Why didn't Tirek just kill the three princesses?

[Rainblow H. Ash 5,091]

It's not death they fear, but pain and injury. Just because you can't die doesn't mean you're immune to excruciating agony. It's the same with us. We run from angry dog. A bite from them probably won't kill you but it will hurt like hell and take a while to recover.   

 

We can't presume how Twilight felt. She may just have been scared over how hurt her mentor was. A reasonable reaction on her part. 

 

And I'm guessing that version of EQG was a foreign dub, and if anime is anything to go by, some liberties can be taken with translations. And even if that were true of the american release, that line was probably said in the human realm, where the dominant species isn't exactly the most durable.

 

There is absolutely no evidence to back up that ponies can't die from being crushed, stabbed, shot, or anything of that nature. It literally doesn't make any sense to assume that. Why would Rainbow Dash yell at Lightning Dust screaming "You could've smashed my friends to pieces!" if ponies couldn't die from accidents or attacks. It makes no sense at all.

 

And Twilight definitely thought Celestia was dead. Did you see the surprise in her eyes when Celestia stood up again? Not to mention that Sombra was killed by that blast let out from the Crystal Heart, and he had turned back into a Unicorn at that point.

[Denim&Venöm 21,339]

There is absolutely no evidence to back up that ponies can't die from being crushed, stabbed, shot, or anything of that nature. It literally doesn't make any sense to assume that. Why would Rainbow Dash yell at Lightning Dust screaming "You could've smashed my friends to pieces!" if ponies couldn't die from accidents or attacks. It makes no sense at all.

 

And Twilight definitely thought Celestia was dead. Did you see the surprise in her eyes when Celestia stood up again? Not to mention that Sombra was killed by that blast let out from the Crystal Heart, and he had turned back into a Unicorn at that point.

Plenty of evidence. Rainbow dash smashing through solid wood and stone. Derpy surviving electrocution. Luna existing on the moon for 1000 years. And I'm pretty sure Dash was exaggerating to get her point across. We don't know if that's what would've happened or even if Dash knows if that's how it would've happened. They might have survived. They'd be mutilated beyond recognition, but they'd recover. 

 

I'd be surprised to if my wounded and unconscious mentor managed to get up too. 

 

And I wouldn't be too quick to count Sombra as still being a pony. Most ponies can't turn into clouds of darkness. I'm guessing Sombra wasn't a pony at the moment of his destruction. 

[Rainblow H. Ash 5,091]

Plenty of evidence. Rainbow dash smashing through solid wood and stone. Derpy surviving electrocution. Luna existing on the moon for 1000 years. And I'm pretty sure Dash was exaggerating to get her point across. We don't know if that's what would've happened or even if Dash knows if that's how it would've happened. They might have survived. They'd be mutilated beyond recognition, but they'd recover. 

 

I'd be surprised to if my wounded and unconscious mentor managed to get up too. 

 

And I wouldn't be too quick to count Sombra as still being a pony. Most ponies can't turn into clouds of darkness. I'm guessing Sombra wasn't a pony at the moment of his destruction. 

 

Rainbow Dash is a magic flying Pegasus that can control the weather. She can smash through wood because she's a black belt in karate. She is also very durable and has survived smacking into mountains as well. Derpy survived electrocution because she's a Pegasus and they likely can survive such things because they have natural resistances to weather-based hazards. And no, Rainbow Dash said "Smashed to pieces". If something is smashed to pieces, there is no surviving that. Rainbow Dash saved her friends from death, there is no doubt in my mind about that. I will take that statement literally to mean smashed to pieces because frankly this is a show where they won't seriously cover death, so I have to take all the evidence I can get.

 

You can't say what Twilight Sparkle was thinking and neither can I, so don't try to argue that Celestia was unconscious and that Twilight was just surprised because "she woke up so fast".

 

Sombra was a pony. You're simply playing semantics. Did you see how Sombra looked at himself when he turned back into a pony? Clearly he was surprised that he gained back his form as well, and he was able to be completely killed by that blast.

 

Luna was able to survive on the moon for one thousand years because Celestia used the Elements of Harmony on her. I'm fairly certain that if you just jettisoned Luna into space she would die unless she knew some kind of bubble spell to give herself air.

 

Best of all, if you count G4 as simply a continuation of the other Generations, there was plenty of times where the ponies thought that their friends had died. For example, in "The End of Flutter Valley", Honeysuckle was thought to have perished when she fell down into a hole with a burning hot sunstone, and the Flutterponies and Queen Bumble both commented on that.

 

That's right, I'm using previous Gens as evidence in this too.

 

Here's what I don't understand: do you honestly believe that all the times the ponies were in danger that they simply ran from it out of fear of being "hurt"? That they couldn't die? The Hydra that attacked them, if it ate them, you think they would've just passed through his digestive track and they'd come out fine? Why even run from the Hydra, just let it eat you and then use magic to blast out of it. Why did they run from the Ursa Minor so fast? Because of pain and not death?

 

I'm sorry, it just makes no sense. Hundreds of ponies, both mane characters and background ponies, have been in danger at multiple points in the series and they ran from it like their life depended on it. Because it really did. They are not immune to hurt. You're literally using normal cartoon situations to prove they can't die.

 

On Ed, Edd, n' Eddy, the characters were seriously mangled several times, but lots of times characters correctly identified when something would've killed them, such as drowning in quick sand or getting a house dropped on them. Death is a real thing. Just because characters can do amazing things like smash stone and wood doesn't mean they're immune to death.