Alicorn aging process

[StitchandMLPlover 930]

My sincere apologies if similar topics have been posted before. Ever since I saw the "The Last Problem" I had the theory that alicorns just age differently than other pony races. "Canterlot Wedding" was on re run the other day and I noticed Cadence once had a younger Alicorn form as most of you know as seen here   which looks very similar to Twilight's alicorn form from season 4 until "The End Of The End" as seen here      and we of course know that Cadence has grown taller and gotten more Celestia and Luna like features as she gets older but still seems pretty young because she hasn't gotten too much taller than Twilight.   and still has a young face. When I look at Twilight's taller form from "The Last Problem"   I get the impression that Twilight's taller form is simply the natural aging process of an alicorn and proves that Alicons DO AGE further proven by the fact that Celestia and Luna had to go to a retirement home. So my theory is Alicorns just age with a more youthful appearance and aging differently does NOT mean they are immortal. Secondly if the Mane 5 have shorter life spans than Twilight and Discord, my theory is Discord would be so heartbroken over the thought of losing Fluttershy that he would make her and the others immortal. Discord to me does seem immortal because he has never been shown to age , whereas the Alicorns and the others do age. Discord would certainly have enough magic to make a pony immortal given the power he displayed while pretending to be Grogar. Just my 2 cents. 

 

Any thoughts on this???  

[Quinch 1,120]

Honestly, I don't quite buy into the general "alicorns don't age" premise. Why?

Statistics.

Consider this - if we assume that an alicorn like Celestia {and presumably Luna} can age at least eleven hundred years without dying, Equestria would be swarming with alicorns by now - after all, in the span of a couple of decades, we have had both Cadence and Twilight ascend to alicornhood {skipping Flurry Heart as she is seemingly an anomaly}. Consequently, and very conservatively, at this rate, we would have at least a dozen alicorns running around in just the timespan Celestia has been around, and more if we don't assume no alicorns existed before the royal sisters.

[ExplosionMare 18,062]

I think they do age very slowly and I can see Discord being immortal. He can only die if he stops being chaotic. As for Twilight’s friends, they’re definitely mortal but I don’t see why Twilight wouldn’t want to keep them around longer since their friendship is supposedly the most important one in Equestria. 

[Samurai Equine 50,978]

Okay, let's do this...

• Has Twilight's status changed after the finale? I remember someone on the writing staff once confirmed that Twilight was the exception. Celestia and Luna are immortal, Twilight is not. Has that changed some how, or was I misinformed from the get-go?
• "Celestia and Luna had to go to a retirement home" I've got better proof they aged. Once upon a time, Celestia and Luna were young; Celestia had a regular pink mane and Luna had a regular blue mane. As they got older, they got taller with magical, ethereal manes.
  • Also, did anyone on the staff confirm they "HAD" to go to a retirement home? For all we know, they are still immortal, and went there as more of a vacation home than a retirement home. After all, if they are immortal, they probably know the senior citizens just as well as any young ponies.
• Since we're bringing it up, would making other regular ponies immortal be considered a sin or any kind of taboo? Would any of the mane six actually WANT to be immortal? I mean, being there for Twilight and everything is nice... But I imagine, after a while, some of the mane six might want to pass on to be reunited with friends and family they lost.

There's so much about being an alicorn and being immortal that we don't know. We don't know if immortality really is just a natural thing for alicorns to have, or if it's some kind of magic that can be broken or cancelled out. We know Celestia and Luna chose to go to a retirement home, but if immortality is just a spell or something, does that mean they can purposely undo the magic and make themselves mortal? Wouldn't they die instantly if they did that? As it has been proven, they did grow and age as time went on. Eternal beauty might just be a side effect of eternal life, which would explain why they don't look like grannies.

