So about "feeding" changelings

[pony.colin 156]

So yeah, are changelings like drug-addicts? .... No I'm being serious.

 

There's going to be a bunch of things from this latest episode to talk about so this is biggest one that stood out to me to open up.

 

Seriously, like one of the major crux of people's arguments about Chrysalis going after Canterlot was that her 'hive' needed to "feed" on love for supposed nourishment. That made sense, an animal just going after food to feed itself.

 

BUT THEN WE HAVE THORAX HERE....

 

And he's like... (quote)

 

Thorax: [narrating] I was part of the attack on Canterlot during the royal wedding, but I'd never seen true friendship like that! And I couldn't just steal it and feed on its love. I wanted to share it! [explosion]

 

Thorax: After that, I knew I couldn't live with my kind anymore. I set off looking for love to share, but...

 

Spike: But... what?

 

Thorax: I'm starving! And there's so much love in the Crystal Empire right now. It's what drew me here! But it's drivin' me crazy!

 

I can understand this whole "I have respect for my enemy when they display some impressive capabilities" (his character will be for a different topic). 

 

But hang on, you've been starving here since you've left your pack? Like for how long? Are you starving to death? Or are like changelings just crack-addicted to love?

 

Like it made sense to me if changelings went after things to "feed" on that prey's love for nourishment and to prevent starvation.

 

But Thorax just makes things now unclear...

 

Does he need to "feed" on love for actual nourishment ?

Or was he just fed into a cycle of crack love-addiction since birth? (how did they even get "love" to even feed on since birth?)

 

And how are they going to "feed" him now that they've accepted him into the Crystal Empire. You know, that big question of, 'so now that we trust you, what do you want to eat Thorax?'

 

Can you eat like plants, or fruits, legumes, nuts, meat, grass, breads, grains, oats or anything else as alternative to feeding yourself?

 

throughout the whole episode he's trying to control his "hunger" cravings. But the thing is that it doesn't seem like natural hunger cravings as it seems like addiction problems. If you were starving to death, and there was "food" right beside you, and of course you need nutrients to feed yourself from starvation, then by natural instinct you would feed yourself. But Thorax tries to control his cravings whenever possible...

 

Discuss.

Edited August 22, 2016 by pony.colin

[KrazyDashie 1,847]

i wouldnt say bug pones are "love addicted" maybe they cant eat physical things and need love to survive... (and thats really harsh calling them drug addicts. they're hungry for ponies sake..)

 

and he did mention "creating love" so... there is alot of possibilites there

 

and i think they said somewhere that they feed on "love energy" so... *shrugs*

Edited August 22, 2016 by KrazyDashie

[Rawzy 1,302]

Damn, well there goes my changeling cheese diet headcanon...

 

anyway...

 

I can see how you got that theory....but....how would they input that love into their system? do they duplicate the love and then absorb it into their bodies like when plants do photosynthesis, or do they physically eat the love, or do they snort the love?

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 42,015]

I have always wondered if the changelings actually have a digestive system. I do really like that thorax opens up the possibilities with how they can sustain themselves, like through friendship with each other (This also implies that the changelings basically hate each other or just don't like each other and only serve their mother/queen) and with friends that they make. That is a cool idea. It is just, how do they ingest love? XD I am sure they have their ways but an explanation would be neat, but we may never get it.

 

About the newborn part, I *think* the love from their mother is able to sustain them when they are young, but they more need far more when they get older. I think Chrysalis really cares for them, we just don't see it fully.

[FlareGun45 2,221]

Well if Cadance let Thorax look at Flurry Heart, she was probably feeding Thorax some of the love she had. But then again, revealing himself probably already filled him up greatly! :3

[cmarston1 5,962]

Well I wouldn't go as far to say that changelings are addicts. In my head Canon they can feed off of emotions in general and not just love.

[manic 121]

From what I can gather, perhaps they have to "steal" the love but if it is given freely, then that would satisfy them? Hence changelings feeding each other instead of stealing it from others.

[IsraelYabuki 446]

From what I can gather, perhaps they have to "steal" the love but if it is given freely, then that would satisfy them? Hence changelings feeding each other instead of stealing it from others.

If their food source was anger and spite, it'd be a different story

[LunarNyan 28]

Friendship is magic in their world, so love can be a magic of sorts there too. Each creature emitting that magic of emotion like a close-range radio wave that can be directed at another creature. So instead of food, they eat that type of pure magic to hold their bodies together, for some reason we don't know yet.

