Fridge Horror / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic - Season 8

School Daze

• Had the Mane 6 not saved the students from the pukwudgies, there's a strong possibility the war between the different races would've commenced!
• Hell, the fact that a pony would have caused a race war is scary in and of itself.
• If the war had started without the pukwudgies, imagine how much guilt would have been weighing on the students' consciences once they learn that their nations are going to war because of their attempt to stay together and what kind of lesson that'd teach them.
• The fact that Silverstream has never seen stairs before means that the Storm King has been conquering for a considerable amount of time and the only reason he was able to be stopped was because he decided to pick on the wrong nation.
• Are we not going to discuss the EEA? The fact that a bunch of bigoted jerks (that almost started a race war, by the way) are running Equestria's education system is rather terrifying. And if this is what the education system (one of the most important systems in any society) is like, then how broken are the other systems?
  • From Celestia's description they do a fine job with the schools that teach the various pony races how to keep Equestria functioning (magic, weather, agriculture), it's when it comes to non-ponies that they are seriously flawed, in part because until recently the other kingdoms had little interaction with, or were outright hostile toward ponies.
  • While a big flaw of the EEA is with non-ponies, their fascist views also lead to other problems, as discussed in the Fridge Brilliance page. The real questions should be how many bigoted ponies are in places of power throughout Equestria.
  • If PETA has a pony equivalent, are they prejudiced against Griffons, Abyssinians, and Diamond Dogs (who will presumably die if they don't get meat)?
• If you're wondering why Equestrian society hasn't shown much in the way of species diversity, it's because Equestria has apparently been overly traditionalist and isolationist in the past millennium and hasn't been trying hard enough to reach out to other species, let alone other nations. That the other species were often very different and not necessarily easy to deal with only made it easier for ponies to justify isolating themselves. A real-life analogue to this would be the Sakoku period of Edo Japan which was started by the Tokugawa Shogunate and lasted for more than 220 years.
• The show has never shied away from showing how Celestia's ideals for running Equestria are often opposed to how a number of the leaders of the rest of the ponies want or prefer things, or even how the average pony tends to want things. But these episodes make it all the clearer how alone and perhaps helpless Celestia must have felt for much of her reign, assuming a majority of powerful ponies were as opposed to close diplomatic relations with other species as the EEA is. It's easy enough to see that Celestia may have had little choice but to focus on helping to keep things harmonious among the three pony races, and mostly just avoiding outright conflict with the other species rather than befriending them, as she couldn't very well force the ponies to change their minds without becoming a dictator herself.
• Neighsay's blind racism places him along with Sombra as the show's biggest antagonists towards the central theme. Every other villain takes a distorted view of friendship, which may be why most villains could eventually be reformed; they just needed the Mane 6 to redirect and retrain to a truer definition of friendship. Neighsay, meanwhile, doesn't even stop to consider the idea that the six races could coexist peacefully at the school, both when Twilight is explaining it in front of his face and when the Student Six are living proof of their newfound bonds - friendship doesn't even enter in his mind when confronted with proof it works.
  • The irony with Neighsay is, in spite of his motivations, nothing he says is factually wrong. He's right that the teachers are unqualified and irresponsible^note They admit they have no clue how to teach or run a school, are unable to refute his point that their adventures and responsibilities, they're unable to keep their students from just ditching whenever they want, and their petty infighting nearly resulted in a student drowning which went without reprimand from Twilight, he's right to not trust them or have faith in them^note A given, considering Twilight was actively trying to mislead him about their missing students, and he's even right about the non-ponies being a danger to ponies^note The griffons, dragons, and yaks are all holding the threat of world war over the heads of the ponies should anything happen to their kids, who have all been in serious danger of death several times now. Yona drowning or any student being gravely harmed by the creatures they've encountered would have guaranteed sparked a war and soured "friendship" between races for years. While there is much to gain if the school is a success there is also much to lose if the school is a failure, and Neighsay's criticisms of the cavalier attitude of the untrained negligent teachers running an institution that poses a real risk to Equestria is entirely valid. Somewhere between Twilight Sparkle's blind extreme belief in fostering friendship at the cost and risk of everything and Neighsay's blind extreme belief in enforcing the EEA's (and his own) beliefs at the cost and risk of friendship is a compromise that would work well; that Twilight is blindly charging forward with this school with all that's at risk is every bit as much Fridge Horror as Neighsay's blind racism.

