Our Princess Is In Another Castle · 7:02am Dec 24th, 2013
I guess by now we've all realized that the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters is playing a major role in Season Four. But what that role is baffles me.
Twilight, in the Equestria Girls movie, wondered if Celestia would give Twilight her own empire to rule over. (Spike thought that this would be awesome!) Looking at the map of Equestria, that seemed unlikely. But now, watching the Mane Six working to polish up the old ruin, I'm not so sure.
Questions:
Why is the Castle in the depths of the Everfree Forest? One could imagine Celestia abandoning the home that she shared with her sister after the exile of Nightmare Moon. Bad memories, and all. But the Everfree appears to be more than an untended garden. There is a power and purpose there; it stands apart from the rest of Equestria, untamed.
What is the relationship between the Tree of Harmony and the Everfree? The Tree was there before the Princesses, before Discord. In my stories, I've imagined the Everfree as the last remnant of the Wild Lands that sprawled across the World before it was subdued by the subtle magics of the Earth Ponies. I've imagined Steven Magnet as the strange guardian of that land, as great, in his way, as Celestia.
Here's the kicker, totally off the wall: is this all a callback to G3 Ponyville? I've mentioned my appreciation of the G3 film, A Princess Promenade, before. Lauren Faust cited this movie as her inspiration for MLP:FIM. In Promenade, level-headed Wysteria discovers a hidden chamber below Ponyville Castle. There, she discovers Spike* and the Magic Flower. And by touching the Magic Flower, Wysteria is proclaimed Princess of Ponyville. In MLP:FIM, it is Celestia that discovers her true power by "touching the Magic Flower" beneath the Earth.
Wild speculation: Is Princess Twilight Sparkle to be the new ruler of the Everfree Forest? Is this the secret of the Six Lock Box? That the Tree of Harmony herself is testing Twilight, to judge her worthy of ruling her wild children?
I ask all of this because I've been working on a story about the Tree of Harmony. And the more I think about it, the more I'm sure it will be out of canon before the last word is written.
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*Master Kenbroath Gilspotten Heathspike, you infidels.
I kinda figured right from the start that they were building up to Twilight inheriting that castle. I don't know about any connection to Princess Promenade, but it's certainly an interesting concept.
1) I suspect that the castle was built almost right over the Tree's grotto because Celestia and Luna knew the Elements had to be kept close to the Tree to keep it working properly; this extended its decline by at least a millennia before the Elements had to be returned.
2) I'm pretty sure that the Everfree is a product of the Tree of Harmony. The power of the Tree seems to be to maintain the natural order of things, so even Pony environmental control magic doesn't work there.
3) It could be a shout-out to G3. However, the fact that Celestia and Luna were already princesses before they encountered the Tree for the first time (Celestia knew what it was but Luna didn't; I suspect Celestia only knew of it academically) indicates that their alicornhood comes from another source.
That said, the tree has markings similar to Celestia, Luna and Twilight's cutie marks, so these three may have a connection with its magic that Cadence, whose connection is evidently with the Crystal Heart, does not share.
I don't think that Twilight will be officially taking the castle (although Hasbro's obsession with making her a 'pretty pony princess' in line with what those middle-aged males idea of what little girls want in life it may yet happen). I would like the castle to become a kind of secret base for the Mane Six and a safe storage for various magical artefacts that Celestia wants kept out of general circulation or easy access. The fear in which the Everfree is held would keep the curious and cowardly from approaching the forest to disturb the Tree or steal anything else, like the Alicorn Amulet or the Mirror Portal.
IIRC, the Mirror Pool (the magical clone machine) is in the Everfree too. It could be a major repository of ancient magics that pre-date the ponies' move to the area because of the Windigo Plague. Could it be the original Paradise Estate (G1)?
Please don't let this stop you. Personally, I think authors on this site worry about canon violation way too much. Some of my favorite stories are the ones that take what the show has given us so far and build on it in fascinating and delightful ways. If it ends up violating future canon, just slap an AU tag on the story and call it good.
I've always liked the theory that the Everfree arose from the magical fallout of the battle between Celestia and Nightmare Moon. The old castle had to be abandoned and Canterlot was built or greatly expanded in its place.
Why is the Castle in the depths of the Everfree Forest? I think the same as BenRG up there. They needed to keep the Elements close to the Tree.
