A Common Misconception

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A Common Misconception

How come nobody has ever seen or heard of bat ponies before tonight?

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Someoneirrelevant

Someoneirrelevant #1 · Oct 30th, 2021 · 2 · ·

Bat ponies were popular because we thought that Luna might've had her own personal ponies of the night because of her jealousy that regular ponies slept through her wonderful night. Though elaborate costumes would be a much more realistic solution, after all, she did change her shape into Nightmare moon just to scare some kids, so an illusion spell would make sense.

Scyphi

Scyphi #2 · Oct 31st, 2021 · 3 · ·

You have to keep in mind that part of the appeal of MLP for the bronies was the lore and world-building, and that chance to potentially extrapolate additional details from the occasionally scant few details the show would give, for the fun of the creativity. The "bat ponies" only making their (really) one and only appearance without any real in-show explanation also left them enough of a blank and surrounded with enough mystery to tickle the creative parts of brains of fans. Add in their actually pretty cool appearance overall, and it seems obvious to me what the appeal was.

Probably didn't help that there was some talk about a bat pony tribe being potentially canon at times in the official capacity. I know some of the show's staff occasionally discussed interest in such an idea on social media, and I know one of the MLP chapter books alluded to the existence of such a tribe of bat ponies. They appeared semi-regularly in the comics for awhile too, so, you know, to the fans, there did seem to be some indication that there was more going on there than mere regular guards in disguise.

Besides, Luna was openly stated to not fully understand how Nightmare Night was supposed to work when she first arrived, so why would she even think to put her chariot pullers in costumes in the first place anyway?

But yes, canon never formally made it official for whatever reason, so...certainly can't rule out this perfectly valid explanation for it either.

MagicS

MagicS #3 · Oct 31st, 2021 · 1 · ·

11033704
Yes, I do get that, I just never personally saw the appeal and just find it funny considering officially they only showed up for that one very brief moment. There were times when I would be reading like five different adventure fics that all had bat pony main characters in them too and I think I just got kind of tired of them.

Besides, Luna was openly stated to not fully understand how Nightmare Night was supposed to work when she first arrived, so why would she even think to put her chariot pullers in costumes in the first place anyway?

Plot convenience.

Scyphi

Scyphi #4 · Oct 31st, 2021 · · ·

11033771
I can get that too, seeing there's a few fanons that I think fans rely on (to the point of treating it as if canon even when there's no way it could be) a bit too much that I could care to do without, and a few more after that which I have no real issue with, I just think it'd also be fun to set them aside from time to time and to explore the alternatives.

Part of the reason why I read this fic in the first place--I was curious to see what your alternative for this was.

redmar

redmar #5 · Nov 3rd, 2021 · · ·

This is an interesting explanation even though I like stories where batponies are their own tribe as well. I don't care very trongly about it myself so I just read what I encounter.

The Mystery Fluttershy Fan