Fridge Brilliance / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic - Season 1

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Mare in the Moon & The Elements of Harmony

• Ever notice how Nightmare Moon saying "Sun-loving faces" sounds as if it were dripping with disdain and resentment? Considering why she became Nightmare Moon, of course she would lay the blame for what she became at her subjects' hooves.
  • Of course she would expect her subjects to remember her, they celebrate her holiday every year. Naturally, she would be offended that this didn't serve as a reminder of her. She's practically scolding them for forgetting, for not recognizing the signs of her return.
• It seems extremely weird that Celestia wouldn't take Twilight's warning about Nightmare Moon's potential return so seriously considering just what kind of damage Nightmare Moon could do and this was her most studious student, after all, but remember that it was Celestia herself who banished Nightmare Moon in the first place. If anyone would know if the myth was true, it would be her.
  • It was true, so why respond to Twilight's warning by sending Twilight to Ponyville? To organize a festival on the supposed night of Nightmare Moon's return, of all things? Timing. Celestia knew the Elements of Harmony were near Ponyville and that for them to work, Twilight would need to make some friends. However, if she sent Twilight to Ponyville before Twilight could discover the Mare in the Moon myth, or without anything in particular requiring her attention, Twilight would no doubt just wander aimlessly to the nearest library and shut herself in, never making friends. It may have been cutting things a little close, but sending Twilight to Ponyville at the exact moment she found the Mare in the Moon myth, as well as giving her a task that would require her to interact with many other ponies while conveniently occurring at the same time Nightmare Moon was supposed to appear would have given Twilight an end goal and ample opportunity to build some ties but not enough time to revert to her old habits and inadvertently mess it all up.
• The design of Twilight's cutie mark is somewhat vague, and we wouldn't really know it is a representation of magic until we are told about it. However, the mark is five small stars, surrounding a big pink one; the most powerful and important star on the mark. An exact representation of the Elements of Harmony, specifically, Magic, as it has to be unlocked by the other five. This also could be the reason that Celestia knew to take Twilight in, after seeing the mark, she knew what it meant, and she knew Twilight was destined to save Princess Luna.
• "On the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid her escape." That prophecy wasn't about Nightmare Moon using the night sky to escape from the moon, it was about the Elements of Harmony, the "stars" of the show helping Luna escape from the Nightmare she'd trapped herself in.
  • Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark is a group of stars...
    • Nightmare Moon was not the prisoner. She was the prison. The general idea of the rescue mission is supported by effective Word of God from Lauren Faust. Link to her actual dA comment page here, screenshot here◊. She does mention that her reasoning should not be taken as canon, as she no longer runs the show.
• Twilight's name is the connection between (or even unification of) day and night. Of course she'd be the one to defeat Nightmare Moon and bring back Celestia and Luna together again!
• No one recognizes Nightmare Moon when she appears in the first episode even though the citizens of Ponyville celebrate Nightmare Night. Then you realize that they didn't recognize Nightmare Moon until Twilight referred to her by name. Holidays and related characters changing over the course of a thousand years isn't new, and they probably had a different idea of what Nightmare Moon looked like.
  • It makes even more sense considering Princess Celestia has been ruling for the last thousand years and probably didn't like having her sister viewed as a monster and worked to change the holiday so it didn't involve images of Luna.
  • That only works if you assume that the statue of Nightmare Moon was not part of the celebration until after her defeat.
  • Or possibly they just didn't put two and two together until Twilight said it out loud. Nightmare Moon was an ancient legend, after all, not someone you'd expect to just suddenly pop up one day and claim rulership of the world.
  • The statue is in the Everfree Forest, a place of taboo to ponies, and Zecora leads them to it: you know, the zebra which all the ponies in Ponyville were xenophobic towards until recently. That's probably why they'd never seen the statue before.
• So... maybe the reason Pinkie wasn't afraid of the scary trees in the pilot was because her "spidey sense" wasn't indicating danger?
  • Doesn't her "Pinkie Sense," only work on future events?
    • Well, I guess that COULD have been a future prediction in itself, but in spite of the weirdly specific nature of many of her Pinkie Senses, I'm not sure "the trees are gonna scare the crud out of my friends in a few moments" would have been amongst them.
    • "When my knee gets pinchy, it means something scary's about to happen!" No pinchy, no scary.
  • Or she was the only one who noticed that the trees were completely inanimate.
    • ...Because the only way they could work was to frighten their targets out of their wits, making them incapable of stopping to observe or analyse, and that just didn't work on her.
    • An alternate explanation is Too Dumb to Fool.
• How is it that Luna, the younger and presumably weaker sister, was able to easily overpower Celestia not just once, but twice? I though that was strange... until I remembered that the moon can block the sun.
  • But it only blocks it on a tiny portion of the Earth. If the entire energy output of the sun was focused on the moon, it would be enough to disassemble it in a little over five minutes. That's shorter than the time it takes for the light to get to the moon. Granted, it won't be near perfect efficiency, but still.
  • Celestia let herself be captured. I'm serious. Celestia knew that Nightmare Moon was about to break free from her banishment, re-banishing her would just start the whole thing over again and would not heal her sister. Presumably she cannot wield the Elements of Harmony herself since it's shown that you need one representative of each Element to wield them effectively. Standing alone against a threat is a poor way to utilize The Power of Friendship after all. So then her prize pupil finds the prophesy of Nightmare Moon's return. Said pupil has the greatest magical potential, talent and skill of her generation but is very poorly socialized, and is shown to have pretty much alienated everyone in Canterlot but Celestia and Spike. So Celestia ships her off to Ponyville where she can make a fresh start, complete with an official job that will force her to be in contact with other ponies. Celestia knows that Twilight is smart enough to figure out what needs to happen, and she knows the strength of Fire Forged Friendships. All she needs to do is sit back and let Nightmare Moon have her way for a little while, since she can always banish Nightmare Moon back to the moon if the plan fails.
  • Concerning the first engagement between Nightmare Moon and Celestia; it would have been an issue of practice time. Celestia had to rule over the entirety of Equestria and all its day-time issues, whilst Luna comparatively had almost no management responsibilities. Her jealousy would have eventually driven her to hone her magical abilities in her (implied) copious amounts of spare time. Perchance Celestia's absence was more a case of cowardice, rather than planning.
    • This is actually corroborated by Luna's Micro Comic issue: Celestia spends most of her day dealing with business and politics and such, whereas Luna spends most of the night patrolling the countryside for potential threats. Luna would naturally get more magic and combat practice in if the two of them had a similar set up before the Nightmare Moon incident.
  • Cowardice, maybe, but perhaps not for the reason you think. To edge into WMG territory a bit, there's a bit in Harry Potter where a major character tells Harry that in his past he'd put off confronting a major enemy for as long as he could because they had once been close friends. Doing so only once it became clear that it was more shameful not to confront him. Imagine that as applied to sisters who had until then been close.
• In the pilot, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom are seen cowering together from Nightmare Moon, even though they don't meet until much later in the series. Animation goof? Nope: "Every pony everywhere has a special magical connection with her friends, maybe even before she's met them."
• During the pilot's opening and telling of the Creation Myth, you see Luna and Celestia being portrayed as being blue and pink, respectively. But when we actually see Celestia, she's rather rainbow. But of course, it's perfectly possible that, after Luna's banishment, Celestia changed her colors to reflect her new role as sole leader (possibly with a name change as well). So, perhaps the chickified and pink version of her toy is just a glance into the past!
  • The toy has a pink body and aurora mane, not a white body and pink mane.
    • It could be a middle point between the timeframe of the Creation Myth and the rest of the series, then.
• Is it just me, or do the magic spells that we see Twilight Sparkle making an effort to learn after "The Elements of Harmony" seem designed to allow her to do all the things that her friends did on their quest through the Everfree Forest? After all, what's the first spell we see Twilight Sparkle practicing in a subsequent episode? The moustache-growing spell in "Boast Busters". Why a moustache-growing spell? That seems awfully random, except that it would have enabled Twilight to get past the sorrowful serpent without Rarity. Later, she develops a spell to grow wings for a non-pegasus pony. Used on herself, that would have enabled her to deal with the collapsing cliff without Applejack, Rainbow Dash, or Fluttershy. Likewise, it would have enabled her to retie the rope bridge leading to the castle herself, or simply fly over the chasm; either way, she wouldn't have needed Rainbow Dash there either. It almost seems as though some part of her subconscious is still afraid to really need anypony else. If the first spell we see her develop in season 2 is designed to dispel illusions or calm rampaging monsters, then that will definitely be too much for coincidence.
  • She does get a spell to calm rampaging monsters! Remember the reed lullaby she uses against the Ursa Minor!
  • I'd say her failsafe spell at the beginning of the season 2 premiere was close enough to dispelling illusions.
  • Or her inner scholar couldn't let it go like the Pinkie Sense and she became obsessed with trying to replicate the effects.
  • Technically, she didn't really learn the spells for that reason. In the moustache case, Spike calls it "growing magic", not "moustache-growing magic" or anything like that, so it's probably just a simple growth spell that Twilight tested on Spike's (too small to see) facial hair, likely at his insistence. For the wings, she didn't even learn the spell. Notice she read it from a book? She didn't know it, and just pulled it out because Rarity demanded it.
• At the end of "The Elements of Harmony," when Princess Luna arrives in Ponyville with her sister, two pegasi fillies place a garland of flowers around her neck. The flowers in question are very recognizably red and white roses. Why those flowers in particular? Because the red and white rose were the symbols off the Houses of Lancaster and York, respectively, the two branches of the Plantagenet dynasty that fought each other in the War of the Roses. At the end of the war, the Tudor dynasty, which was related to both York and Lancaster (somewhat implausibly) by marriage, came to power, and adopted as its symbol the red and white rose as a symbol of reconciliation within the royal family. So red and white roses together are a symbol of reconciliation within a royal family, just as Luna and Celestia are reconciled at the end of "Elements."
• Why were all of the traps set by Nightmare Moon so tame, especially when compared to a villain like Discord? Well, Luna was still a filly, albeit a super-powered filly with enough raw power to stop the sun! It might have also foreshadowed her Heel–Face Turn since she refrained from really ever harming anyone.
  • Either that or she was going easy on them on purpose and once they got to the Element of Harmony, they'd think it's smooth sailing from there on before Nightmare Moon swoops in to dash their hopes away by destroying the elements. The look of utter hopelessness on each of their face would be priceless to Nightmare Moon before killing them at last. They've come so far only to fail completely and Nightmare Moon would've relished it.
• At first the sixth Element doesn't make sense; it seems that the last element ought to be Friendship, not Magic. However, on reflection it seems that Friendship is not one of the elements. Friendship is the "spark" which unites the elements and brings forth the magic. That's why Twilight says, "The spark ignited inside me when I realized that you all are my friends."
  • The sixth Element is friendship. It's right there in the title: Friendship is Magic.
• Princess Luna armoured herself with her jealousy and bitterness. When the Elements of Harmony broke through that armor, it showed what she really was inside... a lonely little girl who just wanted friends and to be loved as much as her big sister.
  • Some Fridge Horror with that; her punishment was to be alone and forgotten for a thousand years, no wonder some fans think Celestia is evil.
    • On that note, seeing how Celestia rules (albeit at times irresponsibly and/or mischievously), this troper sees the banishment as a result of circumstance in that Nightmare Moon was banished because it was the only option. Remember, that it took Celestia AND Luna to wield the Elements to imprison Discord, but with Luna being corrupted, you've essentially lost half your power. So, the only choice left would be to use what power you have to minimize the damage to your subjects thus banishment (and imprisonment) in this case.
  • Considering Nightmare Moon wanted to bring Eternal Night it might be a case of the lesser of 2 evils, but by the same token after the pilot and the entire moral she lets Twilight stay in Ponyville because she made friends but her own sister is never seen again...because she want to make friends...Flat "What"
  • Princess Luna is going to be appearing in Season 2. Hopefully her absence from Season 1 will be explained, though some reasonable guesses could be made. It's possible Luna is spending Season 1 getting into the swing of things. 1000 years is a long time for customs, traditions, fashions, and other pieces of culture to change, and Luna is probably out of practice with her royal and mystic duties. That and she could be doing work to build positive PR so she doesn't scare the masses whenever she goes walking outside.
    • Although they tend to be outside of the show's scope, there are a ton of non-Ponyville places in Equestria. She's almost certainly living in the high culture city of Canterlot with her big sister. Celestia probably hangs out in Ponyville so much to oversee Twilight Sparkle's learning, but Luna doesn't have the same motivations.
    • ...should we be expecting to see an abacus?
    • Considering that the Mane Six and to a lesser extent the citizens of Ponyville were about the only ones we know to have had to confront Nightmare Moon in person (possibly excepting Celestia, who we simply don't see at all between her mysterious dis- and later dramatic reappearance), it actually makes a degree of sense that Luna might have been less than eager to visit the place again anytime soon — after the initial party was over and the realization what she had almost done had time to sink in, anyway. Staging her comeback on Nightmare Night of all the times she could have chosen, and with the stated purpose of changing the celebration's meaning to something less dark and scary at that, could then be easily read as her trying to make amends to the same ponies her 'evil' self was toying with the last time they met face to face...
• The ruined castle in the forest used to be the Princesses' home. Therefore the forest used to be as tame as Canterlot. All the roads must date to that period, and presumably led somewhere a thousand years ago, like ancient Roman roads today.
• If you listen closely to the prologue, it says that Celestia used the magic of the Elements of Harmony to seal away Nightmare Moon. That's why that element was missing- she used it all up! This also implies that there were other ponies at the time who could use the elements.
• Nightmare Moon's traps are all based on a common dream. Many common dreams include creepified mundane objects (the trees), falling (as in, over a cliff), battling/fleeing an unstoppable monster (the manticore), bypassing an insurmountable obstacle (the raging river in Steven Magnet's scene), and meeting/becoming someone famous (the Shadowbolts).
• Luna became bitter and unhappy because she felt the ponies slept through her nights without appreciating them. But the Summer Sun Celebration is preceded by an all-night party where no one sleeps, so that they can be awake to see the sun rise. Ancient custom, or did Celestia add it to honor her sister?
• Wonder why everypony stayed up late and didn't get tired? It's because, in real life, ponies need less sleep than humans. I think that when they go to bed at night, the only reason they keep sleeping is because it's still dark. They probably got that sleep from napping beforehoof. And it appears dragons, especially young ones, need more sleep than ponies.

