"Horse Play" Review: Equestrian History 20% More Explained

"Horse Play" aired and with it, the Student Six returned onto the screen! And even though they were confined to the background, this episode got me very excited because of something else:

Thanks to Pinkie Pie, we got informed how long ago it was exactly since Celestia raised the sun for the first time!
And this suddenly answers a very intriguing question that I have in my head for years now, ever since I read Celestia's and Luna's journal in 2014, and that got more and more nagging over time:

How much time did pass from the moment Celestia and Luna became rulers to Luna turning into Nightmare Moon?

Or, at least this question gets partially answered. Why only partially? I come to that later.
In this episode, we hear that it is now exactly 1,111 years ago that Celestia first raised the sun (which earned her her cutie mark, as described in "The Journal of the Two Sisters: The Official Chronicles of Celestia and Luna").
When Twilight and Spike moved to Ponyville, it was exactly on the day where it was 1,000 years ago that Luna became Nightmare Moon and got banished to the moon by Celestia.
If we assume that Twilight and Spike live in Ponyville for about 4 years now (a conclusion I came to through different details found both in the show and comics, which I can't go into here as it would divert too much from the topic at hoof here), then this means it was, on the day they came to Ponyville, 1,107 years ago that Celestia raised the sun for the first time.
And since Luna's transformation into Nightmare Moon happened 1,000 years prior and Celestia obviously got her cutie mark before this occured, we have to subtract those 1,000 years.
Doing so leaves 107 years. This means, it was roughly 107 years from Celestia's first sunrise to Luna's transformation into Nightmare Moon!
For years I have thought about this now and, finally, I've gotten an answer on it!

However, this still isn't the end to all questions..... While, after my first watch of the episode yesterday, I have initially thought that we finally have a timeframe for all the events we read about in Celestia's and Luna's journal, in the Reflections arc, in "Legends of Magic" and, partially, in Sombra's "Fiendship is Magic" issue and the "Siege of the Crystal Empire" arc, as well as for King Sombra's and Discord's (or vice versa) defeat by Celestia and Luna, thinking about it today let me quickly realize that not all questions can be answered with this.
I mainly want to talk about the things seen in "Legends of Magic" here. While it's true that we still don't know exactly when the battles of Celestia and Luna against Discord and King Sombra happened, it's this series that contains the main mystery.
According to Celestia's and Luna's journal entries, they have been crowned and started to rule Equestria, before Celestia raised the sun and Luna lowered the moon for the first time. They also had, as evident by LoM #12, their cutie marks already as Stygian came to Starswirl to ask him for help to save his village from the (FiM Universe) sirens.
However, when Stygian introduces himself to Starswirl, Starswirl mentions how he teaches Celestia and Luna so they can become rulers of Equestria one day.
As you can see, there is a clear discrepancy here; they couldn't have still be in training for their rulership there, as they had already been crowned and started actively ruling (the journal contains entries that clearly speak about ruler duties) before, but it also can't be that they have started their rulership way before Stygian's arrival, because Starswirl clearly implied that they aren't ruling yet.
I spent a lot of thoughts on this today before I started writing this review..... And did not come to a conclusion. Yet.
The obvious solution for this discrepancy would be that, simply, one of the informations is false; either the entry in their journal is wrong and they got crowned and started to rule much, much later, or, what we saw in LoM #12 is wrong and their training with Starswirl was already long over when Stygian arrived and they have been ruling Equestria for quite some time already there.
But those would be the easy explanations and no question MLP: FiM ever brought up had, if it got answered at all, such a simple answer..... Or, was it maybe Pinkie Pie who, for once, mixed something up and gave Twilight a wrong info? We know Pinkie Pie has an impressive memory for dates, but Celestia's first sunrise was very, very long ago, so maybe there are even some history books with questionable accuracy that doomed Pinkie's research to fail?
Whatever it is, while one question got answered with this episode, we got new ones to figure out an answer for. There is more analyzis and more research to make here, so I will definitely come back to this question at some point and write a follow-up to this review here.

There are a few more things I can say about this episode, but I will tackle those in some Afterthoughts later. For today, my head is steaming (in the best possible way ) after burying my mind through Equestrian history for hours straight, so I'll leave it at that.
See you soon for more!

Comments

[Archangel of the Silent]

This s(buy some apples) is way too f(yay)ing confusing, so I think it'll be easier to stick with my headcanon timeline until we start getting some real answers here.

I feel dirty after admitting to ignoring canon information. Is that natural?

[Fluttercheer]

4850153

Yes. Yes it is. Although, to be precise, admitting it was a good thing. This is always the first step to betterment. It's the act of ignoring the canon information that you should feel dirty for.