Thought. What if the Pillar is already affecting Spike and Tia had to make him hate her so he could be released from it's affects.

Think about this. If Tia wanted to get the Zenith she could hire mercenaries via a third party. They'd have no love or loyalty to her only to the person paying her, there is no way she'd drive Spike to despair and send him off alone into the cold mountains (I am assuming this fic is gonna follow the outline in the fan art Spike goes on a journey) to find this item.

Also consider Spike eats almost totally Pony Joe's food and doesnt do as much physical labor as normal. So he should be all rolli-polli, literally he should be in a wheel barrel by now, instead he looks like he is starving to death.

My theory is the Pillar is killing him and Celestia realized the only way to save him is to make him hate her and thus break the pillars connection, she just underestimated how determined the little guy is and how he will break free to go hunt the Zenith.

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An interesting theory... ...

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I hope to see how accurate this is before to long. Besides running out of stories to read.