The Ticket Master

• Spike's attitude towards the Grand Galloping Gala in "The Ticket Master" is basically a stand-in for all of the peripheral demographic viewers. "I don't want any of that girly, frilly, frou-frou nonsense," he says, and giggles at being invited to the gala too. In other words, Lauren Faust gave all of us a cameo.
  • This troper agrees, having encountered so many boys (and girls) who are reluctant to display any inclination towards things like "frilly frou frou" or "rough and tumble boys stuff" because they're afraid of being laughed at or teased, it's nice to see that Spike is both sympathising with this fear, and basically showing us it's okay anyway.
  • Though one could say that moral was undercut slightly when, in "The Best Night Ever", Spike spent the entire gala hanging out in a donut shop rather than going to any of the events to which his ticket entitled him (which had both male and female ponies in attendance).
    • Wasn't he only hanging out there because his friends had abandoned him?
    • Yes. It wasn't that he didn't care for "girly gala" stuff, it was because he had no one to hang out with. Even the best events in the world can be no fun without your friends.
    • Indeed. Remember, while everyone else was thinking of things they could do for themselves, all Spike wanted to do was share his hometown with them like his favorite donut shop.
  • The only problem with this theory is that the episode was written LONG before even the premiere aired, so they had no idea yet that the show would be embraced so firmly by a Periphery Demographic.
    • Even so, one of the chief reasons the show was written in the style it is was so those forced to watch it by young girls who compose the primary demographic would be able to actually enjoy themselves. Spike's perspective on the Gala may not have been for the (yet-to-exist) bronies' sake, but certainly for that of the parents.
• As noticed on the YMMV page, Spike doesn't seem to react when Rarity talks about meeting her dream man at the ball, but it actually makes perfect sense: Spike planned on being that guy, but not wanting Rarity to know he liked her, he didn't say anything so she(or any of the other ponies) would catch on, especially if he acted upset about Rarity possibly finding someone else.
  • An alternative theory: Spike being a member of the highest circles in Canterlot (or at least permanently attached to the flank of one who was), he could easily have known Prince Blueblood. Five minutes in his company would probably be enough to dismiss him as a future rival.
    • Another possibility is that Spike heard about him at the donut bar. Though Spike and Twilight were both there when Rarity fantasized about meeting him, but didn't say anything.
    • Or this could be a case of I Want My Beloved to Be Happy, and Spike leaving Rarity to her own affairs.
• Celestia knows that Twilight has five new close friends; she met them after they saved Equestria, and told Twilight to stay in Ponyville specifically to study friendship with them. So why does she send Twilight only two tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala? Well, given her tendency towards Batman gambits elsewhere, perhaps it's to test how loyal Twilight is to her new friends.
  • Either that or Celestia is a troll and just wanted to mess with Twilight. The loyalty test is just a cover in case she's ever caught.
  • Perhaps she figured Twilight would bring a date.
    • After reading down below in Fridge Horror (about Celestia being on the same party for 10 centuries), it explained a lot more to me. 1. She didn't invite Twilight Sparkle before because she wasn't old enough to properly enjoy it. Kids get really bored at those kind of parties and Celestia didn't want her star pupil to have a bad time. 2a. She sent only two tickets because, in her mindset, GGG isn't all that big of a deal and it never occurred to her that mortal, young ponies would ever want to go there. 2b. She expected Twilight to take either a date or Spike, since she doubted Twilight could find a suitable date anyway. Common courtesy dictates that you always give two tickets when inviting someone to an event. 3. Notice how glad Celestia was when she saw Twilight? For all we saw, Twilight was the closest person to her (other then Luna, but she's a different story) and her company was the best part of the entire evening. After all, even the most boring party (the one you experienced 10 thousand times already) can be best night ever if shared with a friend.
  • Because Celestia just put Twi's name on the list of invitees, the invitation was a form letter. It stated "Hear ye, hear ye", not "My most faithful student", and referred to Celestia in the third person.
    • Exactly. From what I'm aware of most fancy-shmancy get-togethers, you generally are allowed to bring yourself and one guest. This also explains why Twilight didn't ask for more tickets, because "me and a guest" is the norm.
    • It's also why Celestia's response at the end was "why didn't you just say so?" She didn't personally send the tickets, otherwise she would have asked how many Twilight wanted.
  • Put yourself in Celestia's Shoes. Would you expect the introverted Fluttershy to want to socialize with several strangers? Would you expect Applejack to do anything that involved wearing a fancy dress? Would you expect Pinkie Pie or Rainbow Dash to want to go to an event that involves just standing around and talking all night? No. Would you expect Rarity to want to go to a high society event and insinuate herself with some of the most important ponies in Equestria? Oh so very much. So really, you only need to send one extra ticket for Rarity, since the other's don't want to go. - Stinkoman87 (reposted from guess on the WMG page)
  • Another possibility: Season 3 reveals that Princess Celestia (and later, Luna) had been grooming and testing Twilight for eventually becoming a princess herself over the show's first three seasons. What's Twilight's first complaint? The same complaint Celestia had about the Gala. Being the princess that has to smile and wave while everypony else gets to enjoy themselves. Celestia is secretly introducing Twilight to the more tedious parts of her future job to see how she handles it.
• In "Ticket Master", we see Twilight Sparkle tearing apart and then eating a flower at the little restaurant before Rainbow Dash shows up in the clouds. From a human perspective, the flower would be a centerpiece. But, from a pony perspective, the flowers are like the free bread some restaurants offer while customers read the menu.
• One Freeze-Frame Bonus during Ticket Master subtly implies that of Twilight Sparkle's friends, the ones she was most inclined to give the ticket to were Applejack and Fluttershy.◊ Of course, Fluttershy was the most polite about it, and fans tend to agree that Applejack had the best reason.
• Why didn't Twilight teleport away at any of the many opportunities during the episode? Because she was starving, and teleporting takes a lot of energy! (Which also explains why Spike ended up singed when she did finally teleport - it was an emergency teleport that she couldn't control.)
• We know in "The Best Night Ever" that Rarity and Pinkie don't have fun at the gala and it's actually foreshadowed here through both of their imagine spots. Pinkie imagines the Gala as a giant funtastic party, while Rarity imagines it as an elegant dance ball. These imagine spots don't coincide with each other, so one of them has to be wrong.

Applebuck Season

• Applejack's dog is named Winona. "Winona" means "first-born daughter". Who's the first-born daughter in her family? Applejack!
• The rabbit stampede in Applebuck Season looks like pure Rule of Funny at first. But then think about what the rabbits actually do. They start eating the all the flowers in the village. By themselves. With nopony telling them what to do. That's Everfree levels of mindscrewery right there.
  • Also, whoa. Twilight ate a flower just last episode. That could mean that the rabbits were eliminating potential pony food.
    • This puts a new perspective on the flowers in Winter Wrap Up, they may indeed be as much a food as apples or carrots to them. Also, ponies' medicines may have components from flowers, which could mean the rabbits were poisoning themselves or destroying the ponies' medical supplies!
  • Additionally... no flowers means that if bees come around, they won't find nectar to gather, or in turn, anything to pollinate. And that could be very bad…
• Big Macintosh not only speaks more in this episode, he does so in complete sentences. Early-Installment Weirdness? Perhaps, but another possible explanation is the pony he's with when he speaks, Applejack. In the episode "Hearts and Hooves Day", Applebloom states that the reason Big Mac doesn't speak much is due to being shy. However, in this episode, there is no reason for him to be shy around his own younger sister.

Griffon the Brush Off

• Applejack's moment of extreme shock at the painted apples in may seem out of context for the sensible pony considering its just color on apples... until you realize that they look much like zap apples. For a split second, she thinks the farm has missed its opportunity for one of its cornerstone harvests, seeing as they disappear so quickly.
• A bit of Fridge Brilliance, I didn't think much about the choice of making Gilda a griffon, until I remembered that in mythology griffons are the mortal enemies of horses.
  • There's some Fridge Horror here too, since according to medieval lore, griffins mated for life and would never seek a new mate if the old one died, and may even refuse to eat and simply starve to death. This makes the Love Triangle interpretation of that episode a lot more tragic.
  • This also brings up the Fridge Logic of why Gilda would be friends with Rainbow Dash at all; a pegasus may be a horse with wings, but it's still a horse. Well, there's another mix-and-match creature in Medieval mythology, the hippogriff, which is said to be the result of pairings between griffons and horses. So, for all her jerkass antics, the fact Gilda managed to make friends with Rainbow Dash is both a nice hinting towards mythology (especially if one buys the Les Yay interpretation of Gilda & Dash's relationship) and a key example of the Power of Friendship motif the series runs on.
• Gilda drinks the fruit punch (served in a dribble glass) and digs into the presents (snake nut can novelty toys) only at Rainbow Dash's suggestion. This serves as foreshadowing that Dash is the prankster, not Pinkie.
• Gilda and Rainbow Dash being friends makes sense when one looks at them; they share a lot of similar personality traits. Unfortunately for Gilda, it's mostly negative personality traits, like ego, a love of mischief…
• When Gilda first appears she seems haughty but shows no direct animosity towards Pinkie Pie. It isn't until after she sings the Junior Speedsters theme (which she finds "lame") and Pinkie laughs (finding it silly and funny) that Gilda actively tries to get rid of her. Looking at the reactions after Pinkie laughs, Rainbow seems proud and Gilda seems insulted, thinking she's being laughed at.

