterlot, and Rarity is painfully aware that her own inner circle is nowhere near the definition of the word as her new connections understand it.

** Another possibility is notice she was being calm and peaceful this time. Last time she went running towards them and tried to MAKE them be friends. This time she set in a tree calmly and let them come to her, so it also has to do with her taking a more reasonable approach this time.

* Why didn't Spike go to the birthday party? It was a party for his closest friend/boss. She had to travel out of town to attend it, leaving him alone. It was held in Canterlot, his original home, and he was very enthusiastic about visiting during "The Best Night Ever". And, of course, all the ponies went to Canterlot rather than holding it at home because that was the only way they could include ''Raaaaaarity''. With all of that in mind, his absence seems odd.

* Anyone else find it odd that two ponies that Rarity has bad history with, Blueblood and Photo Finish, were seen in prominent cameos, but weren't confronted or even focused on? The former at least, has every reason to want to start an argument or undermine her newfound celebrity, but no. I don't know why they bothered if nothing came of it; if you don't have time to do something with a character, don't throw him in when it wouldn't make sense for him to be anywhere near that scene looking so pleased.

** I'm guessing Blueblood and Fancypants are friends and as such is willing to tolerate her presence for his sake. Heck, given how much Fancypant's companion looks like a young, wingless Celestia, she might actually be a member of the royal family the same way he is, and is doing it for her.

** Since she's been in town for about a week, I know Rarity wouldn't want to make a scene at any of the big events she was invited to even if she wanted to have another go at some of the people that have been jerks to her. And maybe among the upper crust of Canterlot it's considered very rude to get into an argument at a party, to the point that anyone doing it would fall out of favor pretty pretty quickly.

* One explanation for a good half the [[Fridge Logic]] here is that the show has an anachronic order and the Gala simply hasn't happened yet. It's even said that the Gala was still coming up, and the mane cast probably wouldn't be that excited to go after what happened last time.

 

== 2.10 Secret of My Excess ==

** You just answered your own question. She was tied up, she couldn't cast any spells.

*** Gee, I must have never noticed when she performed an interprative dance every time before she cast any of her other spells. Oh wait, she didn't, because she '''just has to think hard enough''' to cast a spell. And maybe she did use a spell during the scene cut, it just didn't occur to her until 20 seconds later.

** Perhaps she automatically teleports anything she's touching, so she'd just teleport the tree and rope with her as well.

*** [[Forgot I Could Fly]]. There, I just explained this and every single instance similar to it that has or will happen in the series.

*** Both dragons were sentient enough to hold conversations and Basil (the red one) even had enough self-awareness to even feel bad after Fluttershy scolded him.

** It's entirely possible that Spike's loss of intelligence is due to his growth being unnaturally accelerated. If he had grown up the normal way, he'd probably have more control over himself. At least enough to limit his hoarding to items he'd actually have use for like gems.

** Perhaps in normal cases a baby dragon's mother would stop it from indulging the hoarding instinct and getting large before it's ready. His immaturity is also why he was hoarding worthless objects, a grown up dragon has enough self control to only pick the best for it's hoard.

** As for the purpose of hoarding, remember that dragons ''eat'' gems. (Or Spike does, anyway.) Maybe they eat gold etc. too. If so, a dragon's horde is simply a large supply of food for itself. (Maybe dragons spend long periods of time in their caves, during which time they have only their hordes to feed on.) As for why Spike was also collecting non-edible objects, see the above points.

** Who's to say the Zap Apples aren't sweet?

** Maybe Sweet Apple Acres belonged to Granny Smith's husband and after they got married, Zap Apple Acres was included.

** Showing off pride doesn't seem to be a big part of the Apple family, besides, being young, Granny Smith's odd behavior might have changed Applebloom's view on the story over time, and she simply stuck to 'Zap Apples are a big source of income, and we gather them every year' instead of remembering the rest of the story.

*** Maybe she was told the story before. Now, she was worrying because Granny would likely tell another nonsense story to the whole class as she often does, embarassing her horribly. Her happiness stems from how now the rest of the class knows and is delighted, along with dodging a huge bullet there. Also, two words about Apple Family pride; Applebuck Season.

* Seeing a young Granny Smith got me wondering something. What was Granny Smith's name before she became a Granny? I mean, I know that Granny Smith is a type of apple, and just about everypony in the Apple family has an [[Theme Naming|apple-themed name]]. [[Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?|But who in their right mind would name their foal Granny]]?

** Someone named their child Filthy and another child was named Stinkin'. Some ponies just aren't good namers. Besides, maybe Granny Smith just went as Smith? Or Smith Apple? Or some other apple reference I don't know.

