My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Headscratchers/Season 2

This is where the Headscratchers for Season 2 go, and you can find the other seasons from this index.

2.01-2 The Return of Harmony
Rarity's personal weakness is vanity; her element's weakness is her tendency to be so generous it hurts her. ("Suited for Success".) Fluttershy's personal weakness is fearfulness; her element's weakness is that her kindness makes her a doormat. (ANY episode.) Applejack's personal flaw is stubbornness; her element's is insensitivity to other's feelings and opinions ("Look Before You Sleep", "Over a Barrel".) Pinky Pie's personal flaw is gluttony (big time!); her element's flaw is an inability to take anything seriously. And Twilight's personal flaw is being a bit of a control freak; her element's flaw is that she can't handle mundane things (friendship, sleepovers) and if her magic fails, she freaks. Any of those points would have been a better angle for the writers to have Discord exploit... heck, by all rights Twilight should have been the FIRST to fold, when Discord took her horn away. alas, for opportunities at greatness lost...
 * The Dark God of Chaos (aka Discord) will break free of his prison every time the Elements of Harmony change hands- er, hooves. So what happens when Twilight dies of old age? (I wanted to put this in Fridge Horror, but that page is locked.)
 * Discord was only sealed once before, and that was by Celestia and Luna. Luna's corruption broke the Harmony that allowed Celestia to use the Elements, hence why the spell weakened. Presumably, once Twilight and co deal with this, they'll either affect a more permanent solution (they properly embody the Elements while Luna and Celestia evidently took several at once), or be smart enough not to leave the statue in the middle of the palace garden where just anyone can walk up and break the spell by accident.
 * But the presence of chaos isn't what breaks the spell... Princess Celestia directly said that the spell weakens and breaks when the Elements are wielded by somepony else. If, for whatever reason the Mane Cast can no longer wield the Elements, (whether they die or something else happens to them) the Elements would probably fall into the hooves of some other group of ponies.
 * Discord had only been imprisoned once before the episode began, so it's possible Celestia didn't realize that when the Elements changed hands the spell would be weakened. Now that they know, as soon as the Elements change hands again, the new wielders can go and reinforce the spell before Discord breaks free.
 * Or perhaps it will be Fridge Brilliance on par with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - so long as the mane cast live out their lives without the Elements changing hooves, then when they die, the Elements technically won't have changed hooves, so Discord will never be freed again.
 * Its quite possible Twilight won't die of old age..... but if she does, the elements would be passed onto a new generation of ponies, as it was done with her
 * Discord's control is supposed to be inverting the Element component of each pony's personality: Applejack lying, Fluttershy being cruel, etc. But Rainbow was convinced that Cloudsdale was in danger, and thus headed off there to help. This is supposedly against loyalty, since she's leaving the mane cast behind, but she's going because of her loyalty to Cloudsdale. So… huh?
 * Add to this the fact that when Discord first confronts them, it's implied that he knows their STRENGTHS, that he's going to attack their WEAKNESSES. But he doesn't, he just hits them with an alignment reversal. Except... Rainbow Dash, who actually gets her weakness attacked. Rainbow Dash's weakness is overconfidence, and her element's weakness is having her loyalties divided.
 * I don't think he ever explicitly said he would attack their weaknesses. He just said he knows them all, what he would do with this knowledge was up to him alone.
 * It's highly likely that Discord was so confident that he'd succeed that he didn't do more to stop them.
 * Discord isn't nearly as clever as he likes to think he is.
 * Discord's manipulation works by getting them to expose a moment of weakness, then using his powers to turn them against themselves. In Rainbow's case, he presents a situation in which she is forced to choose between two loyalties, knowing that either one will mean betraying the other. Then Discord turns her against her Element. We don't know for sure (yet) that Rainbow actually intends to go back to Cloudsdale.
 * I saw that too, at least with everyone but Fluttershy. He attacks Applejack with an uncomfortable "truth", he attacks Pinkie Pie by turning laughter into a negative, he hits Rarity with something she really adores to turn her into a selfish jerk, and he divides Rainbow Dash's loyalty to her town and to her friends. But with Fluttershy, he tries again and again (and fails) to get her to be unkind to her friends (talk about them behind their backs) but she NEVER DOES. And then he just hypnotizes her into being cruel. What gives? I feel like it was either an Ass Pull or a Deus Ex Machina. If the writers had gotten her to admit, even once, that her friends might not be perfect little angels, then I could see him abusing that chink in her armor... I dunno, I just feel it wasn't handled as well as it could have been.
 * I think the fact that Discord couldn't harm Fluttershy in that subtle way and had to be forced to rewire her directly is a testament to her strengths as a character and why most people love her as one; think about it. Twilight wasn't attacked, and Applejack and Rainbow Dash were corrupted quick by the double-edged sword they both have of taking things quickly and at face-value. Pinkie Pie resisted it because she's Pinkie and likes at least the humor that Discord brings, and Rarity resisted Discord's corruption at first because she was staying true to her element and the task at hand. Fluttershy? She was outright immune to his subtle magics and social advances. He had to STOP PLAYING in order to corrupt her. Its probably why they Fluttercruel needed to be tied down in order to be uncorrupted; she was too strong in the ways in both Kindness and Cruelty.
 * That's because you've got it wrong. Discord's manipulation works by zapping ponies in the head with magic. He does the "getting them to expose a moment of weakness" thing because it's fun.
 * I have another view on that: Discord hopes for a more complete corruption instead of a quick but incomplete corruption. That's why Discord wants to gets them to expose a moment of weakness before he uses magic to zap. But, it doesn't work well on Fluttershy, and so Discord gets impatient.
 * It may also be that exposing a pony's weakness simply makes it easier for the corruption spell to operate effectively. Keep in mind that while Discord is just a few shades shy of a Physical God, he still got out of a thousand-year imprisonment just several hours prior; it's not unlikely, therefore, that some of his powers might have atrophied in the meantime. Using a brunt-force attack as he did on Fluttershy against the entire Mane Six might've been beyond his comfortable power limit at the time.
 * My theory is that the writers couldn't think of a way for Discord to "corrupt" her. In past episodes, we've seen that the other five ponies don't perfectly embody their elements and can be tempted towards the other side. Applejack, despite being honest, isn't above lying to avoid an uncomfortable situation (see "Party of One"). Pinkie Pie, despite her cheerful nature, is horribly insecure and will start to suspect her friends of turning against her if she's not constantly reassured otherwise (again, "Party of One"). Rarity, despite being generous, still loves collecting diamonds ("A Dog and Pony Show") and can be quite protective of her possessions. Rainbow Dash, despite being loyal to the main cast, isn't completely devoted to them, since she still shows some signs of loyalty towards her hometown of Cloudsdale. The problem is that Fluttershy has never shown any tendency towards unkindness. We've seen her get angry or frustrated, but not outwardly mean or spiteful. If Discord persuaded Fluttershy towards cruelty with his words alone, it probably would have felt overly contrived and out of character for her.
 * Also, the conflicting loyalities, as mentioned, means no matter which she chooses, she's betraying someone. She chooses her friends, she leaves Cloudsdale to be destroyed. She chooses her home, she betrays her friends. In reality, it's the most cunning of them all.
 * Not to mention that Celestia all but said that Discord's release put all of Equestria in danger. Getting Rainbow Dash to go save one town when her help is needed to save the entire kingdom is a good way of turning her loyalty against her.
 * In regards to Twilight; Discord is actually even more devious about breaking her. Her element is magic. In this context friendship = magic. What better way for him to destroy her friendship than by making her think all of her friends have turned against her? There's no indication that she's aware that Discord corrupted everyone else (the grayness can be chalked up to Rule of Perception), so as far as she knows, Rainbow Dash deliberately broke the rules of the game, and her friends are acting like jerks of their own free will. This could cause her to doubt her friendship, which results in the elements of harmony being rendered unusable, especially if Twilight rejects her friends without being under Discord's influence. Not to mention that it has the bonus of sticking it to Celestia. Discord is just the type of guy to rub in her face: "Oh, look at that. Your best student hates her friends now! And the best part? I didn't have to use my mind control to get her to do it!"
 * Spike actively calls attention to the grayness. Twilight had to have known something was wrong, she just couldn't fix it.
 * And what do Spike and Pinkie Pie have in common? They are the only two characters confirmed to be aware of the dull coloring. Twilight makes no mention of it, despite being aware that something weird is happening to her friends; and of course, she fails to consider that maybe the guy called Discord has something to do with it.
 * Hay, even Discord himself fails to notice that the tell-tale sign of his influence is gone. Clearly, the fact that Spike and Pinkie Pie notice the color change at all is the exception, not the rule.
 * Remember, though, that Discord is an embodiment of chaos. It would not be out of character for him to deviate from his strategy when it suits him. Given his extensive knowledge of each of the characters' many exploitable weaknesses, he probably chose his mode of attack (possibly based on the quickest, easiest, or simply whichever way he enjoyed most) for each character as an individual.
 * Two of the ponies have been corrupted by turning their elements into something to be shunned in their mind (Applejack and Pinkie Pie). Rarity has been corrupted by using her weakness (pretty things). Rainbow Dash got hit with an impossible choice. Fluttershy got brainwashed by force, and Twilight was completely severed from her element (magic/friendship) by turning her friends into enemies. So yeah, there doesn't really seem to be a definite pattern to Discord's madness. Fridge Brilliance, maybe?
 * Discord did prey on one of Pinkie Pie's weaknesses -- her insecurity. People don't acknowledge it enough, but it was hinted at in "Green Isn't Your Color" with her outright paranoia about secret-keeping and the potential to lose friends over it, and took center stage in "Party of One." For all her cheerfulness and unashamed weirdness, Pinkie Pie is actually terribly insecure about herself. She's afraid her friends will leave her, afraid people are laughing at her, afraid they're just humoring her and really think she's an annoyance. This is also why Gilda's bullying got to her so badly.


 * How is there room for that giant hedge maze near Canterlot? As far as we see, it's just one giant castle attached to the side of a mountain.
 * Maybe the maze is partially behind the castle (we only ever see it from one side) and it veers behind that mountain the castle is perched on. Or the castle itself stretches beyond the front side we always see and the tower the maze was visible form was in a different place.


 * If the seal holding Discord in prison was greatly weakened by the Elements passing to a new user, such that being in the presence of chaos was enough to free him, why was his stone body left in a public location and, if it couldn't be moved, why was the public still let into the statue garden?
 * The way Celestia said it, it seemed even she didn't realize it had weakened until it Discord had already been revived. She said she'd believed the seal was eternal, considering it'd held for over 1000 years, it makes sense she'd believe that.
 * Here's hoping they encase the statue in concrete or something this time around. Or shatter it (provided that doesn't free him, of course).


 * Why didn't Celestia have Discord's prison destroyed if he was a statue?
 * Because he was sealed inside the statue. Breaking it would have freed him.
 * OK, sorry. I thought he was turned into the statue.
 * So did I.
 * Why not send the statue TO THE MOON?
 * What, and risk having Nightmare Moon (who was imprisoned there at the time) break the statue and free him?
 * Plus, she can't actually send things to the moon on a whim. It took the Elements of Harmony to do it to Nightmare Moon. He may simply be too powerful to do anything on that scale to him, even with the elements -- the statue prison is as good as it gets
 * Given the abilities and power level that Discord displayed, he could likely survive being shattered or otherwise chopped to pieces. Smashing his statue would just result in having to keep watch over multiple fragments instead of just one.


 * Just how many Ancient Evils has Celestia imprisoned in such a fashion that they could break free at the worst possible moment? We've seen two so far, which means there could very well be more. Really, Twilight Sparkle should buttonhole her at the earliest possible opportunity and demand an accounting. After all, as the lead Element of Harmony, she's very likely going to end up having to deal with all of them sooner or later.
 * Well Nightmare Moon was probably intentionally not imprisoned for good. As for Discord, she honestly thought he'd been done away with for good and was suprised as everyone else when he returned.
 * She had good reasons for not killing either of them. Nightmare Moon is her sister, and it's unsure if Discord can be killed, especially since Celestia was still young when she fought him.
 * This troper was under the impression that a Big Bad is going to be pulling the strings and unleashing ancient evils over the course of the season. Tirek possibly? It would also be a good way to introduce a new character for one of the ancient evils to have simply mellowed out during their imprisonment.
 * I think that's Word of God right there. Something corrupted Luna and weakened Discord's prison. I can't remember the details.
 * If the Big Bad turns out to be those witches from that movie and TV series (the one with the smooze, remember?) I think I'll roll on the floor laughing.
 * I hope they bring their ship that looks remarkably like boobs with them.
 * The WMG making a STARTLINGLY good case that the Bigger Bad who's been running around weakening Discord's prison, corrupting characters and unleashing chaos on Ponyville is none other than Cheerilee.
 * It's not clear if Celestia personally is responsible for imprisoning all of them, but there's apparently enough that there's an entire realm (Tartaros -- they distinctly pronounce it with the Greek "os", not the Latin "us") dedicated to holding them, and they can potentially get out any time Cerberus decides to wander off.


 * So Applejack was taught by Discord that lying is okay because the truth is harsh. After which, the one time she told the truth after the spell was to tell Twilight that Rainbow Dash was leaving them?
 * She lies to others. In that instance, she was just making an observation out loud.


 * Maybe I'm just dense, but why was Applejack winking during the ceremony? She might have been trying to tell Twilight that Spike was there, but that body language doesn't really convey that information. Seriously, I assumed at first that she was flirting with Twilight or Celestia.
 * It's a reference to Star Wars (seriously, watch the end of A New Hope, the scenes are identical). In universe? Yes, she was flirting with both of them. Because that's how she rolls.
 * The whole scene was a long reference to the final scene of a New Hope and I vaguely recall Han Solo or someone doing something similar. It's also possible she is just acknowledging how cool she thinks it is.
 * This should cover any oddities in the characters behavior.
 * OP here. Thanks for putting up with me. I was aware that the scene was a gigantic Shout-Out to Star Wars, but I didn't remember the winking part. Though really, that just reinforces the Ship Tease idea.


 * After Applejack got all "discorded", she seemed to lie in response to any question that she's asked, and the only time she tells the truth it's a random statement about what she's seeing rather than a direct question. Thus, why didn't Twilight ever think to start asking questions to Applejack as double negatives like "So what didn't you see in the hedge maze before I found you?" Since she has to lie all the time, she'd end up saying what she saw. Granted, there probably wouldn't have been time to do something that complicated to undo the brainwashing for all the others, but still it would have been cool!
 * Remember the way Applejack talks, though. The deeper you go into the South, the more likely you are to run into double/triple/quadruple negatives. Twilight would probably have just ended up with a splitting headache if she'd tried this on her.
 * Um, gross generalizations about the South aside, Applejack doesn't actually use a lot of double negatives, as far as I can recall. Her grammar may not always be perfect, but it's not so bad that you can't understand what she's trying to say, or that she doesn't understand what others are trying to say. Twilight might get a headache from trying to penetrate her constant lies, but grammar shouldn't be an issue.
 * The question is, why would Twilight do this? As far as Twilight knew, Applejack didn't have any vital information anyway, and there was no indication that tricking Applejack into saying one thing that was true would have broken Discord's spell. Playing word games with her wouldn't accomplish anything.


 * Did anyone else think that when Twilight Sparkle got corrupted, that she would become a techhead instead? After all, the obvious offense against Magic is...but my real Headscratcher comes from the lesson of this story; Friendship is hard, but if you work at it you will persevere. This is all well and good, but the problem rears its head when we look at the circumstances that their friendship is threatened. It was totally from an outside force for which they had no control over their actions and weren't acting in their frame of mind. If they had been led into those corruptions from a sense of need to lie or be cruel or be greedy or grumpy in their own personalities, then one could argue that it was their personality and they could be held responsible, but not in this case.
 * Twilight was corrupted because she gave up. That's why fighting for their friendship is the lesson. Twilight didn't try to fix them, she just pressed ahead on her own.
 * Regarding the first part, science is not the opposite of magic in this world; indeed, the complex laboratory and equipment that Twilight possesses in Feeling Pinkie Keen seems to indicate that the two are one and the same (or at least, that unicorn magic functions as a scientific discipline with predictable and testable outcomes). And in any event, Twilight's Element of Harmony is not merely "Magic" as a generality but literally the Magic of Friendship, the spark or "X-factor" that is needed to forge enduring friendships between compatible ponies. So it makes perfect sense that giving up on her friends would trigger her corruption, and that it would turn her into the essence of friendship's true opposites: despondency and solitude.
 * Fair enough. Which leads me to wonder why her strength of enduring friendships would be something to attack. For the longest time, if we are being fair, she resisted. Also, being as smart as she is, you would think she would realize her friends were being manipulated...which goes back to the second question, really. They were being manipulated.
 * She definitely knew something was wrong, and that it was Discord's fault, but she pegged all her hopes on being able to befriend the crap out of him with the Element Cannon. When that failed, she just gave up until Celestia spammed her with her own letters. To more directly answer the opening 'scratcher, for all of Discord's Mind Rape, he was taking a trait that already existed and turning it up to about fifteen. As one WMG on the Mane Characters page put it, each of them (except possibly Rainbow Dash) had already acted against their Element at least once - all Discord did was let that part out to play for more than a CMFIS (Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome, in case you aren't in the know)-induced breakdown (OK, Applejack's lies were mainly to keep a surprise party secret). Meaning that yes, they were lead into those corruptions from their own flaws, just aggravated by Discord.
 * That also assumes that the opposite was there to begin with. I would feel bad if the girls were brought low because of this apparent weakness. I will certainly agree with Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and (sorry 'bout this, cutie) Fluttershy though I would call her more psychotic and desperate more than cruel. They certainly showed the opposite traits. Twilight hadn't before Season 2, and I don't think Pinkie did. She was paranoid and schizophrenic Played for Laughs, but I'm not sure I'd call her grumpy, would you?
 * Perhaps not the grumpiness per se, but certainly the hair-trigger Temper and the obstinacy in assuming the worst in others' motivations were certainly established quite thoroughly by Party of One. The stimulus is different (i.e. she becomes obsessively paranoid that everyone is laughing at her and don't really consider her a friend), but the symptoms are similar.
 * And as for Twilight, she absolutely did demonstrate her "Discorded" traits in Season 1...way back in the pilot. Meeting the other members of the Mane Six allowed her to get past that mindset, but with them all having abandoned her, there was nothing left to keep her from reverting to the introverted loner with no time for or interest in making friends. The additional signs of depression can be attributed to the old aphorism "you never know what you've got until you lose it."


 * Discord takes away horns and wings. However, in no way are the Earth Ponies disadvantaged- they possess great strength and stamina. Applejack is big and strong. Pinkie Pie is agile and flexible- thus making her very cartoony. Wouldn't Applejack and Pinkie Pie have an advantage over the other four if they kept their strength and flexibility while the others lost their flight and magic abilities?
 * You're ignoring the context. A maze is not a physical challenge, it's a mental one. Wings allow one to bypass the maze, and magic would let Twilight or Rarity do the same by just removing the walls. Strength and flexibility mean nothing in a maze.
 * Also, because we have yet to see Earth Ponies with any form of supernatural advantage that Pegasi or Unicorns have, it only makes sense for Discord to use that lack of current advantage to prove his point. What got to me in that episode was why Rainbow Dash wasn't freaking out because her wings were gone? A huge part of her character goals hinge directly on the fact that she is a Pegasus.
 * She did freak out and give a Girly Scream. She probably tried to pull herself together for the sake of her friends, but once she was alone and Discord offered her her wings back, she crumbled.
 * It would make sense indeed, but remember that Rainbow Dash's true freak outs over losing her wings (or even just one) have mainly occurred in fanfiction, and you may be letting that influence your opinion. It's even considered cliche, right up there with "Celestia turns, or turns out to be, evil." Yes, fanfiction has no place in a canon discussion, but it's fair to point this out because Cupcakes did a similar thing to Pinkie Pie.


 * Couldn't the girls have walked through the hedge walls? They're literally just tall bushes...
 * It likely wouldn't even matter, as they go through the maze, it gradually becomes apparent that Discord is remodeling the whole place as they go. The shot leading to Rarity's discovery of the 'Gems' shows that parts of the maze are sideways or even upside down, completely defying logic. While it's somewhat possible that the maze was designed as such, it still doesn't matter. We're shown by Fluttershy's Mind Rape that Discord is always in control anyways, the point of the maze isn't even to save some time, but really just to have fun breaking the girls. Even when they were literally right next to each other, trying to go through the hedge to regroup would likely just have sent them elsewhere.
 * Plus, if you've ever been to an actual hedge maze, you'll see that it would actually take quite some time to get through the hedge - time that should be spent finding the Elements of Harmony...


 * Does anyone else think it's strange that the prison was broken when the Elements of Harmony changed hands, not when they'd been abandoned and turned to stone in the Everfree Forest?
 * I got the impression that Celestia's link to them was broken, and the spell binding Discord, did start eroding when Night Mare Moon was sealed away. It just took that long for said binds to erode enough.


 * Why do people automatically assume that Discord was the former ruler of Equstria? I mean, sure, something about it was mentioned when Celestia was telling the Mane Six about him, but she still left it incredibly vague as to what she meant by "ruling Equestria". "To rule" does NOT automatically mean a position in power, you know. And yes, she did say "before Luna and I stood up to him," but again, it's left incredibly vague. Celestia and Luna could've been the rulers the whole time, but they were just unable to deal with Discord properly until they had the right means to stop his little anarchy trip. And besides, I don't picture Celestia and Luna as being usurpers AT ALL.
 * That's a fair bit of logical trickery to get around the obvious interpretation. More likely is that they did overthrow him... but we have other words for "usurpers" who overthrow Complete Monster rulers who enjoy tormenting their subjects for the hell of it -- words like "revolutionaries" or "heroes."
 * That doesn't matter. I still refuse to believe that Discord was the former ruler, as he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would want dominance over an entire country, but rather just a manipulative, anarchistic trickster whose idea of fun is screwing with others. Besides, he's the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony before anything else.
 * Why wouldn't he want dominance over a country? He might not be much of a politician, but he simply enjoys making others act as he wills. Good material for a tyrant. Ruling a country just means he can pass laws like "no flying, no magic and you no sneezing on Saturday" to a whole lot of people. Plus, he did make himself a throne in the despoiled Ponyville.
 * I'm assuming he didn't so much actually govern as he made himself a throne, shouted "I am the God King, goo goo g'joob!" and got rid of anyone else trying to claim a position of authority. After all, what better way to spread anarchy than from the top?
 * In this case, "rule" just means that he was in control through power. He clearly enjoyed himself while manipulating the Mane Cast and twisting Ponyville. Why wouldn't he want to do that on a country-wide scale? He only "ruled" because nobody was powerful enough to stop him, governing has nothing to do with it. After all, if a god-like being decides to use your home nation as his personal playground, do you honestly think that nation could just say "no"?


 * Why does Spike suddenly know all about the situation with Discord after Twilight finds the Elements of Harmony? He was totally cluele a whim. It took the Elements of Harmony to do it to Nightmare Moon. He may simply be too powerful to do anything on that scale to him, even with the elements -- the statue prison is as good as it gets
 * Given the abilities and power level that Discord displayed, he could likely survive being shattered or otherwise chopped to pieces. Smashing his statue would just result in having to keep watch over multiple fragments instead of just one.


 * Just how many Ancient Evils has Celestia imprisoned in such a fashion that they could break free at the worst possible moment? We've seen two so far, which means there could very well be more. Really, Twilight Sparkle should buttonhole her at the earliest possible opportunity and demand an accounting. After all, as the lead Element of Harmony, she's very likely going to end up having to deal with all of them sooner or later.
 * Well Nightmare Moon was probably intentionally not imprisoned for good. As for Discord, she honestly thought he'd been done away with for good and was suprised as everyone else when he returned.
 * She had good reasons for not killing either of them. Nightmare Moon is her sister, and it's unsure if Discord can be killed, especially since Celestia was still young when she fought him.
 * This troper was under the impression that a Big Bad is going to be pulling the strings and unleashing ancient evils over the course of the season. Tirek possibly? It would also be a good way to introduce a new character for one of the ancient evils to have simply mellowed out during their imprisonment.
 * I think that's Word of God right there. Something corrupted Luna and weakened Discord's prison. I can't remember the details.
 * If the Big Bad turns out to be those witches from that movie and TV series (the one with the smooze, remember?) I think I'll roll on the floor laughing.
 * I hope they bring their ship that looks remarkably like boobs with them.
 * The WMG making a STARTLINGLY good case that the Bigger Bad who's been running around weakening Discord's prison, corrupting characters and unleashing chaos on Ponyville is none other than Cheerilee.
 * It's not clear if Celestia personally is responsible for imprisoning all of them, but there's apparently enough that there's an entire realm (Tartaros -- they distinctly pronounce it with the Greek "os", not the Latin "us") dedicated to holding them, and they can potentially get out any time Cerberus decides to wander off.


 * So Applejack was taught by Discord that lying is okay because the truth is harsh. After which, the one time she told the truth after the spell was to tell Twilight that Rainbow Dash was leaving them?
 * She lies to others. In that instance, she was just making an observation out loud.


 * Maybe I'm just dense, but why was Applejack winking during the ceremony? She might have been trying to tell Twilight that Spike was there, but that body language doesn't really convey that information. Seriously, I assumed at first that she was flirting with Twilight or Celestia.
 * It's a reference to Star Wars (seriously, watch the end of A New Hope, the scenes are identical). In universe? Yes, she was flirting with both of them. Because that's how she rolls.
 * The whole scene was a long reference to the final scene of a New Hope and I vaguely recall Han Solo or someone doing something similar. It's also possible she is just acknowledging how cool she thinks it is.
 * ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4wh4FnwiAgss up until that point, and Twilight never told him anything about tto do anything on that scale to him, even with the elements -- the statue prison is as good as it gets
 * Given the abilities and power level that Discord displayed, he could likely survive being shattered or otherwise chopped to pieces. Smashing his statue would just result in having to keep watch over multiple fragments instead of just one.


 * Just how many Ancient Evils has Celestia imprisoned in such a fashion that they could break free at the worst possible moment? We've seen two so far, which means there could very well be more. Really, Twilight Sparkle should buttonhole her at the earliest possible opportunity and demand an accounting. After all, as the lead Element of Harmony, she's very likely going to end up having to deal with all of them sooner or later.
 * Well Nightmare Moon was probably intentionally not imprisoned for good. As for Discord, she honestly thought he'd been done away with for good and was suprised as everyone else when he returned.
 * She had good reasons for not killing either of them. Nightmare Moon is her sister, and it's unsure if Discord can be killed, especially since Celestia was still young when she fought him.
 * This troper was under the impression that a Big Bad is going to be pulling the strings and unleashing ancient evils over the course of the season. Tirek possibly? It would also be a good way to introduce a new character for one of the ancient evils to have simply mellowed out during their imprisonment.
 * I think that's Word of God right there. Something corrupted Luna and weakened Discord's prison. I can't remember the details.
 * If the Big Bad turns out to be those witches from that movie and TV series (the one with the smooze, remember?) I think I'll roll on the floor laughing.
 * I hope they bring their ship that looks remarkably like boobs with them.
 * The WMG making a STARTLINGLY good case that the Bigger Bad who's been running around weakening Discord's prison, corrupting characters and unleashing chaos on Ponyville is none other than Cheerilee.
 * It's not clear if Celestia personally is responsible for imprisoning all of them, but there's apparently enough that there's an entire realm (Tartaros -- they distinctly pronounce it with the Greek "os", not the Latin "us") dedicated to holding them, and they can potentially get out any time Cerberus decides to wander off.


 * So Applejack was taught by Discord that lying is okay because the truth is harsh. After which, the one time she told the truth after the spell was to tell Twilight that Rainbow Dash was leaving them?
 * She lies to others. In that instance, she was just making an observation out loud.


 * Maybe I'm just dense, but why was Applejack winking during the ceremony? She might have been trying to tell Twilight that Spike was there, but that body language doesn't really convey that information. Seriously, I assumed at first that she was flirting with Twilight or Celestia.
 * It's a reference to Star Wars (seriously, watch the end of A New Hope, the scenes are identical). In universe? Yes, she was flirting with both of them. Because that's how she rolls.
 * The whole scene was a long reference to the final scene of a New Hope and I vaguely recall Han Solo or someone doing something similar. It's also possible she is just acknowledging how cool she thinks it is.
 * ''[Lps Ce XS 8 mw Z 6 Ber NU 7 Z]-Dnghe situation. He must have read her mind.
 * A letter sent from Celestia to him personally, perhaps? After all, while he may not wield an Element of Harmony, he's still part of the friendship circle Twilight and the others make.


 * Why couldn't the ponies try to befriend Discord or the Elements Of Harmony turn him good? That was really mean.
 * Discord is called "a spirit of chaos and disharmony". He might be unredeemable simply because he's like an elemental and has no free will to, you know, stop spreading discord. And the ponies didn't exactly try to befriend Nightmare Moon too, they just fired the Elements and observed the results. Maybe they don't control what effect the Elements have on their target.
 * So he doesn't have free will and is stuck acting like this even if it's not really want he wants against his will if he has one and the Elements can't free him? Why does a TV-Y show about colorful ponies with a friendship lesson in each episode have so much Fridge Horror and frightening implications?
 * You're reading WAY too much into this: He's an anthropomorphic representation of disharmony... he's made of chaos. He can't be rehabilitated, if they try to "purify" him from chaos, like they did with Nightmare Moon, nothing will be left. And more importantly: He's not a victim.
 * Nightmare Moon was corrupted by evil magic, heck, according to some Fanon Discord's magic. The Elements freed her from it and brought her back to her senses. Discord actually is evil, nothing is forcing him to do what he does. Being Chaos doesn't make him evil, Pinkie Pie is a good example that chaos can be good, Discord just gets sadistic kicks out of making ponies suffer. The fact is that Discord really was evil, the only way the Elements could've turned him good is a Heel Face Mind Screw, which would be no different than what he was running around doing to everypony. So in short, Nightmare Moon wasn't really evil to begin with, just corruption. Discord was truly evil and not corrupted by an outside force, there's nothing making him be evil the Elements can remove, so Discord gets Taken for Granite.
 * Nightmare Moon wasn't corrupted by an outside force either, but in any case Discord is the spirit of "let's not be friends." He isn't just bad, he's basically Made of Evil.
 * Although there are the provisos that God Does Not Own This World and said God no longer being directly in charge of the series, Word of God disagrees with you. According to Lauren Faust, she was corrupted by something. Her own jealousy and resentment allowed it to corrupt her, but there was an outside force that catalyzed the change from "jealous, resentful Luna" to "Nightmare Moon." It's not clear what did it, and given the direction the series has been taking, it might never be revealed. Popular guesses include Discord (though the timeline doesn't seem quite right for that), or Tirek or whatever his G4 equivalent is. (With the caveat there that there's no indication that there is a G4 Tirek or anything equivalent, although turning a pony into a "Wicked Mare of Darkness" is certainly his style.)


 * So assuming they really couldn't at least try to befriend him because the ponies like the much more important element of acceptance, answer me this: Why couldn't Discord and Celestia have learned long ago to rule side by side? After all, she's "Harmony" and he is Chaos, and you really need chaos to create true harmony. Is the show trying to teach kids to judge others and not be friends with people who aren't at all like you?
 * Why are you so bent on putting leather pants on Discord? If you want a Family Friendly Explanation, then Celestia is wrong and Discord isn't Chaos incarnate: As his name indicates, he is DISCORD incarnate, AKA the OPPOSITE of harmony. One of the elements of harmony is friendship, so he befriending anyone would be against his own nature (That is, true friendship, not the playful destruction he caused).
 * I think I phrased that wrong because I was tired. I meant why couldn't they have ruled Equestria even if they aren't best friends/a couple, they could have done it like a president and vice president.
 * Discord already had a chance to show what life would be like under his rule, and it was horrible and caused great suffering to all of ponykind (assuming Celestia was telling the truth, which we have no reason to doubt) He had already proved himself unworthy of being a benevolent ruler. It is also doubtful that he would even consider sharing power with anyone else.
 * Hey, the bastard deserved his punishment. After what he did to the Mane 5, as well as screwing up the laws of physics and nature in Equestria, I'd say he gains no sympathy whatsoever.