Boast Busters

• Why is Trixie's magic so useless off the stage? Is she just weak? Maybe, but there's another explanation, one which probably makes more sense. Every pony has their own special talent. Trixie's is most likely showmanship
  • It's probably more than that when you consider that Trixie is Twilight's Shadow Archetype and while Twilight is nice and has a lot of friends, Trixie is arrogant and has no friends. Now think about what Twilight learned in her battle against Nightmare Moon, and it all makes perfect sense: Friendship Is Magic.
  • Also, if you observe carefully, you'll notice that all Trixie ever did was turn her hecklers' talents against them. It's not entirely unfeasible that Trixie isn't very good at magic unless she has something to imitate. This is further reinforced when she tries to use the rope-charming trick and the storm-cloud thing against the Ursa Minor.
• Spike tries to attract Rarity by wearing a mustache, and is depressed that it doesn't work at the end of the episode. This makes perfect sense when you remember what happened to Rarity the last time she encountered a purple reptile with a mustache.
• In Boast Busters, Spike wanted to grow a mustache to impress Rarity. Perhaps because he knows Rarity is impressed by dragons with mustaches (Steven Magnet)?
• Notice how Trixie's get-up looks similar to Twilight's in Luna Eclipsed? Trixie modeled her costume on Star Swirl the Bearded. It may even be a traditional magician's costume. It's not a perfect copy due to Star Swirl's modern day obscureness/slow fashion drift over the centuries/Trixie's thinking it looked cooler that way/Trixie's being too lazy to maintain the bells.
• Trixie announces herself as 'Great and Powerful', similar to The Wizard of Oz. This is a very good early clue about the true nature of her abilities; clever acting and stage magic to make herself look much more powerful than she really is.
• I thought the way every pony reacted to Trixie's introductions were a little harsh until I realized something. Unicorn magic is normal in the MLP Universe. So Trixie acting like her magic is an amazing feat probably does seem like just boasting to them. Granted it's a Voodoo Shark since it raises the question of why they even showed up to begin with.
  • Just because magic is normal doesn't mean that they can't be entertained by it. Just like how science is normal, yet people are entertained by it everyday.
• Snips and Snails mistaking the Ursa Minor for the Ursa Major could be a Shout-Out to how it's hard to identify the constellation Little Dipper and Big Dipper if you're not an astrologist or star gazer.
• While they make cameo appearances, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie do not challenge Trixie, though this could be for a couple of reasons.
  • Fluttershy is, well, shy and as seen in Hearth's Warming Eve, Hurricane Fluttershy, Filli Vanilli and a number of episodes, being in front of a crowd makes her very uncomfortable and would make her an easy target for Trixie's bullying.
  • As for Pinkie Pie, well it is likely that Pinkie saw that Trixie is just as random as she is and thought that they would be evenly matched.

Dragonshy

• In Dragonshy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie play tic-tac-toe while waiting for Fluttershy to coax the dragon. Rarity says that's 35 games in a row, and to play best of 71. That means they had just played best of 69 ^note nice.
  • It also means that one of them has won all the games.
    • Hint: It was Pinkie Pie
• In Dragonshy, during the preparation montage Big Macintosh is seen loading apple juice into Applejack's saddlebags. He's seen looking winded right afterwards, but this is THE Big Macintosh, who can kick ponies over the horizon. This is also the Big Macintosh who was recovering from a serious rib injury not too long ago.
• When a leaf falls on Fluttershy's flank, she screams "AVALA—" before Applejack shoves her hoof into the pegasus's mouth. In French, the word avala means "swallowed".

Look Before You Sleep

• Why does Applejack come down so hard on Rarity's nitpicking and high-class behavior in "Look Before you Sleep"? Because Rarity reminds Applejack of her snobby relatives in Manehattan and the social exclusion she felt there as revealed in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles".
  • From the same episode, Applejack came to Mane-hattan to try the city life with her orange themed relatives, only to find that it's just not her and returns to the apple ranch. In a sense, you could say that she was trying to compare apples and oranges!
  • In a similar vein, why does Applejack get so nervous about eating dishes in the proper order at Celestia's party in "A Bird in the Hoof"? Because she remembers enough of her Manehattan etiquette to know that there's a correct order, and she remembers the exclusion she felt when she didn't fit into their society properly... but it was so long ago that she can't actually remember what she's meant to do.
• I never noticed the significance of Applejack and Rarity having pets until I thought about their constant arguing in the episode "Look Before You Sleep", and then it made perfect sense. It is said that an owner is similar to their pets, so Applejack who has her dog Winona and Rarity who has her cat Opalescence would definitely have a hard time get along initially since it's more likely they would fight just like cats and dogs. This is even lampshaded with the way they get into bed, as Applejack just jumps into it like a dog would, and Rarity prefers that her bed remain neat and tidy before entering it like a cat would.
• I was just thinking, Applejack actually can't put together s'mores with the same finesse Rarity and Twilight have. She doesn't have a horn (or opposable fingers, for that matter.)
  • Explains why she says "Ya just eat'em" about the marshmallows.
• How is that the unsociable and dorky Twilight is so good at telling ghost stories when this is apparently the first time she does? Easy: she's the personal apprentice of Celestia, an Eccentric Mentor and a prankster so ferocious that she once filled an entire castle of boobytraps just to prank one person (her sister!) and invited the Mane Six to the Grand Galloping Gala expecting them to ruin it (they do). Either Celestia rubbed off, or purposely taught her a few tricks.
  • Technically, in The Journal Of The Two Sisters, during one of Luna's entries she talks about how she's the one who wanted to boobytrap the castle and Celestia thought she was weird, and only agreed when Luna mentioned putting in a secret library for her.

Bridle Gossip

• In the beginning of the episode when Zecora comes to Ponyville and finds it deserted, she begins quietly digging at the ground. The other ponies mention it being strange, but it is never addressed in the episode. It turns out that digging or scraping at the ground is a behavior of Real Life Zebras. They do it when they are nervous, agitated, or bored.
  • The digging can also be a reason why the ponies were scared of Zecora. Until then, pawing the ground with a hoof was only used in a threatening way. Double Fridge Brilliance, as while horses (and ponies!) paw the ground as a sign of anger or frustration or a show of dominance - ie, a threat display - zebras also do it to search for water. Zecora's pawing is like direct eye contact; some cultures consider it normal, others view it as threatening.
• Twilight Sparkle getting a floppy horn in "Bridle Gossip" makes even more sense once you notice that Rainbow Dash taps Twilight on the horn immediately after flying through the Poison Joke.
  • All this touching and her horn goes limp?
• At first the effects of the "curse" in "Bridle Gossip" seemed rather random to me, but then I realized it was targeting each of the ponies' personal strengths: Twilight prides herself on her magical abilities, and her horn goes limp; Rarity takes pride in her appearance, and ends up with long, goofy-looking hair; Rainbow Dash, who enjoys her graceful flying abilities, becomes incredibly clumsy as her wings are somehow reattached to her body upside-down; Applejack prides herself on her physical strength and ability to take charge, and gets shrunk; the highly social Pinkie Pie is rendered unable to talk; and the gentle and soft-spoken Fluttershy is given a deep and somewhat intimidating voice.
  • Alternatively, some or all of the effects of the "curse" may have been oriented towards karmic revenge for what they had been doing in that episode. Twilight was dismissing the idea of supernaturals besides unicorn magic (even though she was partly right), Rarity criticized Zecora's mane, Applejack was constantly dismissing her little sister (using the word "little" a LOT) and Pinkie Pie was implied to be the main source behind the gossip. The curse even prevents her from singing her xenophobic 'evil enchantress' song.
    • Fluttershy's "curse" is hard to fit into this theory, until you realize that this episode was shortly after "Dragonshy" where Fluttershy stands up to a powerful dragon and tells him to leave his cave. Now keep in mind that "Flutterguy" and the dragon she recently told to leave have the same voice, and you realize that this might be a form of the dragon's revenge considering the fact that Fluttershy used her voice to make him concede defeat and leave Ponyville.
    • It could be based off of how Fluttershy said "I'll bet she's digging for innocent creatures" while they were hiding from Zecora. As punishment for spreading rumors, she got a loud, scary man-voice.
    • Alternately, it could be punishment for her standing up for her friends, but not for a stranger subjected to injustice.
    • Or the Poison Joke ailments could be less karmic revenge and more harmless, even if ironic, coincidental joke.
• This might fall under Unfortunate Implications as well, but whatever. In "Bridle Gossip", Applejack is very noticeably scared of and hostile towards Zecora, even more so than most of her friends. But wait a second - Applejack has a Southern accent, and the Southern part of America is stereotyped as being prejudiced against African-Americans.
  • Subverted in that her little sister Apple Bloom was the only one who was willing to give Zecora a chance in the end.
  • Want Unfortunate Implications? Zecora is an African animal who speaks with a Haitian accent, wears lots of gold jewelry, has a hairstyle the Mane Cast find outlandish, lives in a Heart of Darkness wilderness, and has Zulu-style masks in her house. And, despite being discriminated against, she's more than willing to provide the super-natural cure to the white-folks ponies' problems. This makes her more than a bit of a Magic Negro character.
    • Downplayed example since her "magic" all comes down to herb-lore (magical herbs, being Equestria, but herbs nonetheless). It's her profession, no more, no less.
    • I don't think the writers were trying to play on the stereotype. It would certainly work against the Aesop of not being prejudiced. Applejack was more frightened and hostile because she felt she had to protect her sister. She even says this to Twilight.
    Applejack: "No good reason"?! You call defending your kin "no good reason"?
    • I thought it was an excellent thing they did. Instead of showing just a (metaphor for a) black person who’s completely assimilated, they showed a more authentic (to some extent, this is still a fantasy setting written by Westerners) representation of African culture. And why is it that a black person helping white people a ‘magic negro’ instead of just helpful? Especially when it was shown she was going to Ponyville to get some of her ingredients, so they help each other.
    • Also, Applejack's accent is more Midwest-country than Southern.
• I was thinking that Applejack is probably mostly scared of Zecora because she lives in the Everfree Forest, which is a place that Applejack thinks is creepy and unnaturally wild. Of course she would be at least a little creeped out by the Everfree Forest, she's a farmer! Farming involves taming and controlling the growth and behavior of animals and plants. She's used to living a life where all the crops grow in a certain way and the animals respond to and obey her corralling commands. Not to mention Applejack actually has been in the Everfree Forest along with the other Element guardians and knows that even without Zecora, there are creatures in there that could easily eat Apple Bloom. Add Pinkie's song about Zecora being an evil enchantress, plus the fact that there ARE dangerous monsters in the forest, and it's quite understandable that she'd panic about Apple Bloom going to visit Zecora. Apple Bloom, on the other hand, is not only younger and probably less set in her ways, but that was probably the first time she's ever been in the forest so she wouldn't have had any frightening experiences associated with it.
• Living in the Everfree forest and digging in the ground may not helped Zecora's public image at first, but she actually had no way of knowing this! She had 0 interactions with anypony, so she was most likely unaware that they saw the Everfree forest as terrifying and creepy. Also, since ponies always hide whenever she shows up, she had no idea that for them, digging in the ground is seen as a threat.