** When Granny Smith was talking about how Ponyville was founded, she called her family "the Smith family" and that her Pa was a seed collector. Maybe Granny Smith's real name has something to do with seed collecting?

** Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only episode I can think of in which Diamond's and Silver's bullying is really evident is the one where Diamond throws a party in honor of her cutie mark, which obviously does not take place in school so there was no reason for Cheerilee to notice. There was also "Cutie Pox," where they make fun of Apple Bloom's hoop-spinning talent, but it sort of comes back to bite them when they can't do it as well and she makes fun of them. Also, in this episode there's hardly any bullying in class except for at the very end, and in that case the rest of the class gasped at Diamond's assertion that Granny Smith is a crazy old lady, and Silver Spoon even says that her father's business would not exist if not for Sweet Apple Acres.

* In Winter Wrap Up, Twilight Sparkle says that Ponyville was founded by earth ponies and they've been doing winter wrap up for hundreds of years without magic. So does that mean Granny Smith is [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|several hundred years old?]] The line in Winter Wrap Up is this btw: "No Spike, Ponyville was started by Earth ponies, so for hundreds of years they've never used magic to clean up winter."

*** Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Twilight Sparkle all say that baby unicorns and pegasi go through stages where their abilities are unusually strong randomly before fading. The babies will probably reach a more even level as they grow and learn to deliberately develop their powers. I wouldn't be surprised if baby earth ponies have periods where their innate strength and toughness can cause problems, but on a much lesser scale than the other two races.

**** Err, no. Rainbow Dash doesn´t say anything of that, they only say the part about the unicorns not the pegasi.

** Maybe because they weren't clean?

** Plus Pinkie probably didn't want her/the Cake's stuff covered in baby drool. It's not really a pleasant thing to coat your possessions in.

*** Sucking on things as a baby can deform the shape of the mouth. It's another reason to prevent a baby from sucking on things.

* Rarity and Twilight are quick to point out that baby unicorns can have spurts of magic. This raises questions about Sweetie Belle's proficiency in magic, which so far hasn't been demonstrated even in, for example, places where Rarity would use telekinetic magic frequently.

*** They make it clear foals can do this then grow out of it, as Twilight did. Pumpkin has not, hence she had the power to whatever she wanted at the time and didn't lose control because she never had to force it.

** Like human babies can swim, maybe ponies have a similar reflex for magic and flying. As for why, it's so the little defenseless foals won't get eaten by the next dragon who comes along (ponies live in a dangerous world). They can't sustain this magic, as they age it fades, and they have to develop their abilities the old fashioned way. Twilight is also extremely powerful, to the extent that she has trouble controlling it as an adult.

*** If you could rely on them not to freak out on the spot and actually know what to do. They're powerful, not focused or intelligent.

*** AND if you're prepared to take responsibility in case they fail and the dangerous situation devours them messily.

* 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.

** 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.

**** 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.

** 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.

*** 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.

**** 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.

* 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.

** 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.

* 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.

*** 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.

** 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 [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bad%20apple 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 [[Jerkass|swindling]] instead of good.

** 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.

** 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.)

** 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.

** 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.

 

== 2.16 Read It And Weep ==

** 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.

* 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.

*** 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?

** Or she's just the type of pony who reads aloud to herself when she really gets into a book.

* 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.

** 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.

** 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.

* 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.

 

== 2.17 Hearts and Hooves Day ==

** 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.

* 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.

** 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. Applebloom'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.

** 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?

** Holy Celestia; it just occurred to me. In trying to set Cheerilee up with Big Macnitosh, [[Fridge Brilliance|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?

** 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.

**** 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...

* Why didn't Matilda simply put the note for Cranky ''outside'' her door, to make sure he sees it?

** Because then we wouldn't have the character's [[Start of Darkness]].

* 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 [[Unfortunate Implications|wonder]] about the state of [[Fantastic Racism|minorities in Equestria.]]

** You mean minorities that get invited to the Grand Galloping Gala?

* 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 Applebloom for some reason. Some kind of Cutie Mark Crusader falling out going on?

** They're little kids, so probably.

* 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".

* 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.

** 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 [[Squick|her own milk?]]

** I didn't get the impression he was ''meant'' to be a bad guy. Rarity tries to manipulate him with flattery and Pinkie Pie with lying and trickery, both of which are as morally suspect as Fluttershy's [[Jerkass]] behavior and not necessarily presented as good things. Iron Will sees right through them, but is brought around by Fluttershy's polite and respectful, yet still assertive, demeanor, which is much more morally sound than any other alternative presented to being a doormat.

*** He even learns a lesson at the end, that saying "no means no" is a good way to be assertive.

*** You may be right here. Maybe as a nerd and capitalist, I'm a bit thin-skinned about the kind of things Rarirty and Pinkie did. Still, I would prefer if they would teach assertivness in other way.