Fake It 'Til You Make It

• The fandom could come up with Handwaves for Rarity's outfit in "It Isn't The Mane Thing About You" until the cows come home, but Fluttershy, of all ponies, outright calls a jacket leather in this episode. Regardless of what Rarity's outfit was made of, unless "leather" means something different in Equestria than it does in our world, we have official confirmation that cow skin clothes are canon in a world where cows are at least somewhat sapient.
  • We have official confirmation that leather exists. The show still hasn't confirmed what leather is in Equestria or how it's made. That means any claims or theories regarding those two details are still firmly in the realm of Wild Mass Guessing.

Surf and/or Turf

• With the existence of weekly "Glad to Be a Hippogriff" Festivals and general "hippogriffs really like being hippogriffs" zeitgeist, it seems like a large number of hippogriffs were suffering severe body dysphoria (not the strict medical definition of body dysphoria, like think the whole boy instead of one part) while being seaponies.
• When Scootaloo is turned in to a sea pony and dives underwater, her first thought is "So this is what it must be like to fly!", and it forms a large part of her bias towards Seaquestria versus Mt. Aris. In essence, her yearning to fly had consumed her to the point where it was interfering with her CMC duties (helping Terramar with his dilemma), making it all the more tragic that nopony ever offered her any assistance with that (even if she'd never be able to fly naturally, the series showed multiple examples of technology that could have gotten her airborne, such as Apple Bloom's hang glider from "Call of the Cutie").^note Not to mention that her behavior here makes her a not-too-great role model for people with disabilities, if that's what her character was meant to be.

Horse Play

• So Celestia never got to be in a play, which she wanted to do since childhood, because they never had the time. Does that mean even a child, she was burdened with responsibly such that she never had a normal childhood, even for just one moment? The time after she took the crown was not going to get better, far from. Or was her lack of acting ability the reason she never got a role?
  • In light of Celestia's inability to act, imagine how hard she had to force herself to act well when she hid her sadness of Luna's banishment over 1000 years and on a daily basis as shown in "A Royal Problem"? Or what it means that she can only function in these serious capacities but not at the things she actually wants? Wow... Celestia needs a hug.
• Celestia first raised the sun 1111 years ago. Supplementary material show she gained her cutie mark then and was a teenager by the time she had it, so she may not have been much older then that. (The Journal of the Two Sisters suggest she was older but aged slower, but given how much of if was retconed...) Luna's 1000 year banishment, Celestia's her greatest regret, took up a vast majority of their life. Factor in the time leading up to the falling out, the numerous threats they had to personalty deal with within the about 100 year period, that even as a child she was too busy to be in a play like she wanted, Sunset Shimmer, and who knows what else, Celestia's life until the start of the series sucked. And afterwards...Celestia's been through enough to make Daybreaker, a possible Omnicidal Maniac, as much a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds as Nightmare Moon. Is it any wonder that if she were to snap, she'd do so violently?
• The whole situation before Celestia started raising the sun is pretty horrifying if you were a unicorn back then. If you got picked to help Star Swirl raise the sun, you'd have to give up all your magic forever and spend the rest of your life powerless. Not to mention how did they choose which unicorn would have to raise the sun? Was it a lottery? Were there volunteers? Did Starswirl have to pick them out himself? Finally, imagine knowing that not only will a time come when there won't be any magic left, but the sun will never come up again as a result. And there's nothing you can do about it.
  • Would this have anything to do with the fact that magically powerful unicorns (Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, exc.) are so rare nowadays?
• Back in "Shadow Play", Starswirl was revealed to be a stubborn, hard-nosed cynic. Once he had a plan of action set in his mind, he refused to accept that anything else would work. He had to be told off by the Mane Six and the other Pillars before he would even look at Twilight Sparkle's alternative plan for defeating the Pony of Shadows, let alone give it any kind of approval. Back to this episode. How many unicorns lost their magic because Starswirl the Bearded decided his plan was the only plan that would work and refused to listen to anypony trying to tell him otherwise until Celestia stepped in and raised the sun herself?
  • On another note, did Starswirl even care that the unicorns he selected to help him raise the sun would end up losing their magic forever?
• The Journal of the Two Sisters suggested it took awhile for unicorns to lose their magic raising the sun, but the play implies they immediately lost it, which would better explain how a whole population would go through them fast enough to run out. And while they got their magic back in Journal, the play does not suggest that. Did they just not get to that part due to the play's Troubled Production? Were the actually events that much darker then depicted in Journal? I doubt they would intentionally make the play Darker and Edgier.
  • It probably depends on how powerful the Unicorn is. Rarity would probably lose her powers right away, while Starlight could probably do it several times before running out of magical energy.
  • Personal level of power might also dictate if their magic came back. Starlight's would probably regenerate at some point in her lifespan, but Rarity's might not; it would, though, pass down genetically to any offspring, explaining why unicorns today still have some magical ability if those powers didn't return.
  • It might also just be an in-universe case of Adaptation Distillation.
  • It's also possible that Equestria's medical/magical community had developed some sort of spell or potion to recharge unicorns who lost their magic from sun duty. Given that they were in danger of running out of unicorns before Celestia showed up (leaving them in permanent darkness a la Nightmare Moon), it would have likely been a very high priority.