Swarm of the Century

• The parasprites are apparently native to the Everfree Forest, and they should be able to strip the forest of its entire food supply within a day. So why haven't they destroyed the forest yet? Because the Everfree Forest is home to some of the largest, nastiest predators know to ponykind- the Ursa Major can probably gulp down an entire swarm just by inhaling. This explains why Zecora has never seen one despite living in the same forest. This means, however, that all the parasprites that Applejack and Pinkie Pie sent into the forest are going to die very, very, soon.
• The parasprites in general are quite affectionate, but in Rainbow Dash's case, she literally couldn't get them off of her. It was because she was the only pony who actually kissed her original parasprite! Of course its offspring would be more than loving than usual.
• Why was Pinkie Pie the only one who knew about the parasprites? Because she's a Big Eater who works in a bakery, and probably would have a lot of experience dealing with pests that have huge appetites that might eat the food there, especially since she's got a huge appetite herself.
• Just the parasprites' biology in general. They don't need that much energy to fly, considering their size, so where does all the food they digest go into? MORE PARASPRITES. The fact that they upchuck to reproduce lends enough credence to this substitute reproductive system.
• Of course Pinkie Pie knows what a Parasprite is! She grew up on a rock farm, and farmers have to deal with parasites and pests all the time! It makes sense that she not only knows what Parasprites are, but how to get rid of them, too.
• The song Pinkie used to lure the parasprites out of Ponyville is identical to the music she played at her first party. Given that it attracts parasprites, did Pinkie unintentionally devastate her own farm? (This theory obviously assumes that rock-clearing is a prelude to crop planting, otherwise there would be nothing for the parasprites to devour.)
• Everyone says that since Pinkie didn't technically say anything about the Parasprites, the Aesop doesn't work. But as Friendship is Witchcraft shows us, there was a chance they wouldn't have believed her regardless. Considering she's Pinkie, it makes sense they didn't believe her until she saves the day herself. So the aesop is still pretty intact.
  • This also reoccurs in Too Many Pinkies, where Pinkie does tell Rainbow Dash about the clones but she doesn't listen until they literally ambush her. So it's not impossible.

Winter Wrap Up

• At the beginning of the episode Spike seems more lethargic than usual, this could be attributed to various reasons, until you take into account that Spike is a reptile and reptiles are cold-blooded i.e. they get sleepy at a lowered temperatures.
• Remember when Twilight's snowplow goes out of control and she ends up cutting off about five or six other plowers? Imagine what would have happened had she not done that. All of those other ponies were heading at each other. Who planned their routes? ^note Which is also another example of their lack of organization.
• Aside from the Aesop of the Week, there is another life lesson for kids in "Winter Wrap-Up:" the pony who ends up in charge is the one who isn't qualified to do any of the actual jobs.
  • She's the only pony ever to try all of the jobs. That's what qualifies her to understand how all the jobs relate to each other.
  • It is an exact demonstration of Scott Adams' Dilbert Principle. Because she failed disastrously at every job, Twilight eventually landed in the one spot where she could do the least damage: management.
  • An important skill for group management is understanding each team's responsibilities enough to understand how they tie together, and how a problem with one can cause problems elsewhere down the line. Being good at any of these tasks is not necessary, though it can help with understanding. The argument between Applejack and Fluttershy is a classic example; Applejack's focused on clearing the fields and planting, while Fluttershy's worried about the animals' homes getting flooded. Because Twilight tried her hand at both these tasks, she can see where the problem is and how to resolve it without trouble.
• Why was Twilight so upset when Applejack scolded her for using magic in the episode "Winter Wrap Up", other than the obvious feeling of humiliation? Because Twilight excels in magic, and doesn't really have too many other talents, other than organizing, so when her one of her only talents is considered a burden, she feels like she can't contribute and won't fit in with the others. Considering the fact that Twilight has just made new friends, and doesn't have a lot social experience, it would make perfect sense that she would be heartbroken over the possibility of being thought of a hindrance and that she wouldn't be any use to her friends and wouldn't fit in with them anymore, which would mean that she would be the same lonely girl she was at the beginning of the series, and that probably hurts more than anything.
• Maybe I'm just slow, but I only recently noticed the foreshadowing when Twilight tries to help Rarity with the birds' nests: after Rarity dumps a basketful of materials in front of her, the first thing she does is organize them OCD-style.
• Twilight eventually ends up organizing the event (and having them complete everything on-time for the first time ever). What did she do all throughout the 'Winter Wrap-up' musical number and the first part of the episode? Find out about every task that takes place during the Winter Wrap-up. Everypony else was knowledgeable about their own task but nopony else's, as evidenced by Applejack and Fluttershy both giving Rainbow Dash competing assignments. Twilight is the only pony who's bothered to get the complete picture. Organization is one of her skills, sure, but what they really needed was anypony with a big-picture view. - Alphacat
• Winter Wrap Up is the first song sung by somepony other than Pinkie. After listening to it, I noticed that she sang the least in that song, only having a line at the beginning and harmonizing in a couple other places while the other members of the Mane 6 had at least part of a verse.
• Rarity's breakdown over being unable to repair Twilight's attempt at a nest makes even more sense when you factor in that she not only has high standards of beauty, but is also being forced to conform to the same no-magic rule that's holding Twilight back. It would be trivial to fix it with magic; using hooves alone, she finds herself lacking.
• Seems every year before Twilight came along, Ponyville was always late for spring and it's not hard to see why. Before the teams split up, they sing a Crowd Song about winter turning into spring and what they have to do to make it possible. Not only does the song eat up valuable time that could have been used for work, it's so catchy that everypony just can't help but dawdle.
• Twilight being the only pony without a job to do makes sense when you realize that everypony else is doing what they already do naturally. Rainbow Dash is clearing the skies, Applejack is tending the fields, Rarity is making everything nice and pretty, Fluttershy is taking care of the animals, etc. Pinkie Pie is the only outlier at first, until she mentions that she's being carving the lake ice since she was a foal. They don't need instructions because they've been doing these tasks for so long, but newcomer Twilight (and Spike) haven't developed that same sort of routine yet.

Call of the Cutie

• In "Call of the Cutie", the pony the fandom knows as "Doctor Whooves" is an earth pony with the hour glass cutie mark, spiky hair and a mature man's voice. In "Sonic Rainboom", the same pony is featured, but he is now a pegasus and speaks in a much younger boy's voice. Isn't the real Doctor reincarnated over and over? Fridge Brilliance!
  • And if we see Dr. Whooves as an Earth Pony again, that's hardly a barrier. He's just been time-traveling and pegasus!Whooves is from the future.
    • Or from the past. It's all a bit Wibbly.
  • Perhaps when he's wingless, it's because he's recently regenerated and his wings haven't grown back yet.
• In her song to Apple Bloom, Pinkie Pie mentions to add things that are sweet, not sour. Why? Applejack's muffins had lemon juice in them, which is one of the things that made everypony who ate them sick. Given how traumatized Pinkie was about that, it only makes sense that it would be prominently on her mind when Applejack's sister is in her kitchen!
  Pinkie Pie: Not baked goods....baked BAAAAADS....
• We're introduced to Cheerilee's g4 counterpart in episode 12 Call of the Cutie. And what is the first thing she does— tell a story.
  • You might want to explain this one a bit... did G-whatever Cheerilee tell stories a lot?
    • "I hope we hear a story from Cherilee!"
• When Twilight attempts to force Apple Bloom's cutie mark to appear by magic, it keeps on flashing as different things before fading. Why? Because what she wants to do with the rest of her life is still up in the air, and it could be any of those things.
• Isn't it frustrating that no matter how often they fail, the Cutie Mark Crusaders never understand that you're supposed to just wait for your cutie mark instead of trying and trying to make it happen? Even Apple Bloom, probably the most even-headed of the three fillies, just doesn't get it. Even after Cheerilee explained it to her class in Call of the Cutie! "Discovering what makes you unique isn't something that happens overnight, and no amount of hoping, wishing, or begging will make a cutie mark appear before its time." Too bad Apple Bloom, who had been diligently taking notes, was momentarily distracted by Diamond Tiara's note-passing. She mighta learned something.
• At the beginning, Cheerilee is talking to a classroom filled with fillies. It's clear from other episodes that there are some colts in her class as well. If we take getting a cutie mark to be a metaphor for puberty, then it WOULD make sense for the class to be filled only with girls. Cheerilee, as a female teacher, is talking to other girls about puberty!
• Cheerilee states that she wants to bring cheer to ponies yet she fails to stop the whole class from laughing at Apple Bloom (instigated by Diamond Tiara, no less). Seems ironic, right? Maybe not, as "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" revealed that Spoiled Rich is on the school board. If Cheerilee dared to reprimand, let alone punish, DT, her mother would likely respond by cutting ties with the school, no doubt leading it to be potentially closed for good and put Cheerile out of a job. So overall, she isn't completely apathetic to some extent because (despite being at the mercy of a wealthy benefactor whose daughter is known for bullying) she wouldn't be able to bring cheer to her students if she cannot teach.

Fall Weather Friends

• It's implied repeatedly that earth ponies are stronger and/or have more endurance than pegasi, in general. After the Running of the Leaves, when Twilight mentioned most of the contestants being worn out by the end of the race, the camera cuts to a trio of exhausted ponies... all three are pegasi. For all their mistakes and shameless copypasting, the background pony animators sometimes do something especially clever.
  • Also in the Running of the Leaves, Pinkie Pie's announcements of "It's Applejack...it's Rainbow Dash!" seem to be out of sync with who's actually ahead. But, since Applejack and Rainbow Dash have unknowingly fallen behind the others, she's actually announcing who's behind.
• So why was Pinkie Pie announcing the Running Of The Leaves instead of participating in it directly? Because she can run faster than Rainbow Dash can fly, and if she was racing, Twilight, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash wouldn't have stood a chance which would have made the rivalry between Applejack and Rainbow Dash completely obsolete.
  • In that case, they would have been trying for second place. Pinkie Pie probably DID try participating once, the first time. And no pony wanted a repeat of the damage caused by the wake of a pony running at supersonic speeds.
  • Alternatively, it's because Pinkie Pie is powered by Rule of Funny and her winning would be too predictable to be funny so she can't even try.
• A lot of people know of the Shout-Out in "Fall Weather Friends", but take a closer look at Twilight's cutie mark. There are 42 points. Either it wasn't really a shout out, or it's been there since episode 1…
• Twilight Sparkle had read in a book about pacing her efforts and then make a sprint near the end of the race. But why did she ever read books about sport? Because, either by her own smarts or by Celestia's advice, she knows that by keeping herself fit and healthy her magic wouldn't need to compensate for whatever physical or health issue she would otherwise get.
  • Incidentally, in "The Return of Harmony" she got in a scuffle with the Discorded Applejack and Pinkie Pie, two Earth Ponies (thus physically stronger than an Unicorn, with one of them being basically the strongest female pony in town) and won. Other hint she keeps herself in shape (and that she knows the pony equivalent of Judo, perhaps)?

