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* [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Headscratchers/Season 1
* [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Headscratchers/Season 2
* [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Headscratchers/Season 3
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** There are already pegasi, why not bring in [[wikipedia:Hippocamp|another creature from Greek mythology]]?
** There is a sea ponies playset, available in Toys'R'Us. If they need material for the next season...you never know.
** I'm guessing they lost the rights. Still, there's no reason they can't introduce some kind of hippocampi.
** [[Word of God|Lauren]] says that while she actually planned to put them in a season two episode, since she left, it is unlikely they will appear.
*** She was involved with season 2 before she left, so it's a good chance. Here's hoping they sing.
**** There is no chance. They stated that Hasbro did a test with ''very stupid'' children who were freaked out by sea ponies because they didn't knew what sea horses were. Mermaid ponies are possible though.
***** ^ I am 20 years old and the Sea Ponies from the above video freaked me out. It's like they decided to see if they could put other animals besides humans in the [[Uncanny Valley]].
*** Are you sure that's legitimate news? Even given how ridiculous the results of focus groups can be, it sounds implausible.
** Perhaps Twilight Sparkle's next major magic spell will involve turning others into Sea Ponies? That's how we got a reference to the Flutter Ponies, so I wouldn't be surprised.
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** She has to graduate eventually and stand on her own.
** The show's writers figured that out already. That's why now they're having other ponies write Celestia letters now instead of just Twilight. Actually, I think they're pretty close to hitting the limit on what they can do with her (they've already given her a mental breakdown twice).
** I think they need another "No means No" aesop...because [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped]] and it seems to have missed its target.
* I just get this weird [[Uncanny Valley]] feeling when any of the ponies face the camera, particularly Applejack. It's like it stops being "cute cartoon ponies" and starts being "this face does not match this body."
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** I find the big eye size to be borderline cute and kinda [[Uncanny Valley]]. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP8xEUg1Q9Y Oh, and this doesn't help] ([[Schmuck Bait|WARNING]]: Potential [[Nightmare Fuel]])<ref>Aside from the full body and mask, can you imagine if those eyes were bigger?</ref>
** They look fine to me; I don't really know what you're talking about.
*** [[Uncanny Valley]] is subjective.
**** [[Uncanny Valley]] also explicitly applies only to things that fail to look human, and thus is the wrong trope entirely for this.
***** Not really, if you think about it- in order to be able to identify with cartoon critters, we need to recognize them as human on some level, hence the high amount of anthropormorphization on cartoon critters (raging from minor examples like the ponies to [[Petting Zoo People]] who identify with their animal sides.)
** This may just be me, but the effect (I noticed something slightly off, too) seems to have been mitigated as of Season 2. This is most obvious with Cheerilee in the first few minutes of S02E01; her face, even from the front, seems to have more dimension to it. Looks like merely a slight change of angle and subse[https://web.archive.org/web/20060929074538/http://hss.fullerton.edu/english/
** My theory: The head and body are clearly not human from the side, but not so clearly when viewed straight on (the snout is not readily visible and the body's length disappears). They edge into the uncanny valley from the far side.
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** In the first episode of the second season, Rainbow Dash says "Nopony insults the princess!" but clearly means to say Discord shouldn't, even though he's not a pony. And Applejack says she was talking to "nopony" and is clearly lying, even though she wasn't talking to ponies. So much for that being so neat.
*** I thought it was supposed to represent that she was still in the early stages of the corruption, and was telling a half-truth rather than lying outright.
** Actually Rainbow Dash saying "nopony" to Discord doesn't count as an error since it was mentioned that while Discord's body was made up of all different sorts of creatures, his head was still that of a pony. So he still qualifies as being at least related to the other ponies.
** At the beginning of "Putting Your Hoof Down", Fluttershy says "Plenty for everypony" while feeding her pets, even though there's not a single pony present other than herself.
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** Also, as mentioned above, if the character's voice is far enough removed from the actress', she may not be able to maintain that voice while singing. Finding someone else who can sing and make it sound like the character is better than that character's voice completely shifting whenever she sings.
** While this troper honestly thought that Twilight singing ''was'' Tara, what she finds odd about it is the fact that Tara usually does a phenomenal job of singing in-character, even if the voice is quite different from her natural voice. Take, for example, her work voicing Melody in [[The Little Mermaid]] sequel. Twilight's voice, pitchwise, is a bit similar, and Strong did both the speaking ''and'' singing voice for Melody. So, theoretically, Twilight shouldn't be to much of a stretch to do both voices for. But I digress.
** Logistics. Strong lives & works in California. The rest of the cast is based (and records) in Canada. The songs tend to be ensemble efforts and work better with all the main voices in the same room. Guess they just figured it was easier to get a double that sounded close enough than to fly her out each time they needed to record a musical number.
* Is it bad when you start using words like "somepony" or "anypony" in real life?
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*** Oh come on, I think it's cute.
** It doesn't matter. You're a troper. [[All the Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary|You're doomed anyway.]]
** Yes. Speaking as a non-brony here, we start to get creeped out when people start talking about ponies. Think of it this way - what do you do when you see a [[Star Trek]] fan speaking klingon? Yeah. It's kind of like that.
*** What's bad is that I don't see anything wrong with that, either.
*** I think "Wow, they're a slightly bigger nerd than I am" and go on with my life. Try that some time instead of getting "creeped out". (Why would you be creeped out, anyway? "Oh no, they're using fictional words, they must be a serial killer!")
* The creator of this show has said that she wants this to be popular not just with little girls but also with little boys and their parents. Now we already have many [[Periphery Demographic|adult males watching it,]] but do we have any confirmed cases of little boys who are fans of ''[[My Little Pony]]''? Is this show raising a generation of boys who will be more willing to watch shows like ''[[Hidamari Sketch]]''? (Note: I mean ones that HAVEN'T hit puberty yet.)
** My nephews seem to enjoy it, one is 4, the other 3. I'm tempted to introduce my older nephews (7 and 6) to it.
** I babysit for a 9 year old and 4 year old, both boys. The former thinks that Pinkie Pie is the funniest thing ever, while the latter keeps trying to pull off a Sonic Rainboom. They both said it's their favorite show.
** Pfft, [http://www.rhjunior.com/NT/00873.html Tagger]{{Dead link}} was into ponies [[Memetic Mutation|BEFORE they were mainstream.]]
** Out of curiosity, where would they find shows like [[Hidamari Sketch]] assuming they don't watch anime?
** My seven-year-old nephew enjoys this show, and his favorite character is Rarity.
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** My 3 brothers; 11, 8 and 5 respectively. I introduced them to the show shortly after I got into it. They all think Bridle Gossip is best episode(Silly siblings, that's not how you spell Stare Master!), and last I checked, 11 likes Fluttershy most, 8 likes Applejack most and 5 likes Rainbow Dash most.
** My godchildren love the show. The eldest is a nine year old boy who's automatically into anything generally considered boyish and utterly averse to anything that seems girlish. This show is the exception.
** My nephews and nieces all ''hate'' the show, and when someone came to promote ''[[My Little Pony]]'' in the book fair, they were met with rampant booing. No, they're not high-school age...these are kids in between the ages of five and eleven.
** My nephew (age 7) maybe isn't a HUGE fan of the show, but enjoys it enough to join his little sister if she's watching it.
* Doesn't really fit in with the tone of this page, but I'm curious as how Hasbro lost the rights to every character BUT Applejack and Spike. The new ponies are a lot better, but even so.
** Probably just let the trademarks lapse on most of the names.
*** Hasbro was (well, is, really) absolutely crap at maintaining trademarks - this has bit them quite a few times on Transformers, as well.
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* As far as the toys go it bugs me that Twilight doesn't come with a Spike figure, instead she has some goofy-looking owl thing.
** Spike did come in the preview set with Twilight, along with Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Celestia. He's bigger than the owl-thing.
** Hmm, that explains plot of coming episode.
** Rarity's toy comes with a bird instead of a cat...
** Applejack's doesn't even have her hat!
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** Are you sure they're actually intent on painting her that way? They seem to mostly think it's funny, specifically because it's not true.
*** It's really a meme. [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/trollestia-tyrant-celestia-molestia See Molestia and Trollestia.]
*** Yes it's a meme, but this troper always thought it was an interesting interpretation of some of the things she's done, as already mentioned above, but the memes are more for humor and not what people actually think. Clearly, the princess doesn't go around being a cruel despot, but it's still funny to imagine her that way.
** One possible explanation has to do with the postmodern perspective on heroes inculcated by works such as ''[[Watchmen]]'' or ''[[The Dark Knight Returns]]''. It seems that these works, and the avalanche of clones and wanna-bes they inspired, have influenced many members of the subsequent generation not only to ''look for'' their heroes to have feet of clay, but to ''prefer'' them to—after all, "perfect" heroes aren't "realistic". They're "boring". Given that Celestia is presented as the next-best thing to saccharine perfection over the course of the series, it is thus a natural reaction on the part of some fans to go to the other extreme and conclude she must have some deep, dark, unsavory secrets—if only because ''they want her to''.
* Am I the only one bothered by the lack of good recurring MALE characters? I mean, sure, you could argue that more female characters=more relatable to the show's target demographic, but (as of Episode 19, which is what I've watched to) we have:
** One-off antagonists or semi-antagonists (Rainbow Dash's childhood bullies, the Diamond Dogs)
** Spike, whose competence varies between episodes.
** Ensemble Darkhorses like Big Macintosh or [[Fan Nickname|Dr. Whoof]] (Honestly, Big Mac is my favorite male character so far--mainly because he reminds me of [[Xiaolin Showdown|Clay]]--in what few scenes he gets.)
** Snips and Snails, which...well, they're like Bulk and Skull, [[Your Mileage May Vary|only more annoying.]]
** and that's pretty much it. Just...what the hell? I'm not asking for the characters to talk about boys all the time, because I'm well aware that would ruin the show--but a good male character who gets more than just a few good scenes wouldn't be a bad thing either. Or hell, more than one.
