'This is Wholesome? No, This is Sparta!' — An In-Depth Look at Chrysalis's Relationship with the Changelings · 5:01pm Nov 10th, 2021
My long-standing followers will remember my rather blunt summary of why the 'Mommy Chrysalis' headcanon was dead on arrival (or rather, finale) by the end of season 6. Today, in light of my upcoming one-shot, Our Sugarbug, I'd like to tackle the second major topic surrounding Chrysalis and the changelings. And that is, that there is no proof that she was even their mother at all.
Let's go over what we know.
First, Chrysalis's involvement with the changelings:
In The Times They Are a Changeling, Thorax says, and I quote, "but I was raised by an evil queen". This follows a flashback he has in where we see Chrysalis standing by newly-hatching changelings.
What this tells us at the very least is that Chrysalis oversaw/watched over the young changelings of the hive. Judging by Thorax's later statements, such as, "every (other) young changeling wanted to be like that (a warrior)" (To Change a Changeling), and the sheer fact that Chrysalis flawlessly commanded a personal army for three consecutive appearances (second one props to Starlight hax), we can assume from this that the reason Chrysalis looked after the hive's young was to essentially brainwash them into being loyal soldiers, hungry for conquest.
It's true that the changelings other than Thorax hissed and appeared to be mean as soon as they hatched out of the shell, still free from Chrysalis's influence. However, this could be ruled out as being hunger-based. The very state of the original, predatory changelings was perpetual hunger and a lack of empathy. Only Thorax was different (possibly because he was destined from the get-go to become a bugmoose that leads his kind to emotional revolution), but even he hissed on reflex when hungry, as seen in The Times They Are a Changeling. I doubt any of our new fairy-bugs would emerge from their egg hissing, because their eggs would have received plentiful love magic even prior to hatching.
Whether she was their birth mother or not, the show never gave us anything else to work with in terms of motivation. We got one off-hooved comment about how she needed to find food for her subjects in S2, and that was it. Unfortunately, food equates to power, so her statement can be dismissed as a selfish reason, not an empathetic one. In fact, the show seemed to continue offering nothing but empirical evidence that Chrysalis functioned like how many dictators and tyrants do, using manipulation, force, or fear to maintain power. She tried to dismiss Starlight's attempts at offering a better way of life, marked Thorax a traitor just for leaving the hive, and the changelings ultimately rejected her once they discovered her lies regarding how to obtain food.
The changelings existed as extensions of Chrysalis's will, both literally and figuratively in terms of plot.
But wait, best book buggo has cute buggo parents?
This brings us to the Ocellus era. Ocellus dropped a lore bomb that a lot of fans didn't even comprehend the full implications of, at the time. She had parents—canonically confirmed parents no less, according to both the MLP Wiki and the Gameloft app game.
Enter my ultimate point for this blog. The reason Ocellus's parents straight-up debunk the colony/queen reproduction theory is because of the purposefully vague wording and evidence we got concerning Chrysalis and the hive. Thorax said 'raised', and you don't need to birth in order to raise. At no point did any changeling ever refer to Chrysalis as anything but 'Chrysalis' or 'queen'. She, herself, never referred to the changelings as her children, only 'subjects'.
And then, in the midst of all this vagueness left to interpretation, we're given far more concrete hints that practically shout, 'these changelings are Ocellus's parents'. Ocellus's color scheme is a blend of her parent's. Her siblings (also canon via the wiki and Gameloft) have colors literally mixed and matched from their parents' eye and shell colors.
These changelings showing up at parent/teacher conferences is also important. The Student Six all had representatives/non-confirmed parents introduce them in School Daze, but then, in A Horse Shoe-In, Yona and Silverstream had their previously/later confirmed parents present, and Ocellus had the nameless changelings we saw in Hearth's Warming Club. This is confirmation in of itself. If these changelings weren't Ocellus's parents, the writers could've just thrown Thorax in there as a generic representative again, just like what Gallus got through Grandpa Gruff.
