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[Sean Mirrsen]

That last one isn't an assumption. Plants do need sunlight to grow. If you need any tiny bit of proof to that, there's the single verse in "Winter Wrap Up" that says "With proper care and sunshine / everyone it feeds.", referring the "tiny seeds" of the previous verse. Since this whole show is built around recognizability (no other reason for ponies to wear saddles as clothing, for instance), I can assume it's all Like Reality Unless Noted. So, since we don't get anything to prove it otherwise (as we do with weather patterns and pegasi, and day/night cycles and whatever immor(t)al government figure happens to be in charge), I can assume that plants need the same basic requirements to grow - sunlight, water, and proper climate.

[Sordid]

Oh please, song lyrics? Really? That's your evidence? I rest my case.

[LordBucket]

Oh please, song lyrics? Really? That's your evidence? I rest my case.

And your evidence is what, exactly?

[Sordid]

I'm not going to repeat myself. Re-read the preceding conversation at your leisure.

[LordBucket]

I'm not going to repeat myself.

Yes, I see how it would be difficult to repeat your evidence that Equestrian plants don't require sunlight when you've given none.

[Dsarker]

We've got song lyrics and practice in the show on the side that NMM was going to kill everyone.

On the side that she wasn't, we've got absence of specific evidence. No where does it say it would kill everyone, no where does it say that ponies tried to convince her but failed (oh, wait, yes it does).

That's the evidence for both sides.

[Sordid]

I'm sorry, that's just not true.

[Sean Mirrsen]

So, assuming this is Like Reality Unless Noted, like it very much seems to be, we can imagine the disastrous consequences of an eternal night in Equestria with reasonable accuracy. It is not shown anywhere that plants can grow without sunlight, and since most of their other behavior and properties are consistent with normal plants, we can assume they're normal in this regard as well. I'm sorry, but your arguments are overthrown, Sordid.

Try Again Y/N y?

[Dsarker]

Your evidence is that the source we have for Luna being entirely unable to be convinced is unreliable. And we know that this is unreliable...how? Granted, it may be an oversimplification, but even Celestia thinks that even Twilight shouldn't be reading it because it is too old. Nobody else reads it. Why would you bother to change that sort of thing? It'd be like taking a light pole down because in the middle of it, less than an micrometer of it has a tinge of rust.


Your evidence for the other thing is that there is no proof that X is Y, therefore X cannot be Y. Whereas our evidence is that X in other cases is usually Y. Therefore X can be Y and probably is.

[Sordid]

I'm sorry, have you watched the first two episodes? Where exactly does it say she thinks she should stop reading it because it's too old? That is never stated or even implied as the reason. You're just making things up out of whole cloth.

Your evidence for the other thing is that there is no proof that X is Y, therefore X cannot be Y.

Wrong again. My reasoning is that there is no proof that X is Y, therefore there's no reason to think that X is Y. Not the same thing.

[LordBucket]

Wrong again. My reasoning is that there is no proof that X is Y,
therefore there's no reason to think that X is Y. Not the same thing.

Problem being that there is no evidence to support your position, but there is evidence to support opposing your position: Applejack's statement in Winter Wrap Up that the plants need sunlight, and Nightmare Moon's assertion in episode 2 that she intended to bring eternal night.

You simply reject that evidence because it doesn't support your conclusions.

[LordBucket]

So since that seems pretty much exhausted, I submit the next topics for discussion:

I assert that:

 * Celestia gave Twilight two tickets to the gala, not to troll her because she knew she had 5 friends, but because she expected Twilight to bring a date, and sending two tickets was completely appropriate.

 * Prince Blueblood was a deconstruction of the expectations that girls put on men. The point is not that he was "bad" for failing to live up to Rarity's expectations, but rather to point out that traditional female wish-fulfillment expectations are silly and unreasonable by demonstrating them with a gender reversal. To put it another way: Blueblood expected exactly what Rarity expected. By showing how obviously dumb it is for a guy to expect these things, it deconstructs how dumb it is for girls to expect them.

Remember, Faust is an admitted feminist. Her message was not that "guys are bad if they don't pander to you" but rather, "don't expect men to pander to you." So all these guys writing fanfics bashing Blueblood are Completely Missing the Point.

 * Trixie was a traveling magician. It was completely proper for her to maintain a character facade of being arrogantly over the top. The mane cast didn't get it, and interpreted her role literally. It was inappropriate for them to seriously challenge her, just like it would be inappropriate for an audience member to tell a real life stage magician that his magic wasn't real. Of course it's not real, and of course Trixie probably wasn't the greatest most powerful magician in the land. She was simply putting on a show.

[Sordid]

Wrong again. My reasoning is that there is no proof that X is Y,
therefore there's no reason to think that X is Y. Not the same thing.

Problem being that there is no evidence to support your position, but there is evidence to support opposing your position: Applejack's statement in Winter Wrap Up that the plants need sunlight, and Nightmare Moon's assertion in episode 2 that she intended to bring eternal night.

