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[Dsarker]

Who said it wasn't harmful? Smog looks just like smoke...but it's still harmful.

[MC Dirty]

And yet nobody was killed. All the dragon breathed was some smoke and no fire. Surely if dragons were as dangerous as you claim, he would've done a better job of the killing. I'd say he wasn't trying all that hard. Probably just tried to scare the ponies away.

Okay, so it's like knocking someone out because he tapped your shoulder. The dragon still looked extremely angry even after they were knocked out, so I thought that he wanted to kill them, but I guess you're right.
Still, it was a rather dangerous adventure and might have ended poorly without Fluttershy interfering and that's, in my opinion, enough reason to keep a child like Spike away.

[LordBucket]

"Ponies are procuring those eggs themselves without permission" How, exactly?

By walking right in and taking them. In Owl's Well That Ends Well Spike was able to blithely walk into a dragon's lair and spend enough time gorging himself on gems that his stomach was visibly distended before the dragon who lived there came home.

Dragons presumably go out to hunt.

Would you take a baby with you on a mapping expedition for
your senior thesis, or into a cave to rouse a lion?

If it was a baby lion, yes.

We have evidence from the show that adult dragons
tend to react badly to other dragons

No we don't. We have evidence from the show of one adult dragons who walk in on Spike eating his gems, yet his initial reaction is to talk to him, and we have evidence of one other adault dragon that shows that ponies can wake up a dragons and try to steal their stuff, but even so, the dragon won't react violently until violence is acted upon him.

If anything, the show portrays dragons as vastly more patient and forgiving than ponies.

As to why one dragon let Rarity go, but the other dragon wasn't so forgiving of Spike, the most obvious answer is that Rarity's dragon was able to recover his treasure from her. Spike ate gems, so there was no way for him to get it back.

repetition is apparently necessary. Draconic reaction
to thieves is not logical, it is instinctual.

The show contradicts you. Watch the episodes.

Here's Rarity helping herself to a dragon's hoard while he watches. His spines bristle when she starts taking stuff, but he listens to her flattery, and when she draws attention to what she's doing, he takes it back and lets her go. There's no irrational instinct here, and there's no violence. He takes his stuff back and lets her go.

Here's Spike munching on gems in Owls Well That Ends Well. The dragon comes in and asks him what he's doing. Once it's clear that Spike has no good reason for what he's doing, the dragon draws his claws and spikes, but doesn't attack right away. And even when Spike tries to breathe flame on him, the dragon pulls back with a "you're joking, right?" look before he responds with his own breath attack. Once again, there's no "instintive reaction" going on here.

Where are you people getting this "instinctive reason" and "violent dragon" nonsense? Watch the episodes. People are charging into their liars and blatantly taking their stuff, but even so they're favoring dialogue over violence.

Celestia wouldn't kidnap dragon eggs not because she couldn't fight dragons, but because it would be a massive pain in the ass for her to have to continually go kill (apart from returning the eggs, which is no longer possible once they've been hatched, this is the only real option for her) rampaging dragons

She's probably sending minions to do it rather than doing it personally. Or there may be a general bounty out so others who steal eggs know where to go. As reasonable and tolerant as dragons are shown in the show, if they come home one day to a missing egg, there's no reason to assume they'd immediately go on a general rampage.

Why would they possibly need dragon child-slaves?
What do they do?

Isn't that obvious? They're the communications medium between Celestia and the students of her school. This is shown in every single episode. Why are you even asking this?

[LordBucket]

Anyway, how does the ponies stealing dragon eggs pertain to the hatched dragons being slaves again? They appear to be two separate issues in my mind.

There are enough trains of thought and people talking that it's all kind of blurring together at this point, but I think the segue was that somebody suggested that dragons are violent and unreasonable, and so they theorized that dragons were giving away their eggs to ponies in order to save them from their own violence. Or something like that.