Ocellus's parents have heavier canon commitment than literally anything Chrysalis ever had in terms of parent/child relationships. From this, it's safe to assume that changelings may, in fact, mate in pairs, not as a colony.
* Comments Input!
Add to that, they are only part insect, and are more based on beetles (pair reproduction) than ants or other colony reproduction insects.
Here's my takeaway.
Chrysalis's Hive can be loosely compared to Ancient Sparta.
At the age of 7, Spartan boys were removed from their parents’ homes and began the “agoge,” a state-sponsored training regimen designed to mold them into skilled warriors and moral citizens. Separated from their families and housed in communal barracks, the young soldiers-in-waiting were instructed in scholastics, warfare, stealth, hunting, and athletics.
~ History.com, '8 Reasons It Wasn't Easy Being a Spartan'
If you're a truly die-hard colony reproduction fan, the only canonical theory you have left is that Thorax ordered mass adoptions of all nymphs and young changelings, sometime after his ascension. My problem with this theory is that such a big, major event like that would have likely been mentioned by Thorax in Triple Threat, when he was unloading on Spike his issues at home.
* Comments Input!
If the hive had functioned as a typical colony, the loss of Chrysalis should have been a collosal deal. The fact this was never even brought up could be chocked up to TV Y rating and simplicity, but it can just as easily be seen as evidence that there was no brood queen to mourn the loss of in the first place.
That leaves my theory, which is that changelings always mated in pairs, but under Chrysalis's regime, all hive eggs were collected and raised directly under her supervision to ensure complete loyalty to her, and to teach them how to fight and hunt other creatures. Adults hardly got to see or interact with their nymphs after laying their eggs. This cold, detached relationship would only aide Chrysalis in keeping her army focused and concerned only on the hive, and satiating hunger.
Everything Chrysalis ever did was ultimately for her own benefit, and she remains one of the most manipulative villains in FiM. This scheme fits her almost too well if you ask me.
In KoLB, I had a brief conversation between Thorax and Twilight which touched upon this.
"When Chrysalis was removed, her militia training practices went with her. I made sure of it. It meant nymphs were no longer raised separately from their parents as the next generation of hive warriors. There was a huge meeting of all the changelings in the hive just outside the nursery chambers, where parents could identify their nymphs. There was so much emotion, Twilight. I cried all day."
~ Thorax, The King of Love Bugs, 'When Hosting a Sleepover Secure Several Changelings'
For those truly reading every line, you'll notice that I mentioned this is coming alongside a new buggo oneshot. So, yeah, keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks. 
Your boy is finally writing a story with Ocellus as a main character. 
And it, obviously, will include themes and headcanon references that this blog talked about.
Legit. I don’t recall (though my memory is s
and I can’t check them at the moment) the comics ever explicitly stating Chrysalis was the hive’s single mother either. It checks out.
Definitely keeping my eye out for that one-shot!
Huh. So I didn't mis-remember how she was identified in the series.
Good arguments, all around.
Nice theory! And I can't wait for the Celly fic!
Sound words. I've always felt changelings had their own offspring instead of Chrysalis being the offspring of all changeling purely because the insect that influences the appearance of changelings the most are beetles, a type of insect that lay their own eggs. The only other key influence is spiders, which also lay their own eggs.
Comparing it with Ancient Sparta though I never thought of before, I really should have considering I did a fic where Ocellus was forcefully separated from her parents whilst an egg, but admittingly I'm not up to scratch with my ancient history compared to modern history.
Also to add a slight correction that in no way harms your point, Silverstream had her dad Sky Beak (first appeared in School Daze but canonically confirmed in Surf and/or Turf) in the parent-teacher conference and Yona appeared with her parents (first appeared in Hearth's Warming Club). Gallus was the only one who had a representative instead of parents because... Gallus.
Ooh, new buggo story?
Sign me up!
This blog is spot on, and I still can't believe there are people who don't see it. One more thing in favor of this would be that Chrysalis would have been too busy (and probably too exhausted by) producing eggs to keep participating in invasions if she really had to lay all the eggs herself
We honestly don’t get enough Ocellus in your fics. And this is coming from a Pharynx fan.