You simply reject that evidence because it doesn't support your conclusions.

Not really. What I'm actually doing is refusing to jump to conclusions the way you guys do. She doesn't say she wants to kill them all. Quite the contrary, what she wants is the ponies' attention. Killing every last one seems like an exceptionally poor way of achieving that goal.

* Celestia gave Twilight two tickets to the gala, not to troll her because she knew she had 5 friends, but because she expected Twilight to bring a date, and sending two tickets was completely appropriate.

Possible, but then that would be a lapse in judgment on the part of the show's writers with some rather unfortunate implications, IMO. I mean, it's a cartoon for little girls, right? Typically, shows have protagonists that are the same age as the target audience, so... um...
But then again, I am an old, socially inept shut-in. When do girls start dating these days?

* Prince Blueblood was a deconstruction of the expectations that girls put on men. The point is not that he was "bad" for failing to live up to Rarity's expectations, but rather to point out that traditional female wish-fulfillment expectations are silly and unreasonable by demonstrating them with a gender reversal. To put it another way: Blueblood expected exactly what Rarity expected. By showing how obviously dumb it is for a guy to expect these things, it deconstructs how dumb it is for girls to expect them.

That's actually quite a clever interpretation. I like that.

Edit: Hm, becoming a stage magician in a world in which real magic actually exists seems like a rather poor career choice, IMO.

[Sowelu]

Not really. What I'm actually doing is refusing to jump to conclusions the way you guys do. She doesn't say she wants to kill them all. Quite the contrary, what she wants is the ponies' attention. Killing every last one seems like an exceptionally poor way of achieving that goal.

She had a cutie-mark breakdown, which is a monumentally well-established concept in every mane-cast pony.  When you fail to achieve your basic nature (Pinkie Pie's parties, Fluttershy's getting along with animals, etc etc) you go utterly fucking ballistic and rain hell on everything around you.  Luna's sine qua non was having her night appreciated.  Nobody appreciates her night.  Therefore, Luna goes berserk and /is not herself/.  It's a mental breakdown that all ponies are vulnerable to, except maybe our lovable blankflanks.

* Celestia gave Twilight two tickets to the gala, not to troll her because she knew she had 5 friends, but because she expected Twilight to bring a date, and sending two tickets was completely appropriate.

Possible, but then that would be a lapse in judgment on the part of the show's writers with some rather unfortunate implications, IMO. I mean, it's a cartoon for little girls, right? Typically, shows have protagonists that are the same age as the target audience, so... um...
But then again, I am an old, socially inept shut-in. When do girls start dating these days?

Well, the mane cast can't be that young.  They're clearly long since out of school (except for Twilight, who is either in college or in grad school depending on your interpretation).  They're significantly older than the CMCs.

And kids' cartoons often don't have protagonists of the same age.  Trying to remember the stuff I watched around that time...  TMNT, nah.  Gargoyles, nah.  Thundercats, nah.  Etc etc.  Often, shows are good examples for "This is what I'll be when I grow up!".

[LordBucket]

that would be a lapse in judgment on the part of the show's
writers with some rather unfortunate implications

The show is full of unfortunate implications. We were talking about the racially biased caste system and child slavery a few pages back. There are lots of things going on that I don't think the script writers really understood the implications. People often write in accordance with standard conventions, without stopping to examine what those conventions mean.

Just ask the common sense question: A girl is given two tickets to a formal ballroom dance. Who is the other ticket for? "A date" is the obvious answer.

In any case, I think the implications of Celestia anticipating that Twilight might want to take a date (or perhaps, encourage her to) are hardly unfortunate. Taking a date to a dance isn't exactly creepy or sinister. Especially compared to stuff in any standard Disney princess story: Snow White was cursed by her (aunt?) to sleep forever until some guy comes along and kisses her in her sleep, she wakes up, he kills the aunt then marries her. What's the lesson here? Your family is out to get you, and marry the first guy who takes advantage of you while you're helpless and murders one of your relatives.

Not exactly a family friendly message there.

That's actually quite a clever interpretation. I like that.

Thank you.

Hm, becoming a stage magician in a world in which real
magic actually exists seems like a rather poor career choice, IMO.

Possibly. But Ponyville is supposed to be a notoriously low-magic village, populated predominantly by earth ponies, and so backwater that they still have traditions like ending winter purely by manual labor. It was an obvious place for a unicorn with much greater flaire for the dramatic than actual magical ability to go to try to wow the crowd with some casual tricks for tips.

I'm guessing she simply didn't realize that a Canterlot unicorn from Celestia's school of magic was in residence. And had she realized, she had no reason to expect them to take what was obviously a stageshow so seriously. And once she realized that they were taking it too seriously, well...the show must go on.

The mane six basically played hecklers trying to interfere with a stage performer because they were too stupid to realize that it was a show, despite Trixie obviously being a traveling performer standing on a stage and wearing a costume.