Fridge Horror/Western Animation/My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

Fridge Horror for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

General

 * My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
 * The land of Equestria is idyllic and innocent, right? Sure, unless you count Applejack's unhealthy obsession with work, Rainbow Dash's performance anxiety, Fluttershy's (albeit generally well-managed) anger issues, and Rarity's manipulative tendencies. And don't even get started on Pinkie Pie, who has a phobia of rejection and bipolar disorder so severe it could arguably turn into dissociative identity disorder if she snapped harder than she already has. Twilight wasn't joking: all the ponies in that town really are crazy, including Twilight herself.
 * Pinkie Pie's also a bit of a fridge Tear Jerker: It's likely that she doesn't constantly throw parties just because she likes them. It's because she knows everyone else likes them, and it's the only way she knows to be sociable on a normal level. The Genki Girl randomness that she's known for is too much for most folks, who've probably actively avoided her for it in the past. But if she throws a party, suddenly everyone likes her, and she clings to that. So it's parties forever, and nothing else. Because if she stops, she stops being "That eccentric girl who throws awesome parties all the time" and reverts to "That annoying girl who talks too quickly about things that don't make sense." And then she's all alone. Again.
 * In the season 2 episode "Lesson Zero", Twilight's behavior in the episode becomes all the more horrifying given the fact that the previous episode had them dealing with Discord. Maybe his Mind Rape of the ponies had some lasting effects...
 * After Luna was transformed into Nightmare Moon, Princess Celestia used the elements of harmony to seal her away in the moon for a full millennium. Now, despite all the sad fanart depicting Luna stranded on a rock in the sky, it was Nightmare Moon that was stuck up there. However, Word of Faust says that Luna and Nigtmare Moon were entirely separate entities. It could be interpreted that it was simply using Luna's form and powers as a host for its own intent. Think about that. Celestia locked away a monster, sure, but somewhere inside that monster was her baby sister. Confused, frightened, being leeched from and likely abused by a manifestation of pure emotional entropy. And she was left like this for a thousand years with absolutely nothing she could do about it. Even worse, she probably thinks all of it was punishment for what she did. And what she did was feel a little jealous. There's no way that girl doesn't wind up with a major Guilt Complex.
 * Wait wait hang on.. is there a source for a claim that they're seperate entities? I know the fandom loves to think that, but then again the fandom loves to assume a lot of things are go wholely unsupported by canon, so that doesn't really mean much unless she actually said something.
 * Here's a screenshot of that particular word of Faust. But be warned though as this Word of God may change due to the fact that she's no longer in charge of the show. The people now in charge of the show may have different things in mind and take a different path.
 * The fact that Spike has a crush on Rarity, and is great friends with all of the other ponies is wonderful, until you realize that dragons have a much longer lifespan than the average pony. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are basically Physical Goddesses so they're exceptions, but eventually Spike will probably outlive all of his friends. The fact that he's already younger than them supports this theory even more. There's a story called Growing Up seen here that explains this perfectly. It's beautifully written, but be warned, as it's a massive Tear Jerker.
 * In "Secret of my Excess", Spike says he's only been given one present each year for his birthday--a gift from Twilight. But in the first episode, he is seen with a present intended for Moon Dancer. So he's been giving all these gifts, but he's never received any for himself. Poor guy.
 * With the way Pinkie Pie eats, had she been a real horse, she should have died several times already. Especially after eating the "baked bads".
 * Why do the Diamond Dogs have so many pony-sized harnesses for their carts lying around?
 * We can see several times that Rarity uses glue in the construction of her dresses. Glue is made from horse hooves.
 * Stereotypically. Humans have several sources of glue, one we humans use with fabrics being polymer-based. Others, however, come from fish, cows (another FiM-sentient species), and... rabbit (used in bookbinding, a fact Fluttershy would certainly find horrifying).
 * Why the hell is Spike (a dragon) being raised by ponies? What happened to his parents? Don't dragons eat ponies (and almost anything else not tied down)?
 * The whole cast having Sanity Slippages throughout the series giving fridge horror as limitless possibilities.
 * The stars themselves assisted in the escape of the most powerful villain of the series to date. This means that by either the will of the stars, or some other terrible will, a creature capable of plunging the world in eternal darkness was released. The stars, or something controlling, representing, or within the stars override the power of Celestia and the Elements of Harmony. The stars are alive, capable of judgement, more powerful than anything in Equestria. If Luna and Celestia are the gods of this world, the stars are the elder gods, and they do not want to be our friends.
 * Luna's rebellion was driven by bitterness that the ponies of Equestria did not appreciate the night she brought and more generally ignored her and took her for granted. Her complaint was with her subjects, not her sister. Celestia probably understood why her sister was upset and sympathized with her complaint; she probably agreed that their subjects were taking Luna for granted. And yet, Celestia still had her duty: she had to make war upon her own sister on behalf of their subjects, their ungrateful, selfish subjects. Is it any wonder that Celestia become The Mare Wearing The Princessly Mask afterward?
 * You know, the mortal antagonists have done less to endanger people and property than the heroes and their neighbors. Trixie basically was trying to silence the only people dissatisfied with her performance, Gilda was a bitch and shouted at Fluttershy loud enough to make her cry (amongst other things), Prince Blueblood treated Rarity either like crap, and the Diamond Dogs kidnapped a pony and tried to force her into slavery (yes, this is a horrible thing), and Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara picked on the Blank Flanks. But compare to the Ponyvillians and Cloudsdaleans: Snips and Snails brought in a giant star bear which almost destroyed the town and in fact did destroy Trixie's home, Rainbow Dash almost killed Fluttershy, Twilight enslaved the minds of most of the town over her doll, Rarity was having her own expectations of her date thrown into her face, Fluttershy and Twilight did destroy the town by harboring the Parasprites and magically altering them, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie helped exacerbate an already tense situation into an all-out war in Appleloosa, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders released the most powerful danger to the realm.
 * The creators seem to take innocent looking plots (Lesson Zero, Cutie Pox) and turn them into tales of horror stories...
 * Speaking of, further Fridge Horror can go into the amount of Nightmare Fuel entries - how many for Season 1? 8/26. How many for Season 2 so far? 6/6. Every single Season 2 episode so far as had quite a bit of Nightmare Fuel already, far surpassing that of Season 1. How far is it going to go?!
 * Wish granted: The Sisterhooves Social, a cute, friendly story about siblings fighting, then making up, as well as further proof that Sweetie Belle is a little...slow...
 * "The Cutie Pox" could be counted as 5/6 if you take the whole Story of the Blanks similarities and potential death by exhaustion or dangerous cutie marks into account. But even if you don't count it, you could still say that Season 2 has half as many episodes of Nightmare Fuel so far as Season 1 did, and the Season is only a forth of the way over. As for overthinking everything, we're tropers, it's a natural thing.
 * If you take the time to notice, you can see that season 2 is much more intended for a wider audience (Possibly due to the Bronies). Comparing Pinkie's breakdown with Twilight's is a good example. Pinkie's was slightly tamer and a bit more comical than Twilight's, who looked to be trying to do more harm than good. The storylines (And the friendship lessons themselves) are becoming a tad more developed and complex. For example, compare Applebuck Season with The Last Roundup.
 * Some viewers may remember episodes such as Party Of One and Lesson Zero where Pinkie Pie and Twilight respectively went rather insane. Rainbow Dash seemed just on the verge of that kind of craziness while trying to get attention in The Mysterious Mare Do Well. Who knows what could've happened if that went any further? We've seen the kind of destruction she's capable of, and an insane Dash would make the constant problems around Ponyville this episode pale in comparison.
 * Um, where does Rarity get her cat food?! Ponies are vegetarian, they should have no business making cat food. And AJ with dog food, for that matter. And Pinkie Pie for Gummy? Although, Pinkie Pie is Pinkie Pie, so questioning that is probably a bad idea. But for the others - Vegan pet foods exist.
 * What about a parchment? Which is produced mainly from a calfskin. Cows in this show are sapient. And if parchment there is fabricated from reeds, or another plant, why call it 'a parchment' then?
 * Parchment is also a type of high quality paper similar in colour and texture to old-style calfskin parchment.
 * The whole "Spike loves Rarity" subplot is kind of weird, and not just because he's a baby (although seeing how he matures by hoarding, there's probably some funky genetic loophole going on there). There's been griffins on the show, sure, but how exactly would a canon dragon-pony relationship work out? Could they have children? Then it hit me: We've seen a dragon/equine hybrid already. A dracon-equus: Discord.
 * In Season 1, Spike does not hesitate to mock and poke fun at the misfortune of the Mane 6 while they're under the influence of the Poison Joke. He laughs openly and berates Twilight in her failures to help out in the Winter Wrap Up. Now, in Season 2, Apple Bloom's suffering through the effects of the Cutie Pox disease, running the risk of death by exhaustion or obtaining a cutie mark that could spell instant death for her and the people around her. And Spike is watching with a bag of popcorn, watching nonchalantly.
 * MLP: FIM's target demographic are young girls. So surely many innocent little girls would have looked up Pinkie Pie Cupcakes on youtube, just looking for the cupcake song from Call of the Cutie, only to find a horribly gory fanfic. And that would be the day their childhood ended.
 * Consider something else. There is Rule 34 of this. The target demographic is young girls...so imagine what will happen when they look for this only to find pornographic images of ponies. IF that's not bad enough, consider the fact that somewhere out there...there is demand for this. Someone saw this and thought they wanted to sexualize it. There are people out there who are sick enough to see this show and have sexual fantasies about it.
 * Goodness gracious, how dare they draw rule 34 of a popular show when there are still parents who think it's a good idea to let their little kids use Internet without any parental control?
 * The exterior of Rarity's house is supposed to look like a carousel, complete with artificial horses with rods going through where their ribcages would be. In universe, this should be Nightmare Fuel
 * Maybe, but we have a game that portrays rows and rows of humans impaled horizontally. What is this horrific game? Foosball.
 * After reading about the plot of Graceling, I cannot but apply it to MLP universe. What if a pony discovers that her/his talent is to kill, or to steal, or to manipulate minds, or to lie? And what are the authorities are supposed to do with said pony after such discovery?
 * And in relation to that; what if you don't like your talent in general? Raritys talent is finding gems even though she dreams of being a fashion maker and hates dirt and getting sweaty (which is normal when digging gems up) and it was pretty much 'forced' on her with a spurt of unicorn magic. Sure, she puts her talent to good use, but still...
 * I think people put too much emphasis on the words "special talent". Characters have capabilities that aren't purely based on their talents. Twilight, despite having the talent "magic" works as a librarian instead of a court mage, and has a lot of skills in organizing others. Just because something is their "talent" doesn't mean they are irrevocably shackled to said talent.
 * A bit of dynamic between Rarity and Twilight Sparkle is really horrid when you think about it. We've seen in several episodes that Rarity dreams of, and it some cases actively pursues, acceptance by the Canterlot nobility. However, take what we know about Twilight. Her brother is captain of the Canterlot guards, her parents were able to get her a chance to get into the best unicorn school in Canterlot, and Twilight is pretty chummy with Celestia. Twilight's family is pretty up there, socially, even moreso following Shining Armor's wedding to Cadence. Twilight is already Canterlot nobility. Status-wise, she's everything Rarity wishes she could be. Unfortunately for Rarity, being born and raised in Ponyville makes Rarity roughly equal to a nouvou-riche southern belle, which weren't looked at kindly by the English aristocracy. It really makes Rarity's wish to be accepted in Canterlot a lot like a Tragic Dream she can never see come true.
 * She may not have the inborn status, but Rarity clearly has the skills and talent to be accepted in Canterlot. There was a whole episode about it.