 * Why weren't Twilight's parents at the ceremony at the end? They live in Canterlot, their daughter is basically getting the Medal of Honor for saving the world from the pony equivalent of the Devil. So where are they?
 * We never do see them again outside of that flashback. It's entirely possible that they're dead. Or maybe (assuming they were in their 40s or 50s in the flashback) they've reached the pony equivalent of retirement age and moved to pony Florida and couldn't go since the ceremony was last-minute (or at least I thought it was...).
 * Besides, they could've been in the crowd.


 * So fairly early in the episode, Celestia seems to bestow the accolade to Twilight. Does this mean Twilight is now a knight? Is her formal title now Dame Twilight Sparkle? I'm sure it will never come up, but I'm curious.


 * Was Discord freed by the Elements of Harmony changing users, or by the Cutie Mark Crusaders fighting (i.e. creating discord) in front of the statue? I've heard both mentioned. If the first, how come he took so long to break free between last season and this one?


 * Both Celestia and Discord himself make it abundantly clear that the latter is a Reality Warper who twists and destroys everything he touches in the name of sewing chaos. So why did Applejack grab a great big Idiot Ball and/or Conflict Ball and take the vision Discord gave of her friends talking smack about her at face value? I can see some doubt and worry coming about from that, but you'd think Applejack would have known better by then.

2.03 Lesson Zero

 * Wouldn't Rainbow Dash have hit the ground at mach 1 and potentially killed her self, after doing a sonic rainboom that close to ground?
 * Rainbow Dash has shown the ability to make impossibly tight turns at that speed. She'd be fine.


 * Was that thing Rainbow Dash did actually a sonic rainboom? If so, why did it produce a mushroom cloud when it never has before?
 * Probably because we didn't know what would happen if she hit something whilst doing it i guess.
 * From the looks of it, she broke the sound barrier just before doing the same extreme turn she did in 'Sonic Rainboom' to get away from the blast. The shockwave caused the explosion due to being so close to the ground, shortly followed by the actual rainboom. In reality, breaking the sound barrier shouldn't cause mushroom clouds, but hey, Rule of Cool. As for whenever she hit the ground or not, it's not that important to know.
 * Rainbow Dash has a lot of flying moves that cause impressive physical and visual effects other than the Sonic Rainboom, such as the Buccaneer Blaze. It could be a new move she developed over the summer. It doesn't look much like a Sonic Rainboom, really.
 * Even though it was in Twilight's imagination, why was there an Alicorn filly in Magic Kindegarten? No, seriously, go check in that scene. The yellow filly with purple hair closest to Twilight's right has wings and a horn.
 * Not to sound redundant but... it's her imagination, really. If anything, it shows none of these are real.
 * Also, it's an animation error.
 * Also? Possible Celestia's Dream Offspring?
 * Could say a lot about Twilight's subconscious, that.
 * Wait just a tick-tock. Twilight couldn't have sent a letter to Celestia every Tuesday afternoon since she's been in Ponyville. We clearly see her sending letters in the evening in other episodes, Look Before You Sleep for instance. Also this implies that each of the season one episodes takes place one week apart, when some of the episodes take place for what seem to be a longer period of time (Green Isn't Your Color, Show Stoppers, and maybe Over a Barrel). Additionally it's a bit hard to believe that all the "one day plots" happen on a Monday or Tuesday. I assume studious a student Twilight is she writes each lesson as soon as she learns it or maybe the next day at the latest, that can't always fall on a Tuesday.
 * We don't see every single letter she sends. Presumably she sends more offscreen.
 * More proof of this, look at how many letters Celestia sends back in The Return of Harmony part 2, while I haven't counted them, there seem to be more than there have been episodes. If they're all weekly letters (clearly some won't be, as demonstrated in a few episodes), this sort of proves that there's been some weeks we haven't been shown.
 * Not to mention that just because she sends one letter per week, it doesn't mean that she necessarily learned the lessons at a rate of one per week. She could easily learn two or three lessons a week and only send the reports in one at time, so she'd have a buffer. Then when it runs out, she freaks out.
 * She sends them every WEEK not every seven days, there's a bit of a difference. As in, she sends it within those seven days, just primarily on Tuesday. If she learns a lesson on say, Friday, she sends the letter then. She wouldn't have had to ask "When did we send the last one?" if it was always Tuesday. She'd know, being Twilight. It's sporadically sent throughout every week. She's probably sent more than one a week before.


 * Why does Twilight Sparkle know a mind altering spell at all? Isn't that a tad unethical? Did Celestia make her learn it or teach her it? If so, then that dives right into Iron Hooves territory. Did Twilight learn it on her own? If so, then are mind-altering spells just available for anyone to learn? Then there is the little matter of her having tested it before...this girl needs to take another course in Magical Ethics, pronto.
 * Considering she was able to polymorph her parents and supersize Spike, an unnatural attraction spell hardly seems out of the ordinary. It probably has some ethical use (could use it to lure off a monster or something), but Twilight obviously isn't being reasonable here.
 * The Spike super sizing and parent polymorphing was the result of a burst of raw magic.
 * Irrelevant. If she can do it unintentionally then it can be done purposefully. Magic is magic, and if she can do things like that, it only makes sense that she'd be to alter minds. There's no reason Celestia wouldn't teach it to her. Such a spell could have infinite practical uses.
 * Exactly, not to mention that by technical terms, this wasn't even a mind-altering spell. It was pure suggestion at the very least, and not a very powerful one if all it takse to remove it it initially is to remove it from sight. They were simply influenced into appreciating the item more. A very powerful Charm Person would be my understanding.
 * Probably missing a joke here, but when Twilight saw Fluttershy apparently beating up a bear, why is her reaction 'she's finally grown a spine' rather than questioning why her meek and patient friend is choosing violence over her usual kind-but-firm approach. Moreover, why didn't she try to help if she thought Fluttershy was in a fight? Fluttershy is the Silk Hiding Steel type to be sure, but that kind of violence - from Twilight's perspective - is wildly OOC, and one wonders why Twilight wasn't more concerned for her friend. Unless Twilight would be if she were in her right mind, and brushing it off as a missed opportunity for a 'lesson' was down to her frustration at the time.
 * While she hadn't gone completely off the deep end, Twilight had just pretty much announced her intent to take advantage of Fluttershy's meek nature ("Fluttershy always has some fear she's trying to get over, as a good friend I should be able to help her") which kinda implies the crazy had already started to take hold. Plus out of character or not, would you really want to confront a friend who'd just "killed" something several times her size and was probably still angry? I also imagine being hit by the debris from the Tactical Rain Nuke probably didn't help any. Maybe it wasn't madness, more severe concussion...
 * Concussion is actually quite a good suggestion. Both Twilight and Applejack has debris fall on them, but Applejack was wearing a helmet, while Twilight wasn't.
 * everyone knows Princess Celestia would never take Twilight away from her friends but considering the circumstances, Celestia almost definitely was going to punish Twilight if the rest of the Mane Six hadn't appealed to her. this probably doesn't need to be answered but this leaves the question of what was gonna happen to Twilight?
 * See, the way that sounded to me, well before the rest of the Mane Six came in was that Celestia was never going to punish Twilight-a stern but informative lecture, yeah, but something that Twilight would have been positively reinforced by. As a ruler and the strongest magical practioner in the world as a God Among Mortals, she has to realize that taking an apprentice as dutiful as Twilight was going to lead to this eventuality. After all, after Spike informed her, she was the FIRST person to come to the aid of her freak-out. If that isn't a good mentor and friend, I don't know what is.
 * you're probably right. and a lecture is probably punishment enough considering how much Twilight wants to please Celestia. but on the other hoof, just a lecture does seem like to light a consequence. and Celestia's dialog does suggest that she would have punished Twilight somehow if the others hadn't convinced her that they actually leaned something from the incident.
 * Am I the only one who never thought Celestia was going to punish Twilight at all, and she was simply letting the others plead in their friend's defence so that they would learn and admit the lesson? That sounds like something Celestia would do, rather than spoon-feed them with "Ssh, it's okay." Either that or she was just letting them sweat, in a subtle nod to Trollestia.
 * Think back to how Twlight's mild scolding of Spike was so devastating to him that he ran away from home. A lecture from Celestia would be at least as devastating to Twilight, if not even moreso. I agree that would be punishment enough.
 * I'm just saying that wile there are valid reasons to think Celestia was always going to let Twilight off the hook, Twilight had never screwed up this bad before and the consequences may have been a bit more harsh if the rest of the Mane Six hadn't shown up. it also should be noted that Celestia usually makes a point that she is not going to punish anypony who thought it was coming. but this time she says she'll let it slide on the condition that they all write the friendship reports now. being tough on Twilight wouldn't automatically make her Tyrant Celestia. plus I saw a Fanfic that wile technically (soft) Rule 34,(a Spank the Cutie premise) shows a great deal of respect for the show and cannon characterizations and is a pretty heartwarming What If that wile unlikely, isn't beyond the realm of possibility in my mind.
 * Which fic is this? PM Aurabolt if you don't mind, and I can't really see Tyrant Celestia as a proper characterization considering that theirwhole society is based off the enduring values of the Elements of Harmony.
 * I may have misread what you said but I said that Celestia punishing Twilight would not make her her tyrant interpretation.
 * I'm also of the opinion that Twilight would have gotten off the hook; while causing a riot could have had terrible consequences, no one actually got hurt, Twilight's obviously never going to do anything like that again, and in any case she wasn't quite herself at the time. All said, there were probably enough mitigating factors to earn a bit of leniency. But... I find contemplating the ways Celestia might have punished her to be funny as hell. Twenty seconds on the clock!
 * "Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon, Twilight!" Incidentally, this is the same punishment Celestia doles out for littering, jaywalking, and "looking weird".
 * She was going to decree that for her crimes, Twilight must atone by facing the Tomb of Horrors! The scene cuts to a table in a basement where Twilight is forced to play D&D with Snips, Snails, and Twist. Just to make sure she doesn't have any unintended fun, the Great and Powerful Trixie will be DMing. Twilight has a long night of re-rolling characters ahead of her.
 * She actually was going to send Twilight back to Magic Kindergarden in Canterlot. However, to Twilight's surprise, it quickly grows on her. She's getting three juice boxes a day, a comfy mat on the floor to nap on, and her classmates look on her in awe as the genius she always knew she was. Upon seeing that her punishment isn't working, Celestia will announce that Twilight is being exiled, to serve out the duration of her sentence in a small town in the middle of nowhere that was founded by escaped mental patients, and is also surrounded on all sides by dangerous, carnivorous monsters... The next day Pinky will throw her a "Welcome Back" party throughout which Twilight is noticeably quiet.
 * She was going to pull out all of Mrs. Smartypants's stuffing, fill her full of sliced bread, and say "There! Mrs. Smartypants isn't real!" Then she'd make Twilight write a three hundred page essay explaining what that proved, and Twilight WOULDN'T KNOW!
 * "M-O-O-N. That spells criminal justice!"
 * She was going to inform Twilight that she wasn't going to be punished then, but in the afterlife; that she'd be held accountable for the days event's after she died. Celestia would then ask Twilight what day it was. Upon being told it was Tuesday, Celestia would say "Already? Oooh, doesn't leave you much time to repent." She'd then leave the room chuckling as Twilight enjoyed a fear induced BSOD.
 * She would ask Twilight if she likes bananas....


 * Why does Twilight make such a big deal about sending friendship reports to Celestia every week? Looking back on the pilot, it was never actually specified that the reports were supposed to be sent weekly; all signs point to Twilight imposing the weekly-report writing on herself.
 * And this surprises you? This is Twilight Sparkle we're talking about here; the pony who makes checklists to make checklists on her schedule for the day. It's entirely in character for her to impose pointless, arbitrary deadlines on herself to add more structure to her life.
 * Also, Twilight doesn't have the option of rewatching past episodes like we do. It's possible she simply got into a routine of sending the letters weekly and gradually came to suppose that Celestia had asked her to do this.
 * It also has to do with the fact that her mentor is the Ruler of all Equestria; who would want to screw up?

2.04 Luna Eclipsed

 * I don't know, but am I the only one who thinks that it's kind of a stupid idea if you want to show that your beloved sister has redeemed herself, to have a ceremony in your kingdom where you paint his/her alter ego as the ultimate boogeyman? And even if the whole thing was a tradition ever since Luna was exiled 1000 years ago, in Celestia's place, I still wouldn't have allowed them to tarnish Luna's reputation like that. I dunno about the aesop of the story, but I don't quite believe that being scary is a good quality to get people to like you. So, What The Hell, Celestia?!
 * Celestia is kind of a troll, maybe she didn't realize that her sister wouldn't take it in good fun like she would. Or maybe it was part of her "master plan" to not only teach Twilight a lesson about friendship, but to show her sister how to have fun.
 * Could easily be simply a tradition the ponies themselves started, at first starting as an actual appeasement. Later simply a tradition. Luna might have simply heard of it and went 'oh, I need to FIX this'.
 * It's highly unlikely Celestia is the origin of Nightmare Night; Luna's original transformation into Nightmare Moon 1000 years ago was probably a big scary event, and after Celestia fixed the problem the ponies of the world probably continued to tell or dramatize the story. One millennium later and it's a festival.
 * Yeah, she probably didn't start the ceremony. But she also didn't forbid it or gave the townsfolk a lecture about the implications of the whole thing.
 * Because ponies feared and shunned the night, Celestia singled out one night to focus their fears and anguish, leaving them with peace the rest of the year. It also got them out of their homes on that night, so they would realize the night isn't that bad.
 * They weren't quite saying that being scary was a good trait to have, but more like it was a good thing on that particular holiday, it being modeled after Halloween and everything. A good thing, too, since Luna's demeanor would have scared everyone on any other day. So it's good timing that she decided to show up on the day on which scares are expected, increasing the chances that misunderstandings can be cleared up/she can play it off as part of the celebration, and the townsfolk can see her for who she is under the Traditional Royal Voice.
 * There could also be the small chance that Nightmare Night was established long before Luna became Nightmare Moon and she took the title of Nightmare Moon to make the ponies more scared of her.
 * Another theory: lesser of two evils. On the one hoof, cannibal pony who can be appeased by offering candy. On the other hoof, Omnicidal Maniac. Pick one!
 * Is everypony carrying the Idiot Ball in the first episode? No one knows who Nightmare Moon is, even though she is the pony boogyman and the is a HUGE STATUE OF HER NEARBY?!?!?!
 * That's... actually a very good point, it implies that Nightmare Moon's likeliness was effectively forgotten before the events of the first episodes. Since the statue is in the Everfree Forest, it wouldn't be a wild guess to assume only Zecora knew of it's existence (though it's origins are still unknown). Another possibility might be that Nightmare Night changed over time to exclude Nightmare Moon, and that the whole 'Nightmare Moon boogeyman' stories were effectively invented by Zecora.
 * The statue can't be in the Everfree Forest, since (a) it was never stated to be there, and (b) there's a tradition of the kids leaving appeasement candy there every year. The discrepancy with the first episode might be explained as the difference between Nightmare Moon as an abstract bogeypony and Nightmare Moon as a living, breathing creature right in front of your face -- imagine how most folks would respond if The Great Pumpkin were to suddenly appear outside of Halloween.
 * As bizarre as that explanation may seem, maybe they only started the tradition of Nightmare Night after she was defeated by the Mane Six?
 * in the pilot, everypony gasps when Twilight says the name "Nightmare Moon". this suggests that they knew very well who she was even if they didn't recognize her at first. Plus, Nightmare Moon's story was stated to be a "pony tale". meaning it probably got reasonable far spread and Nightmare Moon became something of a bogyman(pony).
 * Although it's obviously a Retcon, it's logical to assume the ponies in Ep1 knew very well who Nightmare Moon appeared to be. They just didn't believe it was actually her, at least until Twilight finally said her name out loud. Most ponies considered her to be completely fictional. Nightmare Moon was acting as a "bad guy" but not consistently with her myth (i.e. flying around eating ponies and candy). For a modern-human equivalent, imagine someone who looked like Freddy Krueger taking hostages in a bank. The recognition is there, but no one would actually believe it's him, instead assuming it's just a disguise.
 * Is Pinkie Pie just so far gone now she was blind to the trouble she was causing, or was she just selfishly ignoring it for her own amusement?
 * Pinkie Pie likes to have fun and thought acting scared was fun. She might've assumed that the other scared ponies were playing along (the foals were, at least) and didn't realize how much trouble she caused.
 * The adults were also playing along, except Fluttershy, but she wasn't supposed to be there anyways. Zecora was herself also scaring foals until they were screaming with the story that she made up, Applejeck stopped pretending to be afraid when Twilight asked her, and the Mayor was playing along with Zecora, even at the end.
 * The adults were most certainly afraid, not merely playing. They wouldn't have destroyed half their celebration in their frantic attempts to get away if they thought it was all a game.
 * Neither. She was always away whenever Luna did stuff, only showing up at the end of a scene to scream and run off again. Think about it. Luna first showed up at the tail end of Zecora's little show. Pinkie probably thought that Luna was getting into the spirit of the holiday. After all, she made an amazing entrance and had an evil chariot and everything. She was playing along with Luna, or so she thought. She wasn't around for any of Twilight's lecture-sessions with the princess, not until Twilight jumped her.
 * Don't forget, Pinkie Pie was dressed as a chicken. She's being in-character.
 * For all her gregariousness, Pinkie Pie isn't all that socially aware. She missed all of Dash and Gilda's hints that they wanted to hang out alone, she misread all of her friends' intentions in "Party of One", and she completely misjudged the Grand Galloping Gala's atmosphere even once she was there. She probably had no idea she was upsetting Luna so much.
 * It actually makes sense; her element is Laughter, she wants to have fun regardless of the situation, the downside to it is that she doesn't know when to stop.
 * I'm going to second "Lack of social awareness" and site the Swarm of the Century, Over a Barrel and Best Night Ever as further examples.
 * Does Pipsqueak prove once and for all that ponies do not age like us? He was walking and talking at less then a year old.
 * Possibly. Or he's never celebrated Nightmare Night in Trottingham. Or maybe Trottingham doesn't celebrate Nightmare Night. Or Pipsqueak was too young to enjoy the holiday until this year.
 * I read it as this year being Pipsqueak's first Nightmare Night when he was old enough to go trick-or-treating and otherwise participate in the festivities. He probably heard all about it from the older colts at school and loved the sound of it.
 * This could be a real world reference to how Halloween is seen slightly differently each side of the Atlantic. Trottingham, apparently being a UK expy, might not do Nightmare Night to quite the same enthusiastic levels as Ponyville, much like how Britain doesn't treat Halloween as much of a big deal as our American cousins. Plus Nightmare Night could just be a Ponyville area thing that hasn't spread quite that far.
 * Why does Luna look so different? she's darker, she's bigger, she sounds older and her mane looks all Ethereal.
 * She could be growing up. Maybe it's just me, but it wouldn't make sense for Celestia to have the energy mane if Luna never got one.
 * Maybe the princesses work on similar principles to the gods on Discworld. Luna was trapped on the moon for 1000 years, so people stopped believing in her, making her smaller. Now she's back, belief has made her stronger again. She might end up as large as Celestia yet!
 * The darker part might have to do with Luna Eclipse taking place at night.
 * Word of Dante is that she's built up her magic reserves after being brought down close-to-normal by the Elements of Harmony.
 * Being the princess of the night, it might be that she's big, loud and powerful at night and small, timid and weak during the day. Celestia seems normal at night, but maybe it took time for her to reach that point.
 * Or maybe her powers - along with her appearance - are tied to the moon phases, changing in parallel.
 * So is Pip an example of a Token Minority character? He's a boy and British.
 * No. British people are hardly a minority no matter how you slice it. The show already has a male main character, and Pip (as far as we know) is a one-off. Read the trope.
 * Yeah…that main male character you speak of? How much exactly does he really do? Is he ever really involved in a main plot outside supporting? Even if Token Minority isn't with Pip, it is definitely with Spike.
 * Spike may count, but he's a borderline case.
 * Then again, he does have a different coat pattern so maybe he is a minority in-show.
 * Shouldn't it be Celestia's responsibility to educate Luna in the differences of etiquette and socializing in modern times as compared to 1000 years ago? She's had at least just over 6 months to do so going by the fact that up till last episode the friendship reports were weekly. Or is Celetia just being Trollestia again?
 * Whenever we see Celestia, she's busy. (Royal duties, scolding an irresponsible student, etc.) Maybe she hasn't had time to teach Luna etiquette. Or, Wild Mass Guessing, Luna insisted that she catch up on everything by herself.
 * Think about this, if she had just told her about it, then she'd just be going through the motions. She'd have been told how to behave, not learned. And even more important, she'd not have bonded with her subjects in the process. Celestia is the older and more intelligent sister, but she's also a Trickster Mentor, just telling someone how to act isn't her style if learning themselves will work a lot better.
 * There's a difference between telling someone how to behave and explaining that "oh, this is the way everyone speaks now." The explanation is that Celestia, whether troll or Trickster Mentor, has a policy of never explaining anything.
 * Rainbow's wearing a Shadowbolt costume. Which means that the idea's fresh in her mind… from when she met them in episode 2. Assuming the Summer Sun Celebration is around 21 June, and Nightmare Night is 31 October… that's barely over 4 months to get caught up on one thousand years of culture and changes.
 * Would Celestia even remember how they behaved a thousand years ago, and did she even know Luna would act that way in public? The only other time we see her she acts completely differently. Either it was Characterization Marches On, or she simply doesn't act that hammy around her sister.
 * The second one is almost certainly true. She explicitly says that the Royal Canterlot Voice (shouting and using the Royal "We") is for speaking to her subjects. Around Celestia, she's likely just quirkily archaic in her speech.
 * Was the white foal in the devil costume that Luna tried to approach Twist?
 * No, her eyes aren't pink and her nose isn't the same.
 * So, why is it that Nightmare Moon spoke in modern form, if grandiose, while Luna's speech is extremely archaic (and she seems to think that it's still normal)?
 * Celestia has taken The Slow Path and experienced the changes in culture and custom.
 * I wasn't talking about Celestia, I was talking about Nightmare Moon, who didn't have Luna's problem with Antiquated Linguistics.
 * Villains Blend in Better.
 * Possibly whatever had corrupted her was doing the speech-writing.
 * It's not so hard to Hand Wave it if you keep in mind that "thou" is singular, while "you" is plural, and most of Nightmare Moon's lines were addressed to multiple ponies. The lack of the Royal We could send a message that she doesn't consider her subjects worth speaking for; she doesn't speak for the nation, she is the nation. Or…or something.
 * Alternatively, the Royal We entered Equestrian lexicon not because the speaker represented the country or her subjects, but because she represented the Dual Monarchy and spoke for both sister-princesses. Celestia let the usage fall out of favor because she doesn't represent the sister she sent rocketing to the moon, while Nightmare Moon would consider it sharing power with someone else. Or, more alternatively, Nightmare Moon was able to observe pony culture progress to some degree, but Luna either didn't experience or didn't remember the full run of a thousand years.
 * This lends some credence to the theory that Nightmare Moon was a completely separate entity that was possessing Luna.
 * I'm not sure this counts as a "theory", given that Lauren Faust said something to this effect -- that although her jealousy and resentment provided the opening for something to do so, the transformation was due to some outside force.
 * except that Faust never communicated any such thing.
 * I can only conclude that Nightmare Moon was awake, aware and using magic to keep track what happening on the planet all those thousand years...but Luna's real personality didn't experience that passage of time because she wasn't conscious. So all she remembers is the initial quarrel with Celestia but she only knows that Twilight and co cured her because Celestia told her so.
 * Another possibility: Nightmare Moon really couldn't have cared less, but when Luna paid Ponyville her first major return visit she wanted to make the best impression she could and so took pains to be on her very best royal behavior -- formal speech as she remembered it from happier times and all. That is, she doesn't actually still talk like that all the time (she doesn't seem to when we see her again at the end of the season in "A Canterlot Wedding", though she doesn't have many lines there either), but she dusted off her old lessons on proper princessly protocol specifically for this occasion.


 * Shouldn't Zecora of all ponies know better than to be telling scary stories about someone else like that? After being the victim of such stories for who knows how long before Bridle Gossip.
 * There's a difference, I think. Nightmare Moon no longer exists and is still but a myth for the most part. AND there is legitimate reason to fear her.
 * Tradition, plain and simple. Zecora isn't making up these stories, just retelling them with her own flair.
 * Plus the stories are about Nightmare Moon, not Luna herself. And Nightmare Moon definitely deserves the fear.
 * The demon-winged pegasi that brought Luna in, is that a costume? Or are there demon-winged pegasi?
 * There are no solid facts since we never got to see how Luna's return affected the palace, therefore we can only guess their origins. Makes you wonder where such a pony would find employment while Luna was exiled, but there again, we didn't see much of Equestria and beyond, so they may just be a foreign race. That or Luna simply cast an illusion/shapeshift spell on regular royal guards.
 * They could be demon-winged pegasi. They don't have to be a separate race or sub-breed; pegasus ponies like Dash and the Wonderbolts sometimes leave a unique contrail, maybe there are variant wing patterns. Bat wings might just be a very rare variant, or maybe just rare in the regions we've been shown, though actually the norm in the area where Luna recruits her servants (Pranceylvania, of course).


 * Rainbow Dash dressed as a Shadowbolt, a pony that only appeared in an illusion created by Nightmare Moon. Is there an acutal group called the Shadowbolts that are rivals to the Wonderbolts? How did anyone understand Rainbow's costume?
 * I think that it's one of those costumes that work if you don't know what exactly it is. It's basically the darker and edgier version of the Wonderbolts costume, that's something everypony should notice. Unless the Shadowbolts actually exist. Maybe, a millenium ago, they were Luna's group?
 * It makes sense for Rainbow Dash to wear a costume like that. She's after all only one of the biggest Wonderbolt fangirls in all of Equestria and the only pony who's seen the Shadowbolts up close for any length of time in the pilot. And while she'd never put on actual Wonderbolt colors as long as she hasn't earned them, dressing up as the next best 'evil' thing for Nightmare Night is right up her alley.

2.05 Sisterhooves Social

 * So, Rarity and Sweetie Belle's dad wears a shirt, and their mom is fully dressed, but they themselves don't wear clothes. How on earth does that make any sense?
 * Well, they are both about to go on vacation. Perhaps whatever city they're traveling to simply has stricter social mores than Ponyville, so they're doing the pony equivalent of overdressing?
 * Why did Apple Bloom keep saying "just for one day" threateningly, if she was in on the trick and knew Applejack was never going to run the race with Sweetie Belle at all?
 * Sure, she was in on it -- but Sweetie wasn't. And after Sweetie had raved about wanting Applejack as her Cool Big Sis, she was probably more than a little worried she'd take the 'lending' too seriously.
 * Apple Bloom kept insisting on the "one day" thing in order to keep up the illusion that Apple Jack would be racing with Sweetie.
 * Maybe it's just me, but the portrayal of Applejack's and Apple Bloom's relationship in this episode didn't seem to fit with how they related to each other back in "Call of the Cutie". In that episode, Applejack seemed much more distant and out of touch with Apple Bloom's life, whereas Apple Bloom saw Applejack as a faraway idol who she wanted to grow up to be like (which is much like Sweetie Belle and Rarity in this episode). In other words, the two seemed much, much closer here than they did in "Call of the Cutie".
 * Well, it's not like Applejack could just give Apple Bloom her Cutie Mark. That might be why she seemed more distant. Or maybe they were distant and have simply gotten closer since "Call of the Cutie".
 * Considering that Applebloom was upset over a natural part of her development that simply cannot be rushed, AJ was fully justified in not rushing out for some hair-brained scheme to force something that simply can't be changed. Sibling relationships are never simple, as anybody with them could tell you. One day you love them to death, the next you're mostly indifferent to each other, the next you want to strangle them with their own intestines. It's entirely possible to be extremely close to your younger sibling, but have periods of being relatively distant.
 * The circumstances were different. In "Call of the Cutie", Apple Bloom and Applejack were at odds because Apple Bloom was obsessing over her cutie mark and causing trouble for the family business. "Sisterhooves Social" shows the two sisters in a situation much more like an average day on the farm. Also, the scene is shown from Sweetie Belle's perspective, and compared to her own rocky relationship with Rarity, Applejack and Apple Bloom might as well be the same pony.
 * There is also the fact that Sweetie Belle was there at the time. Family members tend to keep their internal quarrels out of the limelight when non-family company is visiting.


 * How did Rarity and Applejack last so long in the mud pit?
 * Using a piece of hay as a snorkel? Or maybe they secretly had scuba equipment at the bottom of the mudhole.
 * Maybe Apple Jack surfaced occasionally in order to take a breath, but never exited the mudhole completely because then Sweetie Belle might see her.


 * Why weren't Applejack and Rarity disqualified for switching places? Isn't that qualifiable as cheating?
 * Since they didn't win, the issue didn't come up. In fact, there should have been a query about having two non-sisters (Applejack and Sweetie Belle) competing in the first place. Either no one noticed, or no one thought of it as cheating, in both cases.
 * That, and the point of the race was to have fun. When fun is the goal, rules don't tend to be as strictly enforced.
 * Maybe they let the ponies in charge know what was going on? That would explain why Rarity was able to hide in the mudhole in the first place.
 * Given that the only candidates we see for "the ponies in charge" are Big Macintosh and Granny Smith…


 * Do they seriously expect people to believe that Rarity, a FASHION DESIGNER, never once considered making a line of clothing where each outfit was a different color? That seems like something that would occur to someone who doesn't make clothes for a living. It's pretty basic stuff. The only thing I can think of is that Rarity focuses mostly on gems in her designs so she wouldn't think of something that simple, but since she's seen at one point adding gems to the new line she came up with that logic doesn't really seem to work. Especially since there are gems for pretty much any color of the rainbow and she's had to do something similar for a client in a previous episode.
 * It's not that hard to imagine that "each outfit is a different color of the rainbow" simply hadn't occurred to her before; she was always busy with her other ideas.
 * Its not unbelievable. She calls that room her "Inspiration Room", which means that it's the place where her ideas come to her. She also notes that it had never been so ordered before. Simply put, she'd never before had a rainbow arrangement in the special place she sets aside for inspiration, which is why the idea didn't occur to her before.
 * Alternatively, she'd had the idea before, but it had always been eclipsed by other ideas at the time, and she forgot about it.


 * The Sisterhooves Social takes place at Sweet Apple Acres, is hosted by the Apple family...and all of the events are modeled after the chores that Applejack and Apple Bloom do every day. Does nopony see this as an unfair advantage to them?
 * Apparently not. Besides, the events could be traditional, established way back when. The Sisterhooves Social may even have existed longer than Ponyville, which would explain why it's on one of the surrounding farms, rather than in town.
 * Given that Rarity and Applebloom lost, even when Rarity was athletic enough to fool Applebloom into thinking she was Applejack, apparently Apple family members don't have that much of an unfair advantage in this contest.
 * Uh... that was Rarity and Sweetie Belle. Not an apple in the bunch.

2.06 The Cutie Pox
"Fluttershy: "French haute couture, please.""
 * When Apple Bloom starts speaking French, Applejack, horrified, screams, "She's speakin' fancy!". When Zecora conveniently appears when Apple Bloom's cutie pox gets worse, Applejack asks if her "Zebra Sense" brought her there. So is Applejack a kid-friendly racist now?
 * Everything Is Racist
 * I think it's kind of been established that the ponies really don't know much about zebras. It shouldn't be too surprising that they still have some weird misconceptions.
 * AJ has unfortunately proven herself to be kinda racist. Just look back at her reactions to Zecora in Bridle Gossip.
 * Uh, no. Prejudiced, definitely, but hardly "racist". And certainly not any more prejudiced than any other of the mane six in that episode. Is all this because of her accent, or what?
 * As for the French thing, I didn't really take that as racist. AJ's horrified because her little sister's been rendered unable to speak any other language at random. I could imagine that being genuinely creepy in real life. The fancy talk comment could be either playing up the idea that French is archaically seen as a refined language when compared to rural American-English (which stems from French being the traditional court language in many European monarchies, such as Britain's) or trying to avoid naming France directly due to Equestria not being on Earth. And yes, I know Fluttershy name checked the french previously.
 * And from the "Cutie Mark Chronicles", we can guess Applejack associates French with the snotty upper class she dislikes.
 * It's also possible AJ doesn't exactly recognize the language she speaks as French, just that it reminds her of upper class speeches.
 * It could be that in the ponyverse, French is actually called "Fancy". It's not likely there's a country called France in this world, after all.
 * Explain this line then...