The Parent Map

• After leaving town for Celestia's school, Sunburst has been tossing out letters from Sire's Hollow after finding out that it was just his mother constantly harassing him about his future until he treated them as spam mail and never even bothered opening them until today. How many of them could've been from an increasingly frantic Starlight Glimmer wondering why her only friend never replied?? Stellar Flare may have caused pretty much everything from Season 5 and beyond just from her actions.
• Both Stellar Flare and Firelight's spouses were never shown or even mentioned in this episode. The possible reasons aren't very promising...
• Does Firelight know about the things Starlight did after she ran away? If not, how would finding out what his prized daughter was up to affect him?
  • He should count himself lucky he didn't find this out first-hoof. The old Starlight would've taken away his cutie mark on the basis that she wanted a father who would treat her as his equal. And he would've been left wondering what he did to deserve his cutie mark being confiscated, by his own daughter no less.

Non-Compete Clause

• Yona came this close to drowning, and would've drowned on the squabbling AJ and Rainbow Dash's watch, had it not been for her having such good friends to save her. Not only is this horrifying in its own right, but it leads to other disturbing possibilities too:
  • If Yona had drowned, who knows if the yaks would've declared war for her sake or worse. In fact, the episode kind of makes it seem that Neighsay, who we're meant to see as bigoted, actually has a point, both about the teachers being inept and, in a way, the creatures needing to stay out of the school. Not because the creatures themselves are bad, but because half of them have parents who will declare all out war on Equestria should something bad happen to them. Considering how irresponsible the Mane Six really were in this episode, he's absolutely right about the creatures endangering pony-kind, since the scene made it seem as though the creatures were one accident caused by irresponsibility away from triggering all-out war against the ponies. The yaks invading Equestria out of anger that Yona drowned would endanger a lot of ponies, and that wouldn't happen if Yona never attended the school. It really makes you wonder if he's actually racist or just coldly logical.
  • The four other outside kingdoms wouldn't see the school as a safe place for the students if Yona had drowned, and would've quickly pulled them out (probably for the best considering they would've been scarred for life seeing their friend die!) and probably also would've stopped contact with the ponies entirely.
  • It also makes it seem like a bad idea for Twilight to not suspend two teachers who nearly allowed a student to drown out of negligence.

The Break Up Break Down

• Had it not been for Discord breaking Sugar Belle's cart, Big Mac wouldn't have caught up with Sugar Belle, and that would've been the end to their wonderful relationship.
• Assuming Discord genuinely didn't believe in love before Spike proves it to him, that has some pretty bad implications for his time ruling Equestria, especially knowing he had a tendency to mess with ponies' relationships.
  • Over 1000 years of life with no belief in love also seems heartbreakingly unpleasant. No wonder he struggles so much with "fuzzy" feelings now.

Molt Down

• According to Smolder, all the young dragons are kicked out when they start molting. And we find out that the molting's scent attracts several dangerous and powerful predators. Molting is pretty much the most dangerous time in a dragon's life; no longer receiving its parents' protection, and still too young and small to fight properly. It's even more awful when we remember that these dragons are basically pre-teens.

Marks for Effort

• While she's somewhat right, it's kind of sad and horrifying to see someone as young as Cozy Glow has an Evil Cannot Comprehend Good moment when the Crusaders offer to tutor her for the friendship exams.
  • Her first guess at one of the Elements of Harmony (i.e the pillars of friendship) is control. This has very disturbing implications. The implications are revealed in "School Raze".
• We've seen how quick Twilight was to accuse the CMC without listening to their side of the story. What if she had done the same thing to one of her own students, or worse...one of the non-pony students? Twilight would likely be accused of discrimination or racism at best, and lose her position of Head Mare at worst.
  • If the non-pony race leaders heard about this, they'd probably pull their students from the school.
  • On another note, what would Chancellor Neighsay do if he'd gotten wind on Twilight unfairly banning one of her own students from the school?
• If Starlight hadn't told Twilight what Cozy Glow told her, who's to say Twilight wouldn't have kept up her banning of the CMC from her school forever?