*** An 'Ego boost' is not a proper trade-off, even if Rarity paid him back, she now has the last asparagus, that's the only thing that matters. If anything, there's a chance that pony will eventually remember why he wanted it in the first place, and realize the deception, turning the 'ego boost' around. It really depends on whenever someone considers charm to be a justified means to an end or a trick to manipulate others to be frowned upon.

* 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?

** Fluttershy doesn't seem to like using the Stare in general, and didn't she say she can't exactly use it at will?

* Iron Will is a minotaur (half-bull/half-human) does this mean humans exist on this show?

** 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.

** 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?

* 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.

** Tartarus in Equestria is not necessary hell.Could be a prison for ancient and evil creatures, or maybe regular monsters like the ones in the Everfree Forest.

** 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.

*** I don't think the writers care. Tartarus was used just for a gag, probably didn't exist before this episode was written and won't appear ever again.

** 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.

** 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.

*** Maybe there actually WAS a disaster before she started the loop, but it was averted by disaster-proofing Ponyville.

 

== 2.21 Dragon Quest ==

** They followed because they were just worried about their young friend going off into the unknown. How is that "shallow"?

* 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.

* Is Spike defective or something? No really, think about it. Every single dragon, literally every. single. dragon. has wings except for Spike. It's even pointed out by him.

** The most simple explanation is that Spike just isn't the same type of dragon as the others we've seen. He doesn't have wings because his species is naturally flightless.

*** That still begs the question as to why he was pretty much the only flightless dragon there. So many dragons went on the dragon migration, even if Spike is a wingless species, why was he the only member there? Is his species that rare? Is his species from a far-away land?

* 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?

** 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.

** Spike never said ponies were better than dragons. He said that his pony friends were better friends than those [[Jerkass|three]] [[Teens Are Monsters|dragons]]. They were trying to get him to smash a phoenix egg, not for predatory instinct, but [[Kick the Dog|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 [[Moral Event Horizon|kill phoenixes]] entirely for [[For the Evulz|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.

*** Besides, that time was a case of [[Heroic Resolve]].

* 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.

*** 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.

** Maybe they only get reborn a limited number of times before they die permanently.

*** So...phoenixes are [[Time Lord|Time Lords]]?

** 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.

 

== 2.22 Hurricane Fluttershy ==

* So Bonbon's a pegasus now?

** 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.

* 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.

**** 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 [[Shrinking Violet|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.

* [[You Fail Physics Forever|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.

 

 

== 2.23 Ponyville Confidential ==

** [[Completely Missing the Point|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!

* 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.

** 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.

* Why does a one-room schoolhouse have its very own newspaper?

** 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.

** 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 get dirt on Celestia? Three fillies managed to hop a train to Canterlot without any supervision?

** 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.

* 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.

** 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.

* Anyone thought the Ponyville publicly shunning the [[Power Trio|Cutie Mark Crusaders]] a bit harsh? Granted, they invaded their privacy and were humiliated but they're only young fillies. I hate to see what the town will do if the girls did something worse...

** They (albeit unintentionally) let loose the spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. You can't get much worse than that, and no one seems to hold it against them in the long term. Not to mention they fed Big Macintosh and Cherilee a [[Love Potion]] that forced them into a relationship together and caused them to go so bonkers they caused a significant amount of collateral damage. Again, no one holds it against them (unless Macintosh's rant at them was partially fueled by that).

*** Not so much in the former case, since no one really knew that they were to blame. Celestia might have had realized that CMC's quarrel fueled Discord's release, but she probably didn't know about it, and Cheerilee who saw it probably didn't connect an ordinary class trip she likely have had dozens of times with the appearance of an evil [[Physical God]].

** Maybe they heard about the idea of pen names and figured that using one would help them earn their cutie marks.

 

== 2.24 [[MM Mystery]] on the Friendship Express ==

** 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.

* The [[Character Derailment]] of Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity bothers me. Did they become jerks just for the sake of the plot or is there an underlying instinctual behavior regarding ponies and cakes.

** This bothered me, too. Especially at the end when the other bakers scrambled around to eat each other's goods. Seriously? Do none of these characters have any self-control? Pinkie Pie's immediate forgiveness and understanding baffled me as well. 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.

** 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.

 

** 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.

* Where did the Changlings come from? Where do they live? And why do they feed off of love?

** 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?

** 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<ref>[[Fridge Horror,|at least as far as one can ever tell when shapeshifters are involved,]]</ref>, 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 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.

** 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 bullshit, 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.

**** The scene where Twilight crashes the wedding is probably the worst for that, it really bothered this troper. 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? The hell?