 * She doesn't know how to properly pronounce the name.
 * Alternate explanation: perhaps we misheard her line and she said "She's speakin' Francey!" As in Applejack just knows that's how they speak in France but doesn't actually know the name of the language? Or maybe she's mispronouncing "Français"? Well, okay, maybe not. But Gratuitous French words are used a lot by high society snobs, so I guess it could be "fancy" too…
 * It's worth pointing out that Applebloom does identify the language as French: "Qu'est-ce que c'est?! Je parle Français?!"
 * As far as the "Zebra Sense", maybe Applejack thought Zecora had some precognitive ability simlar to Pinkie Pie's "Pinkie Sense". (Or would that just make Applejack recist against Pinkie Pie?).
 * Applejack's uncouth. She's not so much offensive as just affably careless because she's so brutally honest all the time. Plus, Rule of Funny.


 * There's a brief sight gag where Twilight's hair gets snipped to match Rarity's, which causes Spike to get hearts over his eyes. The problem? That's his surrogate mother. I'm sorry, what?
 * He just really likes her mane, thats all.
 * In the opening scene of "Winter Wrap-Up", he actually says "You're not mommy." after she wakes him up. (Which answers this question, but raises all sorts of other ones.) So Spike clearly doesn't think of Twilight as a surrogate mother.
 * He was also extremely sleep deprived and disoriented when he said that, and despite being a baby seems to have the personality for early hints of teenage-style rebelliousness, so I'm not sure we could take that at face value. Could be a Non Sequiter Thud, could be a "you're not my REAL mother".
 * Word of God is that Celestia's the one that raised him after Twilight hatched him. So... no, Twilight is not his mother figure.
 * No one ever said that Twilight raised Spike from birth, or that he sees her as a surrogate mother. In fact he refers to the mane 6 as "my friends", rather than "my five friends and also my mom."
 * Twilight and Spike's relationship has always seemed more like a surrogate brother/sister thing than parental.
 * Was the Cutie-Pox outbreak that happened centuries ago caused by all the ponies eating Heart's Desire too?
 * It could be possible, but every single one of them would have had to eat it while wishing with all their hearts that they had cutie marks. Not to mention the fact that Applebloom brewed the Heart's Desire into a potion, though if she just ate the plant herself it might have had the same cutie pox effect. Although, if all the ponies who got it (or at least the first one if it is actually infectious), wouldn't they have noticed that it started after eating that flower? Not to mention it never says where the outbreak first happened - just to "a population of ponies in the Paleopony period".
 * The original sickness probably had nothing to do with Heart's Desire. The Heart's Desire potion seems to make the drinker's most dearly held wish come true magically. However, it's been shown a number of times that a real cutie mark cannot be conjured by magic. Since the spell couldn't do something impossible, it did something that was possible (if unlikely) and gave Apple Bloom the Cutie Pox instead.
 * Hearts desire, if improperly prepared, gives the eater Cutie Pox. Maybe their water supply was poisoned? Appleblooms wish was just a coincidence. It's rare (plus nopony goes into the everfree forest) so it only happened once.
 * So, let me get this straight: Trixie walks into town and shows off her special talent, and the ponies start hating her before she can finish introducing her. Applebloom walks into town and shows off her special talent, and gets showered with praise?
 * The only ponies that took issue with Trixie was the Mane Cast. The rest of the town didn't have any particularly negative reaction to her. Meanwhile Applebloom is AJ's sister and a little kid, so they'd be much more tolerant of her being over the top, especially given how important this was to her (Celestia knows, she's been at it for like a year now).
 * Trixie was very vocal and rude about her greatness on top of just showing off her talent. Also, Applejack remarks that she was acting "like a schoolfilly", which is precisely what Apple Bloom is. Besides, you only receive a cutie mark once, so Apple Bloom's reaction was palatable.
 * You mean you should only receive a cutie mark once...
 * Not to mention that Trixie was a total stranger, while Apple Bloom was a little kid who lived in town.
 * And that getting your cutie mark seems to be a cause for celebration, and its implied the townsponies knew that AB was a blank flank the previous day, so her display (with only 2 marks) wasn't out of the ordinary.
 * Plus, Trixie was all hat and no cattle. Applebloom was hat and cattle.
 * Again with Twilight's hair gets snipped to match Rarity's. When Spike immediately falls in love with Twilight for a brief time (Well, only due to her mane), and he mostly loves Rarity.. Does Spike only love Rarity for her mane?
 * He liked the fact that Twilight looked kind of like Rarity.
 * Yet Spike plain forgets about Rarity when he sees Twilight with the same hairstyle, even though she's standing right there. While it's not surprising that a guy likes girls with a particular cute hairstyle, one may wonder why he chooses to fawn over Twilight a second she gets her mane done in same style. A while back he also ridiculed Rarity when her mane was ruined after the curse during Zecora's introduction.
 * Either it's a one-off gag you shouldn't overthink, or he simply likes the hairstyle, not suddenly fell in love with Twilight.


 * Why was Apple Bloom so upset when she failed to get her bowling cutie mark? I can understand being a little disappointed, but it's not like this is her first failure. In fact, we've seen her (and the other two CMC) fail at dozens of different activities, and each time they just laughed it off and moved on to something else. What made bowling so special? Was it a secret passion of hers? Was she that sure that bowling was going to be her special talent?
 * Because right after she threw a ball and heard pins smash, someone immediately announced that she had gotten her cutie mark. It turns out that was a different person, but in those circumstances it was easy for her to get excited. It would be like getting the winning lottery ticket number wrong by the very last digit; you're going to feel that much more dissapointed after you came so close and were led on to believing you had won.

2.07 May the Best Pet Win

 * Right at the beginning of the song there is a vulture sitting on a fence in the background. Why didn't Fluttershy show that to Rainbow Dash? Vultures can fly and (in my opinion anyway) are incredibly cool so I'm sure Rainbow would have liked it.
 * You're right, it is in your opinion. Vultures tend to look like this, and also aren't held in high esteem outside those who recognize their ecological importance. If she was looking for coolness and flight ability, a clumsy, ugly vulture (in Dash's likely opinion) wouldn't make it past the first round (thoguh how Tank managed to do so is beyond me).
 * Tank managed to last as he did for two things: He was accepted in the first place to humor Fluttershy, and he never let the little fact that Rainbow Dash told him he had lost(several times) intimidate him.
 * Different person from the OP, here, but I object. Vultures are incredibly cool animals, and they do not, all look like the same either. You get tons of variation, from the fluffy-headed griffon vulture, to the striking lammergeier, to the frankly-awesome egyptian vulture. I don't even know where you got the misconception that they're clumsy, other than from watching too many cartoons about them. They are incredibly elegant while in flight, and the california condor in particular, has one of the largest wingspans of any bird in the world (beaten only by the wandering albatross, I believe), and can stay aloft for hours with hardly a beat of its wings. Awesome indeed. The one problem, though, is that they are rather lazy fliers, preferring to soar and glide rather than the fast-paced sorta stuff that Dash is fond of, but then again, Dash is kinda lazy too, so that might work out.
 * No, it wouldn't. The vulture shown in the episode isn't depicted as awesome at all, or at least, Dash didn't find it so.
 * Fluttershy taking care of otters and seals. Okay, its probably a river otter. But a seal? How is she taking care of it that far from the ocean?
 * We don't know how far they are from the ocean. Also consider the possibility of her having a tank or small pool for it.
 * How's Tank going to live with Rainbow Dash in Cloudsdale despite being a turtle (thus, can't walk on clouds), or is it going to stay the night with Fluttershy?
 * Twilight can probably just cast that cloudwalking spell on it, and it has the helicopter to get from cloud to cloud.
 * Rainbow Dash doesn't live in Cloudsdale, she lives in a cloud castle thingy that isn't very far off the ground. Tank could probably just live right underneath it.
 * Umm... Shellicopter, anyone?
 * How did Gummy appear in Rainbow Dash's dream? All the other pets were making noises but Gummy can't make any kind of sound so he shouldn't have appeared. It's a pretty silly and pointless question, but this troper was just wondering.
 * I guess she subconsciously figured "hey, all the other pets had cameos in my dream, why not?" [besides, note that Gummy does make noises, just very rarely (his sneeze in "Party of One" is an example)].
 * And that weird little sound he makes when Pinkie first introduces Gummy in "Feeling Pinkie Keen".
 * Gummy has the same reality warping powers as Pinkie, and consciously inserted himself into the dream world.
 * Exactly why did Rainbow Dash not just kick the damn rock off her wing with her hind legs? She was clearly shown being in an excellent position to do so. Hell, if Tank could lift it with his freaking neck, Dash could easily have kicked or pushed it with her strong pony legs.
 * So far I've been assuming she got a little caught up in her own drama. If no help actually came for a couple of hours, she would probably get tired of it and either pound on the rock until it cracked, dig at the ground until she could free her wing, lure over a Quarray Eel and have tricked it into slamming into the rock, make a cloud from ambient water vapor and have it hit the rock with lightning a couple of times, or something.
 * There's no reason to believe she could do that. I think Tank lifting the rock with his head was an indication of his great strength, not Rainbow's weakness. Still, if that was the idea, then they should have shown her trying to kick the rock away and failing, rather than leaving us to rely on an assumption.
 * Remember that Earth Ponies are the strong ones, not Pegasi. (Demonstrated in Mare Do Well with Apple Jack in the costume.) And Tank, apparently, is stronger than Dash.
 * Apparently, those feathers on pegasi wings are actually NOT feathers? If they were, Dash would have harmlessly pulled one out to go free, since only the very tip of one of her "feathers" got stuck under the rock.
 * The part trapped was a pinion feather. Those take years to reach full size and do not readily grow back. Pulling it off would be like a world-class sprinter chopping off her toes on one foot. Sure, she'd be able to walk afterward, but she wouldn't be able to perform any great athletic feats.
 * It was stretched out to a ridiculous length (I thought it was her tail or leg when I first saw the episode), so if it was supposed to be a feather, they clearly don't work the way they do in real life.
 * It could be that a part of her wing support (the wing skeleton in a bird's wings) was caught as well.
 * Why didn't Rainbow Dash have two pets? That falcon looked devastated when he (she?) found out that the winner was the one who crossed the finish line with Dash.
 * Because Captain Annabelleisa needs an owner 20% cooler than Rainbow Dash.
 * Rainbow, loyal though she may be, is not the most responsible of ponies. She probably couldn't handle the providing for two animals, especially if one of them is a something as high maintenance as a bird of prey. Given how relatively little a tortoise needs in terms of care, Tank and his little helicopter rig is probably all she's ready to commit to. Personally I like to think that Fluttershy managed to find the falcon an owner with one of the many background ponies after the episode.
 * Considering that Fluttershy already cares for all those creatures as pets (as opposed to livestock or zoo creatures), I'd think the falcon and all the other competitors are in good caring hooves under her care. Now if we get to see them again, that's another story....
 * Because Rainbow Dash didn't want to be the only pony with more than one pet.
 * Whose magic is powering the Shellicopter? Going by color-scheme, as seems appropriate in the second season, it seems to be Princess Celestia's doing.
 * Or it may be some unicorn we've never seen on screen. There doesn't seem to be a rule saying that everypony's magic auras must have a different color.
 * Or it's solar powered.
 * Dash mentions bullets during the song, and she names her pet "Tank". Does this mean that ponies have modern weaponry, even though we haven't seen it onscreen?
 * WMG: Every firearm/weapon mentioned is actually "party" firearm in the genre of Pinkie's Party Cannon. So there are Party Guns, Party Tanks, Party Bullets, maybe a few Party Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, etc.. They're all perfectly harmless and are only used for throwing parties.
 * Since when is Owlowliscious a pet? Sure he can't talk, but Twilight had referred to him as an assistant in Owl's Well That Ends Well, on about the same level as Spike. So why is she suddenly treating him like an uncivilized animal when he actually does jobs for her?
 * Same reason Angel Bunny is considered a pet.

2.08 The Mysterious Mare Do Well

 * Were the Mane Cast trying to incite Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome in Rainbow Dash? Constantly showing her up is the same thing as enraging every animal Fluttershy tries to talk to, or feeding Twilight's homework to dogs, or taking apples Applejack got off the trees and gluing them back on. It's obviously going to make Rainbow Dash more and more unstable, and it was entirely likely to make her do something she would later regret. This is not an okay thing to do!
 * Agreed. This entire scheme was way overblown. True, Dash has the occasional tendency to get way too worked up over certain stuff, but she showed that she can learn from her mistakes just last episode. I don't think they ever tried having a serious talk with her. As we have seen in previous episodes, she's not really as full as herself as she pretends to be. So she might have listened to her friends without them having to put her through a series of humiliations...
 * Not to mention their motivation for doing so is plain ridiculous. Rainbow is ALWAYS full of herself! Her entire measuring stick for her potential pet in the last episode was they have to be as awesome as she is. She is always tooting her own horn, and yet they never saw a reason to want to mess with her before now? And furthermore she has every right to considering, you know, she's the only pony to ever pull off a Sonic Rainboom. Three times. Not to mention she literally saved at least half a dozen ponies lives, which call me crazy, but it's at least excusable to get wrapped up in the praise that brings just a little bit, isn't it? Up until the Well Do Mare shows up, she was basically just playing to the crowd and putting on a good show for her fans enjoyment. There was nothing about her behavior in this episode that called for them doing what they did.
 * I don't know though, I felt they really only turned up as Mare Do Well when Rainbow Dash started getting so full of herself that she started botching the "hero-ing" part of being a hero. The crashing balloon? She herself blew it off to do autographs, and Mare Do Well got down to business. (side note: episode didn't say who was in costume that time, but we know it wasn't twilight because she was in the crowd, and given the situation was probably Pinky.) The Runaway wagon? Applejack waited until after Rainbow boasted and after she failed to save them. Applejack not then stepping up and trying to save the wagon would have been irresponsible, but she did wait and give Rainbow Dash her shot at it. The collapsing construction site? Actually took both Rainbow Dash AND Pinkie working in tandem to save everypony, even though Pinkie did save more than RD. The Dam? Rainbow made a bad situation worse before Mare Do Well got there, and it took Twilight to save the day. In my mind, the only thing the 5 are really guilty of is using the costume to make the point. Rainbow really was either screwing things up or getting in over her head on her own by the time Mare Do Well showed up.
 * The part that really got to me was the one where they all laughed at her, despite seeing her clearly distraught. Not only does this directly contradict the message of "Lesson Zero", but it destroys any hints of innocence in their actions. That and Fluttershy showing up, which didn't even serve a purpose - she was clearly just there to make Rainbow Dash more jealous and upset.
 * What bugged me even more than that was how the aesop of the episode is to not be a braggart about your accomplishments (so far, so good, it's a redux of Boast Busters but whatever)...which is destroyed in retrospect by the Sugarcube Corner scene where they discuss how awesome and humble the Mysterious Mare Do Well is. They might be trying to make a point, but they're essentially doing the same thing they're Rainbow not to do, for the sake of agitating her. What the Hell, Hero?
 * I think in that scene they were just trying to test whether she'd learned the lesson in humility they had for her. If she'd been willing to agree with them they would probably have come clean at the first opportunity, but instead she continues to act unimpressed while obviously seething with jealousy.
 * They used the costume for a reason: If they hadn't, Rainbow Dash would have accused them of stealing her spotlight, and would have quickly challenged every one of them, for another "Iron Pony" competition. Fluttershy showing up was so Rainbow couldn't narrow it to who it really was.
 * The point of the costume may also have been to prevent anypony else from recognizing them. Mare Do Well acts as nothing so much as a classic Foil to Rainbow Dash in this episode -- where Rainbow basks in the attention her heroics earn her to the point of getting obnoxious and sloppy, MDW stays competent, anonymous, and never sticks around to claim any credit for herself once the job is done. That's humility in action right there for you.
 * Rainbow Dash made it spiral out of control by being more of a show-off and less of a hero over the course of the episode, if the others would had simply allowed it to happen, who knows how far she would had taken it to make sure everyone is aware of her? Her 'insecurities' in comparison are a rather small element to worry at that point. Besides, talking to her about it likely wouldn't had changed a thing, this is Rainbow Dash we're talking about.
 * Further, for good or for ill the series as a whole seems to send the message that "just talking about a problem won't work, someone has to be shown the problem." It wouldn't surprise me if Twilight came up with the plan, because Celestia is her mentor and Celestia refuses to just tell you something when a Batman Gambit will do. And Twilight seems to have taken the "Batman" part of that literally in this case…
 * Basically, there are two ways to interpret their actions: either they were trying to show Rainbow Dash how to be a hero without getting a big head or falling to overconfidence, which is okay, or they were deliberately trying to show her up and make her feel bad, which really isn't. The writers probably intended the former, but the episode came off too close to the latter for many people's liking.
 * Why would people be upset about somepony showing up Rainbow Dash? Dash shows people up all the time, her whole shtick is being more awesome then everypony else. She is somewhat excused by the fact that she usually IS. But this also means that she herself never gets brought down to earth, and that leads her to become extremely obnoxious sometimes. Therefore, to be frank, Rainbow Dash deserved to be showed up a bit. She needed to learn more than just "being a hero without making a fuss of it". She needed to get hammered into her rather thick skull just how annoying it is when somepony demonstratively can do anything better than you.
 * Because trying to make your friend feel bad is a horrible thing to do? Plus, as stated before, for Rainbow Dash being the best is the same thing as being good with animals is to Fluttershy or being able to work her farm properly is to Applejack. When something messes with that, she gets panic attacks and depression and then starts acting ever more irrationally.
 * The fact two episodes about Rainbow Dash learning something the hard way aired one after the other might also suggest they intended the audience to be fed up of her behavior and understand she needs a good deal of wisdom beaten into her. If anything, 'May the Best Pet Win' showcased Rainbow Dash as what she seemingly learned to avoid in 'Griffon the Brush-Off'; only seeing 'cool' traits and forsaking the rest, while this episode is reminiscent of 'Boast Busters' taken up to eleven. After such regression on RD's part, it's surprising to see so many fans believe the rest of the Mane 6 were 'harsh'; she truly needed to be taken down to earth. Also, Rainbow Dash only understood the aesop at the very end of the episode, which suggests the lesson won't stick for long.
 * The basic problem with the costume is that it wasn't doing its job. It didn't cause Rainbow Dash to think that she should focus more on her heroics and less on the bragging. It just made her feel bad because she apparently believed that Mare Do Well was trying to drive her out of heroics altogether. Every time it showed up, it made Rainbow Dash even more desperate for others' admiration. She only finally learned her lesson when her friends explained it at the end.
 * I think the main problem people had with the rest of the Mane 6 was the motivations behind their actions and the general logic that lead them to do what they did. The impression that I and others got from the rest of Mane Six's actions in this episode was that they found Rainbow Dash's bragging and boasting to be more annoying than usual. So in order to correct this they decide to hatch an under-handed scheme behind their friend's back that involved trying to one-upping her at every opportunity possible, and they even went so far as to remind said friend how they have one-upped her without her even realizing it. All because they thought their friend was annoying. If that doesn't sound at least some what illogical/dickish then I don't know what is.
 * She wasn't just annoying. Even before Mare-Do-Well stepped in, she was already showing herself to be dangerous irresponsible. Pay attention when she rescues the baby -- not only does she needlessly worry the crowd to fish for extra praise by saying there's something wrong with the baby... but once the photographers show up, she carelessly tosses it aside to pose for the pictures. Then she wastes time showboating with a pose and catchphrase before rescuing the elderly ponies. More than just being insufferably obnoxious, she was letting her arrogance get in the way of actually being a hero, and was endangering lives as a result.
 * Except that nothing about the Mane 6's behavior seems to suggest that they were at all concerned about the danger she might pose, it was all about getting her to stop bragging and act with humility. I would also like to say that despite their intentions it can be argued that their actions only made the situation worse by making RD more desperate for attention.
 * I'd like to point out that Mare Do Well saved ponies, including ponies that Dash would not have been able to save by herself. (Remember the dam? And the cart that Dash couldn't stop?) The Mane 5 have an obvious moral imperative to save those ponies whether or not Dash is being a braggart. So it was a question of either saving ponies (and thus embarrassing Dash) while wearing a costume, vs. saving ponies (and thus embarrassing Dash) while not wearing a costume; Dash was going to be embarrassed no matter what they did. They went with the costume idea because they wanted to demonstrate the idea of humility to Dash, because Dash had been a braggart recently. That effort unfortunately backfired, until the Mane 5 revealed their scheme and Dash learned her lesson. But the Mane 5 were always simply trying to save ponies and teach their friend a much-needed lesson; they weren't trying to be dicks about it.


 * Actually, a better question would be: how much of what happened did the Mane Cast intend? In retrospect it seems the plan wasn't meant to make Rainbow Dash start heroically opening jars or end up on her own Personal Raincloud, anymore than throwing a surprise party for Pinkie was meant to drive her to talk to rocks. Was any of that their intention, or was it just an unforeseen consequence?
 * True, the episode could had ended with a catastrophe akin to 'Lesson Zero', with Rainbow Dash completely losing it and literally nuking Ponyville 'You shall remember me no matter what'-style or causing a major disaster only she could solve, but from what we saw so far, it's quite hard to cause lasting damage to Ponyville and it's denizens due to Cartoon Physics. They probably assumed she would try to upstage MDW, then try to unmask her if it failed, and acted accordingly. If she slipped into depression instead (which would be very out-of-character anyways), they'd likely abandon the whole thing before it went too far.
 * You also bring up an interesting point mentioning Party of One, you'd think Pinkie of all ponies would realize locking someone out from what they like doing could have a massive adverse effect on them. If she'd witnessed Dash's " Then why am I all alone" speech I'd imagine she'd change her tact pretty fast.
 * I imagine pretty much any of the Mane Cast coming across Rainbow Dash in that condition would trigger a huge What Have We Done moment. They love her; of course they don't want her to feel that way. The problem is that the way the episode is set up, it can be hard to remember that. It makes it look as if the girls meant for Rainbow Dash to end up like that, which seems to be the source of many of the complaints about it. I know it was the source of mine.
 * This discussion is growing redundant, even for a Headscratcher entry. Simply put; even if they fully knew what Rainbow Dash would go through, it was still necessary for them to do so. Pinkie Pie being 'locked' out of her element makes sense, Rainbow Dash being 'locked' out of her freakishly overblown ego does not, as it isn't a situation she's normally in, yet is troublesome for the rest of the cast. Heck, even if they acted out of malice (which is definitely not the case), their actions would still be justified as Rainbow Dash was clearly going way overboard. They even gave her a chance to realize how wrong she was, yet didn't get the hint. If anything, it makes sense for them to passively watch her afterwards to make sure she does not try something that would mirror Twilight in 'Lesson Zero'. Then, after allowing her to cool off a little, provoke retaliation with a public appearance. It was brilliantly done, how else could they get the message through?
 * Definite disagreement here. Basically, there are two ways to interpret the events of the episode. In the first, the Mane Five thought that showing up as a masked hero would get Rainbow Dash to reconsider her actions, realize other ponies can be heroes too, and tone down her bragging. It didn’t – it just made her freak out – but once they revealed themselves and explained what they were trying to do, she got the point anyway. That makes this a normal episode about five of the ponies trying to do something good for their friend and underestimating her capacity for freakouts. In the second, they anticipated all of her reactions correctly, and so apparently thought that the best way to teach Rainbow Dash to be humble was to get her to humiliate herself and then leave her alone and depressed. That’s not the sort of thing friends should ever do to each other and makes the Mane Five look like a bunch of Jerkasses.
 * ^ So let's just go with the first interpretation and move on, ok?
 * RD's ego had grown to the point where she'd place herself in situations over her head and cause even greater disasters through sheer overconfidence. Look at the first four times "Mare Do Well" intervened: RD deliberately ignored a pony plummeting to almost certain death to sign autographs, RD attempted to stop a rolling carriage full of ponies far too heavy for her, RD managed to save one out of five construction ponies while wasting time with her motto, RD took her hoof off of a hole in the dam to literally pat herself on the back. She had long since stopped taking the whole "hero" thing seriously and was putting ponies at unnecessary risk to feed her own self-esteem. She was going to get a reality check sooner or later. Being outdone is certainly better than what would come if somebody actually got hurt by her showboating.
 * Sure, it was a lesson Rainbow Dash needed to learn. The problem is, it's hard to see how the Mare Do Well was supposed to be teaching it. Its appearances weren't making Dash any more humble or any more effective, so it's a little hard to see what the endgame was supposed to be.
 * The point of Mare Do Well was to show RD that one can be a beloved hero without being a braggart. Mare Do Well would save lives and leave right after, yet ponies still loved her because of what she did. Ponies loved Rainbow Dash until the fame went to her head and she put showboating over saving lives. She was not only getting obnoxious, but she would do her showboating while other ponies were in serious danger. The Mane Five used Mare Do Well to teach RD a lesson in humility: Mare Do Well was loved for her actions, but she didn't rub it in anyone's face.


 * Do the mane characters really think stopping bragging is the only or even main reason humility is a good thing? Humility is not a good thing because it stops you bragging. Bragging can be annoying but I think it’s a persons purgative to enjoy their accomplishments, and it’s arguably pretty selfish to stop them just because you find it annoying. It's sometimes a good thing because arrogance can make you overconfident when you're doing whatever your arrogance about, a problem Rainbow Dash didn't seem to display in this episode nor did the characters cite it as a reason for their behavior, making it unlikely it was one of their motivators in their behavior. What rainbow dash did display where signs of social reclusion over the loss of, and extreme recklessness in trying to reclaim that which she uses to define herself and make her feel special (E.I her heroic persona), which is the downside of humility which the others never even considered.
 * The way this show seems to take its Aesops about humility is that celebrating your accomplishments is just fine (nopony ever tries to call Rainbow Dash out when she calls herself awesome, or the best flier to ever come out of Cloudsdale). What's not fine is when you try to either demand praise from others or imply that your being great means that others aren't great. That's the line Rainbow Dash crossed this episode, so the others probably felt they had to do something to stop her from becoming just like Trixie. That would be at least as bad for Rainbow Dash as anypony else. The debate on whether or not they picked the best way to go about it is still ongoing.
 * And remember, Dash got so braggy in this episode that she actually endangered ponies. When others needed her help, she was often busy with autographs and whatever. If that pattern had continued, somepony would've gotten hurt eventually.


 * This is a relatively minor issue, but I've noticed that Fluttershy's flying ability seems to fluctuate over the course of the season. She's canonically described as a poor flyer, but while disguised as MDW we see her whiz past Rainbow Dash at a speed so great it makes her (briefly) dizzy. Combine this with the fact that she was able to keep up with Rainbow Dash while towing a 500+ pound hot air balloon just earlier in the season; it seems like she can magically turn into a competent flyer whenever it's convenient to the plot.
 * Pretty much. Fluttershy is Beware of the Nice Ones personified, so the writers will always come up with new ways for her to impress. Maybe she can match Dash in speed, but she still can't pull of a Sonic Rainboom or Dash's advanced flying tricks. So maybe she's not really better at being Dash than Dash herself. Though yeah, that bugged me too.
 * I assumed RD wasn't going at full speed, but was flying fast enough that she assumed Fluttershy would never catch up to her.
 * Fluttershy does not like to show off or bring about attention to herself (e.g. the perfect antithesis of RD in this episode). The only time we've ever seen her fly badly was in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" and that was because she was a lanky filly then. (Her inability to fly in "Dragonshy" due to fear doesn't count). Thus to anyone else, a pegasus pony that stays close to the ground and rarely shows off her flying abilities is likely to be seen as a "poor flyer". But give her an outfit that completely disguises who she is, and she's probably all ~yay~ and ready to speed off to do what it takes for her friends.
 * Fluttershy described herself as a poor flyer back when she was a filly. As an adult, she seems to be a perfectly competent flyer. Nothing amazing (normally) but still able to handle herself in the air. She just prefers sticking close to the ground for all the animals and plants.
 * Basically, her poor flying ability is an Informed Flaw, nothing more.


 * Why do people think the others of the Mane Six were trying' to make Rainbow Dash freak out? They visibly respond to her fit over Mare Do Well with confusion -- they weren't expecting this. They were expecting her to learn her lesson from this. They also stop trying to show her up after that fit -- the next we see Mare Do Well, it's at a parade in her honor organized by the citizens of Ponyville. They had to show up for that -- what were they going to do, say "Oh, we're sorry. We were just trying to put Rainbow Dash's dangerous arrogance in check. So… just cancel the parade and pretend this never happened, okay?"
 * Well, one big reason is that they really should have known that would be Dash's reaction -- they know she hates losing. It's strange that they would think that her reaction to being outshone would be anything other than utter loathing. And their confusion comes right after a scene that's pretty easy to misinterpret as them laughing at Rainbow Dash. And of course Rainbow's breakdown is never addressed at all, so when the Mane Cast emerge at the end acting as if everything went according to their plan (even though it clearly did not) it's possible to misinterpret the breakdown as being part of the plan. Basically the entire episode is filled with scenes that look really ambiguous, so if you forget the Aesop about always expecting the best from friends, it's pretty easy to interpret their actions in negative light.
 * Was it really confusion? If anything, they look disappointed with her, Rarity shrugs, Fluttershy seems somewhat shocked, Applejack clearly has a look of disappointment on her face, only Twilight seems confused. The 'breakdown' was necessary for her to understand, because frankly, how else could they had handled it? Allowed her to clearly mess up and realize she's not that great? That would quite seriously hurt her reputation. Reveal themselves at Sugarcube Corner? Rainbow Dash would had been furious, and the Aesop would had skimmed right over her head. They didn't have to act, because they already cut her off from her fans, doing more would had been even worse. They remained passive in case she did something extreme, but otherwise forced her to realize her fans are not as granted as she believed they were, then they baited her with a public appearance, which also suggests everything went as they planned, since they were all dressed and ready for her.
 * I thought it was intentional on their part too at first, but in retrospect it seems pretty unlikely. Given how much each of the Mane Cast suffered during their respective breakdowns, it would be seriously out of character for them to try to do that to a friend on purpose. Really, what's more likely: that they were trying to show Rainbow Dash that other ponies can be heroes too and that she's not necessarily the best at everything and so should cut back on the boasting a bit and then failed to anticipate just how hard she'd take their efforts, or that they knowingly and willingly wound her up in an effort to get her to go crazy and hit emotional rock bottom? The latter is pretty much at odds with everything else they've ever done.
 * It could be that they knew she was upset, but didn't know HOW upset. Let's face, Rainbow doesn't strike me as the type to let anypony know just how much they've gotten to her.
 * The last time any of the others saw RD before the final reveal she was acting like she usually does when her ego's been bruised: angry and determined to prove herself. Her behavior did not indicate that anything too far out of the ordinary was happening and the townspeople were still appreciative of her efforts, but now distracted by the newer, flashier hero (at least before Rainbow started boldly opening jars and doing yardwork). How were they supposed to know that she'd become so depressed about the whole thing when she refused to voice anything but annoyance? Besides, they did quickly reveal themselves as soon shortly after in a secluded area to help Rainbow save face.