Suited for Success

• In "Suited for Success" one might look at the "second try" dresses and wonder, how can they look at that in a mirror and think it looks good? Then one remembers that they go around naked most of the time! It makes sense that they don't have any taste, since they don't have to exercise it on a daily basis.
• Rarity is able to make dozens of perfectly tailored dresses in a single night, with nothing more than a sewing machine, a few dress forms, and gentle telekinesis for the tricky bits. But she has a big advantage over human dressmakers: almost every pony in Equestria has the same body model!
  • EXTREMELY the same. To the point where one member of the Mane Six impersonating another is a frequent plot point: see Rarity herself passing for Applejack in Sisterhooves Social. A dazzling urbanite fashion pony who, with but a sopping of mud, can fool her own sister into believing she's a hay-bale-heaving, tree-shaking country girl? Why, the only thing that could be more absurd than that would be a skintight outfit allowing the country girl, a librarian, a baker, and a zookeeper to pass themselves off as the same person...or a bit of makeup allowing the worst athlete in town to impersonate the best...
• Rainbow Dash's gala gown has some distinctly Greek overtones: the grape-bunch broach, the sandals that weave around her ankles, and especially the laurel wreath headpiece. And where does the original pegasus myth come from?
  • Not to mention the Spartan-style helmet her overwrought gown had.
  • Also: The Classical Greek/Roman architectural influences throughout Dash's hometown of Cloudsdale.
  • The Pegasus armor in Hearth's Warming Eve is clearly modeled after the Roman Centurion.
• Many have noted that Rainbow Dash's "bad" dress doesn't look anywhere near as bad as the others and is actually pretty cool, if inappropriate for the occasion. This is because despite her insisting to make things cooler, she had the least actual creative involvement and so Rarity managed to make something that was at least tolerable out of her demands.
• At the start of the episode, Applejack is seen walking into Rarity's shop with Twilight. At first, this seems like some sort of way to make Rarity think of making dresses for all her friends, but that role could easily be filled by Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie. For that matter, doesn't Rainbow Dash fill that role? So why is Applejack with Twilight? Because we're given hints in other episodes (Ticket Master, Applebuck Season) that Twilight hangs out with Applejack more than any other of the mane cast. Applejack is even the one that counsels her on Pinkie Sense during "Feeling Pinkie Keen".
  • In a similar vein, Rainbow Dash calls out to Pinkie Pie in "Over a Barrel" and Pinkie Pie is the only one of the mane cast to follow her. Why? Because they decided they liked each other beyond just playing pranks.
  • The final pair (Rarity and Fluttershy) have their relationship expressed throughout a lot of Green Isn't Your Color, especially at the beginning when Rarity mentions that she and Fluttershy spend a day together at the spa every week.
    • This adds in even more Fridge Brilliance in the second episode, where, after the cliff collapse, Fluttershy saves Rarity, Rainbow Dash saves Pinkie Pie, and Applejack saves Twilight. In the second episode, they hinted at who would be the closest of friends within the larger friendship group.
• A few fans have actually analyzed Fluttershy's complaints, and found them to be largely nonsensical, nicely explaining that while she understands sewing, she doesn't know much about design.
• As the song "Art of the Dress" goes on, it becomes slightly more nonsensical and deviated from the plot, culmlating in the line "Make sure that it stays within our budget." There is subtle leaning on the fourth wall here, as the song — and the episode as a whole — is a commentary on the issues that creatives face when dealing with clients. Rarity represents the stressed out creative trying to please her clients, while the others take up the archetypes of typical cilente, from the hands-off "I'll know it when I see it" Rainbow Dash to the overly-exact Twilight Sparkle. In this light, the secondary moral of the story can be considered to be "Let creative people have their breathing room."
  • It's also a subtle Take That! at the Hasbro management's interference in the creation process and demands for merchandising-oriented additions to cast and story.
• It makes sense why people call the first song 'Art of the Dress', but call the reprise: 'Sewing it Together'. At first Rarity was making art, but the second time, she really was sewing things together to make the dresses at that point.

Feeling Pinkie Keen

• When the mane cast was confronted by a monster, it was a Hydra. Since it has four heads, Fluttershy couldn't stare it down. When Discord hypnotized Fluttershy, he did so by touching the top of her head, rather than staring into her eyes. If I remember correctly, when the cranky Ursa Minor attacked, Fluttershy wasn't there. If any of this were different, she would have stared it down.
  • The addition of Discord in this theory is sort of negated once season 3 chugs along.
• The reason Twilight's machine failed to analyze Pinkie sense in Feeling Pinkie Keen? They were standing in a basement without moving. That meant nothing whatsoever was going to happen, so there was nothing for Pinkie sense to predict!
• When running from the hydra the group has to jump across stone pillars to escape. Fluttershy is the first to go and says to herself "It's just a hop, skip and a jump." Which is something Pinkie told her back in "Dragonshy" Why couldn't she just fly across? The same reason in "Dragonshy": her wings lock up when she's scared. And why couldn't Twilight teleport across when the pillars collapsed when she does it all the time in "Applebuck Season"? As we've seen throughout the series, when Twilight is stressed (end of Lesson Zero, Cutie Mark Chronicles, The "failsafe spell" in Return of Harmony, the failed first teleport in Dragon Quest) she has a harder time controlling magic, and it usually just doesn't work.
• I think this is why the doozy in "Feeling Pinkie Keen" was Twilight believing in Pinkie's pinkie sense instead of the hydra. The hydra was foreshadowed to make the viewers expect the hydra to appear. Twilight giving in wasn't.
  • Also, a doozy means "Something outstanding or unique of its kind". While a hydra attack may not be at all common, it CAN happen more than once. That's why it wasn't the doozy Pinkie predicted.
  • Pinkie Pie described the doozy as "something you never expected is going to happen". Given some of the stuff she had faced before, there's no reason for Twilight to expect NOT to be attacked by a hydra. Twilight was pretty clearly expecting never to give in, though.
• So why did poor Twilight suffer physical hell while trying to figure out the Pinkie Sense? Elementary, my dear tropers: if she hadn't been led by her own ignorance and impatience, she could have avoided a great deal of it just like her friends did.
• Pinkie Pie's explanation of why she didn't tell Twilight she knew about her spying ("because that would have spoiled the secret") makes a little bit more sense after "Green Isn't Your Color", where she believes that sharing secrets is the fastest way to lose a friend "FOREVER!"
• Wondering why Twilight has a black eye, two broken (apparently) legs, and a whole lot of bee stings and is fine the next scene and are looking for a more satisfying answer than Toon Physics? Simple. She went to see Zecora and got cured.
• This episode is often criticised to have a hidden agenda, and to be a Science Vs Religion storyline (though, a more accurate term would be "Science Vs Belief" as no references to God or anyone or anything actually religious took place in the episode). However, the episode's moral can actually be taken to be just as much "Pro Science" as it is "Pro Belief". Twilight attempted to prove that Pinkie Sense was fake - how did she go about it? By completely ignoring all the evidence that it was true, despite her own scientific research proving it to exist. She basically spent the whole episode ignoring her research once it turned against her, and backed up her own views by insisting that she was right - that isn't good science at all, so the moral isn't "science is wrong" it was don't insist that you're right when you've already proven to yourself that you're not.
  • Also some fans act as though Twilight was "punished by the universe" due to her lack of faith, when an alternative explanation is that she was simply paying the price for not taking the warning of Pinkie Sense seriously, and not protecting herself (she knows the warning is for "an open door", and she promptly puts herself in the place where that would affect her) way to add to this explanation is to compare Pinkie Sense to ways real life is "sensed" - a cow sitting down is a sign that it will rain soon, so we can assume the cows can sense weather changes better than humans can, when this was first discovered if anyone reacted the way Twilight did, and chose to go outside when he/she knew the cows were sitting down, it would be his/her fault if he/she got caught in the rain.

Sonic Rainboom

• As I watched 'Sonic Rainboom', I started wondering why Rainbow Dash was picked on despite being the only pony to ever do a Sonic Rainboom. Then it hit me: she did it once, by accident. She's never been able to pull it off since. It was a one-off fluke, and an accident isn't going to earn her huge amounts of social standing, especially since: 1, most ponies probably didn't see it; 2, she can't replicate it; and 3, most athletic ponies or fans of such would probably prize a pony who could do tricks repeatedly and flawlessly, rather than someone with a long history of screwing up. To be fair, the Sonic Rainboom is quite hard, but Dash's speed and stamina meant she probably should have been able to do it before.
  • Most of her peers would probably dismiss her claims of having done a mythical flight maneuver as just empty boasting, since she can't back up her claim. They're essentially picking on the weird kid who's trying to get attention by making stuff up. (Given that they were busy racing, not too many ponies would have looked at what Rainbow Dash was doing, and would not have immediately connected the sudden explosion with anything she had done.)
  • "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" establishes that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were friends as fillies, and that Fluttershy was also a favored target for bullying from those same colts. Rainbow would assume the role of Fluttershy's bodyguard, intercepting the bullies and running interference whenever she caught them tormenting Fluttershy. The race in which she performed the first Rainboom was one such occasion. So the fact that those colts are bullying Rainbow Dash instead of Fluttershy was entirely deliberate.
    • It is clear, however, that the hits Rainbow took for Fluttershy did do some damage. She'll go on to have confidence issues throughout the series after this episode as part of her Character Development.
• Why does Pinkie Pie try to eat Rainbows? Because it might taste like Zap Apple Jam.
  • Or it might just be because she is Pinkie.
• In "Call of the Cutie", it's Rainbow Dash who encourages Apple Bloom to actively try to make her cutie mark appear, as opposed to everyone else who assures her it will just happen. This episode reveals why Rainbow thinks that; she DID make her cutie mark appear. That may not have been her goal, but she was actively engaging in a new activity when it manifested, so of course she thinks that a pony who wants one should go out and try lots of new things. The other ponies, by contrast, all had their marks appear as a side effect of Rainbow Dash's actions, so they take a more passive, "wait and see" approach.
• After Rarity loses her wings, you never see her standing on a cloud - she's either held up by flying ponies, or sitting in the balloon. This makes perfect sense - Twilight never cast the cloudwalking spell on her because she already had wings. (While Rarity can be seen cloudwalking earlier, this is obviously an ability of the wings, as she also airwalks during the contest.)
  • Anything with wings can stand on clouds, as seen with animals in other episodes.
• When Rainbow Dash is trying to do "phase one" in the competition, her movements seem to be following the background music Rarity had put on. Perhaps this contributes to her losing her pace and running into the column.
• Why do Rarity's magical wings look like butterfly wings? Because Twilight's magic spell looked like a caterpillar cocoon!
• Why does Twilight Sparkle believe she may not be able to pull off the spell to give wings to non-Pegasi in spite of her immense talent with magic? Because she knows it's similar to becoming an Alicorn, and the only Pony who has ever pulled off that spell was Princess Celestia.
• Why did both Twilight and Celestia fail to use their powerful telekinesis to stop Rarity's fall? Well, remember what happened to Gwen Stacy? Yep, they both feared they'd accidentally snap Rarity's neck.
• Rainbow obviously asked Fluttershy to be her cheerleader because she was the only pegasus of the Mane Six, since she clearly didn't think the others would find a way to get to Cloudsdale. But after seeing Hurricane Fluttershy, maybe there's more to it. In the beginning, she "trained" Flutter in cheering and tried to push her limits because even then she wanted her to build up some confidence.
• What is Rarity's single greatest character defect? Well, it was on full Technicolor display here: vanity. But she clearly wasn't setting out to be a showoff; she felt the appearance of her new wings would lend itself perfectly to creating a rainbow display not unlike the Sonic Rainboom. Unfortunately, she took it a teense too far and got her own Wile E. Coyote moment in the process.

Stare Master

• When Fluttershy tries to sleep on her living room couch in "Stare Master", we see that its back is higher at one end than the other. It's a fainting couch, which makes sense because we know Fluttershy is prone to fainting.
  • Okay, so how did she GET that couch? As pointed out in examples relating to "Suited For Success," she's best friends with Rarity, who also faints as part of her "Drama Queen" persona. Rarity would understand the value of having a fainting couch, and she is the Element of Generosity...
    • Pinkie Pie has fainting couches hidden all over Ponyville in case of fainting emergencies.