**** ^ 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.

*** 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''.

*** THIS. Go back and watch the rehersal scene and try to forget all the other stuff that happened in the episode. Twilight comes across as an extremely rude, possessive, irrational pony just spouting off the word 'evil' over and over. The look on Rarity and Rainbow Dash's faces afterwards are entirely realistic reactions.

** 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.

* Why would the changelings shape-shift into the ponies they're fighting? Now they have no idea who's friend and who's foe.

*** 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.

** 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.

* How did the Queen manage to get past the force field?

** She probably went in before it was even put up.

** 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

** 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.

*** 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.

** 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.)

* 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.

* 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.)

** What is ''with'' you and your constantly demonizing the ponies as dragon abusers??

** 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.

** 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.

** Yes it was dramatically convenient, but in fairness Celestia being THAT powerful is Fanon. She's never demonstrated anything beyond being a particularly powerful unicorn with added wings, and the ability to raise the sun each day was confirmed in "Hearth Warming Eve" to be a normal unicorn ability, albeit likely one that required a group of them working together before Celestia came along. And yes, if Luna had been there too things would have gone differently, which is why she ''wasn't''. Give the writers ''some'' room to create meaningful conflict.

** Just because Celestia can raise the sun doesn't mean she has god-like powers in other areas. It's entirely possible that she has great power over the sun ''specifically'', and relatively little power with other types of magic. (I mean, she's obviously more powerful than average. She's just not god-mode powerful.)

*** She's their primary authority figure and has been for over a thousand years, yes. But even if the other ponies ''believe'' her to be an actual goddess as we'd understand the concept -- unclear at this time since pony religion hasn't really come up in the show at all, probably so as not to needlessly wake sleeping [[Moral Guardians]] --, that doesn't necessarily make her one in fact. (That the ancient Egyptians supposedly believed in the divinity of their pharaos didn't exactly endow ''those'' with mighty supernatural powers either as far as we can tell.)

*** The indications are that Celestia simply ''is'' more powerful than the normal ponies, and indeed probably one of the more powerful entities in the setting. She can control the sun as a single pony -- the play somewhat implied it took more than one normal unicorn to do it. She broke a spell cast by Twilight Sparkle -- herself a force to be reckoned with on the series' power scale -- as if it were nothing. She wielded the Elements of Harmony both with the help of her sister and single-handed -- something it currently takes six ponies to accomplish. Queen Chrysalis very, very obviously didn't consider beating her in open combat even a remote possibility until it had already happened. Does this mean she's a goddess? Not necessarily... but it ''does'' mean that Celestia is a force to reckon with. Combine it with her apparent immortality... and "goddess" is the word that would spring to most people's minds.

** Or it's possible that Celestia simply held back on unleashing her full power out of fear of the other ponies in the room getting hurt, using only the bare minimum she though would be needed, then taken out by a sucker punch.

* If changelings feed off emotions, why do they have fangs?

** 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.

** When have the Royal Guards ''ever'' proven themselves to be more than a [[Redshirt Army]], anyway?

* 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".

** 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.

* Cadance's love magic in Twilight's flashback (the one with the quarrelling pony couple), aside from being [[Tastes Like Diabetes|sickeningly sweet]] and having vaguely disturbing [[Mind Rape|mind rape-y]] undertones, contradicts the CMC's lesson in Hearts and Hooves Day, namely that one must respect other's feelings and let them work out their relationships on their own. I understand that Cadance, being a carefree adolescent at the time, might have misused her power for her own amusement, but the whole thing is handled positively, and there's no indication that she has changed once she was a grown-up. When fake!Cadance showed up and started acting bitchy towards Twilight, I honestly thought that she was just a [[Spoiled Brat]] who got around by manipulating ponies with her power and making them love her.

** This one I was sort of okay with. It's one thing to use mind-altering magics to cause two ponies who are clearly not interested to fall desperately in love. It's another thing to use what is most certainly much less invasive magic to help two ponies who are probably already in love realize that what they are arguing about is a petty and trivial thing that is making them forget how much they care about each other.

*** Possibly, but it might help if we actually knew, or knew that Cadance knew, what the argument was about.

*** We don't really know how exactly that spell worked, we just saw it being cast and its most obvious effect. It's quite possible that its whole purpose was to ''remind'' the squabbling couple of their love for each other (which would also mean that it wouldn't have worked if there really hadn't been anything to remind them ''of''). In pretty sharp contrast to [[Shadow Archetype|Chrysalis]], Cadance just doesn't come across as the deliberately manipulative type.

*** Remember the spell Twilight casts in "Return of Harmony" to remind her brainwashed friends of their feelings for each other and thus snap them out of Discord's spell? I think we just saw who Twilight learned how to do that from.

* 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.

** 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.

 

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[[Category:Headscratchers]]

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