 * Just how humble were they expecting Rainbow Dash to be about this whole thing? I get that she crossed the line eventually, but some of the behavior that gets treated as 'wrong' includes doing flying tricks to get her admirers to cheer louder and having her autobiography ghostwritten - never mind that the former is something she does all the time anyway and the latter is basically how autobiographies get written now. Not being a jerk about being good at something is one thing, but are we supposed to take away that trying to use your achievements to get more famous is inherently wrong?
 * It wasn't really about her bragging, it's just that it became problematic when the bragging was getting in the way of her saving lives. She was too busy signing autographs that a pony behind her was falling to her death in a busted hot air balloon. It got to the point where the fame was going to her head, she didn't care about her accomplishments, she just cared that she was popular.
 * There's also a case of severe Values Dissonance here. We are all partially products of our times and the countries in which we grew up, unless we really take the time to notice that. Well, the problem in this case is that most of the people who watch this show are American...and mainstream American culture in our day and age teaches that bragging and flaunting your talents is acceptable. Look how much we admire Donald Trump because of how rich and "successful" he is, despite the way he tends to treat people. And we eagerly follow the exploits of sports players who have so little control over their emotions (not to mention so little maturity) that they'll lose their tempers and start fights, or angrily quit the team if they don't get a bigger salary. Here's the real problem: the lesson that The Mysterious Mare Do Well tried to get across is an entirely valid one, but as modern Americans, the lesson clashes horribly with what our culture has told us is an acceptable way to act. This episode is trying to teach us an ethical lesson that sometimes contradicts how Americans are "expected" to act. It's this contradiction that's getting fans so upset at this episode: Rainbow Dash's behavior is unacceptable because it causes her to be inconsiderate to other people, to put them in danger, and to demand praise she has not fairly earned...but to modern Americans, Mare Do Well's behavior is inconsiderate because it interferes with Rainbow Dash's God-given right to "get ahead" and become a famous celebrity.
 * I don't find that to be the cause of the dislike for this episode, or at least not the main cause. Most of the criticism seems to center around the Mane 6 gushing over Mare Do Well in front of Rainbow Dash (bragging about themselves, thus making them hypocrites) or the Mane 6 apparently laughing at Dash despite her being visibly upset. Then there are complaints that the whole plan was unnecessary and devious, that talking to her would've worked just as well. All I've heard people do with Donald Trump is make fun of him, and immature athletes are looked down upon quite a bit from what I've seen. At least, as many people seem to hate celebrities as fawn over them.
 * The mane six bragged about themselves, true, but Rainbow Dash actually put people in danger. Thus, it's not really equivalent; Rainbow Dash's behavior was objectively worse because she almost caused physical harm to others, while all the mane six did was bruise her ego. Furthermore, even if their sins had been equivalent, that still doesn't make Rainbow Dash's behavior acceptable. Let me make an analogy: In this Troper's childhood, this Troper had problems with controlling his temper, and would frequently blow up at people over little things. How did his father decide to correct it? By yelling at him over it. So, this Troper correctly pointed out that this Troper's father was ignoring his own advice. His father acknowledged his hypocrisy, but also pointed out that whether he was being hypocritical about it or not, it's still wrong to lose your temper at people over little things!

2.09 Sweet and Elite

 * Why did Rarity claim that Rainbow Dash was the Wonderbolts' trainer, when she could have said that Rainbow Dash was the pony who did the Sonic Rainboom a year (or so) ago? Given that Rainbow Dash is the only pony to have performed one, she should be at least a minor celebrity among flying enthusiasts, and this also has the benefit of being true. Admittedly, it could be chalked up to Rarity trying to spruce her connections up a bit and panicking.
 * Keep in mind the commonly-held belief of the Sonic Rainboom is that it's a myth; if Rarity had mentioned RD had performed it, it's likely no one would have believed her. It's not likely the Canterlot ponies would have kept up with an event like the Best Young Fliers' competition anyway, since they had no idea who Rainbow was in the first place.
 * But the Best Young Flier's competition was a huge thing, even Celestia watched it every year. The entire crowd AND the Wonderbolts saw the Sonic Rainboom, not only that, but the Wonderbolts had their lives saved. It's highly unlikely that those events weren't big news across Equestria. Even if the upper class ponies didn't immediately recognize the name "Rainbow Dash", hearing about how Rarity was friends with the only known pony to do the Sonic Rainboom, and also happened to save the Wonderbolts lives, should've gotten her points like being friends with the Wonderbolt's trainer would've. My guess is that Rarity was nervous and couldn't immediately think up the real accomplishments her friends did.
 * I think you just answered your own question. If RD was that known for the Sonic Rainboom, then everyone familliar with the achievement will probably know the one performing it was from Ponyville. Rarity was lucky (well so she thought at least) that nobody present (except maybe Fancypants) recognized the name. Going into the details might have jogged everyone's memories, so she said the first thing that came to her mind.
 * Also your focusing on the wrong word, your focusing on "best flyer" and forgetting the young part. Rarity was surrounded by older, middle age-ish ponies, she wouldn't want to draw attention to how much younger she is. It's like you trying to impress a group of 50-ish year old high society types, by saying your best freind just won a national college championship.
 * Why didn't Rarity bring up any of her or her friends' genuine accomplishments? Twilight Sparkle is Celestia's personal student and prize pupil -- there's very few other ponies in the series who are even possibly closer to the Princess than her -- and she's defeated an Ursa Minor. Rainbow Dash is a likely candidate for the Wonderbolts -- as seen in "Sonic Rainboom" and "The Best Night Ever", they distinctly have their eye on her and are impressed with her abilities. Although the Apple family isn't upper-class, it surely has some influence (not to mention their famous zap apple jam). Fluttershy single-handedly stopped a dragon and is a former famous model thanks to Photo Finish. Pinkie Pie stopped the first major Parasprite infestation in so long that even Princess Celestia didn't seem to know what they were. Rarity herself has had Hoity Toity and Sapphire Shores as clients. All of them have saved Equestria twice. And that's just going into the accomplishments the upper-class ponies may have heard of or care about. They may not know their names, but it's hard to believe they don't at least know their reputations.
 * If nothing else, several of those ponies were at the Grand Galloping Gala, and were in the receiving line to pay their obeisances to Princess Celestia, where they shook hooves with Twilight Sparkle. Wouldn't the fact that Twilight was standing at Princess Celestia's side throughout the premier social event of Equestrian society, while Celestia was receiving her subjects' homage, have already marked Twilight Sparkle as "a pony everypony should know?"
 * This whole show has a problem with characters' popularity. Both seasons start with the Mane 6 saving the world, but they're not treated as celebrities in the other episodes. Fluttershy became briefly famous as a model, and afterwards no one ever refers to her modeling career, etc.. It's like a special form of Negative Continuity.
 * I have thought of a theory re: why Rarity never mentions Twilight Sparkle being Celestia's student. It's possible Twilight Sparkle simply does not want that fact advertised, and there are many good reasons why she wouldn't: it could come off as bragging. It could bring her the kind of attention she doesn't want, or cause people to perceive her in a light she doesn't agree with. There's so many other possible reasons as well. As for everything else, I have no idea.
 * This wasn't about achievements. Rarity assumed Fancypants would be prejudiced against countryside ponies, regardless of their achievements, and didn't want to lose his support. Remember how two upperclass ponies who have previously made positive remarks about her reacted when they found out she's from Ponyville.
 * Also, why was Rarity so desperate to go to every high-society event she was invited to? Anyone who's ever tried to make it in high society knows that if you just go to everything, you cease to be seen as being in any way exclusive or desirable as a guest. You want to be a catch. You want to always have something more important, and more exclusive, to be going to. Why didn't Rarity just say, 'Oh, you know, I would love to, but Princess Celestia's personal apprentice is having her birthday party--it's very exclusive, only five ponies got invitations--and I simply have to put in an appearance. You know how it is.'?
 * First, you gotta understand how you form an image for yourself in these things; you go to as many events as you can until you're a common feature in all the high profile functions, once the invites are really coming thick and fast, you start being picky on where you go from now on. Second, no matter what you do, no matter how world changing the effects of your actions are, it's all about how stylish you are with the kind of people you see Rarity deal with in Canterlot, and Rarity is painfully aware that her own inner circle is nowhere near the definition of the word as her new connections understand it.
 * Also, the Garden party was hosted by those two snob ponies. If Rarity turned them down, they'd take it as a spurning of their generosity and never send her another invite again. Seeing how popular they seem to be, that'd put quite a dent in Rarity's potential to be 'the pony everypony should know'.
 * Rarity's dreamed of becoming part of high society her entire life. So much so that the very thought of having an actual chance of achieving it excites her into bouncing and screaming like a schoolfilly. She's loving every second of the attention she's getting and terrified of failing here, not unreasonably given how it all happened over the course of a week or so. As far as she knows, one blemish on her record (like a quintet of less-than-classy ponies showing up as her friends) might cause her to lose all her newfound favor. If she were thinking straight, she would probably be more discerning in her appearances. When she's this emotional, not a chance.
 * Not to mention she needed to be on Fancypants' good side. Remember: popularity is popularity, but business is still business.
 * What were Twilight and the others snorting on the way to Canterlot? They see a posh, upperclass gathering going on and decide to gatecrash it, then seem to just lose it and act like obnoxious assholes. I would probably shrivel up and die if I had to admit to knowing them if it had been a college movie fratboy party they had interrupted, let alone the high-society soiree that it was. Pinkie... well, I've lost all hope of Pinkie ever learning a lesson in manners in the show, but the other four have no excuse for the way the behaved. Where was Fluttershy's inhibitions, where was Twilight's having grown up knowing all the expected ettiquette, where was Applejack and Rainbow Dash's having seen what was expected of them from the Gala.
 * It's supposed to be over-the-top, but it's more justifiable than you make it out to be. Rainbow Dash wasn't actually in a position to learn how to actually behave from the Gala -- she spent nearly the entire event in a cordoned off VIP section, trying to get the Wonderbolts to notice her. Pinkie Pie is used to having her behavior written off as just what Pinkie Pie does. Applejack seemed to earnestly believe that you're supposed to garden at a Garden Party -- and again, she wasn't really in a position to learn from the Gala, spending nearly the entire event outside trying to sell her food. Twilight didn't really do anything worse than simply dancing enthusiastically and poorly -- and she certainly did not know the proper protocol; she was raised in Canterlot, but devoted herself fully to studying while entirely eschewing social interaction. Fluttershy simply did what Fluttershy does -- ignore ponies, befriend animals. To top it all off, the lesson they learned from the Gala was explicitly not how to blend in at an upper-class social gathering, or even that this was desirable. It was to stick together and have a good time anyway, which is exactly what they do.
 * I apologize for overblowing it, it's just that their behavior was so jarring in that scene. The problem with most Aesops that tell you to "Take pride in who your friends are and what they're like" and others similar in concept is that the friends in most of these cases are either loud, odious, and difficult to respect in most cases, or become that way when it's time to deliver the Aesop. (I'm also referring, in part, to the glaringly stereotypical redneck pony that showed up just to set up the drama Rarity put herself through in this episode. Nopony else in Ponyville is anything like that.) It's not just high class expectations that they don't know being trampled on, it was also common decency; they intruded on a private party and wreaked havoc on most of the guests, seemingly on a whim.
 * This sort of Aesop requires that the friends be unambiguously embarrassing to work -- as it's about staying with your friends, even when they're embarrassing. If it comes across that the other people are being unreasonable, you instead get an Aesop about standing up for your friends even when it's not popular -- not a bad Aesop, but not the intended one.
 * Here's a much simpler explanation. Twilight and Pinkie Pie are socially unaware, AJ and RD do not know how there supposed to act in high society events, and Fluttershy has spent lots of time alone or with animals. This is probably why they were all described as rustic.
 * You also have to keep in mind that all the ponies were already in full "party mode" when they decided to crash the garden party. Twilight and Fluttershy got into party mode while they were hanging around friends that they were comfortable with, and that enthusiasm spilled over. It's not like they went straight to the garden party and acted like that; they were acting appropriately for their own party, and they failed to adjust when they changed venues. And given that when the only thing on your mind is "party party party" you aren't really thinking clearly.
 * I think you're completely correct in your initial assessment. That scene, and to a lesser extent the Grand Galloping Gala, really bugged me. My first thought on watching that scene was, "Holy s***, were every one of the Mane cast raised by wolves?" Pinkie Pie actually started redecorating. Step back from the show for a second and think about how assholish you'd have to be to go to somebody else's party and start changing the decorations. That's beyond mere obliviousness, and bordering on needing to get some professional help. Can you imagine rolling into your hypothetical college fratboy movie night, redecorating, and changing the music? You probably wouldn't admit to knowing them, not because you'd feel like shriveling up, but because you'd be afraid of getting your ass kicked. Every one of them displayed a complete lack of etiquette, and (in Dennis Miller's words) I don't mean the kind of psychotic Emily Post lunacy where they don't know how to use the 85 Goddamn forks arrayed around their dinner plate. I mean like basic courtesy, and acknowledging the existance of others as separate beings with their own desires.
 * Regarding all of the above,maybe Twilight Sparkle was, er, trolling, having figured out what Rarity was really up to. Sparkle seems(it's a tone of voice thing) to think she could have had the Garden Party cancelled to make room for her birthday party, after all...and she thinks this because the Princess offered the use of the Palace to Sparkle on basically no notice for her birthday party.
 * If Twilight Sparkle was trolling, that actually makes it worse. Trolling implies that it was deliberate, i.e., that she actually knew that she was being rude to the other guests and embarrassing to Rarity. (This leaves aside that trolls, at least as the internet uses the term nowadays, are just bullies that take advantage of anonymity to avoid retribution, rather than the jocks in high school who used muscle and reputation to escape the same. It's not an attractive character trait.) Remember, the only reason this had a happy ending is that it happened that Fancy Pants was cool about it. Rarity is trying to make it in the world of high fashion. I don't understand aesthetics or the appeal of fashion, but even I know that it's a highly reputational business. If Fancy Pants hadn't intervened--and Twilight had no way of knowing that he would--Rarity would be ruined. The only thing she could have done with Carousel Boutique would have been to burn the place down and collect the insurance money. That doesn't make Twilight Sparkle a good understanding friend (the point of the episode), it makes her a passive-aggressive bitch. As far as being able to kick out the Garden Party, I doubt it. The Princess letting Twilight make use of an unused room in the palace isn't the same as being willing to kick out somebody who probably had a room reserved. Aside from the pure rudeness of throwing somebody's plans into disarray, it'd make the Princess look like a petty jerk, and I doubt she's ruled for 1000 years by yanking around important people for little to no reason.
 * Why do you think she'd be "ruined"? At the absolute worst, Rarity would just go back to relying on Ponyville business, which was clearly enough to keep her afloat for however long she ran her boutique before she started getting famous clients.
 * My theory: though its not explicitly stated, Twilight's birthday party probably included the pony equivalent of alcoholic beverages. Or, to put it bluntly: they were drunk off their flanks and not thinking straight.
 * Alcohol? In a children's cartoon? AHAHAHAHA!
 * Why were the garden animals, who had seen the very same pony chase and scream at them the night of the Grand Galloping Gala, suddenly so friendly towards her?
 * If you go by the theory that the GGG animals were just trying to sleep at nightime without being interrupted by a frantic yellow mare, Fluttershy just found them today at a good time. And this time, it didn't seem like those were the special animals found in the garden, and were instead just a few common songbirds that Fluttershy befriended, as she usually does.
 * Another possibility is notice she was being calm and peaceful this time. Last time she went running towards them and tried to MAKE them be friends. This time she set in a tree calmly and let them come to her, so it also has to do with her taking a more reasonable approach this time.
 * Why didn't Spike go to the birthday party? It was a party for his closest friend/boss. She had to travel out of town to attend it, leaving him alone. It was held in Canterlot, his original home, and he was very enthusiastic about visiting during "The Best Night Ever". And, of course, all the ponies went to Canterlot rather than holding it at home because that was the only way they could include Raaaaaarity. With all of that in mind, his absence seems odd.
 * It's pretty commonly noticed, and an interesting point. I suppose someone needed to watch over her library in her absence? Maybe Twilight had a private birthday party with Spike first before leaving for Canterlot?
 * Anyone else find it odd that two ponies that Rarity has bad history with, Blueblood and Photo Finish, were seen in prominent cameos, but weren't confronted or even focused on? The former at least, has every reason to want to start an argument or undermine her newfound celebrity, but no. I don't know why they bothered if nothing came of it; if you don't have time to do something with a character, don't throw him in when it wouldn't make sense for him to be anywhere near that scene looking so pleased.
 * I'm guessing Blueblood and Fancypants are friends and as such is willing to tolerate her presence for his sake. Heck, given how much Fancypant's companion looks like a young, wingless Celestia, she might actually be a member of the royal family the same way he is, and is doing it for her.
 * Rarity didn't really have any bad history with Photo Finish. Blueblood, she definitely did, but perhaps Celestia set her nephew straight after the events of the GGG. Alternatively, he's so self-absorbed that he simply didn't recognize her. He didn't pay her much attention at the Gala, despite accompanying her the whole evening. And he doesn't seem particularly intelligent either.
 * He may also not have as many issues with Rarity as she would with him, since it seemed that the only thing he seemed to care about when Rarity was chewing him out was that she was covered in cake. Maybe because of that it never sank in that she was saying some seriously awful things about him, even much later.
 * Since she's been in town for about a week, I know Rarity wouldn't want to make a scene at any of the big events she was invited to even if she wanted to have another go at some of the people that have been jerks to her. And maybe among the upper crust of Canterlot it's considered very rude to get into an argument at a party, to the point that anyone doing it would fall out of favor pretty pretty quickly.
 * One explanation for a good half the Fridge Logic here is that the show has an anachronic order and the Gala simply hasn't happened yet. It's even said that the Gala was still coming up, and the mane cast probably wouldn't be that excited to go after what happened last time.
 * Unfortunately, the fact that the pillars in the Ballroom are quite clearly cracked means that this story takes place after "The Best Night Ever", so most of the fridge logic still stands.
 * It's not Fridge Logic, it's easily explainable: there talking about the next Gala. It's said to be an annual event. Twilight also wasn't' so much excited for the next one as she figured that Rarity was making connections so she could get clients for it, and the garden party being the second most important event next to the gala was a logical place to do so, even if Twilight didn't realize Rarity planned to abandon her party for the garden party. As for why any of them would be excited, they ended up having a good time with Celestia and this time would have realistic expectations for it and at the very list get to hang out with the princess and each other and have a good time again.

2.10 Secret of My Excess

 * Why did Cheerilee have a pimp hat?
 * There's one obvious answer, but I'm not going there.
 * Fortunately or not, I am. Roleplay fetish.
 * Not quite the obvious answer I had in mind.
 * She is fan of pony Michael Jackson.
 * Again, roleplay fetish.
 * I think the better question is, why doesn't everyone have a pimp hat?
 * Hasn't Spike already shown his greediness in previous episodes? Why hasn't he grown then?
 * When? I don't remember him showing greed anywhere near this level before. He showed intense jealousy in a previous episode, but those aren't the same thing.
 * He's always had a tendency for excess, but nothing that I'd really call greed before. Stuffing his face with gems is more along the lines of gluttony than greed.
 * If Twilight can teleport, then why didn't she do that when she and Applejack were tied up?
 * You just answered your own question. She was tied up, she couldn't cast any spells.
 * Gee, I must have never noticed when she performed an interprative dance every time before she cast any of her other spells. Oh wait, she didn't, because she just has to think hard enough to cast a spell. And maybe she did use a spell during the scene cut, it just didn't occur to her until 20 seconds later.
 * And it isn't the first time either.
 * Perhaps she automatically teleports anything she's touching, so she'd just teleport the tree and rope with her as well.
 * Forgot I Could Fly. There, I just explained this and every single instance similar to it that has or will happen in the series.
 * It's probably a fair assumption that Twilight was under a lot of stress at that point, what with her oldest friend turning into a giant kleptomaniac. Logic and Rational thought are often the first things out the window when normal folk get stressy. Now look at how Twilight freaks out over minor things. Is it that surprising she forgot she had the ability?
 * We don't know the details of how magic works. Maybe the teleport spell doesn't work without the proper conditions in place. Maybe Twilight has to prepare Teleports in advance, and she's all out at the moment. Or whatever.
 * Spike and his hoard-induced growth spurts raise so many questions: Is there a point when adding more to the treasure pile won't cause additional growth? Is there an age when the compulsive hoarding and magical growing start? When they end? Does normal physical and mental growth happen alongside the unnatural spurts? Why are his mental functions deteriorated in this state? Does actual material value of the hoard affect anything? What is the purpose of them, a defense mechanism for fresh out of the nest dragons or what? Is that his "true" adult form, or just another distorted resize of his infantile form, like in Twilight's cutie mark story? You see the condition the implications have left me in.
 * I think this is probably his true adult form. He's likely a different species from the two winged dragons seen before, a wingless wurm of sorts. As for the rest, I think that every dragon probably feels an initial urge to collect (during which they grow to an enormous size) followed by a lifetime in which they mostly just protect their hoard. Regarding Spike collecting random mundane objects whereas the other dragons usually have hoards of gold and jewels, it could be any of three - Spike's species is less picky, or maybe the other two were from a time where gold and jewels were more readily found lying around, or maybe later on in life a dragon develops a special affection for precious metals and stones and starts replacing its hoard with them, presumably without any additional growth. As for mental functions, all adult dragons besides sea serpents seem to exhibit low intelligence, it's probable that it's normal for a dragon to lose sentience when its hoarding tendencies develop fully.
 * Both dragons were sentient enough to hold conversations and Basil (the red one) even had enough self-awareness to even feel bad after Fluttershy scolded him.
 * It's entirely possible that Spike's loss of intelligence is due to his growth being unnaturally accelerated. If he had grown up the normal way, he'd probably have more control over himself. At least enough to limit his hoarding to items he'd actually have use for like gems.
 * His intelligence seems to come back once he finally reaches his "adult" form as he starts to regain his snarky demeanor with his "blah blah blah" gestures when Rarity chews him out.
 * Perhaps in normal cases a baby dragon's mother would stop it from indulging the hoarding instinct and getting large before it's ready. His immaturity is also why he was hoarding worthless objects, a grown up dragon has enough self control to only pick the best for it's hoard.
 * As for the purpose of hoarding, remember that dragons eat gems. (Or Spike does, anyway.) Maybe they eat gold etc. too. If so, a dragon's horde is simply a large supply of food for itself. (Maybe dragons spend long periods of time in their caves, during which time they have only their hordes to feed on.) As for why Spike was also collecting non-edible objects, see the above points.
 * Why didn't someone - Celestia for e.g - tell Twilight how Spike would grow up? He turned into Giant!Spike purely because he was put in a situation which provoked and allowed him to indulge in greed, with ponies who had absolutely no idea of what he was doing. He's treated essentially like a baby pony, and the innocent acts of generosity and friendship turn out badly. It's possibly significant that this happened when he had his birthday with more people and gifts than he was used to. If Twilight had any idea that being in that sort of environment could bring out the worst in Spike, she would have learnt to manage it, or at least attempt to - Twilight being how she is - long before it became an issue. Sounds like an awful lot of grief that could have been avoided. Fortunately, Status Quo Is God and we'll presumably see no backlash against Spike, but somepony would surely jump to nasty conclusions about having a baby dragon around.
 * Given we have yet to see another domesticated dragon, it's likely that nopony even knows that much about a dragon's life cycle. The vet they went to, at least, didn't even recognize what were apparently the normal effects of him growing up.
 * Also, the only character who could tell Twilight what was going on was from either a different country or continent, and has very frequently been the only character to recognize the nature of various plants and animals. One can assume that residents of Equestria don't put much consideration into the study of plants and animals, or that it's a bit of a lost art there. (I'm leaning towards them just not caring too much, since Celestia would probably be aware of it and warned Twilight if it was a lost art given that she's over a thousand years old.) Combine that with the fact that dragons seem to be at least somewhat rare, and they'd probably see no reason to study them.
 * With the new teaser for the upcoming episode, it's been outright stated now that ponies know next to nothing about dragons because they're too terrifying and dangerous to research. Since Celestia has better things to do (like running her nation) than study dragons, it makes sense that she wouldn't know much of anything either. If she doesn't have the time to do research first-hand, and nopony else can do it for her, then there's not much she could know.
 * Regarding the Wonderbolts attempt to 'save the day' here: What exactly was their plan from the beginning when they arrived? They really didn't seem capable of doing much more than irritating Spike. Were they just content with driving him away to minimize the destruction to the town? Trying to annoy him into leaving (even if it did sort of work) doesn't seem like a smart idea while he has a hostage.
 * He has the hostage either way, at least with Mega-Spike outside the town the only civilian in danger is the hostage as opposed to everyone.
 * Well, they were able to clip away his spikes. Death of a Thousand Cuts, perhaps?
 * Alternatively, death of one big ass cut. If those spikes were either weaponry or armor, they were probably the toughest, most durable parts of his body, and the Wonderbolts cut through them like a hot knife through butter. If he hadn't ducked at the last second, he might have lost his head.
 * Given their placement, they seemed to be decoration. His neck was also a lot thicker, so even if they were as tough as the rest of him, the Wonderbolts might not have been able to get enough penetration in a single cut. His neck also would have had bones and muscles in it, which would contribute significantly to durability.
 * I'm really really surprised that Junebug (The pony with baskets of flowers) has not made any sort of impact on the fandom at all. This is the same fandom that readily embraces any character that even gets one second of screentime. I may have come across maybe 2 pieces of fanart at most. I just find it so abnormal.
 * It's only been a week. Give them time.
 * Exactly how did Spike "age" his fire ruby? Unless he's using some high-powered solvents or a time machine we don't know about, there's no way a few months will make any difference to a gem.
 * Magic.
 * Or he meant furbishing it.
 * Spike can tell when sapphires are in season. It's reasonable to assume that he knows a bit about gems that the viewers don't.

2.11 Family Appreciation Day

 * In Granny Smith's flashback, it shows Timber Wolves howling in front of a moon. Did anybody else notice that there was no Mare in the Moon?
 * Rather easily explained by it being a flashback-story as told by Granny Smith. Given that she herself says that she tends to forget things sometimes, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for her to not remember a background detail like what the craters dotting the moon looked like.
 * Or possibly the shape of the Mare in the Moon faded over time, and only when the time for her to be freed was close enough did the shape reappear.
 * If Granny Smith's farm was famous for its Zap Apples and Zap Apple jam and was instrumental in the founding of Ponyville, then why wasn't the farm called Zap Apple Acres instead of Sweet Apple Acres?
 * Probably because regular apples/sweet apples are their main source of income, it's what they know best. Perhaps they're best known for growing regular apples, because Zap Apples come around once a year, once a DAY.
 * Who's to say the Zap Apples aren't sweet?
 * Maybe Sweet Apple Acres belonged to Granny Smith's husband and after they got married, Zap Apple Acres was included.
 * Judging by the look of surprise on Apple Bloom's face after Granny Smith's story was over, I think it's pretty safe to assume that Granny hadn't told her the story before. Now, here's my question; why not? You'd think that the Apple family's instrumental role in the founding of Ponyville would be common knowledge (as well as a huge source of pride) among Apple family members. I have to imagine that Granny, or Applejack, or Big Macintosh, or somepony should have taken some time to educate Apple Bloom about her family's history.
 * Showing off pride doesn't seem to be a big part of the Apple family, besides, being young, Granny Smith's odd behavior might have changed Applebloom's view on the story over time, and she simply stuck to 'Zap Apples are a big source of income, and we gather them every year' instead of remembering the rest of the story.
 * Maybe she was told the story before. Now, she was worrying because Granny would likely tell another nonsense story to the whole class as she often does, embarassing her horribly. Her happiness stems from how now the rest of the class knows and is delighted, along with dodging a huge bullet there. Also, two words about Apple Family pride; Applebuck Season.
 * Applebuck Season was about Applejack's personal pride, not the pride of her family in general. In fact, bragging at all seems to be a thing quite frowned upon among them. As for the above question, I can see Applebloom asking Granny Smith exactly that, and her replying with either You Never Asked, or that she honestly didn't feel it was worth mentioning, that it was just the way things played out as opposed to something boast-worthy. Given how absent-minded Granny Smith can be, it seems quite in-character for her to regard something monumentous as natural or unremarkable.
 * Seeing a young Granny Smith got me wondering something. What was Granny Smith's name before she became a Granny? I mean, I know that Granny Smith is a type of apple, and just about everypony in the Apple family has an apple-themed name. But who in their right mind would name their foal Granny?
 * Someone named their child Filthy and another child was named Stinkin'. Some ponies just aren't good namers. Besides, maybe Granny Smith just went as Smith? Or Smith Apple? Or some other apple reference I don't know.
 * I've seen the name "Anny Smith" floating around, which I guess would be most reasonable, considering that it still works as a reference to the apples.
 * When Granny Smith was talking about how Ponyville was founded, she called her family "the Smith family" and that her Pa was a seed collector. Maybe Granny Smith's real name has something to do with seed collecting?
 * This is particularly prominent in this episode, but in retrospect shows up in other episodes, too: Cheerilee seems to be completely unaware of Diamond Tiaras and Silver Spoons bullying. I know, that most teachers wouldn`t notice (or at least pretend to), but shouldn`t the portrayal of a teacher in an edutainment series be more positive?
 * Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only episode I can think of in which Diamond's and Silver's bullying is really evident is the one where Diamond throws a party in honor of her cutie mark, which obviously does not take place in school so there was no reason for Cheerilee to notice. There was also "Cutie Pox," where they make fun of Apple Bloom's hoop-spinning talent, but it sort of comes back to bite them when they can't do it as well and she makes fun of them. Also, in this episode there's hardly any bullying in class except for at the very end, and in that case the rest of the class gasped at Diamond's assertion that Granny Smith is a crazy old lady, and Silver Spoon even says that her father's business would not exist if not for Sweet Apple Acres.
 * In Winter Wrap Up, Twilight Sparkle says that Ponyville was founded by earth ponies and they've been doing winter wrap up for hundreds of years without magic. So does that mean Granny Smith is several hundred years old? The line in Winter Wrap Up is this btw: "No Spike, Ponyville was started by Earth ponies, so for hundreds of years they've never used magic to clean up winter."
 * Ponyville was destroyed and abandoned in the past, and Granny helped found the latest incarnation?
 * Likely not. It's more likely that Earth Ponies had been doing Winter Wrap up without magic for hundreds of years beforehand, and when Ponyville was established the founders (who were Earth Ponies) simply continued with their traditional methods.
 * Either that or there have at least one previous Ponyville, destroyed and abandoned, allowing the Everfree Forest to reclaim the land before a new batch of settlers set up camp over the destroyed remains.
 * Maybe she meant that Ponyville was founded by earth ponies and that earth ponies have been doing Winter Wrap up without magic for that long. I can't look up the dialogue right now but as far as I remember she didn't say Ponyville ponies in particular were doing it.
 * Just because Ponyville was founded within living memory, it doesn't mean that Earth Ponies have only been there that long. There may have been villages, communities and the like in the area prior to the town being founded that had the tradition, and Ponyville simply continues it. This happens a lot with some of the larger, newer towns in Europe that absorbed smaller villages as they grew.
 * It's also possible she actually is hundreds of years old. The only reference we have with regards to pony lifespans or how they age is that the Mane Six were surprised that Princess Celestia is over a thousand years old. Being a few hundred years old may be the pony equivalent of living to one hundred for a human -- quite an achievement, but not unheard of.

