Gauntlet of Fire Conspiracy Corner · 6:00pm Apr 16th, 2016
Everything here is spoilers for the new episode that just aired, Gauntlet of Fire.
There was something very peculiar about the competitors for the Dragon Lordship this episode: they were all quite young dragons. The only adult dragon was the Dragon Lord himself.
Why should that be? Perhaps Dragon Law specifies that a candidate for the Lordship must be younger than a certain age. Maybe this would be to minimize the number of pre-existing alliances or (more likely) feuds the new Lord would bring to the throne. Or maybe there's something more going on.
Lord Torch seems fond of his daughter, giving her pride of place by his side and looking and acting proud of her at the end when she shows up with the scepter. But she is small and young, and the Law dictates he step down now, not once she has grown into a full-size adult dragon. This is a problem for Lord Torch--Ember would not win against a horde of full-grown adult dragons. But against other dragons of her own age, well maybe that's another story.
Lord Torch, then, deliberately summons only young dragons--adult dragons, he will claim, should have known perfectly well that it was time for him to step down, and therefore should have been able to show up without a summons. He then publicly and loudly forbids his daughter to run the Gauntlet--an order he well knows she is not going to obey.
It is a plot, then, to ensure his daughter holds the throne after him, with just enough of a fig leaf of legitimacy to hopefully prevent open civil war. Whether he means to make her a puppet or to actually pass on the reigns remains to be seen, but she will have to beware of unrest and dissatisfaction from the adult dragons who might have thought themselves capable of claiming the Lordship.
I wondered this myself. You present a compelling argument. I'll be linking to this blog when my own goes up.
Yeah, I noticed that, too. One explanation is that the caves in the interior of the flamecano are too small for dragons much bigger than the ones that competed... which brings up another set of questions.
Fortunately for me, the whole setup fits perfectly into the TTE world headcanon. Am I the only author who wasn't jossed by this episode?
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The traditional gauntlet caves being too small is definitely a possibility, albeit one lacking in opportunities for a dragon civil war.
Maybe those caves were chosen specifically because whoever set out Dragon Law wanted the new Dragon Lord to be young and suggestible. Was it the first Lord, trying to do what I just suggested Torch was doing? Perhaps it was a victorious Celestia and/or Luna imposing peace terms, ensuring that every new Dragon Lord would be small enough to squish tidily if he or she got any bright ideas. That would require the Sisters to be playing dumb when Spike started glowing, though.
Maybe Celestia is a lot more forgetful than she lets on. "Oh, riiight, Discord! I knew there was a reason I stopped allowing tour groups for a while."
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Yeah, the one big question in all this is why Celestia doesn't know more. Forgetful, deceptive... it's hard to decide.
I've seen some comments about Twilight's lack of action here, but imagining her doing a mental countdown several times during the episode before she steps in and helps/saves Spike works for me.
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That's what I told myself, too. I imagine Twilight's nerves were stretched to the breaking point trying to not cause an international incident by diving in and helping Spike. You have to get pretty creative to figure out why she didn't bounce Garble up and down on the floor once he rumbled to them, though. Ancient draconic
tachyonmagic-detection grid? I dunno.Restraining Twilight like that is the only way Spike gets to risk things, though, so we may get to look forward to more Princess Ineffectual in future episodes, I suspect.
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Yeah. Unfortunately the writers are going to have to either get wildly creative to give Twilight a challenge or nerf the carp out of her for inadequately explored reasons. *sigh*
This episode was okay, though. Twi holding back for Spike's sake is understandable, as is not risking overt magic that might draw the attention of Lord (Holy carp that's a freakin' huge dragon) Torch.
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Too huge for any biosphere to support. So: Spike eats gems. Torch eats landmasses. Not the entire continent, but they are called continental plates...
Which means that whatever comes out the other end may be geologically significant. Oh, that's what the bats were for -- foreshadowing! Guano deposits can basically form whole islands, after all.
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I think you've solved the mystery of why Equestria is so rich in gems. Nobody tell Rarity.
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Rarity may be prissy, but she knows beauty comes from pain and horror. I'm sure she understands perfectly well where ambergris or pearls or that cat-shit coffee come from, and respects them for what they are nevertheless.
Spike, on the other hand... hasn't he suffered enough?