The Mean 6

• The real Fluttershy becomes very upset due to animals in the forest treating her like a foe (thanks to the fake Fluttershy terrorizing them), and we never see her reconcile with the creatures afterwards. Will the animals forgive her for what she hasn't done or is her reputation with them permanently tainted because of someone else neither she nor the animals have knowledge of?
  • Chrysalis performed her doppelganger-making ritual right in the middle of the forest, and she trekked quite a long way through it with the evil clones, loudly blabbing about her plan all the while. It's not unlikely that they were seen and heard by some of the forest critters who can relay what they saw to the others. That, or like in "A Canterlot Wedding", they're just apparently deaf.
• The Mane 6, while a couple of them do question the others' sudden change in behavior, never meet their clones and still behave as if all those things the clones did and said were done by the real Mane 6. It's pretty painful to think that the Mane 6 believed each one of them would actually do such heinous things out of the blue despite knowing each other very well, and then there's the possibility of them never finding out that they only encountered the products of Chrysalis' plan...
• Chrysalis was able to get close enough to the Mane Six to touch them, in the principal's office of Twilight's School of Friendship. The fact that she did nothing in the meantime is lampshaded and discussed in the episode. What is not brought up is the rather horrifying implication that Twilight Sparkle made no investment whatsoever in securing her new friendship school against incoming threats to herself, her friends, and her students from villains like Chrysalis. Which is even more egregious when you consider there are foreign-exchange students in that school from other kingdoms that won't mind dragging Equestria into a full-on world war if anything were to happen to those exchanges.
  • Never mind that this is the third time Chrysalis has, without being detected, been able to walk right up to not just the Mane Six but even royalty and do whatever she wants to them. Worse, fake Twilight pointed out that a good plan would have been to just kill them and Chrysalis's mental state is clearly deteriorating as she grows more desperate and petty. The lives of the Mane Six belong to Chrysalis right now. The only thing stopping her from just killing them or really anyone whenever she feels like it is her own whims (and, of course, the TV-Y rating).
  • It's entirely possible that she saw or heard about Ocellus while she was at the school, which, as one of Chrysalis's former subjects, could put her in danger too.
• Unless Chrysalis was already posing as a photographer from the very moment Twilight hired her, what happened to the REAL photographer? Chrysalis intercepting and replacing her would certainly explain why she was running so late.
• Just the fact that Chrysalis is still out there. Don't let her antics in this episode distract you from the fact that she's been one of the most dangerous antagonists throughout the show's run. And seeing as she managed to escape in the end, there's every reason to believe she'll just try something else.
• If Chrysalis' spell can duplicate Twilight, does that mean she could duplicate the other alicorns too? Imagine having evil clone versions of Celestia, Luna and Cadance running around... Now add evil Twilight to the mix, and it would be like having to deal with Daybreaker, Nightmare Moon, Midnight Sparkle and Chrysalis' version of Cadance all at the same time.
• Although it's awesome in its own rights, this kind of makes you wonder if the Tree hasn't punished those before the Mean 6. Or how else it punished them.
  • It makes you wonder what its boundaries are too. Would it be willing to kill anyone for doing anything against it? Or for doing anything it perceives as wrong or anti-harmony? What if it operates on Above Good and Evil or Blue-and-Orange Morality and is totally fine with killing or punishing those for the slightest infractions?