Mare in the Moon & The Elements of Harmony

 * Nightmare Moon wanting to bring eternal night doesn't seem to bad at first, until you realise that plants can't live without sunlight, and ponies are herbivores. Also, no plants = no oxygen. Everypony would be unable to eat or breathe, and so would eventually DIE. Nightmare Moon herself might not be affected, though, considering she was able to survive on the moon. Also, remember when she vaporises those guards with lightning? JUST WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET HIT WITH LIGHTNING? Thinking about her for a few minutes makes her a lot more menacing.
 * Pinkie laughed while she was inside an evil tree's mouth. What if it had disappeared in a *puff* like the others?
 * Or more importantly... why didn't it!
 * Nightmare Moon conjures up three pegasi who are essentially dark versions of Rainbow Dash's heroes, the Wonderbolts. They offer to let her join them, and is tempted, but refuses. Now, one has to wonder...since they were merely conjurings by Nightmare Moon, what would have become of Rainbow Dash had she accepted?
 * Most likely they would have flown off together to keep her distracted while Nightmare Moon neutralised the elements and/or the remaining five protagonists, which she could have done safely with an essential part of the equation (Dash) dealt with. Once the elements were rendered a non-threat, she could have cancelled the Shadowbolts (who were just magic constructs) much to Dash's surprise and disappointment.

The Ticket Master

 * When Twilight teleports herself and Spike to the library, Spike comes out singed. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but then he mentions in "Griffon the Brush Off" that dragons are fireproof. If Twilight's teleport was enough to singe a fireproof dragon, imagine what would have happened if it had been a pony (or any other non-fireproof creature)!

Applebuck Season

 * Throughout the episode, Twilight implores Applejack to accept her friends' help in harvesting the bumper crop that was wearing her out, and when Applejack finally accepts, we see Rainbow and Pinkie working together on one tree, Fluttershy on another, Rarity hauling full bushels, and Twilight...harvesting half the orchard by herself in seconds with her magic. Clearly, the involvement of the others was just a fig leaf. What Twilight really meant was 'let me use my magical powers to do this for you, effortlessly.' Think about that: what for an earth pony like Applejack is the work of her lifetime is to a powerful unicorn like Twilight nothing more than a minor nuisance. For that matter, is Granny Smith's "saggy old hip" the result of old age alone, or the result of age and a lifetime spent bucking apple trees? Now think about why Applejack was so reluctant to accept Twilight's help, and why Applejack was so upset that Twilight used magic a few months later in "Winter Wrap-Up," or why the earth ponies insist that in an earth-pony town, no magic is to be used to wrap up winter. Now, it has been implied that earth ponies get superior strength and endurance to compensate for not having magic or the ability to fly, but imagine if some people were born with the ability to use magic, some people were born with the ability to fly, but you were born an ordinary human being without any such abilities. Mightn't you have a chip on your shoulder, and always seek to prove that you were just as capable as any other person, even without magic or wings? Don't forget, we're seeing them harvesting the apples at that point. Who put in the work to grow them?

Griffon the Brush-Off

 * You will find several pieces of medieval mythology that describe gryphons as highly aggressive and territorial, building treasure hoards and jealously guarding them much like dragons. They absolutely hate horses in particular, having grown to associate them with knights coming to raid their nests for gold and emeralds, and will devour one if they have the oppurtunity. They also mate for life, and if they lose their mate, they quickly waste away from longing. Now lets consider Gilda; deep-seated and irrational aminosity of ponies? Check. Rainbow Dash being the only one who she sees as a companion and exempt from her meanness? Check. Her presence in the show and how she and Dash interact being the closest thing to evidence the shippers have to RD being a lesbian? Hoo boy, double check. Holed up in a cave somewhere seething at the loss of Rainbow's affections as the lights leave her eyes? Likely. Way to go, Dash and Pie, way to go.
 * 'Giggle at the Ghostie'. Firstly, 'Just laugh and make them disappear'. Think about it as two separate actions. Think of her dealing with Gilda, she laughed it off in public, if Gilda hadn't left, would Pinkie have 'made her disappear'? Could just be Cupcakes paranoia. And also, if laughing works to make her fears disappear works, her fears are hallucinated. More insanity!
 * Maybe, but I interpret it like this: laughing only makes the fear disappear; what happened within the song aside, the "faces" in the tree remained, scary to all except the one who had a trick for dealing with fear. And once she taught it to the others, they could all see the "faces" for what they were: harmless holes in trees.

Boast Busters

 * Why does Trixie end her magic show when all possible hecklers disappear? Wouldn't it be more sensible to continue the show? Unless, of course, Trixie's entire act depends on having hecklers to humilate, and has no feats of magic that aren't centered around humilating neigh-sayers...
 * Look carefully at the Ursa Major and Minor. They're made of stars. This is clearly a little astronomy joke, given both are actual constellations, but they're made of stars.
 * In "Boast Busters", the Ursa Minor destroys Trixie's stagecoach. This is made even worse by the fact that Trixie is a travelling performer, so that coach was also her home. Great job, Snips and Snails, you just made your former idol into a beggar.

Bridle Gossip

 * In "Bridle Gossip", due to Rainbow Dash's flower-induced inability to fly straight, Spike calls her "Rainbow Crash". Later in the series, we learn that this was the cruel nickname she was saddled with by a group of pegasus bullies when she dropped out of flight school. Nice going, Spike.

Swarm of the Century

 * After Twilight alters parasprites' behavior with her magic, they quit eating food and start eating everything else - they even go after Rainbow Dash. Of course she got away unharmed, but if parasprites tried attacking this one particular pony, it is obvious they would hunt other ponies as well even if we didn't see it onscreen, and we can't tell if everyone was as lucky as Rainbow. Who knows what the death toll in Ponyville was after invasion...
 * Twilight's spellaccidentally made the parasprites start eating all the non-food inanimate objects in town. All of them. Clothing, tools, books (and the library probably had a fair few books that were very old and rare, or even irreplacable; imagine how badly Twilight would have cracked if the parasprites had gotten into them), art (including Rarity's dresses), homes and buildings, infrastructure, family heirlooms, everything that makes up their civilization, including a number of truly irreplaceable sentimental items. If Pinkie hadn't been able to lure them back into the Everfree Forest, the parasprites would have eradicated the town completely and left the ponies with nothing but the barest of essentials. If you've ever lived through a massive natural disaster or met people who have, the prospect of a town or city you've grown attached to and everything in it being utterly destroyed is even more dreadful.
 * This may be unintentional, but Zecora seemed to recognize the parasprites straight away. Now that may seem innocent enough since she as a good understanding of flora and fauna, but consider that she's from a place hinted to very Africa-like (so more than likely very dry most of the time.) Now consider thousands of creatures eating at crops, and fields in a already arid environment. If history is anything to go by.

Winter Wrap-Up

 * Applejack wants the snow melted fast, but Fluttershy wants it melted slow so that the animals' homes don't get flooded (and presumably the animals that haven't been woken up yet would die a horrible drowning death). Now just think about what happened in years prior when they had no organization; the animals' fate rested on Fluttershy winning a shouting match against Applejack.
 * The ending of "Winter Wrap-Up" has Spike left asleep on a chunk of ice floating on the water. The other ponies, instead of HELPING him, just joke about how Spike is "in for a big surprise as soon as that there ice melts" and then laugh. Sure, Spike gets better, but he was wearing a towel and shivering, implying that the ponies let him fall in, continued to laugh as he was (presumably) thrashing around screaming for help, and then said, "Ok, we can help him now." Would if Spike drowned or died of hypothermia?! Would it be so funny then, ponies?

Suited for Success
"Rarity: Excuse me, sir! Might you be Moorice? Moorice: Why certainly, little miss. What can I dooooo for you? Rarity: Could you do me a teensy tiny, itty bitty favor aaaand..." *STAB*"
 * Applejack's outfit includes what seems to be a pair of leather cowboy boots. But in "Applebuck Season", we see that cows in Equestria are also sentient, talking beings. Wonder how that conversation went over?


 * Likely she used fake leather for the boots.
 * From the Aesop of "Suited for Success": "In other words, you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth." So slavery is legal in Equestria?

Feeling Pinkie Keen

 * At the beginning, one of the frogs Fluttershy's carrying falls and lands on Twilight's face, barely avoiding landing on her horn. Twilight's horn likely isn't sharp enough for the frog to have been Impaled with Extreme Prejudice, but it at least would've been hurt.

Sonic Rainboom

 * Remember that scene where Pinkie Pie tastes the rainbow? Well, in the very first episode, we saw Pinkie eat a cupcake covered in hot sauce, and it had no affect on her, so what would've happened if a normal pony besides Pinkie tried some rainbow?
 * Rainbow and Rarity have to perform at the same time. Normally you'd think "how do they not have time for everyone in their own competition?" but what would have happened if they had gone at different times? Rarity would have plummeted while Dash was cowering in the lobby, would have knocked out the Wonderbolts and they all would have fallen to their death while everyone else would have sat back and watched them die.
 * See the Other Wiki for that one.
 * Speaking of, what the fuck was Celestia doing just sitting there? The three Wonderbolts and Rarity were just about at the ground before RD swooped in!