What is the relationship between the Tree of Harmony and the Everfree? The Everfree Forest seems to be a placeholder for everything unknown and/or legendary as it contains the Tree, the Mirror Pool, the Ursas (remember the Ursas? I wish they had appeared more times) and probably many more things. Maybe the forest is all that's left of an ecosystem from Equestria's distant past, and the Mirror, the Tree and the many monsters are the remnants of a civilization that used to live in that ecosystem.
If I weren't so lazy, I would write a story about it.
The second episode of Season 4 threw one of my stories into the abyss of non-canon. It happens to all of us eventually. Don't worry too much about that.
My headcanon states that the Everfree used to be nothing more than a regular forest. It was then twisted by the dark magic of Nightmare Moon.
This theory is supported by Applejack's story about the 'pony of shadows'. And such is a story that just might be based in fact, according to Castle Mane-ia.
I'd have to agree. I'm pretty sure that any Everfree stories would be out of cannon before you know it. On the other hand, if you wrote a story and it turned out to be some amazing prediction, then I think you'd feel pretty good about yourself. I say do it. Deny the muse nothing.
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I kind of hope this concept becomes explicitly canon at some point. One of the oddities of the show is that the Ponies are not in harmony with nature and that this is not a bad thing. It's a break from 80's/90's environmentalism that's completely unnecessary and all the stranger for it.
It'd be nice to send the message that, while we like and respect nature, we don't need to define ourselves entirely by it.
As far as the castle goes, yeah, it's liable to be Crepescular Citadel by the end of the season. It looks like it and the Equestrian Games are going to be the major arcs this time around. Twilight's going to be a real princess with themed guards and everything!
I wonder if Twilight will bring harmony to Order and Chaos as she did between Night and Day?
I am fairly certain that the Castle was built there to guard the Tree, and the Everfree Forest as it is today is the product of the interaction between the Tree, the forces released by Discord, and the forces released by Nightmare Moon. It's a unique place in Equestria, a fact Lampshaded in the very second episode of the show. If G4 is meant to take place in the future of the G1 universe, the forest almost certainly contains whatever ruins remain of Paradise Estate.
I also think that Celestia intends Twilight Sparkle to restore and inhabit the Castle. It cannot be a coincidence that Celestia directed Twilight to consult the Castle's Library -- a huge, ancient magically-preserved Library full of unknown tomes, and far too big for Twilight to simply move to Ponyville. What would she then expect Twilight Sparkle to do about this situation?
Perhaps I am prejudiced by my own bibliophilia, but I think it's very obvious that, once Twilight (of all ponies) knew that such a library existed and was tantalizingly close to her, it would be almost impossible to keep Twilight from repeatedly visiting the castle to explore the library, leading to the obvious solution of returning some of the castle to habitability to allow her to spend more time there. Celestia is an immortal, who was in intimate contact with Twilight for many years, and has a grasp of Pony nature refined by many centuries of practice. It seems almost impossible to me that she could not predict such a reaction from Twilight; it seems more likely to me that she set Twilight up to see repairing and repopulating the castle as Twilight's own idea.
Who better to guard the Tree of Harmony than the Element Bearers, who are after all attuned to it? In case you haven't noticed, the whole Mane Six has become a classic group of champions, like a medieval fighting band, and if Twilight moves to the castle, she will essentially wind up garrisoning with her true companions, whether or not Twilight chooses to think of this in such explicitly military terms. (I suspect her big brother will see what's happening in exactly those terms -- and notice where he is now stationed -- at one of the other ancient power points of the land!)
Celesia is an incredibly subtle being -- and in her kind and generous way, a master manipulator. I think she's been playing a very long game here. Among other things, I don't think that it was any accident that she granted lands close to the old castle to the Apples, whom she probably knew from the beginning to be a Badass Family likely to bring forth whole generations of Badasses. I think she more or less pre-positioned the other five members of the Mane Six in Ponyville, and then guided Twilight right in to meet them, specifically to save Princess Luna from the Nightmare, and more generally to set up exactly the situation that is developing now.
It's very obvious that Equestria is in danger. A normally peaceful land has been hit by repeated major attacks in just a few years. Something has been set in motion, and I very strongly suspect that there is a Bigger Bad underlying all this.
What we're seeing are Celestia's countermoves. Which she's been preparing for a very long time.
Which makes it really funny that Twilight, in the very first moments of the series, was warning her about the return of Nightmare Moon. Celestia has known that this would happen, and when it would happen, for a thousand years. Twilight herself was clearly raised and groomed as the instrument of Luna's return to sanity. Celestia has probably been laying the ground for all this for centuries before Twilight was even born.
As I said, Celly plays a long game.