The Show Stoppers

• In "The Show Stoppers", the Cutie Mark Crusaders are shown Comically Missing the Point about finding their Cutie Marks by sticking to what they know and like already. Instead they keep focusing on trying different things in their search for their talents and ignoring their natural gifts. Why? Because the kids don't consider those things to be their talents. None of them regard their gifts as anything special or noteworthy because, while they know it's not the case intellectually, they regard their real talents in a "I Thought Everyone Could Do That" sense. They don't realize their building / singing / athleticism are their special talents.
• In "The Show Stoppers", Apple Bloom fixes up Applejack's broken-down tree house all by herself, no problem. So where was that talent when she and her friends were fixing Fluttershy's table in "Stare Master"? It makes a little more sense when you consider that Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo don't share Apple Bloom's talent (especially not Sweetie Belle), and Scootaloo was apparently working at cross-purposes with the other two ("We were making a table?"), which lead to a classic "too many cooks spoil the broth" situation.
  • Moreover, "too many cooks" seems to be tripping them up even worse as the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They do EVERYTHING together, and the result is always a disaster.
  • They didn't realize that was their special talent. They do it all the time, and are used to it, so they don't realize they're good at it. Just as Peppermint Twist was making candy for the longest time, she didn't realize it was her special talent until a bit later and she got her mark.
  • If the other Applejack family members have Apple-based cutie marks, and Apple Bloom's talent is hinted to be craftsmanship, what does that have to do with apples— oh. Wood.
  • Also, look at Apple Bloom's face when her friends say who wants a picture of a hammer on their flank. She looks like a mix between terrified and upset.
    • Yeah, children around that age are very changable in their desires. They can want to be a fireman one week and an artist the next, and enjoy and try a lot of stuff which probably wouldn't have turned out to be my cutie mark had such things applied in real life. Nobody necessarily has just one talent in life, either.
  • This makes sense - Twist mentions that she made those peppermint candies a lot, but it was only when she realized it was her special talent that she got her cutie mark.

A Dog and Pony Show

• Of course Rarity's "whining" was painful to the Diamond Dogs, with their canine sense of hearing.
• It would seem odd that a bunch of ponies could easily pull big carts filled with gems while the diamond dogs struggle to pull them, despite being bigger and muscular. However, horses in Real Life are generally stronger than dogs, and can therefore pull heavier objects easier than dogs.
• Why a diva-like unicorn like Rarity, who makes a big deal whenever she gets dirty, even if just a bit, still proves being quite a competent physical fighter whenever the Mane Six have to battle an enemy, and actually can carry impressive weights when necessary? This episode show us that she mines herself the jewels she uses for her outfits, and this is a tiring, dirty activity, and before Spike moving to Ponyville, she probably had to do it without any assistance, so she had to build up a strong body for this.
• I was a bit puzzled when Rarity so easily agreed to find gems for Diamond Dogs, they kidnapped her and demanded to do a work for free after all. Then I remembered that her Element of Harmony is Generosity. Of course she would agree to do a favor. If Diamond Dogs just asked nicely and didn't try to imprison her, they'd ended up with much more profit.
• Given that Rarity is the only pony the Diamond Dogs are known to have captured, it may seem questionable that they'd have bridles and harnesses available. Once you realize that they can also be used to muzzle and harness Diamond Dogs, however…

Green Isn't Your Color

• Pinkie Pie's insistence on keeping secrets. It actually makes a lot of sense when you realize that not keeping them defeats the purpose of throwing surprise parties.
  • I thought it had more to do with "pinky swears".
  • One interpretation of Pinkie Pie's character is that she was around for Discord's reign (which is why she grew up on a rock farm), and the reason she's so strange is because Discord made her weird to cause distress to her family (making her immortal as well, which is also a terrible fate for a pony like Pinkie Pie). What does all this have to do with her focus on keeping secrets? Well, imagine the reactions of a town if they learn through her friends that she was touched by the embodiment of chaos. Another is that she's descended from Discord in some way, which also explains the Breaking the Fourth Wall.
• In "Green Isn't Your Color", Rarity seems to keep her cucumbers on her eyes much longer than it would seem required and literally emoted through them. Then you realize that this was foreshadowing her "green eyed monster" feelings that she was going to get later in the episode.
• For those who saw Photo Finish's cutie mark, you might be wondering why it's exactly the same as Twilight Sparkle, who earned hers through a powerful display of magic (while Finish herself has no powers at all.) Remember her occupation? Her job is basically to bring out the magic in her fashion shows. Or, as she puts it....
  • This has been confirmed by Word of God to be an animation error. Photo finish's actual cutie mark has not been revealed in canon.
    Photo Finish: ZE MAGICKS!!
  • Photo Finish is a fashion photographer. Her cutie mark, while similar to Twilight's, also resembles the flash of a camera bulb.
• I was confused for a fair bit over the title of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Green Isn't Your Color". I kept thinking, "But Fluttershy wears a green dress to the Grand Galloping Gala..." Then it hit me. The episode is about Rarity being jealous... or green with envy. -fierystage
  • Also remember, in her little bout against Trixie in episode 6, she was temporarily given green hair, which clashed greatly with her overall design.
• The door to Fluttershy's dressing room in Green is Not Your Color has a small hole in it, for small creatures like mice to enter in. It's a minor, but very nice detail.
• Fluttershy becoming a model in Green Isn't Your Color might lead to the conclusion that she's the most attractive pony In-Universe. Fridge Brilliance sets in once you find out that in Real Life, as children supermodels were often tall and skinny compared to their peers, just like filly Fluttershy in The Cutie Mark Chronicles flashback.
• When you think about it, Rarity being passed over for Fluttershy could be seen as karma. As in "Sonic Rainboom," Rarity basically stole the attention away from Rainbow Dash with her new wings. (The reason why she was there in the first place was to support her in the Young Fliers competition), and now Fluttershy (inadvertently) stole the attention away from her.
  • By the same token, Fluttershy's nervousness become worse because of Photo Finish's describing all the ponies out there about to watch her is just as karmic since that's what she did to Rainbow Dash in Sonic Rainboom.

Over a Barrel

• Read this, especially the third paragraph about conflict being resolved by sharing. Then watch "Over a Barrel", specifically Pinkie Pie's song. It's basically a giant Take That! against that idea.
  • Except the conflict is, in the end, resolved by sharing. So Pinkie was right all along! She was just a bit annoying about the idea... kinda like the previous MLP cartoons, I suppose.
    • Well that's basically it, isn't it? I mean when you get down to it the childish morals that pop up in most kids cartoons (don't be greedy, don't judge somebody by their looks, don't be ill mannered about generous gifts, etc) are all pretty solid. Even adults know this. The problem most kids shows have is that they're so sappy and sweet about it, and don't respect the fact that the real world is more complicated than the ideals. Lauren Faust knows that, can poke fun at it, and respects that characters with flaws are more relatable, and believable than the sugar-sweet expies of characters, whose 'adventures' in no way solve the problems of little girls today. Sharing with the nasty Diamond Tiara-esque people they encounter at school isn't going to necessarily make them nice straight away, and being open minded isn't going to automatically solve the prejudices they encounter around them. Basically, we trusted the ending of Over a Barrel more after Pinkie's song was terrible and everyone missed the point, because it demonstrated that we know it's not as simple as singing a pretty song to fix everyone's problems, but the solution itself is still there IN the song. Essentially, the show doesn't treat small girls like naive idiots.
    • Another noteworthy distinction: The buffalos refuse Pinkie's plea because there's nothing in it for them - it's their land that's been taken, and sharing it with the ponies that took it in the first place means legitimately giving it up without anything in return. But when they add free pies (which they apparently never eaten before) to the deal, it becomes much more palatable. More often than not, most people only agree to share if they can get some kind of advantage from it.
• There seems to be a writing slip where Twilight says "anybody" rather than "anypony." Except she's referring to both ponies and buffalo.
• In "Over A Barrel" Rainbow Dash yells for Pinkie Pie to get away while she holds off the entire herd of buffalo currently surrounding them. At first it sounds like empty bravado, but then we see just how much damage she can do in "Lesson Zero." Those buffalo really were going to get held off. Hard.
• Why does Fluttershy want to be a tree? Trees serve as shelter to animals.
• Why were ponies pulling a train that had a steam locomotive? The locomotive had run out of fuel.
  • While Word of God hand waves the horse-drawn locomotive at the beginning, it may be logically explained as the locomotive running out of coal or water, which forced the operators to get out and draw it themselves.
• This episode is actually an allegory of the conflicts between indigenous Americans and settlers. Notice the title of "chief" given to the buffalo leader, as well as the name Little Deer and the feather headdresses? Also, the ponies' accents and "cowboy/cowgirl" behaviors.
• There appears to be a writing slip when Twilight says "anybody" instead of "anypony," until you realize she's referring to both ponies and buffalo.
• The infamous "wingboner". Watching the show further indicates that it's actually an instinctive threat display, rather than an erotic one. Avians flare their wings when startled. Dash was horrified along with everyone else rather than turned on.

A Bird in the Hoof

• Celestia having a phoenix is rather appropriate - considering that they're associated with the sun.
  • Not to mention the fact that a phoenix is reborn over and over again, so that would be the perfect companion for someone who's lived for over 1000 years.
• Banishment, and then being imprisoned in the place you were banished to? What a crazy idea! Except that's exactly what happened to Nightmare Moon...
  • And Tirek who was banished to and then imprisoned in Tartarus.
• Rarity wears her Gala dress to the lunch with Celestia in A Bird In The Hoof, and is quite protective of it. Her behavior comes across as being a prissy fashionista, but then you realize her friends made the dress for her as an apology for ruining her reputation and career with their disastrous "dresses" in Suited For Success. Not only is she very protective of their dress, she's showing off their work to the Princess herself. Now that's a friend!
• Of course the guards trusted Twilight's word as to who was on the guest list. They know that as long as the CO's sister isn't under too much pressure, she's trustworthy.
• It makes sense to name a hummingbird after Ernest Hemingway. Both are known for drinking constantly.
• When Fluttershy takes Philomena's temperature, the thermometer reads she has a very high fever. Perhaps it's because she's a phoenix, ergo a firebird?

