My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Headscratchers

Since we love discussing this show so much that we broke the size limit, the Headscratchers for each season have been given their own page.


 * Season 1
 * Season 2
 * Season 3

Meta

 * Will the Sea Ponies make an appearance?
 * If so, I hope they look more like hippocampi, as mentioned below, than those foul abominations.
 * SHOO BEE DOO SHOOP SHOOP BEE DOO!
 * The Flutter Ponies were alluded to in one recent episode (Rarity was turned into one), so it might not be that much of a stretch.
 * There are already pegasi, why not bring in another creature from Greek mythology?
 * There is a sea ponies playset, available in Toys'R'Us. If they need material for the next season...you never know.
 * I'm guessing they lost the rights. Still, there's no reason they can't introduce some kind of hippocampi.
 * Lauren says that while she actually planned to put them in a season two episode, since she left, it is unlikely they will appear.
 * She was involved with season 2 before she left, so it's a good chance. Here's hoping they sing.
 * There is no chance. They stated that Hasbro did a test with very stupid children who were freaked out by sea ponies because they didn't knew what sea horses were. Mermaid ponies are possible though.
 * ^ I am 20 years old and the Sea Ponies from the above video freaked me out. It's like they decided to see if they could put other animals besides humans in the Uncanny Valley.
 * Are you sure that's legitimate news? Even given how ridiculous the results of focus groups can be, it sounds implausible.
 * Perhaps Twilight Sparkle's next major magic spell will involve turning others into Sea Ponies? That's how we got a reference to the Flutter Ponies, so I wouldn't be surprised.
 * What about Kelpies?
 * If sea horses freak children out, how well do you think they'd accept horses whose sole purpose in life is to drown people?
 * This isn't a gripe, but I swear Rainbow Dash has the same voice as Spinelli from Recess. IMDB says otherwise, though.
 * Well, they both needed voice actresses that could sound tomboyish, so this is probably why their voices are so alike.
 * I personally think she sounds more like Cree Summer, especially when she voiced Numbah 5, wince they both have that odd, scratchy undertone.
 * Does anyone else have a feeling that they are slowly running out of Aesops? I mean, the formula for each episode is supposed to be that Twilight learns something new about the magic of friendship and reports her findings back to princess Celestia, but many Aesops in recent episodes didn't even have much to do with friendship (although they were still pretty good) and it looks like writers just tried to add something like "and your friends can help you with that" at the end of them just to be consistent. Heck, at the end of 17th episode Twilight didn't even mention friendship when writing to Celestia! I know that there is only so many lessons about friendship you can give without becoming repetitive ("never lose faith in your friends", "respect your friends' feelings" etc.) but wouldn't it be easier if non-friendship aesops ended not with "Dear princess Celestia, today I learned a valuable lesson about friendship..." but "Dear princess Celestia, today my friends helped me learn a valuable life lesson..."?
 * I'm guessing they're trying to down play it.
 * She has to graduate eventually and stand on her own.
 * The show's writers figured that out already. That's why now they're having other ponies write Celestia letters now instead of just Twilight. Actually, I think they're pretty close to hitting the limit on what they can do with her (they've already given her a mental breakdown twice).
 * I think they need another "No means No" aesop...because Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped and it seems to have missed its target.


 * I just get this weird Uncanny Valley feeling when any of the ponies face the camera, particularly Applejack. It's like it stops being "cute cartoon ponies" and starts being "this face does not match this body."
 * YMMV, I like how ponies faces look from front. It's cute and cool. Maybe don't look like ponies faces but its cartoon.
 * Agreeing with original troper in that whatever this is, it's most pronounced with Applejack. I think it has something to do with the hat.
 * I think that they still look like ponies from the front.
 * I find the big eye size to be borderline cute and kinda Uncanny Valley. Oh, and this doesn't help (WARNING: Potential Nightmare Fuel)
 * They look fine to me; I don't really know what you're talking about.
 * Uncanny Valley is subjective.
 * Uncanny Valley also explicitly applies only to things that fail to look human, and thus is the wrong trope entirely for this.
 * Not really, if you think about it- in order to be able to identify with cartoon critters, we need to recognize them as human on some level, hence the high amount of anthropormorphization on cartoon critters (raging from minor examples like the ponies to Petting Zoo People who identify with their animal sides.)
 * This may just be me, but the effect (I noticed something slightly off, too) seems to have been mitigated as of Season 2. This is most obvious with Cheerilee in the first few minutes of S02E01; her face, even from the front, seems to have more dimension to it. Looks like merely a slight change of angle and subsequent positioning of the muzzle outline, but it does wonders.
 * My theory: The head and body are clearly not human from the side, but not so clearly when viewed straight on (the snout is not readily visible and the body's length disappears). They edge into the uncanny valley from the far side.


 * Why the heck do they even need a singing voice for Pinkie Pie? This troper has a old Madeline CD (Hats Off To Madeline, published in 1995), and a few tracks in there features Andrea Libman's singing, and she is good at it. Yeah, this troper's a big fan of Madeline.
 * Not sure, but it may be the fact that Pinkie is definitely a character voice, and maybe some singers aren't that comfortable singing in a character voice?
 * Perhaps Libman just isn't enough of a Motor Mouth when she's singing.
 * She does her own singing for Fluttershy, so it's not an issue of not being a good singer. My guess is that she couldn't sound enough like Pinkie while singing, so they brought in Shannon Chan-Kent instead.
 * It seems to this troper that she sounds a lot more like Pinkie than Fluttershy when she's singing (as Fluttershy) in "Cutie Mark Chronicles" except for the beginning of the song and the last syllable.
 * Related to the above - it's probably just down to sounding enough like two different characters when singing, probably a bit of a feat.
 * I heard it was because they originally didn't have Libman doing Pinkie, but it was the one who does Pinkie's singing, then they got Libman doing Pinkie's voice instead, but they liked the original's singing so much they kept her on for Pinkie's singing but not speaking. And it fits in as seamlessly as Jasmine and Aladdin's. My question is... why didn't they have Apple Bloom be the one good at singing, since her actress does the singing for Sweetie Belle, and it's very obvious its her, due to the country twang her voice has.
 * Close, but not quite. Dan Ingram answered this one already. When he was trying to get hired for the show (before any of the VA's were hired), he asked his friend Shannon Chan-Kent to sing. Hasbro liked her singing as Pinkie so they cast her on the spot, apparently before Libman was hired. Shannon was never cast as Pinkie's speaking voice, and the only reason Libman gets to sing as Fluttershy is because Hasbro couldn't find anyone else able to do it better.


 * The use of the term "pony" instead of "body" is cute and all but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's not like bodies are something that's exclusive to humans. Ponies have bodies too!
 * Maybe it's specifying "ponies, as opposed to bovines, dragons, and other non-pony sentients." We know that cows, buffalo, griffons, and dragons, and probably other creatures, are sentient and capable of speech as well.
 * Well that's just discriminatory.
 * Not really, since they DO occasionally use every"one" depending on the situation. Usually when mentioning something that would effect more than just ponies, or, probably, if they were to refer to a group that had non-ponies as well--so if you were referring to the mane six and Spike, you'd use any/every"one", but if it was just the mane six it would be any/every"pony". Although, admittedly, that might just be the writers slipping. Besides, for all we know, other sentient species do it, too.
 * "Everypony" probably only replaces "everybody," so "everyone" fits, but isn't as natural (to ponies).
 * In the first episode of the second season, Rainbow Dash says "Nopony insults the princess!" but clearly means to say Discord shouldn't, even though he's not a pony. And Applejack says she was talking to "nopony" and is clearly lying, even though she wasn't talking to ponies. So much for that being so neat.
 * I thought it was supposed to represent that she was still in the early stages of the corruption, and was telling a half-truth rather than lying outright.
 * Actually Rainbow Dash saying "nopony" to Discord doesn't count as an error since it was mentioned that while Discord's body was made up of all different sorts of creatures, his head was still that of a pony. So he still qualifies as being at least related to the other ponies.
 * At the beginning of "Putting Your Hoof Down", Fluttershy says "Plenty for everypony" while feeding her pets, even though there's not a single pony present other than herself.


 * Why does Twilight Sparkle have a different actress for singing parts? Tara Strong has been shown in the past to be a very competent singer.
 * To this question and the other similar one above: a voice actress may be able to sing, but there is the chance that singing too much can put a strain on her voice, and then she probably won't be able to do the speaking role for a while. It's easier to hire someone else for a singing role while keeping the speaking role intact.
 * Also, as mentioned above, if the character's voice is far enough removed from the actress', she may not be able to maintain that voice while singing. Finding someone else who can sing and make it sound like the character is better than that character's voice completely shifting whenever she sings.
 * While this troper honestly thought that Twilight singing was Tara, what she finds odd about it is the fact that Tara usually does a phenomenal job of singing in-character, even if the voice is quite different from her natural voice. Take, for example, her work voicing Melody in The Little Mermaid sequel. Twilight's voice, pitchwise, is a bit similar, and Strong did both the speaking and singing voice for Melody. So, theoretically, Twilight shouldn't be to much of a stretch to do both voices for. But I digress.
 * Logistics. Strong lives & works in California. The rest of the cast is based (and records) in Canada. The songs tend to be ensemble efforts and work better with all the main voices in the same room. Guess they just figured it was easier to get a double that sounded close enough than to fly her out each time they needed to record a musical number.


 * Is it bad when you start using words like "somepony" or "anypony" in real life?
 * Depends. Are you talking to ponies?
 * Oh come on, I think it's cute.
 * It doesn't matter. You're a troper. You're doomed anyway.
 * Yes. Speaking as a non-brony here, we start to get creeped out when people start talking about ponies. Think of it this way - what do you do when you see a Star Trek fan speaking klingon? Yeah. It's kind of like that.
 * What's bad is that I don't see anything wrong with that, either.
 * I think "Wow, they're a slightly bigger nerd than I am" and go on with my life. Try that some time instead of getting "creeped out". (Why would you be creeped out, anyway? "Oh no, they're using fictional words, they must be a serial killer!")


 * The creator of this show has said that she wants this to be popular not just with little girls but also with little boys and their parents. Now we already have many adult males watching it, but do we have any confirmed cases of little boys who are fans of My Little Pony? Is this show raising a generation of boys who will be more willing to watch shows like Hidamari Sketch? (Note: I mean ones that HAVEN'T hit puberty yet.)
 * My nephews seem to enjoy it, one is 4, the other 3. I'm tempted to introduce my older nephews (7 and 6) to it.
 * I babysit for a 9 year old and 4 year old, both boys. The former thinks that Pinkie Pie is the funniest thing ever, while the latter keeps trying to pull off a Sonic Rainboom. They both said it's their favorite show.
 * Pfft, Tagger was into ponies BEFORE they were mainstream.
 * Out of curiosity, where would they find shows like Hidamari Sketch assuming they don't watch anime?
 * My seven-year-old nephew enjoys this show, and his favorite character is Rarity.
 * My 12-year-old brother watches the show and although he doesn't have a favorite episode or character, he's trying to learn the songs and has drawn a piece of fanart. I find his interest a little more surprising, since he also watches Family Guy and South Park but can enjoy the friendlier MLP:FIM.
 * My 3 brothers; 11, 8 and 5 respectively. I introduced them to the show shortly after I got into it. They all think Bridle Gossip is best episode(Silly siblings, that's not how you spell Stare Master!), and last I checked, 11 likes Fluttershy most, 8 likes Applejack most and 5 likes Rainbow Dash most.
 * My godchildren love the show. The eldest is a nine year old boy who's automatically into anything generally considered boyish and utterly averse to anything that seems girlish. This show is the exception.
 * My nephews and nieces all hate the show, and when someone came to promote My Little Pony in the book fair, they were met with rampant booing. No, they're not high-school age...these are kids in between the ages of five and eleven.
 * My nephew (age 7) maybe isn't a HUGE fan of the show, but enjoys it enough to join his little sister if she's watching it.


 * Doesn't really fit in with the tone of this page, but I'm curious as how Hasbro lost the rights to every character BUT Applejack and Spike. The new ponies are a lot better, but even so.
 * Probably just let the trademarks lapse on most of the names.
 * Hasbro was (well, is, really) absolutely crap at maintaining trademarks - this has bit them quite a few times on Transformers, as well.
 * You're talking about the company that didn't even KNOW they had the rights to Blythe. And with 500+ pony names, well, that's a lot of copyright renewing.
 * This troper finds it hilarious that Applejack and Optimus Prime are the two longest-lasting copyrighted names, especially with Optimus having been described as cowboy-like early on, and Peter Cullen having been seen with a cowboy hat on to boot.
 * One of the main requirements on copyrighted material is that you have to actively use and maintain it. So while the lifetime of an -active- copyright is very long, the expiration for an inactive one is very very short. This is one of the reasons various companies will usually re-release something every few years or otherwise include something - as long as they can point and say "See, we're using it!" they're more or less covered.
 * You're describing trademarks, not copyrights. Copyrights require no maintenance and renewal of copyright registration is no longer necessary or possible.
 * It takes about 110 years for a copyright to expire in the US if it is not renewed. Trademarks rights must be maintained through actual lawful use of the trademark. These rights will cease if a mark is not actively used for a period of time, normally 5 years in most jurisdictions. In the case of a trademark registration, failure to actively use the mark in the lawful course of trade, or to enforce the registration in the event of infringement, may also expose the registration itself to become liable for an application for the removal from the register after a certain period of time on the grounds of "non-use". ... In the US, failure to use a trademark for this period of time, aside from the corresponding impact on product quality, will result in abandonment of the mark, whereby any party may use the mark. An abandoned mark is not irrevocably in the public domain, but may instead be re-registered by any party which has re-established exclusive and active use, and must be associated or linked with the original mark owner. If a court rules that a trademark has become generic through common use (such that the mark no longer performs the essential trademark function and the average consumer no longer considers that exclusive rights attach to it), the corresponding registration may also be ruled invalid. So while Hasbro can no longer use the names, the characters themselves are not in the public domain as the My Little Pony franchise belongs to Hasbro. I guess that means Hasbro could have regained the rights to Firefly and the other lost characters through MLP: FIM.


 * As far as the toys go it bugs me that Twilight doesn't come with a Spike figure, instead she has some goofy-looking owl thing.
 * Spike did come in the preview set with Twilight, along with Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Celestia. He's bigger than the owl-thing.
 * Hmm, that explains plot of coming episode.
 * Rarity's toy comes with a bird instead of a cat...
 * Applejack's doesn't even have her hat!
 * Spike stole it and ran away!
 * On another note, the owl with Twilight looks nothing like Owloysius!!


 * Why do so many fans seem intent on painting Celestia as a cruel ruler who holds Equestria in an iron hoof? So far, we've seen that Celestia is a bit of a prankster, but she's never done anything overly cruel or mean, and indeed seems to have been extremely calm and patient with the antics of the main characters. And while banishment for 1000 years is a bit extreme, it's less extreme than what could have happened considering that Nightmare Moon tried to make a night that lasted FOREVER.
 * Blame books like "The Giver" where the apparent utopia is supported by a heavy-handed autocratic government.
 * Perhaps because in real life, absolute power corrupts absolutely?
 * For one thing, she has a habit of causing trouble for the Mane cast whenever she has any part in the actual plot of an episode. Be it sending only two tickets or showing Fluttershy a Phoenix close to rebirth without considering how easily it would be to mistake it for a normal, sick bird. And Twilight's overblown fear of her in that episode certainly didn't help matters.
 * I see that she has a mischievous streak, but I never got anything mean-spirited out of it. Yeah, the ticket thing's hard to explain away, but with her phoenix she did say to Fluttershy that if she just asked about the bird Celestia would have mentioned that it was a phoenix. And for Twilight's fear, well, it's Twilight. The girl's prone to overreaction about damn near everything, and Celestia's like another parent to her. Thus, Twilight doesn't want to disappoint her.
 * The reason for only giving two tickets? Celestia assumed Twilight & Spike would go to the gala, not that Twilight would feel compelled to bring one of the other ponies. (It's not like Celestia thought the GGG was something to get worked up over.)
 * The extra ticket could also have been intended for a date. This is actually pointed out in the first episode of the Mentally Advanced Series.
 * Since Celestia sends the extra tickets for everybody over right after Twilight writes back to her, I assume she had them ready and was just waiting for Twilight to figure things out by herself. Celestia seems to prefer the Socratic method of teaching...
 * She is sending invites to the whole of Equestria, after all. She probably has a huge pile of tickets to send to everyone, and her sending only two tickets to Twilight was merely an oversight, which she corrected as soon as it was brought to her attention.
 * There's also the fact that Twilight is pretty introverted and just a few episodes ago had insisted that she didn't need any friends. Celestia might not have realized that Twilight was already close enough to the others that she would want to invite all of them to the Gala.
 * One possible explanation: Celestia didn't actually write the first invitation herself -- if you listen to it, its wording has all the earmarks of a form letter, not her usual style of writing to her favorite student at all -- and only noticed there even was a problem after Twilight wrote back returning the tickets.
 * Are you sure they're actually intent on painting her that way? They seem to mostly think it's funny, specifically because it's not true.
 * It's really a meme. See Molestia and Trollestia.
 * Yes it's a meme, but this troper always thought it was an interesting interpretation of some of the things she's done, as already mentioned above, but the memes are more for humor and not what people actually think. Clearly, the princess doesn't go around being a cruel despot, but it's still funny to imagine her that way.
 * One possible explanation has to do with the postmodern perspective on heroes inculcated by works such as Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns. It seems that these works, and the avalanche of clones and wanna-bes they inspired, have influenced many members of the subsequent generation not only to look for their heroes to have feet of clay, but to prefer them to—after all, "perfect" heroes aren't "realistic". They're "boring". Given that Celestia is presented as the next-best thing to saccharine perfection over the course of the series, it is thus a natural reaction on the part of some fans to go to the other extreme and conclude she must have some deep, dark, unsavory secrets—if only because they want her to.


 * Am I the only one bothered by the lack of good recurring MALE characters? I mean, sure, you could argue that more female characters=more relatable to the show's target demographic, but (as of Episode 19, which is what I've watched to) we have:
 * One-off antagonists or semi-antagonists (Rainbow Dash's childhood bullies, the Diamond Dogs)
 * Spike, whose competence varies between episodes.
 * Ensemble Darkhorses like Big Macintosh or Dr. Whoof (Honestly, Big Mac is my favorite male character so far--mainly because he reminds me of Clay--in what few scenes he gets.)
 * Snips and Snails, which...well, they're like Bulk and Skull, only more annoying.
 * and that's pretty much it. Just...what the hell? I'm not asking for the characters to talk about boys all the time, because I'm well aware that would ruin the show--but a good male character who gets more than just a few good scenes wouldn't be a bad thing either. Or hell, more than one.
 * Spike is a pretty major character, and he's hardly more incompetent than the rest of the cast.
 * All the same, he's still a different species from the rest of the cast, and is a baby on top of that-- he's clearly not on equal standing with his peers. I think what the original poster wanted (which I happen to agree with wholeheartedly) is a recurring male who's not: A.) a Jerkass and/or antagonist (Dash's bullies, Diamond Dogs, Prince Blueblood), B.) an "annoying little brother"-type (eg., Spike), C.) a quiet or silent piece of movable scenery (Big Mac, the Doctor), or D.) an utter waste of space (Snips and Snails). I'd call it a legitimate concern, not just in the sense of feeling alienated by the lack of notable males (what with being one, and all that), but also because the current ratio may undermine Ms. Faust's original plan for the show to have a progressive spin on gender relations. As it is now, there's a possibility that the show could end up reinforcing the notion of "boys are icky!" for the target audience.
 * Well, we do have the Wonderbolts (two are male), who one member of the mane cast looks up to and idolizes. On top of that, Big Macintosh has proven himself to be a perfectly respectable supporting character; he has a pretty big colt following and he's shown signs of being Closer to Earth than his little sister.
 * The show's creators have embraced the Periphery Demographic, what with the shout-out to bronies in the Equestria Girls promo, and including Derpy in storyboards. Perhaps we'll see more good male characters in season 2 - or at least, giving the existing Big Macintosh a bigger role.
 * You say that like there aren't a ton of series without any good reoccurring female characters.
 * Do you mean males?
 * That's bad too, and it desperately needs to be fixed. However, two wrongs don't make a right. Personally, having just one decent male character with some kind of recurring role (but NOT a main role) would be sufficient.
 * Two wrongs don't make a right, but there's no wrong in making a show focusing on females. There's also no wrong in making a show focusing on males--but there is wrong in making ALL THE SHOWS focus on males, just as it would be wrong if every show on TV was about females. FIM is merely helping to correct the balance. There's room along the whole female-oriented side of the spectrum for more shows with differing gender balances, and FIM doesn't have to cover it all by itself.
 * In any case, most of the modern boys' shows I can name have at least one (though admittedly sometimes only one) recurring female character (The Fairly Odd Parents has Wanda, SpongeBob SquarePants has Sandy, Avatar: The Last Airbender was packed to the gills with them, etc.). That said, I don't really think more than one main male character suits the show, given that it's supposed to focus on girls' friendships; would Stand by Me have been improved by adding a girl or two to the main cast? Probably not. However, I think Big Mac deserves at least A Day in the Limelight.
 * Faust did want more male characters, but it's one of the few things Hasbro didnt allow. I'd like to think however, that the gender ultimately doesn't matter that much anyway. Any of the mane six could be a boy (colt?) and would still be the same character.
 * Except that reaction to them would be much much different. If Rarity were male, he'd be seen as a flaming homosexual and Moral Guardians would scream about a gay character in a show targeted at kids. If Fluttershy were male, he wouldn't be "Cute", he'd be seen as annoying and bratty. And likewise, Applejack as a male would be seen as a "Walking Stereotype", even though Applejack is a Walking Stereotype enough as is. Rainbow Dash as a male would be seen as a musclehead, and Pinkie Pie would have been seen as annoying or like Rarity, a flaming homosexual.
 * Isn't one of the intents of the show though to break the boundaries of 'show for girls, show for boys/girly characters, boyish characters'? Wouldn't having a male equivalent that displayed as much range of personality and such as the females while having the quirks reinforce the notion that you can be awesome/gender doesn't make a difference. That it's okay for some girls to be athletes or bookworms and okay for boys to like fashion or non-violence? Excluding males to a fault can possibly end up marginalizing and promoting the division of gender or reverse the situation to "males gotta stay in the toolshed while women can do whatever they want".