Stare Master

 * In "Stare Master", when Fluttershy is chasing the girls chasing her escaped chicken through the Everfree Forest (which most of the ponies generally avoid if they can help it) they run across Twilight Sparkle after her encounter with a cockatrice. The Fridge Horror kicks in when you realize that Twilight may have been there a very, very long time if Fluttershy's chicken hadn't escaped.
 * One would hope that, at the very least, Zecora would have happened upon her during one of her trips to Ponyville, given that Twilight was on her way to visit Zecora herself and thus should have been on the path between the two places, but who knows how often or regularly Zecora makes those trips, or if she takes detours along the way to look for herbs or something? So, yeah, it still could have been quite a while before Twilight was found. If nothing else, at least Twilight didn't seem to have been conscious during the time she was turned to stone. If she had been aware during the whole experience, however... *ugh*shiver*
 * Also, Celestia would have noticed that something was awry when Twilight's report did not arrive on time.

The Show Stoppers

 * Fridge Horror in "The Show Stoppers" episode (and possibly others): The ponies are raising pigs. Why, so that they can eat them? What would a pony want with a pig if not to eat its flesh as humans do.
 * According to Word of God, truffle gathering.
 * When Sweetie Belle says "Break a leg" to the other ponies, Apple Bloom responds with "Sweetie Belle! What a thing to say!" Sweetie Belle knows the phrase means "good luck" and so do we the viewers, but since horses with broken legs are often put down because of how hard it is to rehabilitate and the likelihood of breaking again, Apple Bloom probably thought she was telling the other performers to go ahead and die.

Green Isn't Your Color

 * Does anyone else find it slightly menacing that in Green Isn't Your Color, Twilight Sparkle can ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL over Fluttershy, including her speech? I mean, sure Fluttershy was willing and all, but what if Twilight suffered a psychological breakdown and another pony wasn't as willing?
 * Maybe it only works if the pony is willing.

Over a Barrel

 * A bit of meta-Fridge Horror: There is an episode where bison don't want to share their land with the ponies. Cue Fantastic Racism on the part of both. Except when one considers the obvious interpretation of the Broken Aesop, this almost sounds like a Hannibal Lecture.
 * When Applejack mentions that the trees are on the only flat land around, the view cuts to a scene of the desert, complete with a staple of any cartoon desert scene: the buffalo skull in the foreground. Of course, in Equestria the buffalo are intelligent beings....
 * In the scene where the buffalo are preparing to trample Apploosa, there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cut to a buffalo sharpening his horn on an axe grinder. Which means that they were really going to skewer anypony unlucky enough to get in their way. Anypony else disturbed about the possibility for ponies to die gruesome deaths?

A Bird in the Hoof

 * "Over a Barrel" establishes that pies can be used as weapons are are thrown during combat. In the next episode, "A Bird in the Hoof", Pinkie throws a pie at her own head. Did... did Pinkie just shoot herself in the face? Yes.

The Cutie Mark Chronicles

 * Fluttershy falls out of the sky in full view of a large crowd and no one tries to save her. Does Cloudsdale have some kind of Sparta-like eugenics policy for pegasi who are weak fliers?
 * It could either be due to the bystander effect, or everyone was too engrossed in the race to notice.

Owl's Well That Ends Well

 * As Spike is going around town to find a quill for Twilight, he goes over to Pinkie Pie, who among the list of items that begin with a "Q", tosses him a quince. A quince is a fruit that is poisonous to equines (aka PONIES).
 * In the scene with the ponies all looking at Spike at the same time and smiling, Pinkie petting him, etc... it's clear that Spike was enjoying the attention. It's interrupted when Twilight says that's enough; but perhaps the reason she said that was because she wouldn't want him to get too used to that much attention from them. When Spike does get used to it, seeing that attention go to an owl instead makes him jealous enough to temporarily become a villain. (Albeit an ineffectual one.) Perhaps that kind of addiction to their attention is what Twilight was trying to prevent...

Party of One

 * When Pinkie interrogates Spike, it's implied that --implied, but never actually stated. Meaning that he could've been correct.
 * Furthermore, what's going to happen the next time Pinkie Pie decides she wants two parties in a row, maybe even more? What if her friends really did make excuses, and with good reason? Is she going to go completely out of her mind again?
 * She'd be OK with them not attending a party if they had legitimate excuses, considering she's OK with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy not attending due to believing their (ridiculous) excuse is legitimate.
 * As someone said on ponibooru, Party Of One suggests Pinkie's codependent with her friends and needs their love and attention... to the point that her parties are almost like attempts at validation. "People love me! Because they come to my parties! PLEASE, PLEASE come to my parties!"

The Best Night Ever

 * Another Fridge Tear Jerker: At The Gala is a Crowd Song, right? But the way the other ponies are singing, it implies that most of them were also hoping to have the best night ever. And most of them seemed to be succeeding a lot better than the Mane Cast before the party got ruined. That means hundreds of ponies also had their dreams destroyed in a space of about five minutes.
 * Fluttershy runs into the gardener pony twice. Two things pop into mind when you see him: he's the oldest pony we've seen since Applejack's grandma, and he has no cutie mark. So the Cutie Mark Crusaders DO have a reason to be concerned, this pony's existence has confirmed that it is possible to go your entire life without finding your lot in life. That is kind of sad.
 * The groundskeeper looked more like a donkey or mule than a pony, similar to Cranky Doodle Donkey and Matilda from "A Friend in Deed", neither of whom have cutie marks either.
 * For anyone denouncing Princess Celestia as a thoughtless Troll for setting the mane cast loose on the Grand Galloping Gala, consider that she has had to attend the same boring, stuffy, dreadful ball gala with the same breed of arrogant, supercilious aristocrats... FOR TEN CENTURIES.

The Return of Harmony, Parts 1 & 2

 * The season 2 opener gives a little piece in the form of one of Discord's lines directed at Princess Celestia: "It's quite lonely being encased in stone, but you wouldn't know that because I don't turn ponies into stone!"
 * At first, it seems like he's merely talking about his own fate at Celestia's hooves. A moment's thought casts a more sinister light on the princess: Just how many of those statues in the Canterlot sculpture garden are actually ponies who were Taken for Granite?
 * Alternatively, that could mean that there are a number of ponies who actually merited that action against them... which isn't much more comforting...
 * It also means that Discord was conscious the entire time he was turned to stone, a horrifying concept in itself.
 * Discord has a Species name, think about the implications of that.
 * Discord created a "game" for the Mane Six to locate the Elements of Harmony, and Twilight Sparkle took it to mean in the Canterlot Hedge maze, which Discord took advantage of to corrupt them. In reality, the Elements were safely at Twilight's home in Ponyvile... but suppose she had figured out the correct answer... how do we know Discord wouldn't have corrupted them there anyway?!
 * Discord had so much power when he took over that the sun and moon were rising on their own accord. So, that being said...what did he do to Celestia and Luna?
 * Discord's reign over Equestria. All we get it was never-ending chaos and suffering for everypony but him. And we see stained glass pictures of him controling ponies and holding them over a pit of fire! On top of that, during that scene, you can here the suffering cries of ponies in the background (likely Celestia's memories). And we've seen what his idea of fun is already. No wonder Celestia is so afraid of him!
 * Discord's reign of chaos seems pretty silly...then you realize that everyone is acting completely insane! On top of that, most of Ponyvile's population is Earth Ponies...and most a lot of Ponyvile was floating at the time.
 * Discord's chaotic reign was getting progressively worse throughout the episode. What would it have ended up as if he hadn't been beaten?!
 * More fridge Tear Jerker than Fridge Horror, but when Twilight got all of her old notes back from Princess Celestia, and they just kept coming, there is a scenario that most likely have played out for Celestia herself. If she has to send the notes one by one, something she must know would be harsh on Spike, then that means she couldn't just deliver the notes herself. That likely means Discord has her confined, probably in the castle, so she can't interfere. The fact that she keeps sending them means she doesn't know if they are getting to twilight, or if they would help matters any. For the first time in eons, she is helpless, clueless, and has no idea how things will turn out. But if she is so cut off from communication, how does she know twilight is in need of the notes? Discord likely stopped by to show his old rival the exact moment twilight's heart, Celestia's last hope, finally broke. So the most likely situation is Celestia, feeling powerless and blind, knowing only that Twilight's spirit is broken, desperately sending letter after letter with no clue if it will change anything. Those may very well have been some of the most stressful and heartbreaking hours she has experienced in her long life.
 * Another example of a Fridge Tear Jerker: The scene where Twilight is trying to find the book about the Elements of Harmony, but her friends keep interfering her due to their corruption. It is, in a way, a rather accurate portrayal of bullying: what bully victim wouldn't relate to Twilight, whose own friends are bothering her for absolutely no reason? Who wouldn't be in a completely irritated mood, and on the verge of giving up? And think from the other ponies' perspective, the bullies' perspective. One day, you might be friends, possibly best friends with someone, but out of some internal and/or external force (think peer pressure and insecurity instead of Mind Rape), you find yourself to be the very person you hated. Then you start bullying your former friends; and it doesn't help that bully victims are often socially awkward "nerds" like Twilight. Fluttershy's reaction after being restored pretty much confirms this.
 * When Twilight Sparkle restores her Discorded friends' memories, they weren't restored to how they originally were before Twilight came into their lives, but rather, to how Twilight perceived them to be upon her initial reaction to their quirks when she first met them. As a consequence, Applejack is now more honest and stubborn then ever before, Rainbow Dash is more of a braggart, Fluttershy is even more of a doormat, Rarity is more of a drama queen then ever, and Pinkie Pie is even MORE extroverted and random. I mean, sure, Twilight Sparkle restored them all to being friendly again, but she inadvertently mind-raped her best friends and she isn't even aware of it. Looks like Discord had the last laugh after all.
 * In the second part of Return to Harmony, one of the things that Discord did was cause Granny Smith to start dancing and leaping around like a young filly. Remember one of the reasons Applejack was hoping to raise money at the Grand Galloping Gala? Wonder how Granny felt after the World-Healing Wave hit?
 * ...is anyone else concerned as to whether or not Screwball/Topsy-Turvy was wiped out of existence when the World-Healing Wave hit?
 * Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but Discord drove several ponies insane (i.e. Screw Ball). My question is, did they magically get better afterwards?
 * Discord's prison weakens whenever the Elements change hands- er, hooves, to the point that anyone can walk up to him and break him free on accident. This previously wasn't a problem, since they were still partially attuned to Celestia the immortal sun god. But now they're attuned to ordinary mortals who will die one day...
 * If Discord could forget how 'grim' Celestia could be, he must have experienced the passage of time. While turned into an unmoving stone statue.
 * The Mane Cast members were turning grayer when Discord corrupted them. Was Discord slowly turning them into stone?
 * While a lot of people consider Discord to be "evil" due to his Mind Rape and Break the Cutie tendencies, when you think about it, being the "Spirit Of Chaos", he most likely has no sense of "good" and "evil" (or at least not one that's the same as ours or the ponies'). This actually makes him more terrifying than if he were straight-up evil. Think about it. To him, causing all this mayhem, destruction, and insanity is a good thing to him. Rather than being outright malevolent, he's playful (well, as playful as a psychotic reality-warping god can get) towards the ponies much like a prankster child is to the people he tricks. He thinks everything is a game (hence why he gloats when he thinks he's won) without realizing/caring that he's hurting others. Imagine being an "ant" being at the mercy of a bored child and you'll get why Discord is more terrifying being "chaos" rather than just being "evil".

