Season 9 Discussion Thread [NO SPOILERS, DF airings only]

@rdibp  
Can’t be, or Apple Bloom would remember them.

@Magma_ERuptiOn  
Was it ever said that she doesn’t remember them?

@rdibp  
I think she implied she couldn’t remember much in Perfect Pear, didn’t she?

I just realized something: where the fuck has Cheerilee been?! We haven’t seen her in like, two or three seasons! She used to appear in basically every CMC episode, and now she’s vanished.
 
Anyone wanna place betting odds on her showing up by show’s end?

@GenericArchangel  
We saw her in “Marks for Effort”.

@GenericArchangel  
I bet that she will appear in Season 9 in some capacity.

@GenericArchangel
 
Honestly, I’m really starting to wonder how many characters we’ve already seen for the last time.
 
Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and Zecora are three characters I’m betting we won’t see again.

@GenericArchangel  
Her last speaking appearance was season 7’s “A Flurry of Emotions”
 
It’s been 2 years since her last role.

@GenericArchangel  
Probably still teaching at the Ponyville Schoolhouse.

@Spinny  
I bet we will see all 3 of them.

@ILoveMyoozik  
@Vivace  
Seems like a focus in season 9 so far is bringing back old characters and giving them closure.

@Spinny
 
I think I’ve read that apparently Diamond’s actress moved away or something, a while back? I think Philweasel was the one who said what the situation was?
 
Either way, I think the consensus was that she’s probably not getting another speaking role in the show, unless they decided to change her voice.

@AC97  
Wasn’t that Babs?

@Vivace
 
All I know is, I know that’s the case for why Twist stopped getting speaking roles pretty early on: actress moved to Philadelphia.
 
My memory is fuzzy for the other two. I’m not sure why that’s the case for Babs. I think it’s because nobody wanted to use her in a story? I feel like I read that in a tweet.

@GenericArchangel  
Narratively speaking, I figure that it’s likely because Cheerilee was in the show for the purpose of being the teacher figure in the CMC’s stories – her roles have always been limited to stories dealing with school and schoolyard plots.
 
Thing is, there really haven’t been a whole lot of school stories anymore – the CMC have largely moved past that point by now. I’m of the opinion that “Crusaders of the Lost Mark” marked (heh) a fairly important transition period for the CMC – their getting their cutie marks, at they very least, coincides with them moving on from the stories and trials of childhood and into the stories and trials associated with being members of a larger community with more clearly defined roles and places within it. Their models haven’t changed beyond the obvious, but insofar as the show’s stories are concerned the CMC have very much stopped being kids and started being young women.
 
As a result, while it’s still mentioned that they got to school and such, the older stories that involved them being students and kids and dealing with the things kids deal with just don’t happen anymore – all their recent stories had them as teachers or counselors or camp directors; always the ones directing things and in charge and teaching, rather than the ones being taught and directed and aided by their elders. The show doesn’t visit their old school much anymore, and this means that there just aren’t many stories where Cheerilee has a place in or role to play for.
 
This is also, I think, why we haven’t seen Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon much anymore. Their roles were the be schoolyard rivals and playground bullies; the foes of children’s personal stories. This sort of antagonists doesn’t have a place in the stories the CMC inhabit now – it doesn’t make much sense for people given enough respect by their community to do what the CMC do now to be seriously hindered by a petty bully and her yes-woman. They were redeemed, yes, but that brings in another problem – there isn’t really a narrative role that they could play as allies or friends, either; the CMC never had any real need of recurring friendly characters before, and they don’t really have such a need now. There wasn’t any empty narrative hole that DT and SS could move into post-redemption. The CMC’s newer episodes don’t demonstrate any need for addition characters in their narratives – they work just fine with the trio and whichever one-shot character is needed for this specific story.
 
TL:DR: Cheerilee, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon don’t appear anymore because the Teacher, the Bully and the Toady are archetypes endemic to stories about children and school, and the show doesn’t do those stories for the CMC anymore; and because they aren’t needed for other roles in the stories written for the CMC now.

@Frustration in Excelsis  
Makes sense. Damn, now I want an episode where the CMC get to graduate or something.

@rdibp  
I wouldn’t call what we got of Apple Parents as a “closure”. :/

My complete headcanon after seeing Sweet and Smoky is that all the adult dragons are currently asleep (we saw in season 1 that they sleep for hundreds of years), leaving Ember as the ruler of a bunch of kids and teenagers. Thus explaining why the dragon lands appear to be Little Lamplight at the moment.

@gingerninja666  
What about Ember’s father?

@E-123
 
He certainly doesn’t seem to be around right now. It’s possible he stayed awake until it was time to pass on the dragon lord mantle to someone else.

@gingerninja666  
All the adult dragons sleeping at the same time? That’s peculiar

@ILoveMyoozik  
Headcanon modified: they go to sleep for little ice ages, hibernating for decades or centuries at a time. Smaller dragons live through these just fine, thus preventing the species from being wiped out in its sleep.

@gingerninja666  

As an addendum to that, you should add that every century or so they wake up and return to their home.  

Which, now that I’m thinking about it, might actually explain where the eggs in “Sweet and Smoky” come from. Perhaps the adults awaken after sleeping for years to return home, reproduce, and then leave to resume their slumber.

God, this takes me back to the good old days of coming up with headcanons.

@DerpyFast  

Good old days? I still do that quite a bit.