• Thankfully the Mean 6's activities were isolated in the Everfree Forest. Imagine if they had gotten loose in Ponyville, or if they had run into Zeccora. Sure the real Mane 7 managed to write off their counterparts' mean acts after Twilight sorted it out. But other ponies wouldn't be so forgiving, especially if they had witnessed Equestria's heroes being mean and uncaring towards them. (However, they might be easier to tell apart in the light, but that doesn't account for Zecora).
  • What would've happened if Fluttershy's animals had met Mean Fluttershy? Would they have turned their backs on the real Fluttershy too?
  • Or what about Spike? What would he say if he saw "Rarity" hoard random junk like some mad pony? (Especially since her behaviour is eerily similar to his own greed phase)
  • Given what we saw in "Horse Play", Celestia doesn't take it well whenever her student Twilight has a relapse in friendship. How do you suppose she'd take it if she had not only witnessed Mean Twilight's unfriendly behavior, but also her hunger for power and blatant disregard for others? What would she have mistakenly done to the real one? Banish her? Imprison her? Banish her and imprsion her in the place she was banished to?
  • What if the CMC had met them? Judging by how they act and look, they're probably about eleven, which isn't as vulnerable as, say, a five-year-old but it's still very young. Imagine being eleven and seeing your big sister acting the opposite of their usual personality and you have no idea why, or if someone who's not only your friend but who you idolize was suddenly acting mean and lazy?
  • There's also Lyra. Judging by "Slice of Life", she can (temporarily, but still) decide not to be friends with somepony if she thinks they're not what they seem.
  • And if the clones went to Twilight's castle at the same time Sunset writes her througth the diary? They could fool Sunset into coming to Equestria, probably with her friends to suck out their love. Chrysalis would be dangerously close to learning about the human world. And god knows what would she look like if she crossed the portal.
  • Because this really needed to be worse, what if Mean Fluttershy met Discord?
    • Or worse... Mean Twilight could go to the human world herself to take over there too (or even first) upon discovering magic is a lot less common there. Yes, at first she would have to get used to her human body, but that would be merely a delay. And she may not have magic there, but her brain's enough to make up for it, and could easily manipulate people and orchestrate everything so she takes over that world. And if she gets infected with some of the leaking magic, it would be the Humane Seven vs. Midnight Sparkle Round Two. But worst of all? Unless she realized or discovered that's a clone, Sunset Shimmer would most likely believe that Princess Twilight Sparkle, the person who gave her a chance at redemption, helped her reconcile with Celestia, and was there when nobody else was, became evil.
• Seriously, an evil version of Twilight Sparkle is not something you want to consider being loose in Equestria. Mean Twilight clearly inherited the same powers and intellect as the real Twilight, just devoid of her full knowledge and empathy. When she battles against Chrysalis, she is winning. The other Mean Six are too incompetent to be a real threat, but Mean Twilight could have become a villain more dangerous than Chrysalis herself if she'd survived. It was very lucky that the Tree of Harmony dealt with her before she could grow in power.
  • Basically, she is a pony version of Midnight Sparkle herself, only that without the care for others and empathy that let Sunset defeat her in the Friendship Games, and considering that Midnight Sparkle was more than happy to destroy the human world...
• Chrysalis's Sanity Slippage since being separated from her hive has parallels to how isolated humans start hallucinating other people. How much worse is it for a changeling queen, who ought to be living with thousands of her brood buzzing around? This might be the first time Chrysalis has ever been well and truly alone.