Lesson Zero

 * Twilight Sparkle's Sanity Slippage fits in context of the episode of "Lesson Zero". Out of context, however....
 * "Want-It Need-It spell, works every time".
 * Who on earth would Twilight use such a thing on? Her fear of the kindergarten clearly indicates some very painful Loners Are Freaks memories, but that was before she learned her magic. So, it would have to be while under the Princess' care in Canterlot... suddenly it seems very wise of the Princess to get her to find some friends...
 * Made even more scary when you realize that social rejection and constant need for approval are common traits displayed by rape victims. Could it be that Celestia used that spell on Twilight? Would explain her questionable behavior around the CMC and telling Pinkie not to scream. To Twilight, it's perfectly normal behavior.
 * At the end of "Lesson Zero" Princess Celestia declares that the Mane Six must start sending in friendship reports whenever they discover them so that Twilight isn't punished, essentially placing them in an open-ended contract with no specificities, agreements between parties, or terms over what qualifies as a friendship report leaving plenty of room for Celestia to change it as she chooses, such as establishing a report quota, a required length, declaring what the punishment for not sending in friendship reports would be, or just all out declaring the invalidity of lessons learned in friendship reports. And we don't even know what Twilight's punishment was going to be, the Mane Six could have just entered a Faustian bargain to prevent a punishment to Twilight that could have been disproportionately better than them spending the rest of their lives filling friendship reports for Celestia.
 * Twilight's Sanity Slippage in "Lesson Zero" really starts after her friends make light of her problem and even laugh at it a bit. Now remember what their "Discorded" selves did to her in "Return Of Harmony, Part 2" and what that did to poor Twilight. Imagine how it felt to an already very frustraited Twilight to have her friends laughing to her again after that and their innocent joking seems a lot less innocent.
 * This is more of a fridge Tear Jerker than fridge horror, but think about Twilight's doll, Smarty Pants. When you consider that Twilight has such little knowledge of friendship, combined with the scenes in Lesson Zero of fillies laughing at her, it's quite possible that Smarty Pants was the closest thing Twilight had to a friend growing up.
 * Outside of her, of course.

Luna Eclipsed

 * Twilight's reaction to Spike when Rainbow Dash pranks them with the lightning. We had just previously seen Spike scoffing down candy like there's no tomorrow, and he looks very much like he's choking to death on some of it. He even ends up unconscious and twitching. Twilight's only response is to put Spike on her back and walk on. This is pretty careless behavior given that she is supposed to be looking after him. He does turn out to be fine, but what if he had actually been choking? He might have died without Twilight even noticing.
 * While Nightmare Moon may have been stronger than Celestia, Luna is still a walking storm of magic AND has been officially reinstated as the equestrian princess of the night. Now, remember how everyone was behaving around Celestia in A Bird in the Hoof. To some ponies, Luna must be scarier than ever!

Sisterhooves Social

 * "Sisterhooves Social", when Apple Bloom covers Applejack in smashed up grapes, Sweetie Belle's reaction is to panic and beg Applejack not to punish her. That almost comes off looking like the reaction of a child in an abusive home.
 * Rarity finding Sweetie Belle has elements of this. There's a blink and you miss it moment before she sees her were she looks truly worried and concerned, then is overjoyed to see her. She also said she'd been looking everywhere for her and started looking during the day and doesn't find her till later that night. This means Rarity spent a part of the day looking high and low for her baby sister with absolutely no idea where she is and knowing if anything happened to her, it'd be her fault for treating her as badly as she did.

The Cutie Pox

 * When Twilight looks up the cure, she says that the disease disappears as mysteriously as it arrived. The Cutie Pox creates a random cutie mark and the infected is forced to perform the talent related to it and as Apple Bloom shows us, it can be anything to be able to perform tricks with a "Loopty Hoop" to speaking French to being a proficient fencer and no one is able to stop her. That is already frightening enough that Apple Bloom can't stop, but what happens if a more deadly Cutie Mark shows up? One that involves hurting possibly even killing the ponies around her? She'd be forced to perform THAT talent against her will! To add to that, why does the disease disappear as mysteriously as it arrived? If the above Fridge Horror is true, then no pony would be left to tell the tale if it does get that deadly. That or the ponies would be forced to kill the infected before it gets to that point.
 * Another thing: aren't you all forgetting how Apple Bloom was compelled to do everything the cutie marks represented? What if a sufferer of the Cutie Pox were to become tired from doing all those things simultaneously? What the pox continued forcing the victim to carry on? If that's the case, then Apple Bloom was facing death by exhaustion!
 * Anyone who has heard the story of The Red Shoes probably had to pick their jaws off the floor when they saw Apple Bloom begging for help while dancing uncontrollably. And she was already becoming exhausted by the time Zecora showed up with the necessary herb to negate the Heart's Desire flower. If it had gone on for too much longer...
 * The Cutie Pox, which gives the infected great skill with whatever action the obtained cutie marks describe, also results in a loss of control. Before this episode, there was no known cure. Way back when the strain was discovered, infected ponies must have ultimately died of exhaustion. With this in mind, all the citizens in Ponyville were completely justified in trying to avoid Apple Bloom, lest they were to catch it themselves.
 * The book says that the cutie pox disappeared as mysteriously as they appeared.
 * Per the book saying they vanished as mysteriously as they appeared, then maybe the Heart's Desire had a bumper crop bloom that year and they dug them all up for Green Apple Acres or some other construction project, so there hasn't been enough of the flower to cause the problem again.
 * The reason the Heart's Desire flower gave Apple Bloom cutie pox symptoms was because she really really wanted her cutie mark. The original outbreak would have only been caused by that if every pony had eaten that flower and their heart's deepest desire was to get a cutie mark, which seems unlikely. Therefore, while the flower was the cause of Apple Bloom's case, true cutie pox still has no known cure.
 * Story of the Blanks suddenly has an easily applicable backstory; maybe the other ponies even considered what they did to Ruby a Mercy Kill.
 * Even better, considering what Apple Bloom went through with the blanks, her desire for a cutie mark might be stronger just to -not- be like those ponies in Sunnytown. And also, the story of Cutie Pox might have a much deeper impact on her than say Applejack or Twilight, because she encountered a relic possibly from the days of Cutie Pox. And so would understand why ponies of Sunnytown did what they did.
 * The Cutie Pox is very similar to a disease called "The Dancing Fever". If you think humans can't get infected by a disease that eventually kills you from exhaustion, think again. More information about it can be found on The Other Wiki here.
 * In Cutie Pox, after Apple Bloom starts getting more depressed over not getting her cutie mark, she wanders into Everfree Forest...why would she go in there? Considering how dangerous the place is considered and how sad she was, it's possible she was giving up on life.

May the Best Pet Win!

 * Rainbow Dash names her new pet tortoise Tank, because he's "built like a tank." You know, not the container for fluids, the armored vehicle. Although this is a good name, it implies the existence of mechanized warfare in Equestria.
 * At the end of the song, Derpy peers out from the chicken coop. While it's meant to be an Easter Egg for the fans, it does looks suspiciously like Derpy's stalking either Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy. Or she enjoys lurking in chicken coops. Either way pretty creepy when you think about it.
 * Rainbow Dash, pretty much alone among the mane six, will lose her special talent as she ages. Applejack, in her old age, will not be able to work very much on Sweet Apple Acres herself, but, because it is a family business, and because she is part of an extended clan of apple farmers, she will probably end her days much like Granny Smith is now: as a respected matriarch surrounded by ponies who love and respect her. Fluttershy will in all likelihood be able to maintain her special connection with animals as she ages; she'll probably need more physical help caring for them, but she'll still be surrounded by the woodland creatures she loves and who love her, and she'll still have her special connection to them. Pinkie Pie will probably lose some of her youthful exuberance as she ages, but even in her old age, she'll still be able to make other ponies happy by throwing celebrations for them, even if she needs more help putting up decorations, sending out invitations, and other physical aspects of what she does. Rarity will still be able to find and bring out the beauty in things, even if she can't work at the pace she does now; she probably won't be able to make multiple dresses in a single night, but she'll still be able to create beautiful things from common objects. At the very least, her talent for finding gems in rocks will at least help ensure that she will be well-provided for. Twilight Sparkle will remain a brilliant scholar and powerful wizard; in fact, her knowledge and thus power are likely only to grow as she learns more over time. But Rainbow Dash, well, Rainbow Dash is going to lose her speed as she grows old; there's really no avoiding that. Unlike the other five, her special talent is almost purely physical; granted, her great speed itself is at least to some extent a product of her competitive drive and ambition, but that will probably make the diminution of her physical prowess that much harder to bear. Now consider this: tortoises usually live very long lives, meaning that Tank will likely still be around when Rainbow is old. In fact, the day may come when Tank is faster than Rainbow. In a way, it's somewhat comforting, although still melancholic, to imagine Tank once again carrying Dash on his back.

