Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
Nightmare Moon declares that Celestia has been locked in the moon for years. Years. Now perhaps that whole "one year between season 1 and season 4" thing can die.
Yeah I am a bit mifed about that one. It was so stupid but people have persisted with it in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
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A bit salty, eh?
This, I wish we could upvote blogs.
Super happy to see that, yea!
3573900 A little salt seasons the dish quite nicely.
Hear, hear. May it die a beautiful, burning death.
3573936 But I asked for only a little! D:
3573984
*vomits salt all over ZOMG*
3574025 NOOOOOOOOOOOO—*laskjfa;sljkdgaslkjfasjfjdasfkjdfk*
Did you watch Princess Twilight Sparkle at all?
Also, alternate timeline, so of course events aren't going to be the same as baseline
It's a ridiculous fanon because we all know there was only season 1.
Boy, that The Best Night Ever was a great series closer, wasn't it? Guess we'll watch it again next year while we wonder what FiM could have been like if it had lasted beyond one season.
It wasn't fanon, though. It's based on something Twilight said in season four. It's canon we've been pushing back against! D:
I'm more interested in her not being trapped in the sun, as so many have posited.
3574106
3574411
It was Celestia that said it, and what she said was that it was Luna's first public appearance since her redemption. That says nothing about how long it has been since the first season, it only says that Luna hasn't appeared at the summer sun celebration before that point. The one year thing was never canon. The fanon was too heavily contradicted by other events in the show.
3574411 Yeah, alt-Celestia being banished to the moon definitely raised my eyebrows. So much for the symmetry of Luna/moon prison and Celestia/sun prison.
3574472
And yet, the reaction from everyone I know has been, "They're telling us it's been just a year since season one? Come the fuck on!" So it's not like this is something people wanted. What else were we supposed to think? :/
3574537 that the show simply hadn't focused on the summer sun celebrations in previous seasons because they weren't really important to the plot, that it was talking about Luna's first public appearance since her redemption and that the TV standard of one season = one year still applies.
Or NMM is lying and re-writing history.
Alternate. Timeline.
The joys of Time Travel, where nothing makes sense
just smile and wave
3574472
Exactly, it was mearly Luna's first appearance at the Summer Sun Celebration since her return, nothing else. Notice other public functions Luna's missed: Both Great Galloping Galas we've seen and one Royal Wedding.
She's just not too into making public appearances at all. The Summer Sun Celebration also happens during the shortest night of the year, and on the anniversary of her defeat. Not surprised that it's not her favorite day, Celestia probably had to talk her into participating.
Another thing is Celestia says the second Grand Galloping Gala is the best one in years, obviously referring to the one in the first season as having taken place years ago, since she actually liked what happened then, this one was not the "best one since the last one".
3574813
They made it clear that she was returning to the same point in time as she was originally departing from, only with different events having taken place during the time in between.
Another thing of note, Sombra's war had already been going on for years as well. AJ says she knows Rarity but she's went to Manehattan years ago to help with the war effort.
So yeah, even Season 3 was already a couple of years ago.
3574505
Celestia's original appearance is while she's descending from the sun, which is where all that got started. Also, the moon during that episode was clear after NMM escaped. I guess at some point NMM moved Celestia from the sun to the moon just so she could gloat at her, since the sun was not going to be visible anymore.
3575129 It does make more of a visible point to put someone in the moon as opposed to the sun. Put someone in the sun, and within generations everyone is going to simply forget.
3574411
3574472
Actually, what she said was:
She's merely commenting on how the event has changed for her since Luna's return. There's nothing to suggest in these lines that its the first Summer Sun since her return. Imagine a situation where, say, you didn't have anyone to celebrate Thanksgiving with, then, after you end up with friends/family/etc, you start to look forward to the holiday now.
3575220
I'm pretty sure the line I'm thinking of was said by Twilight anyway. >.>
3575226 Since my memory wasn't entirely accurate I've checked the transcripts. Nothing Twilight says suggests anything about it being only one year as far as I can see. The idea that it was only one year popped up right after the first two episodes, alongside the idea that NMM's rebellion only lasted a few minutes (which was also silly).
The whole thing was developed as a weird fanon that everyone reacted to as if it were canon. I suppose it could be called a negative fanon.
3575289
...But Nightmare Moon's rebellion did last a few minutes. That's all we got from the show. o.o It's dumb, but saying anything else is fanon.