 * Regarding the toys... I know they made some changes to the toys (like making Princess Celestia pink) because they thought it would appeal more to girls. But, I don't really get it. If little girls are fans of the series and wanted to play Friendship is Magic with the characters, wouldn't they want the toys to actually look like the characters? I mean, if a cartoon series based on the X-Men became popular one year and a company decided to make some Wolverine Halloween costumes based on the show design, they wouldn't change the color of the uniform to "appeal more to kids". The reason kids want such things is because they resemble the ones in the show, wouldn't changing that just turn them off from it?
 * Your problem is that you're expecting the system to make sense. As Lauren said elsewhere, they were dealing with the irrational attitudes of toy store owners who might say, "I'll order 50, but I'll order 500 if you make it pink." The toy store owners don't care about the show, they have their own ideas about what little girls want to buy, don't bother them with the facts. (This is also why Applejack only comes with pink or blue hats, or none at all, not brown.)
 * The toy stores also have to consider selling to people who haven't seen the show - which might be most little girls as the show is on an obscure cable network.
 * Or can't afford the higher cable channels. Not sure why they don't bother going to YouTube like I have.
 * It's not just the toys. Pretty much everything Hasbro does outside of the show itself seems still to be stuck in the old mindset, judging by the overuse of certain pictures in magazines or printed on various merchandise. Speaking of the toys, one of the more (in)famous ones is Applejack with a **car**. And a cardboard cutout of Twilight Sparkle in the back, for some reason.
 * Also, if the purpose of the show is to sell the toys, shouldn't the characters in the show match their toys, even if that makes the show worse? And why did the toy store owners want Celestia to be pink, but not Rarity and Sweetie Belle, who are almost the same white? Finally, if they absolutely wanted pink ponies to sell, why didnt they just order lots and lots of Pinkie Pie?


 * Okay, this is a small thing, but it really bugs me. Let's take a look at Rainbow Dash's hair normally... Here, we can see that it's kept pretty short and kind of scruffy, which is fitting for a tomboy like her. But when she dressed up for the Gala, her hairstyle's different. Now, I don't mean Dash can't have a new hairstyle, but look at the green, blue, and purple portions! They look like they take up about three times the volume of her normal hairstyle. Now, I admit as a guy I'm not well versed in hair products, but I don't think anything can account for a change in volume like this.
 * Twilight gave Spike, Snips, and Snails moustaches. Rarity cut her tail and attached it to Steven Magnet's moustache, and it later grew back. The Great and Powerful Trixie turned Rarity's hair into some green, grassy thing. In short, magical hair care exists. A fairly small increase in the volume of Rainbow Dash's hair like that is well within the realm of possibility.
 * Not to mention that, lots of the time, when frizzy hair is straightened you can really see how much length it has. Personally, my own hair is curly and big, and seems short, but when I straighten it, you see it's actual length. Maybe Rainbow Dash straightened her mane?
 * It doesn't look that curly...
 * As an alternate theory, though a bit of WMG, Rainbow Dash may just use a lot of hair product like spray or gel to keep it up. When it's taken out, we see her actual hair length. Similar to Storm in her earlier X-Men comic appearances, where her hair will be very long when it's down. (of course, that may have just been to get by the censors in her shower scenes...)
 * Perhaps Rarity just gave her some extensions.


 * A meta-example, but is it me or do a lot of FiM fans do not realize the design differences between the generations? I've seen a lot of people look at Glory in the Generation 1 intro, and think it was Rarity. Rarity was a pink furred, rainbow maned character until recently; and she was introduced in generation 3.
 * Oh they recognize it, all right (why do you think every time they see anything Gen 3 they start screaming "kill it with fire"?). They just have the mistaken belief that G4 Rarity was based on Glory - to be fair, they do look a lot alike - instead of her actual inspiration, Sparkler. Honestly, I thought the same thing until I saw Lauren's drawings of the G1 ponies.


 * Why didn't Rarity and Fluttershy change from their concept looks? They look nothing like Rarity and Fluttershy. All the other Ponies had their designs changed. By that logic, they could have left the other two alone. Was it a copyright issue? I thought it was names only.
 * Hasbro lost all the G1 names and designs except for Applejack, but G3 names and designs could be used.
 * Those are G1 designs. They reused the G1 designs for Sparkler and Posey. All they did was change Sparkler to white and remove her highlight, and they changed Posey's Cutie Mark.
 * They did change. Fluttershy's Cutie Mark is different and Rarity's hair color changed from one similar to Twilight Sparkle's to just full on purple.


 * ...Wait. Lauren Faust left? Whut? I'M SO CONFUSED.
 * Yup. She did. She left right after the scripting phase of Season 2 was done. We'll probably never know the real reason, but she and Jayson Thiessen both implied that she burned herself out. We learned in November 2011 that story editor Rob Renzetti and a couple of the other writers left at the same time Lauren did. Cynical fans have speculated that maybe Hasbro tried to do what they've always done with this franchise. But Lauren has insisted that wasn't the case.
 * In various EQD interviews, it definitely seems like more fatigue as opposed to direct Executive Meddling (at least, of the bad type to alter her vision of the show). Someone between Hasbro and Studio B decided that it would best to start Season 2 immediately after "finishing" Season 1 to avoid animation employee turnover or reassignment to other projects to maintain the quality of the show. But this meant the writing staff had to script out those episodes pretty much immediately after finishing Season 1. Thiessen has stated that at one point, between Faust's writing team and his own studio, they were working simultaneously on 32 episodes of the show at various stages. That's definitely burnout that Faust has hinted at.


 * In the original idea, with the original G1 Ponies, was Spike supposed to be Purple like the G3 Spike or Pink like the original?
 * Seeing as how Hasbro made Faust use the names of G3 ponies rather than Suspiciously Similar Substitutes of the G1 characters, they probably also made her use Spike's G3 design so as to not confuse the kids who already had a Spike toy. Or maybe Lil' Lauren's TV had low-quality colors (this IS an '80s TV we're talking about here) and she had always seen Spike as purple.


 * So, according to Faust, Hasbro lost the rights to all of the G1 ponies except for Applejack. This brings up several questions:
 * How does a company lose the rights to characters that they created?
 * Trademarks have to be kept in constant use or they lapse after only a few years. Hasbro had tons upon tons of different trademarks to keep track of (every pony name, every transformer name, every GI Joe name, the name and logo of every toy line and board game they produce) Those trademarks apparently just fell through the cracks and were forgotten about until it was too late.
 * Who owns those ponies now?
 * No clue, though there's an online searchable database for U.S. trademarks. It's rather large, and the somewhat generic names don't help when it comes to searching. The most likely answer is some toy company that makes cheap(er), generic ponies.
 * How do they still have the rights to Applejack?
 * By some luck they managed to keep renewing her and Spike's trademarks. Why they renewed those two and not the rest would be a question for someone that works at Hasbro.
 * How were they even able to trademark such generic names as "Twilight", "Surprise" and "Sparkler"?
 * Trademarks are divided by industry and area and I believe use. It would be potentially legal to make a restaurant chain named Rainbow Dash, as long as you didn't use any images of the pony Rainbow Dash (which would be infringing on copyright in addition to trademark if Hasbro registered RD's image for all uses). True, if a trademark is too generic, it is invalid, but that also depends on what the trademark is for. Those names might be simple, but when considering toy ponies and accessories, they still would easily identify a specific design and/or model. Though take this advise with a grain of salt, as I'm not a lawyer.
 * To quote The Other Wiki: "Trademarks rights must be maintained through actual lawful use of the trademark. These rights will cease if a mark is not actively used for a period of time, normally 5 years in most jurisdictions. In the case of a trademark registration, failure to actively use the mark in the lawful course of trade, or to enforce the registration in the event of infringement, may also expose the registration itself to become liable for an application for the removal from the register after a certain period of time on the grounds of "non-use". ... In the US, failure to use a trademark for this period of time, aside from the corresponding impact on product quality, will result in abandonment of the mark, whereby any party may use the mark. An abandoned mark is not irrevocably in the public domain, but may instead be re-registered by any party which has re-established exclusive and active use, and must be associated or linked with the original mark owner. If a court rules that a trademark has become generic through common use (such that the mark no longer performs the essential trademark function and the average consumer no longer considers that exclusive rights attach to it), the corresponding registration may also be ruled invalid." So while Hasbro can no longer use the names, the characters themselves are not in the public domain as the My Little Pony franchise belongs to Hasbro. I guess that means Hasbro could have regained the rights to Firefly and the other lost characters through MLP: FIM.


 * Why is the toy line using characters like "Lily Blossom" or "Cupcake" (Brrr...) instead of other supporting characters from the show?
 * Don't know why, but it's not the only Hasbro property to do so, and in both directions.
 * Jayson Thiessen mentioned in an interview that Hasbro's toy division and media division rarely talk to each other, and the Executive Meddling usually only happens during scripting (which is when locations and character appearances are set). Everything else is pretty much left up to Studio B. Hasbro's toy people probably aren't even aware of most of the background characters, let alone their popularity with fans.


 * Look I think it's great that a show can have a Periphery Fandom, and that people can look past a show being too fit for the opposite gender, but I just have to say as an outsider, just how on earth did this show get the massive Periphery Fandom it has? Most of my male friends on Deviant ART are in love with this show, and I haven't met a single girl who's admitted to watching it. I don't think it's bad, just confusing and I'd like an answer is all. On top of that, this show is relatively new, and it's already skyrocketing! And it has its own Ensemble Darkhorse page, which having so many kind of goes against the spirit of the trope (in which one or few characters are singled out as favorites).
 * There are plenty of adult female fans. They're just not usually as vocal (and remember the old outdated rule that There Are No Girls on the Internet). Examples off the top of my head: one of the three admins of Equestria Daily (Phoe) is a girl. Also, several of the fanartists (Madmax, most notably), the creator of Friendship Is Witchcraft (Jenny Nicholson), and more than a few of random internet commenters and cosplayers. Plus, this troper has personally converted some girls to bronydom.
 * The show has so many Ensemble Darkhorses because a lot of background characters who get few or no lines end up getting fan followings, which is why they're considered darkhorses. As to why the show's fandom is so huge... There are a ton of factors that could be the reason, and it's likely a combination of them all. For one, nobody expected the show to be any good. So when it turned out to actually be good, people really took off with it. There's the matter of the Girl Show Ghetto: Friendship is Magic is extremely rare in that it averts it. Some people also have the theory that a lot of bronies wanted to be into girly stuff like FIM when they were younger but were pushed away from it, and as a result they really latch onto the show, but I don't know if that theory holds much water. Another might be big potential for fan art, it's a hell of a lot of fun to draw different characters from other media (or even yourself!) as ponies. Mostly, though, the show is just really, really good, and internet communities love getting together over TV shows they love.


 * tl:dr - Just how did this show get so popular with men? Simple curiosity is my reason for asking, because I have this one friend who talks about only this almost any time he does something on DA now.
 * The same reason it's popular with women (and yes it is; a lot of the artists that get onto ponibooru are female, like Madmax). Because it's a girl's show with actual effort and interesting characters.
 * There are many reasons, but the main ones are likely to be related to how the show can appeal to everyone, and how quickly the online community is growing. It's much easier to admit liking the series when you're told 'Welcome to the herd!' instead of the usual 'Please grow up, you're an embarrassment', even more so when gender is taken into account. An older men can watch MLP, then point out he's not the only one by far once caught, how often does such an opportunity arise?
 * It may have to do with 'tough' guys embracing that 'girly' side they didn't know they had and not be shamed for it.
 * Straight male bronies (like myself) have internalized the belief that Real Men Wear Pink.
 * Once rainbows start making mushroom clouds, they're no longer "girly". At that point everyone has something to enjoy.


 * How do the toys work? With other generations it was Toys --> Cartoon. But with this gen it seems to be Cartoon --> Toys, since Lauren made the concept as a cartoon rather then they took a bunch of ponies from the toyline and put them into a carton.
 * Basically, the toys don't really have to do with the show, the toy designers just take a glance (very very short glance) at the early character designs and trust the popularity of the name is enough to sell it, even if the toys will not resemble the characters from the show.
 * Why do so many fanfic writers refer to Celestia and Luna as alicorns? An alicorn is the technical name for a unicorn's horn. And to top it off, in the show's pilot, the narrator refers to the two as unicorns.
 * Alicorn is both the word for the horn of the unicorn AND the name of the winged unicorns/horned pegasus. Source
 * The Other Wiki currently credits Piers Anthony with the first verifiable use of the term. (It also suggests the more straightforward derivation "alacorn" from Latin "ala", wing, and "cornus", horn, as a possible alternative among others for the more technical-minded among us.) In any case, language evolves; the fandom may for all we know establish "alicorn" as a proper term for winged unicorns in the public mind yet, if it isn't there already.
 * Why do artists depict younger Celestia with pink hair instead of the multiple colors she usually has?
 * If you look at the pictures of Celestia in the Exposition at the beginning of the first episode, she has pinkish hair there. Most people assume that's how she looked in her "filly" form (like the one Luna has as of ep. 2), since her usual appearance looks more like on par with Nightmare Moon.


 * Why's Ditzy so often depicted as being... Eh... Mentally challenged, so to speak. Or at least having a speech problem. I'm fine with the depiction, especially in Dark Fic's, but it seems a bit odd. I've pictured her as being eccentric and The Ditz, but I don't get the speech thing. Where'd it originate from?
 * Muffiiiiiiiiins.....
 * Fans thinking of why her eyes go all wonky at times. Didn't help that it got slightly reinforced when she accidentally dropped a load of cargo on Twilight later in the series.
 * There isn't another Mentally challenged pony for the fanfic writers to play with, so Derpy (aka Ditzy) takes that role.
 * Her actions in "Winter Wrap Up", "Feeling Pinkie Keen", and "Luna Eclipsed" kinda reinforce it.
 * What actions in "Winter Wrap Up"? It's fanon that the name "Ditzy Doo" refers to her -- we never see for certain who that pony is, and the most likely candidate in the episode (the Pegasus we see returning with the southern birds in the montage) is distinctly not Derpy.
 * Word of God says that the character fans called Derpy Hooves was originally named Ditzy Doo all along, even in the original The Last Roundup script. They changed it to "Derpy" for her speaking appearance at the last minute just for the bronies, but took it out because Urban Dictionary defined Derpy as "mentally retarded". So, yes, Ditzy Doo is Derpy Hooves.


 * Are the Cutie Mark Crusaders really Scrappies in the strictest sense of the trope? is the hatedom purely verbal or do they inspire hate art? I suppose I should also be complaining about the people who hate Pinkie Pie but the CMC's situation upsets me more because they are just FILLIES!
 * Most people don't seem to like the CMC (The individual characters are fine on their own) because of their Aesop Amnesia and their attempts at getting cutemarks seem to be the only thing they do together... Which normally amounts to nothing but causing trouble for others or getting into dangerous situations. All for a goal that people can't exactly relate to (Getting what effectively is a branding on your rear isn't something most people desire to have). Perhaps if they did other things aside from attempting to get cutie marks or received proper character development, then people wouldn't consider them scrappies.
 * No they are not Scrappies, most of fandom is OK with them, they have many fans and they have vocal haters.
 * I'd still like to know if the hatedom goes as far as art against the CMC. and besides, they pretty much the only three ponies in town that don't have a Cutie Mark. isn't there obsession understandable considering that?
 * For hatedom art, look up "scootabuse" on Ponibooru, and there was an "X rapes Applebloom" wave there a bit ago. You'll have to turn on explicit images, though, because it gets pretty nasty. As for their obsession resulting from not having cutie marks, their obsession also causes that, so that may be a case of no sympathy because they're doing it to themselves.
 * Sorry, scrappies? Most people don't like? Where?. Equestria Daily seems netural to favor the Cutie Mark Crusaders and so far there hasn't appeared a single Cutie Mark Bashing (or renown) in Fanfic Recommendation or Fanfction.net. Dude(tte,) they had truckloads of fanart and A kickass metal song.
 * OK, the YMMV page just concerned me when it came to the CMC.
 * Becuase some people think that The Scrappy = Character I personally don't like.


 * Similar to a question I asked above. why do some people accuse the Cutie Mark Crusaders of being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad? they only had four episodes out of twenty-six devoted to them. plus, "Call of the Cutie" was focused on Apple Bloom specifically, the spotlight was shared with Fluttershy in "Stare Master" and they where pretty much just a framing device in "the Cutie Mark Chronicles".
 * Probably because even two episodes on the CMC was too much for those kind of people. Plus there was the two episode streak that unnerved them further.
 * follow-up question. the other characters understand the CMC's obsession with getting cutie marks, why can't the audience?
 * Because Spotlight-Stealing Squad is something negative so people will use (misuse) to complain about characters who they don't like.
 * but like I said, they are not really a Spotlight-Stealing Squad.
 * Exactly my point.
 * Well, as of Season 2, they're pretty much a Spotlight-Stealing Squad. As of right now, together they have more focus episodes then any of the Mane Six (though Rainbow Dash & Rarity are close). In fact this increase seems to put Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, & even Twilight on the verge of being Out of Focus.


 * Why do people insist Rainbow Dash is a lesbian? I've heard it's because of her voice being hoarse and a little low. So someone like Cree Summer is a lesbian automatically? She likes to run and do sports. Fine, that means that every girl who has ever like to run track or do sports is automatically a lesbian, and a butch lesbian if she has a hoarse voice like Dash's. Her rainbow motif? Pretty much every little girl in the world must also be a lesbian! Then again, there's also the fact that there are loads of fans who think Het Is Ew, and will ship anything with the same sex because it's "hot". But that's not an explanation, it's an excuse.
 * While I agree with the majority of this, it's worth noting that the extremely skewed female-to-male ratio on this show pretty much makes the majority of ships being Female/Female an inevitability, regardless of other factors. It's hard to cry Het Is Ew too heavily on the fanbase when six-sevenths of the Mane Cast are female, and the number of likeable male side characters numbers maybe four at most. Yes, it is highly annoying to see Rainbow Dash be pigeonholed as a lesbian for superficial and stereotypical reasons, but shipping her with other female characters is not always motivated by such, any more than shipping Fluttershy with other females is.
 * Yeah but that's still an excuse. You don't HAVE to ship the ponies. It's all Het Is Ew and Girl-On-Girl Is Hot. And my point was that it's ALWAYS Dash who is drawn incredibly butch, complete with, as my friend put it, a "Hollywood dyke cut". They never draw the others even REMOTELY as butch. I got seriously yelled at for asking why Bon Bon and Lyra Heartstrings are a lesbian couple when I can only recall them being together in the same screen twice.
 * Well... I can't speak for anyone else, but the brash, tie die wearing tom boy I knew in grade school is currently living with a girlfriend in San Jose, so...
 * But, moreover, she is a bit more than just a tomboy, she has a very male personality to her.
 * But really? Rule of Funny, Rule Of Hot.
 * Lauren Faust has spoken out against stereotyping Rainbow Dash as a lesbian. Not that people will give up Lesbian!Dash anyways.
 * As Faust says, not all tomboys are lesbian.


 * Talking about Rainbow Dash, why is it that seemingly in every other fanfic or fan art she shows up in she's losing her wings, or being mutilated for life, or going insane and murdering Pinkie Pie or Scootaloo? Heck, on Equestria Daily someone even wrote a fanfic about it in which they had Dash herself complain about it to Twilight! "Why do they hate me, Twi? Am I simply not awesome enough for them?" Why the ferocious rainbow pegasus hate?
 * These fanfics aren't that common, they tend to be buried in negative feedback anyways. A large part of the community enjoys the Mane Six because of their depth of personality, as every single one of them has been broken in a way over time. For the aspiring author, Dash losing her wings serves as an easy plot device since she relies so much on them, mental breakdown is almost guaranteed to happen. It really isn't about 'hatred' towards the character, more of an easy way out of actually having to break the character mentally.
 * If anything, Dash losing her wings has itself become hated, because it's been overused to the point of becoming a cliche. It doesn't help that it's mostly been used as a premise for shipping, usually with whoever she has to stay with while she recovers (if she recovers; not all writers are that kind).


 * In the Season theme song, about 9 seconds in, look on the train, in the cake car, there's Derpy, but underneath... is that... Madame Foster???
 * No, that's just an old, balding, white pony with pointy ears. In fact, it seems to be an elderly male pony, judging by what seems to be a full-body appearance in the Mare-Do-Well episode.