The Mysterious Mare Do Well

 * The sheer number of accidents happening around Ponyville in a brief period of time. Is this normal? Does this sort of thing happen every day just off-screen? And why the hell does Ponyville even need a steep downhill road leading to a sheer cliff?
 * Fridge Brilliance: it's for the Pegasi carriages to land on and take off.
 * What happened to the driver of the runaway bus? Somepony had to have been pulling it.
 * On a different tangent. What the hell was that horrifying balloon Dash in the CMC clubhouse all about?
 * Rainbow Dash had every opportunity to make trouble so she could play the hero. But she didn't. So this just proves how unstable Twilight truly is.
 * She's dragged Granny Smith across a street against her will. Rainbow Dash wouldn't knowingly make trouble for somepony, but between her arrogance and disinclination to think things through, she could still make quite a nuisance out of herself. Heck, if she'd gone to tell somepony about the crack in the dam, it could have been fixed without breaking in the first place.
 * The various ponies around Ponyville find themselves in some pretty tense situations throughout the episode, luckily Rainbow Dash and later the Mare Do Well are there to save them. Speaking of that, why does nopony else help?! There are several pegasi in the crowds just watching and doing nothing to help the ponies that are in danger! What gives?
 * If you think about it, Rainbow Dash could kinda be considered a sadist in this episode. She saves people JUST so she can brag. If she couldn't brag about it, would she just let them die/get injured? And speaking of that little filly, it seems that the well was very deep, since it took several seconds for Rainbow Dash to get to her even when flying very quickly. How did the little filly get down there in the first place? Granted, she didn't seem hurt, amazingly from such a depth, but still...
 * Even though some people think the mane cast overreacted to Rainbow's bragging, if you pay attention, you realize that most of the ponies the Mare-Do-Well saves in all likelyhood would've died thanks to her showboating if she hadn't. Worse: the Mare Do Well appearances were clearly producing the opposite of their intended reaction. Rainbow Dash was getting more and more desperate for people's admiration. We see her start looking for the most trivial of problems to solve. And as we've seen before, the line between looking for problems and making problems seems pretty thin for ponies.
 * Rainbow does relatively little showboating at the construction site. She does try to say her catchphrase a few times and keeps getting interrupted by falling debris, but she'd kind of have to be dodging that anyway. Nothing at the construction site was her fault, though for some reason the scene's shot as if she were to blame for, among other things, the building collapsing.
 * One fan comic pointed out that there may be more than a few brokenhearted little ponies who'd started to hero-worship Mare Do Well only to find out the hero was just a trick some ponies were playing on their boastful friend. Mare Do Well is shown to be even more popular than Dash at the height of her popularity, this had to have happened in at least a couple of cases.
 * And that's assuming they do reveal themselves. Just imagine how much trouble Rainbow Dash is going to be in when it looks like she chased off Ponyville's greatest hero...
 * Where the HELL was the Pony equivalent of OSHA? Seriously, so many disasters, so many crumbling/damaged structures, why has the town not been condemned yet? Couple this with the obviously crumbling city hall in "The Last Roundup," and Ponyville really starts to look ramshackle and unsafe. How many ponies have been hurt or killed due to structural damage?

Sweet and Elite

 * It has Rarity lying to her friends about her cat being sick, and drenching the cat in hot water to maintain that lie. What does it suggest about her priorities when she would rather drench her own cat than be honest with her own friends?
 * Not anything that being on the verge of tears when two ponies insulted her social status didn't already. This begets more Fridge Horror, though: It implies that Rarity's sense of self-worth is so deeply tied to her social standing she's willing to hurt herself and her friends so she doesn't lose face. Does that mean that her personality is an an elaborate mask to hide how worthless she feels? And what's more, how did she get like this?
 * Coupling these troubled signs with how Sweetie Belle reacts to Applejack and Apple Bloom about to fight and the whole "it doesn't have to be physical to be abuse" mantra...One has to wonder if they're parents are really as nice as they seem. There could be a very good reason why Sweetie is living with her big sister instead of their parents.
 * She doesn't live with her sister. Sisterhooves Special had her bring in a lot of luggage for the week stay, which would have been redundant if she lived with her sister.

Secret of My Excess

 * Spike is going to have to grow up eventually.
 * Spike has shown to have different "adult" forms though, one being magically induced and the other part of an imagine spot. There's no guarantee his natural adult self will be the same as this greedy version. As long as they help quell his hoarding tendencies, one would expect his growth to be more manageable.
 * After watching this episodes, it makes one wonder if the two dragons from previous episodes might have been nice dragons just like Spike but were consumed by their greed, having nopony to help them with it.
 * Except they don't go as far as Spike did in this episode. He loses the ability to speak coherently or be reasoned with. The adult dragons we see - while possessive and potentially dangerous - can be reasoned with and the one in Owl's Well that Ends Well actually says quite a bit to Spike before concluding he wants to attack the baby for trespassing on his lair. And there's not much wrong with the serpent one in the pilot episodes (making it the second time generosity and beauty (the ruby, the serpent liking Rarity's replacement moustache) has calmed a dragon).
 * Spike was actually more reasonable than either of them. The Main Six only managed to talk the red dragon down after Fluttershy stared him into submission, and while his actions can be mostly explained by him just wanting to sleep and protect his horde, he started trying to kill them after a very minor injury. The green dragon gave a Spike a chance to talk, but he still went to using firebreath over the theft of a tiny amount of jewels and some empty talk. By contrast, Spike never went on the offensive, and even after the Wonderbolts managed to injure him, he still used non-lethal force to disable them. And while he never spoke in his adult form, his reactions to Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Rarity showed that he could understand them just fine. Finally, Rarity did talk him down, without using any form of coercion beyond her words.
 * Dragons can live for thousands of years. Maybe Twilight is working from the assumption that he won't grow up in her lifetime, so he'll be Someone Elses Problem.
 * Ponyville has an air raid siren. Why in Equestria would they need one of those?
 * Ponyville generally falls somewhere between Crazy Prepared and Properly Paranoid in terms of handling emergencies. But maybe it was installed during the fifties, it would explain the cute lil' hazmat suits from "The Cutie Pox".
 * It could also be used for heavy weather, if something happened with it that Cloudsdale couldn't handle.
 * Genius Bonus below suggests it's what summons the Wonderbolts.
 * The town is built on the border of the Everfree forest, one of, if not the, most dangerous places in all of Equestria. It makes sense for such a town to have some way of alerting the population to trouble coming.
 * There's also the fact that they've suffered attacks from two Mad Gods, the Parasprites, and an Ursa Minor. It makes sense they'd have a warning system of some type in place.
 * It might actually be for the specific purpose of dragon attacks. We know that at least one lives in the Everfree Forest, after all.
 * Two ponies bump into each other in panic. They're stunned for a second and then just barely dodge a stomp from Spike's giant claw. It frightens this troper to think that there was a second's difference between two ponies being alive, or killed by a character who we know and love.
 * Sugar Cube Corner has been destroyed and Pinkie's bed room launched over the horizon while Pinkie sits in shocked silence... So where's Gummy and Mr. and Mrs. Cake?
 * At the hospital.
 * The episode is based around Spike growing through greed. But what stops him from reverting to his greedy ways once all his friends are gone?
 * If Twilight and Ponyville were ignorant of just what might come of giving their baby dragon a nice birthday party, what else are they unaware of? Having a rampaging monster is bad enough, but if/once Spike goes through dragon puberty properly (as opposed to the accelerated, warped one we see in 'Secret of My Excess') they'll likely end up with a whole host of other issues. Not to mention that flame breath of his turning from 'cute' to 'major fire hazard'.
 * Spike can either grow up instantly and be a gigantic, vicious, rampaging monster, or he can grow up naturally and see his pony friends die while he's still going through puberty. Considering how long the average pony lives, Twilight won't be able to see Spike as a fully mature adult dragon.
 * Another thought, it is shown Greed makes dragons age rapidly, but never states to what point it stops or if it even does. How old may Spike have grown if they hadn't been able to stop him in time? Heck even without the concern of age, just how gigantic and feral could a dragon potentially evolve in that manner?

Baby Cakes

 * At one point we see Pumpkin Cake using her magic to easily walk through the basket that Pinkie Pie had trapped her and Pound under. What if Pumpkin decides to take up a life of crime later? Or becomes a serial killer?!
 * Although that seems highly unlikely coming from this kind of series, it does bring up some unsettling Adult Fear: Since Pumpkin can walk through the basket using her magic, what's going to stop her from getting into something dangerous? Like the Drain-O in the sink cabinet, the deadly sharp silverware in the kitchen drawer, or the stash of "Equestria After Dark" magazines Mr. Cake hides in his closet?
 * As mentioned above, we learn that infant unicorns sometimes have powerful magic surges that fade as they grow up. So that probably means that the difficulties that Pinkie had with Pumpkin Cake in this episode are not uncommon for the caregivers of infant unicorns, especially those caregivers who are not unicorns themselves. But now consider the altogether likely possibility that the strength and frequency of an infant unicorn's magic surges are a function of that unicorn's full magical potential as an adult, that is, that a unicorn with very strong natural magical aptitude is likely to have many and powerful surges as an infant. Now imagine what Twilight Sparkle must have been like as an infant. Imagine how difficult it must have been for her parents to care for her while also preventing her from destroying them, herself, or the surrounding city block. Do you think the kind of upbringing Twilight must have had as an infant might have anything to do with her neuroses today?
 * Also, Twilight's not the only victim, here. Rainbow Dash is also VERY sensitive about her aerobatics, and does everything she can to prove them to herself and the world every chance she gets. She can also fly fast enough to shatter the light spectrum, producing an explosion powerful enough to break rocks and demolish buildings. Her parents had to strap Baby Dashie's wings down to keep her from Rainbooming the house apart. (HOWEVER! They never say in the episode if pegasi have bursts of flight, similar to unicorns and magic, or not.)
 * Another thing is that Pound cake is one month old and he can already fly to the point that he can speed around a house while carrying a pony several times his size and weight. If this is just a fraction of what he'll be able to do, he might be outdoing Rainbow Dash when he's older. If Baby Dashie had to have her wings tied, ask yourself: What's faster than a sonic rainboom? Now apply that to Pound Cake. Now factor in Pound Cake's name. He already likes to "pound" things. Sooner or later, he's going to figure out that faster speeds equal harder pounding on things. Here's to hoping he never thinks to try pounding the ground at supersonic speed.
 * At the end of "Baby Cakes", neither twin has a diaper on before the go to sleep. It's more than likely they'll "make lemonade" or boom-boom not too long after.
 * When Pinkie is looking for Pound Cake about halfway through the episode, the house is dark and the only sound other than Pinkie is Pumpkin Cake with the rubber chicken. The window is also open. Suddenly Pinkie hears a whispered "Pinkie..." followed by laughter. It's frightening because she can't see that Pound Cake is flying above her, and up until that moment neither of the twins had ever spoken before. So to her there's an unknown disembodied voice of an intruder in a dark house whispering her name and laughing while she frantically searches for a missing child.
 * Another thing with Baby Cakes, the Cakes, Earth Ponies, have Unicorn and Pegasus children. in Hearth's Warming Eve, we see that the Pegasi, Earth Ponies, and Unicorns where all hostile towards each other. what happened when, say, a Unicorn gave birth to a Pegasus? they would either be killed or banished, which would be VERY bad for the young pony in question. or, the whole thing was just a case of mistaken identity with the the little ponies. which is not a whole lot better.
 * If recessive genes can cause Earth pony parents to have a pegasus or unicorn foal, can a pegasus or unicorn have an Earth pony foal? What happens to such a baby born in Cloudsdale? Is a non-unicorn going to be mocked and considered a genetic throwback in a unicorn society?
 * Very doubtful. Perhaps back in the old days before Equestria was founded this could be a problem but in the Sugar Bowl that is modern Equestria this kind of pony "racism" would be absurd. An earth pony would be able to live among unicorns without any problem (remember that Canterlot - the most high class city shown - has plenty of earth ponies in high positions). For an non-pegasus born in Cloudsdale, there may be creative solutions we haven't seen. Or maybe in such an instance the parents would simply move to a different town - a normal sacrifice loving parents are expected to make in such a situation. That or they just simply chuck the babies down to the earth below.
 * Which brings up a bit of Fridge Brilliance when you think of Hearths Warming Eve. The tribes before Equestria were pretty much, trade with, but don't mingle, or marry anyone from the other tribes.
 * Imagine what will happen in the twins' minds when Mr. or Mrs. Cake discusses baking a pound or pumpkin cake in front of Pound or Pumpkin Cake. Those kids will probably be given nicknames as a workaround...
 * It's not as though this episode invented the concept of food names. I've never heard of a real child being traumatized by this kind of thing.