[Justin_Case001 4,910]

Changeling nourishment has always been a strange topic that's never been very clear.  Canterlot Wedding was very vague.  I really like that Thorax revealed that changelings need not hurt anyone to survive, but they can sustain themselves on love that's freely given.  This suggests that simply having loving relationships, like the mane 6 have with each other, would nourish them completely while being benign to all those around them.  Apparently, if someone else loves them, that emotion directly nourishes their bodies somehow, but if no one loves them, then they must resort to coercion to obtain it.  They pose as a loved one so that the target's love is still being directed at them.  It never seemed to me that this is directly harmful to the target, but just unethical and coercive.  But it seems to me that changelings don't actually "steal" love, or suck it out of ponies, like Imhotep, sucking his victims dry or something.  They apparently just need to be loved, whether it's genuine, (loving them for them), or by coercive means.  The development with Thorax also implies that changelings do not love each other, and are by nature a hateful race, otherwise they could sustain themselves, as he indicated at the end.  But none of this explains how their nourishment works, exactly.  Why can they survive on pure emotion?  How can they possibly not require physical sustenance?  It's still strange, and I can see where the drug-addict theory would come from, though I don't believe that's really the case.  Regardless, it seems that changelings are the truest embodiment of The Beatles timeless message:

 

 

[Ruthborn 55]

Probably some kind of emotional-photosynthesis that is a secondary form of sustenance as, as it has already been mentioned, Thorax was still alive with no visible debilitation (eg, overly skinny, physical weakness, etc). Which means he was obviously eating something. Maybe its like what Angel (Buffyverse) stated; vampires can live on any blood (Angel himself lives off of animal blood like pig's or cow's blood), but they precisely hunger for human blood and so desire that the most.

 

Assuming that she does not have some additional biology trait, we have seen that Chrysie, due to bathing in Sunshine's love for her (of course, he thought she was Cadence), gave her enough power to overpower Celestia in a straight fight. Perhaps the amount the love a Changeling absorbs enables them to perform additional abilities (eg energy beams, longer-lasting shape changes, etc).

 

If we want to look way too deep into this, we could say this is similar to how people become more healthy and happy when they are loved by someone in an ideal setting (biological proven fact, sry), and the Changeling's also unfortunately represent ways that relationships are abused by "love vampires" and "love leeches", etc (eg. one-sided relationships).

[Crypty Scribbles 5,761]

What I can say is that bilology of changelings is much more difficult.

There's still many questions left. For example, can changeling feed on love of someone without harm for them?

Or Thorax said that would be good if changeling started feed on friendship of each other. If it's possible why changelings need anyone else?

 

[LunarNyan 28]

This is an interesting question. If Thorax has been starving since Canterlot and that was a while ago timeline wise, shouldn't he have wasted away to nothing by now? He hasn't.

 

This leads me to believe that love is a secondary food for changelings and not primary. Perhaps they have a normal pony-like diet? Kinda like charging a smartphone. You can either charge using a Standard Charger which isn't a lot of energy but fills up the phone eventually (pony diet) or use an Adaptive Fast Charger and be full quickly (be a love vampire). It just seems like there's no way Thorax would have actually been starving all this time and still been alive, let alone been able to move. He seemed to be in perfect shape. Not malnourished, thin, or weak at all.

 

What do you guys think?

 

He's most likely the changeling seen at the wedding in the background ponies episode. So he was probably absorbing the love there, as well as possibly going to other weddings, and/or pretending to be another pony/animal for love.

[LunarNyan 28]

Actually nope. This changeling is named Kevin and was made into a card: http://mlpccg.wikia.com/wiki/Kevin,_Fitting_In

Oh, I see. Well, I guess it's possible thorax had the same idea at some point. If you're hungry long enough though, you'll probably wind up stealing food.

[LunarNyan 28]

It's possible, but uncertain. The only thing we are certain of is what Thorax said: He has been starving since the invasion, but how do you define starving when you don't look malnourished? What the buck writers?

His body is full of holes. I'm pretty sure that a healthy well-fed changeling would be more solid.

[Sporemane 546]

Maybe Princess Cadence could use her love magic to feed Thorax? Sounds kind of gross when you think about it.

[MLPFanatic34 3,241]

Changelings basically rely on love to sustain themselves, but Thorax said a friend would take the place of feeding off others so maybe the changelings can instead have other ways to sustain them rather than feeding off others.