 * This is something that bugs me about the fanon and fan-work surrounding Derpy Hooves. A lot of it seems to assume that Derpy is mocked and teased and otherwise mistreated by other ponies. Now, don't get me wrong, some of this fan-work is very good, but it does strike me as odd, because the residents of Ponyville don't strike me as cruel or unkind. Far from it, in fact: think about how many residents of the town were willing to drop everything on short notice to attend a party to welcome Twilight Sparkle to their community (a party, lest we forget, to which Derpy was invited). So why the fanon assumption that Derpy is mocked and mistreated by other ponies?
 * The Ponyvillians have shown themselves capable of being prejudiced. Zecora is a prime example of this. Plus, there are jerks like Rainbow Dash's bullies, so, it's not unlikely she'd get crap from at least some ponies. How much crap she gets varies from work to work (ranging from a few jerks to constantly being taunted), because even in that second comic, the crowd scene is stated by the author to be more POV than reality.
 * True, but remember that by the time of "Luna Eclipsed," the mayor described Zecora as "our friend," and she was given charge of the town's children. And even the ponies that bullied Rainbow Dash seemed to have learned a lesson by the end of "Sonic Rainboom." So while they aren't perfect, the ponies of Equestria in general, and of Ponyville in specific, seem generally to be good-hearted equines who are able to learn their lesson when they do go wrong. Ponyville just doesn't strike me as the kind of place where somepony would throw a rock through another pony's window just because she looks odd.


 * I'm just curious, how come when I looked this page up with your search feature the image next to it was a photo of some creepy man who judging by his shirt style might be from Star Trek?
 * I'm not sure how the image system works, but the (tenuous) connection seems to be that Q was played by John De Lancie, who went on to voice Discord.
 * So why is he the page thumbnail? He's not on the page.
 * *shrug* Probably just a glitch.


 * Why does everyone keep depicting Pinkie Pie's hair as straightening out/poofing up so commonly? In the show it only happened when she was well past the Despair Event Horizon, but in fanfiction it happens whenever anything remotely serious.


 * Just what is the correct way to depict a pony's size when doing a crossover involving humans or human-sized beings in fanfiction? Do you depict ponies as small in such a way that Princess Celestia is only as tall as an ordinary horse (by considering the proportions)? Or is it like in the old cartoon, with this size proportion? Had a little discussion on the matter here.
 * The Hearth's Warming Eve episode has a quick...thing, in the cold open: Twilight suggests listing off interesting or eye-catching sights as they walk through Canterlot from the train station, and Twilight's is referred to as "an 8-foot candy cane", which Scootaloo is stuck to by her tongue. Long story short, adult-size ponies like Twilight and her friends are about 4-ish feet tall.
 * If Death Battle has taught us anything (and they are proven to have Shown Their Work), then ponies are, yes, around 4 feet tall.
 * If you consider the size of an apple in Equestria the same as an apple on Earth, then the ponies are about 1.5 feet tall.
 * Personally, I assume them to be about the size of a mid-range real world pony: Roughly four and a half feet at the withers, or about five feet at the crown of the head.
 * Why does Lauren want the ponies to act like real ponies? I like showing my work too, but I'm pretty sure real horses don't magically grow this tattoo thing on their butts when they do something special. Speaking of which, why can't Lauren change it so that the cutie marks get painted on, like a tattoo, just to make it a tad bit more believable?
 * Well, the ponies are basically normal horses + sapience + magic, so they might as well get the first part right. It's probably also to stave off the Anthropomorphic Shift that happened in the G1 cartoon, eventually sweeping away the fantasy elements. As for your second complaint, well, it's magic. You might as well say that normal ponies don't grow wings, so the pegasi should fly with hang-gliders.


 * This is about the toyline... Why does Cherilee get a lot of attention in the toyline? She isn't even a main character, shoot, she's not even related to a main character and has only had a couple appearances and speaking lines. I know that the producers of the show and the makers of the toys don't really talk to each other much, but it's just really out of place. Most of the toys are either based on main characters or are original designs, usually recolors of the main characters. So Cherilee having a toy is just really, really random. Did somebody in charge of the toyline really like her?
 * First of all, she's pink, a color that's known to market to girls, enough to actually change Celestia's color (If it really was a mistake, it would had been fixed, it wasn't), so she was likely seen as the character most likely to sell. Second, her role is still more developed than most characters, definitely more than background ponies. They have to appeal to customers that knows the show enough to ask for a specific character, and to customers that don't know anything about it. Cheerilee was seen as a combination of both, so she was chosen.
 * I guess that makes sense. Plus, on further inspection, Cherilee had a bigger role in the previous few generations. I guess they figured it was appropriate for her to appear in the FIM toyline since she was in the previous ones so much.
 * Per Faust, they were asked specificly to include a pony named Cheerilee in the show becuase Hasbro saw her as a popular holdover from older generations.


 * Another question about the toy line... I get that Celestia was made pink due to pressure from retailers who thought a pink toy would sell better. Okay, fine. But on the packages for the toys, there are pictures of the TV show versions of the character. And on the package for Celestia's toy, she's still white even though the toy is pink! What's with that?
 * They Just Didn't Care


 * Why are fans getting upset about the possible inclusion of a third alicorn, Princess Cadance? It's not like the show ever indicated that Celestia and Luna were the only alicorns.
 * Lauren Faust said that she intended Celestia and Luna to be the only alicorns. Since she's only Word of Dante now, some people think the staff is taking the show "off course", or indicates the show is becoming Merchandise-Driven more than it is.


 * What's up with Lily Blossom? All other non-character pony toys' designs are just recolors of the Mane 6... EXCEPT Lily Blossom. She has her own unique design, and now she has her own McDonald's toy. Is she going to appear in the show or something, or does Hasbro just like her?

Setting

 * Okay, this is so minor it's not funny, but it still bugs the heck out of me: how the heck do ponies like Rarity put eyeshadow on, let alone on eyelids that are covered with hair? Yeah, I know, truly silly but it still leaves me scratching my head.
 * Rarity is a unicorn, so she could easily use her standard magic telekinesis to apply any make-up, as seen with a false-eyelash in "Best Night Ever".
 * And as for the hair thing, they probably just need to apply the make-up in the same direction as the hair is growing.


 * The pony names confuse me. It seems to me that Pinkamena Diane Pie is like, Pinkie's full name so to speak, which I guess makes Pie her surname. Which is understandable, but that seems to apply only to her.
 * As far as I can tell, there don't seem to be surnames so to speak, or any real naming conventions. Some families obviously do give their kids names similar to their own (like the Apple family and (as far as we can tell) Pinkie's family, but others don't seem to (unless there's some way Rarity and Sweetie Belle are similar that I can't think of).
 * But in Giggle at the Ghostie, Pinkie calls her grandma 'Granny Pie'. So I figured that was her surname.
 * Granny Pie doesn't necessarily indicate that their family does theme naming. Pinkie might have just been named in honor of her grandmother. Plus, Unreliable Narrator.
 * Actually, that's how most surnames came into existence. Most surnames refer to either an ancestor, land of origin, clan name, or profession/profession of parents. Applejack has before mentioned her family as 'The Apple Clan.' So Applejack's full name would be Applejack Apple, or some variation of that dependent on local customs and conventions
 * The judges in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" call Twilight "Miss Sparkle", so that might be her family name.
 * Except that many ponies don't even have more than one name. "Miss Rarity" comes to mind. It seems that referring to someone formally generally involves an honorific plus the last word in their name, which doesn't necessarily imply that it's a family name of any sort. I don't see any way that Apple Bloom and Caramel Apple could belong to the same family if surnames worked as they do in our world.
 * Apple Bloom and Caramel Apple do make the case difficult, along with a couple other of the Apple family (like Golden and Red Delicious). Though other than those cases, the theory still could be sound. I don't remember who said 'miss Rarity' but it may have been that they didn't know what Rarity's surname was and wanted to be polite. Then again you could be right with their naming conventions, though that would imply they don't care (or at least don't care as much as humans) about ancestry, lineage, and heritage.
 * "Miss Rarity" was said by RARITY HERSELF. Of, course, I distinctly remember her calling herself "Rarity Unicorn" too.
 * Ah. Though as someone below mentioned, Rarity could wish to distance herself from her surname as she builds a reputation in the fashion world. Her surname might be a common one, or at least one generally associated with common folk. Or maybe it just doesn't roll off the tongue that well with her first name. If her surname is 'Belle' as the person guessed, then that would make perfect sense. Rarity Belle, though a nice name, just flow as well as some names. Also, in my opinion at least, the surname Belle invokes thoughts of down-the-earth country folk, not high society fashion designers, giving her even more reason to forgo it.
 * And in Sonic Rainboom, Celestia calls RD "Ms. Rainbow Dash". Maybe some ponies just don't have last names?
 * Celestia could have just used Rainbow's full name for some reason. Maybe a formality or some oddness with the registration form. Or it could just be RD doesn't have a normal lastname and her surname would default to profession/ 'Daughter of [insert mother's name]' as stated above. Though in my opinion, Dash is a better surname than Skysweeper/Skycleaner/whatever the name of her profession is.
 * Skywalker?
 * There's probably also some capital-D Destiny at work regarding pony names. Most ponies end up with names that match their (yet unknown) cutie marks, after all! Consider the marriage of Carrot (Mr.) Cake and Cup (Mrs.) Cake, or the Oranges of Manehattan. Assuming there's not an uncomfortable amount of cousin-marrying going on, it seems clear that couples with allied cutie marks tend to be given matching names.
 * Okay, wait, what? Why would Carrot and Cup Cake having the same last name be weird? Maybe one of them took the other's name when they were married. They could have been something like "Carrot Harvest and Cup Cake," or "Carrot Cake and Cup O'Flower," or something like that, but one of their names could have changed.
 * That actually seems to make the most sense. After marriage, one of the newlywed ponies changes their surname to whatever sounds better. Also, it can be that Sweetie Belle's first name is just 'Sweetie' (a perfectly appropriate pony name), which would make Rarity's full name 'Rarity Belle'. But since she wants to be a famous designer, she decided to go with the being only known by one name thing like Madonna or Prince. This would make Rainbow Dash's surname 'Dash'. Applejack would be Applejack Smith or Applejack Apple if Granny Smith's progeny changed their name after marriage. Apple Bloom could be Apple Bloom Smith, since ponies can have three names, or Applebloom Smith if her first name was just both words together. The only one we don't know the last name of would be Fluttershy, but it would probably be something she doesn't care for since it is very un-fluttershy, like Charger or Rampager.
 * I think you just found her last name. Look at the events of the Grand Galloping Gala. She didn't go nuts, her lineage just showed through! [/WMG]
 * A fun fact on RL horse names. Traditionally, a horse is given a name that's related to either the sire's or dam's name, preferably both. Registered horses are given a "last name" of sorts which is always "by (Sire's Name) out of (Dam's Name)" Example: Say things had worked out between Rarity and Prince Blueblood and they had a foal they named Sapphire. The full name would be Sapphire by Blueblood out of Rarity. (I'm assuming "Prince" is a title and not part of his name.)
 * I figure their pony society just has multiple naming conventions. Some ponies have surnames, some don't, etc.. Your name follows whatever convention your parents decided on, since they're the ones who named you.
 * Expanding a bit on the above the formal and more elaborate naming conventions really only came about in humans when populations expanded to the point that confusion could arise regarding who was being refereed too. Most indications are the pony population is significantly lower then our own so there's likely a much lesser need for complex systems to differentiate individuals in many places. It might be that only in a few large centers of population are more complex naming systems common. In more rural areas single given names may still be common, but as migration and continued population expansion have continued this has been blurring, as people leave cites but keep using the naming schemes born of them, so you're starting to end up with seemingly schizophrenic conventions in certain locales (such as the seemingly highly integrated Ponyville). If you want to get overly meta about it they seem to have recently perfected steam power and so maybe on the verge of an industrial revolution, or in the early stages of one and the social upheaval and change that would entail.


 * Why is it that Twilight is always addressed as her most loyal and faithful student? Twilight seems to teach herself, really. In fact, Twilight is reporting back to Celestia about the nature of friendship as magic. Surely Celestia is already well-acquainted with friendship and its magical properties...
 * Twilight is teaching herself, yes, but at Celestia's direction. Celestia probably already knows all the stuff Twilight writes about, but lets Twilight discover it for herself.
 * Ah, so a pony version of Socrates.
 * Or just the Pony equivalent of a college thesis.
 * Since all of the other ponies have jobs, some of which would require education, I always assumed that Twilight is the pony equivalent of a grad student. She's working on her doctorate in magic, and right now she's specifically studying the magic of friendship.
 * As for the "most loyal and faithful student" part...would that imply that Celestia had other students (who turned evil)?
 * The Great and Powerful Trixie? Okay, she's not evil, but she's probably not as "loyal and faithful" as Twilight either.
 * No, it just means Celestia's other students aren't quite as dedicated to their studies as Twilight.
 * Or it's boilerplate language on par with "My dearest ____" and she calls all her students that--though from the flashback it seems being Celestia's personal apprentice is quite a rare thing anyway.
 * Well, when she says "Most loyal and faithful student," it sounds like she's talking in the present tense. Maybe she's had dozens upon dozens of "Loyal and Faithful Students," in her thousands of years of existence?
 * It could be an alternate title for 'apprentice'
 * This is essentially explained in Cutie Mark Chronicles. Celestia has a school for gifted unicorns, and took on Twilight as her personal protegee after witnessing her power during the entrance exam. So she definitely has other students, at least in the sense that they study at her school, and given the fact that she is at least over thousand years old, there may even been countless others in a position similiar to Twilight in the past.


 * Moreover, notice how ponies' cutie marks are not just indicative of their behavior, but form a limit on what they can do? As Twilight and Spike divulged during a bit of exposition, most ponies aren't magical beyond the abilities implied by their cutie mark. Only ponies like Twilight, who specialize in magic itself, can gain any varied spells.
 * So, you're complaining about the fact that some ponies are basically more naturally talented at given tasks than others? How is that any different than how it works in real life?
 * The fact that spellbooks exist suggest that any unicorn could, in theory, learn a wide array of spells. Furthermore, we know that Rarity's "talent" isn't what she does for a living, or even what she loves to do (setting aside bedazzling everything in sight). I propose that a unicorn's talent manifests as a spell they can use instinctively, while other magic must be learned through study. Twilight's talent probably just makes it easier for her to learn new spells. Given that Twilight teleported without consciously deciding to do so in Ticket Master, teleportation is probably her instinctive "talent spell".
 * Based on all the evidence the show gives, Rarity's special talent isn't so much as gems as it is 'finding and bringing out the beauty in things,' be that finding gems hidden within rocks, or making the perfect dresses for her friends. Though that still shows that for most ponies, their special talent can be rather broad and allow for a multitude of paths in life.
 * It bothers me more that they are given names at birth and the cutie marks become more of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
 * Maybe the parents go to a unicorn whose special talent is coming up with really good names for newborn foals.
 * Well, it's a little of both. For example, Pinkie Pie's name has very little to do with her love of parties or her skill at cooking, and maybe a little to do with her Genki Girl-ness. On the other hand, there's no way Rainbow Dash's parents could have known that she's naturally good at flying, but she's had her very noticeable multi-colored hair for her entire life. Applejack, however, is a very clear case of the self-fulfilling prophecy. She says herself in "Call Of The Cutie" that she was born to inherit the family apple orchards and "the cutie mark sealed the deal", so in a way, she literally was born to continue the Apple family tradition. As for the other ponies, it's, as I said before, a little of both.
 * Applejack may have continued the tradition, but Apple Bloom's specialty is handicrafts and beautification which...oh right, her name is Apple Bloom, as in flowers, so she makes things look pretty. Yep, the names are self-fulfilling prophecies.
 * Don't think too hard about it.
 * Who sais they are given their names at birth? The parents coud wait a year or two and name the baby pony based on what they like, or how they act, or how they look, or a particular family tradition of names.
 * In Baby Cakes Mr. Cake introduces his newborn foals, Pound Cake Pumpkin Cake.
 * It's always been that way with a Meaningful Name. If they're given at birth and predict the character's future, they don't make sense (unless actual magical fortune telling is involved). They're just a joke that make for easy foreshadowing. And that's coming from a troper who usually hates handwaving something with "don't think too hard about it."
 * As for the magic thing, I always thought of it as how a musician knows music. Depending on what genre they play, and what instrument they use, there are some songs that they just know, but any good musician can pick up some sheet music and play along, no matter what the song is(well, any musician who's actually been trained. There are plenty of talented musicians out there who can't read music). So, most unicorns only ever learn and memorize the spells they use consistently, but those with magical training can cast from a book. Twilight's just good at memorizing and casting spells.
 * There's a Darths and Droids-style comic out there that actually has a pretty good theory on this one; namely, that the cutie mark isn't nearly that narrow. The person playing Applejack mentions that hers doesn't just signify knowledge of raising and harvesting apples; it's also finances, delegation, physical labor, basically, it signifies that she's naturally good at everything involved in running Sweet Apple Acres. So basically, you have the main talent which is the obvious answer which would get you the buzzer on QI, and then you also have a whole host of Required Secondary Powers which go along with that.
 * I think you're talking abut this comic here: http://friendshipisdragons.thecomicseries.com/comics/1/
 * Your inverting the causality with "Cutie marks limit a pony". getting a Cutie mark does NOT place any lmits on a pony, not all people can be star athletes, or rocket scientists, or singers. It's no differnt with ponies. Everyone and everypony has things they are naturally good at, and things they are just bad at, none of thse are determined by there cutie mark, rather these inborn traits are what determine what there cutie mark is. And keep in mind, geting a Cutie mark is not just about finding what you good at, but also what you ENJOY doing, what you want to do with your life.


 * What happens to a pony who doesn't like his/her cutie mark? Or despises their special talent? For example, say a pegasus gets a cutie mark that means that she's really good at manipulating the weather. However, she doesn't like doing it, and far prefers to be a gardener. Or an earth pony who has a cutie mark saying he should be a fighter, but he's a diehard pacifist. What happens then?
 * I think the cutie marks, and by extension special talents, have a magical aspect to them. A pony's special talent is always something the pony is both good at, and enjoys doing. Getting the cutie mark in the first place requires the pony to find what they enjoy and are good at, and realize that that's what they want to do. A filly can do whatever it is that's his/her special talent all day and night long, but won't get a cutie mark until he/she realizes that's their special talent.
 * Add in that getting a cutie mark actually seems to be a fairly complicated process -- a defining personality trait, a special skill, a love for said skill, and they've all got to accentuate each other. It really is about finding who you really are, not finding out you're good at fighting/baking/hammering nails/etc.
 * There's still a variety of ways a pony could utilize her talents. If the weather talent pony wanted to be a gardener, her abilities could help her out a lot. And many cutie marks are fairly generic or abstract enough to represent a bunch of things. Applejack's is a simple trio of apples, gained when she realized where she belonged - but not only does she perform the daily tasks of running an apple farm, she also makes and markets delicious apple-based treats.
 * While there's nothing supporting it, I like the idea that a pony's cutie mark could change given some kind of major event that would change anyone's personality in such a situation. A few days ago an Equestria WW 2 scenario came to mind, with the idea of the intense homogenization and conformity of the nazis actually changing the cutie marks of most, if not all, of the nazi-ponies. Again, nothing to back it up, just an interesting thought.


 * Another thing: Celestia is humongous. Her horn is long, striated, and sharpened, and her proportions are very different from the other ponies'. In fact, she looks like a full-grown horse. Well, a horse with wings and a horn; a winged unicorn.
 * Well, she is pretty much a goddess. They tend to be pretty big.
 * She may also be able to shapeshift, since being a goddess and all, and just chose that shape as the form best suited for her.
 * Dunno about Celestia, but Luna can definitely shapeshift with little to no difficulty. So Celestia probably can too.
 * She is Large and In Charge. Presumably, she's using the same kind of enchantment Luna used to become Nightmare Moon, except without all the evil.
 * By that logic though that would technically make everypony in Equestria a Miohippus and they basically accelerated evolution using magic for their own means.
 * It's magic. I ain't gotta explain shit.
 * Fun fact: based on the size of other animals, fans guess that ponies are about three and a half feet high -- a typical size for real-world ponies. Celestia is about twice that size, meaning she would be classified as a horse in our world. You know, outside of the wings and horn.
 * Keep in mind that while Celestia may be as tall as a real-world horse, she is also shorter in length and much more slender. If the princess represents a throwback to an older breed of pony, then it may be the case that pony evolution selected for being less massive as an advantage first, then being shorter in height became the norm later.
 * Word of God has it that Celestia is supposed to encompass traits of all three races. Since Earth Ponies are basically pegasi without wings/unicorns without horns, but have the advantage of better physical strength, this can be said to be embodied by her larger size.
 * Word of God said Earth Ponies have passive magic, like how pegasi can walk on clouds.
 * Exactly what magic do they have?
 * Earth ponies have a deeper connection to the land and animals. Earth ponies are responsible for growing plants and taking care of animals. So Fluttershy is kinda-of a weirdo, since she's a pegasus with earth pony abilities.
 * Also earth pony traits, as she prefers staying near the ground instead of the skies like all the others. Not to mention how she's relatively bad at flying and her wings lock when scared.
 * Possibly related to the fact that early in the development process Fluttershy was an Earth Pony?
 * This might not be likely, but I love the idea of Celestia and Luna having the typical Earth Pony strength!


