Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Marketing · 12:51pm Jan 31st, 2016
It seems that Sunday morning blogging is a hard habit to break. Speaking of which, break going here for those who are trying to get to Season 6 unspoiled. Good luck to you.
So, everyone who clicked that "Read More" button has probably seen the clip that unveiled Flurry Heart, Cadence's hyperpteric offspring who bears more of a resemblance to five-year-old Sweetie Belle than to any infants we've seen on the show. Reactions have been mixed, to say the least. I may as well collate my responses to other blogs into an easy-to-reference comment of my own.
I'm taking my usual stance on this one: Wait and see. There's no point in getting overexcited about a clip devoid of greater context. That being said, there is some information we can derive from the preview. Shining Armor's warning and Twilight's shock make it clear that this is not how alicorns are expected to come into being. This is as much a surprise to the characters as it is to us, which makes it clear that this will not go unexplained or uninvestigated... hopefully. Plus, Celestia and Luna are in the room, so they should able to shed some light on the subject.
Given what little information I have to work with, I have five hypotheses:
• Flurry Heart is simply a naturally-born alicorn, which is a thing that can happen. It just requires an alicorn parent, so it's never really come up before.
• This is a temporary state of being for Flurry Heart as she adjusts from the intensely magical environment of an alicorn's interior to the relatively lesser background magic of Equestria. (Alternatively, she may keep her extra anatomical accessories only in the Crystal Empire.)
• This should be a temporary state of being for Flurry Heart; her body just can't sustain itself in its current form. Twilight and the girls will have to quest for some means of undoing ascension. This could involve Starlight Glimmer.
• Cadence's womb does not obey the laws of physics and magic as Equestria knows them. She is the pony Shub-Niggurath, the Pink Mare of the Ice with a Single Young. Thus far.
• Flurry Heart is a changeling, as per their classic role of replacing babies. She may even be Chrysalis in as small a form as she can assume, which required shifting a lot of mass into the wings.
In conclusion, I look forward to seeing the full story, despite the title of the blog. That was just me being tongue-in-cheek and continuing my usual naming theme.
It could always be a dream sequence?
Direct reference to the Journal of the Two Sisters backstory for Celestia and Luna - calling it now.
Also, Cadance is Mega Mare. I don't care if equines are normally fine after giving birth, passing that filly out should NOT leave Cadance able to stand
This is my current theory. It does raise the question of whether or not Celestia or Luna ever had kids and if they never had alicorn spawn, but that might be as simple as needing a pretty magically powerful bloodline from the father's side too. The Sparkle family definitely counts for that, whoever the elder princesses might have hooked up with might not have.
I do kind of like this one, though.
Or maybe she's just wearing a Baby Princess costume, and Shining is teasing Twilight.
We knew the baby was coming, and I honestly half expected it to be an alicorn. And yet people are still freaking out.
You'd think the fans would learn by now (ever since Cadence, funnily enough) that ponies with a horn and wings sell. What impresses me is that I found the handling of new alicorns to be done pretty well by the show runners. I like Cadence, despite her birth as a marketing device.
I guess the good thing about this is that we don't have to wait much longer to find out what's going on. No year long break this time!
3724710
The thing is, Celestia and Luna could never have had kids because they were both so business oriented to not want kids. Or they decided that their lives were too hetic/they didn't need a stallion to make them happy. Cadence could be a...
(get it? I used a Rarity pic to say Rarity...I'll go home) in her love for Shining Armor. No alicorn ever thought about taking an unicorn for a mate in over two millineum.
Heck this could be a reference to Cadence's origins to the original empress of the empire (I know I know, but empires are ruled by emperors and empresses, and I think calling Cadence and empresss is just awesome.)
Edit:
While I could tell this was tounge in cheek, this plus what 3724726 said, does make me think.
Would the reaction be different if this show was NOT run by a toy company? Would the fans continue to curse Hasbro for everything if the show was run by someone else? I mean, the Strawhats in One Piece get a marketable crewmate in chopper and no one bats an eyelash or Goku gets a new mode to make money off of and no one says a word, but the writers put in a foal and its "Marketable". It does make one think about how labels wor
I prefer my headcanon where, rarely, alicorns are born. Each is born with a destiny in mind. For example, Cadance was born an alicorn to lead the Crystal Empire on its return.