*** Spike is a pretty major character, and he's hardly more incompetent than the rest of the cast.
**** All the same, he's still a different species from the rest of the cast, and is a baby on top of that-- he's clearly not on equal standing with his peers. I think what the original poster wanted (which I happen to agree with wholeheartedly) is a recurring male who's ''not'': A.) a Jerkass and/or antagonist (Dash's bullies, Diamond Dogs, Prince Blueblood), B.) an "annoying little brother"-type (eg., Spike), C.) a quiet or silent piece of movable scenery (Big Mac, the Doctor), or D.) an utter waste of space (Snips and Snails). I'd call it a legitimate concern, not just in the sense of feeling alienated by the lack of notable males (what with ''being'' one, and all that), but also because the current ratio may undermine Ms. Faust's original plan for the show to have a progressive spin on gender relations. As it is now, there's a possibility that the show could end up reinforcing the notion of "boys are icky!" for the target audience.
***** Well, we do have the Wonderbolts (two are male), who one member of the mane cast looks up to and idolizes. On top of that, Big Macintosh has proven himself to be a perfectly respectable supporting character; he has a pretty big [[Just for Pun|colt following]] and he's shown signs of being [[Closer to Earth]] than his little sister.
** The show's creators have embraced the [[Periphery Demographic]], what with the shout-out to bronies in the Equestria Girls promo, and including Derpy in storyboards. Perhaps we'll see more good male characters in season 2 - or at least, giving the existing Big Macintosh a bigger role.
** You say that like there aren't a ton of series without any good reoccurring female characters.
*** Do you mean males?
*** That's bad too, and it desperately needs to be fixed. However, two wrongs don't make a right. Personally, having just one decent male character with some kind of recurring role (but NOT a main role) would be sufficient.
**** Two wrongs don't make a right, but there's no wrong in making a show focusing on females. There's also no wrong in making a show focusing on males--but there is wrong in making ALL THE SHOWS focus on males, just as it would be wrong if every show on TV was about females. FIM is merely helping to correct the balance. There's room along the whole female-oriented side of the spectrum for more shows with differing gender balances, and FIM doesn't have to cover it all by itself.
*** In any case, most of the ''modern'' boys' shows I can name have at least one (though admittedly sometimes [[The Smurfette Principle|only one]]) recurring female character ([[The Fairly
** Faust did want more male characters, but it's one of the few things Hasbro didnt allow. I'd like to think however, that the gender ultimately doesn't matter that much anyway. Any of the mane six could be a boy (colt?) and would still be the same character.
*** Except that reaction to them would be much ''much'' different. If Rarity were male, he'd be seen as a flaming homosexual and [[Moral Guardians]] would scream about a gay character in a show targeted at kids. If Fluttershy were male, he wouldn't be "Cute", he'd be seen as annoying and bratty. And likewise, Applejack as a male would be seen as a "Walking Stereotype", even though Applejack is a Walking Stereotype enough as is. Rainbow Dash as a male would be seen as a musclehead, and Pinkie Pie would have been seen as annoying or like Rarity, a flaming homosexual.
*** Isn't one of the intents of the show though to break the boundaries of 'show for girls, show for boys/girly characters, boyish characters'? Wouldn't having a male equivalent that displayed as much range of personality and such as the females while having the quirks reinforce the notion that you can be awesome/gender doesn't make a difference. That it's okay for some girls to be athletes or bookworms and okay for boys to like fashion or non-violence? Excluding males to a fault can possibly end up marginalizing and promoting the division of gender or reverse the situation to "males gotta stay in the toolshed while women can do whatever they want".
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** Also, if the purpose of the show is to sell the toys, shouldn't the characters in the show match their toys, even if that makes the show worse? And why did the toy store owners want Celestia to be pink, but not Rarity and Sweetie Belle, who are almost the same white? Finally, if they absolutely wanted pink ponies to sell, why didnt they just order lots and lots of Pinkie Pie?
* Okay, this is a small thing, but it really bugs me. Let's take a look at Rainbow Dash's hair normally... [http://www.strawberryreef.com/images/graphics/G4/RainbowDash_250_tropicalsunset.jpg Here], we can see that it's kept pretty short and kind of scruffy, which is fitting for a tomboy like her. But when she dressed up for the Gala, her hairstyle's different. Now, I don't mean Dash can't have a new hairstyle, but [http://pinkiepie.bronibooru.mlponies.com/data/e7c70c6e1e1810f4962d625964944e4f.png look]{{Dead link}} at the green, blue, and purple portions! They look like they take up about three times the volume of her normal hairstyle. Now, I admit as a guy I'm not well versed in hair products, but I don't think anything can account for a change in volume like this.
** Twilight gave Spike, Snips, and Snails moustaches. Rarity cut her tail and attached it to Steven Magnet's moustache, and it later grew back. The Great and Powerful Trixie turned Rarity's hair into some green, grassy thing. In short, magical hair care exists. A fairly small increase in the volume of Rainbow Dash's hair like that is well within the realm of possibility.
*** Not to mention that, lots of the time, when frizzy hair is straightened you can really see how much length it has. Personally, my own hair is curly and big, and seems short, but when I straighten it, you see it's actual length. Maybe Rainbow Dash straightened her mane?
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** Oh they recognize it, all right (why do you think every time they see anything Gen 3 they start screaming "kill it with fire"?). They just have the mistaken belief that G4 Rarity was based on Glory - to be fair, they ''do'' look a lot alike - instead of her actual inspiration, Sparkler. Honestly, I thought the same thing until I saw Lauren's drawings of the G1 ponies.
* Why didn't Rarity and Fluttershy [http://ponibooru.413chan.net/_images/02b14f657f8b589243c1279e8a08d8f6/122 change from their concept looks]{{Dead link}}? They look nothing like Rarity and Fluttershy. All the other Ponies had their designs changed. By that logic, they could have left the other two alone. Was it a copyright issue? I thought it was names only.
** Hasbro lost all the G1 names and designs except for Applejack, but G3 names and designs could be used.
*** Those are G1 designs. They reused the G1 designs for Sparkler and Posey. All they did was change Sparkler to white and remove her highlight, and they changed Posey's Cutie Mark.
** They did change. Fluttershy's Cutie Mark is different and Rarity's hair color changed from one similar to Twilight Sparkle's to just full on purple.
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* How do the toys work? With other generations it was Toys --> Cartoon. But with this gen it seems to be Cartoon --> Toys, since Lauren made the concept as a cartoon rather then they took a bunch of ponies from the toyline and put them into a carton.
** Basically, the toys don't really have to do with the show, the toy designers just take a glance (very very short glance) at the early character designs and trust the popularity of the name is enough to sell it, even if the toys will not resemble the characters from the show.
* Why do so many fanfic writers refer to Celestia and Luna as ''alicorns''? An alicorn is the technical name for a unicorn's horn. And to top it off, in the show's pilot, the narrator refers to the two as ''unicorns''.
** Alicorn is both the word for the horn of the unicorn AND the name of the winged unicorns/horned pegasus. [http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Unicorn Source]
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** If you look at the pictures of Celestia in the [[Exposition]] at the beginning of the first episode, she has pinkish hair there. Most people assume that's how she looked in her "filly" form (like the one Luna has as of ep. 2), since her usual appearance looks more like on par with Nightmare Moon.
* Why's Ditzy so often depicted as being... Eh... Mentally challenged, so to speak. Or at least having a speech problem. I'm fine with the depiction, especially in [[Dark Fic]]'s, but it seems a bit odd. I've pictured her as being eccentric and [[The Ditz]], but I don't get the speech thing. Where'd it originate from?
** Muffiiiiiiiiins.....
** Fans thinking of why her eyes go all wonky at times. Didn't help that it got slightly reinforced when she accidentally dropped a load of cargo on Twilight later in the series.
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* Are the Cutie Mark Crusaders really [[The Scrappy|Scrappies]] in the strictest sense of the trope? is the hatedom purely verbal or do they inspire hate art? I suppose I should also be complaining about the people who hate Pinkie Pie but the CMC's situation upsets me more because they are just FILLIES!
** Most people don't seem to like the CMC (The individual characters are fine on their own) because of their [[Aesop Amnesia]] and their attempts at getting cutemarks seem to be the ''only'' thing they do together... Which normally amounts to nothing but causing trouble for others or getting into dangerous situations. All for a goal that people can't exactly relate to (Getting what effectively is a branding on your rear isn't something most people desire to have). Perhaps if they did other things aside from attempting to get cutie marks or received proper character development, then people wouldn't consider them scrappies.
*** No they are not Scrappies, most of fandom is OK with them, they have many fans and they have vocal haters.
** I'd still like to know if the hatedom goes as far as art against the CMC. and besides, they pretty much the only three ponies in town that don't have a Cutie Mark. isn't there obsession understandable considering that?
*** For hatedom art, look up "scootabuse" on Ponibooru, and there was an "X rapes Applebloom" wave there a bit ago. [[Schmuck Bait|You'll have to turn on explicit images, though, because it gets pretty nasty]]. As for their obsession resulting from not having cutie marks, their obsession also ''causes'' that, so that may be a case of no sympathy because they're doing it to themselves.
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** Becuase some people think that [[The Scrappy]] = Character I personally don't like.
* Similar to a question I asked above. why do some people accuse the Cutie Mark Crusaders of being a [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad]]? they only had four episodes out of twenty-six devoted to them. plus, "Call of the Cutie" was focused on Apple Bloom specifically, the spotlight was shared with Fluttershy in "Stare Master" and they where pretty much just a framing device in "the Cutie Mark Chronicles".
** Probably because even two episodes on the CMC was too much for those kind of people. Plus there was the two episode streak that unnerved them further.
** follow-up question. the other characters understand the CMC's obsession with getting cutie marks, why can't the audience?
** Because [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad]] is something negative so people will use (misuse) to complain about characters who they don't like.
** but like I said, they are not really a [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad]].
*** Exactly my point.
** Well, as of Season 2, they're pretty much a [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad]]. As of right now, together they have more focus episodes then any of the Mane Six (though Rainbow Dash & Rarity are close). In fact this increase seems to put Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, & even Twilight on the verge of being [[Out of Focus]].
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**** But, moreover, she is a bit more than just a tomboy, she has a very male personality to her.