2.12 Baby Cakes

 * What was with the stubble Mr. Cake had at the beginning?
 * He wasn't able to shave at the hospital, clearly.
 * Horses actually do have whiskers that can get fairly long if they aren't trimmed once in a while. It may be that all the equines in the show need regular shaves, not just stallions.
 * Actually, there have been quite a few ponies with facial hair.
 * Maybe his wife went into labor late at night, and without getting himself ready, had to get her to the hospital to deliver.
 * Okay, even a baby unicorn can levitate herself using magic. Why does this not occur to either of our mane unicorns when it might come in handy? One example that immediately comes to mind is when Twilight has to jump that gap when she's being chased by that hydra. Of course, she could also have just teleported or something. ARGH
 * Babies don't weight that much. And I'm guessing targeting yourself to telekinetically lift yourself if harder for non-babies to do.
 * My personal theory about this whole episode is that pony abilities are akin to the abilities in the Young Wizards series. The youngsters are exceedingly powerful to make up for their lack of experience, and as they get older and more knowledgeable, their abilities get dialed down. In the Ponyverse it would make sense for a young pony's magic to be reigned in once their special talent is discovered.
 * Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Twilight Sparkle all say that baby unicorns and pegasi go through stages where their abilities are unusually strong randomly before fading. The babies will probably reach a more even level as they grow and learn to deliberately develop their powers. I wouldn't be surprised if baby earth ponies have periods where their innate strength and toughness can cause problems, but on a much lesser scale than the other two races.
 * Err, no. Rainbow Dash doesn´t say anything of that, they only say the part about the unicorns not the pegasi.
 * So what was the problem with Pumpkin chewing on stuff animals and the rubber chicken? I can get it with things like the tablecloth and bottle where she could either choke or damage her teeth, but the animals and chicken were too soft to hurt her teeth and to big to choke on.
 * Maybe because they weren't clean?
 * Plus Pinkie probably didn't want her/the Cake's stuff covered in baby drool. It's not really a pleasant thing to coat your possessions in.
 * Speaking from my experience taking care of my infant sister, most parents try to break their child's habit of chewing on random objects as soon as possible both to protect them (don't want them to stuff something dirty or dangerous in their mouths the second you take your eyes off them) and to protect your possessions (anybody living with a baby knows that they can be little forces of destruction if you let them).
 * Sucking on things as a baby can deform the shape of the mouth. It's another reason to prevent a baby from sucking on things.
 * Rarity and Twilight are quick to point out that baby unicorns can have spurts of magic. This raises questions about Sweetie Belle's proficiency in magic, which so far hasn't been demonstrated even in, for example, places where Rarity would use telekinetic magic frequently.
 * Besides Pumpkin Cake and the flashbacks in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, none of the immature unicorns we've seen have ever used magic. Judging from what we've seen and heard from Twilight, learning to use magic aside from one's innate skill requires a lot of study and effort. Sweetie Belle probably just hasn't taken the time to learn how to use her powers yet, being more focused on getting a Cutie Mark than anything else.
 * Twilight and Rarity explained that baby unicorns could have sudden random bursts of magical power. Pumpkin must've just been having one of those bursts at that time, where she can suddenly do a lot of stuff. Sweetie Belle is older and probably doesn't have those random bursts anymore.
 * Carrot Cake's great-great-great-great grandfather was a unicorn and Cup Cake's great aunt's second cousin twice removed was a pegasus. Both these facts raise questions about how the genetics of the three pony breeds would work.
 * What's so complicated about it? If a pegasus and a unicorn have a child, it could be either one of their races, or, depending on if one of them has Earth Pony blood, it could be an Earth Pony. Doesn't seem hard to follow.
 * It's never stated, but it could be a rarity in the pony universe, though still possible. In Real Life, there have been instances (though rare) where two white people who each have at least one black ancestor end up having a black baby. Even the inverse of that has happened. And in another case, a black woman and a white man had twins, one was black and one was white and yes, both the babies were biologically theirs. It was explained that the black woman likely had a white ancestor and the white man possibly had a black ancestor. Genetics can be weird.
 * Why aren't the bursts of power more random? When Twilight had that one incident during her exam, she did end up hatching Spike's egg, but she also turned her parents into plants, made her examiners float in the air, and caused Spike to grow to the size of some Kaiju monster. Rarity got dragged halfway across Equestria by a spell that she didn't even know the purpose of. When Pumpkin Cake used her magic, it did exactly what she wanted it to (bring the toys over to her, effortlessly break the locks on the box, walk through walls) and nothing else happened.
 * Different ponies, different magical bursts.
 * Twilight is said to be exceptionally powerful, and she totally lost control because she got spooked. Rarity's own magic activated without her intent (or subconsciously). Pumpkin knew exactly what she was doing, and merely had enough power at the time to will it into happening.
 * This is Twilight Sparkle, an exceptionally powerful unicorn whose talent is magic itself. As a filly she struggles to flip the page of a book after studying everything she could about magic. How could a one-month old baby know exactly what she was doing, and exactly how to do it in a way that completely trumps the best magic user on the show? (Personally I am going with Pinkie Pie's Reality Warper powers super-empowering the twins. Baby pegasus flying better than Fluttershy, baby unicorn doing magic better than Twilight Sparkle? Rule of Funny!)
 * They make it clear foals can do this then grow out of it, as Twilight did. Pumpkin has not, hence she had the power to whatever she wanted at the time and didn't lose control because she never had to force it.
 * Like human babies can swim, maybe ponies have a similar reflex for magic and flying. As for why, it's so the little defenseless foals won't get eaten by the next dragon who comes along (ponies live in a dangerous world). They can't sustain this magic, as they age it fades, and they have to develop their abilities the old fashioned way. Twilight is also extremely powerful, to the extent that she has trouble controlling it as an adult.
 * Hmm... If this is the case, would it be possible to neutralize a dangerous situation by encasing it in a magic-impenetrable barrier and then trapping a bunch of unicorn foals inside?
 * If you could rely on them not to freak out on the spot and actually know what to do. They're powerful, not focused or intelligent.
 * AND if you're prepared to take responsibility in case they fail and the dangerous situation devours them messily.
 * Not to mention, presupposes the existence and convenient availability of said "magic-impenetrable barrier" in the first place. The existence of any sort of "anti-magic" in Canon!Equestria has not been established, and any spell powerful enough to contain a bunch of foals in this fashion would probably have to be cast by somebody powerful enough to handle the situation on their own in the first place.

2.13 Hearth's Warming Eve

 * The start of the show we see the mane 6 inside a locomotive (similar to the Opening of the second season), unlike the train seen in Applebucking season, This one was self-powered, unlike the pony-powered train. Could it be because coal was sacred or cultural preservation?
 * It may be rather because coal is rare and hard to excavate (ponies are probably poor suited for deep mining operations). You know, to compensate for those polished gems you can dig out with a shovel. And when diamond dogs aren't kidnapping ponies, they're demanding holdup prices for their services.
 * One of the theories of the train in Applebucking was that it was powered by Earth Pony Magic(Hence the ponies in front). If the theory is correct, the reason why this one was seemingly self-powered could be because the trip was shorter from Ponyville to Canterlot, hence not needing a "recharge" of earth Magic, or the ambient magic from Ponyville is able to reach Canterlot.
 * Expanding upon this, it's likely that the train to Canterlot is powered by unicorn magic, and thus doesn't need to be pulled manually. Appleoosa is an earth pony settlement, after all, and based on "Sweet and Elite", the population of Canterlot seems to be primarily unicorns, so this seems like a reasonable assumption.
 * It could be that the self-powered trains are a recent thing, and as such aren't widespread yet.
 * Maybe the train in the Appleoosa episode was just broken, and they were pulling it around with Earth Ponies until they found time to repair it.
 * Alternativly, all trains use a mix of pony power and the engine, while on long flat stretches they use pony power, but when dealing with large slopes, like the kind needed to go from Ponyville to Canterlot, they use the engine becuase pulling the train up a mountain side is just to much effort.
 * The final scene with the Equestrian flag. Why are Celestia and Luna on it? It's pretty clear they aren't in control of crap or are even a part of these ponies lives from the three independently governed tribe structure and the fact that the unicorns were in control of the day and night cycle.
 * Quite possibly it was the earliest known flag that could be found?
 * It's possible this was the condensed version. Perhaps Discord arrived before Equestria was founded, after the Unicorn's defeat, and the princesses eventually defeated him. Or maybe Discord arrived while the ponies were frozen in the cave and dealt with offscreen. Or maybe they were elected leaders of the united tribes because they represent all three and we didn't see the part were they appeared. There are a number of plausable explainations.
 * They just didn't expect the audience to recognize the historical flag that the three tribes actually used, so they just used a modern one instead.
 * Maybe the original flag has simply been lost to history; no one knows what it looked like. So they used the modern one in the play.
 * I just remembered this: Clover the Clever mentioned that she was mentored by Starswirl the Bearded, and Luna says she knew him personally, so the princesses must have been around during this time. I have no idea about Discord.
 * Luna never said she knew Starswirl personally. She simply recognized the costume and complimented its accuracy.
 * Maybe the alicorns on the flag weren't a depiction of Celestia and Luna (at least not at first). Perhaps alicorns didn't even exist at that point, and the flag simply used the imagery of ponies that had the combined traits of the three pony races to represent unity. Later, when Celestia and Luna ascended to godhood, they became alicorns and their coat colors changed to match their land's famous symbol of unity and friendship.
 * But... they're not. Noticeably, though the colours are similar those two ponies are not Luna and Celestia. They have the wrong coloured manes, and slightly off bodies as well.
 * Not every artist's depiction of the same subject looks exactly the same. It's definitely meant to depict the two princesses, since the symbol on the flag is very similar to the symbol as seen in the cold opening of the pilot: Two alicorns, one light, one dark, forming a circle around the sun and the moon, with the background covered in stars. They have to stylize the picture as well, which accounts for the slightly off bodies. A real life example is the different depictions of Christ in Christian art.
 * At the beginning, Spike told the audience that the story took place long before Princess Celestia's rule. So it's likely that these were either different alicorns, or just symbolic images.
 * Why are so many tropers so dead set on insisting that the alicorns depicted on the flag cannot be Celestia and Luna? If anyone were to present a play based on the founding of their own country, and wanted to use a flag as a prop, they would use a modern flag for the purpose. The same has most likely happened here. The simplest answer that explains all the facts is usually the correct one. Assuming "different alicorns" or "symbolic images" leads to the conclusion that someone prophesied Celestia and Luna's eventual rule, and so far, there is no evidence of any such prophecy.
 * I'm not denying that the flag isn't a modern one depicting Celestia and Luna, but if one were to do a play or movie based on the founding of the US, they wouldn't use the modern flag.
 * Not for a movie, perhaps, but almost certainly for a play, unless the person in charge is a history buff. Most people wouldn't see the need to recreate the original flag if a modern one was readily available. Even assuming the ponies in charge did wish for historical accuracy, who in Equestria would know what the flag even looked like? The events the play is based on all took place a millenium prior to the present, not just a few hundred as in the case of the US. And the Princesses wouldn't have been around at the time to see the flag, since the founding predates both Discord's and the Princesses' reign. The only plausible conclusion is that they are using a modern flag of Equestria.
 * So . . . what was the significance of the Christmas tree in their holiday's history? I was expecting the tree to be a Tree of Peace or something.
 * Probably just a hint to the audience that this is the obligatory "Christmas Episode." At least they kept it totally in line with the setting and didn't have Pony Santa or anything like that.
 * The tree could be a later tradition that was introduced years, or even centuries, after the events depicted in the play.
 * The holiday was founded to celebrate ponies who endured a bitter winter (by embracing friendship). The evergreen tree stays green during the winter, so it seemed like a fitting symbol.
 * Pines and firs don't really have much to do with the Nativity, either, but they made their way into our Christmas celebrations. Their tree probably got incorporated through a similar route.
 * It seems that Equestria was founded on the very premise of friendship between disparate groups directly preventing the land from being destroyed by malevolent forces. There's even an annual celebration devoted to this fact. Doesn't that make scholarly Twilight Sparkle sound more unreasonable than she should have in the first episode when she claimed that the fate of Equestria didn't rest on making friends?
 * It's possible she just passed it off as "an old mare's tale" and not something that actually happened. Remember, nobody believed in the Mare in the Moon...
 * Just because Friendship saved Equestria in one crisis doesn't mean it'll save Equestria in every crisis. (Though in practice that's how it usually turns out.)
 * So if the three pony states were only in trouble because of the Windigos, and the Windigos were banished with the union of the three pony races and the founding of Equestria - what happens to the three pony states? Wouldn't they be habitable again with the Windigos gone?
 * Equestria was apparently richer than the original homelands, and I believe they were seriously damaged by the Windigos.

2.14 The Last Roundup

 * So was the money to repair the town hall needed because Derpy trashed it, or was it already in terrible condition, which is why it fell apart even though she just bumped into it?
 * Hard to say really, but considering that AJ had already pledged prize money for repairs, the town hall was probably already in bad shape. Either way, Derpy did not help matters.
 * I think Rainbow Dash implies at the beginning that Derpy is the one who caused the initial damage in the first place. What we see on screen is just her making it even worse.
 * It's doubtful that Derpy was responsible for all of that, or even most of it. If she were, the consequences for her would probably have been much more severe than Rainbow Dash telling her to be more careful, and Applejack would have been unlikely to pledge to pay for the repairs unless Derpy was a very good friend of her, which is not the case from everything we've seen. More likely, the town hall had simply fallen into disrepair over time, and maybe Derpy crashed into it, causing its disrepair to become evident.
 * I dunno. "Applebuck Season", "Boast Busters", "The Best Night Ever", "Lesson Zero", and "Secret of my Excess" all contain examples of Equestrians causing major property damage or putting dozens of lives at risk, and facing no repercussions, or ones so minor they might as well not exist; it doesn't seem as though ponies get punished for their actions unless they're performed from actual malicious intent. Granted, there were mitigating factors in each instance, but Derpy's "special needs" status seems as least as good as any other. I kind of doubt they'd hammer Derpy with any severe penalty. As for why AJ would offer to pay for the damages, this is Poneyville's most helpful citizen we're discussing. Pledging the winnings from the rodeo, a windfall amount that she might not have already had earmarked for the farm, to help her community, seems pretty in line with her character to me.
 * If Derpy had been the original cause of the damage, I doubt they'd let her hang around the hall and cause even more damage. (Remember that AJ had apparently pledged her winnings to fix Town Hall before the episode took place, suggesting that Town Hall was already in need of repair at that time.) I say the whole thing had fallen into disrepair from termites or whatever, and Derpy just made things slightly worse.
 * Word of God is that she was responsible. As the writer originally wrote it, she (named Ditzy Doo at that point in the wirting) was supposed to have wrecked it while Bolt Bucking, getting careless and making the mistake of doing it too close to the town center, and mistaking Rainbow Dash's warnings as praise when they were rendered unintelligible by the noise of the thunder and lightning. The flashback was cut for time, as the Applejack storyline was more important.
 * Where was Spike when all this was happening? Wouldn't he want to go look for one of his closest friends?
 * He might have still been sore at Twilight for being used as a file cabinet/bulletin board in "Baby Cakes."
 * Or he's taking care of Fluttershy's animals like he did in Dragonshy
 * He was in Canterlot on official business.
 * He was taking another seven hour bubblebath.
 * There was no runner-up prize money in any of the events Applejack placed in? Isn't there usually a smaller purse for those who place? And hardly anyone at the rodeo remembered the pony who had placed in so many event?
 * It looked to me like they remembered her, but didn't know where she went afterward, which seems reasonable.
 * Repairs of the magnitude the Town Hall needed can cost upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even if Applejack did earn some consolation prizes, and even if it would cost less than what it would in real life, she probably still didn't have enough.
 * Why not send a "Staying here. Will send more money later. Here's some of it now. Bye."
 * The other ponies assumed that she had won all of the blue ribbons, and thus would be able to send all of the money at once. If she only sent some of the money it would seem like even more of a slap in the face to her family and friends, on top of her not returning to Ponyville.
 * Changing the wording of the telegraph doesn't change the fact that, from the perspective of her friends and family, Applejack abandoned her home with no explanation. They'd still be worried and probably still look for her regardless. Keeping the letter vague just ensures that Applejack doesn't have to either lie to everyone she knows or admit that she was (in her own mind) a failure.
 * So Rainbow Dash has the word "guns" in her vocabulary. Does that mean firearms are now canon?
 * Given how Pinkie actually owns a large scale firearm in the shape of the Party Cannon, I imagine so, yes. Though trying to fit small arms around hooves would be difficult, so maybe only Artillery Guns exist.
 * WMG: Every firearm/weapon mentioned is actually "party" firearm in the genre of Pinkie's Party Cannon. So there are Party Guns, Party Tanks, Party Bullets, maybe a few Party Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, etc.. They're all perfectly harmless and are only used for throwing parties.
 * When Dash competed in the Best Young Flyer Competition, the mane 6 attended and cheered her on. But when Apple Jack competes in a rodeo...nopony comes along to watch? Not even Applebloom?
 * Applebloom is easily explained; she was needed at the farm along with the rest of the Apples. As for the others, it's probably as simple as Applejack telling them didn't need to come because either 1. they were busy with other things or 2. the rodeo tickets were expensive.
 * Two therioes: Theory A. Maybe the Rodeo was on a weekday (assuming the Flyers competition was on a weekend) so the Mane cast needed to work. Of course, this doesn't explain why Pinkie, with her rather lax work ethic couldn't come. Theory B: Applejack has gotten a bit Genre Savvy and identified the chaos that happened at the Young Flyers Competition was a result of the Mane Cast being about and politely asked them to stay at home to avoid a repeat performance. Bit out of character, admittedly, but the idea kind of amuses me.
 * I like this one better: the girls went to the Best Young Flier's competition because Rarity told them how much Rainbow Dash needed their support. She saw through Rainbow's bravado and knew that her friend needed the emotional support to actually get out and perform. Applejack, conversely, did NOT need the extra rooting. She was sure of herself, the others knew it, and while it would've been nice to go, they figured Applejack was in good shape and would come back with her hooves full of rewards.
 * So Derpy's cutie mark is bubbles, but she's a mailpony? What's with her cutie mark, then? I know that her being a mailpony (who likes muffins) is basically something that the fandom leaped onto, but do we have an in-universe reason?

2.15 The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000

 * While I'm aware that this borders on a Family-Unfriendly Aesop, it needs to be asked. It's established that not enough cider is made each day to serve all of the desiring customers. It's also established that Sweet Apple Acres needs its cider money to fund its way through the winter, which is one reason why they decided not to partner with the Flim Flam Bros. Isn't the solution obvious from a basic business perspective? Raise the price. Demand decreases to match supply and you have more earnings that can keep your orchard afloat.
 * The Apples never said they had any problems with the income their cider generates as of now; merely that they have a limited supply of their very popular product. Some customers were disappointed that they didn't get their share, but not to the point were they'd do more than grumble. In fact, they seem perfectly willing to start lining up for miles the next day just to increase their chances of getting a cup. There'd be no reason to deliberately drive some away, especially considering that the family depends on repeat business. Besides, the Apples are all straightforward ponies; they'd see such a tactic as dishonest and reject it out of hand.
 * The cider sales are what keep them afloat during the Winter. It's not supposed to make them a profit, so increasing the price would not be a suitable solution.
 * Or, from a more benevolent business standpoint, shouldn't Applejack have learned one potentially valuable lesson from this whole ordeal? Aside from how the whole competition was a massive risk for her and did nothing but benefit the Bros. (if nothing else, she just gave them a field's worth of apples for free) and she should have refused to take part from the get-go, shouldn't she have learned that maybe Sweet Apple Acres would benefit from more employees? She could get enough manpower to increase supply to meet demand, and if they really do have enough apples to spare before they go bad, the increase in sales could easily pay the wages with no other lost costs.
 * I get that Sweet Apple Acres is a family farm, and for the most part they can get by just fine with Granny Smith, Big Macintosh, and Applejack (and to an extent, Apple Bloom) doing all the work, but seeing how ridiculously busy Cider Season is, wouldn't it be a good idea to hire one or two temporary workers just for that time? Equestria doesn't seem to have high unemployment rates (lucky...) but surely they could find a couple ponies willing to do a little extra work for a few bits? Shoot, even if they got their friends to pitch in for a few hours for free (they seem to have a lot of free time on their hooves) they could probably get a LOT done. Even though it appears the farm and family do sometimes struggle for money, if they hired one or two extra ponies they would profit in the long run because of all the extra cider they would make.
 * Sweet Apple Acres is more than a business: it's an Apple family tradition. Letting in outsiders, aside from very good friends, would likely be seen as a violation of their values. It's not really logical, but that's the way these things go with close-knit families.
 * There should be an episode focusing on non-Apples working at the farm. Maybe a "sometimes, traditions need to change" lesson, perhaps.
 * That leaves the mule in Applebuck Season unexplained.
 * The mule wasn't working, though. He seemed to just be hanging out there for some reason.
 * I can't help but feel that if the Flim Flam brothers had been even remotely fair or realistic with their partnership offer, or had been willing to negotiate the profit split, then it would've resulted in a mutually-agreeable business relationship. If they'd offered, say, 50/50, or even something in favor of the Apples since they're the ones growing and supplying the apples to make the product, then everyone would've made a profit, everyone would've gotten the high-quality cider (since it's implied that the cider the machine makes is just as good while the quality control is on), and everyone would've been happy.
 * Even a 50/50 split would be disadvantageous for the Apples because they still have to cover the overhead of operating a large orchard while the Flim Flam brothers only provide their cider machine. Unless the partnership produced enough cider to serve multiple times the normal amount of customers, the only ones who'd turn a profit from a partnership are the brothers. Besides, the Apples were still dubious about the quality of the machine's work compared to their homemade product (which we can only assume would be inferior even if the brothers didn't ignore quality for quantity). Either way, it'd leave them dependent on the work of the Flim Flam bros. for their financial futures; a very large amount of trust demanded considering that they just met.
 * How do we know that 50/50 would be disadvantageous? We just know that 75/25 in the twins favor would mean they lose money. And even assuming they make less per-sale on 50/50 than they would going solo, they'd also be making exponentially more sales. If the brothers had just considered negotiating a business deal that would be mutually beneficial (and really, as long as the twins get a percentage at all they'd benefit since it doesn't cost them a dime to run the machine), the Apples probably would've considered listening. They might not have come to an agreement immediately, but they lost any chance at one by threatening to drive them out of business because they weren't willing to take a deal that would also drive them out of business.
 * They probably could have negotiated something, but the Flim Flam Brothers were obviously looking to get rich quick and weren't interested in an equitable solution. You can't come to a reasonable deal when one of the parties is being deliberately dishonest.
 * Actually, I'm not so sure that a 75/25 split would result in them losing money in the long run. If you recall the beginning of the competition, the SSCS6K was able to fill six barrels of cider by the time the Apple family was finished with one. So even though they'd only be making 25% of their normal profit for each glass of cider they sell, they'd also be making six times as many sales (assuming they sold all of the cider they produced, and considering the town's massive cider demand, who's to say they wouldn't?). 25% x 6 = 150%. The end result is that they'd be making 1.5x as much as they usually do.
 * That's not how businesses work. Profit = Revenue - Expenses. What the Apples would be getting is 25% of the revenue, not the profit, or Profit = (Revenue * .25) - Expenses. In this scenario it would be likely that they wouldn't cover their expenses and their profit on every sale would be negative. Thus, by selling more they would actually be losing more money.
 * While that's correct, their expenses are pretty much 0. (Or if you prefer, a flat number based on the cost to maintain the farm and family through winter.) Nothing the machine does actually costs money to run except maintenance, which would be on the brothers. Basically, any money that goes into their pockets from cider sales is raw profit. If they had access to a device that makes six times as much product but only .25 times as much money per sale, and their expenses didn't scale at all with revenue, which it doesn't... Well, the math's already been done two bullets above this. At a 50/50 split, however, which is a much more fair deal, they triple their sales income, (50% X 6 = 300%) but their expenses still aren't directly related to how much product they move, so their expenses are still not very high. If their expenses scaled with sales, then they'd definitely lose money, but they don't, so they don't.
 * Hum... but... they didn't got the apples for free, so their expenses are not "0".
 * They didn't get the apples for free, no, but since their business is already an apple orchard, they already HAVE the apples, because they normally just sell them raw. It's product they're not going to move otherwise, since it's implied that the apples are going bad soon. Every cost associated with making cider is NOT one that scales as you make more, so as long as they make significantly more sales - and they would if they had taken the initial offer - they would've made more money in the long run.
 * But they don't have an unlimited amount of apples, so the long run might not be long enough to ensure profit. Furthermore, even if they would make a profit, the split just wasn't fair. The Apple family would be doing all the work maintaining the farm, growing the apples and harvesting them. Furthermore, even though they already have the apple trees, the farm still has a lot of expenses. They may have to purchase fertilizer, and of course, there's maintenance of the barn, fences, signs, tools, they have to buy things like barrels, and more. Not to mention they need enough money left over to support a family of four. Big Apple Acres is more than just the orchard, they have a lot more to support. And as seem in the episode, the Flim Flam brothers cared only about profit, not quality or integrity. Would you really want to work with someponies like them?
 * As stated a few times, the expenses from running and maintaining the farm, and feeding the family, are all expenses they make already, regardless of whether they make cider. The initial idea was that if the brothers had offered something that was more enticing (like a relatively-reasonable 50/50, since they're bringing unprecedented technology they literally can't get anywhere else to the table), then they probably would've been able to discuss a real business relationship with the Apples, instead of sparking an immediate feud. As for integrity, of COURSE nopony would want to work with them if they knew the brothers for more than 30 seconds. They're jerks, but if they HADN'T been jerks, they would've offered some a split that's not insulting, and could've made something great happen. Quality, though, is a different story. Until they "cheat" at the competition, their cider is implied to actually be delicious. Granny Smith drinks some and clearly looks worried that they actually have an equal product. They very clearly put great care into making sure their machine turns out a quality product consistently. They only stopped caring about quality because they started panicking about potential loss, and they probably figured losing would've made them look even worse than having an undrinkable product.
 * When she was speeding up the cider making, why didn't Twilight simply harvest the entire field's worth of apples with magic? We've seen her do it before in Applebuck Season, and if she had done this then they'd been able to put more energy into the quality control and juicing.
 * Because they'd hit a bottleneck with Granny Smith and Rarity inspecting the fruits and the mill only capable of juicing so many at a time. Better to split the crew among the various tasks according to their talents for better overall efficiency at all four steps than to attempt to focus on the sheer volume of one part of the process.
 * We don't know how magic works exactly. It's possible that certain spells can only be performed under certain conditions. For instance, maybe in Applebuck Season Twilight had to spend a couple hours preparing the mega-apple-picking spell before she could actually use it. If so, then such a spell would be worthless in a timed competition like this.
 * Alternately, it was just more efficient for Twilight to be helping with the tallying and the barrel moving. You don't always put the best pony on the job, especially if that pony would make the operation faster elsewhere.
 * You know, the bet between the brothers and the Apples was only over the "exclusive cider-making rights in Ponyville." It wasn't over Sweet Apple Acres itself. The brothers themselves said two or three times in the episode that they don't have any apples themselves, and every time they demonstrate the use of the machine they have to borrow apples from the Apple family. Couldn't the Apples just sell the apples to the brothers? You know, the apples they need to make any money whatsoever? It would cost them much more to have them shipped from somewhere else, and it's cheaper to buy apples from them than buy their entire farm. The Apples might actually wind up selling their entire field's worth of apples and not have to have any left over they can't sell before they go bad.
 * They said they relied heavily on the cider sales to get through the winter. If they sold the apples directly to someone else instead of making cider, they probably wouldn't make as much money.
 * They make a big deal about how important the traditional method of making the Cider is, but considering the demand for the cider, any moment they're selling the stuff is time they're not making it. Why doesn't the Apple family subcontract the selling of the Cider? They already do that with Zap Apple jam, why don't they ask, say, Filthy Rich to be their middle-man while they produce the stuff during the day so they can attempt to meet demand?
 * I was wondering that myself. However, it's mentioned that the family relies heavily on cider sales to get through the winter. If they sold it to a middle-man, they'd be getting a smaller portion of the profit.
 * But they can't make money on products they don't have. I was suggesting they concentrate on making as much product as possible and get someone else to sell it.
 * Selling cider directly from the source not only allows them to set their own prices, it gets ponies to come directly to the farm and familiarize themselves with the Apple family. Doing so ensures repeat business and allows them to move other apple products while the crowds are still there. They can combine advertisement, seasonal product selling, regular products sold, and the full portion of the profits all by cutting out the middle man. Of course we don't see any additional products sold, but it would be a perfect opportunity.
 * Well, rather than sell it to a middle man, why not spend all of their time making the cider while trusted, responsible family friends like the Mane 6 work the stand. Make the cider within eyesight of the stand, interact with the customers during breaks, but also make more product, thus sell more product, get a better profit, and don't leave anywhere near as many dissatisfied customers, so the Flim Flam Brothers can't get the entire town behind them. In fact, if they got the whole gang to help work the stand, they could run 5 lines at a time while they have enough stock, thus shortening the lines so even if you get turned away you haven't wasted as much of your day waiting on it. Or if they prefer, have the trusted family friends do the cider making while the family works the counter. Either way, they make a LOT more product, without losing any of that family business feel.
 * If this is the first cider season after "Applebuck Season" it might not have occurred to the Apples. There's nothing to say that they won't get the Mane 6 to help out in future cider seasons, now that they trust them and have seen the difference their help makes.
 * The problem with having the Mane 6 help is that they already have jobs. Even if they're willing to help, they may well be too busy next year or the year after that.
 * They have careers, but they are also self-employed. Since harvest is a scheduled event, they can adjust their own schedules around it. Maybe one of them will have a conflicting date that they can't reschedule on that day, but all five?
 * Flim and Flam's names are probably supposed to indicate their nature, but…how? They're certainly not nice, but they're not dishonest either. Their machine works exactly as they claim it does, and until they press that button, nothing indicates their cider is of lesser quality. Granny Smith tries some of it, and her reaction suggests that it is indeed as good as her family's, though she's not about to say so. Even when the brothers do put quantity over quality, they're perfectly willing to lower the price of the cider, if only to get ponies to buy it. So while they're definitely ruthless and callous towards the Apple family, what evidence is there that they're actually cheating anyone?
 * They could buy the apples, they could offer an actually fair deal to the apple orchard they join businesses with, they could sell/lend their machine, they could start their own orchard...but no, they simply go from town to town, offering a ridiculously one-sided deal that's almost certain to shut down the business they get the apples from. They don't want to invest a cent beside their machine, and as far as we know, their challenge might be a clever trick they pull on all the orchards they come across. Instead of starting from the beginning, they made their machine and tried to take over another business with it, take it as you will, but I doubt that's standard business in Equestria.
 * Their behavior prior to making the challenge and their deliberate outline of its specifics, in which they stand to lose far less than the Apples, suggests that the whole thing was planned from the beginning. Just look at what happened: they showed up right after the Apples had exhausted their cider supply, then they started offering to sell their cider made with Sweet Apples. When AJ objected, they started insulting the family's pride and offered a contest that they outlined the rules for (in which they risk nothing, but the Apples give up their vitally needed cider business), goading them until they not only accepted, but freely gave them the raw materials that they tried to "deal" for earilier. The whole thing was a ploy to drive the Apples out of business and let them take over. The Bros. might not have directly lied about anything, but that doesn't change the fact that they're dishonest about their intentions and running a scam.
 * I found it kind of hard to believe that the Apple family has such a hard time getting through the winter when just a few episodes ago it was obvious they made a bunch of money selling Zap Apple products. Exactly how much time are we supposed to believe passed between that episode and this one? Also, if the cider is such an imperative part of their income, shouldn't the Apple family spend the whole season making it? As in, Applejack should not have left for that rodeo if the cider actually is a surefire way to make money?
 * I think this episode has shown that the Ponyville Apples seem to have demonstrably poor business sense. They let themselves be taken for suckers, they don't plan out their cider season better, they don't hire any type of help for this crucial time of year.
 * Well Granny Smith is senile and Applejack and Big Macintosh are in their early twenties at most, with no formal business education. It's made clear that they have two big products (Zap Apples and Cider) that come once a year, but as mentioned above they're too concerned with honesty and community relations to really make a killing on these products. The rest of the year they seem to struggle somewhat, and they seem to have quite extensive overheads. It’s possible that Sweet Apple Acres donates money to other Apple family ventures too, and in the name of entrepreneurship Applejack keeps their financial situation very close to the line so that their money isn’t just sitting around wasted.
 * And considering the fact that these episodes are supposed to be watchable in any order, and the fact that there are no references to the previous one, who's to say that this episode took place after "The Last Roundup"?
 * I can't help wondering just how cutie marks work in the context of this episode. The Flim Flam Brothers have apple cutie marks, but wouldn't they have cutie marks that suggested their true nature better? After all, based on the quality of their machine they would have decided to be inventors first (and that's not getting into them deciding to be swindlers).
 * I frequently think that Equestria is a safer place than reality, since a hypothetical John Wayne Gacy Pony couldn't hide in plain sight because it's cutie mark would serve as a warning.
 * ...Safer place? With a forest of death next door? With the Spirit of Chaos? With baby unicorns getting bursts of magic? With the Windigos ready to freeze any loner or hater?
 * True, but you can identify a serial killer from across the room because their cutie mark... isn't.
 * Nup. Generally cutie marks are more abstract - see Cheerilee's, Twilight Sparkle's, Rarity's, Lyra Heartstrings's, etc. etc. It makes sense when the pony explains it, but it is usually not obvious. So, for example, Gacy? He'd have a clown Cutie Mark. Reflected in most peoples creation of a Dexter Pony, who has a splatter of blood for a cutie mark - which means both his work as a blood splatter analyst and his...hobbies. Incidentally, that clown cutie mark? Perfect for attracting young fillies and colts......
 * We don't know enough about the Flim Flam brothers to say for sure, but there are a number of possibilities. It's possible that cider-making itself is their talent, (most likely, judging by their cutie marks) and they made a machine for it later on to improve efficiency. And as we've seen before, a pony can have many talents. Fluttershy can sew, Applejack is good at sports, and so on. They may be good at swindling and building machines, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's their "special talent" that they get a cutie mark for.
 * The mere possession of a cider-mobile doesn't mean they built it. I suspect they got their cutie mark as apple salesmen, and in the course of their apple selling business encountered an inventor, and used their talent to take advantage of his.
 * They might have originally been farmers, and got themselves kicked out for dishonesty.
 * Or, the cutie mark is fake? They were selling apple cider, so something related to apples would have people think they're honest.
 * They're bad apples.
 * When you put their cutie marks together, they make a whole apple. It means they work well together. They just use their particular talents(special and otherwise) for swindling instead of good.
 * If cider was in deficit, why was Pinkie allowed to buy a whole armful of mugs? Wheter it was done intentionally or not, the whole setting strongly reminds me of the memetic Soviet-era beer lines, and believe me, if somepony'd tried to hog the beer like this, they would've been explained the wrongs of their way swiftly and painfully. Even taking the Sugar Bowl into account, shouldn't there've been an outrage from the line?
 * I think the best and only answer here is that Ponyville simply isn't Soviet Russia. The ponies are all forgiving, friendly, and closely knit. Even the bitterest ponies seem more likely to mope to themselves than actually start a confrontation.
 * Hogging cider is distinctly unfriendly, so by the transitive property so is helping someone hog it.
 * In addition, if this was a more cynical universe, Pinkie would be in the perfect position to scalp cider.
 * Pinkie Pie was the first pony to get cider. It's possible that, at the beginning, they overestimated the amount of cider that would be available, and thus they saw no reason to ration it.
 * Except they do it every year. They run out of cider every year, and they sell too much to Pinkie Pie every year. If they haven't realized the pattern now, then the Apple family is significantly stupider than we've been giving them credit for.
 * To be fair to the Apples, this is the first year that their solution to the problem ('recruit the rest of the Mane Six') is available to them at harvest time.
 * Pinkie was so enthusiastic about the cider that nopony wanted to tell her that she couldn't have her fill. (She was the very first in line, after all. In fact she's apparently always the first in line, every year, because she loves cider that much.)
 * Moreover. They know how much cider they've got, why the hell don't they announce it, so that everypony knows for sure whether or not they'd get any and not waste time?
 * I'm sure they don't know exactly how many mugs they'll be able to make ahead of time. Especially taking into account ponies like Pinkie, who buy more than one.
 * Given how much cider they were able to make in 45 minutes (granted they were speeding up production tremendously), why don't the Apples alternate the selling days? One day is set to making as much cider they can and the next sell it. That way they could stockpile a large amount and not run out and risk alienating their customers.
 * Because then ponies like Rainbow Dash would get really impatient during the non-cider days.
 * The cider wouldn't be as fresh if they waited a whole day before selling it.
 * Particularly if they don't use preservatives. Which, as far as we've seen, they don't.
 * The Flim Flam Brothers call Canterlot a "kingdom", but I was under the impression that the kingdom is Equestria (ruled by Celestia & Luna and all), and Canterlot is its capital.
 * Alliteration demands sacrifices.
 * Flim and Flam WON. Not just the contest, but the whole situation came up in their favor. They'd taken control of Sweet Apple Acres and were in a perfect position to sell their high quality cider. The only reason that the situation turned out okay was because they believed that no one wanted their product, based on the reactions of those who received the cider that hadn't been under quality control. They were aware that they'd turned off the quality-control, and otherwise appear to be rather intelligent ponies, so why would they arrive at this conclusion?
 * It would appear to be a moment of fridge logic: Why on earth would two reasonably intelligent businessponies give the worst cider to the first customers? Then the switch is made to Fridge Brilliance when you realize that, since the barrels were stacked, all the good stuff was at the bottom.
 * The cider might not have been the issue so much as how pissed off the townsfolk were at that point. They were probably already upset (to some degree or another) by the brothers' cruel treatment of the Apple family on their way out, and that the two were willing to sell them crappy cider at all put the nail in the coffin. Flim and Flam likely figured that pushing the citizens any further would result in an angry mob, and that the only feasible option was to get the hell out of Dodge.

