"The Mean 6" Afterthoughts: Changeling Origins, The Tiny Success of Chrysalis' Revenge and More!

Time for more thoughts on this episode! Like every week, I have done some afterthoughts on it. It's not as much as in other weeks, but I could still discover some interesting things:

- Hearing about how the Canterlot Historical Society wanted to have records of Twilight's school, I couldn't help but feel that this was a bit cynical. Historic records are made so that things of the past aren't forgotten when they don't exist anymore one day. Twilight's school does not exist for long yet, less than a year, so this is like the Historical Society reckons with it that it won't be existing for much longer anymore anyway.
Not exactly a whole lot of faith there that Twilight's school can succeed..... But there is a possible explanation for that:

When Twilight stood up to Chancellor Neighsay and the EEA, declaring her school as a private school, rather than a public school, this also meant she decided to fund the school herself, as the EEA wouldn't fund any schools that are not approved by them. To keep such a privately funded school running is much harder than doing the same with a public school, so, perhaps the Historical Society expressed interest in creating records of the first ever Friendship School, because it expected that Twilight will eventually run out of funds for it without the EEA's support.

- When Chrysalis, in her disguise, ignored Starlight Glimmer and did not want to make a picture of her, Starlight looked really disappointed and hurt by this. With already feeling useless as a guidance counselor since she doesn't have much to do in that position, it hit her really hard that supposedly even a photographer of the Historical Society in Canterlot did not want to make a picture of her to include her in the records.
Later on, Starlight was hurt again, as Applejack's clone made fun of her and hurt her feelings.
It's a cruel irony that, without knowing about this, Chrysalis did get a little revenge on Starlight because of these two events.

- Speaking about the photographer, I wonder if the real photographer is still alive. We know that Chrysalis had to replace her to slip into her role, after the appointment was made between Twilight and the society, and that means that, naturally, she had to get the real photographer out of the way for that.
And, knowing Chrysalis and how she is a ruthless and sadistic murderer as seen in the official comics, my bet is on it that she killed the photographer from the society when she was on the way to Ponyville.
The fact that Chrysalis had no use for her in her plan, unlike it was the case with Cadance's bridemaids, and that she has no need anymore to hold a pony she replaces captive in a cocoon, because she does currently not have a hive to feed, brings further evidence for it that the photographer is dead.

- There is one very small, interesting detail that can be seen when Chrysalis starts to prepare her spell. The hair she ripped out of Rainbow Dash's tail has all colors of the rainbow at once.
Going by Rainbow Dash's appearance in the show, her mane and her tail consist of several thick strands that have only one color each, which means the ripped out hair of hers should also have only one color.
There are two ways to explain this.
Either this is how her mane and her tail really look; that all hairs in them come with all the colors of the rainbow, forming horizontal lines of colors like a real rainbow in her mane and tail, and the reason why they aren't animated like this is because flash animation can't do this. Or her mane and tail do look like we see them in the show, but the animators of this episode decided to animate her hair with all the colors of the rainbow so that it can be better distinguished from the hairs of her friends.
I wonder which of these possibilities is true..... Was this just a trick by the animators to solve a problem or do Rainbow Dash's mane and tail look different than we see them in the show?

- This episode has an interesting connection to something we've seen in the official comics. In Chrysalis' "Fiendship is Magic" issue, we saw her telling Twilight how the changelings originated. According to Chrysalis' story, they all were created by an evil tree after it pulled several flying insects and the skeleton of a pony inside it and used dark magic to create a new lifeform with this genetic material.
I never believed Chrysalis this ever since I read her "Fiendship is Magic" issue and thought she lied to Twilight about their origin so that Twilight can't use this information against her, because in the flashback that could be seen while Chrysalis told Twilight everything, was Starswirl the Bearded who noticed the evil tree and hammered a warning sign on it, which happened before Chrysalis got created, so she can't have a memory on this.
I still don't completely buy Chrysalis' story, but since we saw how she created clones of the Element Bearers from trees in this episode, it got a bit more credibility now.

- Twilight's retreat makes me wonder what this meant for the students of her school on that day. Even if Twilight has a few more teachers in addition to her friends, the retreat means that six of the school's teachers weren't available on that day. Going by the number of students we have seen inside of Twilight's school so far, the school probably doesn't need more than ten teachers. If that number is correct, this means that 6 from 10 teachers did not give lessons on this day, which made it likely impossible to teach all the students on this day.
So it stands to reason that Twilight closed her school for one day and gave Silverstream, the rest of the Student Six and all the other students a free day. I wonder what the Student Six used this free day for?

- This episode revealed to us that Starlight had never been on a camping trip before and that she doesn't like camping, because she hates the insects and misses amenities like books during a camping trip. She always rather stayed at home inside her house, which makes her a real homepony. This is nicely aligned with what we found out about Starlight in the Season 5 Finale and recently in "The Parent Map".
It is interesting how this season gives us small details about Starlight's past here and there. I wonder if this is leading up to something. Perhaps we will get a full episode about her past soon?

- At the end of the episode, it is possible to identify which tent belongs to which pony, as they all have individually-designed tents. On the left side, right in front of the stairs, where the tents of Applejack and Rarity, indicated by the apples and the gems on them. Rarity's tent is also easily identifiable, as it is the biggest one and even has a curtain at the entrance. Even though Rarity has gotten used to camping more and is now willing to sleep in a tent, as opposed to the portable house she took with her on her first camping trip, she still can't go camping without a bit of luxury around her.
To the right was a smaller, green tent, which seemed to belong to Rainbow Dash. It's not very clear and her tent is astoundingly unremarkable, where you would expect her to cover it in pictures of her cutie mark and Wonderbolt logos, but she's the only one left this tent can belong to after identifying the others.
In the middle and opposite of the fireplace was Twilight's tent, indicated by the color and her cutie mark on it. Interestingly, her tent is much smaller than all the others. It makes me wonder why.
Next to Twilight's tent was one covered in hearts. Since Fluttershy's Element is the Element of Kindness, this is definitely her tent.
The tent to its right has colors that are similar to Starlight's colors and the symbols on it look like her colors, too, so this is likely Starlight's tent.
The last tent belongs quite obviously to Pinkie Pie, with its pink color and the random spirals and curls on it. Plus, it is the tent Pinkie Pie looked at when they arrived and saw the destroyed campsite.
On a sidenote, Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six have a lot of guts to camp and sleep in the middle of the Everfree Forest. It seems their adventures inside of it and the dangers they faced there have gotten them quite used to the forest so that they don't fear what lurks inside of it anymore.