Jim Miller on Spike's age

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

I first caught wind of this on DeviantArt and followed it to Twitter. Here are parts of a conversation between storyboard artist/writer/story editor/vice president of changing titles "Big Jim" Miller and a fan discussing Spike's physical and mental age.

 

https://twitter.com/TheBiggestJim/status/723552547827404801

 

 

Spike is the same age as Twilight in number of years, but I always assumed dragons age at a much slower rate.

 

https://twitter.com/TheBiggestJim/status/723554250995814400

 

 

I assume he's around 16 - 22 in pony years, but maybe 10 - 12 in Dragon years. But remember, Lauren could refute that.

 

Here are the main takeaways:

 

• The first flaw is that Spike cannot be the same age as Twilight in years, considering that she'd have to be mentally equivalent to a newborn at the time of his hatching. She was obviously much further along than that in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles". I wouldn't adjust the number to reflect this, as 10-12 seems like a good estimate.
• Lauren Faust cannot refute anything beyond events in the first two seasons of the show.
• The 16-22 range makes it compatible with any number of theories on pony ages. By these ranges, ponies age at a ratio between 1.3:1 and 2.2:1 in dragon years.

If anything, this is just rambling for now, but it does provide some interesting fuel for debates over Spike's character, as well as pony age theories, probably the most since Lauren Faust declared the characters' mental ages to be in their teens back in Season 1.

 

It does open up some interesting questions about other dragons, particularly how old Garble (possibly 23-29?) and Ember (age uncertain) are.

 

So, discuss.

Edited April 24, 2016 by Wind Chaser

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,965]

16-22? That seems a bit much, but it would make sense. I doubt Garble is in that other range because as Garble himself pointed out, Spike doesn't even have wings yet. That seems like a pretty significant thing to lack but that makes me wonder, what age does a dragon start developing such a thing? 

[Megas 27,919]

I see the 16 - 22 bit as more of a reflection on his maturity that his actual age personally. He can pass off as a mature kid even though he still shows some child-like nature

[Unlikeable Pony 2,699]

Hey, if it makes Sparity a reality, I'll accept any blatant lie they give us! XD

 

Though, on that, I think they're trying to respond to fans who like shipping him but find his age worrisome by trying to somewhat smooth over his age a bit and treat him older-- They stopped calling him a baby dragon after S1 after all and they've tried to avoid implying he's really that young in later seasons.

Edited April 24, 2016 by Unlikeable Pony

[Black Sabbath 2,486]

I just know that this is going to be used as an excuse as to why Sparity isn't creepy.

 

Anyway, if I remember correctly then Lauren Faust have already said that Spike was around 8 in maturity.

[Gestum 2,493]

 

 

Anyway, if I remember correctly then Lauren Faust have already said that Spike was around 8 in maturity.

 But is really what Lauren said cannon now that she left the show? 

[Black Sabbath 2,486]

 But is really what Lauren said cannon now that she left the show? 

Jim himself seems to think so, considering that he said "but remember, Lauren could refute that".

[Mesme Rize 15,687]

Jim obviously likes to throw bones to people, that like to ship Sparity. If they want to do it, let them.

 

Besides, even if he is younger, that never really stopped this fandom to ship everyone with anyone.

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

In all truth, I still don't think you could justify Sparity on this alone. Even if they're equal in physical age, Spike is still a child in mental age and too immature to understand the implications. Just because his physical age may be closer to Rarity than we thought doesn't mean he's automatically more eligible now. He's still a child any way you slice it and this doesn't change anything about that except it'll take him longer to get out of childhood than the pony peers he grew up with. In other words, more bad than good for the purposes of that ship.

 

As for what this means for the show, this would be a nice topic for an episode, and does provide some reason as to why Spike's character development has been slower than the other main characters. I'd rather it be justified in-universe than to keep putting it off as "bad writing". That's mainly why this theory interested me enough to OP this topic.

Edited April 24, 2016 by Wind Chaser

[cmarston1 5,960]

This still doesn't make me ship Sparity.

Seeing how Spike is still pretty much a child anyways.

Also given what we have seen in the show, he looks and acts about the same age of the CMC, who are significantly younger than the mane 6.

Which means that Spike and Rarity just flat out wouldn't work out.

[Mand'alor Dash 2,224]

 

 

The first flaw is that Spike cannot be the same age as Twilight in years, considering that she'd have to be mentally equivalent to a newborn at the time of his hatching.

 

Jim addressed this in the next tweet:

 

 

Yeah, I made a mistake in my explanation.

 

This is actually very helpful for a fan work I'm trying to build, since it helps place the Cutie Mark Chronicles flashbacks around 16-22 years before the return of Nightmare Moon.

[CT-1138 3,184]

I always figured he was 5 or 6 years younger than Twilight. Young teenage years; only slightly older than the CMC, but younger than the Mane 6

Edited April 25, 2016 by Dinos4Ever

[Buck Testa 5,505]

The way I see it, Spikes about 5 years younger than Twilight, and Twilight's in her mid twenties, making Spike about 18-20 years old (chronologically) 

[Odd Ball 231]

I always thought of Spike being more or less the same age as the CMC.

[Truffles 2,033]

In all truth, I still don't think you could justify Sparity on this alone. Even if they're equal in physical age, Spike is still a child in mental age and too immature to understand the implications.