 * So Spike eats Grass and Gemstones. Is he herbivore, omnivore, um...mineravore? Dragons are stereotypically carnivores, but since animals don't seem to be eaten by the main cast (Well, the ponies have excuses; they're herbivores, after all), do you think he would eat a steak if one was presented to him?
 * He prefer gems or any stuff what normal creature can't eat.
 * We can't even be sure if the mature dragons we've seen so far are carnivores. After all, the one in Dragonshy didn't seem like he wanted to eat the ponies, and only attacked them because Rainbow Dash attacked him first, and the second one was mad at Spike for eating his gems.
 * He's an Extreme Omnivore. Not actually that unusual. Dungeons and Dragons have them able to eat practically anything, just like Spike.
 * The term you're looking for with the eating of gemstones is Lithovore.


 * Does it bother anyone else that the entire environment is basically dependent on the work of ponies? We see it in Winter Wrap-Up, Fall Weather Friends and Sonic Rainboom. Also the fores outside of ponyville is mentioned as a place where everthing works out by itself, "How Unnatural!"
 * It's a little unsettling, but also seems to be (on the whole) the natural order of things in the pony world. So no, not too much.
 * It's a good way to show that these Ponies, while magical, need this magic to put to good use. It's also a tongue-in-cheek joke about how characters that spent their whole lives in a Sugar Bowl enviroment may react to one that's decidedly not. It's the same kind of reaction that a kid who grew up in an urban city, like New York, might have if he or she was suddenly placed somewhere without electricity or internet access, like say a rural village in Mongolia.
 * Also, it's a Rule of Funny Lampshade Hanging joke, much the same as the one in Avatar: The Last Airbender in which a normal bear (not a "Something-Else-Bear") causes the cast to remark, "This place is weird." If it really bugs you, just figure that whoever set the world up (Celestia + Luna maybe?) magically arranged for ponies to have to take care of their own parts of it manually in order to give them a closer connection to the environment, so they don't do things like have industrial revolutions that cover the world in pollution. But parts of the world where ponies (or other organized sophonts) don't live have to be able to take care of themselves or they'll become barren wastes and leave the rest of the world unviable.
 * In the Everfree Forest, it's said (by the ponies) that "the plants grow, animals care for themselves, and the clouds move... ALL ON THEIR OWN!!!" (cue Rarity fainting at the thought). So yeah, what's normal to US is weird to THEM. Been that way within pony population.
 * What bothers me about "Winter Wrap Up" is the fact that the ponies apparently have to clear the snow manually. If the pegasi are clearing the clouds away from the sun, wouldn't the snow just melt? Does the sun give off any heat at all? Do Earth's laws of thermodynamics even apply in Equestria? And what about animals that live in places other than Ponyville or the Everfree Forest? What about them? Do they just take care of themselves too? Though this could very well be Fridge Brilliance in that ths show is aimed at young girls, despite the gargantuan Periphery Demographic, and young children are unlikely to be aware of anywhere that isn't their home state/country, unless his/her parents move frequently.
 * The sun would melt the snow, as Fluttershy is worried that if they melt the snow too fast, it'll flood the animal burrows. The issue is just that flooding. They clear the snow and move it some place that will be safe to melt, so their fields and homes aren't flooded. And most areas in Equestria have some ponies (or at least something like ponies) to look after it. Or there might be some other 'unnatural' areas like the Everfree Forest.
 * Knowing now that Discord ruled before the winged unicorn sisters puts this in a new light; in a world Discord had ruled, they put a sensical nature together… manually. The Everfree Forest, and presumably similar areas, had to fend for themselves, and fell into a pattern weirdly like the OOC world for OOC reasons.
 * I personally think it's less that they run everything then that they nudge parts of it to their own ends. Frankly the population clearly just isn't large enough to manage all aspects of nature even if they dedicated there entire lives to the task (they clearly don't). Once you accept that and stop to think a bit allot of what they do isn't really different that what we do just with magic instead of tech. We plow away snow even though it would melt on it's own, we have people whose entire job is watching the woods to make sure the ecosystem is 'in balance' (according to us), and we modify the weather as much as we're able with things like air conditioning, green houses, etc. Instead it's not so much being maintained as co-opted and managed by them for their own use. It has however been like this for a very long time now though and is considered the norm, and thus ironically raw unconstrained nature is now considered 'unnatural'. Kind of puts a new spin on things when you pause to think about it. The ponies have effectively conquered their environment as we have only utilizing magic instead of technology, but to the same ends more or less. They just try to spin it with more mysticism and new age philosophy, but funny how their are no large predators roaming around, the weather it controlled to be best for them, and areas outside pony influence are consider strange and wild.


 * Princess Celestia is... interesting. If she's the ruler, why is she princess and not queen? What happened to her sister after the second episode? Surely she would be around some of the time, right? Maybe she was disappeared. If Celestia was the original wielder of the Elements of Harmony, how could she have forgotten about such an elementary and simple thing as friendship?
 * She's a princess because
 * Equestria is a principality.
 * She's doesn't have absolute authority, since her sister is her equal.
 * Executive Meddling. According to Word of God, kids associate Queens with 'evil' and Princesses with 'good' (thanks a f'in lot Disney), so that's the reason for her title.
 * Maybe Equestrian law says your title is Princess unless you are married. And seeing as how there aren't exactly any male ponies long lived enough to marry either Luna or Celestia... Granted that theory is firmly in Epileptic Trees territory.
 * Going in a different direction the above, maybe Equestrian Law explicitly states that a Queen is the consort of a King and unknowingly made no provision for any Female Regents, hence legally speaking she could only ever be a Princess and never bother to change the law.
 * Luna is probably off doing other stuff. She doesn't have the personal relation that brings Celestia to Ponyville all the time.
 * Also, remember that while Twilight and the group know that Luna is actually not truly evil, most of the world does not and still fears The Mare in the Moon. Were Luna to take a visible and active role in governance, there would likely be a huge public backlash.
 * Luna was trapped for 1000 years, not something you get over quickly. She's probably still resenting Celestia and said "hey, you've been taking care of Equestria without my help for a thousand years, I'm sure you don't need it now, and everypony loves you more than me. So I'll sit back and raise the moon, while you do all that other stuff."
 * She rules only over night, so she's probably nocturnal. We see Celestia more often because she's active during the day. Even with the bits of night we have seen like Look Before You Sleep, the other factors (anti-social, business, storms) gave her no reason to drop in and say hi.
 * Apparently confirmed by "A Canterlot Wedding", where Luna's only two appearances coincide with nightfall -- once to explicitly relieve Celestia, once near the end to ask whether she's missed anything. Where she spent that day is technically anyone's guess, but the implication that she simply slept through everything that happened (Changeling invasion and all) is definitely there.
 * As for why the Princess didn't just use the Elements of Harmony herself this time, that's currently WMG territory, Celestia might not be able to use them anymore or she might just be a jerk.
 * It's possible that she couldn't use them premptively while Luna was still banished, and as soon as Luna returned, Celestia vanished, hence the Batman Gambit.
 * I am almost certain that even if Princess Celestia didn't vanish as soon as Nightmare Moon escaped, it doesn't matter, because I'm also almost certain she's no longer able to use the Elements of Harmony. While death is never mentioned (although risk-of-death is often implied), the fact that there are aged ponies such as Granny Smith implies that ponies do age, and thus they likely die. Princess Celestia is likely unable to sustain true friendship with people she knows she will have to watch grow old and die. Even if she can, it's likely the emotional trauma of having to banish and imprison her own sister - or the mystic symbolism of the act itself - has robbed her of either the ability or fortitude to use them.
 * The first time around, Celestia was only able to imprison Nightmare Moon. Twilight's crew was able to cure her. Perhaps dividing the elements between six ponies with "focused" personalities created a stronger (or purer) effect than a single user, no matter how powerful her magic was.
 * Perhaps this was a security feature? If there were six magical rocks that could literally banish a goddess, then the ability to only be used by someone of a very strong personality trait relating to that element would mean that it would be exceedingly difficult for someone to use more than one (as Celestia did in the prologue). You would have to find six separate ponies to wield it. Much safer and more secure.
 * Maybe she couldn't get them to work properly because she was pointing them at her best friend.
 * Perhaps she didn't use the Elements of Harmony alone, after a thousand years a story will be very different than what really happened. Perhaps she assembled a group of friends and asked them to banish Nightmare Moon for her, 'using' the Elements of Harmony that way.


 * Not to mention that the book on the Elements of Harmony said that only five of the six were known, so it may have something to do with using the full set rather than only using five out of the six.
 * Celestia had to know what the sixth was. She deliberately guided Twilight to figure it out for herself! It seems clear from "Cutie Mark Chronicles" that she knew exactly what Twilight was when she took her on as her personal student.
 * What ever happened to her parents, then?

Equestria's sun and moon are presumably asteroid-sized magical artifacts, one for providing warmth and light, the other for turning the tides and marking the turn of the months and seasons. Secondly, and I think more importantly, the guards may be just a peacekeeping force, keeping order wherever she travels and ensuring she wouldn't be pestered by anyone who'd just like to walk up and have a chat with the goddess or complain about the day being too hot. And even in cases of malicious intent, public showcases of frying people alive would probably cause quite a dissent among her subjects, who might get some ideas about Lunar Republic or something like that.
 * Why does Celestia need guards? Or fly in a chariot? Or put the future of the world several times in the hands of the core cast? Besides the prophecy, there doesn't seems to be a reason beyond allowing for the plot. I mean, She is a goddess who can literally manipulate stars, planets, and alter reality at her will and so many parts in the show (and so many of the fanfics) tend to give her title of "princess" more weight that should be logical, even by the setting. While it's nice to see subverted for once the cliche of a princess with One-Hour Work Week and she tends to be very humble and easy going, people and pony alike seems to forget that she not only possesses eons of wisdom, but more power in her hoof that all the unicorns and dragons in Equestria combined.
 * Who says she IS strong? She can handle the Sun, but maybe that's it. It's the same reason a king has an army of knights. She raises the Sun, which is important, but she's no fighter. Being able to handle politics, raise the Sun, and generally keep things cozy does not mean Celestia can knock out Nightmare Moon or get rid of the likes of a Hydra. Fact of the matter is that Celestia is the queen, title be damned, and the mane cast are her knights.
 * It's unlikely that the princesses are limited to only their celestial function. Nightmare Moon displays a broad range of powers -- transformation, illusion, teleportation, heavy-duty kinesis, lightning bolts, weather control... there's no reason to think Celestia doesn't possess an equally broad range of powers. Anyway, she'd make a pretty lousy teacher for Twilight if she couldn't work just as many kinds of magic.
 * A lot of what Nightmare Moon does can be traced back to things that myth attributes to the moon and night. Transformation falls under lycanthropy and/or the ability to transform attributed to night creatures such as vampires. The illusions can be attributed to lunacy, the moon's ability to play with the brain. It could also be shadows playing tricks with one's eyes. The teleportation might be able to be explained as fading into darkness-type connection. The kinesis is an ability of unicorns, and weather control (including lightning bolts to an extent) are abilities of pegasi. Building on that, it would be reasonable to assume that the core, if not the majority, of Celestia's power set would be related to the sun and the day. Light, heat, fertility, growth, casting away of illusions, instant destruction of 'unholy' creatures, stuff like that on top of whatever she gets for being a pegasus and a unicorn. I can imagine her combat strategy involving setting opponents on fire with heat before shooting lasers at them.
 * Yeah... but since she can move the sun, she must have some Titanic pools of magic, not to mention that she is a Millenary old sorceress if you want to go down in the "not-god" camp. That alone would make her a fearsome adversary, regardless of how much a "pacifist" she may be. Also a God. Take for example Twilight, who have a ridiculous minimal fraction of magical pools and nothing of knowledge compared to her and what she can do. Also, raising the sun is not important, is bloody beyond absolute for the continuation of Life in all of Equestria. As put in "Time and Terror", a being that can stop the rotation of a planet (or a star) with a thought must have some serious power.
 * A thought is probably stretching it. Moving the Sun probably takes more effort than every other pony besides Luna could muster combined, but again, Celestia might be a (pardon the expression) one trick pony in that regard. A man who knows the ins and outs of law and how to apply those is a powerful lawyer, but he's still junk in a fight unless he knows how to fight as a separate skill. Law and fighting aren't the same thing, so neither are raising the Sun and fighting.
 * About the retinue; she doesn't NEED the guards or the charioteers. They're simply part of the princess package. They're probably volunteers from a populace that takes her role more seriously then she herself does.
 * Celestia fighting her own battles is an incredibly bad idea. If there is even a slight chance she will be injured or incapacitated, you risk losing the one pony who can raise the sun in the morning.
 * Well Celestia's Cutie Mark IS the Sun...
 * Nightmare Moon would seem to contradict that supposition.
 * The guards and the chariot are probably partly for appearance, but they also serve a practical purpose. The chariot makes it so that Celestia doesn't have to tire herself out going places. The guards though are highly important. Celestia might be a goddess, or at least a god-like entity, she probably still can be injured or even killed. With her powers, she probably could handle a lone assailant easily by herself, but a coordinated group could pose a problem. She might be able to take out the first, the second, and if she's fast enough, maybe the third attacker, but any more than that in a well coordinated attack, and she could be in trouble. In case of an attack, the guard can take up positions and deal with any attacks to Celestia's flanks or rear, and also prevent assailants from getting to close to her front either if there is enough guards to cover.
 * Once again, a God. People attacking a god don't tend to last very long, regardless of numbers. If that is the matter, I prefer the fan theory that she had guards because Celestia fighting is very bad news. As in miles radius colateral damage bad news. I mean, lets say she is one trick ponie. Sure, that means she had absolute control of a 1.9891×10(30) kg/ near infinite source of power. She could command a pinpoint Solar flare to kill the fuck out of her enemies if necessary, but that would be kind of bad for Equestria. It could be that the Guards act as a power limiter, because there is always an Idiot who would try. For this troper, is because Celestia want to stay close to her little ponies, so she follows the charade of nobility (Reason why she is a Princess-a power to be- instead of a Queen -an absolute power that is-) for this allow her subdites to approach her in a more personal manner instead of worship her blindy (which she seems unconfortable) and by "limiting" her power and reach, force her little ponies to be more independent and responsable, instead of only asking her to solver her problems while making sure to be at hand and influence when things go south.
 * Celestia has the cosmic level power to move entire planets. Unicorns are shown to have serious transformational magic and telekinesis. Pegasi are shown to be able to control atmospheric conditions, inertia, and possibly gravity. Celestia and Luna have that times a factor of 1000+ since they can both control the orbit and rotation of the planet while making sure nothing flies off if they stop it from turning. If Celestia decides to battle a regular pony assassin, it would be like trying to swat a fly with an entire nuclear arsenal. Even if she could limit her powers to prevent multiple extinction level events, she has the option of banishing them out of orbit or popping them like a blood-filled soap bubble. Niether are great to subdue the assialent and interregate them as to their reasons/who sent them.
 * Celestia does not appear to be omniscient. And as stated above, it's probably safe to assume Celestia has at least a similar breadth of powers to that of Nightmare Moon, just with the sun and day as opposed to the moon and night. So Celestia should be able to fight without reducing the entire landscape around her to charred ash, if she has to. If the attack is taking place somewhere that Celestia would be hesitant to turn into a pile of cinders, all one would need is enough attackers in front to keep her busy while the other attackers go for her flanks and rear. The guard would be able to block any attacks to her flanks or rear, allowing Celestia to focus on the bulk of the attackers. Though limiting herself for various reasons, such as capturing the attackers, allowing her to stay close to her ponies, and pushing the ponies to not be dependent on her are all valid reasons as well.
 * Observation and deduction time: The world of Equestria is self-evidently Geocentric, and the fact that the moon and sun have to be raised DAILY, rather than simply left to orbit... and that they can be stopped dead in their tracks without catastrophic environmental consequences (such as the Sun and Moon 'falling out of the sky')... implies it's a flat world as well, a la Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Which means both the Sun and Moon are far smaller than our own. It's still impressive power to raise them, but it's far less so than hoisting a planetoid or a G-class star around. In fact both the Equestrian Sun and Moon are probably FAR smaller than even our Moon, as they are apparently far closer (given the "Icarus" style incident in "Sonic Rainboom".) Twilight's references to astronomy also imply that anything past the solar/lunar orbit is pretty much identical to real-world outer space.... so we can assume Celestia's control only extends to Equestria's Sun, and Luna's to Equestria's Moon. Otherwise Luna would essentially be hefting around BILLIONS of suns... bit of a power overkill for a world based on the pre-medieval Flat Earth model.
 * Chancellor Puddinghead: "I got a newsflash for you, Cookie. The Earth is round. There is no up or down." Also, if the Earth were flat, why would Twilight Sparkle own a globe?
 * Would that be Chancellor Puddinghead as played by Pinkie Pie? That theory might be better taken with a grain of salt... As for the globe, I got nothing, but it's interesting to note that Celestia and Luna are by all appearances in charge of "the day" and "the night" respectively -- not just "the day/night over Equestria". As real life demonstrates, having it be the same time of day all over the world is actually kind of hard when said world is round.
 * I think there are at least two reasons for Celestia to have guards, even if she is godly powerful. Firstly, as stated above, she is not omniscient. Even if attackers wouldn't stand any chance in open combat, she could still possibly be assassinated, even in her sleep.
 * At what point is Celestia shown to be a god? Gods are generally all-powerful beings who know all and see all. That means Celestia would know everything that was happening at once (which we have seen in-series she doesn't). She might have immense power (and a LONG lifespan), but we haven't seen her do anything with it other than raise the sun once (which in this series might not be so behond mortal ponies as we think). Until we see Celestia do more god-like things I say we should keep the jury out.
 * Abrahamic God is generally an all-powerful being who knows-all and sees all. This was not a rule in polytheistic pantheons Celestia seems to have more in common with. She and her sister seem to be inherently tied with forces of nature, and making the sun rise is what generally constitutes a sun god. And she's been doing it for at least thousand years, not once. Saying that mortal ponies could perhaps do it do is so far pure WMG. Of course, you could argue that she's really a powerful lich and the official history lies, but that's fanfic territory.
 * Short answer: Celestia is never stated to actually be a god/dess in canon. This could be because the idea never even entered the minds of the show's creators, or to placate the Media Watchdogs...or simply because she was genuinely never supposed to be. Barring Word of God, it's anyone's guess.
 * Either (a) Celestia is less powerful than you originally assumed, perhaps because her powers are sun-specific etc., or (b) Celestia really is super-powerful, but she lets the mane cast have adventures on her behalf anyway so they can learn lessons about friendship etc., and thus if there were any real danger Celestia would just teleport in and fix everything immediately.
 * I think the answer is somewhere in-between. Celestia very well might be incredible powerful, but her general power-set is limited to things that can be attributed to the Sun and day, like Nightmare Moon's (and presumably Luna's by extension) general power-set was mostly things that could be attributed to ancient myths about the moon and night. And also, while she might be incredibly powerful, she's just one pony. She can't be everywhere at once. During 'Dragonshy' Celestia probably sent Twilight and her friends to handle it for two reasons: 1) Twilight and friends were closer to the mountain where the dragon slept and therefor would (in theory) be able to resolve the situation more quickly. 2) It's doubtful that Fluttershy was the only pony in Equestria to notice the smoke and think a massive wildfire, so Celestia would have to move quickly to prevent wide-spread panic.
 * "A Canterlot Wedding" suggests that she may indeed not be as super-duper-powerful as frequently assumed before. She never seems to see through 's disguise until the latter drops it on own and then loses the fight against  (though it's close). She also never whips out any devastating combat spells (not even magical bolts as used by Twilight in the same episode), simply engaging in a Beam-O-War straight away.
 * One very real possibility: The guards aren't for HER. They're to get everyone else out of the way when she stars throwing around her Celestial Princess magic at the dragon or whatever else she's fighting, or to handle crowd control (like at the Cake's party), or so on. She's powerful but can't do everything at once. Heck, it could even be seen as a favor to anyone who attacks her, better guards than being hit by magic of that level, right? As for chariots, she does need to sleep too, so becoming tired is possible, hence rides, even though she can do without.
 * It creates jobs.
 * Here's a thought: Perhaps the guards aren't there primarily for the benefit of either Celestia or the populace, but for the guards themselves! Say the guards are ponies with special talents that really only lend themselves to destruction and combat, who wouldn't normally have a place in pony society. So Celestia announces the formation of her very prestigious elite guards, segregating the ponies with dangerous powers from the herd in such a way that they see it as an honor. Instead of being ostracized, they're respected and admired; by the time their terms of service are up, military discipline and maturity have curbed any malicious impulses they might have otherwise been inclined to, and they can safely reintegrate with society. Bonus WMG: Their armor is designed to cover their flanks not because it offers physical protection, but to hide their Cutie Marks, which run towards imagery of violence and death.


 * What order are the colors on Rainbow Dash's mane? I get that the colors on top are red, orange, and yellow (in that order), but which side is which on? Sometimes she'll turn her head and the colors will be reversed (which makes sense, if the colors on her head are horizontal), but other times she'll turn her head and the colors remain in place. In fact, this argument applies to a lot of the ponies. Pinkie Pie and Applejack are the only ones whose hair is symmetrical, and it's a pain watching hairstyles change between scenes.
 * It's just easier to animate that way. Pure and simple. The show may be excellent but they also do everything in their power to save money, including palette-swapping dragons, slapping wings on Doctor Whoof and using the Salty Saloon patron as Pinkie Pie's dad later on etc. So the lack of symmetry as a cost saving measure isn't a stretch at all. But it's those little tiny bits that allow the crew to make so many detailed backgrounds and use so many different monsters so it's a little buggy, but it's worth it for what those few cents add up to.
 * The colors aren't on either side. The frontmost hank of her mane is red, with the other colors in order behind it down the length of her neck. The top three wind up laying side-by-side, but they can flop either direction. You can easily see the same mane structure on Rarity.
 * Her mane is typically laid out in a ROYGBIV format from top to bottom, like her tail. Occasionally the first three colors flip, either from animation errors or reasons detailed in the main page's Ambidextrous Sprite entry.