2.16 Read It And Weep

 * Why doesn't Rainbow Dash sneak into Twilight's library and steal her copy of the book? She wouldn't have to deal with so many guards and have a way easier time breaking in.
 * Dash is too worried that Twilight might find out that she enjoys an "egghead" hobby to risk going directly to her home. Sure, it'd be easier, but RD's pride has always been able to override her logic.
 * Perhaps she'd rather rob an establishment that she had no personal connection to, than her friend.
 * Because RD has no idea where Twilight would keep her copy. Considering her disdain for reading, it would be hard for her to find a specific book no matter how well organized the library is.
 * How the hay do the hospital ponies keep up with Rainbow Dash? She's shown that she can easily outrun all the ponies in Ponyville except Applejack and Pinkie Pie. They should be falling further and further behind.
 * Well, the pain from her wings could had crippled her running speed, and the one time we really saw her run against someone else was during a marathon, this was a sprint. Ponies also tends to demonstrate greater physical abilities when pushed, having a thief break into your establishment, especially after a patient claimed he was robbed sure seems like a great way to push the medical staff and a security guard... and an insane patient, apparently.
 * Indeed. Fall Weather Friends has already established that most of Dash's speed comes from her wings. Since she still needed to keep off her wing for the duration of the chase, she wouldn't have been any faster than an earth pony.
 * But that's just it: In that race she repeatedly demonstrated that she could go from way behind the pack to way in front of it, even without her wings. The only pony who could actually keep up with her was Applejack.
 * Doesn't stop her from still feeling pain from her crippled wing, though. Ever felt that stab in the ribs while running?
 * And she was just released from the hospital. She probably wasn't 100% recovered.
 * How did Daring Do escape the strips of whatever it was that tied her down? She turned back the spiked walls and the quicksand by hitting the lever with her hat, but how did she rip through the ropes that were so strong a second ago? Lazy writing on the author's part?
 * Maybe the spikes tore up the rope a bit so she could break it?
 * Maybe the ropes were for some reason linked to the lever as well?
 * That's what worried you about that scene? What about the fact that the snakes and spiders simply vanish as soon as she gets her hat off, or even that they didn't bite her once despite crawling all over her for minutes on end? To answer the original question though, it could be that the bonds were weakened by her struggling, and only got weak enough to break at that point. Had she not stopped the trap beforehand, it would have been too late for her.
 * How did Dash get to her house, in the SKY, if she has to keep off her wing for at least a week? She tries to fly during the chase, and it definitely gives the impression that it really hurt her to even try. Did Fluttershy just carry her to and from her house until she could fly on her own?
 * We don't see her at her house until the end of the episode. It's possible she stayed on the ground until the theft ordeal was over.
 * On the other hand, though, she did finish the book in her bed, and given how excited she was about it, she probably didn't wait for a week to finish it. I assume that either Fluttershy helped her or that Twilight used teleport or that RD borrowed the hot air balloon. Or maybe Tank carried her.
 * That or maybe gliding downwards doesn't use as much energy as flying and therefore doesn't hurt as much.
 * But then there's still the matter of how she got UP there.
 * Why would she have to get down before the week was over? As I said above, before the attempted theft she probably stayed on the ground, and afterwards (considering the giant bookpile next to the bed) she most likely had everything she needed to stay home. As for getting everything there, Fluttershy and Twilight probably helped her.
 * Most likely used some kind of balloon or machine. When people in real life get injured, there are methods of helping them get around. In a world where there's a species that mainly uses flight to get around, they probably have various methods of getting around injured ponies. There are various flying mechanisms in the series that are all possible.
 * Or perhaps Fluttershy or some other pegasus constructed a stairway out of clouds for her.
 * Is there a reason Rainbow Dash had to read the entire book out loud? If it was for our purposes, couldn't they have done it in a voice-over? And since she was reading out loud? Why didn't the rest of the mane six hear her before they even got into the room?
 * Same reason she and every other pony announces their thoughts out loud when they're alone: Rule of Perception.
 * She isn't used to reading, so it's very VERY probable that she didn't even realize she was reading out loud.
 * Or she's just the type of pony who reads aloud to herself when she really gets into a book.
 * So the stallion who took RD's bed after she left the hospital, the one who thought she was stealing his slippers; was he supposed to be a cancer patient? I can't help but notice that his mane had fallen out (as though due to the effects of chemotherapy), and he seems to grimace in pain even in his sleep.
 * I just assumed that he had some catastrophic accident that broke numerous bones, not anything like cancer. I mean he was in a full body cast, they probably had to shave his mane to properly treat his wounds.
 * No no, not the purple one she was roommates with; the yellow stallion who was put in her former bed after she had been discharged.
 * Maybe it's just a minor lacerations and the hospital stuff had to shave his head to threat it properly? Alternatively he’s just a guy who likes this kind of hairstyle. We’ve seen ponies with mustache and long beards so a blad pony wouldn’t be that out of place.
 * You can see some slight shading where his mane was indicating stuble, which doesn't happen when hair falls out from Chemo (at least not unless it starts to regrow after ending treatment), so shaving is much more likely, also if it was something causing the hair to fall out, it would almost certinitly affect his coat as well, not just his mane.
 * So did Rainbow Dash stay up for three days? she stayed up all night reading then the following night trying to steal a copy and then reading in her own house
 * So is Rainbow Dash going to just go without sleep untill she´s finished the series? she started reading the second book right away....even though she siad she wanted to finish the first one so she could get some sleep
 * For the first one-two books - probably. Then the initial rush should've toned down.
 * Why does Rarity wear her false eyelashes for bed? We see them on when she's waken up by the chase.

2.17 Hearts and Hooves Day

 * Why would Twilight's book include the recipe for the dangerous love potion? I understand it was history and all, but it's incredibly irresponsible to just leave instructions for a potion capable of driving those who ingest it into a love-fueled madness lying around. Especially considering that it was simple enough for a group of fillies to construct without much effort.
 * The writer operated on the assumption that reading enough of the passage to see the results would prevent anyone from doing so. Oops.
 * Also, the love potion's effects aren't too hard to counteract; keeping the affected ponies from making eye contact for an hour wouldn't be too hard, if not for the fact that Big Mac was one of the affected ponies. I think the real question is, why couldn't the prince and princess in the original story be separated?
 * They may have taken a while to figure out how to stop the spell.
 * It could be a matter of recording things, as magic study to figure out how different things interact with each other in potions. Similar to real life science. If the effects of a dangerous potion are already recorded, some experimenting pony won't try to mix the ingredients together because they would already know what would happen. (and it wouldn't be that hard for a pony to eventually try and mix those things, considering there were only 3 ingredients and they were relatively easy to come by) There are probably a ton of potentially dangerous potions and spells.
 * If it was indeed a magic study book it was possibly from Canterlot school library(restricted section?), or some other place your average bored unicorn couldn't access easily.
 * As was pointed out elsewhere, the ingredients are around each other all the time in the Cloudsdale weather factory, and possible other places. The love poison is probably well known as a dangerous industrial byproduct to most adult ponies. The writers of that book wouldn't be concerned about people using the recipe because it wouldn't occur to them that they have to warn someone about drinking toxic waste.
 * How is Big Mac supposed to pay for a precious diamond ring on what is essentially an impulse purchase, when his entire family can't seem to keep the farm maintained due to lack of finances?
 * Credit?
 * Sweet Apple Acres would give the family plenty of collateral for buying something on credit.
 * Weren't gemstones incredibly common in Equestria, and hence relatively cheap?
 * I'm sure that Big Mac does earn money from the share of the profits generated from Sweet Apple Acres. He doesn't seem to have any expenses or extravagant hobbies so he probably has quite a bit of money saved up. Maybe not enough to support the entire farm through the winter as mentioned in "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000," but more than enough to put at least a down payment on an engagement ring.
 * On that note, how is having a diamond ring for a pony plausible? Yes, Rarity imagined one in her daydream of Prince Blueblood proposing to her, but they're both unicorns and I guess could keep it on their horns or magically place it somewhere on their person. Earth ponies though...where would they put it?
 * I don't think we ever see the specific piece that Big Mac buys. When buying for an earth pony or pegasus, one could imagine earrings are the done thing. Or a necklace. Something noticeable but classy, probably in the face or mane area. It might even be that rings are actually very uncommon as proposal pieces because they're species-specific and look kind of silly. Or maybe, more likely, the writers were thinking about making the scene make sense from a human (the viewer's) perspective rather than making it make sense in-universe.
 * We've never seen any ponies wearing rings, not even ones canonically married(Aunt Orange and Uncle Orange, unless you count her necklace). It's possible that the presentation of the jewellery is the only time it is ever used.
 * According to the backstory for Heart's and Hooves Day, the love poison caused a prince and a princess to fall so madly in love that they neglected their royal duties, resulting in the kingdom collapsing and "chaos reigning." Did... we just get a cannon explanation as to how Discord came to power?
 * It's possible. The story didn't make it clear where or when the event took place, so like a lot of things in the history of Equestria, it's open for interpretation.
 * Discord isn't strictly necessary for chaos to happen. It was probably just the figurative use of the phrase.
 * Wait, if the spell breaks when the two lovers take their eyes off each other for an hour, wouldn't the spell be broken the first time they fall asleep? I might understand with the ancient couple, one was an Alicorn apparently, she could probably use her magic to keep them awake indefinitely, but Big MacIntosh and Cherilee have no such provisions? Or was it that the children didn't think of that?
 * Maybe the spell makes it so they can't sleep?
 * Even if they collapse from exhaustion in a couple weeks and the poison wears off afterward, it'd still be pretty devastating to the farm and to the two 'lovebirds'. Victims of the love poison can be talked into making life-changing decisions with the smallest nudge, and don't make rational decisions about their own interests; that gets into some really dark places really fast. Merely not being fatal would still be terrible. Applebloom's predictions are a little ridiculous, but that's cause she's a kid with terrible long-term planning ability. Even from a more adult perspective and even presuming the poison only lasts for a short time, it's still really nasty Magic Mind Control Juice.
 * Another possibility is that time passing only counts while they're awake. The spell would probably make them dream about each other.
 * One silly thing that won't stop puzzling me: at the beginning of Sweetie Belle's song, she has a (sort-of) Imagine Spot with Cheerilee holding up an apple. What in Equestria is this scene supposed to mean? It reminds me strangely of Ryuk from Death Note.
 * Teachers received apples as gifts from students sometimes? It probably doesn't happen these days anymore, but it's more like that scene in Pinocchio where he gets an apple to give to the teacher.
 * Giving a teacher an apple is one of the oldest tropes around in American animation. It's reflected all over the place, how could someone not know it?
 * Dead Horse Trope. While it was prevalent at one time, the most recent showing of it that I can name was in The Grimm Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and that's only a vague recollection. I can imagine the latest generation of fans not being familiar with it, especially if they're more acclimated to anime where it never caught on.
 * Holy Celestia; it just occurred to me. In trying to set Cheerilee up with Big Macnitosh, the entire episode was the Cutie Mark Crusaders trying to give "an apple for teacher". Pardon me; I need to grow drink as I process this.
 * So why does every ingredient of the love potion has something to do with pegasi? Are they like pony cupids, or something?
 * As Granny Smith explained, magic can be strange. So maybe.
 * Why didn't the CMC care that all the main characters were (presumably) dateless on Hearts and Hooves day, if Cheerilee's single status upset them so?
 * They are impulsive little kids who only got the idea in class they were in. Presumably they didn't think of it and got too focused on Cherilee. Also, they would only be interested in the Mane characters they are closest to (or want to be closest to). That would be: Applejack (who is too stubborn to accept help), Rarity (who does not seem to lack for boyfriends), and Rainbow Dash (who lives in the clouds and is therefore unavailable).
 * Because Cheerilee is their teacher, aside from Rarity and Applejack (being their sisters) they just don't have as strong a connection to the other Mane Six, and it could be speculated that Rarity and Spike might be doing something for Hearts and Hooves day. That just leaves Applejack and the reason to focus on Cheerilee instead (from a practical storytelling standpoint) is because there have already been two Applejack episodes this season.
 * Plus, It would be werid pairing up Applejack with her older brother...
 * The people behind the show have a relatively close relationship with the fandom, so I doubt they would want to start a shipping war just for an episode. Also, having one of the mane six enter a relationship would change the mood and focus of the series from Friendship to girls talking about boys. In story, because it would be unbelievable for the CMC to outsmart any of the mane six to be an hour separated of their special somepony(Regardless of involvement of Big Macintosh): Twilight can teleport, Fluttershy has the Stare, Rainbow is faster than them, Pinkie has offscreen teleport, Rarity is very cunning and clever, and Applejack would be basically the same as Big Macintosh.
 * Excuse me... but how do we know none of them have boyfriends? We don't see any of them on Hearts and Hooves day after all (except for Twilight, but she quite frankly screams 'uninterested virgin'). We rarely ever see them when they're at work, why would we see them on dates? We see them with their friends, because that's what the show is about. They could all be dating off screen for all we know.
 * For ponies who constantly get into trouble and need to learn a new lesson about friendship every other week, it would seem like too big a deal to just happen offscreen, don't you think? If they ever used that element, it'd come off as an Ass Pull and if they didn't, it's virtually the same as not happening. Besides, if the fandom is to be believed, at least half of them would have girlfriends instead of boyfriends, anyway.
 * Heck, if one goes off the fandom preferences/shipping then the Mane 6 would be dating amongst themselves, which would be even more impossible to shove offscreen. Just not showing what any of the Mane 6 were up to (aside from Twilight spending the day with her one true love, books) was the safest thing to do.
 * What about the age difference between Cheerilee and Big Mac? Or is Big Mac supposed to be around the same age as the CMC's teacher? Cheerilee is the pony-equivalent of late-20s/early-30s, if her 80's hair photo is to be believed. I always saw Big Mac to be in his early/mid 20s, because he doesn't seem more than a few years older than Applejack. Did the CMC not think of the implications of an adult teacher dating a younger adult? Just something I'm confused about, especially with no real official age to go by...
 * Maybe it's a cultural thing, because I don't see any implication there. What does it matter that she's a teacher? He's not her student. Anyway, I do believe that Cheerilee is the younger one. Cheerilee is apparently around the same age as Rarity (Cutie Mark Chronicles). If we assume that all of the Mane 6 are basically the same age, +/- 2 years, this means that Applejack, who is Big Mac's younger sister is about the same age as Cheerilee, then he's probably older than her. But of course, it's still not clear by how much. Maybe they're the same age. Maybe he's 5 years older. Or maybe he's actually younger. However, even if so, it wouldn't be by much.
 * So, even if Mac is in mid 20s and Cheerilee is in early 30s, does this 5 or 6 years really make such a difference? Besides, you're assuming that "pony 80s" happened around the same time as our 80s, but there's no indication that it wasn't, for example, only 10 years prior to the show's events and Big Mac is the same age as Cheerilee. And the CMC may not even know Cheerilee's age, it's not something you'd normally ask your teacher about.

2.18 A Friend in Deed

 * Why didn't Matilda simply put the note for Cranky outside her door, to make sure he sees it?
 * Because then we wouldn't have the character's Start of Darkness.
 * It didn't occur to her, mistakes like that happen all the time much to the insanity of everyone involved.
 * This episode dealt with Ponyville's token Donkeys and also had cameos by Ponyville's token Zebra and Cow. While I'm sure this was unintentional... It can't help but make me wonder about the state of minorities in Equestria.
 * You mean minorities that get invited to the Grand Galloping Gala?
 * It's possible that certain places in Equestria are more accepting of minorities, such as small farm towns like Ponyville where herds of cattle and groups of pigs are usually found; also, that Celestia herself would accept anyone with open arms. But given what we've seen of Canterlot ponies, I doubt a donkey would be quite as welcome by the general populace.
 * I'd say the episode actually attempts (little clumsily, but still) to dismiss some of the earlier Unfortunate Implications in the series. We see the cow shopping in town, as opposed to being rounded up into a barn, and the donkeys are treated quite respectfully, despite "mule" having been used as an insult in at least two episodes.
 * "Nopony calls him Doodle." "Nopony...but Matilda." It's adorable and this is nitpicking, but...Matilda isn't a pony.
 * Ponies use the term "nopony" and the like when referring to characters like Spike. The "-pony" suffix has simply replaced "-body" in Equestria.
 * As awesome as the first song was, at the Jump rope bit, it did look incredibly like Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle (who just gets a look in) were ignoring Applebloom for some reason. Some kind of Cutie Mark Crusader falling out going on?
 * They're little kids, so probably.
 * I rather got the impression that Applebloom went off by herself because she isn't good at rope-jumping, which depressed her. I think Applebloom is more sensitive when it comes to failure.
 * I wouldn't give much significance to anything that happens during the Smile song. Why was Big Macintosh just waiting with a wagon for Pinkie to jump into with the two foals? How does the rope keep skipping when no one is holding it? How can Pinkie Pie share the screen with a sad version of herself? Why is there a sudden ticker tape parade that vanishes the second the song ends? The answer is that the song in it's entirety runs on Pinkie Logic.
 * Just how do cows get milked in Equestria?
 * We know they can be milked using magic, presumably in the same manner humans would, as Twilight demonstrated in "Boast Busters".
 * Squeeze the udders by the hooves?
 * Except that the cows seem to live at Sweet Apple Acres, which is entirely run by earth ponies. Maybe they just use a milking machine.
 * When Pinkie wanted to apologize to Cranky, he stubbornly refused to accept her apology. The obvious question is why? All he had to do was say "I accept your apology" to get her to leave him alone, even if he didn't really mean it.
 * He was too mad, and a little scared, to think of it. He wanted her to know that she wasn't welcome around him.
 * Up until that point, Pinkie had showed that no matter what she did, Cranky just couldn't get rid of her. In Cranky's mind, there was no reason to believe that once he had accepted her apology, she would go back to annoy him.
 * Just because he is cranky doesn't mean he would be okay with lying about accepting her apology. He has standards.
 * Daisy Jo was in the bakery buying cookies to go with her milk. It's implied she's going to eat the cookies...does that mean she's going to drink her own milk?
 * It could have been coconut milk or soy milk.
 * Is it just me, or does this episode show how brutishly impolite and insensitive Pinkie can be? Yes, I know "she1s just being Pinkie", but apparently that includes having no concept about privacy, personal space and respect for a personality different from her own. Not to mention accepting when somepony simply doesn't want to be with you, which happens all the time in real life. No, she keeps pushing it, while forcing herself into Cranky's house, rummaging through his personal stuff, and managing to destroy his album - his only memory from the past. And, of course, in the end it's all justified, because it helped her find Matilda, and she's easily forgiven for everything! I know she wanted good but it still annoys me to no end.
 * I actually think it's a well-established fact that Pinkie has trouble understanding and empathizing with other ponies, we were shown multiple times (Griffon the Brush-Off, Feeling Pinkie Keen, Party of One, Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, Luna Eclipsed and this episode being examples, YMMV on some of these) that she is prone to downright ignore what others may feel as a result of her actions. If anything, it adds a negative trait, thus depth to her: she wants to party hard, no matter the cost. She's not completely insensible, though, as Baby Cakes has shown that she may be aware of this and is trying to improve as a result.

2.19 Putting Your Hoof Down

 * Anyone else see Iron Will as not that bad of a guy? I mean, all he wanted was to be paid for his services. He left without a problem after Fluttershy explained she was not satisfied. Its probably even safe to say that the past ponies Iron has helped improved for the better after his services.
 * I didn't get the impression he was meant to be a bad guy. Rarity tries to manipulate him with flattery and Pinkie Pie with lying and trickery, both of which are as morally suspect as Fluttershy's Jerkass behavior and not necessarily presented as good things. Iron Will sees right through them, but is brought around by Fluttershy's polite and respectful, yet still assertive, demeanor, which is much more morally sound than any other alternative presented to being a doormat.
 * He even learns a lesson at the end, that saying "no means no" is a good way to be assertive.
 * If there's anything people can learn from Iron Will, it's that there isn't so much of a villain. Was he trying to cause harm to the characters, like say, the Flim Flam brothers? No. All he was doing was giving advice, and it was Fluttershy going crazy about it...and he actually kept his word that it's free because Fluttershy was not satisfied, even walking off deciding to teach people that "no means no" is also a good way to be assertive without being overly-aggressive.
 * I don't have anything against Iron Will - for me it seems like he is at worst neutral charcter. Yet I worry some may take him for villain. In the same time, I would like to point out, that Pinkie Pie and Rarity acted like Manipulative Mares. Both tomato’s seller and nerdy-pony didn't really do anything wrong and yet the way our Mane2/6 acted is shown as completely justified. Semi-honest haggling and mooching staff are not assertiveness.
 * Sure Rarity only flirted with that guy to get the last vegetable, but she didn’t take it away from him. She paid him and gave him a good ego boost. That seems to be a fair deal.
 * You may be right here. Maybe as a nerd and capitalist, I'm a bit thin-skinned about the kind of things Rarirty and Pinkie did. Still, I would prefer if they would teach assertivness in other way.
 * An 'Ego boost' is not a proper trade-off, even if Rarity paid him back, she now has the last asparagus, that's the only thing that matters. If anything, there's a chance that pony will eventually remember why he wanted it in the first place, and realize the deception, turning the 'ego boost' around. It really depends on whenever someone considers charm to be a justified means to an end or a trick to manipulate others to be frowned upon.
 * People really forgive heroes. I don't think Iron Will was a "villain", just someone who gives bad advice but he learns a lesson too. I don't think he deserves to be demonized, especially since, you know, he wasn't intending to hurt anyone like say, Gilda or the Flim Flam brothers.
 * I think the show should have been clearer about it, but no I don't think Iron Will was a villain. And his lecture WORKS its just a real life assertiveness seminar would probably include advice about how not to be a jerk. If he were a villain he'd force Fluttershy to pay up, but the truth is, his product was good yet flawed, so Fluttershy wasn't 100% satisfied
 * I agree too. In fact Iron Will was one of the few characters who didn't try to take advantage of Fluttershy this episode. He held a class on assertiveness and wanted to be paid which is completely reasonable. The only villainous thing he did was threaten Fluttershy and that was most likely a buff (though he really shouldn't have threatened her). He listens to Fluttershy and respects her reason for not paying. Compare him to any of the jerkass background ponies and it will be obvious who the real villains are in this episode.
 * Is it just me, or did those goats look way too evil for just being hired help for a guy who's no worse than a bit of a Jerkass who gave advice that essentially equated "being assertive" with "being a creep"?
 * Well real goats can have a bit of an evil look about them some times, so maybe it's kind of Genetic?
 * So... how exactly did Fluttershy manage to nail boards across her door on the outside, whilst ending up inside her cottage?
 * Get someone else to do it.
 * She could fly through the window.
 * Why was everyone so mean to Fluttershy at the beginning when they've been at worst neutral towards her in the past. A special mention goes to Angel, who went from impatient but lovable pet foil to Flutershy to Domestic Abusing Jerkass.
 * Rule Of Aesope. If we don't have this, we should.
 * Why didn't Fluttershy use The Stare on Angel in the beginning of the episode?
 * Fluttershy doesn't seem to like using the Stare in general, and didn't she say she can't exactly use it at will?
 * Iron Will is a minotaur (half-bull/half-human) does this mean humans exist on this show?
 * ...that would raise some squicky implications. However, Minotaurs don't necessarily have to be literal human/bull hybrids (the ones in Dungeons & Dragons, for instance, are just a species like any others.).
 * Why can't he just be a bipedal bull? I know traditionally they're half human, but with old mythology there's room for new interpretation, particularly in a world with no humans.
 * The lower half of his body looks like the hindlegs of a pony/horse, so he might just be Equestria's version of a Minotaur.
 * So, does this mean that Fluttershy's assertiveness will supercede her kindness? I mean, that Element of Harmony is quite important, and even an Action Girl like Fluttershy-when she wants to be-should still be as kind as kind can be.
 * Kindness and politeness aren't necessarily the same thing, to say nothing of being an outright shrinking violet and/or doormat. If anything, then inasmuch as the show has a continuity I'd expect Fluttershy's new assertiveness (assuming it sticks) to help her reach out to and help more people that she'd otherwise have felt too intimidated by.
 * If Iron Will feels the need to introduce himself by name to Pinkie Pie and Rarity, then how does he know they're friends with Fluttershy?

2.20 It's About Time

 * Why didn't Future Twilight just use the time travel spell, again? Did it say you have a limited amount of chances to use the spell?
 * Who cares? That's Past Twilight's problem now.
 * If she didn't go through that ordeal she would probably never have learn her lesson about not worrying about the future.
 * Indeed: she had to try to warn herself not to worry, because she did tried; yet she couldn't succeeded, because she didn't succeeded
 * Actually, it did say the spell can be used only once.
 * Why only once?
 * It could've meant that you could only go back to a certain time once.
 * Why does Twilight conclude that the disaster was supposed to happen by sunrise on Tuesday morning, instead of any time over the following five or six hours?
 * All of the "signs" (her injuries) had come to pass; no disaster was needed to explain them.
 * That doesn't explain why seems to treat dawn as a deadline, and is immediately relieved when the sun rises without incident. For all she knows at this point the disaster could be any time before 12 noon.
 * Future Twilight specifically mentions she's from next Tuesday morning, so whatever disaster past Twilight thought happened couldn't happen after that point in time.
 * Which, as I've pointed out, does not rule out the disaster happening at any time before 12 noon. So at sunrise, Twilight should still have another five or six hours before she can be certain.
 * So, Cerberus exists in Equestria guarding the entrance to some world full of evil spirits. Did they really just imply that there's hell in the My Little Pony world?
 * Eeyup. Does it matter? The show isn't exactly a utopia.
 * Well, evil spirits doesn't have to mean it's related to hell as in a form of afterlife. Maybe Princess Celestia just banished a bunch of creatures like the Windigos or spirits of disharmony like Discord (just weaker) into that place at some point and then set up a guard-dog.
 * Tartarus in Equestria is not necessary hell.Could be a prison for ancient and evil creatures, or maybe regular monsters like the ones in the Everfree Forest.
 * Twilight explicitly describes the creatures in Tartaros (Twilight distinctly pronounces it in the Greek, rather than Latin fashion, with an "os" rather than an "us") as ancient evils, so they aren't just run-of-the-mill creatures.
 * OP here. It just seems weird that such a location exists, but only now has it been referred to. Seriously, what kind of implications does that hold about Equestria? We've seen a few evil creatures, but those seemed to be anomalies. But the existence of Tartarus implies that there are a LOT of those things, so many that there's a whole area to lock 'em up in.
 * I don't think the writers care. Tartarus was used just for a gag, probably didn't exist before this episode was written and won't appear ever again.
 * Some sort of underworld prison for ancient evils existing doesn't necessarily imply that it has a lot of occupants. Just that the ones it does have are too dangerous to let run free (and considering what sorts of monsters do still roam the Everfree Forest and the occasional other part of Equestria that's probably saying something). Discord probably didn't end up there because before he was turned into a statue nobody could've so much as forced him to enter (let alone stay) and afterwards there was no need, and Nightmare Moon gets a bye on grounds that no matter how bad things got Celestia wouldn't have wanted her sister to be imprisoned with the 'other' horrors.
 * When Future Twilight gives the location of the time spells. Did Twilight not know that the Starswirl the Bearded wing even existed, or did she just not know that is where the time spells are kept? Her comment after they "break into" the building, "If my calculations are correct, the Starswirl the Bearded wing should be right here," seems to imply the former. So how did either Twilight come to learn of this wing and the spells it contains? The only reason Past Twilight knew is because Future Twilight told her. Does this not make sense to anyone else?
 * Twilight said Starswirl had a wing of the library named after him in Luna Eclipsed, so she knew it existed. Presumably, she'd never seen a reason to visit the high-security part of the library before.
 * Yes, the time loop is based upon a problem it caused. Depending on one's perception of time (which is to say, highly subjective and open to interpretation), it might imply that there was a time when the loop wasn't initiated. This particular Twilight might had simply stumbled upon the spell and used it, creating an alternate timeline which eventually stabilized into a loop. For the sake of simplicity: original Twilight goes back in time as herself for some reason, something causes her past self to become 'future Twilight', then she goes back to the past for the reason we saw, poof, the loop is made.
 * It is not as much subjective as it is just a choice the writers made. I for one am very satisfied they went for a bootstrap paradox and sticked to it, with no Grandfather Paradox nor alternate reality being thrown into the mix.
 * Maybe there actually WAS a disaster before she started the loop, but it was averted by disaster-proofing Ponyville.