The Ancient Sparta thing holds up, especially with how shitty we know Sparta ACTUALLY was to the 99% of the population that weren't official Spartans.
Also, if Chrysalis did lay all the eggs, it would probably be a major deal that she left the hive, even assuming changling gender is totally fluid and Thorax can just start popping out other eggs, otherwise their civilization is doomed and they certainly don't act like it.
On the other hand, to counter Skeletor, even if Chrysalis was a rogue colony queen, the whole "swipe a rogue male" (which we know existed because some drones including Pharynx didn't reform until halfway through season 7) plan was doomed to failure. The old changling model is a giant parasitical model that relies on mooching off other societies like the ponies for love. But that also means that the population cannot be isolated, at least the infiltrators can't. So even if she started a new colony, the first infiltrator to hear that the old hive now had unlimited free love would immediately reform, and probably tell everyone else at the new hive. After all, Chrysalis had been brainwashing them for like a millennia and still almost everyone immediately reformed when they heard about this new option.
Update after checking the comics:
According to Chrysalis in her Fiendship is Magic issue, they actually don't have an origin story ("They were born this way"). Celestia imprisoned the changelings in a volcano once, and a dragon accidentally let them out. But while imprisoned, Chrysalis started telling Twilight a phony origin story about an ugly acorn being dumped into an ugly pool of magic before stopping abruptly and attacking her (and escaping again).
5605542
What I was trying to say was that, in the student's debuts, it was their species' leaders who chaperoned them. Then, Ocellus, along with others had parents or presumed parents in A Horse Shoe-In.
Yeah, I didn't word the parent conference section well at all.
Edit: I've updated the blog to better explain this section, and to include some of the good points throughout the comments.
5605630
Yeah I remember the acorn story. Mutated flies and such. The comics were rather vague, too. Chrysalis was never explicitly stated to be a mother/colony queen I don't believe. Granted, I've read maybe 5% of the MLP comics so far.
5605652
If you need access to the comics, if you didn't know about it already, this site will be your best friend. I prefer to download the CBZ versions and read them here.
Separately but relatedly, I always figured the reason the hive was always short on food was also her.
Like, they've got enough infiltrators to swap out a full set of alicorns, the hero crew, probably some extras, they live next to happy mchappyland and they're still running a deficit?
Where is it all going? There's the argument that a starving populace is one that doesn't ask questions, and Queenie probably is that cunning. I think it fits better if all the excess is just going down her gullet because "I'm the queen and I deserve this."
On a related note, it also makes perfect sense that "no one figured out sharing is a thing": Her first response is to start sucking out his stores, which is presumably fatal. It just needs "No one figured out sharing is a thing, told Queenie, and survived the next thirty seconds".
5605617
Your later point definitely makes sense, but keep in mind that, for some unknown length of time, Thorax was struggling to convince at least some changelings to change. In Triple Threat, he complained to Spike about how he was having trouble with a few rogues who refused to change. And these were presumably changelings actually living in the new hive, where they could see the benefits first-hoof. If Chrysalis had taken truly loyal dissenters such as those changelings, I think they'd have only gotten harder to convince. At that point they'd not be seeing benefits first-hoof, and would still be under a charismatic and authoritative leader. The latter is important because the only reason Thorax ended up convincing them is because Ember taught him to be more assertive.
Let's also not forget Pharynx, who was quite content not reforming until Team Reformation showed up to teach him the error of his ways.
Agreed wholeheartedly on all of this, and I'm in fact going to bookmark this blog so I can just link it to people who...disagree...still with this instead of having to constantly type it all out again and again every time I get into it myself.
It also would've had the (probably unintentional) side-effect of keeping interactions among other changelings, regardless of blood relations, from ever getting all that attached with each other, hence the apparent lack of comradery that seemed to be present during Chrysalis's reign...and thereby keeping her subjects from ever being too inclined to share love with each other--they weren't attached enough to each other to have motive to want to.
