Time in Equestria · 11:21pm May 21st, 2013
How does time work in Equestria?
I’m going to start off blahgging with this question, since I haven’t blahgged before and this seemed like an interesting subject to broach.
The other day I saw a study on the ages of the ‘mane six’, however, despite all the sources and the lengths they went to prove that time itself existed it was remarkably insufficient to explain anything. Here I’m going to not cross the line between unsafe assumptions and canon, and there will inevitably be holes left for your imagination to fill. So, first, let’s note some interesting things on how time flows.
We know that Equestria has been around for at least a thousand of years. Any extension of this time would be assumption, but there are some approximations that should be considered reasonable. For instance, the Hearth’s Warming Eve story takes place before Equestria as a nation existed, and before the alicorn princesses rose to power. We know that, between the time of Equestria’s founding and Luna’s banishment, Discord ruled for an era before being stopped by the alicorns, Canterlot was founded, and Luna lived for long enough to betray Celestia to turn into Nightmare Moon.
Due to all this, we know years exist. How this exactly works is up to speculation, considering the princess’s abilities of circadian manipulation. One other thing we can note is that seasons, though still controlled by pony civilisation, also occur at annual intervals. We have established solstices, and we can likely safely assume that seasons occur annually (considering that that is in their definitions).
Another little thing to note is the hours in a pony day. At the majority of views we get of clocks in the show, they show eight marked hours rather than our twelve. On one case we have a nine, and another we do get the usual twelve, but most appear to be eight. (For reference, the Ponyville clock tower at approximately 00:48 seconds in S1E22.) This does not necessarily mean that a 16-hour Equestria day is shorter than an Earth day, but the number of minutes and seconds could be changed. We may be able to get a measurement of seconds from the Wonderbolts Academy episode, but accurate results are pending. Again, I’ll restate that this does not necessarily mean the day is shorter or longer than one on Earth, but is simply marked differently.
However, the most notable part of this blahg is what I’m approaching now.
Pony ages and lifespans.
This has been a difficult subject to approach for many (though they blunder in anyway), and is where most assumptions I notice come into play. The study I mentioned in the beginning had this as the main focus, but, to be honest, it was absolute tripe. Amongst such amusing lines as "Even though Fluttershy said she was a year older than Pinkie Pie, we conclude that this was not literal", they came to the conclusion that the ponies in the show were approximately four years old. They referenced many pieces of evidence, but their argument was flawed and filled with assumptions.
They utilised this piece of evidence, but failed to take note of all of it and its implications. Firstly, this is rather vague, but the only true concrete evidence given is rather important. “MLPs are horses with human brains”.
We know that ponies are significantly anthropomorphic, and capable of virtually everything humans are. This, along with the obvious fact that their mental abilities are on par with that of a human’s (and often more so), destroys the regular argument that their early life maturing must be at least similar to that of a real-life Equine.
Brains take time to develop to get to our capacity. Animals don’t take as long as us to mature because they do not have our cognitive potential. Therefore, to get to our level the ponies of FiM need to have a reasonable amount of time to get there. Namely, our amount of time, as it takes at least several years to even learn to talk.
Another idea is that ‘magic’ could be present in this and accelerate this. While being very doubtful (and what I would call an unsafe and crude assumption), we also have to take note of the experience of the ponies in the show. For instance, Rarity owns her own boutique, and her job is centred around something which takes years to properly learn in real life, to not only design her dresses but make deals and manage her business. And when it comes to learning, this brings me to one last fact that undermines the idea that the ponies have regular equine years.
The CMC are considered fillies. Along with this, their voices and physical characteristics, we can conclude that they are prepubescent. Now, with the seasonal rotation of Equestria throughout the show, in addition to calendars and the general vague sequence of events, we can see that approximately one or two years have passed throughout, yet the CMC are still basically the same age. Fluttershy has also stated that she is a year older than Pinkie Pie, yet is not particularly physically different. We also saw both Fluttershy and the rest of the main cast as foals at the same time, and while there was a slight difference, it was not enough to be consistent with the four-years-to-adulthood theory.
This is all we know from Lauren Faust and the show’s canon. We can safely conclude that the ponies use regular human years, but, as implied by Faust’s comment on the subject, their maturity levels are retained at the levels of a young adult for longer than us. This also has the added benefit of making shipping slightly less creepy in certain instances.
One last interesting note to make is that while pony lifespans are unspecified in length, the only ‘regular’ pony that we have some sort of number to their age is Granny Smith. She has been established as a founding member of Ponyville. However, as stated in Winter Wrap Up, Ponyville has been around for ‘hundreds of years’. So, canonically a regular pony’s lifespan could stretch for that long. (Or we could be sensible and realise that that is just a small plot hole in a kid’s show, but that wouldn’t be fun now, would it?)
From this information, you can draw your own conclusion, and make your head canon for your stories. Also feel free to use the comments here as a place to discuss the nature of how time flows in Equestria, I’m very interested in your takes on it. (Time travel happens to be my fetish.)
For any of you following me for my actual stories, well, I’m actually writing a rather long Legend of Zelda crossover that will be ready to upload… sometime. But here’s to show I’m actually active.
(PS: Yes, I know how ‘blog’ is spelt.)
I personally have the headcanon that Granny Smith is a secret alicorn.
1096413
Maybe Granny Smith was Starswirl the Bearded who transcended to alicorn state after all? (Also I have headcanon that all alicorns in the series universe have to be female, therefore... yeah.) :3
1096446 ... I feel the need to write this, now.
1096450
An ancient sage genderbending into one Granny Smith and hiding out in Ponyville under a new identity? I'd read it.
Maybe Granny transforms to alicorn state by night and becomes Ponyville's Batman when all the Element Bearers are asleep?
1096459 well that's just silly :3
Tl;dr