The Cutie Mark Chronicles

• In The Cutie Mark Chronicles, Fluttershy is a bit taller than all of the other main ponies at the time of the Sonic Rainboom. Why? As she said to Pinkie Pie in Griffon the Brush-Off, "I'm a year older than you..."
  • Also from that episode, for those who've seen Feeling Pinkie Keen, you might've wondered why Pinkie's "Pinkie Sense" didn't kick in prior to the sonic rainboom. Well, consider the fact that Twilight was able to pass her entrance exam the same day due to the rainboom throwing her magic into high gear. In that sense, that ended up working for Twilight in the same vein as the radioactive spider for Peter Parker. So, maybe that also caused Pinkie's young brain to be all scrambled and give her that "Pinkie Sense" of hers. It would also explain how she ended up with her current personality...
• As of Cutie Mark Chronicles, we know what it's supposed to look like when Celestia raises the sun. Now go back to episode 2. Celestia descends from the sun in a ball of light, which is NOT a normal part of the sun-raising. Clearly, Nightmare Moon trapped her in the sun, just as she had been imprisoned in the moon!
• It was Rainbow Dash's friendship with Fluttershy that caused her to race to defend her honor, leading to her first Sonic Rainboom, leading to Twilight Sparkle being taken in as Celestia's student, leading to Twilight learning about Nightmare Moon and being sent to Ponyville by Celestia, leading to the mane cast saving Equestria.
  • This is taken up to eleven when you realize that Rainbow Dash's friendship causing the Sonic Rainboom also caused Twilight to get her Cutie Mark, and discover her potential and talent for magic, which is proof of what Princess Celestia is trying to teach Twilight in the first place, which is that friendship is magic.
• Why is it that the remainder of the mane 6 witnessed the Sonic Rainboom in the same-named episode, but didn't make the connection to themselves until the present-day segment of "The Cutie Mark Chronicles"? Because each pony only noticed the sonic boom (Rarity, Twilight, Fluttershy) or the rainbow (Pinkie Pie and Applejack) but never both at once. Because light travels faster than sound.
• This troper always felt that Twilight Sparkle simply levitating the magic school teachers was a bit of a cop-out after turning her parents into plants and Spike into a full-grown dragon, but then it occurred to me - this way, they're still in a condition to bear witness to the events and grade her accordingly. Otherwise Princess Celestia might have been treading on some thin ice and red tape in trying to get Twilight Sparkle enrolled regardless.
  • Also Twilight had no control over her powers in that instant, so her magic school teachers probably just got lucky.
  • Keep in mind that these are teachers at a school of magic, most likely pretty powerful magic-users themselves. That they were unable to counter Twilight's magic shows how powerful she is.
    • To build onto the above point: they were employed by Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. This is a school full of young unicorns with a lot of raw power and/or talent, but not a lot of experience and/or control over it. Attacks of Power Incontinence happen all the time, so thus the school would have countermeasures in place to protect the school's staff and students. Twilight being able to levitate her proctors at all meant she was bypassing some of the most powerful defensive magic available to unicorns, as a young filly with next to no experience at all.
• The Mane Cast all earned their cutie marks after various moments of epiphany. However, all these moments had more to do with inner character than one specific talent — Applejack's love for home and family, Fluttershy's need to nurture and be needed, Rarity's drive to bring out "spectacular" beauty, Twilight's love for magic and knowledge in general, Pinkie Pie's need to bring happiness to others, and Rainbow Dash's competitiveness. The Cutie Mark Crusaders aren't without marks because they don't recognize their talents; to a certain extent, they probably do. It's just that there's much, much more to it.
  • Also, you have to consider the fact that Sweetie Belle already knows she has musical talent, but decides to avoid that path for multiple possible reasons other than her desire to follow in her big sister Rarity's footsteps. The first reason is the fact that she obviously suffers from stage fright, especially around strangers which is completely understandable considering she's so young. The other reason is that since she already is the closest to knowing about their talent, she might think that if she gets her Cutie Mark too much sooner than the other Cutie Mark Crusaders, her friends might ostracize her because she already has her talent, while they're still looking for their own, much like how one person might get into a good college while the rest of their friends aren't so lucky, and might be treated differently as a result.
  • "Cutie Pox" makes it very unlikely that whichever Cutie Mark Crusader gets her cutie mark first will be ostracized from the others. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were both very supportive of Apple Bloom, even when she got two cutie marks.
• Scootaloo's relentless respect of Rainbow Dash might seem like the excess zeal of a young fangirl, but she might be right in wanting to ask for Rainbow Dash's help specifically when you consider the fact that Rainbow Dash performed the Sonic Rainboom and earned not only her own Cutie Mark, but also helped the other mane cast earn theirs in the process.
• In "The Cutie-Mark Chronicles", neither Applejack's Aunt and Uncle Orange, nor any of their party guests, have actual New York accents. Instead, they all have affected Mid-Atlantic accents. This might seem like a simple mistake or a case of the creators assuming Viewers Are Morons, but it actually makes perfect sense: the Oranges and their guests are nouveaux riches arrivists. Of course they'd affect a snobbish accent, just as they've affected a snobbish attitude. In reality, they are probably nowhere near as cultured or sophisticated as they pretend, and are desperately afraid that somepony will see through them.
  • This is supported by their reactions when AJ brings up roosters. Look at their reactions: almost like they were horrified someone would bring up something that would even hint that they aren't what they pretend they are. Makes one of the guests asking what a rooster is into a new light as well. Even if they'd never seen a chicken feather in their lives, how can you claim to not even know what a rooster is? Cuz they're in denial like crazy!
• Another example from "Cutie Mark Chronicles": Applejack's cousins the Oranges live in Manehattan, the Equestrian equivalent of Manhattan, obviously. Manhattan was originally settled by the Dutch, who at that time were ruled by the House of Orange. Note that the flag of New York City today has an orange bar for precisely that reason. The pun is complicated by the fact that New York is also known as the "Big Apple."
  • This actually hits Genius Bonus when you consider the term "Mixing Apples And Oranges".
  • It also begs the question: are the Oranges really farmers themselves at heart? It's possible they know how to survive and feel perfectly comfortable in both worlds.
• Why does Spike claim he came out of a green and purple egg in the first ep when it was just a purple egg in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles"? Because he remembers that egg from the inside.
• Remember Applejack's nervousness about her table manners in the previous episode? Or her reluctance to wear a dress in "Suited for Success" and "Look Before you Sleep"? Now you know where it comes from.
• When we first see Rainbow Dash in this episode, she's flying incredibly fast, as shown by the rainbow contrail she left behind. So how did she know that Fluttershy was being bullied and needed help? Well, it's been established that she tends to notice everything when she's flying. She most likely saw Fluttershy stumble and knew the bullies were going to come insult her.
• The Mane Six's cutie marks seem to correspond nicely with the Elements of Harmony.
  • Applejack: Her cutie mark came when she decided to stop pretending to be something she's not, i.e. she stopped lying to herself. (Honesty)
  • Fluttershy: She got hers when she comforted the animals who were frightened by the Sonic Rainboom. (Kindness)
  • Rarity: She could've easily kept all of those gems to herself, but chose to give them to someone who really needed them (Generosity)
  • Twilight: She discovered her talent for magic and her first real friend (Spike). And while her magic was going out of control and everyone was freaking out, only Princess Celestia extended the hoof of ''friendship". (Magic)
  • Pinkie Pie: She got her cutie mark when she smiled for the very first time and decided to spread happiness and smiles all around her. (Laughter)
  • Rainbow Dash: She got her cutie mark after competing determinedly to defend the honor of one of her friends. (Loyalty)
    • Double brilliance: As their cutie marks represent their element, the actual elements changed shaped to match.
• When Scootaloo says she wants to hear how "the best flyer in Equestria" got her cutie mark, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle think she means Fluttershy. Sounds like Comically Missing the Point, right? Well, what if they were using a different metric? For example, when was the last time you saw Fluttershy crash?
• Scootaloo's famous Selective Obliviousness about the fact that getting your cutie mark requires you to figure out "who you are" is only natural when one remembers her hero-worship of Rainbow Dash. As Scootaloo makes it quite clear, she wants to be just like Rainbow Dash, and how does Rainbow's story depict her getting her cutie mark? By simply going so fast that she made the Sonic Rainboom! Naturally, a young tomboy like Scootaloo figures that getting a cutie mark is simply a matter of finding what you're good at, because that's how Rainbow's story makes it sound like Rainbow got hers — furthermore, if that's how Scootaloo gets her cutie mark, then that's an added connection to Rainbow Dash. Scootaloo is too young to pick up on the fact that Rainbow underwent an epiphany just like all of the other five mares of the Mane 6, and Rainbow herself is far too much of a female jock to be that introspective about it, much less talk about in such a "mushy" fashion.
  • Furthermore, since Scootaloo seems to be the most dominant of the Crusaders in terms of deciding what they do and how they operate, that's why neither Apple Bloom nor Sweetie Belle seem to digest the subtle hints from all of the stories they've heard; Scootaloo didn't, and so she just keeps pushing them to keep trying random activities and stunts. They can't get a moment to stop, think and reflect on how that isn't the right way to go about it at all.
• Spike's adult form looks drastically different from other Dragons in the series, as well as his own "aged" form later when he goes on a hoarding rampage. However, it's likely that he wasn't aged, but enlarged by Twilight, which would mean he kept his baby proportions and simply became the size of an adult dragon.
• When Rainbow Dash does her first Sonic Rainboom, it makes the main cast find out who they truly are and define themselves, in ways they possibly might have not found out otherwise. The show's main point is to teach to be who you truly are, with the characters having those specific personalities. So Pinkie Pie's conclusion on that being how Equestria (as we know it) was made is right in an strange half-meta way.
  • That and they saved Equestria from Nightmare Moon.
  • Related to this...you know how happy and excited filly Pinkie was when she saw the rainbow? Well, that seemed more excited than she was to see Twilight for the first time in the first episode. So why did she claim she had never been that excited before? Because it was the first episode—making that statement also right in an odd way.
  • It is probably more of an expression than the strict truth. You might get into a fight with you boss of girlfriend and state "I have never been so angry" or after a long day "I have never been so tired" It isn't the literal truth, but an exaggeration to highlight the intensity, basically meaning "very Angry" or "very tired", or in Pinkie's case "very excited"
  • Another interpretation to Pinkie Pie's bizarre non-sequitur is that she really did give the Cutie Mark Crusaders her own bizarre version of how Equestria was made but the narration just cut to Pinkie Pie's actual cutie mark origin story so that audience gets something that makes more sense in context. Then once it's done, cuts back to Pinkie concluding her own very confusing tale.
    • They only looked confused after she concluded it like that.
• Pinkie Pie regards the story of how Equestria was made and how she got her cutie mark as two separate stories. But she got her cutie mark in both of them. However, the flashback never actually shows Pinkie seeing her cutie mark. Perhaps she simply didn't notice it because she was having too much fun, and therefore assumed she didn't get it until later.
• Many have pointed out the Fridge Horror of if the the butterflies hadn't caught Fluttershy...but remember one thing: what is Fluttershy's special talent? Talking to animals. What talent did she get a Cutie Mark for not FIVE MINUTES LATER? TALKING TO ANIMALS. It's entirely possible the Butterflies weren't there by chance, they were there because her screaming and wanting help called them!
• Some complain that the "Mare on the Moon" should be present when the Moon is seen in the flashbacks. However, the moon is in a very thin crescent when it is seen. Why would the "Mare" face be the one facing it?

Owl's Well That Ends Well

• I was wondering why Spike became so insanely jealous of Owlowiscious so quickly, but then I realised that every dragon so far is VERY territorial and Spike probably considers Twilight and the gang 'his' without realizing it! When he thought Owlowiscious was taking their attention from him his natural instincts kicked in and he became furious!
• More Owl-based Brilliance: According to Twilight, Owlowiscious was hired so Twilight would have someone to help her out during night (in itself Brilliance due to an owl's nocturnal status). So why was Owlowiscious so keen to help Twi during the day? Because the other reason he was hired was because Spike was exhausted from overworking... the owl was putting in some extra hours to give Spike a chance to catch up on lost sleep! Shame Spike didn't see it that way, but the road to strife is paved with good intentions...
  • Maybe that's why Spike's plan to frame Owlowiscious was so ineffectual. He wasn't thinking clearly due to sleep deprivation!
• Concerning Owlowiscious, and Spike's behavior and attitude toward him. Twilight Sparkle hatched and raised Spike, making her his surrogate mother of sorts. For many years, Spike was her only 'child'. Then Owlowiscious comes along. Spike gets incredibly jealous, and even states that Twilight doesn't love him anymore. His behaviors and beliefs about Owlowiscious are symptoms of something every child gets; he's just jealous of the 'new baby'. Sure, Spike can be smart, level-headed, and even insightful, but he's still just a child, and is vulnerable to all the afflictions of one.
• In the "Owl's Well That Ends Well" scene with the ponies all looking at Spike at the same time and smiling, Pinkie petting him, etc... it's clear that Spike was enjoying the attention. It's interrupted when Twilight says that's enough, but perhaps the reason she said that was because she doesn't want him to get too used to that much attention from them. When Spike does get used to it, seeing that attention go to an owl instead makes him jealous enough to temporarily become a villain. (Albeit an ineffectual one.) Perhaps that kind of addiction to their attention is what Twilight was trying to prevent...
• Spike meets an adult dragon who tries to kill him. While Spike had just eaten part of his hoard, it still seemed excessive that he would start trying to kill Spike after giving him only a token effort to explain himself. And then comes "Secret of My Excess," and we see that if Spike had tried to claim that hoard, he would have reached adulthood almost instantly. That makes the adult dragon's attempt to kill Spike a reasonable, if grim, attempt to fend off a competitor before he becomes a problem.
  • That Spike doesn't decide to even take that token moment and make a phoney excuse and run for it, and instead makes an ineffectual stand off with the dragon could be seen as Foreshadowing of this.
• Quills and Sofas is a Severely Specialized Store that sells exactly two items: quills and sofas. At first glance, it seems to be a throwaway gag that revolves around the store selling two things that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. . .until you remember that feathers and down are occasionally used to stuff furniture. It's not unreasonable to assume he makes a little extra money selling the quill quality feathers that he separates from his furniture stuffing.