3575320 I spoke about this entire subject at length quite a while back. I don't think you saw it at the time.
3575320 Time in the show flows different from our time, even in a single episode and especially if the Sun doesn't rise. The Mane Six's journey could have lasted weeks or simply two to three days and we'd be none the wiser so long as none of the ponies let it slip and even then they might not know how much time has actually passed.
3575220 I love your username
This seems like the place to hairsplit everything about Nightmare Moon's scene in the finale, so I'll mention this here: didn't NMM refer to herself as "Queen" in the series premiere, but "Princess" today?
I fear stupid fanon never dies, but yeah, that was a lovely little bit of vindication. (The other episode that people use to invoke the whole one year thing is Tank's For Memories, but that one fits in no chronology whatsoever. Shame, because it's a good one otherwise!)
As for the whole "Nightmare Moon's rebellion lasted minutes!" thing, you're undoubtedly right there, too. One idea that I like is that what we see is not the first, but last time that Luna changes into the Nightmare Moon, the point where the alter ego she's built up as a vessel for her jealousy and resentment takes over.
3573900
Not only salty, but incorrect.
It has been two years since the beginning of season 1 at this point - we've seen two complete cycles of events, in order. You'd have to assume that somehow, magically, four years happened, but we only see the exact same events from each of the two sets of two years in order, which is incredibly improbable (doubly so given how little the CMC have aged - two years is plausible, four, not so much. Let alone five or more, as some people propose for... some reason).
This means that in that alternate timeline, Celestia has indeed been sealed in the moon for "years" - two of them, to be precise, given that we've cycled all the way past every single event from the first three seasons (save Hearts and Hooves Day, I suppose, but I think they just skipped that).
Not to mention the fact that with eternal night, a lot of the day/night cycle demarcations make a lot less sense to begin with.
3586487 Like I said before...
3586562
Look, I understand some people got butthurt when their headcanon got destroyed by seasons 4 and 5, but the show is pretty clear about seasons 1-3 having taken place in only one year (and 4-5 being in a second one).
We know season 2 took place less than a year after season 1 because it has Spike's first birthday in Ponyville. This also proves that Fall Weather Friends and Winter Wrap-Up were broadcast out of order. The fact that it is Spike's first birthday in Ponyville is a plot point, and the fact that everyone gives him gifts and makes him all greedy, something which hasn't happened before, is a centerpiece of the episode. We can safely assume, then, that this is correct and that the airing order of those episodes is wrong (which is hardly unusual; seasonal episodes in animated shows often function in this manner).
Likewise, this being Luna's first Summer Sun Celebration after her return is a minor plot point, and was significant.
On top of all this, though, is the blazingly obvious fact that all the same events have happened again in seasons 4 and 5 as happened in seasons 1, 2, and 3.
Season 1:
Summer Sun Celebration
Applebucking season
Winter Wrap-up (aired Christmas Eve)
Running of the Leaves
Grand Galloping Gala
Season 2:
Nightmare Night (Aired close to Halloween)
Sisterhooves Social
- Spike's first birthday in Ponyville
Hearth's Warming Eve (aired week before Christmas)
- Cakes are born
Hearts and Hooves Day (aired three days before Valentine's day)
- Cadance and Shining Armor get married
Season 3:
- Leadup to Equestria Games
- Twilight becomes a princess
Season 4:
Summer Sun Celebration (stated to be Luna's first)
Applebucking season
- Equestria games
Season 5:
Running of the Leaves
Grand Galloping Gala
Sisterhooves Social
- Find out that Cadance is pregnant
Hearth's Warming Eve
Nightmare Night (aired on Halloween)
These are extremely close parallel structures, and we see stuff happening in very close to the same order, and the minor deviations can be explained by them being seasonal episodes airing for the holiday in question.
The evidence in the show all points in the same direction. There is no way that the ordering of these things is just totally random; they're deliberately following up on past events and including callbacks, especially given their references to short time periods.
It beggars belief to suggest that they're just happening to show the same events multiple years apart.
3586592 You didn't read a damn thing I wrote.
3586487 help me out here, I'm looking for the part of my joke comment to my friend where I said "someone give me a random lecture about time lapses". I can't seem to find it.
No disrespect, but it looks like you're taking invitation to give a passive aggressive "OP is wrong AND salty" comment on top of the comments you've already made to him. Not really cool, dragon.