***** But really? [[Rule of Funny]], [[Rule Of Hot]].
****** Lauren Faust has [http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/12/24/my-little-non-homophobic-non-racist-non-smart-shaming-pony-a-rebuttal/ spoken out] against stereotyping Rainbow Dash as a lesbian. Not that people will give up [[Girl-On-Girl Is Hot|Lesbian!]]Dash anyways.
******* As Faust says, not all tomboys are lesbian.
* Talking about Rainbow Dash, why is it that seemingly in every other fanfic or fan art she shows up in she's losing her wings, or being mutilated for life, or going insane and murdering Pinkie Pie or Scootaloo? Heck, on Equestria Daily someone even wrote a fanfic about it in which they had Dash ''herself'' complain about it to Twilight! ''"Why do they hate me, Twi? Am I simply not awesome enough for them?"'' Why the ferocious rainbow pegasus hate?
** These fanfics aren't that common, they tend to be buried in negative feedback anyways. A large part of the community enjoys the Mane Six because of their depth of personality, as every single one of them has been broken in a way over time. For the aspiring author, Dash losing her wings serves as an easy plot device since she relies so much on them, mental breakdown is almost guaranteed to happen. It really isn't about 'hatred' towards the character, more of an easy way out of actually having to break the character mentally.
** If anything, Dash losing her wings has ''itself'' become hated, because it's been overused to the point [[Seen It a Million Times|of becoming a cliche]]. It doesn't help that it's mostly been used as a premise for shipping, usually with whoever she has to stay with while she recovers (''if'' she recovers; not all writers are that kind).
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** No, that's just an old, balding, white pony with pointy ears. In fact, it seems to be an elderly ''male'' pony, judging by what seems to be a full-body appearance in the Mare-Do-Well episode.
* This is something that bugs me about the fanon and fan-work surrounding Derpy Hooves. A lot of it seems to assume that Derpy is mocked and teased and otherwise mistreated by other ponies. Now, don't get me wrong, some of this fan-work is [http://sunegem.deviantart.com/art/Derpy-s-Lament-259985704 very] [http://egophiliac.deviantart.com/art/Artist-Training-Ground-Day-23-213798557 good]{{Dead link}}, but it does strike me as odd, because the residents of Ponyville don't strike me as cruel or unkind. Far from it, in fact: think about how many residents of the town were willing to drop everything on short notice to attend a party to welcome Twilight Sparkle to their community (a party, lest we forget, to which Derpy was invited). So why the fanon assumption that Derpy is mocked and mistreated by other ponies?
** The Ponyvillians have shown themselves capable of being prejudiced. Zecora is a prime example of this. Plus, there are jerks like Rainbow Dash's bullies, so, it's not unlikely she'd get crap from at least some ponies. How much crap she gets varies from work to work (ranging from a few jerks to constantly being taunted), because even in that second comic, the crowd scene is stated by the author to be more POV than reality.
** True, but remember that by the time of "Luna Eclipsed," the mayor described Zecora as "our friend," and she was given charge of the town's children. And even the ponies that bullied Rainbow Dash seemed to have learned a lesson by the end of "Sonic Rainboom." So while they aren't perfect, the ponies of Equestria in general, and of Ponyville in specific, seem generally to be good-hearted equines who are able to learn their lesson when they do go wrong. Ponyville just doesn't strike me as the kind of place where somepony would throw a rock through another pony's window just because she looks odd.
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*** Celestia could have just used Rainbow's full name for some reason. Maybe a formality or some oddness with the registration form. Or it could just be RD doesn't have a normal lastname and her surname would default to profession/ 'Daughter of [insert mother's name]' as stated above. Though in my opinion, Dash is a better surname than Skysweeper/Skycleaner/whatever the name of her profession is.
**** [[Star Wars|Skywalker?]]
** There's probably also some capital-D Destiny at work regarding pony names. Most ponies end up with names that match their (yet unknown) cutie marks, after all! Consider the marriage of Carrot (Mr.) Cake and Cup (Mrs.) Cake, or the Oranges of Manehattan. Assuming there's not an uncomfortable amount of cousin-marrying going on, it seems clear that couples with allied cutie marks tend to be given matching names.
*** Okay, wait, what? Why would Carrot and Cup Cake having the same last name be weird? Maybe one of them took the other's name when they were married. They could have been something like "Carrot Harvest and Cup Cake," or "Carrot Cake and Cup O'Flower," or something like that, but one of their names could have changed.
**** That actually seems to make the most sense. After marriage, one of the newlywed ponies changes their surname to whatever sounds better. Also, it can be that Sweetie Belle's first name is just 'Sweetie' (a perfectly appropriate pony name), which would make Rarity's full name 'Rarity Belle'. But since she wants to be a famous designer, she decided to go with the being only known by one name thing like Madonna or Prince. This would make Rainbow Dash's surname 'Dash'. Applejack would be Applejack Smith or Applejack Apple if Granny Smith's progeny changed their name after marriage. Apple Bloom could be Apple Bloom Smith, since ponies can have three names, or Applebloom Smith if her first name was just both words together. The only one we don't know the last name of would be Fluttershy, but it would probably be something she doesn't care for since it is very un-fluttershy, like Charger or Rampager.
***** I think you just found her last name. Look at the events of the Grand Galloping Gala. She didn't go nuts, her lineage just showed through! [[Faux HTML Tags|[/WMG]]]
**** A fun fact on RL horse names. Traditionally, a horse is given a name that's related to either the sire's or dam's name, preferably both. Registered horses are given a "last name" of sorts which is always "by (Sire's Name) out of (Dam's Name)" Example: Say things had worked out between Rarity and Prince Blueblood and they had a foal they named Sapphire. The full name would be Sapphire by Blueblood out of Rarity. (I'm assuming "Prince" is a title and not part of his name.)
** I figure their pony society just has multiple naming conventions. Some ponies have surnames, some don't, etc.. Your name follows whatever convention your parents decided on, since they're the ones who named you.
** Expanding a bit on the above the formal and more elaborate naming conventions really only came about in humans when populations expanded to the point that confusion could arise regarding who was being refereed too. Most indications are the pony population is significantly lower then our own so there's likely a much lesser need for complex systems to differentiate individuals in many places. It might be that only in a few large centers of population are more complex naming systems common. In more rural areas single given names may still be common, but as migration and continued population expansion have continued this has been blurring, as people leave cites but keep using the naming schemes born of them, so you're starting to end up with seemingly schizophrenic conventions in certain locales (such as the seemingly highly integrated Ponyville). If you want to get overly meta about it they seem to have recently perfected steam power and so maybe on the verge of an industrial revolution, or in the early stages of one and the social upheaval and change that would entail.
* Why is it that Twilight is always addressed as her most loyal and faithful student? Twilight seems to teach herself, really. In fact, Twilight is reporting back to Celestia about the nature of friendship as magic. Surely Celestia is already well-acquainted with friendship and its magical properties...
** Twilight is teaching herself, yes, but at Celestia's direction. Celestia probably already knows all the stuff Twilight writes about, but lets Twilight discover it for herself.
*** Ah, so a pony version of Socrates.
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** This is essentially explained in Cutie Mark Chronicles. Celestia has a school for gifted unicorns, and took on Twilight as her personal protegee after witnessing her power during the entrance exam. So she definitely has other students, at least in the sense that they study at her school, and given the fact that she is at least over thousand years old, there may even been countless others in a position similiar to Twilight in the past.
* Moreover, notice how ponies' cutie marks are not just indicative of their behavior, but form a limit on what they can do? As Twilight and Spike divulged during a bit of exposition, most ponies aren't magical beyond the abilities implied by their cutie mark. Only ponies like Twilight, who specialize in magic itself, can gain any varied spells.
** So, you're complaining about the fact that some ponies are basically more naturally talented at given tasks than others? How is that any different than how it works in real life?
** The fact that spellbooks exist suggest that any unicorn could, in theory, learn a wide array of spells. Furthermore, we know that Rarity's "talent" isn't what she does for a living, or even what she loves to do (setting aside bedazzling everything in sight). I propose that a unicorn's talent manifests as a spell they can use instinctively, while other magic must be learned through study. Twilight's talent probably just makes it easier for her to learn new spells. Given that Twilight teleported without consciously deciding to do so in Ticket Master, teleportation is probably her instinctive "talent spell".
*** Based on all the evidence the show gives, Rarity's special talent isn't so much as gems as it is 'finding and bringing out the beauty in things,' be that finding gems hidden within rocks, or making the perfect dresses for her friends. Though that still shows that for most ponies, their special talent can be rather broad and allow for a multitude of paths in life.
** It bothers me more that they are given names at birth and the cutie marks become more of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
*** Maybe the parents go to a unicorn whose special talent is coming up with really good names for newborn foals.
*** Well, it's a little of both. For example, Pinkie Pie's name has very little to do with her love of parties or her skill at cooking, and maybe a little to do with her [[Genki Girl]]-ness. On the other hand, there's no way Rainbow Dash's parents could have known that she's naturally good at flying, but she's had her very noticeable multi-colored hair for her entire life. Applejack, however, is a very clear case of the self-fulfilling prophecy. She says herself in "Call Of The Cutie" that she was born to inherit the family apple orchards and "the cutie mark sealed the deal", so in a way, she literally was born to continue the Apple family tradition. As for the other ponies, it's, as I said before, a little of both.
*** Applejack may have continued the tradition, but Apple Bloom's specialty is handicrafts and beautification which...oh right, her name is Apple ''Bloom'', as in flowers, so she makes things look pretty. Yep, the names are self-fulfilling prophecies.
*** [[MST3K Mantra|Don't think too hard about it.]]
**** Who sais they are given their names at birth? The parents coud wait a year or two and name the baby pony based on what they like, or how they act, or how they look, or a particular family tradition of names.
**** In [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2
**** It's always been that way with a [[Meaningful Name]]. If they're given at birth and predict the character's future, they don't make sense (unless ''actual'' magical fortune telling is involved). They're just a joke that make for easy foreshadowing. And that's coming from a troper who usually ''hates'' handwaving something with "don't think too hard about it."