Party of One

• In Party of One, when Pinkie Pie starts to believe her friends have abandoned and she sinks into depression, her mane flattens and her color goes drab, reverting back to her look prior to gaining her Cutie Mark. Without a Party, there is no Pinkie Pie; just Pinkamena Diane Pie.
  • Note that when this happens she (particularly her mane and tail) deflates and inflates like a balloon (complete with sound effects).
• Also in Party of One Spike admits to using all the hot water in Ponyville to take a long bath. At first this would seem like an over-exaggeration for the sake of a joke (all the hot water for an entire town?) until you remember that Spike is a fire-breathing dragon, and dragons both like and need a lot of heat.
• If you take your time out of the entire Pinkie Pie meltdown, the entire episode is very caricature-like and it's not just Pinkie. Twilight tiptoeing around in broad daylight with accompanying sound effects; Rainbow dash drawing a watch in her leg right in front of Pinkie and making excuses to leave with a straight face; Applejack closing the barn door in Pinkie face and the poorly done construction noises; Pinkie sitting on Rainbow Dash's head, squishing it flat into the floor ... it seems pretty out of context. Then you realize that in every episode revolving around Pinkie or ones in which she played a large part (Feeling Pinkie Keen, Green Isn't Your Color), the entire universe starts incorporating the laws of the Looney Tunes universe in a very meta way.
  • Or, in equally fridge brilliance, we're seeing the world through Pinkie's eyes (in third person... somehow...) and seeing how she interpreted actual events in an Unreliable Narrator sort of way, just painted across the fourth wall. As she began to suspect her friends, she "imagined," for lack of a better word, them acting more and more deceitful, and when she held her own party the inanimate objects started off just that until in Pinkie's mind, at least, they became real until Dash turn up and fractured the self-illusion.
• As well in Party of One, this troper spent a good while wondering why Pinkie Pie takes longer to trust Applejack's excuses compared to the other ponies. But then, Applejack is the wielder of the Element of Honesty. She is not just the most likely to get caught first, but it's also hard for her to make excuses.
• Why is Gummy's birthday the day before Pinkie's? Clearly he was a birthday present!
• In retrospect, this episode says even more about Pinkie than it does on the surface. When you consider that she's so busy throwing birthday parties for everyone else that she can't even remember her own birthday when it rolls around, you realize that her sense of generosity must rival even Rarity's.
• You might notice that when Pinkie was giving her singing telegram, as well as during Gummy's birthday, Spike was nowhere to be seen. Why not? He was taking that seven hour bath!
• Pay attention during Pinkie's breakdown, in particular when Rainbow Dash arrives to her inanimate party. You'll notice that Pinkie is actually walking, as opposed to hopping, bouncing, or skipping.
• At the end of her singing telegram, Pinkie hoarsely comments that next time she'll just hand out written invitations. What is she doing when she's inviting everypony to Gummy's after-party? Handing out written invitations.
• At first it seems as if Applejack is lying to Pinkie when her reason for not letting her into the barn is due to a lot of "construction going on", soon followed by half-hearted sound effects. But later it is discovered that Pinkie's surprise party was being set up there, meaning it really was "under construction".
• The inanimate objects Pinkie Pie uses in place of her real friends suit each of her friend's personalities.
  • Mr. Turnip's, well, turnips alludes to Applejack's farm background.
  • Rocky is the toughest out of all the guests, just like Rainbow Dash.
  • Sir Lintsalot has a posh, british voice that borders on Rarity's own fancy accent.
  • Madame Le Flour has a high, soft voice just like Fluttershy.
  • Even Twilight lacking a counterpart is fitting. Because it's only later that she restores Pinkie's sanity by logically asking why she would think her friends were abandoning her. Her absence in Pinkie's Imagine Spot represents how Pinkamena Diane Pie wasn't in her right mind.

The Best Night Ever

• Prince Blueblood is by himself such that a newcomer like Rarity was able to easily approach him and accompany him without constantly getting mobbed like with the Wonderbolts. That's because those who already know him can't stand being around him.
• So, Applejack thought she would be earning enough at the Gala to pay for Granny Smith's hip replacement. That's probably a lot of money, considering she hadn't been able to save enough to pay for it throughout the months that have passed during the first season. Applejack must have brought a lot of merchandise with her if she thinks she could make that much money. But then it all gets destroyed! She lost merchandise worth that much money at the gala! Why does she still describe it as the best night ever? Then I realized she probably didn't bring that much stuff and just jacked the prices up ridiculously high.
  • Which makes sense, given the markups at concession stands. A 20-oz bottle of Coke will run you maybe $1.50 at a grocery store, but $4.00 or more at an amusement park. Applejack figured she'd have a captive audience that would need to eat sooner or later; she didn't count on there being a free buffet.
• Why did the animals run from Fluttershy at the gala? It wasn't because they were scared of her, it was because it was night time, and they were trying to get to sleep. Fluttershy forgot that a lot of the animals there weren't nocturnal in her excitement, and the animals ran away upon realising Fluttershy probably wouldn't let them get to sleep. Likewise, one could make the argument that Fluttershy had never stayed up so late before, and the lack of sleep took it's toll after she exhausted herself chasing after the animals for a couple of hours.
  • This would fit with everypony seemingly thinking the GGG was going to be during the day in "The Ticket Master".
  • Consider, also, that Fluttershy deals with animals 'in Ponyville' in a regular basis. Consider that animals rely a good deal on scent to identify friend from foe, the animals would not recognize Fluttershy as a friend because they would not recognize her scent. Try getting near a dog or cat, and it will sniff you first before deciding whether or not it likes you.
  • She may have been in heat. Anyone who deals with horses/ponies irl knows (or at least probably has heard) that even very sweet mares can get uncharacteristically cranky when they're in heat.
    • Which puts the "You're going to LOVE ME!" in a WHOLE new light...
  • Fluttershy, just before she lays the snare (and catches the groundskeeper) says to herself, "I just have to be more bold, like Twilight said." Just as Pinkie's "Hop, skip and a jump" from "Dragonshy" came back to Fluttershy in "Feeling Pinkie Keen", Twilight's words in "A Bird In The Hoof" came back to her in this episode. Unfortunately, taking to heart everything other ponies say isn't always a good thing, as Fluttershy goes on to prove.
• It may come off as a bit of Mood Whiplash in "Best Night Ever" when the ponies are forced to go through hours of trouble after singing a cheery collective "I Want" Song suited for a finale. Unless of course, you recognize the tune of "At the Gala" as being similar to "Ever After" from Into the Woods, where the heroes sing of their hopes for a Happily Ever After, only to be met with a Darker and Edgier second arc. Someone in the writing staff was a musical buff.
  • Similarly with "Art of the Dress", the second half/version of the song where Rarity sings about her customers fussiness matches the cynical tone of the song it's based on, "Putting it Together".
• Ignoring Pinkie Pie (who was singing the song), the Pony Pokey montage covers the ponies in the same order they were introduced in episode 1. (Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and finally Fluttershy.) It could just be a coincidence, but the chances of that are 1 in 120.
  • Actually, Pinkie might fit too. Remember, she was introduced "first," but really made her appearance last. In the Pony Pokey, she sets up the song, but her actual part of the song isn't until the end.
• In 'The Best Night Ever', Rarity repeatedly fantasizes about meeting her true love at the Gala- Prince Blueblood. As was pointed out earlier, Twilight, being part of some of the highest social circles in Equestria, probably knew him, but didn't mention his personality to Rarity. Why? Well, I can think of two reasons to start- one, she didn't want to crush her friend's dream, or two, she didn't think Rarity would believe her. Or, hell, maybe she thought he'd be a better pony by then- or that Rarity would manage to redeem him.
  • Or it could be that Twilight didn't actually know anyone other than Celestia all that well.
    • This is practically canon. From the first episode, we see that, before moving to Ponyville, Twilight used to dedicate all her time to studying and none to socialize. Except from Princess Celestia (her mentor) and Spike (her assistant/surrogate little brother) she didn't hang around with anyone, and when other ponies tried to invite her to non-academic activities she always rejected them.
  • It really should be noted that Rarity, when fantasizing, never refers to Prince Blueblood by name. She always uses "him" and describes him in rather general terms. Unless Twilight could see the imagine spot, she really can't be expected to know that Rarity was fantasizing about such an intolerable pony.
• While it may seem at first as though Prince Blueblood is being horrible, his attitude is somewhat justified once you examine Rarity's fantasy. Throughout her fantasy, Rarity, normally generous, never even considers the Prince's feelings, likes, dislikes... she's treating her imagined prince like the Daddy doll little girls throw under the bed when he "goes off to work". If Blueblood's been treated that way before, his attitude toward yet another hopeless romantic wanting to dragoon him into her fairytale makes sense. (We're not talking about Johnny Pew here.)
  • Which ironically plays into Blueblood's compass rose Cutie Mark — he knows where he stands. One, he isn't under any delusions about the reality of his position. And two, he's demonstrated a basic awareness that he's no Prince Charming.
  • Of course, on the flipside, one must note that Rarity wasn't actually acting clingy towards him; she simply made herself visible and then Blueblood approached her. Even though she had her eyes set on him, she still didn't try to force it.
  • Prince Blueblood's behaviour possibly isn't him being a Prince Charmless, but a gender role reversal of normal chivalrous conduct to show just how unreasonable the romantic fantasies themselves are in the first place...only for majority of the fandom to side with Rarity instead and spend years using him as a punching bag in fanon. A second, more widespread idea as to why he acts that way would be to stave of Gold Diggers and/or social climbers trying to make use of his status, which when you realise is fundamentally Rarity's reason for courting him.
• Why does Celestia not like the Gala? Because she has to be a door greeter for pretty much the whole time.
  • The first thing Celestia does is ask Twilight to stay by her side the whole night. Because she knows from experience that that's the only way they might get a chance to actually talk.
• If you think about it, the plans of the main six are foiled by ponies exhibiting their own character flaws.
  • Twilight's night is ruined by overly punctual ponies.
  • Applejack's money making scheme is a bust because the rich were too prideful to eat "commoner food".
  • Fluttershy's failure at connecting with the animals were because they were too shy.
  • Rarity's date with Prince Blueblood turned out disappointing because he was way too vain.
  • Rainbow Dash was shown up by ponies trying too hard in seeking the Wonderbolt's attention.
  • Pinkie Pie couldn't win over the guests because they were too insistent on their own brand of entertainment.
• The Mane 6's plans for having the "Best night ever" were foreshadowed as far back as the prologue. She was hoping to use mice-turned-horses to pull their carriage. But what she didn't count on was Opal chasing them away before they even had a chance to put them to good use.
  • What's more, it's a Stealth Pun on that old saying "The best-laid plans of mice and men"...
• The Mane 6 exhibit behavior that goes against their element in the episode:
  • Twilight blows off her friends in favor of her mentor.^note Yes, the whole point of the episode is that they will be doing their own thing, but still.
  • Applejack tried a dishonest method of selling her apples. ^note Knock them over to trip a potential customer and help him up.
  • Fluttershy cruelly tries to get the animals to be with her.
  • Rarity has greed for Blueblood's affections.
  • Pinkie Pie attempted to party down with the unamused guests.
  • Rainbow Dash selfishly tried to hog up the Wonderbolts for herself.