37 minutes ago, Quinch said:

Consider this - if we assume that an alicorn like Celestia {and presumably Luna} can age at least eleven hundred years without dying, Equestria would be swarming with alicorns by now - after all, in the span of a couple of decades, we have had both Cadence and Twilight ascend to alicornhood {skipping Flurry Heart as she is seemingly an anomaly}. Consequently, and very conservatively, at this rate, we would have at least a dozen alicorns running around in just the timespan Celestia has been around, and more if we don't assume no alicorns existed before the royal sisters.

 ...Are you talking about alicorn smex? Because reproduction is a completely different can of beans with a million more questions to answer. Is there magic that can prevent or control pregnancy, does being an alicorn make you immune to bearing children, do the princesses even care about getting that close to another pony, etc.

I will say though, I did like what Magical Mystery Cure was implying.
Twilight became an alicorn when she created new magic. Which to me meant that one can only (typically) earn the status of alicorn; and to earn it, one must accomplish an amazing feat such as creating a new kind of magic the world has never seen before. That would explain why Starlight Glimmer never became an alicorn. She is adept at all magic, but only the pre-existing magic; never created anything new. And naturally, Flurry Heart would be the exception to the rule; a rare exception that ponies don't fully understand and only proves that nature itself has a mind of its own.

Edited November 17, 2019 by Samurai Equine

[Quinch 1,120]

17 minutes ago, Samurai Equine said:

 ...Are you talking about alicorn smex?

Nope, quite the opposite. Or... at least unrelated, I guess.

In the span of a few decades - we don't quite know how old Twilight is - we've had two alicorns ascend, Cadence and Twilight Sparkle. Now, if it were just one of them, we could chalk it up as the first instance of an alicorn ascending after Luna and Celestia. However, two of them appearing in a relatively short timespan {remember, we're talking one, maybe three percent of a thousand-year range} seems exceedingly improbable. There's also the fact that, apparently, not much noise was made about Cadence's alicornication, given that Twilight never heard of her up until her brother's wedding, might imply that alicorns themselves aren't that rare and that, while so far all princesses were alicorns, not all alicorns might have to be princesses.

[Samurai Equine 50,978]

29 minutes ago, Quinch said:

Nope, quite the opposite. Or... at least unrelated, I guess.

In the span of a few decades - we don't quite know how old Twilight is - we've had two alicorns ascend, Cadence and Twilight Sparkle. Now, if it were just one of them, we could chalk it up as the first instance of an alicorn ascending after Luna and Celestia. However, two of them appearing in a relatively short timespan {remember, we're talking one, maybe three percent of a thousand-year range} seems exceedingly improbable. There's also the fact that, apparently, not much noise was made about Cadence's alicornication, given that Twilight never heard of her up until her brother's wedding, might imply that alicorns themselves aren't that rare and that, while so far all princesses were alicorns, not all alicorns might have to be princesses.

I think I see what you're trying to say now.

The statistics might be hard to believe, but doesn't mean there isn't precedent. Celestia and Luna were either born or became alicorns at the same time; so it's not entirely impossible for two more suddenly appear thousands of years later. Life and statistics can be crazy like that sometimes. Every once in a while, the most improbable outcome actually happens.

For Cadence, judging by examples, I'd say being a princess has a very loose definition in the show. Just because you are one, doesn't mean you rule over anything. Seems like that part is optional; making it more of a celebrity or lesser political status if you don't have your own kingdom. Even Twilight was mostly just a princess in title before she took over for Celestia and Luna. If the Crystal Empire never appeared, Cadence might continue to not hold dominion over anything substantial. In one particular season, there were alicorns popping up as background characters. Might have been an animation glitch, or it might be proof that just because you are an alicorn doesn't mean you are required to become royalty. And it can still be a rare thing since there wasn't dozens upon dozens of them running around.