A Matter of Principals

• Celestia was the one who donated the artifacts. While it makes sense she have Clover's cloak and even Knuckerbocker's shell (from Daring Do), how would she come into the possession of the other artifacts? Why are such important items not in the hands of their respective races? Consider the griffon's civilization has collapsed, the changelings showed no trace of civilization under Queen chrysalis' rule, and the Storm King causing the Hippogriffs to be in exile, the implications don't look good.
  • Come the season finale, they're shown potentially dangerous enough to show why she'd want them in her safekeeping. Now the question is why Celestia's willing to loan such dangerous items, or at least not take them back as soon as they're done.
    • Twilight is Celestia's best student and a fellow Princess, and at one point Celestia tried to hold on to the Elements of Harmony only for Discord to swipe them. Celestia could very well believe the artifacts will be safer in Twilight's hooves than her own.
• Discord sends a bugbear to spur the students on. While this might make logical sense to Discord, since most of the students are horses and therefore skittish by nature, a throwaway Big Lebowski reference in "Slice of Life" implies that bugbears can incinerate ponies.
• Yona is covered in thick fur and is of a species adapted to a much colder climate than she's currently staying in. If Discord continued to push her, she could have easily suffered heat exhaustion or even heat stroke.

The Hearth's Warming Club

• What was Gallus's childhood like? Was he raised by anyone? When did his parents die/disappear? Is there some kind of Griffon orphanage, or did he grow up on the streets? The way he longingly looks through the window at Grampa Gruff and Gilda makes it seem he perhaps didn't even have a home.
  • Gallus doesn't even know the meaning of the word "cousins". Think how far he must be removed from any form of family for that.
  • Being an orphan is one thing. Being an orphan in a place like Griffonstone, where leaving someone to die over pocket change is considered perfectly normal, is something else entirely.
• If a dragon can take over as the Dragon Lord just by taking the scepter, that means any dragon can overthrow Ember anytime.
  • If Garble ever manages to overthrow her, Equestria will be in great danger.
  • Fortunately, it may not be that simple. Smolder's story was just that, a story. And just as in our own fiction, things might not work out the same way in practice. Torch set very specific rules for Dragon-Lord ascension when he tossed the scepter into the volcano, and the scepter responded when Spike took it. And there are clearly laws limiting Dragon Lords, as Torch voluntarily stepped down after his allotted reign. Smolder's tale could very well have been wishful thinking.
    • Alternatively, the events in Smolder's story could have served as the cause for codifying the rules for ascension to the Dragon Lord.
• On a semi-related note, Equestria usually follows All Myths Are True, and if that's the case, Scales might still be out there somewhere.

The End in Friend

• The Amulet of Aurora can reverse the tides and summon tsunamis. If it had really fallen into the wrong hooves Equestria would have been in grave danger indeed.

The Washouts

• Hoo-boy. In "Wonderbolts Academy," Lightning Dust and Rainbow Dash were definite foils. You'd think time would have mellowed Dust out somewhat, if any. As her handling of Scootaloo showed all too clearly, the opposite happened. In the six seasons between these episodes, one has to wonder exactly what else was running through Dust's mind.
• So Scootaloo is about do a highly advertised, life-threatening stunt for a (in)famous stunt group. Why aren't her parents (or aunts if you consider the Expanded Universe canon) in attendance? You think they, or any caretakers she has, would show up to talk her out of something this dangerous. Scootaloo Parental Neglect confirmed?
• Speaking of dangerous stunts, shouldn't they have rehearsed that one first? Did she just not think about what Scootaloo's skill level might be, or was she perfectly fine with the possibility of killing a handicapped child in the name of spectacle?

Sounds of Silence

• The stream that the Kirin use doesn't just keep them from speaking, it also affects their ability to feel emotions. They nearly dunked Applejack and Fluttershy in it. Would the two ponies still be able to function as the Elements of Honesty and Kindness without an emotional connection to the other Elements? If Autumn Blaze hadn't stopped them, the Kirin might have accidentally crippled the greatest protection Equestria has.
  • Not to mention, even with the cure in the local fountain, this doesn't change the fact that this is made from the last batch of flowers that make it. This means that it may run out. They better get rid of that stream as soon as possible...or at least remove the silencing effect.
• The implications of the very existence of the stream itself. A river that turns you into an emotionless mute? Yikes.
• There were no Kirin foals seen in the village, but if there were, things would've been a lot more unsettling as that would mean that some Kirin grew up without learning to speak or emote at all (especially true given that the vow of silence had been going on for years).
  • If one pays attention to just how small a group the Kirin are, the lack of foals might not have the greatest implications either. With their emotions deadened, it's entirely possible that they stopped falling in love and their birth rate dropped to almost nothing as a result.
• Autumn Blaze's Cloudcuckoolander behavior could be interpreted as the behavior of someone who has suffered mental deterioration from long-term isolation.

Father Knows Beast

• Ok, so Sludge's story about scale collectors was a fake. But the fact he mentioned it at all leaves some very unsettling implications. What if Spike's parents really were caught by them, and they told Celestia to take the egg back to Canterlot to keep Spike safe...
  • Let's just hope the whole "scale collectors" part is made up as well, otherwise Ember and Smolder will have something very nasty to deal with down the line...