 * What does Fluttershy do for a living? Rarity has her boutique, Applejack runs family business, Pinkie works for Cakes, Twilight obviously does some sort of academic job, and Rainbow Dash is responsible for weather (plus in "Green Isn't Your Color" we see her doing some aerial advertising) But there's no hint about where Fluttershy gets her money from, and she doesn't seem to be poor since she owns a house, while Pinkie lives above Sugarcube Corner and Twilight still stays in the local library.
 * She's a veterinarian and animal tender. We've already been shown that Ponies are in charge of things wild animals were normally take care of themselves (food, migration...) so it's a perfectly acceptable civil service career like Rainbow Dash's weather duties.
 * She isn't Ponyville's veterinarian. Twilight takes Spike to the veterinarian in one episode, who is a different pony with a proper animal hospital, not a Crazy Cat Lady house like Fluttershy has.
 * Someone is probably paying her for her yearly bunny census, and likely for other field surveys.
 * Twilight Sparkle is a Grad Student, hence why she's Celestia's prized pupil. She spends most of her time studying.
 * Fluttershy also has several chickens, so she probably sells some of their eggs.
 * It might be worth noting that, though this misses the point of your question a bit, that the reason Twilight lives in the local library is because she wants to, not that she can't afford her own house. And Pinkie probably lives above Sugarcube Corner because...well, she's Pinkie.
 * Taking care of the woodland creatures is a valid job. Kind of like a forest warden.


 * Ever noticed how few male ponies there are? It's easy to miss. Go on, go look back through the first few episodes. The pegasi are the first men we see, and they don't say anything. They just chauffeur other ponies about. Unicorns like Twilight are given special social standing; look how free Twilight is to move about. (When not being ordered about by Celestia, of course.) There is a definite pattern of men being less obvious throughout the first few episodes, and they nearly always appear in roles involving manual labor. Of our main characters, we have two unicorns, who spend their time studying and crafting luxury goods, respectively; two pegasi, who have some duties about town like weather and animal control but are largely allowed to do as they like; and one regular pony, who has to spend all of her time maintaining her farm and working hard to keep her family business going.
 * You forgot about regular pony number 2: Pinkie Pie, who works at the shop of the Cakes. And you forgot about Applejack's brother who also works at the farm and does the same things as Applejack. I do not know what you're implying, but there are enough male ponies doing different stuff. They're just not main characters. There isn't anything 'sexist' about anything they do nor their amount. My Little Ponies have always been mostly female, due to it being aimed for girls.
 * What bugs me is that the most males we've seen in one place were during Winter Wrap-Up, doing the hard manual labor. Twilight appeared to be the only mare pushing a snowplow. On the other hoof, two of the three shown Wonderbolts are female (you can tell by the chin).
 * There are some mares doing snow shoveling during the song.
 * Maybe most of the males are just stronger. They didn't intend to go with some stereotype. If they did, all the Wonderbolts would be female, 'cus you know, the stereotype is that males are strong and females fast.
 * They're also not only strong but much stronger than horses in our world and probably stronger than male pegasi or unicorns. Remember that only four of them were pulling the train in Over a Barrel. The snowplows they were using probably couldn't be pulled by anyone else.
 * Of the six Wonderbolts that appeared in Sonic Rainboom, three were male. There may actually be as many as ten (five male, five female), as seen in the wide-angle shot when Soarin' approached the Gala VIP ballroom with his pie.
 * In natural populations of species that don't have sex determination locked in at birth, females are often more common, due to breeding constraints. Male and female populations are fairly equal in humans and horses alike because of Fisher's principle - basically, if the kids get equal genes from a female and a male, and the genes have to bet one way or the other at fertilization, then they'll pick male and female about equally. However, the pressures on horses are such that they would have a ratio like we see on-screen, with no bachelor herds, if not for using a birth-lock-in system. So maybe the ponies don't lock in a sex until it's clear who'd be in a herd with the ladies and who'd be in a bachelor herd? That would also explain why the males are usually so buff: if they aren't buff as babies, they won't turn out male. This requires that Snails's weediness came at a later age, though.
 * No, it's not easy to miss. Male ponies look so different that for someone watching the first few episodes, they stick out like a sore thumb. If the numbers were more even, that wouldn't happen.
 * In Gen 1 male ponies spent most of there time traveling around away from the population centers, maybe it works the same in Gen 4. The only time we've seen a lot of male ponies is during winter wrap up, but they would know to be home for the big labor like that.
 * There were also a bunch of them in that western town. Maybe even they get tired of cuteness and try to settle in less cute areas?
 * With the exeption of muzzle shape, a pony's gender can often be assumed by the way they're dressed or, in a lot of cases, even if they are. Males tend to wear vests or something similar on their "chest" area, females generally don't wear clothing unless they're being fancy.
 * Or, we're just used to seeing the same "club" of 6 ponies who just don't have any male friends. If you focused on filming 6 average not-quite-mature acting girls who were still in the stage of development where they weren't interested in boys other than a little distant crush (or, well, Sex and the City, but that might just be the same maturity level), guys would always be the background characters.
 * Referring to the above... it's Azupony Daioh!
 * There are actually quite a few male ponies. Look in the background of any large group scene and you'll see them. Not to mention, Hoity Toity is a male pony and definitely not doing manual labour, and a lot of the ponies in the Galloping Gala scene seem to be upper class male ponies. And in the Sonic Rainboom episode, there are quite a few male ponies working at the weather factory.
 * It rather seems like the animators use the generic female pony model as a default for random extras. For that reason, this can be easy to miss, as the female model comes to look like the standard, so that it makes you think "a pony" rather than "a female pony". Anyway, Faust has mentioned "there probably [not being] enough boys around to portray a realistic society" as one result of Executive Meddling.
 * Of course. Can you really tell if any of the characters are male unless they start talking with an obvious-male voice or are referenced to as "male"?
 * At a glance. The tells are eyelashes (males don't have 'em), angular muzzles, and a stockier build.


 * So, how old are the main ponies? And how do they get jobs? I know the young ponies go to school, but there seems to be a point where they're still teenage-ish and have jobs. With the exception of Twilight who is getting a higher education from the big cheese of Equestria herself.
 * Lauren has stated that she considers maturity level more than their physical age; she imagines they're all around 12-17, and says that they're all able to be independent because of the whole thing with horses aging differently than humans.
 * Then in another comment, she described them as young adults, but on a mental level of 12-17 year olds, also referring to horses reaching physical maturity at young age.
 * At least we know that Fluttershy is one year older than Pinkie Pie. This was stated in-show by Fluttershy herself in the latter half of "Griffon The Brush-Off".
 * They're college age at least. Twilight Sparkle is a grad student and the rest of the ponies have jobs. I'm sure Lauren left their age deliberately ambiguous so they're easier to relate to, but that's my theory.
 * The ambiguity was probably very wise. TV Execs don't seem to understand that kids don't want to see shows about kids their own age; they want to watch shows about characters several years older than themselves, who they can look up to and emulate. By leaving their ages ambiguous, the ponies can seem "older" than the target audience while leaving enough doubt to avoid Executive Meddling.
 * Vague Age.
 * Rarity's parents are shown in episode 31 (2.5) and they live somewhere else so that seems to confirm that they are young adults. Probably something along the lines of early 20s. Though the actual number of years is a mystery.


 * Wait a minute, Spike is a baby dragon and also what looks like Twilight Sparkle's unpaid servant... Ponies enslave the infants of other species?
 * "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" showed that Spike was hatched by Twilight, meaning the egg was no doubt donated by some dragons to the princess, and as shown in "Owl's Well That Ends Well" he's perfectly happy with his job and could probably quit anytime he wants, he just dosen't want to.
 * Besides, just where the hell would he go anyway? Spike's a little kid and can't provide for himself yet. A lot of the chores and jobs he performs are also teaching him how to take care of himself.
 * Twilight takes good care of Spike, giving him a home, a warm bed, and generally looking after his well-being. Even if he isn't technically paid for his services, it's not like she works him ragged and then chucks him out at the end of the day.
 * It's not slavery, it's more like a kid having chores to do within his family. In this case, Twilight is Spike's family.
 * The show actually seems to imply that dragons are animals. Sapient, talking animals, but still animals none the less. Which given that Twilight is essentially a wizard, that would make Spike her familar, more than a simple pet and maybe even considered an equal by some.
 * As for the use of the term "slavery," implying that Spike is being forced to work for Twilight against his will, do you recall what happened when Twilight thought Spike might have been working too hard and had Owloysius help her out? Spike went full on Dastardly Whiplash in an attempt to remove what he perceived to be the usurper of his job and his alone. Unless one thinks this is just a weird case of Stockholm Syndrome on Spike's part or something.


 * How is there such a big fashion industry in Equestria when ponies rarely wear clothes?
 * Simple really: Celebronies. The fact is everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, a celebrity wears has some sort of designer, not to mention the fashion industry people themsleves. It's just not as important, Rarity aside, to the ponies of ponyville because they don't really need fancy clothes. Every fashion expert we've seen so far has come from Canterlot, which probably has more celebrities and nobles that would acutally need clothes and is probably the center of the equestrian fashion industry. The richer clientele makes the fashion industry even more important, as the ponies who are good at it can become rich beyond their wildest dreams.
 * In the real world, people rarely wear formal clothes, yet several designers and companies make considerable money by exclusively designing and manufacturing formalwear. Rarity's designs seem to be almost entirely formal outfits, and most ponies do wear some sort of clothing to formal events, so Rarity and the like are in a similar position to formalwear designers.
 * Also, we're mostly limited to Ponyville for our sample which is a suburban city at the most. Most people are going to be blue collar (bakers, farmers, etc) rather than white (librarians) so the relative value of having clothes is probably lower since they've all got 'dirty' jobs where a uniform is more important (aprons for protection, plow harnesses, etc) and it's something they do daily. When we see higher class situations, they do wear clothing or accessories.
 * Keep in mind that Equestria is pretty explicitly a monarchical system with a nobility class. That alone ensures that there will always be a market for formalwear.


 * Do Little Ponies graze? I don't think we've ever seen them munching grass straight off the ground in the show, though they have been known to order flower sandwiches.
 * Maybe eating grass straight from the ground is to civilized ponies like eating raw unprocessed meat to us?
 * More like eating unwashed, sometimes-bug-carcass-filled berries right from the bushes.
 * Clearly the above troper needs to find better bushes, because berrying is mostly glorious.
 * It's probably a matter of taste. Sure, grass will WORK, but prepared food just tastes better.
 * It's mentioned more than once that they eat hay. They probably do graze offscreen.
 * Spike did order "hay fries" at a restaurant in "The Ticket Master". As far as we can tell, they eat in a human fashion, but without meat and with more things a horse would eat.


 * A question I've had for a while is this. How do pony genetics work? Like, if an earth pony and a pegasus had a foal, would the foal be a pegasus? An earth pony? Either one? Maybe a very buff pegasus or a very light earth pony?
 * Mrs. Faust's response on her DA profile was something like "I don't see a reason why they couldn't mix it up", so probably being an earth pony, pegasus or unicorn is something like eye color or hair color, where you inherit it from one of your parents - some creative Deviant even came up with a whole chart for that: Here.
 * It's possible that being an Earth Pony, Pegasus, or Unicorn works more like skin colour, where more than one pair of alleles determine the type of pony. For example, suppose there are three pairs of alleles and if two out of three of them says Earth Pony, then the pony's an Earth Pony. So... going by the deviantart link above... Eu/EE/Up = Earth Pony. Up/Up/Pe = Unicorn. Up/PP/Pe = Pegasus. If there's an even split between all three pairs, however, then the pure pairs take priority: Eu/UU/Pe = Unicorn. If two out of three of them are pure pairs, then the recessive allele of the third pair determines the type: EE/UU/Pe = Earth Pony. That leaves out EE/UU/PP and Eu/Up/Pe = Alicorn. Pound Cake = Pe/Pe/EE and Pumpkin Cake = Up/UU/EE. Carrot Cake = Eu/Eu/EE and Cup Cake = Pe/Up/EE.
 * A more creative version I've heard was this: Two of a kind produces the same kind, any two different kinds will produce the third. SO unicorn + unicorn = baby unicorn, but unicorn + pegasus = earth pony, earth pony + unicorn = pegasus, and pegasus + earth pony = unicorn. Which is nifty, and would make for all sorts of interesting story possibilities, canon and Fanfic. (Derpy Hooves and Dinky, for instance...)
 * There's also a "mana level" hypothesis floating around - a lower-mana gestation produces an earth pony, the next step up a pegasus pony, the next a unicorn, and the highest (observed) unicornate pegasi, like Celestia and Luna.
 * "Baby Cakes" answers this one. If a pony has a certain pony race in their ancestry, their children can be of that race, even if neither of their parents is. So, for example, if a unicorn had a pegasus grandparent, and had a foal with another unicorn, the foal could be a pegasus or a unicorn. If the unicorn had a foal with an earth pony, the foal could be any of the three. This works even if the relative is distant (according to Mr. Cake, anyway).


 * Fridge Logic: Why is the literal fire-breathing dragon living in a wooden tree filled with flammable books? Do the ponies of Ponyville not have fire codes or something?
 * It's magic fire?
 * As mentioned above, said fire's dragon merely teleports paper material to the Princess. All that would happen is that princess Celestia would have to deal with a rain of books if Spike ever caught a cold. Or the hiccups.
 * "Over a Barrel" confirmed that Spike's fire is real fire. He roasts marshmallows. On a train.
 * How the heck did the books get there in the first place?! You can't write with hooves! You (presumably) can't build a printing press either!
 * They hold the writing implement in their mouths (earth ponies and pegasi) or use magic telekinesis (unicorns). Same way they do things like build buildings and such.
 * All ponies seem to have tactile telekineses via hooves and teeth. That lets them do things such as play stringed instruments or speak clearly while holding something in their mouth.
 * "Owl's Well that Ends Well" confirms that, yes, Spike's fire does indeed burn books. In fact, Spike's fire seems to act like regular fire except for Celestia's scrolls. That being the case, perhaps Celestia's scrolls have been enchanted in some way so that Spike's fire works differently when burned.
 * That might even be how Equestrian postage works in general: It's not the fire that's magic, but an enchantment placed on the paper which directs it to reappear in a certain location after being burned. Therefore not everypony who wants to send a letter needs a friendly dragon; a fireplace would do. Responses to Twilight Sparkle must appear in Spike's mouth because he's the designated "fireplace" for Twilight's address.
 * That episode also solved the question of how a dragon lives in a library though: when spike burned that book, he burned everything but the hardcover and EVERY book in ponyville has a hardcover . My guess is that even if spike had an accident, he'd only affect any books that were open, as it seems the hardcovers are fireproof.
 * The fire acted really weird on that book -- it didn't set anything on fire, it just obliterated a part instantly. And the damage wasn't just stopped by the covers, there were remains of pages left. I don't know how that's supposed to make sense, but if that's how it always works, there doesn't seem to be much of a threat of such fire causing a real fire in the library. It's a flash and it's over.


 * Why do ponies have curtains around their bathtubs? In the world where everyone walks naked for most of time bathing shouldn't be something extremely private as it is for us, we even see Twilight taking a bath in the presence of Pinkie.
 * In Get Fuzzy, Satchel explains that there's a difference between "regular" naked and "bathroom" naked. Why can't you respect their boundaries?
 * To stop water from getting all over the place? A lot of people have curtains around their bathtubs, but most will just lock the bathroom door instead.
 * This. Shower curtains exist to keep the spray inside the tub, not for privacy.
 * Perhaps when wet, the fur is not nearly as... modest? Though once again, twilight DID bathe with Pinkie in the room...
 * Maybe only some grooming activities are considered private, so it's okay for ponies to take a bath with someone else present as long as they leave out the scandalous parts. Like how a man will shave his beard in front of other people, but not... other areas.


 * Why does everyone always assume that most of the ponies are illiterate? It seems to be based entirely on the fact that everything is labeled with pictures rather than words, but given who the show is targeted at, it really isn't that surprising that they'd want the labels to be as simple as possible.
 * They are definitely not illiterate. In Swarm of the Century they write "Welcome Princess Celest" on a banner; writing too big aside, it's perfectly legible English.
 * It's probably also the fact that it's a bit difficult to imagine a thumbless quadruped like a pony manipulate something as small as a pencil with ease. Unicorns have it easy since they can use telekinesis to easily write, but Pegasi and Earth Ponies are virtually forced to use their mouths, which is kinda hard to do neatly.
 * Hard, but possible with enough practice. Evidence; Christy Brown. A man born with no control over any part of his body except his left foot, who became a author and painter. If that's possible, a pony can learn to manipulate a pencil with their mouth.
 * And valid in-universe. 'Call of the Cutie' has Applebloom using a pencil in her mouth to take notes in class.
 * Just because most ponies have physical trouble writing doesn't mean that they can't read; in Show Stoppers, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had no trouble reading the talent show poster.
 * Also, it makes it a lot easier for the show to be localized to different languages. Pictures don't need to be translated and replaced when the show is dubbed into French or German.


 * Ponies often have names that reflect their cutie marks, but they don't get their cutie marks till later in life. How do their parents know to give them such appropriate names?
 * Maybe the names themselves inspire the ponies to pursue those sorts of talents. For example (and this is conjecture): Diamond Tiara's parents named her that because it sounded fancy. When she was little she found out what a tiara is and decided to try wearing one simply because she felt intrigued about her namesake. Over the years that one experience led to her wearing tiaras more often than an average pony would, until she became so attached to them that it ended up as her cutie mark.
 * My theory on Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon is that their special talent is to be useless bitches.
 * There's a pony who's special talent is naming new foals, she's really good at it.
 * Elodin's a pony!
 * Of course! It all makes sense now!
 * Well the name "Pinkie Pie" isn't directly related to partying. And it's possible that some ponies adopt new names after they get their cutie marks, if their original name doesn't fit.


 * So, why are the Diamond Dogs humanoid (sort of) and Applejack's dog, Winona, more like a normal dog?
 * See Furry Confusion.


 * Why do the ponies sometimes wear saddles when no one ever rides them (with the exception of Spike riding Twilight, without a saddle)?
 * Fashion statement.
 * Well why would the saddles even exist to begin with, unless at some point in Equestria's history ponies were frequently ridden by someone? Doesn't seem incredibly likely to me.
 * It seems most likely that saddles are just worn like a human wears a jacket. It could also be used to help when there IS a rider, uncommon as it may be. Could also hook a saddlebag onto one.
 * They've been shown to carry packs by having a bag on each end of a strap that they place over their backs. Perhaps saddles were created as a more "deluxe" version of that strap, that can carry more bags?
 * In the "Winter Wrap-Up" episode, Twilight puts a saddle on before heading outside, indicating it's likely supposed to be the pony version of a sweater or something.


 * What's the deal with dragons and gems, anyway? Spike eats them like candy, while other (adult) dragons make nests out of them. A gem nest doesn't sound too comfy.
 * It has been mentioned that Spike, while still a baby dragon and thus his scales probably aren't fully developed, can have needles stuck in his back without any complaint. To a MUCH larger dragon with MUCH stronger scales, some somewhat prickly gems are probably more comfortable than you'd imagine.
 * Not to mention that a pile of gems large enough for an adult to lay on would conform itself to the shape of the sleeping dragon's body. Think of it as much lower-tech but much higher-expense memory foam for them.
 * And also if adult dragons eat gems as well, then it's an edible bed. Take a nice long nap, and when you wake up, breakfast!
 * Also adult dragons seem to have more than just gems in their hoards, the one in "Dragonshy" clearly had gold coins and other trinkets as well.
 * A lot of it is explained here. After all, Hasbro owns both My Little Pony and Dungeons and Dragons.


 * Derpy Hooves seems to be the same or similar age to the mane cast, but she (assuming fandom is correct) has a daughter? Just a nagging tidbit.
 * We never do see her as a foal, and the mane cast seem to be young adults. It's perfectly possible for her to be older than they are -- or just a young mother.
 * That bugs me too so I ignore this fanon.
 * In "The Cutie-Mark Chronicles," you can see her as an adult standing near young Twilight as Celestia raises the sun, so she's certainly old enough to have had a foal.
 * Few moments earlier we see many Derpys in scene, so it don't need to mean anything.
 * Everybody is Vague Age in the first place, so it's possible Derpy is older than the mane cast.
 * Example: the Mayor. Very likely older than the main cast, yet she has the same base body as they do.