3724732
Nice offense intended, but unless I totally missed something from the show that's totally headcanon regarding Celestia and Luna. There's a lot of their history that we have no basis in canon for knowing. Unless I'm completely forgetting, even the book by Meghan didn't cover whether or not they had or wanted kids.
Teeheehee. Good luck indeed. I'm just not even trying.
(Also, I know that blog title sounds familiar somehow, but I can't remember...)
If Flurry Heart becomes an alicorn I SWEAR I WILL LEAVE THE FAND....oh...Nevermind.
3724755
Oh, no offense taken, really. I worded it wrong and that was supposed to read like a theory rather than fact.
I don't really have any problems with Flurry Heart. Yes, it's a marketing device. So's the entire rest of the show. With each new season they've introduced new major characters and developments. The characters continue growing and new characters, with their own relatable quirks, come in for them to tell new stories about. I'm gonna judge this by whether they use her to finally give us a good Cadance (and Shining Armor I guess) episode or three. And come on, who doesn't want to see Twilight being an aunt?
My off-the-wall prediction: she's the reincarnation of one of Cadence's presumable alicorn ancestors from the Crystal Empire before it was taken over by Sombra.
Personally, I trust the writers to do something cool with the new princess. They have a long track record of doing this sort of thing surprisingly well, after all.
Am I the only one who wants to see someone (possibly OP) write a fic exploring each of those possible explanations for Flurry Heart and her (massive) wings, in a similar vein to The Many Secret Origins of Scootaloo?
Also, I find this picture to be hilarious:
lh3.googleusercontent.com/-23mdXSe7Vbc/VqvuJaptgLI/AAAAAAAANFQ/PbSUMEjVCQU/s650/SPOILERMLPSEASON6FlurryHeartbyEdowaado-621161380.png
Calling it now: Flurry Heart is the Princess of Storms.
Remember, Shining armor is adopted? He's secretly Princess Celestia's love child, so he has alicorn blood in him.
(Actually, I think this calls for a short bonus chapter for Spoilers!)
3724864 Well, I can say I've definitely thought of doing a fic exploring the changeling theory.
3724759 http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=73981
Those hoping to avoid all spoilers will need rather more than luck. A hyper sleep chamber might be in order (or no internet for four months). To put it into perspective, there Is a story featuring the baby in what's hot right now. Let's not even get started on Equestria Daily.
My hypothesis: Time travel. Flurry Heart's wings were sent back in time to stop the Terminator from assassinating, uh, Flurry Heart? *Shrug*
The part that most concerns me is her name. Like, there's a good change she grows up into a cold-hearted bitch.
I still like my theory better:
“When a stallion and an alicorn love each other very much, they go out into a night much like this one, where the stars glimmer with light and the moonlight shines down so bright it seems like midday. They climb up on a hill, normally with a picnic lunch or something in case they get hungry because it’s hard to concentrate on an empty stomach, and the two of them sit out under the stars for hours.”
...
“Kissing?” echoed Twilight, sounding a little hollow.
“That’s the important part. Long, slow kisses, filled with all of the love you have for each other.” Cadence sighed, still looking up at the stars. “It’s a magical moment, and that magic of love causes the star that the couple has picked out to blossom into a foal.”
It just appears as if Cadence and Shining Armor picked a particularly fluffy star, I suppose. Or this:
orig04.deviantart.net/52c6/f/2016/028/0/f/never_be_royals___the_bump_by_ncmares-d9png7g.jpg
3724766 Ahh, gotcha.
3724677
Kind of a cheap copout if it is.
3724715
There will be quite the reckoning if that's the case. Twilight has access to far greater practical jokes than her brother. He has an army. She has a Pie.
3724726
Very good point about the shorter hiatus. "Spring" is a vague term, but even if they mean the day before the summer solstice, it'll still be shorter than the last one.
3724732
It's an interesting question. Heck, I can't help but wonder if the royal couple would even exist if the show were less of a commercial.
3724740
That works too. Heck, I've posited as such in a few stories. I call it the Malvolio Paradigm: Some are born alicorns, some achieve alicornhood, and some have alicornhood thrust upon them.
3724788
Now that's an interesting hypothesis.
3724864
I promise nothing, though I do admit that exploring the many explanations for Flurry Heart would be fascinating.
Also:
But then what will Rainbow Dash be?
3724868
I thought Raincloud abandoned him on the Sparkles' front stoop...