3586624
I read your post.
It is wrong.
Oh, semiotics are a thing, don't get me wrong, and the inconsistent portrayl of Canterlot and Ponyville as places is a thing - they don't have clearly delinated maps of most of these places, and if you look at them from a difference and up close, they don't always match all that well.
However, your argument of applying it to claim that many years have passed since the start of the show is wrong.
Occam's razor suggests that the simplest explanation is the correct one.
For example, you take issue with:
But this is quite literally what we saw, and we have no real reason to doubt that that is exactly what happened. It is congruent with everything else we saw - Luna lost it, raised the moon, refused to lower it, powered up into Nightmare Moon, attacked Celestia (blowing up the castle in the process), and Celestia pulled out the elements of harmony on the spot and banished her to the moon.
It is entirely congruent with the presentation of the reality of the show, and indeed, is realistic - it hangs together well. Most fights really DON'T last more than a few minutes, and Celestia has no reason not to break out her best weapon and win on the spot. In fact, that's what people generally DO.
The reason you object to this is fanon, not canon. There is no story reason to believe it occurred otherwise. Indeed, given that Luna reformed quickly after Nightmare Moon's power was stripped away from her suggests that it was fundamentally a superpowered temper tantrum, and that once she calmed down, she realized what she had done was wrong and just how stupid she had been.
We generally should assume what we see on screen is literal unless we have a good reason to believe it is shorthand for something else.
What good reason is there to believe this is shorthand for anything else? Everything in the show points towards the entire show having taken place within the span of two years. It hangs together with the presentation of the CMC, and the presentation of the material.
I do get why we handwave things like travel time and distances between places, but there is no reason to believe that the timeline is accidental - it is deliberately placed.
Why do you object to everything having taken place within the space of two years?
Your problem isn't with literalism. Your problem is the show contradicting your headcanon. Not to mention your invocation of "all the evidence to the contrary" contradicts your own argument.
3586753
The title of the post literally calls it "stupid fanon", and he reemphasizes "stupid" in the post.
Calling people stupid is asking them to argue with you.
3587358 Yes. And you did so in your own comment. Which is fine. I am asking you what the point of piggy backing off a rather obvious joke comment chain was.
Actually, just have someone reboot you. Your joke detector is malfunctioning and you're inserting yourself into two other users having fun when it's not needed.
3587358 I called the idea stupid. You, meanwhile, called people "butthurt" (and not so subtly implied that I was part of that number to boot) so you have little ground to stand on with this.
For the record, your own arguments were contradicted in this very thread before you even posted. You didn't read it. You were too busy banging out your explanation of why I'm "butthurt" and consequently wrong for not accepting your version of reality.
3587450
Your argument is that there were multiple years which elapsed, and yet, somehow, we're seeing the events recurring as if a year has passed. We've seen exactly two instances of every annual event save for Hearts and Hooves Day, which was the very last annual event if we assume "chronological ordering" (and we may not see it again unless they have another idea for a Valentine's Day episode).
Why have we only seen exactly two occurrences of each of the annual events?
Why have the CMC and other young characters not aged significantly?
The argument that more than two years has elapsed is silly. It isn't borne out by the show at all. And it isn't even borne out by your own arguments.
That blog post you linked me to was specifically you complaining about people overblowing and misinterpreting a line, which is exactly what you are doing here. Years is a very standard way of saying "a long time", it is not inaccurate anyway (as it has been 2 years since the show started), and apparently you didn't see any irony in linking me to that post.
Why did you even make this post in light of that other post?
EDIT: And yes, I shouldn't have called you butthurt, though I suspect you'd be no less upset if I had just said "I don't understand why some people persist in clinging to this stupid idea."
3587439
Because I wasn't paying close enough attention. Apologies for dragging you in here.
3587469
I've never quite understood why this fandom seems to be populated by individuals who, despite the fact that the main character of the show is about half a pride parade away from marrying a book and or library (assuming she's into polyliteramory), seem to shy away from actually looking things up.
At no point in any episode has any character said anything that would directly indicate the amount of time that has passed from one season to the next. The reason Archonix calls the fanon idea that its only been two years since the show started 'stupid' is largely because there was never any evidence to support this. As I've implied in my post, its easy to verify the exact wording spoken in the episode in question. Many fandoms don't have access to transcripts its true, but we do, and we have them for every episode, every song, every movie and shorts too.