** As for the magic thing, I always thought of it as how a musician knows music. Depending on what genre they play, and what instrument they use, there are some songs that they just ''know'', but any good musician can pick up some sheet music and play along, no matter what the song is(well, any musician who's actually been trained. There are plenty of talented musicians out there who can't read music). So, most unicorns only ever learn and memorize the spells they use consistently, but those with magical training can cast from a book. Twilight's just good at memorizing and casting spells.
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** He prefer gems or any stuff what normal creature can't eat.
** We can't even be sure if the mature dragons we've seen so far are carnivores. After all, the one in Dragonshy didn't seem like he wanted to eat the ponies, and only attacked them because Rainbow Dash attacked him first, and the second one was mad at Spike for eating his gems.
** He's an [[Extreme Omnivore]]. Not actually that unusual. [[Dungeons
** The term you're looking for with the eating of gemstones is Lithovore.
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*** The sun would melt the snow, as Fluttershy is worried that if they melt the snow too fast, it'll flood the animal burrows. The issue is just that flooding. They clear the snow and move it some place that will be safe to melt, so their fields and homes aren't flooded. And most areas in Equestria have some ponies (or at least something like ponies) to look after it. Or there might be some other 'unnatural' areas like the Everfree Forest.
** Knowing now that Discord ruled before the winged unicorn sisters puts this in a new light; in a world Discord had ruled, they put a sensical nature together… [[I Dye Grass|manually]]. The Everfree Forest, and presumably similar areas, had to fend for themselves, and fell into a pattern weirdly like the OOC world for OOC reasons.
** I personally think it's less that they run ''everything'' then that they nudge parts of it to their own ends. Frankly the population clearly just isn't large enough to manage all aspects of nature even if they dedicated there entire lives to the task (they clearly don't). Once you accept that and stop to think a bit allot of what they do isn't really different that what we do just with magic instead of tech. We plow away snow even though it would melt on it's own, we have people whose entire job is watching the woods to make sure the ecosystem is 'in balance' (according to us), and we modify the weather as much as we're able with things like air conditioning, green houses, etc. Instead it's not so much being maintained as co-opted and managed by them for their own use. It has however been like this for a very long time now though and is considered the norm, and thus ironically raw unconstrained nature is now considered 'unnatural'. Kind of puts a new spin on things when you pause to think about it. The ponies have effectively conquered their environment as we have only utilizing magic instead of technology, but to the same ends more or less. They just try to spin it with more mysticism and new age philosophy, but funny how their are no large predators roaming around, the weather it controlled to be best for ''them'', and areas outside pony influence are consider strange and wild.
* Princess Celestia is... interesting. If she's the ruler, why is she princess and not queen? What happened to her sister after the second episode? Surely she would be around some of the time, right? Maybe she was disappeared. If Celestia was the original wielder of the Elements of Harmony, how could she have forgotten about such an elementary and simple thing as friendship?
** She's a princess because
*** Equestria is a principality.
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*** It's unlikely that the princesses are limited to only their celestial function. Nightmare Moon displays a broad range of powers -- transformation, illusion, teleportation, heavy-duty kinesis, lightning bolts, weather control... there's no reason to think Celestia doesn't possess an equally broad range of powers. Anyway, she'd make a pretty lousy teacher for Twilight if she couldn't work just as many kinds of magic.
**** A lot of what Nightmare Moon does can be traced back to things that myth attributes to the moon and night. Transformation falls under lycanthropy and/or the ability to transform attributed to night creatures such as vampires. The illusions can be attributed to lunacy, the moon's ability to play with the brain. It could also be shadows playing tricks with one's eyes. The teleportation might be able to be explained as fading into darkness-type connection. The kinesis is an ability of unicorns, and weather control (including lightning bolts to an extent) are abilities of pegasi. Building on that, it would be reasonable to assume that the core, if not the majority, of Celestia's power set would be related to the sun and the day. Light, heat, fertility, growth, casting away of illusions, instant destruction of 'unholy' creatures, stuff like that on top of whatever she gets for being a pegasus and a unicorn. I can imagine her combat strategy involving setting opponents on fire with heat before shooting lasers at them.
** Yeah... but since she can move the sun, she must have some Titanic pools of magic, not to mention that she is a Millenary old sorceress if you want to go down in the "not-god" camp. That alone would make her a fearsome adversary, regardless of how much a "pacifist" she may be. Also a [[Captain Obvious|God]]. Take for example Twilight, who have a ridiculous minimal fraction of magical pools and nothing of knowledge compared to her and what she can do. Also, raising the sun is not important, is ''bloody beyond absolute'' for the continuation of Life in all of Equestria. As put in "Time and Terror", a being that can stop the rotation of a planet (or a star) with a thought must have some serious power.
** A thought is probably stretching it. Moving the Sun probably takes more effort than every other pony besides Luna could muster combined, but again, Celestia might be a (pardon the expression) one trick pony in that regard. A man who knows the ins and outs of law and how to apply those is a powerful lawyer, but he's still junk in a fight unless he knows how to fight as a separate skill. Law and fighting aren't the same thing, so neither are raising the Sun and fighting.
** About the retinue; she doesn't NEED the guards or the charioteers. They're simply part of the princess package. They're probably volunteers from a populace that takes her role more seriously then she herself does.
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*** Nightmare Moon would seem to contradict that supposition.
** The guards and the chariot are probably partly for appearance, but they also serve a practical purpose. The chariot makes it so that Celestia doesn't have to tire herself out going places. The guards though are highly important. Celestia might be a goddess, or at least a god-like entity, she probably still can be injured or even killed. With her powers, she probably could handle a lone assailant easily by herself, but a coordinated group could pose a problem. She might be able to take out the first, the second, and if she's fast enough, maybe the third attacker, but any more than that in a well coordinated attack, and she could be in trouble. In case of an attack, the guard can take up positions and deal with any attacks to Celestia's flanks or rear, and also prevent assailants from getting to close to her front either if there is enough guards to cover.
** Once again, a [[Physical God|God]]. People attacking a god don't tend to last very long, regardless of numbers. If that is the matter, I prefer the fan theory that she had guards because Celestia fighting is ''very bad news''. As in [[Walking Disaster Area|miles radius colateral damage]] bad news. I mean, lets say she is one trick ponie. Sure, that means she had absolute control of a 1.9891×10(30) kg/ near infinite source of power. She could command a pinpoint Solar flare to [[Thirty Hs|kill the fuck out of her enemies]] if necessary, but that would be kind of bad for Equestria. It could be that the Guards act as a power limiter, because there [[Forgotten Realms|is always an Idiot who would try]]. For this troper, is because Celestia want to stay close to her little ponies, so she follows the charade of nobility (Reason why she is a Princess-a power to be- instead of a Queen -an absolute power that is-) for this allow her subdites to approach her in a more personal manner instead of worship her blindy (which she seems unconfortable) and by "limiting" her power and reach, [[Trickster Mentor|force her little ponies to be more independent and responsable, instead of only asking her to solver her problems]] while making sure to be at hand and influence when things go south.
** Celestia has the cosmic level power to move entire planets. Unicorns are shown to have serious transformational magic and telekinesis. Pegasi are shown to be able to control atmospheric conditions, inertia, and possibly gravity. Celestia and Luna have that times a factor of 1000+ since they can both control the orbit and rotation of the planet while making sure nothing flies off if they stop it from turning. If Celestia decides to battle a regular pony assassin, it would be like trying to swat a fly with an entire nuclear arsenal. Even if she could limit her powers to prevent multiple extinction level events, she has the option of banishing them out of orbit or popping them like a blood-filled soap bubble. Niether are great to subdue the assialent and interregate them as to their reasons/who sent them.
** Celestia does not appear to be omniscient. And as stated above, it's probably safe to assume Celestia has at least a similar breadth of powers to that of Nightmare Moon, just with the sun and day as opposed to the moon and night. So Celestia should be able to fight without reducing the entire landscape around her to charred ash, if she has to. If the attack is taking place somewhere that Celestia would be hesitant to turn into a pile of cinders, all one would need is enough attackers in front to keep her busy while the other attackers go for her flanks and rear. The guard would be able to block any attacks to her flanks or rear, allowing Celestia to focus on the bulk of the attackers. Though limiting herself for various reasons, such as capturing the attackers, allowing her to stay close to her ponies, and pushing the ponies to not be dependent on her are all valid reasons as well.
*** Observation and deduction time: The world of Equestria is self-evidently Geocentric, and the fact that the moon and sun have to be raised DAILY, rather than simply left to orbit... and that they can be stopped dead in their tracks without catastrophic environmental consequences (such as the Sun and Moon 'falling out of the sky')... implies it's a flat world as well, a la [[Terry Pratchett]]'s [[Discworld]]. Which means both the Sun and Moon are far smaller than our own. It's still impressive power to raise them, but it's far less so than hoisting a planetoid or a G-class star around. In fact both the Equestrian Sun and Moon are probably FAR smaller than even our Moon, as they are apparently far closer (given the "Icarus" style incident in "Sonic Rainboom".) Twilight's references to astronomy also imply that anything past the solar/lunar orbit is pretty much identical to real-world outer space.... so we can assume Celestia's control only extends to Equestria's Sun, and Luna's to Equestria's Moon. Otherwise Luna would essentially be hefting around BILLIONS of suns... bit of a power overkill for a world based on the pre-medieval Flat Earth model.<br />Equestria's sun and moon are presumably asteroid-sized magical artifacts, one for providing warmth and light, the other for turning the tides and marking the turn of the months and seasons.
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*** Abrahamic God is generally an all-powerful being who knows-all and sees all. This was not a rule in polytheistic pantheons Celestia seems to have more in common with. She and her sister seem to be inherently tied with forces of nature, and making the sun rise is what generally constitutes a sun god. And she's been doing it for at least thousand years, not once. Saying that mortal ponies could perhaps do it do is so far pure WMG. Of course, you could argue that she's really a powerful lich and the official history lies, but that's fanfic territory.
*** Short answer: Celestia is ''never'' stated to actually be a god/dess in canon. This could be because the idea never even entered the minds of the show's creators, or to placate the [[Media Watchdogs]]...or simply because she was genuinely never supposed to be. Barring [[Word of God]], it's anyone's guess.