That in turn would have the side-effect of artifically keeping the changelings' love supplies at continually insufficient levels, made worse by Chrysalis encouraging a selfish sort of viewpoint to handling such supplies, thus in turn lending an apparent justification to Chrysalis's style of ruling and thereby keeping dissent down and loyalty to solely her up.
Again, I doubt Chrysalis deliberately planned it that way, and this was just a happenstance gain for her (not only did the reformation clearly take her totally by surprise, she's not THAT smart
)...but the more you look into it, the more it becomes clear Chrysalis's only angle in ruling the hive the way she did was indeed just for the political power, and she wasn't really hiding that fact. Really, little wonder the changelings were all so quick to turn on her and reform once Thorax had shown there was a way to do so. There was probably far more lingering dislike for Chrysalis behind the scenes at the hive than the show let on--Thorax was just the first to look past all of Chryssi's propaganda and dare to believe something could actually be done about it.
5605546
Yes, in fact I think it was you who I saw point out once that if she really was the one thing producing eggs for the hive, then that was probably the ONLY thing she was ever doing in the hive, as she'd have to be cranking them out fairly regularly in order to match the number of changelings we see in-show, making it awkward to be really doing much else herself, let alone leading full-on invasions with herself at the front of it.
5607605
I don't remember for sure if I ever mentioned that part up until this blog (I may have, but I can't have been the first/only one to say it), but you don't even need imagination to figure it out. I'm pretty sure real-life queen ants and queen bees literally don't do anything other than sit in one place and pop out eggs and rely on regular ants/bees to bring them food. If Chrysalis was really stuck with that role, it would definitely prevent her from actively leading invasions, though I admit it would be a possible explanation for why she's so cranky all the time
Speaking of crankiness, I have a theory that one of the side-effects of perpetual hunger, intentionally or not, was that it made the unreformed drones cranky, and as a consequence, easier to provoke into a fight and more brutal during battles, which could have contributed to war victories enough that it became part of the reason why Chrysalis liked her subjects hungry, aside from the aforementioned power game. If that's the case, it could also be that the sating that hunger (and killing the crankiness in the process) played a big part in why the reformed changelings were so ready to accept friendship. They might have been far less hostile even before Thorax's era (or there would have been more friendly drones other than just him, or both) if only Chrysalis had allowed them to eat properly.
5607658
So you're saying that all of the pre-reformation changelings were just perpetually hangry.
...yeah, that checks out.
5607658
5607660
Damnit, guys, I was trying to be productive until you gave me an idea. Fifteen minutes later...
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/271512959946194944/909958402279637092/El_buggo.jpg
5607670
you know, I actually thought of snickers at one moment while writing that last post 
5607692 5607670
Not gonna lie, I did too.
Well, them being a Spartan-like society is less horrible than my theory. Which was that Chrysalis had disposed of the generation of Changelings before Thorax and Pharynx. I mean, there isn't any sign of older changelings and even Ocellus' parents seem younger than someone like the Cakes. So while Chrysalis was still in power, we have a generation of young parents trying to figure out why they feel a connection to these eggs and the grubs growing inside them. Possibly to the point that some were hatched outside the Nursery?
Honestly, I'm curious as to what Ocellus' home life was like while under Chrysalis.
you are probably right in your arguments, but I'll just leave here a fun fact from real life.
"in the hives of some types of queen bees, queens secrete a special pheromone that prevents other potential queens from laying eggs and blocks their ability to develop into a full-fledged queen. Therefore, when a certain stage is reached, queen candidates leave their nest to found their own hive. In the event of the death of the current queen, the source disappears pheromones and thus all restrictions on birth disappear until a new queen appears in the hive."
Personally, I think that it was probably originally planned by the scriptwriters to implement the idea of "Chrysalis - the mother of the hive", but since this was not directly stated, this idea was abandoned. which led to adjustments. Since the authors are often afraid to make ambiguous characters, all the positive character traits of the villains are deliberately removed from the script so that they can be easily removed from the plot later by any of the methods.