Hearth's Warming Eve

 * What happened to all the other ponies that were left behind by the tribal leaders? Worst case scenario: They continued bickering while the leaders were gone, and suffered from the same Harmless Freezing that they (briefly) did.
 * We see that the leaders of the unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies had personalities similar - if not completely identical - to Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie respectively. The leaders of entire races. Imagine if your entire race depended on someone like Pinkie. Or Rarity. Or Rainbow Dash. We see how the races eventually get better, but what about before that? How do you think life went for ponies who had to live under that kind of rule?
 * Also in "Hearth's Warming Eve", the main antagonists are Windigos. Traditionally, Windigos are the spirit of Cannibalism from the Native American Algonquian people. It was said that people caught in a blizzard would be possessed by the Windigo, and eat their companions, which would make them into a Windigo themselves. Meaning if the ponies hadn't made peace, they would have ate each other.
 * The Hearth's Warming Eve pageant has a happy ending, with the three tribes coming together in harmony. However, at the beginning, it's noted that this took place long before the rule of Celestia and Luna. In "Return of Harmony", Celestia notes that she and Luna began their reign after they deposed Discord. The play may have a happy ending, but they eventually are taken over by Discord after founding their new land. And not all that much later, considering that Luna remembers Star Swirl The Bearded, who was mentioned in the pageant.
 * Living in harmony gives Wendigos nothing to eat; presumably they starve to death in times of peace.
 * Not really true as the end implies they are still around. Which is a new Fridge Horror.
 * Given that they're spirits feeding probably isn't a matter of survival to them.
 * The winter that the Wendigos cause was so strong that it cause a famine. If the ponies would be so desperate for food they might be force to eat each other. This hold some weight as Wendigos in myths represents cannibalism.
 * There's also the fact their winter got worse and worse as the hatred between the ponies grew. What would've happened if they hadn't be stopped?!
 * They all become a big block o' ice as demonstrated.
 * Okay; so what about the villages of ponies we saw earlier? They're suddenly forgotten about. Maybe they're just seen as a minor plot point but did the rest of the inhabitants of the land starve?
 * Presumably the defeat of the Wendigos freed them from the winter and the leaders went back to fetch the rest of their respective races so as to bring them to the newly formed Equestria.
 * The disappearance of background ponies coincides with the introduction of Private Pansy, Clover the Clever and Smart Cookie...right before the journey to Equestria. Notice how Spike keeps talking about "the tribes" in his narration. Whoever directed the play probably decided that three anonymous masses in movement could as well be represented by three actors.
 * Thematically the leader and adviser of each tribe each represents each of the two forces at play in the conflict. There are the ponies that wallow in hate and distrust, and there are the ponies that are tired of fighting and just want to live their lives. Hence two ponies are all you need from each tribe in order to effectively outline the conflict.
 * The ending heavily implies that if the races ever began fighting again, the Wendigo would return. Between them, discord and negative emotions apparently capable of transforming people into Evil Overlords (i.e Nightmare Moon), it seems that in the world of ponies, friendship isn't so much a voluntary virtue as it is a survival mechanism.
 * Since the ending is very much played for laughs, it may be just that someone accidentally used whatever made the Wendigo roar sounds during the play.
 * The events of the play take place before the rule of Celestia and Luna. Celestia and Luna came into power when they defeated Discord. And Luna knew Star Swirl the Bearded who was Clover the Clever's mentor. Which means that some time not too long after their happy ending, the newly-christened Equestria was set upon by Discord and plunged it into an unending nightmare of chaos and suffering.
 * Luna Eclipsed showed Luna knew of Star Swirl...not necessarily that she knew him.
 * She knew him well enough to know that Twilight had "even gotten the bells right". Of course Luna herself might only have seen pictures of him with his bells but I prefer to think that she met him herself.
 * Maybe Star Swirl's robe is preserved somewhere in Canterlot...perhaps in a museum or the palace.
 * Like I said, "not necessarily". But the claim is not absolute proof either way
 * If you think about it, Chancellor Puddinghead is not unlike The Caligula. She is very much insane (that wasn't good-natured Pinkie's wackiness we've seen in the play), but also convinced she's the smartest person around and won't let anyone tell her otherwise. It's also she that escalates the final argument that makes the Wendigos freeze the cave. None of the pony leaders were exactly nice people, but Puddinghead's rule might have been quite nightmarish for the earth ponies.
 * Gets even worse when you remember that Chancellor Puddinghead in contrast with the other two leaders was elected.
 * Well...guy wanted his horse in charge and this is what happens.
 * Related to the Fridge Brilliance on Wendigos: it's also said of the mythical Wendigo that if one were to indulge in cannibalism, they'd become a Wendigo. What would've happened to those hateful ponies had they continued to indulge in animosity...?
 * So assuming that making friends is a survival tactic in the Equestria of yore, what happens to the social misfits who don't fit in?
 * They wander the land until they find a place they do fit in. Perhaps even as Wendigos themselves.

The Last Roundup

 * When Pinkie Pie thinks that Applejack has broken a Pinkie Promise, she turns nearly...demonic. She has a second voice layered under her own and her attitude goes from happy to furious in literally Ten Seconds Flat. Yes, she's happy again when she Applejack tells her that she didn't lie, just found a way out of the promise, but what's happened in the past to ponies who really broke their Pinkie Promises? Is that why everyone takes them so seriously?
 * Moreover, Pinkie has some incredible abilities. She can move at incredible speeds, teleport, be in multiple places at once, appear anywhere (including inside mirrors), break the fourth wall, whip up complex gadgets in a short span of time, etc. If you break a Pinkie Promise, it's impossible to run from, hide from, or stop her wrath.
 * Keep all that in mind while watching "Green Isn't Your Color" and note how Pinkie shows up whenever it seems Twilight's gonna break her Pinkie Promise. If she feels inclined to, she can follow you anywhere to make sure you don't break one, like she did with Twilight. Now think about The Last Roundup, and let the title of this vid sink in]]...
 * Spike wasn't at Applejack's welcome home Party. Which is okay, he was probably busy at the time. But then you realize, Twilight had left for about two days, with the others to go look for Applejack, and we never see her stop by the library to pack, or tell Spike, her number one assistant, and friend, any of this. Which means, she may have just left him there for two days straight worrying about where they are, and they're too preoccupied with bringing Applejack home to even worry about it. You can only imagine how worried he must be at the library.
 * Applejack treated her friends very coldly when they came looking for her, and it's not hard to imagine why:

The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000

 * The Flim-Flam Brothers machine sucking up.
 * Good thing Pegasi never sleep in trees.
 * By the end of the episode, Sweet Apple Acres has let a huge amount of its raw materials be consumed to produce a product that will never be sold. Not only have countless apples been wasted, but entire apple trees have been destroyed, resulting in the loss of ability to produce materials (known as capital, in economics). How much this will set the family back is uncertain, but Sweet Apple Acres has definitely taken a hit this episode.
 * They'd recoup their losses soon enough. Losing the rights to selling cider indefinitely would be much more devastating.
 * Granny Smith said it was worth it to get one over them, so she at least clearly didn't mind.
 * And besides, there was about one time where the Apple Farm were stripped of both their apples, and their leaves, and yet they still manage to grow.
 * "Onto the next town", the Flim Flam brothers say. One: they've presumably done this before. Have they succeeded in driving other Apple families out of business? Two: they're doing it again. Will the next town's citizens be so lucky as Applejack's?
 * That's assuming that there were Apple families in the towns they've tried. In concurrence to the Fridge Brilliance above, if they'd driven an Apple Family out of town, their reputation would already be ruined, considering how tight-nit the family is.
 * That's assuming the other Apple's aren't as prideful as Apple Jack was in Applebucking. "I wasn't the best." seems to be a running theme for AJ and may very well be in the family.
 * It also relies on their being in frequent and regular contact with each other. Apart from the pilot episode of the first series, we rarely see any Apple family members beyond the main four, and they are stated by Applejack to be busy working on their own farms.
 * A reverse one for the brothers themselves akin to Mugging the Monster: the fact they tried to run the matriarch of the large, widespread, and tight knit Apple family out of her farm will not sit well with any other Apple in Equestria.
 * They've probably hit a bunch of other farms where the conditions weren't as dire, never stayed to exploit their cider monopoly (since they never bargained for long-term apple supplies), and may have even 'lost' previous challenges (but still gotten a huge amount of nearly free apple cider). Most of Equestria's farms couldn't have as many near-disasters or be so close to going bankrupt as Apple Acres.
 * Judging from the brothers' behaviours throughout the episode, they seem quietly confident in their run-the-ponies-out-of-business scheme, which suggests that any experience they've had has been successful. The only time they both lose their cool is when the mane six starts beating them at the contest, which they clearly didn't expect. Possibly the main thing that helps them keep out of trouble is their constant travelling.

