elsporko

There is no proof that Celestia and Luna are gods. They are just very powerful. Maybe they are so long lived because of their powerful magic or due to their contact with the elements of harmony.

All the alicorns so far have been shown to have very powerful magic. Maybe if a pony has enough natural magic they develop into an alicorn

I've got them all pegged as being in their 20s with the exception of Pinkie Pie possibly being 18 or 19.

Twilight is the equivalent of a grad student, others are all business owners or employed in positions that require independent work and responsibility

Pinkie Pie despite planning out some important parties seems to still be new to working and being on her own. The Pies were reluctant to leave her to run the shop alone so she must not have been employed there very long

hi hi

The idea that opposites attract is demonstrably unrealistic. While people might ignore differences while they are madly in love at the start of a relationship, once the madly in love phase is over (usually a year or less) reconciling differences can cause lasting dissatisfaction, especially if one partner is forced to give up something of their own in order to make the relationship work.

In Find a Pet, Fluttershy goes through a whole 3:40 some minute long song about all the animals other than Tank that she thinks would be good for dash. It was Tank who had the persistence to pull through. And as for Dash digging in, Dash responds well to challenges, taking them head on. Applejack might have dared her to try out Tank as a pet and I bet you Dash would have accepted the challenge.

Having to push people to their limits in order to resolve an issue seems more adversarial than getting along~ing. It may work in the Stephanie Meyer school of romance, but throwing down to show the other who's boss is a good example of relationship strife. Just because they might kiss and make up later doesn't mean they have a stronger relationship for it, not if it keeps happening over and over again. So one of them is going to have to change their personality if they don't want the relationship to become a strain on the other. (I would argue that there is a big difference between the relationship of a parent and a child and two partners)

Rainbow Dash didn't do a very good job of getting Fluttershy out of her comfort zone. She was nearly traumatized by the attempt. If anything, her animal friends did a much better job of encouraging her and preparing her for the possibility of failure. They're the ones who helped her train and practice.

Fluttershy likes helping out and comforting her animal friends and braiding manes, but Rainbow Dash doesn't even like her hooves being touched.

That being said, I can still see Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash (or two people with similar personalities) getting along in a relationship, but not because of their differences. (No way, no how) Their similarities make them a reasonably good match for a more low intensity relationship. They both like peace and quiet, Rainbow Dash for napping and resting, and Fluttershy just about all the time. As long as Rainbow Dash's active lifestyle and Fluttershy's responsible duties don't have to get in each other's way, I could see it working.

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash seem to be the closest out of the main group. They seem to be seen more times away from the others doing things on their own and Rainbow Dash is protective of Fluttershy. This is why people get behind that pairing. They are already close friends, and since this is a cartoon being discussed on the internet, obviously they are lesbian lovers

Fluttershy

I think Pinkie Pie is the youngest. She is definitely the least responsible.

Fluttershy is a year older then Pinkie Pie

I always say Applejack and Rarity as the oldest. Although I base this off of maturity which doesn't always go with age.

I always saw Rarity as one of the more mature ones. She acts dramatic but she takes on a ton of responsibility owning her own business and not having any help with it

All the ponies and Dash

I think there is more evidence that Twilight comes from an upper circle of society. Even before we found out she was babysat by a princess we know she lived in Canterlot, where unicorns seem to be aristocratic, she got a chance to go to the sun raising ceremony, her parents had connections to get her an entrance exam at an exclusive school, and her brother is an important part of the military at a somewhat young age- possibly he had connections.

None of it is really concrete but there isn't any evidence she comes from an average family either.

Adding a seventh mane character does not sound like a good idea to me. Way too many shows have gone down that route with disastrous results since the new character is usually thrown in to either bump up the ratings or because the producers think they know how to make a better character then the writers.

I think the method they have going now works fine. The show already has a strong supporting cast, with the CMC almost having mane character status. New characters should be start as supporting characters and if they are popular and interesting enough used more. I would like to see Cadence and Shining Armor get some more episodes but it would feel unnatural if they suddenly where mane characters with a thin explanation of why they are living in ponyville

To an extent, yes. Though sacrifice might not be the right word. Your faults are part of who you are. Take them away, and you're no longer the same person. Similar, perhaps, but not the same. Some faults can be changed a bit, like Dashie's growth in MMDW, but if you compare her to the dashie of season 1, shes not quite the same pony. Yes, she changed for the better, but she can only change so much before she's no longer the dashie we love and remember.

Or for instance, Fluttershy. Progress her out of her shy, quiet, timidness, and you're stuck with a pony who looks like fluttershy, and still loves animals, but she just isnt fluttershy. She wouldnt interact the same, and it would be glaringly obvious that it wasnt fluttershy.

In the first season Fluttershy is too shy and timid to tell the others she is afraid of dragons and goes with them. By the end of season two she is able to stand up to her friends and refuse to see the dragons. In both instances she still acts like Fluttershy but her growth has led her to act like Fluttershy in a different way

Well yeah, it's an effective business model, although a deceptive one... If she did the same thing every night in the same town she'd run out of people she COULD outdo, and then immediately lose interest and therfore money. So rather than having an honest challenge and giving others time to prep, she just scams them and leaves them.