And I can't find any sort of line in them that would support what idea that it has only been two years. Indeed, the line near the end of Make New Friends But Keep Discord and the line Archonix is referencing from the cutie re-mark largely appear to support the idea that multiple years have passed.
You claim that the season opener for season 4 is supposed to be Luna's first Summer Sun since returning, but as I've pointed out, there is no such line in the dialogue.
I should think it would be obvious that we've only seen two occurrences of each event because we've only seen two occurrences of each event--but the fact that there hasn't been a Hearth Warming Eve episode every season doesn't imply that it has only happened twice, but rather that there has only been two episodes featuring it, presumably because there's only been two episodes where things go sideways for the ponies and would make for an interesting episode. And this season has been very heavy on continuity porn, with nearly every episode referencing (in whole, or in part) episodes from earlier seasons. Including the finale.
I mean, by your own argument, how is it that we've never had an Applejack birthday episode? Or a Rarity's birthday episode (etc?) surely those are annual events as well?
Same reason kids in most cartoons rarely age; by keeping everyone the same age, you maintain the relationships with everyone else in the show, so you don't have to continually evolve them. For secondary characters like the CMC, who, as far as I can think, have probably only had 3 or 4 episodes per season, aging them up would be difficult. So writers don't do it. And lets face it, there's probably pressure on the writers to keep them from aging or progressing too. The CMC, as characters, are literally defined by their lack of cutie marks.
But its important to point out that, if you look carefully at the seasons, its really not until season 3 that we actually start to see any characters really go through major character development, with Rainbow starting to progress on her stated goal of being a Wonderbolt and Twilight graduating from being Celestia's student. Very few cartoons live past the 65-episode mark, and it is not really surprising that there are 65 episodes in the first three seasons. Its likely that the the writers haven't really put effort into moving the characters forward until relatively recently, in the fourth and fifth season.
3588173
Luna Eclipsed, season 2:
Secret of My Excess, season 2:
Princess Twilight Sparkle, season 4:
On top of that, we have Tanks for the Memories, which is an episode about Tank going into hibernation - something Rainbow Dash has never seen happen before. This means that Rainbow Dash has had Tank for less than a year - less than a single cycle of seasons - and she acquired him back in season 2. This is 100% critical for the plot to work, just like Secret of my Excess required that it be Spike's first birthday in Ponyville.
Moreover, we also have the Equestria Games arc, which takes place over Season 3 to Season 4, and indicates that, overall, not a huge amount of time elapsed between those seasons.
On top of that, we have Twilight acquire her castle at the end of season 4, unpack a new library in it in Rainbow Rocks, and have her friends help her settle into it in Castle Sweet Castle, again implying not a huge timespan elapsed between the seasons.
So, we have:
Season 2: Takes place less than a year after premiere (Secret of my Excess)
Sesaon 4: Takes place shortly after season 3 (Princess Twilight Sparkle, Equestria Games)
Season 5: Takes place shortly after season 4 (Castle Sweet Castle)
Season 5: Takes place less than a year after Rainbow Dash acquired Tank in season 2 (May the Best Pet Win, Tanks for the Memories)
Because it is a lot less work to just say incorrect things like "at no point in any episode has any character said anything that would directly indicate the amount of time that has passed from one season to the next," and they don't want their headcanon to be contradicted.
We have two episodes (Secret of my Excess, Tanks for the Memories) which are contingent on certain events not having taken place long periods of time apart, because the episode wouldn't make sense otherwise. And it is worth noting, May the Best Pet Win was released before Secret of my Excess.
What is your rationalization for those?
Moreover, the remark in Princess Twilight Sparkle strongly suggests that it was Luna's first Summer Sun Celebration since she returned. Could you rationalize it away as something else? Maybe, but why would you? The most obvious interpretation is that Celestia is happy that this year, unlike previous years, she is able to look forward to the Summer Sun Celebration because Luna is back now.
On top of all that, we've seen the same events replay across seasons 4 and 5 that played across seasons 1, 2, and 3, and they happened in the same order.