** Either (a) Celestia is less powerful than you originally assumed, perhaps because her powers are sun-specific etc., or (b) Celestia really is super-powerful, but she lets the mane cast have adventures on her behalf anyway so they can learn lessons about friendship etc., and thus if there were any real danger Celestia would just teleport in and fix everything immediately.
*** I think the answer is somewhere in-between. Celestia very well might be incredible powerful, but her general power-set is limited to things that can be attributed to the Sun and day, like Nightmare Moon's (and presumably Luna's by extension) general power-set was mostly things that could be attributed to ancient myths about the moon and night. And also, while she might be incredibly powerful, she's just one pony. She can't be everywhere at once. During 'Dragonshy' Celestia probably sent Twilight and her friends to handle it for two reasons: 1) Twilight and friends were closer to the mountain where the dragon slept and therefor would (in theory) be able to resolve the situation more quickly. 2) It's doubtful that Fluttershy was the only pony in Equestria to notice the smoke and think a massive wildfire, so Celestia would have to move quickly to prevent wide-spread panic.
*** "A Canterlot Wedding" suggests that she may indeed not be as super-duper-powerful as frequently assumed before. She never seems to see through {{spoiler|the Changeling queen}}'s disguise until the latter drops it on {{spoiler|her}} own and then ''loses'' the fight against {{spoiler|her}} (though it's close). She also never whips out any devastating combat spells (not even magical bolts as used by Twilight in the same episode), simply engaging in a [[Beam-O-War]] straight away.
** One very real possibility: The guards aren't for HER. They're to get everyone else out of the way when she stars throwing around her Celestial Princess magic at the dragon or whatever else she's fighting, or to handle crowd control (like at the Cake's party), or so on. She's powerful but can't do everything at once. Heck, it could even be seen as a favor to anyone who attacks her, better guards than being hit by magic of that level, right? As for chariots, she does need to sleep too, so becoming tired is possible, hence rides, even though she can do without.
** It creates jobs.
** Here's a thought: Perhaps the guards aren't there primarily for the benefit of either Celestia or the populace, but for the guards themselves! Say the guards are ponies with special talents that really only lend themselves to destruction and combat, who wouldn't normally have a place in [[Sugar Bowl|pony society]]. So Celestia announces the formation of her very prestigious elite guards, segregating the ponies with dangerous powers from the herd in such a way that they see it as an honor. Instead of being ostracized, they're respected and admired; by the time their terms of service are up, military discipline and maturity have curbed any malicious impulses they might have otherwise been inclined to, and they can safely reintegrate with society. Bonus WMG: Their armor is designed to cover their flanks not because it offers physical protection, but to hide their Cutie Marks, which run towards imagery of violence and death.
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** Twilight Sparkle is a Grad Student, hence why she's Celestia's prized pupil. She spends most of her time studying.
** Fluttershy also has several chickens, so she probably sells some of their eggs.
** It might be worth noting that, though this
** Taking care of the woodland creatures is a valid job. Kind of like a forest warden.
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*** There are some mares doing snow shoveling during the song.
*** Maybe most of the males are just stronger. They didn't intend to go with some stereotype. If they did, all the Wonderbolts would be female, 'cus you know, the stereotype is that males are strong and females fast.
**** They're also not only strong but much stronger than horses in our world and probably stronger than male pegasi or unicorns. Remember that only four of them were pulling the train in Over a Barrel. The snowplows they were using probably couldn't be pulled by anyone else.
*** Of the six Wonderbolts that appeared in Sonic Rainboom, three were male. There may actually be as many as ten (five male, five female), as seen in the wide-angle shot when Soarin' approached the Gala VIP ballroom with his pie.
** In natural populations of species that don't have sex determination locked in at birth, [[Truth in Television|females are often more common, due to breeding constraints]]. Male and female populations are fairly equal in humans and horses alike because of [[wikipedia:
** No, it's not easy to miss. Male ponies look so different that for someone watching the first few episodes, they stick out like a sore thumb. If the numbers were more even, that wouldn't happen.
** In Gen 1 male ponies spent most of there time traveling around away from the population centers, maybe it works the same in Gen 4. The only time we've seen a lot of male ponies is during winter wrap up, but they would know to be home for the big labor like that.
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** There are actually quite a few male ponies. Look in the background of any large group scene and you'll see them. Not to mention, Hoity Toity is a male pony and definitely not doing manual labour, and a lot of the ponies in the Galloping Gala scene seem to be upper class male ponies. And in the Sonic Rainboom episode, there are quite a few male ponies working at the weather factory.
** It rather seems like the animators use the generic female pony model as a default for random extras. For that reason, this ''can'' be easy to miss, as the female model comes to look like the standard, so that it makes you think "a pony" rather than "a female pony". Anyway, Faust has mentioned "there probably [not being] enough boys around to portray a realistic society" as one result of [[Executive Meddling]].
*** Of course. Can you really tell if any of the characters are male unless they start talking with an obvious-male voice or are referenced to as "male"?
**** At a glance. The tells are eyelashes (males don't have 'em), angular muzzles, and a stockier build.
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* Do Little Ponies graze? I don't think we've ever seen them munching grass straight off the ground in the show, though they have been known to order flower sandwiches.
** Maybe eating grass straight from the ground is to civilized ponies like eating raw unprocessed meat to us?
*** More like eating unwashed, sometimes-bug-carcass-filled berries right from the bushes.
*** Clearly the above troper needs to find better bushes, because berrying is mostly glorious.
** It's probably a matter of taste. Sure, grass will WORK, but prepared food just tastes better.
** It's mentioned more than once that they eat hay. They probably do graze offscreen.
*** Spike did order "hay fries" at a restaurant in "The Ticket Master". As far as we can tell, they eat in a human fashion, but without meat and with more things a horse would eat.
* A question I've had for a while is this. How do pony genetics work? Like, if an earth pony and a pegasus had a foal, would the foal be a pegasus? An earth pony? Either one? Maybe a very buff pegasus or a very light earth pony?
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*** How the heck did the books get there in the first place?! You can't write with hooves! You (presumably) can't build a printing press either!
*** They hold the writing implement in their mouths (earth ponies and pegasi) or use magic telekinesis (unicorns). Same way they do things like build buildings and such.
*** All ponies seem to have tactile telekineses via hooves and teeth. That lets them do things such as play stringed instruments or speak clearly while holding something in their mouth.
** "Owl's Well that Ends Well" confirms that, yes, Spike's fire does indeed burn books. In fact, Spike's fire seems to act like regular fire except for Celestia's scrolls. That being the case, perhaps Celestia's scrolls have been enchanted in some way so that Spike's fire works differently when burned.
*** That might even be how Equestrian postage works in general: It's not the fire that's magic, but an enchantment placed on the paper which directs it to reappear in a certain location after being burned. Therefore not everypony who wants to send a letter needs a friendly dragon; a fireplace would do. Responses to Twilight Sparkle must appear in Spike's mouth because he's the designated "fireplace" for Twilight's address.
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* Why does everyone always assume that most of the ponies are illiterate? It seems to be based entirely on the fact that everything is labeled with pictures rather than words, but given who the show is targeted at, it really isn't that surprising that they'd want the labels to be as simple as possible.
** They are definitely not illiterate. In Swarm of the Century they write "Welcome Princess Celest" on a banner; writing too big aside, it's perfectly legible English.
** It's probably also the fact that it's a bit difficult to imagine a thumbless quadruped like a pony manipulate something as small as a pencil with ease. Unicorns have it easy since they can use telekinesis to easily write, but Pegasi and Earth Ponies are virtually forced to use their mouths, which is kinda hard to do neatly.
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** And also if adult dragons eat gems as well, then it's an edible bed. Take a nice long nap, and when you wake up, breakfast!
** Also adult dragons seem to have more than just gems in their hoards, the one in "Dragonshy" clearly had gold coins and other trinkets as well.
** A lot of it is explained [http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htm here]. After all, Hasbro owns both ''[[My Little Pony]]'' and ''[[Dungeons
* Derpy Hooves seems to be the same or similar age to the mane cast, but she (assuming fandom is correct) has a daughter? Just a nagging tidbit.
** We never do see her as a foal, and the mane cast seem to be young adults. It's perfectly possible for her to be older than they are -- or just a young mother.
** That bugs me too so I ignore this fanon.
** In "The Cutie-Mark Chronicles," you can see her as an adult standing near young Twilight as Celestia raises the sun, so she's certainly old enough to have had a foal.
*** Few moments earlier we see many Derpys in scene, so it don't need to mean anything.
** Everybody is [[Vague Age]] in the first place, so it's possible Derpy is older than the mane cast.
*** Example: the Mayor. Very likely older than the main cast, yet she has the same base body as they do.
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*** Or if gravity works differently, on principle grounded in magical theory rather than particle physics.
** gravity seems to work normally for things ''on'' Equestria(Rarity and Fluttershy falling from Cloudsdale). you may be right, I'm just a little unsure.
** Pegasai seem to control inertia and the atmosphere (aerokinetic). The princesses seem to have that cranked up past 9000. So, they have either enough power to control the planet's spin and rotation while making sure the atmosphere doesn't fly off if they put on the brakes, or can control the sun's gravity and momentum enough to get it to orbit the planet. [[Fridge Logic]] then states that if it is the latter case and something happened to both the princesses at once, the sun and planet would slingshot away from each other... or possibly into each other.
** Based on the fact that there are no winds or other weather phenomenon in Equestria that aren't created by ponies (with the exception of places like the Everfree Forest, but those places are considered unnatural in the pony-verse anyway) it can be assumed that the planet does not rotate. So that would mean that Celestia and Luna move the sun and the moon around the planet instead. And the opening of episode one states they use their unicorns powers to acomplish this. So it's either their natural spell (like Rarity's gem finding spell) or a superpowerful version of the telekinesis ability.
** The simple explanation would of course be that there is no planet as such in the first place. Just as in the really old real life myths, Equestria's world could simply be flat with the sky as an actual physical dome above it that the various celestial objects move along. Celestia raising and lowering the sun each day would then not be so fundamentally different from, say, [[Classical Mythology|Helios]] driving his chariot across the sky. (The main spanner in the works here is Twilight Sparkle's description of comets in "Owl's Well That Ends Well", which is basically 100% accurate for real life and includes mention of their growing brighter as they approach the sun. This ''could'', however, be explained away as a subtle case of [[Exact Words]] with a bit of a stretch -- that is, what Twilight left ''unsaid'' in that scene could potentially still allow for Equestrian "comets" to work rather differently from ours after all.)
