Applejack: The rest of the story tells itself, don't it? Someone broke into or the power ran out in your secret underground vault or whatever, and Discord unpetrified.
DM: A flicker of surprise crosses Celestia's features.
Princess Celestia: Erm– Yes! Secret… underground… vault.
Rarity: Ohoho! Well that's just begging for an Insight check.
DM: On the Princess?
Rarity: <roll> 29!
DM: Well, normally Celestia is harder to read, but she's having a rough day. When you were here for the Gala, most of you took notice of the grand gardens beside the royal palace. And in that garden, there was, shall we say… A variety of unique decorative stone statues.
Pinkie Pie: Heeheehee! You know what they say! "Keep your enemies closer!"
Twilight Sparkle: A minor miracle he didn't escape sooner.
Rainbow Dash: Woah, wait. Does she turn ALL of her enemies to stone? That's wicked!
DM: No!
This whole arc is going to be the Fandom Wayback Machine for me, because this episode was my first chance to watch new content get ground up in the fandom mill – at one of its several peaks, no less.
This episode added a fair amount of fuel to the Tyrantlestia interpretation. I wouldn't say the results were terribly interesting at the time, but it was... certainly a meme.
The idea of a benevolent ruler freezing her enemies in stone for the royal garden has been an idea I've always wanted to do in D&D. I just haven't found a good narrative hook to make it play out smoothly yet.
In a way, you could say that having petrification as a standard punishment is both efficient and merciful- depending on how aware the 'victims' are, it could either be a non-violent, non-damaging way of storing criminals until the resources exist to properly contain and/or rehabilitate them, or an opportunity to do passive rehabilitation on them via, I don't know, magic mind doohickery.
And it costs a lot less to keep moss off a statue than it does to feed and house inmates.
@Digo: Given that more people are familiar with Narnia then with MLP, unless you plan on playing with MLP fans, don't be surprised if your players automatically assume your benevolent ruler is evil.
... Actually, in retrospect, turning your enemies to stone seems kinda like an evil thing to do, no matter your actual alignment... Perhaps it's the "magic" component to it and its association with a certain infamous Greek villain of yore? And association with evil creatures? And Harry Potter? :P
Especially since Discord makes a point of deliberately stating that he "doesn't turn ponies to stone". Heavily implying that it's in Celestia's retinue.
Discord has standards. Of course, he says that AFTER spending over a millennium as a statue. And that implies that he was aware all that time. Celestia didn't know that of course, but still... chilling.
You'll note that while she had let him sit all that time, after finding that out she almost immediately went about looking for an alternative. And found Fluttershy.
It's actually my headcanon that Celestia used to be a more... authoritarian ruler than she is at present - and also that Equestria was a bit of a darker place in general.
One fanfic I've read actually references the "I don't turn ponies to stone" line, and Celestia mentions that she indeed once turned ponies to stone as punishment. In fact, when one unicorn doctor is poking around in her mind, trying to help her unlock some memories that have been sealed away, she briefly reverts back to how she was a thousand years prior, and promptly turns the poor unicorn to stone.
Time for the best of the best.
This time is the best of season 1.
Today's match is Fluttershy vs. Rainbow dash.
Sonic Rainboom vs. The Stare Master.
Which was the better episode?
They're both good, in their own way. So I'm not choosing between the two.
Chargin Chuck: Rainbow Dash is pretty annoying early on, but she improves more and more over time. Barring when the staff decides to to a zombie pony episode and make her backslide.
I started watching January 2011. Only 12 episodes were out and the show was on break for winter. My first new episode of the show was Fall Weather Friends.
That's right, I was there before 20% Cooler was a thing. That thought is just so surreal to me.
I remember going to /co/ on 4chan to look up discussions about the show. I remember people theorizing based on pre-release descriptions that Suited for Success would be the cringey "mandated target demographic" episode with nothing but the girls playing dress up the whole time, while people were getting hyped for Feeling Pinkie Keen because they thought the episode would be an explanation for Pinkie's 4th wall powers. Funny how that worked out.
I forget exactly when I started watching. I think it was near the end of season 2, or just after season 2.
I actually left the fandom because the fandom section I'd been exposed to at the time was rather toxic. Also, I was pretty disillusioned with the obvious misandry in the writing of Seasons 1 and 2. (Which is MUCH better now.)
It wasn't until late last year, partway through season 7, where I started watching again. I ended up seeing various comments on tvtropes and other places about good things happening, and better episodes, which got me curious enough to get back in.
I started watching near the tail end of season one (can't remember the exact date to be honest) one of the first episodes I saw was A Bird in the Hoof and as soon as they did the Benny Hill parody scene I was like "I'm in!"
My headcanon is that as the generations went by ponies kept forgetting that that wasn't just a statue and eventually Celestia gave up on reminding them. Possibly because of the stress of her sister being banished to the moon.
She knows that Nightmare Moon was trapped in the moon. She doesn't know whether or not Nightmare Moon was turned into stone before being safely stored out of the way in the Moon...
In my Ponyfinder game/history, she turns at least almost all her enemies into statues. ...And yes, there is a mass escaping one time. Which sparks a huge war. ...Which eventually sparks another huge war once things calm down.
This episode added a fair amount of fuel to the Tyrantlestia interpretation. I wouldn't say the results were terribly interesting at the time, but it was... certainly a meme.