2.21 Dragon Quest

 * Why are Twilight, Rarity and Rainbow dash so shocked that Spike wants to be with his own kind?
 * 1) Because dragons really are dangerous. The only one he's ever interacted with tried to kill him. 2) Because Spike doesn't really know anything about "his own kind". 3) Because it means that he, one of their closest and youngest friends, is leaving without any guarantee that he'd return.
 * Am I the only one who kinda felt that the ponies reasons for wanting to join spike were a little shallow? It seemed like the only reason that they joined him was because they didn't think he could handle going by himself (granted he did need a little help, but at the time, they didn't know that)
 * They followed because they were just worried about their young friend going off into the unknown. How is that "shallow"?
 * So is there some kind of "Finders Keepers" rule in place between the sentient species of Equestria when it comes to offspring? Princess Celestia had a dragon egg she was using as a test for Luna knows how long (and let Twilight keep Spike, despite not knowing anything about dragons and their needs) and Spike apparently get to keep the newly hatched Pheonix, even though he knows it has a family out there. Just a little bit bothered by that.
 * Well, we still don't know where his egg came from, so it's still up to interpretation where his egg came from. But as for the Phoenix, the nest his parents were staying in was destroyed, and they were being chased by vicious dragons, so they probably won't go back to their old nest, looking for their egg anytime soon. Birds usually just move on to another location and stay there. So Spike taking the egg, probably saved the egg's life.
 * Is Spike defective or something? No really, think about it. Every single dragon, literally every. single. dragon. has wings except for Spike. It's even pointed out by him.
 * Well he is still just a little guy. He may grow his wings later. Who says that his Greed-Growth in The Secret of My Excess, was his real grown up form. His greedy form could just be a malformed (incorrect) way of growing up. And the Grown-up version of him in the Cutie Mark Chronicles, was just him blown up to a larger size. And we didn't even see if that form had wings.
 * The most simple explanation is that Spike just isn't the same type of dragon as the others we've seen. He doesn't have wings because his species is naturally flightless.
 * That still begs the question as to why he was pretty much the only flightless dragon there. So many dragons went on the dragon migration, even if Spike is a wingless species, why was he the only member there? Is his species that rare? Is his species from a far-away land?
 * The migrating dragons were migrating via flight. Perhaps the non-flying dragons simply don't migrate, or don't travel such a large distance as the others.
 * Spike is not the only wingless dragon. The one with a giant tail also didn't have wings.
 * Maybe spike is just a late-bloomer. He may get his wings, but they'll grow in slower, than the other dragons.
 * Even not having wings still makes him less unusual than Crackle. Dragons just seem to have a lot of variation in body type.
 * The teen dragons were not the only dragons, why didn't Spike try find some who were nice to baby dragons? Perhaps there were dragon his own age (those dragons were definitely older than him)?
 * That's even if baby dragons were there in the first place. If there were other baby dragons there, they would have likely been guarded by their parents. As we've seen many a time, adult dragons can be hostile for even little reason, so they might not take kindly to other dragons, even young ones, approaching their young.
 * Perhaps Spike went for the first smaller dragons he saw, and later was too proud to back off?
 * Part of Spike's mission was to prove that he was tough. He didn't want to wimp out when the teen dragons acted unfriendly; he wanted to stand his ground and prove himself.
 * Shouldn't Fluttershy know better than to stomp on Rainbow's rib cage? Fine, she was flying, so it was probably less severe, but the sound wasn't the most pleasant one. She could have broken her ribs that could have pierced her lungs!
 * That's why you don't mess with Fluttershy. But seriously, she was careful enough not to hurt Rainbow Dash. And Rainbow Dash was not hurt. What more was she supposed to do?
 * Did it bother anyone else that all the young dragons were unanimously declared Jerkasses? They're crude and uncivilized by pony standards, but they seemed to treat Spike fairly well considering. As for raiding the phoenix nest, that seems to be instinct and a natural cycle of predator-prey more than conscious cruelty or sadism. Not to say Spike should have conceded to peer pressure or sold out his own values, but he didn't say, "This lifestyle isn't my thing, and I don't feel like I belong," he flat-out said the ponies were better and the dragons inferior. Are we supposed to believe that dragons are naturally Exclusively Evil?
 * To be fair, the red dragon in Dragonshy seemed like an okay guy. Just grumpy from having woken up.
 * He was interacting with the douchebag teenage dragons, it probably would've gone differently had he interacted with a more mature bunch of dragons.
 * No, we're supposed to believe that teenagers are Exclusively Evil.
 * Spike never said ponies were better than dragons. He said that his pony friends were better friends than those three dragons. They were trying to get him to smash a phoenix egg, not for predatory instinct, but pure malice. Most might have written the dragon teens off as simply toughening him up with their trails and whatnot had it not been for them trying to kill phoenixes entirely for fun.
 * Was it entirely for fun? It seems to be more of a rite of passage. For all we know, smashing a phoenix egg (or doing something similarly callous) could be something every dragon has to do, including the one from "Dragonshy", who clearly wasn't meant to be too bad. Spike's right about the ponies being better friends, as the dragons' friendship is recinded when he doesn't follow orders, but despite that, it still seems more like a bad case of Values Dissonance than much else.
 * Which ranges into pure speculation. From what we've seen, there was nothing hinting that the egg smashing was anything official, let alone some dragon rite of passage. It appeared to be just a trio of teenage dragon punks being destructive for fun.
 * Seeing the teenage dragons call Celestia a 'namby pamby pony princess' I wonder of the relationship between her and the dragon community.
 * It would be the same thing as the relationship between the president of America and teens from another country, say, Canada. The teens can badmouth the American president, but that doesn't mean that the U.S government is going to suddenly declare war on Canada. Unlike what most fanon would like you to believe, Princess Celestia is not as thin-skinned as she's made out to be.
 * Mostly accurate, except that the U.S. President isn't personally responsible for Canada not being cloaked in everlasting darkness due to the sun never rising. As for why they disrespect someone who's the sole reason they're alive... haven't you ever seen a teen (or been a teen) who was disrespectful to their parents?
 * They probably have no idea who Celestia is or what she does. They're probably assuming she's the kind of princess you kidnap and force to clean the cave, not the kind who personally kicks you out with her phenomenal cosmic powers if you invade her country.
 * Given how little ponies canonically know about dragons, it's entirely possible that the same holds true in reverse: the ponies consider the dragons too dangerous, the dragons don't bother to pay attention to mere ponies unless they become a nuisance (which for the aforementioned reason isn't often), and so anything like purely social pony/dragon interaction just doesn't happen. (This runs counter to some fanfics in which the dragons have their own kingdom(s) and formal diplomatic ties to Equestria, but those were generally written before this episode.)
 * Why didn't Twilight just send a letter to Celestia asking about Spike's heritage?
 * That's even if Celestia knows about Spike's heritage. Ponies know very little about dragons, to the point where even TWILIGHT couldn't find anything about them, which indicates that ponies and dragons have had very little interaction. It is a possibility that Celestia doesn't know who found the egg, and even if she does, that doesn't necessarily mean she knows where the egg was found, or who Spikes parents are, or even what type of dragon he is. (the fact that he was pretty much the only dragon there without wings indicates he's not like them)
 * But Twilight only searched in her library which doesn't contain all the books in the world, also she was unaware of the Starswirl the Bearded wing and the time spells, so it could be possible that Celestia had books and/or knowledge that would've aided in their research.
 * Maybe they're saving the truth of Spike's origins for a future episode.
 * Perhaps Celestia had explained to Spike about his history in the letter she sent to him...which was thrown in the lava pool. The migration seems to be a big event, and it would be reasonable for Celestia to think that at that time Spike might want to know something about where he's from.
 * Maybe Celestia has some good reason not to tell Spike about his origins.
 * Why couldn't Rainbow Dash fly with Twilight and Rarity in the dragon costume? She didn't seem to have any trouble at all carrying four ponies back in "Sonic Rainboom".
 * The geometry of Rarity's dragon costume obviously wouldn't let Rainbow Dash to do it, the lower part of the costume is open so the ponies could walk on their legs
 * Even so, Dash was unable to take off at all, clearly struggling with the weight. Was the costume itself just ridiculously heavy or something?
 * She wasn't able to accelerate properly with two ponies holding her down and the costume futzing with her aerodynamics. If she had been able to get some more speed some how, or arranged the other two better, she would have been able to get them into the air.
 * Besides, that time was a case of Heroic Resolve.
 * Phoenix are immortal (they are reborn from their own ashes). Yet we have seen they lay an entire clutch of eggs at a time. Why isn't Equestria overflowing with them? No matter how slow or infrequent the mating instinct may be, no permanent deaths would mean no way to compensate for the birds that are successfully hatched.
 * For that matter, what would eat a phoenix? How many animals would enjoy a meal of ash instead of meat?
 * Dragons are probably the only creatures that could. We've seen Spike eat some pretty gross/inedible things.
 * Doesn't the Phoenix rebirth thing only happen once every thousand years? If they die due to other causes, they might actually be killed off for real, or at least until the next thousand years is up.
 * A phoenix is reborn after dying of old age. Whether they can be reborn after dying from being eaten or otherwise mauled is yet unknown.
 * There is a real world species that has biological immortality, the immortal jellyfish. They can still die from disease and injury.
 * Maybe they only get reborn a limited number of times before they die permanently.
 * So...phoenixes are Time Lords?
 * Why was Fluttershy scared of dragons when she defeated one in Dragonshy?
 * Fluttershy's dracophobia was established in that episode. It was only when he was directly threatening her friends that she got over it. As it stands, the dragons aren't doing much aside from collateral damage.

2.22 Hurricane Fluttershy

 * So Bonbon's a pegasus now?
 * There was also a Pegasus Lyra in one of the previous episodes, so maybe Bon-Bon has a pegasus twin too.
 * There's a Pegasus version of Doctor Whooves who competes in the Best Young Flyers competition. Apparently a lot of background ponies have doppelgangers of a different pony type.
 * Changeling.
 * As much as I like this theory when applied elsewhere, I gotta question the idea of a changeling being so incompetent as to not only get the species wrong, but to risk drawing attention to that mistake by participating in a town-wide event.
 * Why didn't Spitfire do anything to help? They were one pony away from getting the water spout created, and that's to provide water for all of Equestria. How come Spitfire didn't just jump in to help? If Rainbow Dash is pushing a 16 wingpower, I'm sure that Spitfire would have broken the required 5 no sweat and is probably about equal with Rainbow.
 * It's an important job that provides Equestria's rainwater, but there's a definite element of competition to it, with prestige going to the locale that performs the best. If a town/city is really incapable of producing a tornado, more serious steps are probably taken.
 * The solution was simple, Spitfire should have joined the group and finished the job. Then she'd have added, "Unfortunately, I am going to have to note that you only reached 795 WP before I joined you in my official report." Maybe add something about also noting in the report that they did pretty well considering they were down 8 flyers (Which seemed to be able 8-10% of the towns pegasus population). It may be a competitive thing, but it's still a job. Get the job done, but disqualify them from any competitive recognition.
 * It's not like there was an emergency, like a fire or something. And competition or not, it was still a matter of pride for the town. It would be impolite for Spitfire to just barge in uninvited. Besides, Fluttershy was there, and perhaps Spitfire understood that it was an important chance for her to overcome her fears and earn respect. Now, if she'd flat out refused to join, then maybe Spitfire would've done it.
 * But why was Spitfire there in the first place? It just doesn't add up!
 * Spitfire was there to oversee the water transfer and record Ponyville's top tornado windspeed.
 * When Thunderlane coughs, Twlight's response is to... spray his mane with something? What does it have to do with coughing at all?
 * Its a disinfectant spray. She's cleaning the germs from Thunderlane's cough. She even says it.
 * Yeah, but did she think Thunderlane coughed on his mane somehow?
 * She didn't target his mane specifically, rather his general direction.


 * Is it just me, or is this the first time in the entire series that Rainbow Dash actually acts kind and caring to someone? Even when defending her friends or doing them favors, she's still pretty loud and obnoxious about it. Here, she's soft spoken and rather supportive of Fluttershy throughout much of the episode, returning to her loud and boastful variety of friendliness when she's playing up Fluttershys performance. She's not exactly perfect (She's still begging Flutteryshy to help), but this is probably her first incident of being actually sensitive. It almost seems Dash went through a bit of character development off-screen, and we missed a friendship letter somewhere.
 * How about The Last Roundup, where she was also quite nice to Applejack? Or last episode, where she was protective of Spike? The main problem here probably is that her first two episodes this season portrayed her as an asshole.
 * Or when she shows genuine affection towards Tank after he proves his worth? Or when she graciously accepts her defeat in Fall Weather Friends? Or when her actions in general in Sonic Rainboom? I could go on, but the point is, Dash has always been a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, not a callous Jerkass like a lot of people are painting her as lately.
 * I did not intend that Dash was not capable of being nice. But there's a difference between her good traits manifesting loudly and energetically, like they usually do, and her being relatively low-key in this episode. To be fair, she was somewhat quiet when trying to calm Tank down when he got scared towards the end of Best Pet. However, I'm pointing out that, normally, she's more like she was at the end of the episode, where she was giving the credit to Fluttershy in her usual boisterous manner. It's not that Dash can't be kind and considerate, it's that in this case, she behaved in a much more subdued way here. It seems like a younger Dash might have tried to be a lot more energetic towards Fluttershy, rather than her much more downplayed than usual behavior here. It's like if Pinkie Pie threw a party, and it was just a quiet affair, maybe with a single cake and basic food, and it was much more about the guests simply enjoying each others company than the actual party itself. It wouldn't be completely out of character, but it would be odd, and signify positive character development and better empathy on the part of the character (Dash in the episode, Pinkie in this example).
 * Her character development indeed seems to have improved over time, especially in 'Read it and Weep', in which she learned to stop hating what she doesn't understand, a lesson she truly needed. There's a few moments in which RD was actually caring to someone else, but the rather poorly planned two episodes in a row dedicated in showcasing her absolute worst features, almost making her seem like a villain in 'May the Best Pet Win' and 'Mysterious Mare-Do-Well' did a great job of changing the opinion of the community regarding her. It took some time, but it seems like she was eventually redeemed by becoming a more open-minded pony and being the target of most jokes in episodes.
 * You may recall that when RD first learned of what Fluttershy's problem was, she started out being rather abrasive, but then stopped herself, and continued on more gently. I simply took this as her realizing who she was dealing with. She knew she was talking to Fluttershy, and needed to be a bit more sensitive than normal. Compare it to Griffon The Brush-Off - Rainbow and Pinkie pranked every member of the Mane Cast except Fluttershy, because Pinkie declared that she was too sensitive for that, and that even the lightest prank would hurt her feelings. Rainbow agreed to this rather quickly. Similarly, there's not much of a problem when RD's brash with a Pinkie Pie or an Applejack, because they're not very likely to get their feelings hurt by it. But Flutters is the sensitive one, and she knows to be easier with her.
 * Yeah, dumping cold water and scaring her? Yeah, that's being kind. Hell, its not like RD needed Fluttershy anyway; she had most of the people in Ponyville riled up like her and could easily do the tornado without Fluttershy. The only thing that prevented their ability was the other ponies getting sick.
 * Fluttershy pulling out a cheap, obviously faked, "sick" excuse is understandably going to aggravate Rainbow a little bit, and as said above she went easier on her afterwards. She wanted Fluttershy to be in the tornado not because she had to be, but because she really, really, wanted her to participate and be part of the group. When Fluttershy acquiesced, it became more about helping her overcome her confidence and self-esteem issues. Fluttershy giving up and staying home wasn't the end of the tornado project, but it was a big disappointment and a loss for both Rainbow Dash and her.
 * How does Roid Rage fly with these itty-bitty wings?
 * It's been implied at times that Pegasi rely partially on magic to fly, so maybe wing size does not matter that much.
 * Rule of Funny

2.23 Ponyville Confidential

 * Dear Gabby Gums: How do you type with horseshoes on?
 * Gabby Gums didn't use a typewriter. Anyway, the typewriters had two hoof-sized buttons and what looked like a space bar. That changes the question from how they hit the buttons to how they fit all the functions into such few keys.
 * I've got it! They type in... Horse Code!
 * A) Pun of the year. B) The keys probably function something to the effect of "select letter", "type selected letter", and a space bar. It would be slow going (or would have to be magically enhanced), but it would probably work okay.
 * Perhaps it works in a similar principle as the chorded keyboard.
 * Cheerilee's involvement at the end felt off for a few reasons. Most significantly, what was the reason why she decided to step in and demote Diamond Tiara? If it was because of public annoyance with the articles, shouldn't it have happened before the Crusaders wrote their resignation letter? If it was due to the resignation... note that the Crusaders didn't actually blame Tiara for their actions and instead said that public feedback drove them to continue, so why would Cheerilee find her accountable? The blackmail apparently never went public, so that wasn't a nail in her coffin.
 * As the editor, Tiara had final authority over whatever was printed. The Crusaders could've written whatever they wanted, but it would've never made it in the paper without Tiara's approval.
 * Cheerilee must not have known, maybe not actually paying attention to the contents of the paper. Then Diamond Tiara blackmails them and Featherweight took a picture. Since it wasn't used for the paper, he must have given it to Cheerilee as concrete evidence of what Tiara was doing.
 * After the entire episode revolved around the Crusaders attempting to write stories that met with Tiara's approval so that they could get printed, and after she blackmailed them into continuing... Tiara approved the publication of their next article without ever looking at it? And was caught completely off guard after the papers were circulated? She knew they wanted to change their format or leave their position, so why would she relax her editorial mandates? It's true that the deadline was approaching, but that still felt like an Idiot Ball on her part to reach the episode's conclusion.
 * Tiara was probably too over-confident in her blackmail keeping the girls in line.
 * They also seemed to be right at the paper's deadline, and she probably figured any Gabby Gums piece would be better than publishing the photos and cutting ties with the CMCs forever.
 * Tiara's been consistently shown to be mean -- not necessarily smart. (It's not like she hasn't been hoist by her own petard before.) Plus she's for all her attitudes still not an adult herself, so some Genre Blindness can be excused. Also, yeah, the two points above.
 * These explanations would be acceptable for a purely print piece. However, the article actually has a picture of the Crusaders front and center, instantly implying that they are owning up to their actions as Gabby Gums, and we see during the later montage that it quickly caught the attention of those who were spiting the group. Even if Tiara didn't pick up on that implication, she'd have to wonder why they were writing a defamation article against themselves. For her to publish the article and put it on the "newstands" without realizing that it wasn't their standard fare, she must have not even glanced at the thing from the moment they handed it to her to the moment when everyone was reading it, and that would include not being anywhere near the printing or distribution process, especially so close to deadline when you need to make sure everything goes without a hitch. That's a pretty extreme reversal from earlier.
 * Why does a one-room schoolhouse have its very own newspaper?
 * Given how far more colts and fillies are shown about the school than are ever shown in classroom shots, the school is clearly larger than we've been led to assume.
 * Why didn't Cherilee step in earlier? The newspaper was going all over Ponyville and in Cloudsdale, surely she would've heard what stories were being printed. Is she just that irresponsible?
 * Maybe she wanted to hang back and see if the kids would solve it themselves. Which, of course, they did, and they learned a valuable lesson along the way. It'd be a risky move, but some teachers are like that, especially in fiction.
 * She did take her students on a field trip which resulted in unsealing an ancient evil and having Equestria descend into total chaos, maybe she's really that terrible a teacher.
 * Sadly, the above. In the past, Cheerilee has let students be teased in front of her and watched the CMC get into a physical scuffle without intervening. She's sweet and loves her students, but she's never been a terribly reliable teacher.
 * We don't see her after the first meeting until the end of the episode. Perhaps she was out of town on sabbatical, or at a teacher's conference. She might have been unaware until she came back and found out what had happened.
 * Season 5 reveals the reason Diamond Tiara gets away with so much; her mother is president of the local school board. Cheerilee would have to wait until DT blatantly stepped out of line before she could begin to intervene.
 * How did the CMC manage to dig up dirt on Trixie, if she had left Ponyville a long time ago?
 * For that matter, how did the CMC get dirt on Celestia? Three fillies managed to hop a train to Canterlot without any supervision?
 * Some of the stuff is stated to be made up. Also, they have access Spike and Twilight, so they may have grabbed an old photo. As for Trixie, I'm guessing that it's one of those "Breaking the Magician's Code", only done via ransacking or talking to those who have ransacked through her wrecked carriage. Alternatively, they might have gotten hold of Trixie's diary (assuming one exists) from Snips and Snails, who had themselves recovered it from the rubble.
 * It's almost certainly made up. Every other column they did was a picture and a caption that didn't even necessarily have to be related to the picture. (like claiming Fluttershy had tail extensions) They could've easily gotten a random picture of Trixie and added any accusation.
 * Why didn't Spike tell the mane cast the CMC were Gabby Gums? He had been interviewed by one of them, and later that interview appeared in Gabby's column. He should have been able to put two and two and two together and get Matilda- er, the fact that the CMC were Gabby Gums.
 * Diamond Tiara pulled that article. She said it was too nice. While the mane six know that he knows who Gabby Gums is, they never actually ask him. The CMC might have asked him to keep it a secret. Or he also might have told the others off screen.
 * He probably did. Someone had to have told the town who Gabby Gums was, since they all knew. It had to have been Rarity or Spike, since Rarity figured it out and Spike was interviewed by them. Rarity seems unlikely because 1. It's her sister, and 2. She'd already heard how guilty Sweetie Belle felt about it. So we can probably guess that Spike exposed them.
 * Anyone thought the Ponyville publicly shunning the Cutie Mark Crusaders a bit harsh? Granted, they invaded their privacy and were humiliated but they're only young fillies. I hate to see what the town will do if the girls did something worse...
 * It was a day. They'd likely get over it soon enough. They've already gotten over poisonings, massive collateral damage, Mind Rape, and attempted genocide, a few rumor-mongering fillies likely won't be that impressive in comparison.
 * They (albeit unintentionally) let loose the spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. You can't get much worse than that, and no one seems to hold it against them in the long term. Not to mention they fed Big Macintosh and Cherilee a Love Potion that forced them into a relationship together and caused them to go so bonkers they caused a significant amount of collateral damage. Again, no one holds it against them (unless Macintosh's rant at them was partially fueled by that).
 * Not so much in the former case, since no one really knew that they were to blame. Celestia might have had realized that CMC's quarrel fueled Discord's release, but she probably didn't know about it, and Cheerilee who saw it probably didn't connect an ordinary class trip she likely have had dozens of times with the appearance of an evil Physical God.
 * Even Celestia might not have known the CMCs were responsible. She didn't say he'd been woken up or released, only that he had returned.
 * This one's kind of a nitpick, but it's also central to the entire episode, so I think it bears saying. The girls create the shared alias of "Gabby Gums" because they can't fit all three of their own names in their one section of the paper. But why not just sign it "CMCs" or "the Crusaders" or something? It's not like their club name's a secret or anything; plenty of other characters have acknowledged it before.
 * Maybe they just liked the name.
 * Maybe they heard about the idea of pen names and figured that using one would help them earn their cutie marks.

2.24 MM Mystery on the Friendship Express

 * Where the heck is Spike during all of this!? I mean, besides the "Last Roundup", and "Sweet and Elite" he's the only one of the mane cast that keeps being left out of the group's fun. And we know for a fact that in this episode he wasn't on official business in Canterlot, or else he'd make a cameo. Was Twilight really making him stay behind to do chores at the library, rather than hang out with his friends and see Celestia, the one that helped Twilight raise him, and in a way, a mother to him?
 * Well, it was a rather spontaneous invitation, wasn't it? I was under the impression that they didn't even go home.
 * They had tickets, or at least rooms. Either they had warning before hand, or they were able to make some arrangements.
 * With Twilight gone, someone has to man/pony/dragon/whatever the library. Spike's also said that he likes it when Twilight goes on trips, since he gets to slack off.
 * This raises the question of what she did during "Dragon Quest." Was she able to find a temp librarian, or did she just close the place down?
 * Spike obviously stayed home because he has to take care of his baby phoenix pet, which he didn't have at the time of "Dragon Quest"
 * The Character Derailment of Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity bothers me. Did they become jerks just for the sake of the plot or is there an underlying instinctual behavior regarding ponies and cakes.
 * This bothered me, too. Especially at the end when the other bakers scrambled around to eat each other's goods. Seriously? Do none of these characters have any self-control? Pinkie Pie's immediate forgiveness and understanding baffled me as well. If all of my friends conspired to ruin something that I worked really hard on and might bring my town some recognition I'd be really pissed and call my friendship with these people into question.
 * Well, "conspired" is the wrong word, but yeah, at the very least there should have been some indication that the three intended to work off the debt somehow.
 * My initial thought upon first viewing was that it was another "chalk it to Pinkie's weirdness" thing - she is SO EXCITED and SO OBSESSED with the food that her descriptions are literally mind-altering, turning even the ponies of loyalty, generosity, and kindness to sneaking a bite. As such, I found it hilarious.