* How old is Spike meant to be? I can't tell by his voice, but it seems around the ten - eleven range. His behavior and relation to everyone is more of the seven - eight range though. Also, how quickly does he age?
** He's as old as Twilight's entrance exam. That and age is massively subjective around creatures like dragons. They're supposed to be long lived, even [[Incredibly Lame Pun|neigh]]-immortal.
*** I meant if he were a human. What would his age be? In theory, he should be around the eight - ten year old age if Twilight was around ten or so.
** I always assumed he must represent 12 or 13
*** That's too old in terms of voice, how he behaves, and how people treat him. On the same note, how old are the Fillies, if they were human? I'd say around 8 years old, maybe 9 or 10.
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**** As of The Last Roundup, [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|yes she will.]]
* Is it me or is this series more [[Retro Universe]] then the typical ''[[My Little Pony]]''. The series has always mixed old and new, but this show is just all over the place. Medieval times, 1800s, early 1900s, modern day..
** Since a lot of the work can be done by magical means, most areas in the world probably have no use for technology. Only towns with a low population of one of the kinds of ponies would need technology to supplement their need. Because the need for this is so low, there is no centralized production and every town has to make the tech for itself, resulting in different levels of technology per town. In addition, each town we've seen is rather passionate about their identity, which would probably explain the massive cultural differences. And if you want a more meta reason: the settings are designed to fit the story, not the other way around.
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*** I doubt the ponies would allow their kinsponies to be kept as slaves - beasts of burden or riding outside of Equestria are probably either non-sapient critters or paid for their trouble.
**** It is posible that there used to be slavery in Equestria long ago. Many things can remain within a culture long after the context for them has faded away. Also if lands beyond Celestia's control enslave ponies, there's probably not much they can do. Either they can try to convince said land to abolish slavery by either providing something in trade or bringing down a trade embargo (maybe even go so far as refuse to acknowledge that country politically) or declare open war. The diplomatic approach isn't guaranteed to work, especially if slavery is a deep-rooted part of that countries culture. And war wouldn't be a good answer, since Equestria already is a peaceful, harmonious land. Going to war would upset the average citizen, and the military will most likely be heavily atrophied after 1000 years of peace.
**** Ahem. "Suited for Success," the Letter to Celestia. Twilight uses the phrase "don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Ponder the implications of this idiom existing in the Equestrian lexicon for a moment.
**** Not to mention, in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", Applejack saying "I'm so hungry I could eat a-" before she was interrupted. The full saying, of course, being "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." Maybe there was an equivalent to the Donner Party in Equestria's history at some point?
** Well, Hasbro owns ''[[Dungeons
** It's not just Spike. 'Bridle Gossip' has Applejack making a bit and reins for Rainbow Dash, then digging in with her heel in Rainbow's side to spur her on. Think about ''that''.
** 'The Best Night Ever' has Twilight turning mice into beast-of-burden horses, suggesting that real ones exist for her to have gotten the idea from.
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** Cutie marks are permanent, so they're probably tattooed on the ponies, too.
** They don't seem to have very much fur anyway. The cutie mark likely grows from a similarly marked patch of skin.
** According to "[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2
* So sometimes we see the ponies wearing shoes. Okay, fine. Buuut, sometimes they're wearing HUMAN shoes. Like, with the big space sticking out in front where the (human) feet go. Why would ponies make shoes like that for themselves? I imagine they wouldn't fit right, making it hard to move around in them.
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**** Not really, except for stuff like Balut. The kind of eggs used for baked goods are unfertilized, with the stuff you eat being yolk and white, which is just the food for the chick that never was and the hydraulic padding.
**** Also, Pinkie Pie mentioned that ponies are vegetarians, not vegans. Some vegetarians eat eggs.
*** Eggs are often considered Vegetarian.
** They probably also use the feathers to stuff pillows.
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** In "A Friend In Deed", we see a cow on her way to Sugarcube Corner to buy oatmeal cookies, so cows are apparently integrated into pony society at least that much.
* Is it just me or does Pinkie Pie have a ''lot'' of free time?
** If you had Pinkie Pie for an employee, would ''you'' task her with something requiring a lot of care and attention? If she's going to wander off and stalk her friends to make sure they keep secrets ''anyway'', you might as well give her a job that she can do when she ''isn't'' emerging from bowls of sponges with a fierce expression.
** Perhaps the Cakes are aware of Pinkie's... ''episodes'' (assuming she'd had similar moments to Party of One in the past) and they give her a wide berth to do as she pleases to avoid causing any further damage.
*** It seems like the Cakes don't leave Pinkie alone in the bakery; the one time we know for certain the Cakes weren't in while Pinkie was baking, they had Applejack there babysitting her, and even then they seemed as much concerned by the fact that Pinkie was going to be alone with a pony who was visibly strung out from lack of sleep as by the fact of Applejack's visible strung-out-osity. Presumably, they endeavor not to leave Pinkie alone, so that in case of an episode<ref>and some of her usual behaviors could be classed as "an episode"</ref>, there's someone around to do damage control.
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*** Most likely to keep the "look". Imagine, it would be really weird if Zecora was proportioned like a horse and towered over the other ponies.
** Or maybe Zecora is a [[wikipedia:Mountain Zebra|mountain zebra]]. They are about the same size as ponies.
*** This seems likely. Her habit of pawing at and digging into the ground is most specifically associated with mountain zebras in real life, as well.
* Ok why do people think that Celestia can send people to the moon? I mean in canon she had to use the elements of Harmony to send night mare moon to the moon and in 1000 years she came back. That shows that it will take her a lot of energy to use that spell so why would she waste it on somepony just because they annoy her and she had to make use of the elements which she already lost so realistically she can’t even send a new born filly to the moon
** [[Rule of Funny]], that's all.
*** What is so funny about sending ponies to the moon?
*** [http://fav.me/d4c2hwl Not always ponies]{{Dead link}}
*** That makes even less sense and is a big waste of magic.
** Here's the thing: you're interpreting the line "Using the magic of the elements of harmony, she defeated her sister, and banished her permanently to the moon" to mean "the elements of harmony were necessary to send her to the moon; she could not do so without them". This is a valid interpretation, but not the only possible one. It could be taken to imply that she only needed to use the power of the elements to defeat her sister, and exiling her to the moon was done with her own power after Nightmare Moon had been sufficiently weakened; or that she needed the elements to do both, but only because she was facing her sister, who could otherwise fight her to a draw; or simply that the elements were what she used and that was how she used them, but that she could have done the same through some other route (perhaps if she didn't expend any power in making sure her victim survived on the moon). All of these alternate interpretations are as valid as the premise you're arguing from; if any of them are true, Celestia could banish our hypothetical newborn filly quite well. As for why it's supposed to be funny: if you, sir, or madam, don't see how Celestia sending a foal to the moon because it's just easier than changing its diaper is funny, I'm pretty sure the problem is on your end.
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** Notice the past tense. When she was young she WONDERED (past tense) what friendship was. As she got more and more into studying and magic, she decided she could do without and didn't think about it anymore. Leading to the first episode where she's a tad stuck-up and believes she doesn't need friends, no longer wondering what friendship could be.
** The first verse of the full version of the theme (so far found only on a Talking Twilight doll) makes the whole song much clearer:
{{quote|
Such silliness did not seem worth the effort it expends
But My Little Ponies, you opened up my eyes
And now the truth is crystal clear, like splendid summer skies
And it's such a wonderful surprise" }}
** The German translation renders that line as "Ich fragte wozu Freundschaft gut sein kann," roughly, "I asked (or wondered) what friendship could be ''good for''."
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** Because the cutie mark is a metaphor for puberty, and boys and girls generally don't talk to each other about that. Even the parts that are the same for both genders. (Besides, even though the male horses get cutie marks too, the show is intentionally highlighting it specifically as relevant to girls. Can you think of anything that happens to human girls where they just wake up one morning and something significant to their adult lives has magically appeared and is visible to everyone?)
*** So, cutie marks are tits? That makes the show.... even more odd.
** Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume that Twilight, the more-or-less adult pony in the situation, would only be doing it to prove a point to Apple Bloom? In reality whether or not Twilight could make a permanent cutie mark seems irrelevant, as she nows Apple Bloom needs to earn her mark honestly, and wouldn't make her a permanent cutie mark anyway.
** Eh...I don't know if it's really a metaphor for puberty. It's more about finding your place in the world.
*** It could easily be both. Remember, Apple Bloom was upset that the other girls had their cutie marks and she didn't. Tell me, how common is it for real life girls to get upset that their friends have found their place in the world and they haven't? It easily ties into puberty as well as the concept of "finding yourself".
*** Definitely both. Remember what the party was called? a "Cuteceañera". This comes straight from the Spanish traditions of a "Quinceañera" (15th birth year), which is a gigantic celebration of upcoming womanhood.
* Why does Twilight always seem frightened of Celestia and letting her down? I mean, this could be hero worship, but she always seems like if one little thing wrong, Celestia will rain the wrath down from the heavens, when in reality Celestia is a very kind, patient, VERY understanding, even when Twilight screws up royally. I mean, shouldn't she know of all people that Celestia is a LOT more Understanding than she gives credit for?
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*** Keep your friends close, and your potential usurpers even closer?
*** To be fair, that's a very different set of circumstances entirely, given Nightmare Moon is also very powerful, and had to be stopped. Banishing her is preferable to other methods for stopping her from trying to bring down eternal night on Equestria. I seriously doubt Celestia would ever actually want to banish someone to the moon like that. If she was left with no choice, that would explain why she would do it. Twilight Sparkle (and Rainbow Dash, during one of her panic attacks in 'Sonic Rainboom') are far more afraid of Celestia than they should be. Celestia doesn't even bat an eyelid when Pinkie Pie eats one of Celestia's cupcakes right in front of her (although Mr. and Mrs. Cake end up going into a panic, and have to be trolled to calm them down). Celestia only got even remotely angry when Philomena went missing, but she was surprised to think that someone could think of the punishment Twilight Sparkle thought of (banished somewhere else and thrown in a dungeon).