[TheBronzePickle]

Okay, so we've got a lot of proof that the dragons are not that easily pissed off. Still doesn't prove that Spike is a slave. And, unfortunately, there's no way that we can prove he is or isn't, because there's not enough context in the show. You can point out that he does menial labor all day, and I can return that children tend to do menial labor to assist their parents. You can say that Twilight's not Spikes mother, and I can recount that she's still the equivalent of an adoptive mother.

[Flying Dice]

"Ponies are procuring those eggs themselves without permission" How, exactly?

By walking right in and taking them. In Owl's Well That Ends Well Spike was able to blithely walk into a dragon's lair and spend enough time gorging himself on gems that his stomach was visibly distended before the dragon who lived there came home.

Dragons presumably go out to hunt.

I'll be more direct. How will ponies take dragon eggs and get away with it? In canon we only have evidence from dragons dealing with situations that are in no way threatening them or valuable parts of their treasure. There is a vast difference between a pony trying on a few pieces of your jewelry within biting distance and a pony that has stolen one of your prized possessions while you were out. The fact that the dragons tailor their response to the situation doesn't mean they aren't dangerous as all get-out if somepony should actually succeed in stealing something as precious as an egg. Similar to how you are much less likely to kill a burglar if you catch them in your home while holding a loaded shotgun, as opposed to chasing them across a country to rescue your child, and catching them as they were about to sell them to a pimp in Singapore.

Would you take a baby with you on a mapping expedition for
your senior thesis, or into a cave to rouse a lion?

If it was a baby lion, yes.

Except for the bit about how male lions tend to kill male cubs to prevent them from becoming competition.

We have evidence from the show that adult dragons
tend to react badly to other dragons

No we don't. We have evidence from the show of one adult dragons who walk in on Spike eating his gems, yet his initial reaction is to talk to him, and we have evidence of one other adault dragon that shows that ponies can wake up a dragons and try to steal their stuff, but even so, the dragon won't react violently until violence is acted upon him.

If anything, the show portrays dragons as vastly more patient and forgiving than ponies.

As to why one dragon let Rarity go, but the other dragon wasn't so forgiving of Spike, the most obvious answer is that Rarity's dragon was able to recover his treasure from her. Spike ate gems, so there was no way for him to get it back.

Perhaps they are more patient and forgiving in minor affairs because, unlike ponies, an angry dragon tends to end with lots of corpses and burnt land? I'll concede the point about Spike and the gems.

repetition is apparently necessary. Draconic reaction
to thieves is not logical, it is instinctual.

The show contradicts you. Watch the episodes.

Here's Rarity helping herself to a dragon's hoard while he watches. His spines bristle when she starts taking stuff, but he listens to her flattery, and when she draws attention to what she's doing, he takes it back and lets her go. There's no irrational instinct here, and there's no violence. He takes his stuff back and lets her go.

Here's Spike munching on gems in Owls Well That Ends Well. The dragon comes in and asks him what he's doing. Once it's clear that Spike has no good reason for what he's doing, the dragon draws his claws and spikes, but doesn't attack right away. And even when Spike tries to breathe flame on him, the dragon pulls back with a "you're joking, right?" look before he responds with his own breath attack. Once again, there's no "instintive reaction" going on here.

Where are you people getting this "instinctive reason" and "violent dragon" nonsense? Watch the episodes. People are charging into their liars and blatantly taking their stuff, but even so they're favoring dialogue over violence.

There were no thieves in Dragonshy, as the dragon dealt with that situation before it could escalate. Owls Well That Ends Well has the equivalent of someone breaking into your home and eating a bowl full of breath mints when you've got a stocked kitchen, tons of electronics, and a basement full of weapons and tools. Not exactly something to be more than annoyed at. I was plainly not talking about situations in which nothing of import was stolen. For a mild example of this, look at Spike when he is around gemstones. It isn't the strongest of reactions, largely because he is young and hasn't had time to develop his own hoard with personal connections established with individual items. Even if we haven't yet had an episode deal with this directly, the creative staff is clearly drawing from and watering down traditional draconic tropes, which include extreme, often irrational anger directed towards theives. See: Every story to ever use the "dragon in a cave with treasure" plot point.

