S4E7 and why Fluttershy needs to be a vampire · 6:37am Dec 29th, 2013
Here there be spoilers. (Obviously)
From what I've seen so far around the internet, most people seem to be assuming that Fluttershy's fang at the end of "Bats!" is somehow leftover from Twilight's spell and the events of the episode. While this is a valid interpretation, I believe that it is not the case, and that instead, Fluttershy has actually been a vampire for a while now, probably since before season one. And here is why.
Let's start with "Power Ponies." "Power Ponies" could very well be my least favorite episode of the show for a variety of reasons (but that's a blog for another time), but one of the biggest is that Fluttershy apparently cared more about one fire fly than she did about her friends and the entire city of Maretropolis. People have argued that Fluttershy fights for those who can't fight for themselves and things like that, but I don't see how being paralyzed and dragged into an insane evil villain's lair or staring at the end of a superweapon that's about to destroy you and the entire city is any different from being petrified by a cockatrice or tossed around by a dragon.
So that was one strike against her.
Then this week we had "Bats!" And it looked like this episode was going the same way as the last one. If somepony didn't do something about those vampire fruit bats, then the Apple Family would be in a ton of trouble. They would have next to no crop, including no cider. And back in "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000," AJ said that "Cider sales keep our business afloat through the winter. We'd lose Sweet Apple Acres if we agreed to [only take 25% of the cider profits]." So if we don't do something about the bats, the Apples will be financially ruined and lose the farm, and considering the size of the orchard, I imagine that they provide a significant amount of the food for the town, so all of Ponyville could face food shortages (especially if they didn't have enough time to set things up to import from elsewhere in Equestria. And even if they did, food prices would soar, which wouldn't benefit any of them). And Fluttershy is still more concerned about the bats.
These bats aren't any different from the parasprites, except that they're maybe a bit less of a threat, and Fluttershy didn't have any problems with kicking them out of town once she realized what they were capable of, so what is the deal with these bats? Why are they more important than your friends? What is wrong with you, Fluttershy?!
Up until the last five seconds of "Bats!" I didn't have a good answer to any of those questions. I was getting ready to dump this episode down with "Power Ponies" as one of my least favorites, and perhaps even knock Fluttershy down from her place as one of my favorite ponies (for years I've considered her to be basically tied with Twilight as my second favorite of the mane six, right after Pinkie) to my least favorite, Because despite all the things I love about her, I couldn't get over the fact that she apparently cared more about any random animal that shows up than she does about any number of ponies, even her best friends.
But then we saw Fluttershy's fang and everything changed. I saw Fluttershy's actions in a completely new light. And suddenly it all made sense.
Fluttershy was so eager to defend the bats, especially the part where she talks (or rather, sings) about how they’re still capable of love, because she’s not just defending the bats, she’s defending herself. Because someday her friends will find out that she’s a vampire. And if she can’t convince them that vampire bats are still capable of and worthy to receive love, then what chance does a vampire pony have? Sure, her friends probably wouldn't turn on her if they found out that she's a vampire, but you can hardly blame her for worrying about it. And even if they don't everypony else might not be so forgiving.
And this explains why Fluttershy was so worried about possibly eating somepony. Sure, anyone who turns into a vampire would probably be worried about it, but if she’s been keeping this secret for a while now, then one of her biggest fears is probably that she will someday lose control and eat somepony. So of course that would be her first concern.
And there's more evidence from the episode.
First, let's look to Twilight. She didn't say anything about the spell turning Fluttershy into a vampire batpony, she just said that it "took the vampire fruit bats' desire to be vampire fruit bats and transferred that desire into Fluttershy." It takes more than just desire to give somepony fangs and bat wings (if desire alone could do something like that, then Scootaloo would have been doing Sonic Scootabooms in "Flight to the Finish," Rainbow Dash would already be a Wonderbolt, and Fluttershy would be a tree), so they probably didn't come from the spell. So either Twilight is completely wrong about the spell (which is admittedly possible, as she wasn't expecting this to happen in the first place), or Fluttershy already had the wings and fangs (hidden, of course) and the spell only made her crazy for apple juice instead of blood (which is exactly what should have happened, based on what Twilight said).
Then there's Fluttershy's claim that the seeds from the apples the vampire fruit bats eat will "grow stronger faster" into "even bigger and better" and "even more productive apple trees." First of all, from a scientific point of view, I have no idea how that could possibly work. The bats might spread the seeds around (which AJ probably wouldn't want, as I'll bet the Apples plant every tree themselves and don't want them just growing wherever the seeds happen to land), but I don't think anything they do will make the seeds grow into bigger trees. Unless there's vampire magic involved. Now, clearly this is something that AJ doesn't know anything about. Because if the apple farmers know that these bats really do make better apple trees, I'd think that somewhere in the generations of apple farming, somepony would have figured out how to use the vampire fruit bats to their advantage, just like they do at the end of the episode. But the fact that they weren't already doing so means that they must not have known the bats could help. So why does Fluttershy know this when generations of apple farmers don't? Maybe it's because she's good with animals, but she said that "This is the first vampire fruit bat I've ever met and, well, it might take some time for me to really understand their language." So it's safe to say that Fluttershy doesn't know much about vampire fruit bats. But if she is a vampire, then she'd know plenty about vampire magic, and her statements would make sense.
This also explains other things about Fluttershy’s character.
She probably lives so far away from other ponies because she’s afraid she might lose control and attack somepony.
She might even keep all those animals around so that she can drink their blood so she won’t go after ponies instead (a dark thought, I know, but my headcanon now says that the animals are okay with it, and that if vampirism is contagious, animals are immune to it).
The Stare could easily be a vampiric power.
And perhaps she was so willing to reform Discord because if her friends can accept one monster as a friend, maybe they’ll be willing to accept another.
Now hopefully the writers don’t come and ruin everything I just said, because that will not be good for my opinion of this episode or Fluttershy.
tl;dr Fluttershy's actions in this episode make a lot more sense if she's been a vampire all along.
Huh...
I guess we will see if Hub and/or IDW build upon Flutterbat and carry it over across multiple episodes.
(As an unrelated side note, how did you get that "Read More" button thingy in the post? I have searched this site for a comprehensive list of all the BB codes used here to no avail)
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That's the problem with this season, They've been setting so many things up, and I'm wondering how many of them we'll ever see again. Some of them are almost certain, like that box and the Equestria Games arc, but then I'm not to sure about Fluttershy's fang or the Pony of Shadows thing. They do seem like things that are a bit more likely to show up in the comics though.
I probably spent as long as you did trying to figure it out myself. In the end, my solution was to just put in a whole bunch of things that seemed like possibilities until I figured out what worked.
So, for you and anyone who may find this comment by searching for something like blog post page break, here is how you create those "read more" button things (and hopefully I put enough buzzwords in there that anyone lost like we were will be able to find this post). Just type in this little tag:
[page_break]
And that will do it.
There really needs to be good list of all these things somewhere.
Long Live Flutterbat. I'm sooo late replying to this thing, but ah well. You make some excellent points, but I honestly don't see DHX/Hasbro doing anything more with it.
Maybe in Season Five?