** True, but she doesn't really need to be frightened from where I stand, too. If anything, Twilight Sparkle is one of the closest people in Princess Celestia's inner circle as her apprentice, and would probably know the most about her before having come to Ponyville.
** As Bill Waterston once said, and i'm paraphrasing: You die a thousand deaths before you even get punished when you're a kid. While Twilight's a bit older, she's also introverted and as much as she knows the princess, she's also awkward enough that she is scared that if she fails in doing something for the princess, that she'll fail the princess. While Celestia has shown endless patience of anything short of "trying to drown the world in darkness" and even then she was forgiving. Twilight, like a kid, flat out panics when the punishment is usually non-existent, it's just part of her personality.
** Twilight doesn't just act that way around Celestia. She freaks out about possibly upsetting her friends in Boast Busters and The Ticket Master. Compare to, say, Rainbow Dash, who worries about failing and being mocked, but not her friends being disappointed in her.
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** Yes. Yes she should. If not in Ponyville than at least in Cloudsdale. I'd suggest that a future episode could involve her going back to Cloudsdale and learning she's a celebrity, but that would probably just be a repeat of "Green Isn't Your Color". Actually, all of the mane cast ''should'' be famous for saving Equestria, but chances are no one outside of Ponyville (besides Celestia and Luna, of course) knows that they were the ones who did it. The residents of Ponyville might not even know if they didn't bother tell anyone (but knowing Rainbow's personality, she'd probably let everyone know).
** Moreover, shouldn't ALL 6 be famous for saving their world from Nightmare Moon?
*** Rainbow Dash doesn't seem to be the kind of person who would enjoy celebrity. She loves showing off and impressing people, but the things that come with it (expectation, lack of privacy, people telling her what to do, too many rules, not enough nap time) would drive her up the wall in the end. Her fame was likely dimmed by the fact that after Sonic Rainboom she just fled right back to Ponyville and continued doing odd jobs in what is pretty much the equivalent of Nowhereville, North Dakota, which is likely exactly what she wanted. Her desire to join the wonderbolts is pretty much so she can hang out with some awesome ponies and pull off sweet tricks, not fame persay. As for saving Equestria, I wonder if that wasn't entirely attributed to Twilight (who does seem rather well known), along with the actual details being mostly unknown to anyone who wasn't directly involved.
**** It wouldn't surprise me if there were an episode where Rainbow Dash is invited to perform with the Wonderbolts, but finds out it's a lot more work than she expected. Then again, we've already had an episode where Fluttershy learns she hates fame. And Ponyville is hardly Nowhereville. It was important enough for Celestia to visit the Summer Sun Celebration held there. Actually, seeing how close it is to the old castle, it could have been part of the capital before it moved to Canterlot (Is that in WMG yet?). And I doubt Twilight would let people give her all the credit and ignore her friends. If anything, people might assume Celestia showed up and saved the day.
** There might be a factor of "no man is a hero to his butler" for Rainbow Dash. The citizens of Ponyville know she's amazing, but also know she's lazy and has a big head about things, so they don't treat her as a revered celebrity. The ponies of Canterlot are snooty and urbane enough to pretend to be unimpressed because she's an outsider. She probably would be pretty famous in Cloudsdale; but she doesn't spend a lot of time there.
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** Rarity's Dumb Rock Event was her innate, talent-related ability to find gems going off. Most Unicorns innately gain their abilities related to their cutie marks. Twilight's talent IS magic, so her first big release was magical energy at its rawest, which could be shaped into whatever abilities could be concieved (As seen with the gem-finding spell in ''A Dog and Pony Show'') hence Celestia taking notice of her potential. All unicorns seem to pick up basic cantrips like simple telekinesis and light(Snails), but their strongest abilities come from their talents.
* Why can't Spike fly? I think since G1 he didn't have wings, but I'd like to know if he'll grow wings when he grows up or what?
** Spike may be a wingless dragon, in Twilight flashback in CMC we see picture of adult dragon of Spike race, it looked same as other dragons but no wings.
** Alternately, Spike could merely have been enlarged by the spell, instead of matured, and he may grow his wings at a later age.
*** No, I was referring to that picture, not enlarged Spike.
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** One could also argue that in Dragonshy, Rainbow Dash was being loyal to her friends, since 1) Fluttershy didn't want to be there and 2) Up until she stared down the dragon, Fluttershy had been [[The Load]] and had repeatedly delayed their journey and endangered herself and Rainbow's other friends.
** I agree with the original poster that their elements don't really fit them. In "Applebuck Season" Applejack even identifies herself as the most LOYAL and DEPENDABLE of ponies. Her line in the theme song is also "faithful and strong." In "The Ticket Master," Applejack's reasons for wanting to go to the GGG were helping her family; fixing the barn, replacing the plow, fixing her Granny's hip, while Rainbow's reasons were purely selfish. She wanted a chance to impress the Wonderbolts. Rainbow Dash always comes off as a little selfish. In "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well," she was more loyal to herself than the ponies she was actually saving. And her entire dream about joining the Wonderbolts kind of implies that if she was actually offered a position, she would leave Ponyville, and subsequently her friends, behind.
*** Applejack is loyal, maybe even more so than Rainbow Dash, but the opposite is not true. What's the alternative? That AJ becomes Loyalty, and RD becomes Honesty, which definitely does not suit her. Besides, she claimed her loyalty was to the princess, not her friends. As much as the current setting seems flawed, it's also the best, because the alternative doesn't make sense either. RD's loyal, blindly so at times, but that's.... really all she has when it comes to friendship. Recent episodes have shown facets of her personality that would make previous antagonists jealous by comparison.
*** Shazzba had a really [http://shazzbaa.tumblr.com/post/17644330485/my-little-pony-the-elements-of-harmony interesting theory] about this. In short? The Elements represent what each of the mane six values the most about friendship.
**** I agree with this one the most, because its similar to the explanation for why the Digi-destined in Digimon Season one, had their crests, it represented what they needed, not what they possessed and both seem to fit IMHO.
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** In fictional works, any modern society where magic exists tends to be farther behind technologically, or at least have only developed technology where magic can't solve all the problems. There's probably a trope for this, I'm just not sure what to search for.
** "Credit" is a concept that's been around FAR longer than credit cards. In the old days, in small towns where everyone knew each other, it was common practice to allow customers to purchase goods on credit -- which, back then, usually just meant that the store owner could rely on the customer to pay them back at a later date. The term carried on into the 20th century, where it was typically used in reference to bank loans; this is reflected in the term "credit rating" which we still use today.
** I'd agree that it's firmly in [[Rule of Funny]] [[Schizo-Tech]]. At first, things seem to be a pony- and magic-filled version of, say, 18th or 19th century (Western) life. Then you have Twilight's EKG, Pinkie's pedal-powered helicopter, Rarity's non-pedal-powered sewing machine and hairdryers, the Crusaders talking about cannon and power tools ...
** If you need an in-universe explanation, I'm gonna quote myself from higher up the page: Since a lot of the work can be done by magical means, most areas in the world probably have no use for technology. Only towns with a low population of one of the kinds of ponies would need technology to supplement their need. Because the need for this is so low, there is no centralized production and every town has to make the tech for itself, resulting in different levels of technology per town. In addition, each town we've seen is rather passionate about their identity, which would probably explain the massive cultural differences. And if you want a more meta reason: the settings are designed to fit the story, not the other way around.
** Out-of-universe: [[Word of God]] has stated that writers should avoid using "modern" technology though it is not forbidden to include to make a story or joke work, as well as to establish some sense of familiarity to the younger viewer: hence why we have elements like flashlights. However, writers shouldn't be lazy to include, say, a washing machine when non-powered tech (a washboard) works for the same joke/story element. Lauren's also stated that if there ''is'' something electrical, just think of it that a unicorn mechanic put a whole bunch of magic into it in the past.
** In-universe: steam power seems completely likely: we have the steam engine train in the S2 opening, there's the spa, there's Fluttershy's radiator, Spike uses up all the hot water for his shower, etc. Perhaps Ponyville, situated where it is near a large mountain range, sits on a geothermal pocket, which would make steam-driven mechanical generators to drive things like basic plumbing, hot water, and heat. Also a good source of wind energy (the windmill). All that could be made that, where appropriate, each home and building has a simple electricity generator running off steam for lights and other equipment. Not efficient if you translated it to a real world technology, but its not like Ponyville's suffering from global warming yet...
** "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" establishes that Ponyville has a hydroelectric dam nearby. And they have modern construction equipment to build a multi-story building.
*** That episode is nothing but evidence for [[Schizo-Tech]]. The dam had some sort of artifice attached to it, but there's no evidence of any of the infrastructure necessary for it to be an electrical generating facility. Look at pictures of actual hydroelectric dams--there's a lot of utility lines leading from them. We've never seen powerlines in the show, either on the dam itself, or anywhere in Ponyville. I like the explanation somebody on [[Equestria Daily]] came up with, that the dam was generating some other type of energy for some esoteric purpose. And that construction site is ''all kinds'' of wrong. The crane is ''wood'' ferfuxsake. I can't tell you it's outright impossible for a construction crane to be wood, but it definitely wouldn't look like the crane in the show. The building is too high for the type of wood-frame construction they show--actual buildings in that height range would be steel- or concrete-framed (today) or masonry (historically). The show has always been really loose in worldbuilding, often because they need to make it recognizable for the show's target audience.
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** I think she's actually more like a [[Cool Big Sis|big sister]] to him, and the way he treats her in the series seems to prove this. That's pretty much what being a big sis is about - sometimes you're a surrogate mother, sometime you're a [[Butt Monkey]], while mother-son relationship would rather exclude the second part.
** He's her "number-one assistant", not her adopted son. Though "little brother" and "friend" also work pretty well to describe the relationship.
*** He's referred to as her "number-one assistant," but remember that she hatched his egg and has presumably been raising him from infancy by herself. Also, consider that they live together and that they love each other. They may not be called mother-and-son, but it seems pretty clear that that is what they are in all but name. "[http://img.ponibooru.org/images/36/3644d29056fbb9efbe182706019b83ce You know in your heart that this is canon]{{Dead link}}."