It bugs me that Rainbow Dash's cutie mark-indicated purpose in life seems to be being an overly competitive racer/athlete with a superiority complex. And Episode 13 has her actually cheating at contests, until the very end when. What kind of lesson is she supposed to be teaching?
 * Which of the following is the odd one out?
 * 1) Making ponies smile
 * 2) Farming
 * 3) Caring for animals
 * 4) Fashion designing
 * 5) Being a show-off
 * Think of her as of a rock-star. Sure, her job is pretty much about showing off, but in a way that entertains the audience. Competitiveness is just a part of Dash's personality and her general tomboyish nature.
 * First of all, I don't think Rainbow Dash is meant to be a very good role model (apart from going for your dreams). Secondly her purpose in life is to be a professional flier and amaze people with her stunts (atleast that's what I took from it) much like in real life, after all the Wonderbolts do what she does, and we haven't seen their personalities enough to tell if any of them are arrogant as a certain rainbow-maned filly. I think that her flaws just show up more often than the others.
 * besides, it's not like Rainbow is a total {Jerkass}, she's always there for her friends when it really counts. I don't agree with her cheating either but I still consider her my favorite character because of her personality.
 * Pilots are famously a bit arrogant, so it's possible that Dash is kind of a good natured lampshading of this stereotype.
 * To be fair their Cutie Marks indicate the good and bad sides of quite of few of the cast. Twilight's indicates her pursuit of higher principles, but also her disengagement with the physical world around her. Rarity's her regality and pursuit of beauty, but also her greed. Pinky's her fun loving spirit, and superficiality and need for constant entertainment.
 * This. "Being a show-off" is only the negative side of Dash's talent; the positive side is "being adventurous".


 * Speaking about negative sides, where -is- Fluttershy's kindness? Because it really only seems to come out in kindness for animals - she flat out refuses to help her friends in other situations (like the dragon) because of either being scared or being too preoccupied with other things. She really seems quite selfish in many episodes.
 * Fluttershy's kindness is in her demeanor, her disposition, and in her reluctance to offend others. She initially refused to go with the rest of the Mane 6 in "Dragonshy" not only out of fear, but also because she didn't want to be an inconvenience; what use is a scared, timid pony going to be anyway? And indeed, Fluttershy was an inconvenience (a big one) for all but the very end of the trip.


 * As some things in the Ponyverse are stated and shown to work like in real life, how does Princess Celestia raise the sun and Luna the moon? is it more that they make the Earth rotate or something?
 * Considering that the weather is made by ponies, its entirely possible that Equestria is in a geocentric star system.
 * that is possible but the only way it would work is if the Ponyverse Earth was larger than its parent star.
 * Or if gravity works differently, on principle grounded in magical theory rather than particle physics.
 * gravity seems to work normally for things on Equestria(Rarity and Fluttershy falling from Cloudsdale). you may be right, I'm just a little unsure.
 * Pegasai seem to control inertia and the atmosphere (aerokinetic). The princesses seem to have that cranked up past 9000. So, they have either enough power to control the planet's spin and rotation while making sure the atmosphere doesn't fly off if they put on the brakes, or can control the sun's gravity and momentum enough to get it to orbit the planet. Fridge Logic then states that if it is the latter case and something happened to both the princesses at once, the sun and planet would slingshot away from each other... or possibly into each other.
 * Based on the fact that there are no winds or other weather phenomenon in Equestria that aren't created by ponies (with the exception of places like the Everfree Forest, but those places are considered unnatural in the pony-verse anyway) it can be assumed that the planet does not rotate. So that would mean that Celestia and Luna move the sun and the moon around the planet instead. And the opening of episode one states they use their unicorns powers to acomplish this. So it's either their natural spell (like Rarity's gem finding spell) or a superpowerful version of the telekinesis ability.
 * The simple explanation would of course be that there is no planet as such in the first place. Just as in the really old real life myths, Equestria's world could simply be flat with the sky as an actual physical dome above it that the various celestial objects move along. Celestia raising and lowering the sun each day would then not be so fundamentally different from, say, Helios driving his chariot across the sky. (The main spanner in the works here is Twilight Sparkle's description of comets in "Owl's Well That Ends Well", which is basically 100% accurate for real life and includes mention of their growing brighter as they approach the sun. This could, however, be explained away as a subtle case of Exact Words with a bit of a stretch -- that is, what Twilight left unsaid in that scene could potentially still allow for Equestrian "comets" to work rather differently from ours after all.)


 * How old is Spike meant to be? I can't tell by his voice, but it seems around the ten - eleven range. His behavior and relation to everyone is more of the seven - eight range though. Also, how quickly does he age?
 * He's as old as Twilight's entrance exam. That and age is massively subjective around creatures like dragons. They're supposed to be long lived, even neigh-immortal.
 * I meant if he were a human. What would his age be? In theory, he should be around the eight - ten year old age if Twilight was around ten or so.
 * I always assumed he must represent 12 or 13
 * That's too old in terms of voice, how he behaves, and how people treat him. On the same note, how old are the Fillies, if they were human? I'd say around 8 years old, maybe 9 or 10.
 * I always assumed the fillies to be in their early-to-mid teens, really, so ten to twelve years old would work for Spike.
 * I thought he was about five (in dragon years) at the youngest and the fillies were about 8-10... Early-to-mid teens sounds a bit old for how they act. Forget the "Cutie Mark = Puberty" theory for a while and look at how they actually act. Spike acts like he's around 5, albeit one whose very literate, maybe up to 8, and the CMC act like they're very small children, around the age of 8-10. I don't think any of the younger cast exceeds the age of ten. See, he acts like he's about 5 (The Ticket Master), but his voice isn't like a five year old boy. Why? All the gemstones he eats and the fire he breathes has to have some effect on his throat, even an inadvertent one. Much like if you do loads of talking, or eating too much sour candy, your voice goes spare because of how it acts to your throat. I think also it's pretty much impossible to discern how old Spike is, since he ages differently than the mane cast and humans. But I stand by my theory that he's roughly five years old.
 * When you consider not only Spike's voice and actions, but also his crush on Rarity, he's likely at least ten. However, considering he had trouble with spelling (or at least understanding) some (mildly) easy words, he's probably no older than twelve. The fillies themselves are pretty much confirmed to physically be at least 19, with their mental age around the early to mid-teen range. This would also explain how Spike can occasionally be the Only Sane Man; he's almost as old as the fillies' mentally are.


 * What did Lauren mean when she said Ditzy would be a part of the cast? Like, compared to who?
 * What was said is that Ditzy / Derpy would be a real character as opposed to an animation error and some deliberate callbacks to it later on. For all we know, she could have as much screentime as Daisy (one of the background ponies that panicked over the bunny stampede, and had her name mentioned once in the entire season), or all the way up to a semi-regular character like the CMC's.
 * From what I've heard, Ditzy/Derpy is going to be in every episode in Season 2, but as a "Where's Waldo"-type easter egg. That doesn't necessarily mean she won't have speaking parts and such though.
 * She'll actually have a voice this time. (But no telling on how many lines she'll actually get)
 * No she won't. Word of God (Jayson, not Lauren) said she'd still be voiceless. I think this is for the best.
 * As of The Last Roundup, yes she will.


 * Is it me or is this series more Retro Universe then the typical My Little Pony. The series has always mixed old and new, but this show is just all over the place. Medieval times, 1800s, early 1900s, modern day..
 * Since a lot of the work can be done by magical means, most areas in the world probably have no use for technology. Only towns with a low population of one of the kinds of ponies would need technology to supplement their need. Because the need for this is so low, there is no centralized production and every town has to make the tech for itself, resulting in different levels of technology per town. In addition, each town we've seen is rather passionate about their identity, which would probably explain the massive cultural differences. And if you want a more meta reason: the settings are designed to fit the story, not the other way around.

Spike might have learn that from history or fantasy books. Note, that he starts acting like this when he's lost in sort of power fantasies (rescuing Rarity/showing everyone around Canterlot). It may signify his subconscious detachment from the pony society (he's the only biped in Ponyville, so maybe he identifies with those horse-riding races?) and feeling of superiority, as a mighty dragon to-be.
 * How does Spike know so much about our horseman cliches, and why does he keep expecting them to apply around him? He kicks Twilight and quotes the Lone Ranger, he whips the gentleponies pulling the carriage taking the girls to the Gala while saying "hya!"... How do these "nonsapient ungulate" cliches exist in a world where the only ungulates are at the top of the cosmic hierarchy?
 * We could say "Rule of Funny" and leave it there, but it's actually interesting. The Diamond Dogs apparently have a notion of mounting and riding horses (they even put reins of sorts on the ponies, when they try to catch them), so maybe other, bipedal races use captive ponies as work force. Note, that because of apparent strength enchantment, those ponies may be even more suited to such role then real life horses.
 * I doubt the ponies would allow their kinsponies to be kept as slaves - beasts of burden or riding outside of Equestria are probably either non-sapient critters or paid for their trouble.
 * It is posible that there used to be slavery in Equestria long ago. Many things can remain within a culture long after the context for them has faded away. Also if lands beyond Celestia's control enslave ponies, there's probably not much they can do. Either they can try to convince said land to abolish slavery by either providing something in trade or bringing down a trade embargo (maybe even go so far as refuse to acknowledge that country politically) or declare open war. The diplomatic approach isn't guaranteed to work, especially if slavery is a deep-rooted part of that countries culture. And war wouldn't be a good answer, since Equestria already is a peaceful, harmonious land. Going to war would upset the average citizen, and the military will most likely be heavily atrophied after 1000 years of peace.
 * Ahem. "Suited for Success," the Letter to Celestia. Twilight uses the phrase "don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Ponder the implications of this idiom existing in the Equestrian lexicon for a moment.
 * Not to mention, in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", Applejack saying "I'm so hungry I could eat a-" before she was interrupted. The full saying, of course, being "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." Maybe there was an equivalent to the Donner Party in Equestria's history at some point?
 * Well, Hasbro owns Dungeons and Dragons, and IIRC, dragons there have a degree of genetic memory.
 * It's not just Spike. 'Bridle Gossip' has Applejack making a bit and reins for Rainbow Dash, then digging in with her heel in Rainbow's side to spur her on. Think about that.
 * 'The Best Night Ever' has Twilight turning mice into beast-of-burden horses, suggesting that real ones exist for her to have gotten the idea from.


 * One thing I've been wondering for awhile regarding cutie marks. Should a pony ever lose their fur, would their cutie mark still show on their skin?
 * Cutie marks are permanent, so they're probably tattooed on the ponies, too.
 * They don't seem to have very much fur anyway. The cutie mark likely grows from a similarly marked patch of skin.
 * According to "Ponyville Confidential" cutie marks are all on the fur. Somehow


 * So sometimes we see the ponies wearing shoes. Okay, fine. Buuut, sometimes they're wearing HUMAN shoes. Like, with the big space sticking out in front where the (human) feet go. Why would ponies make shoes like that for themselves? I imagine they wouldn't fit right, making it hard to move around in them.
 * A fashion statement that caught on? There are lots of "useless" things in our own fashion that have no real purpose, like high heels, shoulder pads, shoes with the front too large, some hats
 * But it doesn't make sense if the ponies are wearing shoes for active/practical/working purposes.


 * If all their diets are indeed completely vegetarian, why does Fluttershy keep chickens? The cows on Applejack's farm make sense because milk, but chickens don't provide any non-meat use.
 * Sure they do- eggs, necessary for the massive amounts of baked goods they eat.
 * But… eggs are meat?
 * Not really, except for stuff like Balut. The kind of eggs used for baked goods are unfertilized, with the stuff you eat being yolk and white, which is just the food for the chick that never was and the hydraulic padding.
 * Also, Pinkie Pie mentioned that ponies are vegetarians, not vegans. Some vegetarians eat eggs.
 * Eggs are often considered Vegetarian.
 * They probably also use the feathers to stuff pillows.


 * A better question is why do they keep pigs? RL racehorses eat eggs to build up muscle, so Little Ponies can eat them. (Rarity was shown making some for breakfast in Sisterhooves Social.) As mentioned above, the cows make sense for milk. The sheep could provide wool for blankets and boot lining as seen in Winter Wrap Up. Pigs are only good for meat.
 * I remember hearing in a Word of God that ponies really like truffles and that's how pigs earn their keep.
 * Possible Fridge Horror: Is it just me or do a lot of the books shown in the series look like they're bound in, well, leather?
 * And remember, not all quadrupeds in Equestria are sapient. So if they're in the "not sapient" category, pigs might well be kept as a sort of.... well, recycling equipment. You put garbage in one end, and get fertilizer at the other end. Whet the pig dies, you can make leather from it.
 * An even better question is, how can you keep cows as animals/slaves while acknowledging buffalo as a sapient species?
 * I like to think Equestria has a large Uplift Program. The cows are basically a pony client race (the cows are not quite ready for independence).
 * Didn't that same Word of God state that cows stayed in the farm and pretty much paid with milk?
 * In "A Friend In Deed", we see a cow on her way to Sugarcube Corner to buy oatmeal cookies, so cows are apparently integrated into pony society at least that much.


 * Is it just me or does Pinkie Pie have a lot of free time?
 * If you had Pinkie Pie for an employee, would you task her with something requiring a lot of care and attention? If she's going to wander off and stalk her friends to make sure they keep secrets anyway, you might as well give her a job that she can do when she isn't emerging from bowls of sponges with a fierce expression.
 * Perhaps the Cakes are aware of Pinkie's... episodes (assuming she'd had similar moments to Party of One in the past) and they give her a wide berth to do as she pleases to avoid causing any further damage.
 * It seems like the Cakes don't leave Pinkie alone in the bakery; the one time we know for certain the Cakes weren't in while Pinkie was baking, they had Applejack there babysitting her, and even then they seemed as much concerned by the fact that Pinkie was going to be alone with a pony who was visibly strung out from lack of sleep as by the fact of Applejack's visible strung-out-osity. Presumably, they endeavor not to leave Pinkie alone, so that in case of an episode, there's someone around to do damage control.
 * Bakers often work at night. So if Pinkie works a night shift, she would have the day free. That raises the question how much sleep Pinkie gets. But Pinkie being Pinkie...she doesn't need much sleep, she needs sugar.
 * Can any other equine animals other than ponies have cutie marks? Zecora the zebra looks like she has a cutie mark but it could be just a tattoo and a mule was briefly seen during a joke reference. What about other attributes such as wings or horns? Can you have a winged donkey, or a magical horned zebra?
 * I personally want goats with cutie marks, but they're not equin, so it's moot...
 * The mule seen in one of the episodes didn't have a cutie mark, but for all we knew it may have been a young mule, so who knows? An upcoming episode will feature a donkey, so we'll probably see if donkeys can get cutie marks or not. As for the horns and wings things... I haven't seen any reason to believe that there are unicorn donkeys. The unicorn and pegasus variants of ponies in the MLP franchise exist because they're just like alternate forms of horses. Had the franchise been named "My Little Donkey" and featured multi-colored donkeys, I doubt we'd see magical horned ones.
 * Neither Cranky Doodle Donkey nor Matilda have cutie marks, even though they're both clearly old enough to have gotten them if they were going to do so.
 * Why don't the ponies look like they don't have hooves. Zecora has them and I'm not too sure about some of the male ponies, since they could just be tufts of hair surrounding their feet. Is it really that hard not drawing some dark outline around their "toes"?
 * It's a stylistic choice that's been in the franchise since the first generation. Not out of laziness.
 * We all know Zecora is a zebra, presumably an adult. Then how come she's pony sized? Zebras in the real world are about horse sized, while Zecora is hardly larger than the mane cast. Is there a reason for her shortness, other than to preserve the cutesy look of the series?
 * But the mane cast (and Zecora) aren't small compared to adult characters. Everyone is about the same size except for the princesses.
 * The mane 6 are all young adults, so of course they'd be around the same size as the actual adults. And even then, there are unusually tall ponies like Big Mac, Carrot Cake, and Allie Way. But my question was why a Zebra is pony-sized instead of being horse-sized. Are the zebra ponies in real life?
 * Well there's no such thing as an "adult pony" - since by definition a pony is a young horse. Everyone is called a pony in the show because hey, that's how the toyline is named, but there's nothing more horse-like than them in that world. Even Celestia and Luna are called ponies, despite being about twice the normal size.
 * ...Actually, yes, there is. Ponies and Horses are generally distinguished through their mature height. Ponies have been selectively bred to stay at a rather short height, while horse foals grow out of that height to full size. And about the maturity, Twilight's parents were about her current size, and they obviously were at sexual maturity. Celestia actually is more of a horse, due her porportions and her size in relation to others. And can you answer my question why Zecora, a fully mature Zebra, isn't a mature Zebra mare's size?
 * I see what you mean. Well, what I'm trying to say is that there are no other horse subspecies then the eponymous ponies, and therefore Zecora is just the right size for the world she's living in - equal to that of all other equines.
 * Most likely to keep the "look". Imagine, it would be really weird if Zecora was proportioned like a horse and towered over the other ponies.
 * Or maybe Zecora is a mountain zebra. They are about the same size as ponies.
 * This seems likely. Her habit of pawing at and digging into the ground is most specifically associated with mountain zebras in real life, as well.
 * Ok why do people think that Celestia can send people to the moon? I mean in canon she had to use the elements of Harmony to send night mare moon to the moon and in 1000 years she came back. That shows that it will take her a lot of energy to use that spell so why would she waste it on somepony just because they annoy her and she had to make use of the elements which she already lost so realistically she can’t even send a new born filly to the moon
 * Rule of Funny, that's all.
 * What is so funny about sending ponies to the moon?
 * Not always ponies
 * That makes even less sense and is a big waste of magic.
 * Here's the thing: you're interpreting the line "Using the magic of the elements of harmony, she defeated her sister, and banished her permanently to the moon" to mean "the elements of harmony were necessary to send her to the moon; she could not do so without them". This is a valid interpretation, but not the only possible one. It could be taken to imply that she only needed to use the power of the elements to defeat her sister, and exiling her to the moon was done with her own power after Nightmare Moon had been sufficiently weakened; or that she needed the elements to do both, but only because she was facing her sister, who could otherwise fight her to a draw; or simply that the elements were what she used and that was how she used them, but that she could have done the same through some other route (perhaps if she didn't expend any power in making sure her victim survived on the moon). All of these alternate interpretations are as valid as the premise you're arguing from; if any of them are true, Celestia could banish our hypothetical newborn filly quite well. As for why it's supposed to be funny: if you, sir, or madam, don't see how Celestia sending a foal to the moon because it's just easier than changing its diaper is funny, I'm pretty sure the problem is on your end.


 * So is Equestria a nation or a planet? I thought it was the planet, as Twilight said, "What in the wide, wide world of Equestria is she doing?" But then they detail the founding of Equestria as if it's a nation. So... thoughts?
 * I always figured it's more or less the same as Narnia in that is one of the most prominent countries, so much that the planet is named the same, or the planet is actually unnamed and every culture calls it in a different way.
 * "Earth" is referenced in the show, but it could just be referring to dirt, so it's hard to say.
 * As per "Hearth's Warming Eve", it's a nation and not even the original pony homeland -- it was founded under that name only after the three tribes had left that place for greener pastures and finally learned to put aside their differences. If there's a different name in use for the actual world, we don't yet know what that is (though it's worth noting that things like having the same constellations in the night sky would seem to paint it pretty firmly as an alternate Earth).


 * If the Apple family founded Ponyville, according to the episode Family Appreciation Day, shouldn't they be hailed more as prominent figures in Ponyville? Are there statues or plagues or places named after them around the town? There's a statue of Celestia in the square, but does Granny Smith or her parents have any? Do they keep in contact with the Mayor with special events?
 * Modesty seems to be the norm in Ponyville.

Or, from another angle, remember the subtitle "friendship is magic". The element of magic might represent other elements connecting with each other and working together.
 * Am I the only one who thinks that Magic doesn't really fit as an element of harmony? The other five elements are named after important components of a good friendship, but Magic? Are they saying that to be a good friend you need to be a magician?
 * Maybe magic is the thing that's required to make the (magical) rainbow blast come out of the other five elements. Elements of Harmony may be symbolize personality traits, but they're primarily used as a weapon. And despite being edutainment, the show still has a very strong fantasy undercurrent.
 * A wonderful explanation here: http://friendshipisdragons.thecomicseries.com/comics/90/


 * So, male ponies grow facial hair. A number of male ponies have some kind of facial hair that matches their manes, and in Baby Cakes, Mr.Cake clearly has some stubble. We also know for sure that ponies have coats of fur,as opposed to naked skin. In Ponyville Confidential, Snips and Snails each of some their coat torn out, proving this beyond any shadow of a doubt. So my question is, how do male ponies shave their facial hair without also shaving the coat around their muzzle?
 * They use a certain attachment on their magic powered shaver. (Non-unicorns depend on barbers.)

Canon -- General
""When I was young, I was too busy to make any friends Such silliness did not seem worth the effort it expends But My Little Ponies, you opened up my eyes And now the truth is crystal clear, like splendid summer skies And it's such a wonderful surprise""
 * "I used to wonder what friendship could be…" Um, no. Twilight couldn't have cared less about friendship, before the spark. She was far too busy studying to wonder about things like friends.
 * Well, maybe she tried to understand friendship and didn't get it.
 * She didn't have friends. Then Celestia told her to make friends. That's when she started wondering what friendship could be. Then she made friends with the mane cast and learned what friendship was.
 * Notice the past tense. When she was young she WONDERED (past tense) what friendship was. As she got more and more into studying and magic, she decided she could do without and didn't think about it anymore. Leading to the first episode where she's a tad stuck-up and believes she doesn't need friends, no longer wondering what friendship could be.
 * The first verse of the full version of the theme (so far found only on a Talking Twilight doll) makes the whole song much clearer:


 * The German translation renders that line as "Ich fragte wozu Freundschaft gut sein kann," roughly, "I asked (or wondered) what friendship could be good for."