School Raze

• Wouldn't Cozy Glow's parents object to her being sent to Tartarus? Does she even have family and/or are they ok with it? There must be a reason she's so messed up; were they unaware of this or did they even care? This could be the darkest case of Social Services Does Not Exist in the series.
  • Additionally, real life children Cozy Glow's age aren't usually supposed to be held responsible for their actions. Instead, their parents are... Admittedly we don't actually know Cozy's age. The CMC said she is the same age as them, and at this point they are regarded as no longer really kids (with various episodes painting them as basically young teens now by pony standards), so Cozy may well be past the age where she can't be easily held accountable.
  • Did Cozy's parent(s) or guardian(s) even have any actual control over her, or did she have them completely at her mercy? With just how heartless and manipulative she turns out to be, using her own family as pawns certainly doesn't seem out of character for her.
  • Luna's job is to help Ponies with their psychological and emotional problems via their dreams, and she can determine what those issues are and how to overcome them. She's also the one to escort Cozy Glow to Tartarus. This has a few possible explanations, and none of them are good.
    1. Cozy Glow's problems were so bad that not even Luna could help her.
    2. Cozy Glow previously refused Luna's help.
    3. Cozy Glow had no Freudian Excuse that Luna could help her overcome, and was just a born manipulative sociopath.
• After Starlight's cloudwalk spell gives out unexpectedly, several students fall and they only survive because they were accompanied by a couple of fliers. How many less lucky creatures across Equestria were maimed or killed in similar scenarios after their magic stopped working without warning? (Hippogriffs who were underwater if their seapony transformations were undone? Changelings who subsist on a form of magic?)
  • That would explain why they sent Cozy straight to the equivalent of Hell for it.
  • Ocellus at least appears to be unhindered, so hopefully the other changelings were fine as far as sustenance. The real question is how their transformation abilities would be affected; would they be stuck in whatever form they were in, or would they be forced back to their default form and be stuck there? The latter doesn't seem so bad until you remember the changeling in "To Change a Changeling" that liked to be different colors.
  • The seaponies are transformed by the pearl shards, which are magical artifacts and would last until the third day. So long as they became aware of the failing magic, they could just evacuate to land.
    • Failing that, they didn't necessarily need constant output from the pearl shards to stay transformed (in the movie, Queen Novo talks about wanting to make sure the pearl still works, which she wouldn't need to confirm by transforming the Mane 6 if it's ongoing function was required for everyone to remain Seaponies). The real Fridge Horror is the fact that, once those shards failed, anygriff that was a Seapony at the time would be stuck like that; ditto for anygriff in Hippogriff form. We already know at least one that likes to shift between the two and agonized over having to be stuck as one or the other (Terramar), but he could very well not be alone in that mindset.
• Cozy Glow helped the field trip take place, knowing that magic was being drained and that the cloudwalk spell would fail. Did she not care about any of the non-flying students who could have been killed?
  • Presumably, she wouldn't have wanted them to die, but only so she could keep them as her "friends".
• Remember 'The Cutie Remark?' Cozy Glow's alternate future is not shown. Of course, the main reason is that she wasn't introduced yet, but in universe, that means that her future could have been the wasteland one, or worse.
  • Could it really have happened at all? Cozy Glow first starts gaining power at the School of Friendship which wouldn't have been founded in the first place had the Mane Six not come together.
• So it seems the magical creatures only exist in their state with magic. Without it, Cerberus becomes three normal dogs and the Mix-and-Match Critters become their component critters. So how did they come to be in the first place? Fusion Dance? Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action? It seems unlikely they did this willfully and animals in this series are generally intelligent enough to communicate, and it would explain why they are so often angry and dangerous.
• Cozy Glow is like pre-Heel–Face Turn Diamond Tiara, just more evil. Given that they have similar personalities, as well as the fact that Cozy Glow never mentioned her parents is akin to Diamond Tiara having never mentioned her mother prior to "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", just how much abuse has Cozy Glow suffered that has made her the way she is?
  • Or worse yet, she may not be the way she is because of abuse: perhaps she just is. Now imagine how much worse she'd be if she had been abused.
• Luna imprisoning Cozy Glow in Tartarus may seem quite harsh at first, until you realize that she was imprisoned in the Moon by her sister after betraying her and attempting to take over Equestria. Luna may have felt that Cozy Glow deserved a similar punishment after having betrayed everyone and having attempted to take over Equestria.
  • It must be even harder for Princess Celestia, who claimed in "Horse Play" that she has a "love for Equestria and all the ponies in it". If she really does adore all her subjects, imagine how much it would've pained her to send one out of a million of her beloved subjects to Tartarus.
  • However, it does make sense when one considers that if Cozy’s plan had succeeded there would be no one to raise or lower the sun and moon, no one to control the weather, and no one to grow the food. Basically her plan would’ve left her in the same position as Tirek, being the ruler of a dying world.