Seasons 4 and 5 have been in general. And, as noted here ( 3586592 ), they had the same events play out in the same order. The potential deviations are all seasonal episodes:
First Cycle:
Summer Sun Celebration
Applebucking season
Winter Wrap-up (aired Christmas Eve, so might be out of order)
Running of the Leaves
Grand Galloping Gala
Nightmare Night (Aired close to Halloween, so might be out of order)
Sisterhooves Social
Hearth's Warming Eve (aired week before Christmas, so might be out of order)
Hearts and Hooves Day (aired three days before Valentine's day, so might be out of order)
Second Cycle:
Summer Sun Celebration
Applebucking season
Running of the Leaves
Grand Galloping Gala
Sisterhooves Social
Hearth's Warming Eve
Nightmare Night (aired on Halloween, so might be out of order)
Without seasonal episodes:
Cycle 1:
Summer Sun Celebration
Applebucking season
Running of the Leaves
Grand Galloping Gala
Sisterhooves Social
Cycle 2:
Summer Sun Celebration
Applebucking season
Running of the Leaves
Grand Galloping Gala
Sisterhooves Social
That's pretty strong evidence that the show has been repeating itself cyclically. It isn't just that almost all of these events have happened exactly twice; it is that they have happened exactly twice in the same ordering. That seems unlikely to happen by chance.
Occam's razor suggests that the simplest explanation is likely to be the correct one. You have to engage in a great deal of contrived rationalization to arrive at the conclusion that more than two years have elapsed since the start of the show; the CMC, Spike, and the baby Cakes not aging much is explained by it just not having been a very long amount of time, the various events happening twice in the same order makes sense, Celestia's comment in Princess Twilight Sparkle makes sense, Trixie spent less than a year plotting her revenge on Twilight, Starlight spent less than a year plotting her revenge on Twilight, the Equestria Games took place not a huge amount of time after their planning stages, Cadance gets pregnant about a year after marrying Shining Armor, Diamond Tiara referencing Pinkie Pie planning her cutecenera is not referencing some many-years-old event in season 4, ect.
Everything hangs together logically if you assume that the whole show has taken place in the course of two years.
3588676
I don't know what sort of point you're trying to make here; the show literally uses '1000 years' as a catch all for 'a long time ago'; Discord was stoned 1000 years ago, NMM was banished, 1000 years ago, Sombra got shadowed and nuked the crystal empire 1000 years ago. Yet it's obvious that Discord's stoning must be more recent then NMM's banishment, although I suppose the placement of Sombra's defeat could be before Discord arrived (since they don't use the Elements against him) or after Discord was stoned but before NMM got banished (and they just chose not to use the Elements).
When someone says 'its been four years' its doubtful that they mean each year has started and ended within one season. IE, if Twilight and Spike arrive in Ponyville on July 1, Spike's birthday might not be until April 5th, but the season ended, say, in December and second two started in February.
...And they would be, assuming that Celestia didn't assign her anything to do between the end of Season 3 and the start of Season 4. (Presumably Princess Summit in EQG isn't a 'royal duty' in her mind.)
I've already explained why the next quote doesn't necessarily mean what some people are insisting it does. In fact, it only really supports the argument that people insisting on it only being two years are projecting into the episode. I've heard it said many times that this episode is supposed to support the claim being made, that only two years have passed--yet the actual wording is different and doesn't actually say so. Perhaps if people bothered to actually look up the episodes before making claims about them, we could avoid this sort of embarrassing mistake.
Considering chosen cities for events like the Olympics are picked years in advance, it would seem to imply the opposite, actually. The next Olympics, in Rio, was decided nearly seven years ago now. The idea that they would pick a place, and then less than a year later actually host the games is perhaps unrealistic.
As I suggested above, it isn't necessary, nor suggested, that each season is a) perfectly one year in length or b) starts and stops at the same time as the year does. Since something like Spike's birthday would be tied to the calendar, rather then the season, it is perfectly plausible that he only gets his 'first birthday in Ponyville' in season 2.
Tanks for the Memories probably presents a larger problem, its true, but it is hardly the case that this is the only plausible explanation for Rainbow's lack of tortoise life cycle knowledge.
Here's the thing, though; Celestia is going to be 'looking forward' to the Summer Sun Celebration next year too, and the year after that, and the year after that.
All that's being said here is that Celestia is looking forward to the celebration now, but the relationship between 'now' and 'new' is at best ambiguous and concluding that she's saying that its only been 'one year' since the last summer sun celebration is at best projection because at no point does she actually say this. Nor does Twilight.