 * Applebloom's spent three episodes to date trying to get a cutie mark, and she's asked many ponies for advice or help. She's talked to her sister, her sister's friends, her teacher, and her own friends about this frequently. Isn't it odd that we've never seen her ask her own brother?
 * Big Macintosh might not have more to say on the subject other than "Ee-yup."
 * He had sound advice for his other sister that one time.
 * Maybe he did and like Applejack, 'Bloom didn't listen.
 * This is probably what would happen.
 * That only raises more headscratchers: In "Call of the Cutie", we see Twilight Sparkle's attempts to magic a cutie mark onto Applebloom fail as her flank immediately re-blanks itself. But is it just an anti-magic field, or do a pony's hindquarters also nullify any physical act of tattooing, or dyeing, or even pasting another image on? Is it just the fact that Twilight tried to change what markings Applebloom would have permanently, in which case only tattoos might be rejected? This is the sort of thing the Cutie Mark Crusaders should investigate.
 * Maybe it does the nullifying part in order to prevent cheating. Doesn't apply to putting race numbers on (as seen in Sonic Rainboom).
 * You have to think about what Twilight was trying to do. She couldn't have been casting a spell for drawing random images, or for specific images while selecting a new random image each time. She wasn't just trying to make tattoo by magic. She would have noticed the ethical implications of doing that, for one. "There, your life-long destiny is to act on this random picture I made." She could only have been trying to make a real Cutie Mark appear, to tap Applebloom's latent potential to have one. Since Applebloom hadn't earned hers yet, it makes sense what appeared were random possibilities the mark might have been, but which also didn't last. So, the evidence hardly suggests the ponies come with magic for wiping out images from their flanks. What they have makes the specific kind of images appear, and when invoked ahead of it time like that, it doesn't last.
 * Because the cutie mark is a metaphor for puberty, and boys and girls generally don't talk to each other about that. Even the parts that are the same for both genders. (Besides, even though the male horses get cutie marks too, the show is intentionally highlighting it specifically as relevant to girls. Can you think of anything that happens to human girls where they just wake up one morning and something significant to their adult lives has magically appeared and is visible to everyone?)
 * So, cutie marks are tits? That makes the show.... even more odd.
 * Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume that Twilight, the more-or-less adult pony in the situation, would only be doing it to prove a point to Apple Bloom? In reality whether or not Twilight could make a permanent cutie mark seems irrelevant, as she nows Apple Bloom needs to earn her mark honestly, and wouldn't make her a permanent cutie mark anyway.
 * Eh...I don't know if it's really a metaphor for puberty. It's more about finding your place in the world.
 * It could easily be both. Remember, Apple Bloom was upset that the other girls had their cutie marks and she didn't. Tell me, how common is it for real life girls to get upset that their friends have found their place in the world and they haven't? It easily ties into puberty as well as the concept of "finding yourself".
 * Definitely both. Remember what the party was called? a "Cuteceañera". This comes straight from the Spanish traditions of a "Quinceañera" (15th birth year), which is a gigantic celebration of upcoming womanhood.


 * Why does Twilight always seem frightened of Celestia and letting her down? I mean, this could be hero worship, but she always seems like if one little thing wrong, Celestia will rain the wrath down from the heavens, when in reality Celestia is a very kind, patient, VERY understanding, even when Twilight screws up royally. I mean, shouldn't she know of all people that Celestia is a LOT more Understanding than she gives credit for?
 * Well, Celestia did banish her own sister to the moon for a thousand years. You don't trifle with gods, no matter how friendly they act.
 * Keep your friends close, and your potential usurpers even closer?
 * To be fair, that's a very different set of circumstances entirely, given Nightmare Moon is also very powerful, and had to be stopped. Banishing her is preferable to other methods for stopping her from trying to bring down eternal night on Equestria. I seriously doubt Celestia would ever actually want to banish someone to the moon like that. If she was left with no choice, that would explain why she would do it. Twilight Sparkle (and Rainbow Dash, during one of her panic attacks in 'Sonic Rainboom') are far more afraid of Celestia than they should be. Celestia doesn't even bat an eyelid when Pinkie Pie eats one of Celestia's cupcakes right in front of her (although Mr. and Mrs. Cake end up going into a panic, and have to be trolled to calm them down). Celestia only got even remotely angry when Philomena went missing, but she was surprised to think that someone could think of the punishment Twilight Sparkle thought of (banished somewhere else and thrown in a dungeon).
 * True, but she doesn't really need to be frightened from where I stand, too. If anything, Twilight Sparkle is one of the closest people in Princess Celestia's inner circle as her apprentice, and would probably know the most about her before having come to Ponyville.
 * As Bill Waterston once said, and i'm paraphrasing: You die a thousand deaths before you even get punished when you're a kid. While Twilight's a bit older, she's also introverted and as much as she knows the princess, she's also awkward enough that she is scared that if she fails in doing something for the princess, that she'll fail the princess. While Celestia has shown endless patience of anything short of "trying to drown the world in darkness" and even then she was forgiving. Twilight, like a kid, flat out panics when the punishment is usually non-existent, it's just part of her personality.
 * Twilight doesn't just act that way around Celestia. She freaks out about possibly upsetting her friends in Boast Busters and The Ticket Master. Compare to, say, Rainbow Dash, who worries about failing and being mocked, but not her friends being disappointed in her.
 * Remember the episode of the Powerpuff Girls (an earlier project Lauren Faust worked on) where Him made the girls' worst fears come true, and it was revealed that Blossom's worst fear amounted to, "If I weren't smart anymore and start getting questions wrong in school, then no one will love me anymore, and I will be cast down into Hell"? It's like that. Twilight's just as insecure about failing her beloved mentor, Celestia, as Blossom was about not being smart enough.
 * Twilight is kind of insecure. It's irrational, but since when has insecurity really been a rational feeling?
 * Plus, Twilight regards Celestia and their relationship highly for any number of reasons. Even if you know someone is kind and understanding, when you hold that level of respect, you don't want to fail them and disappoint them because -you- feel bad about it.
 * As the others have said, irrational fear and insecurity can certainly fit. I've been working at a rather industrial bread factory for several months, and while I don't panic, I do feel rather self-conscious and uncomfortable about it any time I waste a bread's worth of dough, even though I know that every day several tonnes are thrown away.


 * So what is Twilight's relationship with Princess Celestia? She seems to regard her as a surrogate parent figure...except she has real parents whom she presumably keeps in contact with. Is Princess Celestia a mentor? Then why does Twilight seem to be ridiculously terrified at the prospect of disappointing or upsetting her, since Celestia has pretty much shown regularly that, at least when it comes to the Mane cast, she's very much a Reasonable Authority Figure?
 * Well she's definitely Twilight's mentor. Even though Twilight does have real parents, Celestia could still be a surrogate parent of a sort. It seems that Twilight has been living away from home and studying under Celestia for years. As for Twilight being terrified of disappointing her, don't kids usually want their parents to approve of them. Imagine for a moment that your mom told you she was coming to visit you and meet your friends (assuming of course that you live away from home). Wouldn't you be a bit worried and hope that she will approve of your friends? Compound this with the fact that Celestia is their ruler (and a god!), and I think that her worries, though irrational, should not be unexpected.


 * Shouldn't Rainbow Dash be incredibly famous in Ponyville, if not in all of Equestria? According to series canon, she's the only pegasus to EVER break the sound barrier (the "Sonic Rainboom"), and she didn't do it just once, but twice!
 * Yes. Yes she should. If not in Ponyville than at least in Cloudsdale. I'd suggest that a future episode could involve her going back to Cloudsdale and learning she's a celebrity, but that would probably just be a repeat of "Green Isn't Your Color". Actually, all of the mane cast should be famous for saving Equestria, but chances are no one outside of Ponyville (besides Celestia and Luna, of course) knows that they were the ones who did it. The residents of Ponyville might not even know if they didn't bother tell anyone (but knowing Rainbow's personality, she'd probably let everyone know).
 * Moreover, shouldn't ALL 6 be famous for saving their world from Nightmare Moon?
 * Rainbow Dash doesn't seem to be the kind of person who would enjoy celebrity. She loves showing off and impressing people, but the things that come with it (expectation, lack of privacy, people telling her what to do, too many rules, not enough nap time) would drive her up the wall in the end. Her fame was likely dimmed by the fact that after Sonic Rainboom she just fled right back to Ponyville and continued doing odd jobs in what is pretty much the equivalent of Nowhereville, North Dakota, which is likely exactly what she wanted. Her desire to join the wonderbolts is pretty much so she can hang out with some awesome ponies and pull off sweet tricks, not fame persay. As for saving Equestria, I wonder if that wasn't entirely attributed to Twilight (who does seem rather well known), along with the actual details being mostly unknown to anyone who wasn't directly involved.
 * It wouldn't surprise me if there were an episode where Rainbow Dash is invited to perform with the Wonderbolts, but finds out it's a lot more work than she expected. Then again, we've already had an episode where Fluttershy learns she hates fame. And Ponyville is hardly Nowhereville. It was important enough for Celestia to visit the Summer Sun Celebration held there. Actually, seeing how close it is to the old castle, it could have been part of the capital before it moved to Canterlot (Is that in WMG yet?). And I doubt Twilight would let people give her all the credit and ignore her friends. If anything, people might assume Celestia showed up and saved the day.
 * There might be a factor of "no man is a hero to his butler" for Rainbow Dash. The citizens of Ponyville know she's amazing, but also know she's lazy and has a big head about things, so they don't treat her as a revered celebrity. The ponies of Canterlot are snooty and urbane enough to pretend to be unimpressed because she's an outsider. She probably would be pretty famous in Cloudsdale; but she doesn't spend a lot of time there.
 * From a Doyleist standpoint, the mane cast can't have normal lives if everyone treats them like celebrities. So they don't.
 * Perhaps Celestia engineered a cover-up to prevent evil beings from trying to get at the Elements.
 * They have two, not one, two separate stained glass windows in Celestia's palace depicting them, explicitly, defeating both Nightmare Moon and Discord. In addition, after the Discord thing, they had that big Star Wars-styled ceremony in their honor with lots of ponies in attendance. Yet, later, when Rarity is visiting Canterlot in "Sweet and Elite" and before she lucks into hanging out with Fancypants, and even afterward when the other five show up at the party, all of the upper-crust ponies are like "Who are these hick ponies rednecking up our fancy party?" And Fancypants himself just goes "I, for one, find them charmingly rustic" rather than more realistically being all "HOLY SHIT, you're the guys that beat Nightmare Moon and Discord and had that big ceremony honoring you the other day and have two separate stained glass windows in Princess Celestia's palace depicting your deeds WOW it's totally an honor and a privilege to have you guys attend our party here!"


 * This is a small one, but I've seen some people claim that most unicorns can only use their telekinesis on things directly related to their talents... But does the show actually say this anywhere? The closest thing I can think of is "Boast Busters", where Spike and Twilight mention that most unicorns only gain a small number of spells related to their talents, but nothing is mentioned about limits on their ability to move things with their horns.
 * Telekinesis does appear to be the default use of unicorn magic. Everything else is either spell-like abilities related to your talent / Cutie Mark, or spells learned and cast from books.
 * The "Cutie Mark Chronicles", when Rarity's magic was triggered, she found gems. When Twilight's magic was triggered, she did about fifteen separate things without meaning to and had to be stopped. They never say it outright, but it's pretty heavily implied that specific telekinesis is a given, while wide-ranged magic is... odd.
 * Rarity's Dumb Rock Event was her innate, talent-related ability to find gems going off. Most Unicorns innately gain their abilities related to their cutie marks. Twilight's talent IS magic, so her first big release was magical energy at its rawest, which could be shaped into whatever abilities could be concieved (As seen with the gem-finding spell in A Dog and Pony Show) hence Celestia taking notice of her potential. All unicorns seem to pick up basic cantrips like simple telekinesis and light(Snails), but their strongest abilities come from their talents.
 * Why can't Spike fly? I think since G1 he didn't have wings, but I'd like to know if he'll grow wings when he grows up or what?
 * Spike may be a wingless dragon, in Twilight flashback in CMC we see picture of adult dragon of Spike race, it looked same as other dragons but no wings.
 * Alternately, Spike could merely have been enlarged by the spell, instead of matured, and he may grow his wings at a later age.
 * No, I was referring to that picture, not enlarged Spike.
 * It IS possible that the picture was just supposed to represent a young/baby dragon.
 * Fans have theorized that just like how there are different kinds of ponies (earth, pegasus, unicorn) there are also different kinds of dragons, each with their own skill and specialties. The wingless kind like spike are larger and stronger than others (let's call them thunder-lizards), horned dragons who have wings and can fly are more lithe and faster (how about... pterosaurs), and water dragons who look like eastern dragons and can control the elements (leviathans, maybe).


 * So, is it me or do the ponies don't age much. They're either small, chibi-like fillies and colts or their Vague Age pony versions.
 * Same reason Bart Simpson is still 10?
 * I didn't mean it like that. They're adults, but its like they only go through two life stages. They're either the former or the latter.
 * Filly Fluttershy looks older and ganglier than the other fillies, so there are in-between stages.
 * Don't forget snips and snails.
 * Pipsqueak is also different. He is smaller than any of the other kids (fillies/colts).
 * And there's also Granny Smith.
 * Flim and Flam seem to be somewhere in between the Mane Cast and Granny Smith in age, if their body shape and legs are anything to go by.


 * Ok about the elements of harmony, doesn't Rainbow Dash posses the element of "loyalty" and Applejack the element of "honesty" In my opinion Rainbow Dash is the most honest out of all of them (example : telling Rarity she was the laughingstock of Ponyville after her failed fashion show) and Applejack is more loyal (example : not giving up on Fluttershy in the episode "Dragon Shy" when Rainbow Dash wanted to leave Fluttershy behind). I really think the two ponies elements are switched
 * in the pilot, they fit their respective elements very well. I don't think a momentary laps of these qualities means anything. also, this might be Hasbro's fault as they denied the idea or a continuing story arc. some of the writers might have just forgotten as a result.
 * Heck, maybe the elements of harmony attune to people based on the actions they've performed that day, rather than fundamental character traits.
 * Rainbow Dash is more honest because she doesn't think before she speaks rather than deeply engrained loyalty. Consider Party of One- Dash refused to give up on crazy Pinkie, but had no problem making up a story earlier.
 * That's called being blunt, honesty is more than merely saying the truth, it also involves having an open life, one that isn't hard to figure out, an overall straightforward attitude in conversations (no deceit, no misdirection, no manipulation) and a will to help others improve by pointing out their flaws. Applejack has issues lying when need be (which is her element's weakness), but being a better liar definitely does not mean Rainbow Dash is more honest.
 * One could also argue that in Dragonshy, Rainbow Dash was being loyal to her friends, since 1) Fluttershy didn't want to be there and 2) Up until she stared down the dragon, Fluttershy had been The Load and had repeatedly delayed their journey and endangered herself and Rainbow's other friends.
 * I agree with the original poster that their elements don't really fit them. In "Applebuck Season" Applejack even identifies herself as the most LOYAL and DEPENDABLE of ponies. Her line in the theme song is also "faithful and strong." In "The Ticket Master," Applejack's reasons for wanting to go to the GGG were helping her family; fixing the barn, replacing the plow, fixing her Granny's hip, while Rainbow's reasons were purely selfish. She wanted a chance to impress the Wonderbolts. Rainbow Dash always comes off as a little selfish. In "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well," she was more loyal to herself than the ponies she was actually saving. And her entire dream about joining the Wonderbolts kind of implies that if she was actually offered a position, she would leave Ponyville, and subsequently her friends, behind.
 * Applejack is loyal, maybe even more so than Rainbow Dash, but the opposite is not true. What's the alternative? That AJ becomes Loyalty, and RD becomes Honesty, which definitely does not suit her. Besides, she claimed her loyalty was to the princess, not her friends. As much as the current setting seems flawed, it's also the best, because the alternative doesn't make sense either. RD's loyal, blindly so at times, but that's.... really all she has when it comes to friendship. Recent episodes have shown facets of her personality that would make previous antagonists jealous by comparison.
 * Shazzba had a really interesting theory about this. In short? The Elements represent what each of the mane six values the most about friendship.
 * I agree with this one the most, because its similar to the explanation for why the Digi-destined in Digimon Season one, had their crests, it represented what they needed, not what they possessed and both seem to fit IMHO.


 * Why do so many of the Background Ponies have such stupid voices when they speak? Bon-Bon (though in her "Green" cameo she had a normal voice), Colgate, Carrot-Top, etc.
 * Depends what you call "stupid". For me those voices are not stupid. And the reason for this is that they are only extras with no set VA for them so they got a random available actor to record some lines.
 * Also, remember that voices for this cartoon are recorded before the animation is completed, and background ponies are almost always chosen at random (but they like using Bon-bon for some reason), so no one in the booth knows which background pony is going to say which line.
 * "Stupid" as in being at least very unusual. They always sound droopy, low pitched, slurred, and different from the other ponies.
 * Main characters are done by professional VAs - minor characters are done by random staff members.
 * Wrong. Background ponies are often as not just pickup lines from the main VA's (especially Libman, Ball, and Weseluck). They would use really crazy voices to avoid sounding anything like their principal characters.


 * Why do the characters refer to their manes as "hair"?
 * Because it's... like hair?
 * Because it's made of hair?
 * Because it is hair!
 * They do often simply say "mane" instead. "Hair" is probably a hiccup on the scriptwriters' part, like how sometimes they'll say "everybody" instead of "everypony" or something to that effect.
 * A tail is not a mane. Mane and tail is hair.
 * How do Ponies age? Like our horses, right?
 * No, they are not like our horses, they propably aging similar to humans or maybe they had longer lives (look previous entry)
 * Any proof? I know in the original series the Earth Ponies are more or less just talking horses.
 * Well first off, we know that Celestia is over 1000 years old. I wouldn't be surprised if the normal ponies also age in a non-realistic manner, probably similar to humans.
 * 'Sort of' Word of God (Lauren seemed relucant to establish firm canon on the subject) is that they age faster than humans. Personally I'm of the '40 - 50 years' camp, but there's no real evidence. I doubt there ever will be.
 * Well, consider the fact that this is a world populated by sentient ponies who have developed culture, science, and magic. Humans today live MUCH longer than humans of the past because for hundreds of years, we've been developing treatments and cures for human ailments. It would make sense for ponies with our same level of intelligence and ability to do the same, but for pony ailments.


 * is "bits" the name of Equestria's currency? it may just be slang like it real life but money in this show has never been called anything else.
 * It appears to be. Then again "bits" is an actual unit of money, just was never produced in the USA. A bit is 1/8 of the main unit of currency, like the dollar.
 * In My Little Pony Tales the money was called "Jangles", but considering they still lived in "Ponyland" back then, there's a chance the name of the currency has changed too.
 * This is probably another of the show's equestrian puns, it's just a little less obvious than most. In equestrian nomenclature, the bit is the (usually metal) part of a bridle that goes in the pony's mouth.


 * What is the level of Equestria's technology? most of the time, it seems Victorian era at the latest but then we have the brainwave monitor from "Feeling Pinkie Keen" and in "Call of the Cutie", Apple Bloom says that the Apple Family takes credit. the latter would seem to imply not only credit cards but scanners.
 * Rule of Funny.
 * I was hoping for more of a straight-forward answer.
 * They obviously have some kind of Schizo-Tech, but it mostly follows the Rule of Funny, as in, sometimes things just exist for a sight gag. There probably isn't a better explaination.
 * In fictional works, any modern society where magic exists tends to be farther behind technologically, or at least have only developed technology where magic can't solve all the problems. There's probably a trope for this, I'm just not sure what to search for.
 * "Credit" is a concept that's been around FAR longer than credit cards. In the old days, in small towns where everyone knew each other, it was common practice to allow customers to purchase goods on credit -- which, back then, usually just meant that the store owner could rely on the customer to pay them back at a later date. The term carried on into the 20th century, where it was typically used in reference to bank loans; this is reflected in the term "credit rating" which we still use today.
 * I'd agree that it's firmly in Rule of Funny Schizo-Tech. At first, things seem to be a pony- and magic-filled version of, say, 18th or 19th century (Western) life. Then you have Twilight's EKG, Pinkie's pedal-powered helicopter, Rarity's non-pedal-powered sewing machine and hairdryers, the Crusaders talking about cannon and power tools ...
 * If you need an in-universe explanation, I'm gonna quote myself from higher up the page: Since a lot of the work can be done by magical means, most areas in the world probably have no use for technology. Only towns with a low population of one of the kinds of ponies would need technology to supplement their need. Because the need for this is so low, there is no centralized production and every town has to make the tech for itself, resulting in different levels of technology per town. In addition, each town we've seen is rather passionate about their identity, which would probably explain the massive cultural differences. And if you want a more meta reason: the settings are designed to fit the story, not the other way around.
 * Out-of-universe: Word of God has stated that writers should avoid using "modern" technology though it is not forbidden to include to make a story or joke work, as well as to establish some sense of familiarity to the younger viewer: hence why we have elements like flashlights. However, writers shouldn't be lazy to include, say, a washing machine when non-powered tech (a washboard) works for the same joke/story element. Lauren's also stated that if there is something electrical, just think of it that a unicorn mechanic put a whole bunch of magic into it in the past.
 * In-universe: steam power seems completely likely: we have the steam engine train in the S2 opening, there's the spa, there's Fluttershy's radiator, Spike uses up all the hot water for his shower, etc. Perhaps Ponyville, situated where it is near a large mountain range, sits on a geothermal pocket, which would make steam-driven mechanical generators to drive things like basic plumbing, hot water, and heat. Also a good source of wind energy (the windmill). All that could be made that, where appropriate, each home and building has a simple electricity generator running off steam for lights and other equipment. Not efficient if you translated it to a real world technology, but its not like Ponyville's suffering from global warming yet...
 * "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" establishes that Ponyville has a hydroelectric dam nearby. And they have modern construction equipment to build a multi-story building.
 * That episode is nothing but evidence for Schizo-Tech. The dam had some sort of artifice attached to it, but there's no evidence of any of the infrastructure necessary for it to be an electrical generating facility. Look at pictures of actual hydroelectric dams--there's a lot of utility lines leading from them. We've never seen powerlines in the show, either on the dam itself, or anywhere in Ponyville. I like the explanation somebody on Equestria Daily came up with, that the dam was generating some other type of energy for some esoteric purpose. And that construction site is all kinds of wrong. The crane is wood ferfuxsake. I can't tell you it's outright impossible for a construction crane to be wood, but it definitely wouldn't look like the crane in the show. The building is too high for the type of wood-frame construction they show--actual buildings in that height range would be steel- or concrete-framed (today) or masonry (historically). The show has always been really loose in worldbuilding, often because they need to make it recognizable for the show's target audience.
 * Electrical devices could be powered by magical batteries--think of AA-cell glowing crystals that last months or years in heavy appliances. Then the dam wouldn't need power lines because it's hydromagical rather than hydroelectric--all they need is regular shipping to cart away crates of magic-infused gems.