Read It and Weep

 * Rainbow Dash hides under the bed of a pony with a shaved head, implying that this pony is either recovering from brain surgery... or chemotherapy.
 * The ward Rainbow Dash was on looked more like a broken bone ward. It's more likely that he was doing a series of dares and ended up breaking something. And since his head isn't bandaged, the baldness could just be a fashion statement.
 * Could be a concussion bad enough that they had to shave his head for stitches or what have you.
 * Or maybe the baldness was just from the earlier parts of the escalating series of dares.
 * Given the quavery voice when the pony accuses Rainbow Dash of trying to steal his slippers, it's also possible he's just old.
 * The mental patient pony that barks like a dog.
 * Somebody pointed out that this is exactly what happened to Big Macintosh in episode 2. Discord literally drove Big Mac insane.
 * She's got a screw cutie mark. Considering how pony's cutie marks are destined to what the pony's special talent is, this pony's cutie mark story must be extremely interesting.
 * Or she's a carpenter or something...
 * Rainbow's roommate heard her narrating the entire book -- was he driven to desperation by a need to know how it ended? He couldn't exactly say so...
 * After days of listening to Rainbow endlessly bounce a ball off the walls, strobe the light switch on and off, and tell horrible jokes, he may well need to move to the mental ward himself. Worst Roommate Ever.
 * Rainbow Dash lives in a house in the clouds. The doctors kick her out of the hospital in a wheelchair, all alone.. after telling her to not fly for a week and not arranging any sort of transportation.
 * There probably are some sort of regular "sky ferries", or magical teleporters, or something like that, which would allow earthbound ponies access Cloudsdale whenever they need to.
 * Why would Spike not be at the hospital, visiting Rainbow Dash? Based on the doctors in The Secret of My Excess, the Hospital could have seen Spike as a pet and not let him in.

Hearts and Hooves Day

 * The Cutie Mark Crusaders crash a funeral. Death and funerals in the ponyverse are now canon.
 * With the showing order of the episodes, some fans noticed an unintentional link between the funeral and the hospitalised, supposedly 'cancer pony' from the previous episode.
 * When, chaos reigns.
 * It also mentions "something about a dragon". Discord's species is Draconequus, dragon horse.
 * ...It also could mean regular Dragons, which, after seeing Spike in Secret of My Excess, would definitely not be any better.
 * The ingredients of the love potion involve only a cloud, a rainbow, and a pegasus feather. The terrifying thing is, those things are constantly next to each other. For instance, the Cloudsdale weather factory is perpetually one small accident away from accidentally creating a batch of the potion.
 * Cherilee seems pretty calm about the fact that her students slipped her, essentially, a date rape drug.
 * Applebloom's vision of a hungry pony is anorexic. Holy crap, that was scary.
 * The existence of Love Potions and Love Poisons are FridgeHorrors in and of themselves, given the implications of both. Not made much better by just how easy it was to get the recipe.
 * Cherilee thought nothing of knocking three of her favorite students out of the way in her pursuit to see Big Macintosh. What if it had somehow come down to fighting? She probably wouldn't be in the right state of mind not to hurt them... Or kill them, if she felt she had no choice.
 * Mrs. Cake has a throw-away line about the fact that she "could use the catering business" from the wedding. Perhaps the fact that Sugarcube Corner has taken considerable damage in Season 2, and even in this episode, has left them teetering on the brink of financial ruin from the continuous repairs.
 * Not to mention the new babies.
 * Some have noticed that if the CMCs wanted to nullify the effects of the poison, they could've just waited for both Big Mac and Cheerilee to fall asleep. However...what if it prevented them from falling asleep? There are nasty health-related implications behind this, much like with the Cutie Pox.

A Friend In Deed

 * Cranky only meets Matilda again after moving to Ponyville. If he had moved anywhere else, he may have ended up dying without ever seeing her again.
 * What would have happened if Matilda didn't live in Ponyville? Wouldn't that mean Pinkie would have destroyed Cranky's beloved memories for nothing?
 * He's also been searching his ENTIRE LIFE for her, when she's been in Ponyville the whole time. He's wasted his ENTIRE LIFE.

Putting Your Hoof Down

 * New Fluttershy has no qualms about resorting to violence for minor slights. "Old Fluttershy" kicked a bear's ass and almost snapped his neck. And until, she seemed to be steadily getting worse. What if she had not HAD that moment?
 * This and perhaps this with an evil cult, a chainsaw and shed?
 * Worst thing? She wasn't even under Discord's influence this time. All she needed was some well-intentioned but overapplied advice to push her in the wrong direction. Just what sort of darkness lurks in the heart of this timid pony?
 * It's kinda easy to understand why some ponies keep calling Iron Will a monster: Who else is depicted as a bipedal figure with horns and hoofed feet who is associated with goats? Oh right, Satan.
 * Iron Will himself is Fridge Horror. Two wit: he's a Minotaur...who held his seminar in a hedge maze...What happened the last time someone was trapped in a maze with a minotuar again?
 * Yea, Theseus was able to kill the minotaur why? Oh wait that's still fridge horror, all they need is a warrior pony with a spool of thread.
 * It might seem like a lot of the ponies in "Putting Your Hoof Down" have taken levels in jerkass, but how many times have we really seen Fluttershy in Ponyville by herself? It's almost always with her friends, or at least while guiding some animals around town. They might act civil because her friends will stand up for her, or because a pack of wild animals is more trouble than it's worth, but what if that's how they act when she's alone all the time because they know Fluttershy won't do anything about it?
 * More Fridge Sadness, New!Fluttershy saying that Rarity and Pinkie Pie are wasting their lives with fashion and parties and nopony else gives a flying feather about them is a lot more depressing when you realize that those are the things that, as Twist would say, makes them special. She basically told them their lives are meaningless. That's harsh. Is it any wonder they ran away crying.
 * Another reason is because Fluttershy was the one telling them off. Seeing their formerly sweet and gentle friend expel so much bile must have been very hard for them. The most horrifying thing about the argument is that Fluttershy actually thought about how meaningless her friends passions are, and she wasn't being manipulated into it.
 * In 'Putting Your Hoof Down', Fluttershy uses the feathers of her wings as if they were fingers to open her saddlebag. While this is creepy, Fridge Brilliance steps in with an X-ray from 'Read it and Weep' of Dash's broken wing, which shows that wings have bones where there would normally be just delicate feathers. Knowing that Pegasi have bones in some of their feathers, the Fridge Horror comes when you consider 'Hearts and Hooves Day', where one of Scootaloo's feathers are yanked out without warning to make a potion. What if Sweetie Belle pulled the wrong feather?

It's About Time

 * Why the heck are time traveling spells so readily available to anypony! True, the spell only lets one travel back in time momentarily, but that still could be enough to change the course of time radically. Plus, it's implied that there are other time based spells including a time stopping spell.
 * And Twilight was fully willing to use said time-stopping spell! She was willing to trap everypony, including herself, in one moment in time, forever. Never moving, never going toward the future or the past. Everything would just be still for eternity, all because of one pony going mad.
 * The door to it being locked could mean that the Star Swirl the Bearded Wing is not accessible to anypony. It's made clear the guard knows who Twilight is, so possibly this is why he let her in.
 * In the episode Twilight tells Pinkie Pie and Spike, "Time spells are kept in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing, the most secure section of the archives. That's why we're sneaking around!"
 * How about the fact that there a gateway to Tartarus near Ponyville. Tartarus aka HELL in Greek/Roman myths. What the fuck is in there that Celestia didn't send Discord in?
 * Maybe Celestia thought that Discord would somehow use his powers of chaos and break out of Tartarus, with the other demonic creatures helping him out of his state? If Celestia sent Discord there, the legion might of banded together and freed him, allowing for the potential release of not only Discord if they broke past Ceberus's dimensional border, but all the legions of pony hell itself! And if Tartarus is pony hell, then that could include any manner of terrible ponies from the past!
 * Also, think about this: what allowed Discord to become free anyway? A disharmonious act being performed right in front of his statue (I am of the personal opinion that it wasn't the ONLY act that caused it, and that others had done so in the past so that the spell gradually became weaker, but I digress). So why would Celestia want to send statue Discord to Tartaurus with a bunch of evil creatures that would likely allow him to break free very, very quickly?
 * Pinkie Pie keeps balls and eyepatches around Ponyville in case of emergency so that she could produce a ball and eyepatch for Twilight. Now what if Twilight had asked for a bone or meat instead of a ball for Cerberus...

Dragon Quest

 * Twilight mentions that even she doesn't know where Spike's egg came from. Which raises the question, where did his egg come from, and how did Celestia obtain it?
 * This question is never answered. Which does raise the question, What happened to his parents?!
 * Teenage dragons
 * If Spike had smashed the egg, it wouldn't have been just an egg, but also a baby phoenix which was due to hatch at any moment. If he smashed it to the ground really, really hard...
 * Phoenixes cannot die from old age but still lay eggs. Unless there are species that can prey on them, a population explosion is the only result.
 * Namely, dragons? Surely everypony noticed that.
 * Spike is now a kidnapper, and Twilight, Rainbow and Rarity are his accomplices.
 * Who knows what the teen dragons would've done if they
 * What do we know about dragons now? Well, let's see: While dragons can be reasoned with and have a variety of emotions, it takes some doing to get through to them, they are quick-tempered and more than ready to become bloodthirsty killing machines, they are very prone to greed, which itself is almost a natural part of the growing process, and, after this episode, we know that they either don't give a flying feather about other dragons being jerks (if it's not to them), or they're complete jerks themselves. And let's not forget lazy, dimwitted, cruel, uncultured, disrespectful, and selfish. Sure, Spike's fine with living like a pony, but now that he knows all this, imagine the different thoughts he's gotta have running through his head...
 * The teenaged dragons are very lucky Spike decided to have the group run for it and, Celestia forbid, they didn't actually hurt Spike. Imagine what Twilight could've done to them if she really tried, or Rainbow Dash for that matter.
 * And even if all four of them were no match for those dragons, I think a certain "namby pamby princess pony" would not take kindly to a group of riff-raff harming her closest student and her companions.
 * If the teenaged dragons were willing to smash unhatched eggs and, presumably, kill the chicks For the Evulz, what would they have done to Spike if the girls hadn't shown up?!
 * The teen dragons would have regretted calling Spike puny and peewee if he had gone on a collection spree.
 * We have no idea what would have happened if it went into an all out fight while Spike was in hording heat, but if it is a natural occurance, the Dragons would have probably had a method to lay down the law without taking the entire mountain with them. I hope.
 * There are three issues that make it unlikely that Spike could have pulled off a greed growth spurt. The first is that it required a specific state of mind to activate, with he is unlikely to be able to achieve on command. The second issue is that he needed to take a lot of stuff to reach adulthood, more than was lying around the gathering area. The third is that while the ponies were unable or unwilling to stop Spike, the same can't be said for the teen dragons. Actually, the dragons (adolescent and adult) would probably consider the attempt normal playing, like the king of the horde game, so they might not even notice what he was trying to do.
 * So ... now living in the library, we have Twilight, Owlowiscious, Spike, and Peewee. Pony wizard who can light fires (she lit up candles in one episode), owl, fire-breathing dragon, and fire-being phoenix. That library is SO toast.