3725000
"Come with me if you want to survive the fan drama."
3725084
Hopefully, this will be one of the cases where the name doesn't fit all that well, or does so in an unexpected manner.
3725288
Well, if anyone can conceive immaculately, it'd be a quasideity of love. And they did only say that they were having a baby, not that Cadence was pregnant.
I have not seen the clip, only the pictures.
Problem: she is disproportionate. Could they have at least made her wings and horn the same size as the Cake Twins had at birth (unless this is a plot point and something has gone wrong, necessitating the M6 intervening to fix some problem. That could be a fun episode, albeit one where I have no idea what exactly would cause such a oddity, and the message could be bad. Nevermind.).
Other problem: Twilight had to earn her crown and wings by basically achieving enlightenment, with finishing the spell as the thing that pushed her over the edge. Given that that is the only in-show creation of an alicorn, I am under the impression that ascension is earned in all alicorns (I do not take the books as canon).
A dream sequence, with Cadence waking up in the first or last five minutes to discuss her worries with Shining Armor to help her cope with pregnancy woes and anxiety over being a mom could be fun.
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Given the sample size of four (officially to date, not yet including season six), I would argue that new alicorns appear shortly before they are needed, in line with the Malvolio Paradigm. This has worrying implications for the appearance of a fifth. I mean, Twilight channeled the power of four alicorns to fight Tirek—who had by then absorbed the magic of (presumably) all the ponies in Equestria plus Discord—to a stalemate. What could be so bad that a fifth alicorn is needed, Grogar? Or maybe the show runners are using this as an excuse to begin laying the foundations for Generation Five?
3725467
Given Twilight's visions back in "Princess Twilight Sparkle" and the way the animatic for it made no mention of it being a dream sequence, this theory cannot be discounted. Though the picture of the toy version also leaked strongly implies otherwise.
3725454
They probably would've, it wouldn't have been the first time a show or a series had a family member appear out of nowhere (One Piece-Ace/Sabo, Gargoyles-Angela, one too many comic books to count,Super Sentai if they want someone new for a character of the week) I mean, let's not forget that Lauren herself was the one who created Shining Armor and gave him his powers.Heck, I've gone on to do an entire running gag about this.
*Sees new family member* "And since this family member has never been mentioned before or hinted at, I must hate him/her"
3725460
Dash would become the Princess of Winning, duh! I swear, that mare has tiger blood.
3724687 Now I hope Celestia and Luna start acting like Flurry Heart is a better alicorn than Twilight or Cadance because she was born that way like they were, and Twilight and Cadance get super jelly.
3726028
Yes.
I want this.
This made me chuckle-snort to keep from laughing aloud.
If it's not some kinda of fake out and they keep with the way they have been doing their time-flow this would be an incredibly quick pregnancy. So she could wind up with a thousand young before we knew it... .
My first thought when I saw the wings was "Wow, those are some big wings." and then Sir Mix-a-Lot started playing in my head.
I blame time travel. Always. What was the question again?
Nice story idea! Put it on the "outlines that might one day grow into something more" stack, it's got potential.
Barring Twilight, alicorns have very different designs from normal ponies. I wouldn't look too deeply into Flurry Heart being bigger than expected, that's normal for her tribe.
Though it would certainly not have made the birth any easier on Cadence. Do you think unicorn midwives ever consider teleporting the foal out? Teleporting's plenty difficult, but Twilight's the expert.
You know, ever since Twilight grew wings, there has been this common fan theory that alicornhood is something you have to earn, something you have to be worthy of.
The thing is: just who is it that rewards you with alicornhood and judges you worthy and all?
Whatever the case may be, every pony has their destiny(1), so I think we can with good conscience say that lil'pinky big-wings being an alicorn is either some kind of accident or mistake, or there is a reason behind it.
I'm not against the notion of alicorns being born, but considering the setting, I don't think it makes sense for that being just "a thing that can happen."(2)
At least, from the reactions of everypony, I think it's safe to say it isn't exactly a normal or common thing. Whether accident or agenda of fate, I think there'll be quite some shenanigans around that foal.
Final idea: What if it technically wouldn't need fixing, but some ponies decide it needs fixing?
(1) Cutie marks, if nothing else. Also, just who decides destiny?
(2) With the caveat of Discord's involvement, of course. With that guy, I wouldn't rule anything out.