Which, as I suggested before, is probably that the writers simply weren't trying to grow characters up or put more than-one-holiday episode in a series that normally wouldn't last past 65 episodes. The fact that much of this season has spent so much time referencing the past might even indicate that the writers are starting to run out of wholly original ideas for episodes.
For all your claim that your position is the simpler one, I notice you haven't explained NMM's comment in the most recent episode, for example, or things like Celestia's comment in Make New Friends but Keep Discord, and unlike your projections into the dialogue, deriving meaning that isn't there, both of those comments are direct and not particularly ambiguous in their wording:
Literally can't get more unambiguous then that.
Hence, the simplest explanation is that there has been roughly four years between Season 1 episode 1 and Season 5 episode 26, and apparent cyclical nature of holidays is largely due to the writers revisiting old ideas. In much the way Twilight's Kingdom revisits the idea of Tartarus (and g1 villains!), and Cutie re-mark revisits Star Swirl's time travel spell: or Amending Fences revisits a tiny little scene at the very beginning of the show.
3589212
First off, Nightmare Moon was banished for exactly 1,000 years; the other "1,000 years" were rounding, but NMM was actually explicitly a 1,000 year thing.
Secondly, yes, they were rounding with the "thousand" thing for the other instances. When exactly Discord/Sombra were banished is hard to know exactly, though both were banished before Nightmare Moon (thus, were LESS recent). Though, it is entirely possible that it did, in fact, happen literally a thousand years ago.
As for the rest of it:
1) Tanks for the Memories went unaddressed.
2) You completely failed to address the question of why things are happening in the same cyclic order as if only a year has passed.
3) I already addressed the NMM thing - it has been two years.
4) Celestia has noted that the Grand Galloping Gala is "always awful" historically, and thus, people ruining the gala makes it the best gala ever. The two statements don't even contradict each other. Moreover, a lot of leaders will say "X was the best ever!" after it happens, even if it wasn't.
I don't think there's anything I can say that will convince you, so I'm not sure what point there is in further conversation about this.
3590457 Actually she addressed number 2 here in her previous post:
You essentially ignored it the previous time around, but since you like to mention occam's razor so much, consider this: the writers showed these again because they wanted to go over similar themes.
The rest has likely been addressed as well, but ignoring things that disagree with your stated beliefs seems to be a common occurrence here.
So I agree, there's nothing more to be said, given that you will simply ignore counterarguments or strawman them into submission. Oh and for the record? You don't get to do the noble withdrawal thing when your first act on this thread was to high-handedly lecture someone else about how wrong I was, whilst implicitly calling me names.
So long.
3590457
I'm aware that it is so, but this doesn't seem to support your argument; in fact, it appears to be a largely a restating of the fact that Luna was banished for a thousand years--and that's it. You seem to be trying to make the case that somehow Twilight's comment, despite all conventions to shy away from perfect accuracy in dates (when talking about such large sums) in speech, is somehow making a perfectly accurate statement about the elapsed time between then and the present episode. For example, people probably still think of the year 1000 AD as being a thousand years ago, but this obviously is incorrect.
The fact that you think I quoted those two sections of those two episodes were supposed to contradict one another really just illustrates the fact that you really don't understand why the 'evidence' you're proposing is largely nonsense.
The purpose of the quotes is to illuminate the critical flaw with what you're saying: Celestia says, in Best night ever:
And then at the very next gala (according to you, at least) she says:
By your own argument, it should be impossible for their to have been years that have passed between the first GGG we see, and the second GGG we see, since the second one, according to you, is LITERALLY one year later from the prior gala, excepting small differences in the exact timing such as being held on a different day of the week or what not.
In fact, the same is basically true of the NMM quote from cutie re-mark; if you're claiming that season 4 and 5 represent the second year, until or unless (in your mind) we get a third Summer Sun episode, it will be forever the second year. Since the Map appeared to return them to the same point in relative same point in time, the best NMM can say is that its been a year and some change since she imprisoned her sister. You claim its been two years, but all you can say is that there has been A year plus change since Nightmare Moon's return.
I didn't address it because I largely think it is anomalous in nature, and the explanations necessary to explain it would likely be unacceptable to you because they would be providing an alternative explanation for why Rainbow is apparently clueless about Tank. The most likely being that, for the duration of the last winter, Rainbow wasn't actually in Ponyville; for example, she might have been in Rainbow Falls , etc.