*** [[Word of God]] is that Celestia's the one that raised him after Twilight hatched him. So... no, Twilight is not his mother figure.
* Going with the above info, does Spike consider Twilight's parents as his own? "Cutie Mark Chronicles" shows that Twilight was charged with raising him, however we can assume her parents did most of the work as she was only a filly.
* With the exception of Cherilee and the Mane Cast, why are the ponies in town so awful to the CMC? In "Call Of The Cutie", as Apple Bloom is cornered and brutually teased, the entire room full of adults stands around smiling. In "The Show Stoppers", they laugh hysterically when an entire set falls down on three little kids -- yes, granted, they got up and smiled after, but there were visible nails sticking out of those boards -- and didn't seem to notice when they slink off stage with miserable expressions.
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** The performance was taken to be a comedy; presumably the audience assumed the set was ''meant'' to fall down like that and thus that there was no danger.
* How old are the main cast ponies? Because the "Cutie Mark Crusaders" seem to be somewhere between 7 and 9 and they're called fillies by the main girls. Still, the main ponies themselves don't seem to be that old. I'd have to guess that they're upper teens (18-20), but it's really hard to tell.
** This is been asked many a time, and the simple answer is "it doesn't matter". They've all passed all the relevant legal milestones to count as full adults, and beyond that it's a matter of opinion. Fluttershy being a year older than Pinkie is the only clear evidence we have, which along with her teenage appearance in Cutie Mark Chronicles leads people to believe she's the eldest, but even this is far from evident fact.
* so is Rainbow dash in charge of controlling the whether over ponyville or just a member of the team?
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* Why doesn't Twilight consider Spike a friend? Don't say she "does" because at the end of the first episode she does state very clearly that she didn't "know know what friendship could be" meaning she must not have had any one in her life she viewed in that light already.
** Spike isn't the same as her other pony friends. She's had Spike as a live-in servant/confidant for most of her life (or, to be more accurate, the entirety of his).
** Twilight hatched Spike from an egg and has presumably raised him from infancy by herself. Their relationship seems to be that of an adoptive mother and her adopted son. As close as they are, and as much as they love each other, they are not friends; they are family.
*** [[Word of God]] is that Celestia's the one that raised him after Twilight hatched him. So... no, Twilight is not his mother figure. Spike says so himself, he doesn't consider Twilight to be his "mommy".
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** [[Word of God]] says Rarity lives alone (not counting Opalescence), and Sweetie Belle lives with their parents. Proved in Episode 31 when their parents make an appearance.
* How come Rarity will basically drag in strangers off the street just to dress up and restyle them, will lecture friends about etiquette..... but has almost indifference towards her own sister on such issues? Like in Stare Master when she doesn't even bat an eyelid when a sizeable chunk of Sweetie Belle's hair is cut off by the cat (remember how badly she reacted to Twilight's messed up hair in the first episode) or that she's perfectly fine with all the rough and tumble antics she and the other Cutie Mark Crusaders get up to. I would have thought being Rarity's little sister would be like being somebody's [[Barbie]] doll half the time.... but in fact she seems like a perfectly normal older sister, which, while nice, is still inconsistent with her character.
** An upcoming episode will deal with the relationship between the two, hopefully we'll get to know more about them. For now, we can only assume she gave up on her sister just like she did with Applejack at first, or that she expects her sister to learn by herself.
** Considering that Sweetie's mane was back to normal by the next scene, I'd either chalk it up to [[Rule of Funny]] or Rarity fixing it in the split second she was off-screen.
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** Watch that episode again. You clearly missed the joke.
* do all the wonder bolts all just coincidentally, naturally have manes that grown in that weird [[Anime Hair]] mock windswept style, or is it part of their uniform to get geld that way? basically [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wkafsxFhuRE/TcYvT6l4W8I/AAAAAAAAEPU/e936a_a_93c/s1600/11428+-+gala+goggles+rainbow_dash+spitfire+wingboner+wonderbolts.jpg this.] or [http://th00.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2011/138/d/2/spitfire_brushed_hair_by_ponyvectors-d3gmel9.png this.]{{Dead link}}?
* It may be just me, but is Celestia a god to the ponies? The thought comes to me in the sisterhood episode, when Rarity states: "Celestia as my witness, I WILL have my sister back."
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*** [[People's Republic of Tyranny|Glorious Pony's Theocratic Principality of Equestria!]]
* According to the [http://img.ponibooru.org/images/02/02b14f657f8b589243c1279e8a08d8f6 concept art]{{Dead link}} Pinkie Pie was originally a pegasus and Fluttershy was originally an earth pony. Why were they switched? Fluttershy is not good at flying and has a connection to nature. Wouldn't it make more sense if she was an earth pony?
** My guess is that the changes were made to show that nothing is set in stone, and that there are exceptions. Fluttershy is, as far as we know, the only pegasus that doesn't live in Cloudsdale or a floating house/castle, and had a cutie mark that isn't related to weather or speed at all, showing that there is more depth to the pony races than you'd imagine. We're already seeing how earth ponies have to struggle to make up for their lack of a horn or wings, so a pegasus with fourth-wall powers? Probably not...
** Because the moral of the show is [[Be Yourself]], not [[Unfortunate Implications|be what's expected of your race]].
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** IIRC, they switched them to add more varied body language to the cast. Pinkie was moving too much like Dash in the air, zipping and zooming everywhere. Fluttershy became a slow, timid flier to contrast Dash, and Pinkie got her characteristic bounce.
* why are the other main characters friends with Pinkie Pie if they find her so annoying?
** They find this one thing about her annoying. Are your friends all perfect?
** This. I love my friends and family, but they all have annoying sides.
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** I'm more bothered by the automatic assumption that Twilight and the others are forcing him to stay home. He's his own person, he probably was either at Canterlot again or just doing his own thing.
** I bet he isn't forced to stay home (I was actually kidding when I said that), but there are many episodes where I feel he could be there. In Sweet and Elite, he didn't go to Twilight's birthday/ visit Rarity, didn't see the Cake's babies at the hospital, go to Applejack's welcome home party, or look for her. I'm sure he is his own person, but he's just a kid. Kids love to go outside, and be with their friends. Twilight and the others are his friends, so it's unusual to see him not hang around with them, with no explanation.
** I think that Twilight just gives him a lot of chores to do. And it's just increased after Hearth's Warming Eve, making him very busy. So, his busy lifestyle is probably what's preventing him from spending a lot of time with his friends. Much to his dismay.
*** I don't think Twilight would overload Spike with that much work, and I doubt she would consciously leave him out of her birthday. I like to think he might simply have been ill at the time.
**** Twilight might just be overloading him with all that work, and might not even noticing how it's giving less time to be with his friends. And as for missing Twilight's birthday, I always thought that maybe he celebrated it with her back at the library. He stayed home because, Twilight would probably be the center of attention (it's her birthday after all), and wanted Rarity's attention to himself. And in the Secret of My Excess episode, he certainly did get Rarity's attention. What a lucky dragon.
*** Well, if Lauren Faust is to be believed and it was actually Princess Celestia who raise Spike for most of his life rather than Twilight it's possible that he was off visiting her during "Sweet and Elite" while the girls were at Twilight's party and Spike and Twilight did something smaller at home either before of after. In "The Last Roundup" He didn't go looking for Applejack because he had to stay in Ponyville to look after the Library and possibly Fluttershy's animals like he did in "Dragonshy," and didn't go see the Cake's babies because He's not that close to the family, being more like a friend of a friend of a friend.
**** Even if the writers go with Lauren's idea, he and Twilight still share a brother-sister relationship. So there really doesn't seem to be an excuse not to add him to "Sweet and Elite." They could've probably visited the Princess after Twilight's birthday, seeing as they were staying at the castle where she ''lives.'' Besides, I don't think anything would keep him from his sister and Rarity. Spike sees Celestia a lot. Especially since in, "Look Before you Sleep," it's shown that sometimes he's away on business in canterlot for the princess. So there's probably time to see her. Besides, he's still just a kid. Celestia wouldn't constantly have him go from Ponyville to Canterlot to do work while everpony else doesn't seem to. And as for "The Last Roundup," I think he should've at least appeared for the welcome home party, so we could see that he cared for Applejack. They also could've added a scene where he agrees to stay behind to watch the library, and see if Applejack comes back. That way we at least know where he is. As for "Baby Cakes," I agree with the above statement, that he really didn't know the cakes much. And besides, what kid would really want to spend a whole morning in a hospital looking at babies? It's not too exciting from a kid's perspective. But other than that, episodes like "Sweet and Elite," or the,"The Last Roundup," didn't really HAVE to give him major roles, just add him to the background and give him small lines, to show that he is spending ''some'' time with girls. It just seems a bit weak on the writers part, to not even address why he's not with his friends. Especially for events that friends usually go to with each other. There's the chance that he has male friends he hangs out with, but they're never mentioned, or even seen. He's usually with Twilight. Also, when he's not with them, he's at the library. Does he spend all his time there? What does he do? Sometimes, like in Episode 2 of Season 2 he was shown sleeping, but holding a mop, so it's implied that he was doing chores, and tires himself out. But that can't just be ALL he does. He may be Twilight's #1 assistant, and he likes his job. But he's also a kid. And we never really see him do any kid things, like play with fillies or colts his age, or even go to school. So it can be assumed that he is just a busy guy.
**** He ''has'' male friends that the mane six don't seem to know much about: Snips and Snails
***** The only time they ever interacted, was in "Boast Busters." Spike didn't really seem all that close to them. If anything if seemed more annoyed with them. And that was the only time they were seen with each other. After that, he goes back to being with the girls.
**** He seems to know Lickety Split well enough that the colt was willing to give him his ball for his birthday.
** Yeah. They seemed like they were acquainted. But we never really see them hang out in the background, or have Spike ever mention hanging out with Lickety Split, after he appeared in that ''one'' episode. Maybe later on he'll appear more though.
* What is the name of the fat gray colt seen in the background of the CMC episodes? I've seen a few names tossed around but nothing really agreed upon.
** He is now called, [[Fan Nickname|"Truffle]] [[The Goonies|Shuffle".]]
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