Celestia wouldn't kidnap dragon eggs not because she couldn't fight dragons, but because it would be a massive pain in the ass for her to have to continually go kill (apart from returning the eggs, which is no longer possible once they've been hatched, this is the only real option for her) rampaging dragons

She's probably sending minions to do it rather than doing it personally. Or there may be a general bounty out so others who steal eggs know where to go. As reasonable and tolerant as dragons are shown in the show, if they come home one day to a missing egg, there's no reason to assume they'd immediately go on a general rampage.

Again, the issue isn't with who is doing the theoretical eggnapping, it is the fact that dragons are protective of their treasure to begin with, and eggs are by and large the most important focus of a hoard, which means that they will be angry and they will come looking for their egg. How do you think that would end? Exactly like I said; Celestia cannot return the egg once hatched, and the dragon isn't going to be satisfied with apologies, especially if this has been going on for an extended period of time. They won't go on a general rampage, they will go looking for their egg already angry, find out what happened to it, or guess, and then go on a rampage.

Why would they possibly need dragon child-slaves?
What do they do?

Isn't that obvious? They're the communications medium between Celestia and the students of her school. This is shown in every single episode. Why are you even asking this?

I already addressed this in my post.

+ What do they do? Menial labor plus instant messaging between "owners" and the princesses. The first could be performed much more easily by hired servant ponies, or by enslaving another, less dangerous species. Or, for that matter, by magical enchantments, golems, etc. The second is hardly necessary, given the relatively peaceful nature of Equestria. A pegasus can fly from Canterlot to Ponyville in less than a day; it likely wouldn't take more than a week to reach any point in the principality. For that matter, a proper network of roads and dedicated courier system would be much more useful in a wider range of applications; the courier network and Royal Road established by the Acheamenids in Persia allowed a message to travel from the westernmost parts of Anatolia to the capital at Persepolis in less than two weeks, and that without Earth pony endurance.

I specifically mentioned that not only is this incredibly impractical for the simple luxury of slightly faster message delivery than homing pigeons or messengers, but I provided a number of much more reasonable, useful methods of transmitting messages. For some reason I don't think weekly letters on the traits of friendship need to be delivered near instantaneously.


 
What I love most is how you completely failed to address all but one of my points on the practicality of dragon slavery, and that one was a deliberate misinterpretation of my point. You also edited my statement to act as a strawman for your own argument, such that it is.

[Flying Dice]

*Sighs*

Alright, this is clearly going nowhere. Let's go back to talking about ponies.   

Heh, Luna

[TheBronzePickle]

I like how canon Luna is only slightly better than this comic at understanding other people.

[Dsarker]

Spoiler: Let's keep talking about dragons. My image proves our point. (click to show/hide)

[Flying Dice]

Spoiler: Let's keep talking about dragons. My image proves our point. (click to show/hide)

At first glance I thought that Twilight had a goatee. Also, harem series much?

[Fniff]

My little dragon...

Wait. That makes me question something. If the Mane Cast are killed in some unsurvivable fashion, does that mean the elements of harmony pass onto another group? What if the closest thing to the mane cast is a group of characters that aren't ponies? Is the spell racist?

[Flying Dice]

My little dragon...

Wait. That makes me question something. If the Mane Cast are killed in some unsurvivable fashion, does that mean the elements of harmony pass onto another group? What if the closest thing to the mane cast is a group of characters that aren't ponies? Is the spell racist?

I assume that it is based solely on the need for six friends with those six traits. Although I doubt that you'd have much luck finding that outside of Equestria.

[TheBronzePickle]

Perhaps the entire reason the Elements exist is to protect the otherwise-weak ponies?

[Fniff]

Hm...

Goddammit, my elements of war will never come true.

[Flying Dice]

Hm...

Goddammit, my elements of war will never come true.

Different route? Start with War, continue through DEATH, make up two more? See? Canon. Heck, DEATH even speaks in THE ROYAL CANTERLOT VOICE.