 * It's been established that with the exception of ones whose talents are magic, a unicorn can only do magic in relation to what their talents are. so how can the faction and decoration inclined Rarity open doors and levitate smores with her magic?
 * The common belief is that all unicorns are capable of basic telekinesis.
 * This is pretty much proven in the show.
 * As for the smores, the dialogue makes it pretty clear that Rarity is always obsessing over details in everything she does, whether it's making clothes or preparing snacks.
 * It may be that you can attempt almost anything, its just that actions outside your talent will be more difficult. So Rarity can do a few things outside of her talent so long as they don't require alot of power.
 * Or that learning any type of magic outside of the area of their special talent requires hard work and practice, while magic related to their talent is fairly easy to learn.


 * It's pretty much canon that Twilight is Spike's adoptive mother and while Spike's Deadpan Snarker traits are played for laughs most of the time, he does get the occasional dirty look for it and it has sometimes bordered on Jerkass. so is Twilight one of those parents that's afraid to be tough on their kids?
 * I think she's actually more like a big sister to him, and the way he treats her in the series seems to prove this. That's pretty much what being a big sis is about - sometimes you're a surrogate mother, sometime you're a Butt Monkey, while mother-son relationship would rather exclude the second part.
 * He's her "number-one assistant", not her adopted son. Though "little brother" and "friend" also work pretty well to describe the relationship.
 * He's referred to as her "number-one assistant," but remember that she hatched his egg and has presumably been raising him from infancy by herself. Also, consider that they live together and that they love each other. They may not be called mother-and-son, but it seems pretty clear that that is what they are in all but name. "You know in your heart that this is canon."
 * Word of God is that Celestia's the one that raised him after Twilight hatched him. So... no, Twilight is not his mother figure.


 * Going with the above info, does Spike consider Twilight's parents as his own? "Cutie Mark Chronicles" shows that Twilight was charged with raising him, however we can assume her parents did most of the work as she was only a filly.


 * With the exception of Cherilee and the Mane Cast, why are the ponies in town so awful to the CMC? In "Call Of The Cutie", as Apple Bloom is cornered and brutually teased, the entire room full of adults stands around smiling. In "The Show Stoppers", they laugh hysterically when an entire set falls down on three little kids -- yes, granted, they got up and smiled after, but there were visible nails sticking out of those boards -- and didn't seem to notice when they slink off stage with miserable expressions.
 * Ask a kid someday about how effective he or she thinks adults are when being teased (and depending on the age of the kid, wait for the string of bitter cursing to stop).
 * The performance was taken to be a comedy; presumably the audience assumed the set was meant to fall down like that and thus that there was no danger.


 * How old are the main cast ponies? Because the "Cutie Mark Crusaders" seem to be somewhere between 7 and 9 and they're called fillies by the main girls. Still, the main ponies themselves don't seem to be that old. I'd have to guess that they're upper teens (18-20), but it's really hard to tell.
 * This is been asked many a time, and the simple answer is "it doesn't matter". They've all passed all the relevant legal milestones to count as full adults, and beyond that it's a matter of opinion. Fluttershy being a year older than Pinkie is the only clear evidence we have, which along with her teenage appearance in Cutie Mark Chronicles leads people to believe she's the eldest, but even this is far from evident fact.
 * so is Rainbow dash in charge of controlling the whether over ponyville or just a member of the team?
 * I think given her job at the Summer Sun celebration and the fact that she was team leader at Winter Wrap-up, she's probably in some sort of leadership position, though not necessarily at the top. She gets the orders then implements them in the field.
 * I think she is in charge of clean-up. Anytime we see her doing work (Summer Sun Celebration, Winter Wrap-up, first episode of Season 2) or her work is referenced (opening of Bridle Gossip) she's clearing the skies. So she'll be the pony that breaks up a storm and brings forth the clear skies for the sunny days.
 * "Hurricane Fluttershy" strongly implies that Rainbow Dash is numero uno in charge of the Ponyville weatherponies.


 * Why do the Wonderbolts and Rainbow Dash sometimes bother with flight goggles? When she gets up to speed to do a Sonic Rainboom her eyes just about start to water, otherwise their all fine without them.
 * Possibly to protect against anything else that might be in the air: dust, bugs, etc.
 * Probably for the same reason they wear those blue full body suits. It's just part of their costumes and looks cool.


 * So is Scootaloo's inability to fly natural for Pegasus Ponies her age or is she behind in her development? Rainbow Dash was able to fly by her age if not younger, as shown in the flash backs scenes of The Cutie Mark Chronicles.
 * She's probably behind the curve. Someone needs to put her in flight school. Then again, Fluttershy was a crap flyer at a much older age, so Rainbow Dash may simply have been unusually talented.
 * There is also the two boys of similar age she was racing, and Fluttershy could at least fly (if sporadically) and it's stated and shown that she was a bad flyer.
 * Pound Cake is able to fly even as a newborn. But then, despite the fact that their abilities are merely played for laughs in "Baby Cakes", both Pumpkin and Pound Cake seem like they should potentially be considered as atypical genius prodigies concerning their abilities. In addition to Pound's ability to walk on the ceiling, Pumpkin Cake can phase through solid matter, for example. Unless you count Twilight's teleportation, that doesn't seem like something a normal unicorn can do, let alone an infant.


 * Why is Scootaloo being educated and brought up in Ponyville rather than Cloudsdale like other Pegasus Ponies? The flash back scenes of The Cutie Mark Chronicles shows young Pegasus Ponies being brought up in Cloudsdale.
 * Her parents decided to move to ground level, perhaps?
 * That's like asking why Rarity was brought up in Ponyville instead of Canterlot like most unicorns. Nothing in the show has ever said that all Pegasi are born & raised in Cloudsdale, just most.


 * Why doesn't Twilight consider Spike a friend? Don't say she "does" because at the end of the first episode she does state very clearly that she didn't "know know what friendship could be" meaning she must not have had any one in her life she viewed in that light already.
 * Spike isn't the same as her other pony friends. She's had Spike as a live-in servant/confidant for most of her life (or, to be more accurate, the entirety of his).
 * Twilight hatched Spike from an egg and has presumably raised him from infancy by herself. Their relationship seems to be that of an adoptive mother and her adopted son. As close as they are, and as much as they love each other, they are not friends; they are family.
 * Word of God is that Celestia's the one that raised him after Twilight hatched him. So... no, Twilight is not his mother figure. Spike says so himself, he doesn't consider Twilight to be his "mommy".


 * So are Applejack's parents dead?
 * Her parents could be dead, living on another farm or just absent for some reason. Maybe one day there will be a Word of God or an episode about her parents (or their death), but until then it’s nothing more than a popular Fanon theory.
 * It was thought that this was also the case for Rarity, but then we finally met her parents.


 * if Applebloom wasn't born yet at the time of the flash backs in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, shouldn't Applejack's parents have been alive and well and waving her off when she left to live in the city?
 * Maybe they said goodbye in the house while the others did so at the gate.


 * Does Sweetie Belle live with Rarity? If so, why?
 * Word of God says Rarity lives alone (not counting Opalescence), and Sweetie Belle lives with their parents. Proved in Episode 31 when their parents make an appearance.


 * How come Rarity will basically drag in strangers off the street just to dress up and restyle them, will lecture friends about etiquette..... but has almost indifference towards her own sister on such issues? Like in Stare Master when she doesn't even bat an eyelid when a sizeable chunk of Sweetie Belle's hair is cut off by the cat (remember how badly she reacted to Twilight's messed up hair in the first episode) or that she's perfectly fine with all the rough and tumble antics she and the other Cutie Mark Crusaders get up to. I would have thought being Rarity's little sister would be like being somebody's Barbie doll half the time.... but in fact she seems like a perfectly normal older sister, which, while nice, is still inconsistent with her character.
 * An upcoming episode will deal with the relationship between the two, hopefully we'll get to know more about them. For now, we can only assume she gave up on her sister just like she did with Applejack at first, or that she expects her sister to learn by herself.
 * Considering that Sweetie's mane was back to normal by the next scene, I'd either chalk it up to Rule of Funny or Rarity fixing it in the split second she was off-screen.


 * Rarity's voice is all over the place. Sometimes it's rather deep, other times it's very high-pitched, sometimes she seems to be British, other times Canadian, and yet other times her accent is somewhere in between. What gives?
 * It's clearly meant to be an affectation, and one she hams up for effect at times. The fact her sister doesn't have a similar accent and it occasionally slips reinforces it. Interestingly, it seems her friends are at least partially aware of this, as the imagine spots in A Dog and Pony Show seems to portray her accent slightly more exaggerated than normal, suggesting the Mane Cast see it as a tad ridiculous.
 * It's called a Mid-Atlantic accent, IIRC, and it doesn't actually occur naturally. It's a completely affected accent that's meant to sound high-class. Or, to put it another way, it's just another thing Rarity's doing for her image as a designer (like only going by the one name), and all the evidence that it's an affectation (above bullet) is really just evidence that she hasn't perfected the act yet.
 * This is proved twice. In "Cutie Mark Chronicles", filly Rarity doesn't have the Mid-Atlantic accent yet (since she doesn't realize that beautifying is her special talent). And in "Sisterhooves", we learn that her parents both have thick Chicago/Wisconsin accents.


 * So are horses not sapient like ponies, mules and zebras, or just not the ones Twilight creates from the mice in "The Best Night Ever"? I wad amused actual horses didn't exist in their world until "The Best Night Ever".
 * Watch that episode again. You clearly missed the joke.


 * do all the wonder bolts all just coincidentally, naturally have manes that grown in that weird Anime Hair mock windswept style, or is it part of their uniform to get geld that way? basically this. or this.?


 * It may be just me, but is Celestia a god to the ponies? The thought comes to me in the sisterhood episode, when Rarity states: "Celestia as my witness, I WILL have my sister back."
 * It's not just you. The terms Physical God and God Empress are often applied to Celestia. The line you're referring to just kinda confirmed what we already knew.
 * Well, for one thing ponies probably don't pray to Celestia and actually expect to be heard. If they want something badly enough, they'll still write a letter or request an audience much as they might from a 'mere' mortal king or queen. That said, as far as ponies at large are concerned Celestia is the Princess -- sole ruler of Equestria and literal bringer of both day and night for a thousand years. (While yes, Luna is back now, that happy event is arguably still too recent as of yet to have left much of an impression on a public consciousness shaped by generations of pony ancestors who grew up, raised their children, and died knowing no other way the world could possibly be.) It's doubtful most of them would as much as seriously consider that any sort of even higher authority might exist, so if a pony makes a vow and really, really means it, invoking her name is kind of the natural thing to do.


 * Does it bother anyone that some of the antagonistic characters do not give the Mane 6 any respect in spite of being the Elements of Harmony, the one's who defeated Nightmare Moon, and are acquainted with the Celestia?
 * Not really. Most of the antagonists the Mane 6 meet are other species that aren't part of pony society and might not have even heard of the Nightmare Moon incident (Gilda, the Diamond Dogs, the Buffalo, and the dragons from "Dragonshy" and "Owl's Well..."), or monsters that might not be intelligent enough to grasp the information in the first place (the hydra, the Ursa Minor, the cockatrice). That just leaves Trixie and the three bullies from "Sonic Rainboom"; since the Mane 6 don't walk around wearing "I Stopped the Apocalypse (You're Welcome)" t-shirts, Trixie had no way of know who she was dealing with. The three bullies probably don't have any excuse, but that's a headscratcher for another time.
 * My guess is is that the information regarding Nightmare Moon was locked down to prevent the inevitable backlash from putting a would-be usurper (whatever her reasons) on the throne. Only Ponyville and Canterlot castle know the full story.


 * How come there haven't been any new antagonists or intentional threats to Ponyville in season two? It probably sounds petty but really; Beyond the required Big Bad beatdown of Discord, everything bad going on is either a miscommunication between the Mane Cast or a accidental disaster, also because of the Mane Cast. We're almost to the half-season mark, by this point in season one most of the Villain of the Week and Monster of the Week episodes were aired. Lauren Faust even said she and the crew wanted more adventure stories in the series but exectutive and time constraints were stopping them. Now that they were given more freedom with the show I thought they would try to balance in more adventures along with the slice-of-life, but the exact opposite has happened.
 * The CMC didn't appear until episode 14 or so, give it time, there is still plenty of episodes for a monster to come and ruin everyone's day.


 * So, Princess Celestia is the ruler of Equestria, right? Well, doesn't that technically make her a queen, not a princess?
 * Word of God is that Celestia and Luna were supposed to be queens, but Hasbro said that they should be princesses because kids associate queens with evil and princesses with good. In-universe, it might have something to do with the fact that the two sisters rule together.
 * She's the absolute leader, and a goddess too, she can call herself whatever she likes.
 * It is worth mentioning that Celestia absolutelly hates her job as a ruler, only keeping it because she knows it is needed to keep peace on Equestria, being called a "princess" instead of "queen" helps to lighten things up.
 * There's another theory that her and Luna's parents are still around, so technically she can't call herself queen.
 * Plenty of nations historically have been ruled by princes or princesses. Technically speaking, Equestria could be called a Theocratic Principality (as Celestia and Luna are both princesses and goddesses).
 * Glorious Pony's Theocratic Principality of Equestria!


 * According to the concept art Pinkie Pie was originally a pegasus and Fluttershy was originally an earth pony. Why were they switched? Fluttershy is not good at flying and has a connection to nature. Wouldn't it make more sense if she was an earth pony?
 * My guess is that the changes were made to show that nothing is set in stone, and that there are exceptions. Fluttershy is, as far as we know, the only pegasus that doesn't live in Cloudsdale or a floating house/castle, and had a cutie mark that isn't related to weather or speed at all, showing that there is more depth to the pony races than you'd imagine. We're already seeing how earth ponies have to struggle to make up for their lack of a horn or wings, so a pegasus with fourth-wall powers? Probably not...
 * Because the moral of the show is Be Yourself, not be what's expected of your race.
 * Actually, they were changed because Pinkie was originally a pegasus named Surprise, which is one of the G1 ponies that Hasbro has lost the rights to. The same with Posey, the earth pony that Fluttershy was originally.
 * Not quite. Even after being changed from Posey and Surprise, they were still Earth Pony Fluttershy and Pegasus Pinkie Pie for a while. Not sure when it was changed, but you can find concept art of this stage. It's likely it was changed because Pinkie Pie was a prominent Earth Pony character in G3/G3.5, and although Fluttershy was an Earth Pony in G3, it's a very pegasus-sounding name.
 * IIRC, they switched them to add more varied body language to the cast. Pinkie was moving too much like Dash in the air, zipping and zooming everywhere. Fluttershy became a slow, timid flier to contrast Dash, and Pinkie got her characteristic bounce.


 * why are the other main characters friends with Pinkie Pie if they find her so annoying?
 * They find this one thing about her annoying. Are your friends all perfect?
 * This. I love my friends and family, but they all have annoying sides.


 * Why is it, that Spike is always left out of many of the ponies adventures? In season two, he is not at Twilight's birthday party/visiting Rarity, at Applejack's welcome home party, nor does he go with the others to find her. He also has been less active since Secret of my Excess,having little to no lines. Does Twilight force him to stay at the library while SHE goes out to have fun with the others?
 * I'm more bothered by the automatic assumption that Twilight and the others are forcing him to stay home. He's his own person, he probably was either at Canterlot again or just doing his own thing.
 * I bet he isn't forced to stay home (I was actually kidding when I said that), but there are many episodes where I feel he could be there. In Sweet and Elite, he didn't go to Twilight's birthday/ visit Rarity, didn't see the Cake's babies at the hospital, go to Applejack's welcome home party, or look for her. I'm sure he is his own person, but he's just a kid. Kids love to go outside, and be with their friends. Twilight and the others are his friends, so it's unusual to see him not hang around with them, with no explanation.
 * I think that Twilight just gives him a lot of chores to do. And it's just increased after Hearth's Warming Eve, making him very busy. So, his busy lifestyle is probably what's preventing him from spending a lot of time with his friends. Much to his dismay.
 * I don't think Twilight would overload Spike with that much work, and I doubt she would consciously leave him out of her birthday. I like to think he might simply have been ill at the time.
 * Twilight might just be overloading him with all that work, and might not even noticing how it's giving less time to be with his friends. And as for missing Twilight's birthday, I always thought that maybe he celebrated it with her back at the library. He stayed home because, Twilight would probably be the center of attention (it's her birthday after all), and wanted Rarity's attention to himself. And in the Secret of My Excess episode, he certainly did get Rarity's attention. What a lucky dragon.
 * Well, if Lauren Faust is to be believed and it was actually Princess Celestia who raise Spike for most of his life rather than Twilight it's possible that he was off visiting her during "Sweet and Elite" while the girls were at Twilight's party and Spike and Twilight did something smaller at home either before of after. In "The Last Roundup" He didn't go looking for Applejack because he had to stay in Ponyville to look after the Library and possibly Fluttershy's animals like he did in "Dragonshy," and didn't go see the Cake's babies because He's not that close to the family, being more like a friend of a friend of a friend.
 * Even if the writers go with Lauren's idea, he and Twilight still share a brother-sister relationship. So there really doesn't seem to be an excuse not to add him to "Sweet and Elite." They could've probably visited the Princess after Twilight's birthday, seeing as they were staying at the castle where she lives. Besides, I don't think anything would keep him from his sister and Rarity. Spike sees Celestia a lot. Especially since in, "Look Before you Sleep," it's shown that sometimes he's away on business in canterlot for the princess. So there's probably time to see her. Besides, he's still just a kid. Celestia wouldn't constantly have him go from Ponyville to Canterlot to do work while everpony else doesn't seem to. And as for "The Last Roundup," I think he should've at least appeared for the welcome home party, so we could see that he cared for Applejack. They also could've added a scene where he agrees to stay behind to watch the library, and see if Applejack comes back. That way we at least know where he is. As for "Baby Cakes," I agree with the above statement, that he really didn't know the cakes much. And besides, what kid would really want to spend a whole morning in a hospital looking at babies? It's not too exciting from a kid's perspective. But other than that, episodes like "Sweet and Elite," or the,"The Last Roundup," didn't really HAVE to give him major roles, just add him to the background and give him small lines, to show that he is spending some time with girls. It just seems a bit weak on the writers part, to not even address why he's not with his friends. Especially for events that friends usually go to with each other. There's the chance that he has male friends he hangs out with, but they're never mentioned, or even seen. He's usually with Twilight. Also, when he's not with them, he's at the library. Does he spend all his time there? What does he do? Sometimes, like in Episode 2 of Season 2 he was shown sleeping, but holding a mop, so it's implied that he was doing chores, and tires himself out. But that can't just be ALL he does. He may be Twilight's #1 assistant, and he likes his job. But he's also a kid. And we never really see him do any kid things, like play with fillies or colts his age, or even go to school. So it can be assumed that he is just a busy guy.
 * He has male friends that the mane six don't seem to know much about: Snips and Snails
 * The only time they ever interacted, was in "Boast Busters." Spike didn't really seem all that close to them. If anything if seemed more annoyed with them. And that was the only time they were seen with each other. After that, he goes back to being with the girls.
 * He seems to know Lickety Split well enough that the colt was willing to give him his ball for his birthday.
 * Yeah. They seemed like they were acquainted. But we never really see them hang out in the background, or have Spike ever mention hanging out with Lickety Split, after he appeared in that one episode. Maybe later on he'll appear more though.
 * What is the name of the fat gray colt seen in the background of the CMC episodes? I've seen a few names tossed around but nothing really agreed upon.
 * He is now called, "Truffle Shuffle".
 * The ponies constantly use items made for humans with fingers, such as bowling balls with three fingerholes, cups with handles, doorknobs, etc. I can understand the meta reason for this, but in-universe, why haven't the ponies replaced these items with ones operated using the mouth? It would certainly be easier for them.
 * Why didn't Spike and Twilight go talk to Zecora when Spike wanted to know where he came from? In The Secret of My Excess, Zecora was the only one who knew what was going on with Spike. Surely she has access to other information on dragons like Spike.
 * Zecora may know about basic dragon biology, but that doesn't mean she would know anything about Spike's personal background, and I don't think information about dragons is what Spike wanted. He wanted to find his family, or at least establish a place in a society where he felt he fit in. That's not something a book can do. Spike wanted to feel like a dragon.