 

I don't agree with this. All brains learn at the same rate, and we (as well as dragons, presumably) get all the neurons we're going to have at birth. The advantage that we as humans (and presumably all of the sapient species in Equestria) is we have the brain structures to grasp language and higher levels of thought.

 

Saying Spike's mental age is lower than his physical age doesn't make sense with the biology I described above. It implies Spike is somehow developmentally challenged because he can't understand things as fast as a pony can, which is pretty much the opposite of what the show indicates since he's portrayed as a prodigy and mature voice-of-reason more than anything else.

 

 

As for what this means for the show, this would be a nice topic for an episode, and does provide some reason as to why Spike's character development has been slower than the other main characters. I'd rather it be justified in-universe than to keep putting it off as "bad writing".

 

After reading both tweet threads, I found the whole matter mildly disturbing from a production standpoint. 

It seems like they never bothered to create a character bible for Spike, which is what you alluded to in your comment and seems to be the reason why his episodes are so wildly inconsistent.

 

Spike goes back and forth from being a bratty little brother for Twilight to being a professional concierge for Rarity, back and forth from being totally capable at doing things to being a complete bumbler. He's finally stabilized over the past 10 episodes from S5 up to "Gauntlet", but there's a bunch of episodes before then where he was pretty much written to whatever the plot required for a particular episode, and it's painful to see.

 

I'm putting him at 16 years old as of now in the show simply because it makes sense for Twilight's age and how he's been written over the past 6 seasons. There's no way he's still an 8-year old kid, mentally or physically. Or even 10 or 12 for that matter. Lauren can claim she thought of him as 8 when she created him, but if the writers didn't write him as an 8-year old, it really doesn't matter what she says.

 

I blame marketing at Hasbro for the show trying to be coy about all the characters' ages in order to avoid making it appear geared toward a specific age group. 

They're free to do that, of course - it's their product. But they shouldn't blame the fans and say shipping Spike is highly inappropriate if we feel the characters are older than they were originally envisioned all because the ages weren't specified to us or the writers.

[Unlikeable Pony 2,699]

The way I see it, Spikes about 5 years younger than Twilight, and Twilight's in her mid twenties, making Spike about 18-20 years old (chronologically) 

Nah, WAY too close in age IMO. Twilight would have been basically a kindergartner when she hatched spike if that were true, and I think she was older than that (like 8-12ish).

I'd put spike more around 7-16ish depending on Twilight's age. (I like to think twilight is in her mid 20s but the show staff seem to think she's more 16/17isish based on EQG)

Edited April 25, 2016 by Unlikeable Pony

[Buck Testa 5,505]

Nah, WAY too close in age IMO. Twilight would have been basically a kindergartner when she hatched spike if that were true, and I think she was older than that (like 8-12ish).

I'd put spike more around 7-16ish depending on Twilight's age. (I like to think twilight is in her mid 20s but the show staff seem to think she's more 16/17isish based on EQG)

The eqg versions are clearly younger than the pony Mane six. In fact they all are unless you want to say that Principle Celestia is 1000 years old. I'd say at the MOST she was like seven when she took that test.

[Unlikeable Pony 2,699]

The eqg versions are clearly younger than the pony Mane six. In fact they all are unless you want to say that Principle Celestia is 1000 years old. I'd say at the MOST she was like seven when she took that test.

well Pony twilight looked the same age as her human clone when when went through though.

[Buck Testa 5,505]

well Pony twilight looked the same age as her human clone when when went through though.

Looks =/= Same Age, especially when transformation magic is involved 

 

They can't possibly be the same age, the pony mane six have long established careers, drink alcoholic beverages, and Rarity alone is opening up her THIRD boutique. Meanwhile the humane girls are still in high school and don't have nearly the emotional development the pony version have. 

[MLPFanatic34 3,235]

This makes a lot of sense, but what I wonder is when Spike grows up will he look like he did in the Secret of My Excess episode or no?

[sweetolebob18 728]

For Spike's age, the big question is "How long ago was the 1st Rainboom?" 

 

IMO Dash was 19 in Pinkie Pride (S4) (19 candles on cake, 2 for anniversary, 19 for age.  Artistic license, no unseen candles),  turned 18 shortly before Wonderbolt's  Academy (S3 -the 1st 3 seasons took place over 1 year, supposedly) & was 17 during the pilot.  If you assume "the rainboom was 10 years ago" that makes her 7 when she was "the 1st to get her Cutie Mark".  You could maybe stretch that to 12-13 years, but not much more.

 

If you assume Celestia's school is equivalent to High School (the EQ girls movies imply this), then Twilight would have been 14-15 when applying & 24-25 during the pilot, so that works.

[TheSqueelyOne 157]

I don't think the EqG films are good indicators of age at all, considering the bits and pieces we've seen of the pony CMCs where they seem to be learning pretty basic stuff, seem to be in kindergarten or first grade at the latest. But in EqG, they're high school freshman. So in the EqGverse, some are presumably aged up or aged down, which doesn't tell us much about ages in the ponyverse.

[sweetolebob18 728]

If you are going that way on it, then Twilight would have been 4-6 years old at the time of the 1st rainboom (depending if you think she was applying for kindergarten or 1st grade).  This would make her 14 (about the age Joan of Arc started her career) to 16 at the time of the pilot.  She would be the youngest of the Mane 6

 

This would make her 4-6 years older than Spike, of course.  More an older sister than a mother.