She relies on her few spells looking more impressive then they are so its deceptive but it isn't a con. She never tricked anybody out of their money. Its like saying a magician is a conman because he doesn't really cut people in half.

Now if she said she was going to do a trick, collected payment, and left without doing it then she would be conning them

When I was reading about Faust making FiM it was mentioned that it was assumed girls would watch boys shows, but not the other way, which is why boy shows got more attention and investment

I'm guessing she's more of a con-mare... Yes, puns are required in 10% of my posts and i've been slacking lately... Anyway, she does a lot of showing off, bragging, etc, getting some lackies to buy her stuff and praise her so that she doesnt have to waste what little money her show brings in... then she moves on before anyone can challenge her properly. she chooses to live in her cart/trailer thing because it's easier to earn money that way rather than staying in one town, learning NEW tricks and paying rent... so yeah...

She's still not conning anybody. Its basically the same business model as The Harlem Globetrotters. They come in, talk up a big game, throw out a lot of flash and razzmatazz, solve a mystery with Scooby Doo, and take off without anybody posing a real challenge.

It might be good to get it separate from that thread so it can be the focus.

I think they can see the aura but nobody noticed with Cadence. Its probably not something ponies really pay attention to since its common to them. It would be like somebody changing eye color or their dominate hand. People close to you would notice but the Changling queen made sure that everybody near her was mind controlled or occupied with the threat. Its unlikely Twilight would catch it since it had been such a long time since she had been around Cadence.

Insert half hour rant about how Dumbledore is either a complete idiot or completely evil here. It's the only way to explain some of the choices he made.

Celestia is not. She is however a prankster, but her 'pranks' always have some lesson in them. Not that I always agree with them, but at least hers aren't 'letting good people be killed and tortured because you're too much of a pussy to kill the bad guys', though there was also the fact that Dumbles was just as much of a pure-blood supremacist as Malfoy, onlty he wants to control everything from the background. Killing the death-eaters would end a lot of pure-blood lines, something he couldn't bring himself to do. So instead he feeds people who trust him into a mincing machine, turns a school into his own social laboratory, wrecks the future prospects of uncounted healers and aurors by letting a completely hopeless 'teacher' teach potions...

In no way can anyone compare Celestia to that... that... rrrrggghhh! Gandalf, now that I can see.

I'm confused about your rant. Can you please expand on it?

I understand he worked alot in the background but he also was taking actions that went against the magic goverment.

He couldn't just go around killing death eaters. That would require knowing who they were and being able to prove who they were.

Snape was his double agent. He needed to keep him close

His fault is keeping Potter in the dark which he admits.

Trixie isn't a con artist. She just heavily plays up her powers. She didn't con anybody out of money.

In universe reason Twilight said unicorn could be because using the horn to cast magic is unicorn magic. Twilight was comparing Cadence to unicorns because they use the same kind of magic.

She is a traveling performer. Her home was destroyed but prior to that she had a home. The nature of her show probably works best with a new audience. All she did was say she is the best and show up some ponies who tried to prove her wrong. That can be entertaining enough for a show that rolls into town but if she was in a set venue people probably wouldn't travel to see her insult them.

Looks like I need to do some basic research when trying to talk instead of going off of memory.

Although if Celestia could use the elements by herself why did she leave them in the castle instead of continuing to use them? Maybe the elements need multiple users to be powerful so she couldn't wield them effectively by herself. Six ponies to draw the power from made them powerful enough to help Luna rather then banish her

So I just rewatched the episode.

Why were the Cutie Mark Crusaders the flower girls?

Do the Elements decide the path, or do the ponies wielding them? I would say the latter. Why not, at the beginning, change Nightmare Moon back into Luna? Why the banishment? Well, I suppose she had to learn a lesson.

Celestia was unable to use the elements as half of them belonged to Luna. Thats why Nightmare Moon was banished.

You mean like that fake season 3 line up? Man that was a good troll. I got a good laugh out of it that's for sure, even if I knew it was fake.

Exactly. It was clever, people got some good discussion out of it and it wasn't really all that disruptive. Good times were had by all

Celestia seems like she is way more straight up and honest with Twilight then Dumbledore ever was with Potter.

The only time she was deceptive that I can think of is in the first two episodes, which was probably necessary because telling Twilight that Nightmare Moon was coming would not have helped her make friends

Its also worth noting that those articles appeared to be saying that playing sports tend to lead to more confidence. I don't think anybody is arguing against this. Competing even helps Rainbow Dash's confidence. Rainbow Dash's problem is that she has difficulty with internal self esteem. She feels good when people reward her in a positive manner. When she isn't being rewarded she doesn't feel good, they don't need to be putting her down just not giving praise.

Not wanting to admit that she has self esteem issues Rainbow Dash talks herself up alot. If others think she is confident then she must be confident.

If he is a troll it was a really bad attempt. A good troll is somebody whom you can't even be sure if they are a troll (unless they are going for meta trolling where they troll by acting like an obvious and really bad troll) A good troll also has to contribute something, humor, controversy or even just rile the other users against him. Trolling has to contribute some sort of entertainment back to the community

I'm surprised with the quick banning. This topic is really dumb but he didn't seem too malicious. Thats why I wondered if he did something else that caused the banning.