Hurricane Fluttershy

 * Equestria lacks a water cycle. Water does not evaporate on it's own.... Even with the other things ponies apparently control, that is disturbing.
 * It might just be currently settled Equestria, given that Everfree is so "spooky" because it works on its own like a forest here on Earth, and that we know that Celestia and Luna had at one time called it their home. It's quite likely that the clouds that need managing (for example, the ones RD takes care of in ten second flat in the first episode) come from Everfree and other, similarly wild areas.
 * Spitfire was present for both tornado attempts when they were failing to reach the proper wingpower. She did nothing. If Fluttershy hadn't managed to pull through, there would have been no rainfall all year, anywhere in Equestria. What the hell, Spitfire?
 * Seeing as how they could just bring in a few dozen pegasi from Cloudsdale to make up the gap and try again, it's not really that big a deal. The only thing on the line is town pride.

Ponyville Confidential

 * Sure, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were responsible for humiliating everyone in Ponyville. But what exactly did Ponyville do in retaliation? They basically exiled them - a young group of fillies, mind you - from their society, even if it was for a short while. Even their relatives turn their backs on them! Well, with the exception of Rarity, possibly...
 * It's easy to blame the Mane Cast for being insensitive to the CMC for the Gabby Gums stories, but remember, those three are their friends and younger siblings, Scootaloo being Rainbow Dash's, the Element of Loyalty's, number one fan. Just imagine how much it hurt the mane cast to have their loved ones humiliate them like that, and we see that towards the end the stories just get more and more hurtful, turning from partial truths to outright lies. Anyone that's had a loved one betray them will tell you just how much that hurts.

A Canterlot Wedding, Parts 1 & 2

 * So did Lyra, Twinkleshine and Colgate get out of the caves?
 * Yep, only to get shoved out of the way by Rarity during the bouquet toss. Not a good day for those three.
 * Pay close attention to how Celestia delievers the line "You have a lot to think about." It is not unlike the way she delievered the line "You won't get away with this, Discord!" back in the first part of The Return of Harmony. Now, before she delievered that line, it was already preestablished that she felt nothing but pure hatred for Discord. I'll let that sink in for a minute.
 * Twilight picked up on this. Note she was tearing up when Celestia said that line, and isn't her biggest insecurity an inability to handle the Princess being disappointed in her?
 * It gets worse: did anypony else notice that Celestia, after being proven conclusively wrong and almost dooming all of Equestria because she didn't listen to Twilight, never apologized? She gave Twilight some vaguely approving line about learning to "trust her instincts", but to quote Applejack, Twilight didn't learn anything! She knew to trust her instincts; it was Celestia who, despite the fact that Twilight has been right each and every time she's predicted some supernatural disaster, didn't give her desperate warning a second thought, and in fact dismissed her as coldly as she once did Discord.
 * That's softened somewhat when you remember that Twilight has been slightly "possessive" of her brother all along, and also when you remember that Cadence can hardly help but earn people's love; Twilight was, from Celestia's perspective, attacking a pony who's probably her niece with no evidence and no provocation. Her disappointment probably stemmed mainly from the fact that not only did it seem like Twilight was being childish and freaking out over nothing--like in Lesson Zero--but as an Element Bearer, she should know better.
 * That was Celestia apologizing to Twilight. She's immortal. The longer she lives, the harder it becomes to move past the mistakes she's made. Apologizing for them only keeps them fresh on her mind and slows the healing process. Here, we see her using a technique for getting around that problem; Celestia "apologizes" by showering Twilight with praise for going right where Celestia went wrong.
 * She may also have motivation for the above from having no idea what all the Changeling queen did to her before putting her in that chrysalis. With a room full of Celestia's subjects watching. Another problem with immortality: there's never enough brain bleach.
 * Never mind that. How about the fact that, aside from Applejack, none of Twilight's friends apologised for not believing her?
 * Just what, one wonders, would the real Cadence's fate have been if Twilight hadn't conveniently ended up in the same caves? Would the Changelings even have cared to retrieve her once she'd outlived her usefulness? (Granted, as nasty as they are the Changelings don't seem to be big on killing as such -- they need the love of living beings to feed on, after all. Your Mileage May Vary on whether being kept alive as essentially cattle would be such an improvement...)
 * On that note, just how long have they been keeping Cadence in those caves? You'd think it had to be, at bare minimum, a week or other fairly lengthy amount of time in order for Queen Chrysalis to pull off this scheme.
 * The good news is,
 * So,
 * More importantly,
 * If a scuffle between friends was all it took to release Discord in the season opener,
 * Specifically (different troper here), it's entirely possible that the original spell already started to fail around the time of Nightmare Moon's banishment -- and that it then still took the thousand-odd years since then for it to weaken enough that Discord could finally break free. (Yes, this is straying into WMG territory a bit, but let's give the Elements of Harmony their due: in the right hooves at the right time, they should be able to do better than just "turn this villain into stone until the next time somepony has an argument nearby". If that was the case, Discord would likely have been free again already circa mid-season...)
 * For that matter, if
 * "Humans need water, they can still drown in it!"
 * Celestia was
 * A Chrysallis is used to incubate an entity to bring it into the world in its mature form. What if Chrysalis herself was incubating another entity, and if so, what was it?
 * Chrysalis and her Changelings
 * What about the changelings who were There's probably some ponies in Canterlot who got their cutie marks in stain removal the next day.
 * Fridge Horror that strikes even after the happy ending - Cadence is an alicorn, like Celestia and Luna, who have both lived for at least a millenia and probably more. All canon so far shows that the lifetime of normal ponies is limited much like humans - suggesting that Cadence has just entered into a marriage which will last a few decades, while she'll live for centuries.
 * The moral from A Canterlot Wedding is pretty lousy. "Trust your instincts". That's fine, since it turned out that Twilight was right and it wasn't the real Cadence, but what if it was just pre-royal wedding nerves? Twilight would have alienated Princess Celestia and her friends.
 * The secondary moral is that you need to have some freaking tact, along with showing evidence for your accusations.
 * What if the Mane Six had managed to get the Elements of Harmony? Considering the fact that changelings feed on love, would the elements have made them more powerful?
 * Chrysalis admires how Equestria has more love than she's ever encounterd. Just how many countries/worlds has she already..."encountered" and what became of them?
 * Imagine the sort of tyrant Cadence could be if she used her powers for evil. She has the power to make every pony in Equestria completely devoted to her.
 * But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. They had won the victory over themselves. They loved Queen Chrysalis.
 * This little piece of Fridge Horror also contains some Accidental Innuendo or maybe even Getting Crap Past the Radar. The Changelings are based on insects on design, and have a queen, so it's probably safe to assume they act a lot like bees. Of course Chrysalis is female, but the same can probably be said for the rest of her subjects, considering on how they acted they're the workers. But that leaves the question on reproduction, which leaves us to the drone, the sole male member of the colony. For those who don't know what his purpose is  Now consider Shining Armor who Chrysalis had him under her control the entire time...let that sink in for a moment.
 * At the wedding, Pinkie Pie was at least at one time planning to play music known to attract parasprites.
 * It's likely that you have to be in proximity to paraspites to attract them with music. I doubt very much whether they can hear it all the way from the Everfree forest. And even if worst case scenario, the parasprites were attracted, they'd come very slowly (i.e. walking in a straight line) and they could easily be lured out, since the music would still be keeping them docile.
 * Twilight facing the three brainwashed bridesmaids becomes way creepier when you realize that those three, Minuette, Twinkleshine and Lyra, may have been the closest thing to friends Twilight had when she was living in Canterlot. In Mare in the Moon Minuette and Twinkleshine invite her to a party, and Lyra is seen attempting to be friendly as Twilight charges past.
 * The secondary moral is that you need to have some freaking tact, along with showing evidence for your accusations.
 * What if the Mane Six had managed to get the Elements of Harmony? Considering the fact that changelings feed on love, would the elements have made them more powerful?
 * Chrysalis admires how Equestria has more love than she's ever encounterd. Just how many countries/worlds has she already..."encountered" and what became of them?
 * Imagine the sort of tyrant Cadence could be if she used her powers for evil. She has the power to make every pony in Equestria completely devoted to her.
 * But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. They had won the victory over themselves. They loved Queen Chrysalis.
 * This little piece of Fridge Horror also contains some Accidental Innuendo or maybe even Getting Crap Past the Radar. The Changelings are based on insects on design, and have a queen, so it's probably safe to assume they act a lot like bees. Of course Chrysalis is female, but the same can probably be said for the rest of her subjects, considering on how they acted they're the workers. But that leaves the question on reproduction, which leaves us to the drone, the sole male member of the colony. For those who don't know what his purpose is  Now consider Shining Armor who Chrysalis had him under her control the entire time...let that sink in for a moment.
 * At the wedding, Pinkie Pie was at least at one time planning to play music known to attract parasprites.
 * It's likely that you have to be in proximity to paraspites to attract them with music. I doubt very much whether they can hear it all the way from the Everfree forest. And even if worst case scenario, the parasprites were attracted, they'd come very slowly (i.e. walking in a straight line) and they could easily be lured out, since the music would still be keeping them docile.
 * Twilight facing the three brainwashed bridesmaids becomes way creepier when you realize that those three, Minuette, Twinkleshine and Lyra, may have been the closest thing to friends Twilight had when she was living in Canterlot. In Mare in the Moon Minuette and Twinkleshine invite her to a party, and Lyra is seen attempting to be friendly as Twilight charges past.