2.25.26 A Canterlot Wedding

 * When Twilight went to Shining Armor and the others to tell that Cadance is evil because Twilight saw her do some things that made her look evil, and then Shiniing Armor tells her that the things Cadance was doing was completely different, the others dismissed her. Did Twilight's friends and Celestia forgot about the lesson from Lesson Zero: that you shouldn't dismiss your friend's worries even if they are blown out of proportion, and that you shouldn't let your fears turn a small problem into a big problem?
 * In Lesson Zero nopony could actually directly say that Twilight was wrong, and were just dismissing her concerns because they seemed silly. In the finale, the rest of the group had actually had their own experiences with Cadance, and while they didn't find her particularly pleasant, they all seemed to like her okay enough. And Cadance had already offered them a plausible explanation for why she would want the gang as her bridesmaids BEFORE Twilight came in spouting that she was evil.
 * There's also the fact that this time around, there was an alternate explanation for her behavior; the entire first half of episode 25 where Twilight goes on and on about how important her brother is to her and how mad she is that he's getting married without telling her could easily come across as possessive. Adding to that is that they aren't there when it's revealed that Twilight knew Cadance, or when she made peace with her brother. Add in the fact that (fake) Cadance treated the rest of the cast pretty well (putting people you don't know into your wedding party is a pretty big gesture) and it's pretty clear that from their perspective, Twilight is being insanely possessive of her brother, and making up excuses to dislike the pony who's taking him away from her. They didn't just brush her off; they heard her out and made an (wrong) informed decision that she was just jealous.
 * Where did the Changlings come from? Where do they live? And why do they feed off of love?
 * Tartarus. Wherever they can hide . And love tastes sinfully delicious, without being fattening in the slightest.
 * Or maybe... ever notice how there's more than one Bonbon? or Derpy? Changlings live everywhere and act just like normal ponies.
 * .... Is it possible they just gave a canon explanation for all the duplicate background ponies?
 * There's a whole planet outside Equestria that's largely unknown and unexplored. Alternatively, it's been proposed that Chrysalis.
 * If Shining Armor is Twilight's BBBFF (Big Brother Best Friend Forever,then why does it seem like the others don't seem to know who he is until Twilight tells them? Wouldn't she want to tell them everything about the guy she looks up to?
 * I guess the relations between the two got distant after Twilight left Canterlot.
 * Where was Luna during the fight? Was she asleep (ya know, she rules at night)?
 * They showed Luna flying in at night, so wherever she spends her days is outside of the shield. The event also went down fast enough that they didn't have the time to send word to her after the shield fell, and if Canterlot fell, then she would have been needed to rally forces elsewhere in Equestria.
 * Luna is shown to relieve Celestia at nightfall, and when she shows up for the wedding asking whether she's missed anything it's once again evening. The Changelings also never seem to have found her while swarming all over Canterlot, which together with her earlier arrival through the shield would indeed suggest that she spends her days elsewhere and may in fact simply have slept through the whole thing.
 * Still strange that Luna would leave Canterlot at night even though Canterlot is explicitely under threat of attack. Wouldn't it make sense to have both powerful alicorns at hand to repel the threat? Not to mention Luna's presence at the wedding itself would have resolved the plot immediately.
 * Shining Armor's Twilight's BBBFF (Big Brother Best Friend Forever), then what about Spike? Does that make him her LBBFF (Little Brother Best Friend Forever)?
 * I actually think the introduction of Shining Armor hasn't ruined the theory that Twi and Spike are like bro and sis. It's just that their relationship is different. With Shining Armor, he was someone she could look up to, and play with. Spike was just a baby at the time. And probably spent a lot of time with Celestia (seeing as she taught him that "fire-magic sending thingy"). But Spike loves Twilight as family (confirmed in Owl's Well That Ends Well, and Dragon Quest) and shows that she returns the feelings.
 * One Word of God suggested that Celestia took to the initial raising of Spike, given the general lack of pony knowledge on dragon raising, only giving her to Twilight as an assistant when both were mature enough for it. Hence, the Twi/Spike relationship - prior to being sent off to Ponyville - would be more formal, and becoming more sibling as they both learned to adjust to Ponyville. This would also be consistent that leaving Shining (whom she still probably saw every day while at Canterlot), her relationship with Spike would be upgraded to the sibling nature to make up for not being around Shining.
 * Why was everyone so quick to take Cadance's side? They all completely snuffed Twilight, as if her opinion didn't matter. It's especially odd, since the other 5 had learned to take others feelings a little more seriously.
 * They all saw Twilight get into a bad mood because Shining Armor didn't tell her about the wedding personally. They assumed she was overreacting because of that. And as much as her friends try to take her concerns seriously, Twilight obsesses over the smallest of things.
 * I'm not so sure that holds water. This is Rarity and Applejack we're talking about, and the dress and the apples were snubbed by the bride. Even if she wasn't a changeling-much less the queen-we're talking about someone who basically disrespected the very foundation of what those two characters have based their lives and liveihoods on. Applejack would normally defend her own apples to the death. Rarity is not someone you screw around with when it comes to dressmaking. If Cadance was realistically acting in this manner, it makes perfect sense to call her out on her bullshit, especially from the Mane Six. Struck me as a little out-of-character for them to hold back and instantly forgive her. I may be a guy, but I know a 'bridezilla' when I see one.
 * Rarity doesn't always reject criticism. Remember when she made dresses for her friends, and they didn't like them? She worked overtime re-making the dresses according to their requests. It's no surprise she would do the same for a princess's wedding gown.
 * The scene where Twilight crashes the wedding is probably the worst for that, it really bothered this troper. The other ponies completely dismiss Twilight without a thought. I genuinely thought they were being mind-controlled/influenced like Shining Armor was. Even Celestia leaves in a huff without actually talking to Twilight about her concerns. It gets really egregious when Shining Armor tells her off so utterly... considering the relationship the siblings are supposed to have, that should have set off alarm bells. Yet her supposed friends just leave her without saying anything? The hell?
 * ^ It's entirely possible that any of those characters planned to talk to Twilight some more after she had a chance to calm down. They tried to find her a few minutes later, but she had already been imprisoned at that point and thus could not be found (and they assumed she had run off). And you can't really count what Shining Armor said, considering he was under some sort of mind-control influence.
 * Rarity has actually got lots of prior evidence for being a total pushover when it comes to being talked back to about her dresses. Applejack I might expect to be a little harsher, but she didn't lose her temper with Prince Blueblood either, and was remarkably civil with the Flim Flam Brothers too.
 * To be fair, Twilight never actually accuses "Cadance" of being an outright fake -- just vaguely "evil", which does make her sound more than a bit irrational and desperate. Since she doesn't even bring up her alleged former favorite foal-sitter blithely failing to recognize her at first, it seems that the idea that she might be dealing with a genuine impostor (rather than the real Princess Cadance simply turned somehow 'bad') didn't occur to even her.
 * THIS. Go back and watch the rehersal scene and try to forget all the other stuff that happened in the episode. Twilight comes across as an extremely rude, possessive, irrational pony just spouting off the word 'evil' over and over. The look on Rarity and Rainbow Dash's faces afterwards are entirely realistic reactions.
 * Okay, but then we still have the rest to consider if we ignore the superficial threat; Twilight was not irrational by the scope of the lessons she has had in Ponyville as well as the others that relate (Best Night Ever, Parasprites because of listening and respecting others, Putting Hooves Down, etc) and reactions she has learned about her friends. The Changeling!Cadance was extremely rude and dismissive of all these people-towards people who would never accept that behavior from anyone else save for a poor excuse over the said perpetrator's wedding. One's wedding is not an excuse for her actions especially against the Elements of Harmony and the idea of the show, and Twilight was right to call her out on it...and she would have left it there, if that was just the case and there was no evil afoot.
 * Twilight was shown to be very possesive of Shining Armor as far back as the beginning of the episode, when she threw a complete fit over hearing about his wedding secondhand. That in and of itself was probably a surprise to her friends, since she doesn't seem to get very angry often. They also don't have the intimate knowledge of Cadance's personality Twilight does. To the rest of the mane 6, Twilight started getting out there when she first heard about the wedding, and only got worse from there. And whether she had reason to be or not, Twilight wasn't at all calm or rational when she accused Cadance of being "evil". They'd be hard-pressed to assume anything other than, "She's off her rocker, and it's because she's clingy about her brother".
 * Nobody noticed the giant army right outside the force field? None of those guards noticed the changelings and thought to notify Celestia? Nopony glanced outside and saw those black ominous looking poinies? What?
 * The changelings didn't start attacking until Queen Chrysalis revealed herself. And an army of shapeshifters is very, very, very easy to hide.
 * Putting aside the fact they were stopped, how exactly were the mane six supposed to get to the Elements of Harmony? The door to them is sealed by a spell that only Celestia can break.
 * They are the elements of harmony. So the spell wouldn't work on them.
 * Either Celestia was delirious from getting the snot kicked out of her, she made the Elements accessible to them, or that wasn't Celestia. None of those have good implications for what became of the Elements, especially since we have no idea what happened after the manes were surrounded in Canterlot tower.
 * It is possible that what unlocks the door isn't Celestia's magic, but an specific spell, something Celestia could have taugh to Twilight after the accident with Discord.
 * It's also possible that while only Celestia herself could actually undo the spell, the magic is still designed to let certain authorized ponies simply pass without interference. After all, not only could the Elements always be needed when the Princess isn't conveniently around to fetch them (as seen in the very series pilot, which isn't something she's likely to have forgotten about already), but she can't use them herself anymore anyway and knows it, too.
 * For yet another alternative, we don't even know for certain that that spell is still there. It failed to keep out Discord, after all; Celestia may have replaced it with something else in the meantime.
 * Why would the changelings shape-shift into the ponies they're fighting? Now they have no idea who's friend and who's foe.
 * Neither do their opponents.
 * Except that their opponents can all quite easily attack the ones that look like them, and can also attack any group of two or more clones of the same pony who appear to be fighting together. The only way this might give the Changelings an advantage is if they themselves had the ability to spot the difference, but judging by Fluttershy's trick they clearly don't.
 * Judging by the changelings' habit of slamming their faces into things (either the shield or the ground), perhaps they're not very intelligent.
 * Psychological warfare, they did it hopping to mess with the Mane 6's heads a bit.
 * Exactly. Yeah, it didn't work in their favor, but most of them seemed to enjoy messing the Mane 6's heads, notably when a group of Changeling!Twilights mockingly repeat Twilight's "They're changelings, remember?"
 * How did the Queen manage to get past the force field?
 * She probably went in before it was even put up.
 * At the climax, Shining's having trouble making his magic work due to being drained earlier, and Cadance says she'll help empower him with her love. The Queen's response? "What a lovely but ridiculous sentiment." It's a common villain trait to underestimate The Power of Love, but doesn't that sound wrong from the mouth of a villain whose entire plan up to that point involved growing more powerful from someone's love?
 * The point may've been that she'd drained Shining Armor so much that they could not possibly have enough combined power to defeat her. The way she worded it still sounds off though, I agree...
 * It could also be that Chrysalis thought only Changelings could benefit from The Power of Love. To her, it was as if Pinkie had gone up to her and said "I'll defeat you with my magic"
 * It is also possible she saw love as a source of food and nothing else, only Changelings can "eat" love and she wasn't expecting it to be weaponized against her.
 * Cadance was weakened from imprisonment, so Chrysalis probably had no idea she could still do magic
 * So, the threat to Canterlot. The one that caused Shining Armor to beef up security. What was the deal with that? The implication is that it was a threat from the Changelings, but that doesn't make much sense. They're shapeshifters who did their very best to hide the operation until it came time to invade. Telling them that they're planning to attack only made their job harder. The only explanations I can think of are that they were ridiculously confident or that the threat was sent by Shining Armor before he became brainwashed, who'd figured out what was happening and sent it to himself in an attempt to thwart their plans. Yeah, I don't know either.
 * I think they let slip that something unspecific was threatening Canterlot, and between him constantly keeping up the forcefield and the Changeling Queen draining him, they were trying to run the source of the defenses out of power, so the shield generator would be completely tapped out for their invasion.
 * The simplest explanation is that the Changeling Queen herself made the threat after switching places with Cadance. Her plan required him to be too distracted to notice her changes in behavior, and for best results she would want him too exhausted to really fight back. Forcing Shining Armor to keep the shield up for an extended period of time accomplished both of those things, and claiming to heal him gave the Queen an excuse to cast spells on him repeatedly.
 * Just because "a threat has been made" doesn't mean the changelings announced themselves. It's possible they accidentally triggered some sort of warning system earlier. There could be a spell that detects various non-pony races approaching Canterlot and sends a warning to the guards, but can't determine any more specific information.
 * In the end, the Changelings are still alive. What is going to keep them from infiltrating towns with no massive force fields, like Ponyville or Manehatten?
 * Nothing, but it don't make strategic sense, Celestia could easily send a well-organized army to take the city back, and if it fails, send the Mane Six with the elements of Harmony to defeat them, the main objective of taking down Canterlot first was so the rest of Equestria would offer little resistance.
 * Said army would need to find them first and then be able to tell the shapeshifters from the real ponies. There are still a lot of Changelings around, too, to say nothing of their Queen; they could probably take, say, Ponyville by strength of numbers alone, and if they were even halfway sneaky about it nopony outside of town would be any wiser for a good long while. And they have every reason to come back: there's food to be had in Equestria and starving on purpose would make even less sense, strategic or otherwise... -- Essentially, while their latest plot may have been foiled, the Changelings are far from actually defeated. Sequel Hook, anyone?
 * Yes they would need to find the towns, but they wouldn't need to change into real ponies. In a city they could walk right in with good forged documents (or legit documents gotten through some means), and claim they have always been citizens. In a small enough town where the locals know most of the other people in their town, they would be some random pony moving in from out of town. Real world spies don't normally need to impersonate real people when they infiltrate, why would changelings? Of course they would have to do this on a gradual scale.
 * It IS a Sequel Hook, we finally have a villain evil enough to be an actual problem and not too strong to be to dangerous to let free, I am just saying, the Changelings don't NEED a large scale attack to feed thenselfs, they are shapeshifters, they could just sneak on a town, eat as much love and whatever other emotions they might also enjoy as they want and get away from there as fast as possible.
 * Keep in mind that the Changelings were likely disorganized from being blasted over the horizon, and demoralized from their recent defeat. They'll probably return eventually, but at the moment, fighting them is less war, and more pest control.
 * I figure they do indeed lurk throughout Equestria, but for reasons mentioned above know they would lose a large scale battle and so keep themselves hidden. Unicorns can destroy their illusions remember, if she wasn't empowered the (significantly more powerful that her subjects) Queen would have been totally flattened by Celestia. Her plan was likely to zerg rush Celestia and the royal guard, while they were both exhausted and had their guard down. Doing so takes away the main threat to domination of the whole country.
 * Now that Canterlot is aware of a changeling threat, they may develop spells to detect changelings, and send out patrols around Equestria to find them and stop them from causing too much trouble. (They knew there was a threat before the changelings arrived, but I don't think they knew anything specific. Now they do.)
 * Is Vinyl Scratch related to Shining Armor and, by extension, Twilight? She looks an awful lot like him - white unicorn with dark/light blue mane and all.
 * Judging relations in Equestria by mane and coat color might be a bad idea, none of the families we saw so far have identical colors(Big Mac and Applebloom, for example, go so far as having inverted colors).
 * When did Cadance foalsit Twilight? Before or after she became Princess Celestia's apprentice? If she lives with the princess as her apprentice, then why would she need a foalsitter? Wouldn't celestia keep an eye on her?
 * Before, if you check the flashbacks, Twilight didn't have her Cutie Mark yet, I personally like to think Cadance went to the same school as Shining Armor when they were teens and became friends, at some point Shining Armor complained about not being able to do something(such as do the test to join the royal guards, for example) because he had to take care of Twi, and Cadance offered to foalsit her, she liked Twi enough to start foalsitting her whenever possible.
 * Following that theory, it is possible Cadance had a crush on Shining Armor ever since back then, which is why she offered to help him in first place, First Girl Wins, anyone?
 * The lack of cutie mark could have just been an animation mistake, considering that we see little Twilight unpacking her things (including Smartypants) in what appears to be a castle chamber, which would imply that Cadance foalsitted her during her years as Celestia's personal pupil.
 * It's also possible that that was Cadance's castle chamber, not Twilight's, and she only brought along a box of toys for the day. The chamber itself also features many heart motifs in its decorations, which makes this interpretation more likely.
 * The direction in which Chrysalis and her minions got blasted off too looked absolutedly barren. Is that Tartaurus? Or is it someplace else entirely?
 * Could be Appleoosa, actually. Or just someplace we haven't seen before. (And besides, I got the impression that the changelings were blasted in all directions.)
 * It would kind of make sense to assume it's just part of the frontier lands where Appleloosa and Dodge Junction are located, especially since The Last Roundup reveals that this part of Equestria is visible from Canterlot - but it seems pretty clear that writers wanted to imply that it's some sort of Mordor-like wasteland where changelings come from and now were sent back there.
 * If Shining Armor was considered Twilight's only friend, then what about Spike? Based on dialogue from previous episodes, it's implied that they always had a strong bond- Owl's Well that ends Well he was afraid that Twilight didn't love him anymore. And that knew each other ever since they met- Secret Of My Excess mentions how for every birthday he had, Twilight always gave him a gift. And the picture of baby Spike with Twilight in the final scene from Dragon Quest, implies that she knew him from the moment he was hatched. Is it because he was a baby for most of the time, that he wouldn't be old enough to play the things she wants to? Or is it out of ignorance, since he's younger, she looks down on him (like any older sibling would on a younger sibling)?
 * What is with you and your constantly demonizing the ponies as dragon abusers??
 * They don't abuse Spike. If anything, Twilight definitely cares about him. I just find it odd how she only counted Shining Armor as her one friend in Canterlot, while Spike was hanging out with her too. I'm just wondering where exactly does he fits in her circle of friends? Does she see him as another brother, a friend, a son, or just an assistant?
 * Shining Armor was probably her only friend before she became Celestia's pupil, and thus also before she met Spike. Twilight mentioned they drifted apart, and that's probably the point in time when the drifting happened - when Twilight became Celestia's pupil.
 * Now that you mention it, I do notice how she didn't have her cutie mark in those flashbacks. So you're probably right. I bet Twilight sees Spike and Celestia as her second family. Seeing as she drifted apart from her own, Celestia became a second mother, and Spike a second brother. But she always kept in touch with her parents and shining armor.
 * If Shining Armor was her friend, then why is it in past episodes Twilight said she never had friends in Canterlot?
 * Because Twilight exaggerates and is prone to massive errors of perception. She also forgot about Spike. Both are perhaps family, which don't count for reasons of proving a point.
 * She probably meant she had no friends outside her family. When she's spoken of a lack of friends in past episodes, I'm pretty sure it was to exemplify how she never tried to make friends. She didn't need to socialize to make friends with Shining Armor because he's family and she didn't need to; it was just an automatic bond.
 * Why did the writers feel they needed to give Princess Celestia-generally considered a power onto a literal god in this world as an alicorn-The Worf Effect? Talk about a way to talk down the most-powerful individual pony in all of Equestria. If Luna had been there, I'm sure a double-team would have settled it...but no, of course not. Dramatic contrivance ho!
 * Yes it was dramatically convenient, but in fairness Celestia being THAT powerful is Fanon. She's never demonstrated anything beyond being a particularly powerful unicorn with added wings, and the ability to raise the sun each day was confirmed in "Hearth Warming Eve" to be a normal unicorn ability, albeit likely one that required a group of them working together before Celestia came along. And yes, if Luna had been there too things would have gone differently, which is why she wasn't. Give the writers some room to create meaningful conflict.
 * Just because Celestia can raise the sun doesn't mean she has god-like powers in other areas. It's entirely possible that she has great power over the sun specifically, and relatively little power with other types of magic. (I mean, she's obviously more powerful than average. She's just not god-mode powerful.)
 * Another, more God Celestia compliant, theory is that The Power of Love is just that strong. One way to think about love is that it is a more intense and generally more powerful version of friendship and thus would produce a power more potent than it. Assuming that Cadance was taken some time before the events of the episode, that means that Chrysalis has been stockpiling a suped up version of The Power of Friendship for quite a while. Whether of not this means she can produce a burst akin to the Elements of Harmony depends of the conversion rate of Friendship to Love.
 * THIS. It's not that Celestia is weak, it's that Cadance and Shining Armor's love was that powerful. If Twilight and the others had gotten the Elements of Harmony, I wonder if they wouldn't have worked.
 * So, it was okay for Celestia to lose? Of course, Chrysalis didn't expect to win that faceoff, but there's all forms of indication that Celestia is that powerful; In Heart's Warming Eve, it was said that the ritual did require unicorns to use, but how many? Celestia has enough magic power to do so as one pony. She also has the aspects of Pegasi-flight and assumed weather control-and Earth Ponies since her body type tends to conform-which also assumes a connection to the earth and incredible strength and resilience. They put someone like her in a green and webby prison egg thing. Does that not bother anyone else?
 * I presume the Changelings paralyze the ponies before putting them into cocoons.
 * It probably does bother those viewers who've taken the whole fan-created "Celestia is a goddess!!!" meme to heart, yes. You'll notice, though, that the show never actually comes out and says anything like that; she's a, possibly even the, Princess of Equestria, but never gets accused of outright divinity in canon. Moreover, having a special talent for moving the sun (as indicated by her cutie mark) does not automatically make her any more badass in an actual fight than any other powerful unicorn...like, say, Shining Armor, who Chrysalis apparently had plenty of time to sink her real or figurative fangs into.
 * Well, after all, ponies frequently refer to Celestia where we would say God, so...
 * She's their primary authority figure and has been for over a thousand years, yes. But even if the other ponies believe her to be an actual goddess as we'd understand the concept -- unclear at this time since pony religion hasn't really come up in the show at all, probably so as not to needlessly wake sleeping Moral Guardians --, that doesn't necessarily make her one in fact. (That the ancient Egyptians supposedly believed in the divinity of their pharaos didn't exactly endow those with mighty supernatural powers either as far as we can tell.)
 * The indications are that Celestia simply is more powerful than the normal ponies, and indeed probably one of the more powerful entities in the setting. She can control the sun as a single pony -- the play somewhat implied it took more than one normal unicorn to do it. She broke a spell cast by Twilight Sparkle -- herself a force to be reckoned with on the series' power scale -- as if it were nothing. She wielded the Elements of Harmony both with the help of her sister and single-handed -- something it currently takes six ponies to accomplish. Queen Chrysalis very, very obviously didn't consider beating her in open combat even a remote possibility until it had already happened. Does this mean she's a goddess? Not necessarily... but it does mean that Celestia is a force to reckon with. Combine it with her apparent immortality... and "goddess" is the word that would spring to most people's minds.
 * Ultimately, speculations about Celestia's "power level" are just that -- speculation -- because we don't have all that much solid information to go by. Moving both the sun and the moon on time for a thousand years during Luna's/Nightmare Moon's exile is arguably her most impressive feat to date, but that's really only one trick (and one that could be explained away as an expression of her personal special talent and her specifically being Luna's sister if need be), and beyond that we don't see her exercising whatever personal magical powers she may have much at all. Perhaps worse, her known track record in facing Big Bads by herself (i.e., without the Elements of Harmony) is three losses out of three so far: Nightmare Moon is strongly implied to have imprisoned her offstage easily enough, she's not even shown to try taking on Discord herself when he breaks free, and against Chrysalis she finally officially loses onscreen. The Omnipotent who simply decides to keep losing on purpose for some reason? Just a literal one-trick pony with great PR? Something in between the two extremes? You decide.
 * Well, the season 4 finale finally gave us an on-screen example of what alicorn power looks like when fully unleashed... and it looks like nuclear explosions and holes getting punched in mountain ranges. Granted that was the power of four alicorns combined and not just one, but even so, holy crap. So, given that Celestia is unaging, extremely tough, moves celestial bodies with her mind, and commands vast mystical powers that at their fullest potential can do things like crack mountains and reduce entire square miles of terrain to ash, calling her at least a "demi-goddess" would seem appropriate.
 * Or it's possible that Celestia simply held back on unleashing her full power out of fear of the other ponies in the room getting hurt, using only the bare minimum she though would be needed, then taken out by a sucker punch.
 * If changelings feed off emotions, why do they have fangs?
 * Because they're cool.
 * Because they can eat actual food in addition to love.
 * Actually, I don't know if they can. The only time we see her actually eat anything she doesn't enjoy it and promptly throws it away (true it's suppose to add to her jerkassness, but there could be more to it). Even beforehand she looks like she's doesn't look forward to eating the food (whereas with the other wedding aspects she just has a look of disinterest to her)
 * Rule of Symbolism. They are essentially vampires, after all.
 * When did Chrysalis replace Cadance? My first thought is that it must have been several months ago, before Shining Armor even proposed marriage. I figure this because, as Twilight says, Shining Armor would normally discuss such a big decision with his sister before actually getting engaged. He didn't mention it to her, so I can only assume Chrysalis was messing with his mind at the time, which means she had already replaced Cadance. (We're going with the theory that Chrysalis intentionally prevents Shining from contacting Twi, right? And not just that he's "really busy"? Because really, how hard would it be to send Twilight a letter?). But, if Chrysalis has been Cadance for so long, what has Cadance been eating down in those caves? And how does she know about the wedding?
 * How about this: Chrysalis replaced Cadance months ago. She's been keeping Cadance fed because she wants Cadance to keep generating love that Chrysalis can indirectly feed on. Cadance knows about the wedding because Chrysalis told her, via villainous gloating. Fortunately, Cadance is just as willing to marry Shining Armor as Chrysalis pretended to be.
 * While possible it is unlikely that Cadance would just go ahead and marry when it wasn't even her that was proposed to. It seems more likely that she was taken around the time she was proposed to. The chaos of such a thing would be the primary reason they might have forgotten to message Twilight and by the time they would have remembered Cadance had already been replaced and the threat made aware.
 * Given how poor a job the Queen did of acting like Cadance, it was probably around the time the threat was made. If it wasn't for the excuse of additional stress from planning the wedding on her own, the Queen would have been made easily, even with Shining Armor brainwashed. Shining Armor probable didn't tell Twilight about the engagement earlier because he wanted it to be a surprise. He also couldn't tell her in person because his job kept him in Canterlot.
 * It was probably after the decision had been made to have the Mane Cast help in the wedding preparations, and after the point where she could refuse them without suspicion. Having the Mane Six close by exposed her to one of the ponies that knew Cadance well, and risked them being able to use the Elements.
 * Okay, can someone PLEASE tell me how the Royal Guard was so easily subdued? All throughout the first episode we see dozens of them stationed all over the place, so how is it that the Changelings won so quickly? It's not like they had the element of surprise by the time they broke through the barrier, unless the Guards happened to not be looking up for the minute or so it took the Changelings to finish off the barrier. On top of that the Mane 6 who, while they have proven to be exceptionally Badass time and again, manage to defeat a large horde of Changelings between the 6 of them. In fact we only see two Royal Guards who are of course bound and useless, so what about the rest of them? Are you telling me 6 ponies are a more capable fighting force than the ENTIRE ROYAL GUARD minus Shining Armor? Even if their commander was getting married, it's not like they wouldn't have sub-captains and lieutenants directing the various units. Now of course the more obvious reason was to allow the Mane 6 to have an epic battle sequence, but wouldn't it have been even MORE epic to have the Royal Guard lending a hand? I just find it hard to believe a trained army could be so easily defeated.
 * Even by the end, the Mane 6 were subdued by the Changelings. On top of that, the Changelings can shapeshift, making it very hard to tell them apart and fight them. If they used the same technique they used on the Mane 6 on the guards, it would be a lot harder since the guards all look the same.
 * Remember too that the Queen had their captain brainwashed. She knew exactly where they were deployed, where they were weak, what the individual members were capable of... her minions were likely under order to finish them off first, only going for the group of six unarmored ponies runing through the city when they went for the elements of harmony. It was also likely that groups of them were indeed still fighting, but it wasn't plot important enough to show them.
 * Come on, let's be honest. The Royal Guard hasn't really proven themselves to be effective save Shining Armor's impressive barrier. I mean, when you live in a matriarchal society where your main leaders are triple-aspected Gods, you don't have much to do normally.
 * When have the Royal Guards ever proven themselves to be more than a Redshirt Army, anyway?
 * Is it spelled Cadence or Cadance? The former is what I thought it was (and the way this site spells it), but the closed captions and the MLP Wikia spell it as "Cadance".
 * Cadance is the official spelling.
 * When Cadance first goes over the wedding arrangements with the main characters, it's pretty clear that she doesn't approve of most of them. Twilight uses this as ammunition against her later, which the other ponies quickly dismiss as desiring things to be right on her special day. An understandable sentiment, to be certain, even if we don't like them to become bridezillas. But then all of the trickery and drama occurs, and at the end the real Cadance prepares for the same wedding... and a quick montage shows that she instantly approves of all of the previous designs. While there are certainly other possibilities in play (Cadance genuinely agreeing with them, or counting her blessings that she's getting a wedding at all), is it really a good idea to subvert The Complainer Is Always Wrong, only to double subvert it later?
 * Well, to be fair, there wasn't much time, the episode was almost over. It's possible that she gently objected to some things (I could imagine that she asked for a different hairstyle, for example) and we just got to see the outcome, that she was genuinely happy. It's less about this trope and more about just showing that she's sweet and kind. I didn't see it as a double subversion. The problem wasn't that fake!Cadance disapproved, it was just the way she acted.
 * Plus, Chrysalis was a Control Freak. She probably found something wrong with everything simply to assert her control over every little thing. And it's also possible the choices were meant for the REAL Cadance to begin with, and Chrysalis simply had different preferences than her. There was nothing wrong with their arrangements except they were meant for the real mare, not her Ax Crazy Evil Queen impostor.
 * Where did that bouquet that Cadance used on the bridesmaids come from? I would normally just say Rule of Funny except the plot hinged on them being able to get out of the cave, so to pull a random bouquet out of nowhere seems weird. It's not like this is Pinkie Pie either, this is Cadance, whose only personal magic has been to be the Equestrian version of Cupid. I know it seems like I'm fixated on this, but it's so easy to fix too; just have a patch of flowers growing in that one area (there's light streaming in, so there wouldn't be too much question of how flowers are growing in a cave) ,have Cadance pick some, and boom, problem solved.
 * It's possible it was simply an illusion or some other conjuration by Cadance. She is a winged unicorn after all. One way to justify this is that her talent seems to be love/matchmaking which often includes a bouquet of flowers as a key item for such rituals.
 * Why doesn't Twilight just teleport out of the caverns? Or did she forget that spell again?
 * I get the feeling Twilight needs to know the distance she's teleporting. It's not as simple as, "I want to go there," if she doesn't know where 'there' is in relation to where she is.
 * Twilight's teleports are almost always short range and line of sight, and she couldn't see an exit. Teleporting straight up as far as you can go, even with someone that can fly right next to you, is always a very desperate plan, and they never got quite that desperate.
 * Also, the only time we really see her teleport a long distance to someplace she can't actually see that I remember, she was under massive stress, admitted she didn't know she could do that, and nearly fried Spike when he came along. She may well not have mastered doing it at will, and even if she did, Cadance is a squishy pony, not a scale-covered dragon -- there's no guarantee she'd survive the side effects.
 * Queen Chrysalis's handling of Twilight. Seriously; all of it. I understand that the writers needed something for Twilight to found her suspicions on, but the most basic common sense infiltration tactics say that when you encounter a close relation to the person you are imitating, you play along until something about that relationship is revealed that you can use to allay suspicions. Instead, Chrysalis is instantly dismissive of Twilight to such a degree that it provokes an immediate response that eventually causes her to confront her brother. I mean, why? Her exchange with Applejack proved that she at least had the capacity to grit her teeth and force out politeness, so why didn't she do that with Twilight? What could she possibly gain by this? Even if that put off was supposed to be part of some scheme to get rid of Twilight after she publicly humiliates herself and no one would want her around, it's a plan she wouldn't even have to use if she just acted the part like she should have in the first place.
 * Because that was all part of her plan. Her plan was to goad Twilight into murdering the real Cadance down in the caverns. First, she'd do everything possible to make Twilight think Cadance had a Face Heel Turn somewhere along the way. Then, when the time came to send Twilight into the caverns, she'd taunt her, whipping her into a frenzy, before having her blast her way through to the real Cadance. At which point an enraged Twilight, she expected, would kill her right then and there.
 * On top of the previous, keep in mind Chrysalis still had the Elements to fear. Getting rid of one of the Elements of Harmony Bearers neutralizes their threat to her. Problem? Doing it in a way that won't draw suspicion until it's too late. So she picked one of the group out of it, namely the one who actually KNEW Cadance, and made her suspicious, trying to goad her into a confrontation of some kind she could twist around and make her look like the bad guy. Sure, Twilight seeing her Mind Rape probably wasn't part of the plan, but she adapted to it.
 * If that's the case, why not just kill Cadance herself? Or Twilight? I'll assume for the moment that before she started feeding on Shining Armor she lacked the capacity to do this herself. She somehow has knowledge of these secret caverns beneath Canterlot that no one else knows about, right? To the extent of knowing where the entrances and exits are, because she knew where to have her hypnotized bridesmaids stand guard. Presumably other ponies don't search these caves, because Cadance was simply left down there for an indeterminate amount of time without being found. Once she has herself set up as Cadance, she smuggles several dozen of her followers into the city (y'know... shapeshifters?), and send them to wait in the caverns. Then once she sends Cadance down there, they devour her alive. Same plan for anyone else that needs to be taken out of the way.
 * Because she's a sadistic monster, that's why. She deliberately wanted to torture Twilight both by having her kill someone, and even worse, realize she out and out murdered her friend when she heard the wedding going on as planned above.
 * Claiming that Chrysalis was deliberately risking her cover like that seems a stretch. While she took full advantage of Twilight's distrust, purposefully estranging Twilight like that would have been an incredible risk, with little-to-no reward over over keeping Twilight on her good side.
 * Maybe Chrysalis just screwed up. Maybe she just assumed Twilight would mirror her brother's opinions. Thus, she didn't try very hard to fool Twilight.
 * It's possible that she didn't have the time to study Cadance, or that Cadance is just that opposite in character, or maybe she's just plain a bad actor.
 * It looked like Chrysalis was annoyed by the sheer presence of the Mane Six. She had successful isolated Shining from his family, who would’ve been the first ones to noticed that something was wrong, but then Celestia invited Twi and there wasn’t much that Chrysalis could do about it. At first she barley could contain her frustration and wasn’t rational. It took her a while to calm down and adjust to the new situation. At the point she probably get rid of her old bridesmaids, so that Twi’s friends could take the free spot in an attempt to win them over.
 * Cadance's love magic in Twilight's flashback (the one with the quarrelling pony couple), aside from being sickeningly sweet and having vaguely disturbing mind rape-y undertones, contradicts the CMC's lesson in Hearts and Hooves Day, namely that one must respect other's feelings and let them work out their relationships on their own. I understand that Cadance, being a carefree adolescent at the time, might have misused her power for her own amusement, but the whole thing is handled positively, and there's no indication that she has changed once she was a grown-up. When fake!Cadance showed up and started acting bitchy towards Twilight, I honestly thought that she was just a Spoiled Brat who got around by manipulating ponies with her power and making them love her.
 * This one I was sort of okay with. It's one thing to use mind-altering magics to cause two ponies who are clearly not interested to fall desperately in love. It's another thing to use what is most certainly much less invasive magic to help two ponies who are probably already in love realize that what they are arguing about is a petty and trivial thing that is making them forget how much they care about each other.
 * Possibly, but it might help if we actually knew, or knew that Cadance knew, what the argument was about.
 * Well, there are no details, but given that she kept talking about how she was going to a hooficure, where her friends are, it's quite likely that they knew each other or were even married. At the very least, they were certainly no strangers.
 * We don't really know how exactly that spell worked, we just saw it being cast and its most obvious effect. It's quite possible that its whole purpose was to remind the squabbling couple of their love for each other (which would also mean that it wouldn't have worked if there really hadn't been anything to remind them of). In pretty sharp contrast to Chrysalis, Cadance just doesn't come across as the deliberately manipulative type.
 * Remember the spell Twilight casts in "Return of Harmony" to remind her brainwashed friends of their feelings for each other and thus snap them out of Discord's spell? I think we just saw who Twilight learned how to do that from.
 * What's up with Shining Armor's sclera being light blue? Everypony has it pure white except for him. A disease, maybe?
 * Maybe because he's white too and it would look as if he doesn't have any scelera? Most other white ponies (Celestia, the guards) have rimmed eyes, so the issue doesn't arise.
 * Prince Blueblood actually has blue sclera, too. Make of that what you will.
 * I make of it that they used the same eye type (if not the same body-except-hair type) for both Blueblood and Shining Armor.
 * If the changelings feed on love, than why openly invade and terrorize the population? People who are being attacked by horrible monsters usually feel terrified, not loving. Wouldn't it make sense for them to do exacly as their queen did, i.e. infiltrate pony communities under disguise, hook up with ponies or probably abduct and replace their loved ones and then leech on their love?
 * It's only a guess, but: consider how many changelings we actually see on screen. There really are a lot of them making up just this one swarm. That means that in order to feed them all they'd likely also have to replace a lot of ponies if they wanted to go the 'subtle' route...which would increase the risk of being caught in the act and bringing the wrath of the princesses and whatever forces they have at their command down on them anyway. So it's not inconceivable that Chrysalis could have decided to take advantage of the royal wedding (where pretty much everypony who was anypony would be present) to launch a preemptive decapitation strike at the Equestrian government right away -- the changelings could then always go back to playing their disguise games at their leisure after taking over, after all.
 * Except that's a terrible plan. They feed on LOVE. The entire plan from beginning to end is pants on head stupid when you think about it. Frightening the population is like invading a country for food and setting the farms on fire during the invasion. You simply wouldn't do it. My guess is they can feed on fear just fine just love is better.
 * It's only a WMG, but it's possible the changelings have more direct means of feeding off their victims, once they're incapacitated. We saw them gather around cornered ponies. And really, we've never actually seen how they feed.
 * That they feed on love doesn't necessarily mean that anybody needs to specifically love them (or whoever they're pretending to be at the moment). We can't necessarily generalize from the sole example of Queen Chrysalis -- she had reasons to take the subtle approach beyond just looking for a meal. For all we know, threatening one victim to tickle out whatever love and concern anyone else nearby may be feeling for them could be a perfectly fine standard changeling feeding method.
 * Twilight says that before the mane six she had no friends except for her brother. Wouldn't young!Cadance count as a friend?
 * A babysitter would probably count more as a parental figure. It's unlikely that a small child would think of an adolescent/young adult as a friend, especially since Cadance was looking after her, so they weren't exactly on equal footing there.
 * What were Celestia and Luna looking at/for through the telescope? The fact that it was pointed downward suggests it wasn't for astronomic purposes.
 * For enemies.