• In hindsight, Neighsay helping to arrest Cozy Glow saved him from a lot of legal troubles. Think about it: Twilight's school operated outside of the EEA and, thus, his jurisdiction, and he never discussed things with Twilight, Starlight, or Cozy Glow, meaning he had no authority whatsoever to take over the school. And he is only a school authority, thus he held no legal power to tie the non-pony students and lock them in a room even if they did stole the magic from Equestria, so he was practically kidnapping them. Had he not helped to bring Cozy Glow to justice, Celestia and Luna may have been less willing to forgive him and may have even putted him in jail.
  • And going back to the tying-the-non-pony-students-in-a-locked-room part, what kind of reaction could their guardians have had towards that? They didn't like him already, so doing that could have put him in a lot of troubles. They may have boycotted the EEA for their leader tying children in a room and locking them up with no evidence of them committing any crime or legal authority to do so, putting the entire EEA in hot waters and getting him fired in response as well as the possibility of jail as mentioned above. And that's supposing they didn't got so mad at him they may have attacked him physically.
  • And adding up to all the above, Neighsay wasn't exactly the most liked pony before all that and was truly regretful for his actions upon coming to his senses. So, even after finishing his prison sentence, he would be possibly jobless (ain't easy to get a job when you were sent to jail for kidnapping children) in an Equestria where everybody hates him for kidnapping children out of racially-motivated accusations without evidence. Basically it's Sunset in Rainbow Rocks all over again, but with less Dazzlings and more criminal records.
• Remember back in Season 5 when Starlight used to be the kind of pony whose ideology was about preventing differences and special talents because they "bring the worst ego-filled conceit"? Imagine Starlight in that force field, seeing Cozy Glow reveal herself as the embodiment of such conceit, so power-hungry and egotistical that she would make herself "The Empress of Friendship".
• Everyone approving of Cozy Glow's imprisonment in Tartarus may seem quite harsh at first (and out-of-character) until you realize that the last scene implies that Cozy Glow wanted to be imprisoned in Tartarus. It could've even been of her own suggestion.
• It's established that the movie took place before this season, which depicted the Storm King's army locking up ponies in cages, which included foals. Cue this episode depicting the ponies locking Cozy up. They have become what they had fought.
  • Well, prisons outside of Tatarus already exist when you account for what happened with Troubleshoes in Appleloosa. This is just a step up from the usual imprisonment. The real problem is why she is put next to Tirek instead of another area of Tatarus.
• Knowing what Cozy Glow's cutie mark really represents, the fact that she got it means that she succeeded in whatever previous chessmastering she did. So what did she do?
• Given how insane she is, was Cozy Glow planning to kill the CMC once her plan succeeded, just to further twist the knife?
  • If so, that would've made Twilight think she didn't offer them a proper apology for accusing them back in "Marks for Effort.
  • The same can be asked about Chancellor Neighsay and the rest of the Young Six earlier.
• The whole reason why Cozy Glow can re-enact her plan in the first place is because she is pen pals with Tirek. How was she able to do that?? Is there an outside factor that we don't know of?
• A minor one, but Twilight mentioned that she wouldn't know what to do without Cozy Glow, who was sent to Tartarus. Even though Cozy Glow turned out to be Evil All Along, she really was a helpful assistant to Twilight, whose role as the Headmare of the School of Friendship will be much harder without her.
• The sun almost set on the third day, which according to Star Swirl was when artifacts would lose their power. The Crystal Heart counts as an artifact, and we've already seen what could happen if it's put out of commission.
  • And what about the mirror portal and all the magic in the human world? Best case scenario: All magic, good and bad, is destroyed. Worst case scenario: The magic there remains intact and the portal is left unable to work forever, leaving Sunset and her friends unable to communicate with Princess Twilight when they may need her knowledge the most, which is especially terrifying considering that the episode is set before the events of Sunset's Backstage Pass. And, with a little bit of Fridge Sadness, even if the best case happens, the Humane Six and Twilight would be unable to see each other or talk throught the journal forever.
  • And in case the magic in the human world was affected, what if the human Rainbow Dash, Sci-Twi, Rarity and Applejack's magic failed at dangerous spots? Obviously they didn't got killed, but they have may been seriously injured. What if Human Rainbow's superspeed failed in the middle of the street and was hit by a car? Or Applejack was using her super strength to lift something heavy at her family's farm when it failed and said object fell on her? Or if Sci-Twi found herself in a similar situation with her telekinesis? What if, instead of an object, she was levitating Spike? Rarity could also not only have found herself in a similar situation to Sci-Twi, but she could have been using her powers to lift herself. Also, in both of the previous cases also rests the possibility of somebody else being injured instead of/along with them.
  • Also, the possibility of the magic there being drained too also brings a slight Fridge Sadness: What if it also rendered Spike unable to talk again? While there would be no problem with Sci-Twi since she's already used to Spike not talking, the rest of the Humane Seven wouldn't be so lucky, and they would be unable to communicate with Spike unless Sci-Twi helps them.
• It's somewhat minor, but Tirek getting uncomfortably close to Twilight during his failed-attempt to broker a bargain of her releasing him in exchange for knowledge about the disappearing magic sort of looks like he was coming onto her in a lecherous manner, which creeps her out.