Also, I'm not going to pretend the show is flawless. It was continued by a team of writers doing the best they can with someone else's creative bible. Different episodes were handled by different people. There might have been a lack of communication, and therefore a lack of canon synchronicity. It might be that after Lauren left, the staff either didn't know what she had in mind or started to retcon some details on the fly.
Anyone remember Prince Blueblood? The prince who is apparently related to Celestia and Luna, a distant cousin specifically?
Seems like if any pony was going to ascend to alicorn status, it would be some pony like him. That is, if he really is related to them by blood. He might not be! Maybe in the past, Celestia and Luna merged with other families for official royal reasons. Still, seems interesting that we see him in one episode and never again. It really feels like Lauren had a plan for this character, his bio just seems a bit too specific if you ask me. In fact, I believe Lauren confirmed that Celestia and Luna had parents, yet we never see them either. There might have been plans to delve deeper in the sisters' past or explain some things about what it means to be an alicorn, but clearly that didn't happen.

Edited November 17, 2019 by Samurai Equine

[nightshroud96 124]

To me, it seems like Alicorns "age"(specifically they "grow") until they reach a certain point and stop.
The flowing mane bit might be to show they have reached that point(with the alicorn magic within them has grown strong enough to cause the flowing mane part)

About the retirement home part, it doesn't really sit right with me about Luna and Celestia living in a place like that honestly.
Especially with Luna for me, it just doesn't feel right..

As for there might have been plans to delve deeper into the sisters' past, I wished they really did that. Would have love what their past would have been before they went into Equestria(I know theres the Journal of the Two Sisters but I haven't seen it while books are often non-canon or end up getting contradicted. Would be nice if many elements from it was confirmed truly canon by the show including them)

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by nightshroud96

[Samurai Equine 50,978]

2 hours ago, nightshroud96 said:

About the retirement home part, it doesn't really sit right with me about Luna and Celestia living in a place like that honestly.
Especially with Luna for me, it just doesn't feel right..

The impression that I get is being a top tier princess means that your life is always chaotic and full of work. Even if you aren't saving Equestria like Twilight and her friends, you are busy with tons of paper work and official political business, or you might be busy trying to keep the harmony in other ways like Luna and her dream-travelling powers. To me, this might just be their way of slowing down, but not really growing old. Maybe now they can focus more on getting on the same schedule instead of one being awake while the other is asleep. They might also be getting all the fun and excitement out of their system! If Silver Shoals is anything like Silver Stable, then there's TONS of fun activities to go around! I doubt you could get away with things like windsurfing or a food fight that resembles paintballing in a human retirement center. 

[Senko 459]

22 hours ago, Quinch said:

Nope, quite the opposite. Or... at least unrelated, I guess.

In the span of a few decades - we don't quite know how old Twilight is - we've had two alicorns ascend, Cadence and Twilight Sparkle. Now, if it were just one of them, we could chalk it up as the first instance of an alicorn ascending after Luna and Celestia. However, two of them appearing in a relatively short timespan {remember, we're talking one, maybe three percent of a thousand-year range} seems exceedingly improbable. There's also the fact that, apparently, not much noise was made about Cadence's alicornication, given that Twilight never heard of her up until her brother's wedding, might imply that alicorns themselves aren't that rare and that, while so far all princesses were alicorns, not all alicorns might have to be princesses.

The thing about this is if you include other media as canon (so long as they don't conflict we have had out of show events referenced in the show afterall) then it seems Celestia has been trying since Sombra's time to raise/prepare another Alicorn princess (Hope, Sunset, Who know's how many others over the millenia between) its just that with Twilight everything went right for her to finally ascend and become one. Cadence is on the other hand a wild Alicorn created by her own actions completely without Celestia's involvement so the two of them both cropping up at the same time could genuinely be coincidence. Alternatively we know Harmony and the tree have influenced events in the past (Rainbow's rainboom effectively linking all 6 with their cutiemarks years before they met) so something may have been working to create new Alicorns in preperaration for the troubled years to come.

Personally I feel Alicorns are effectively immortal (unless the showwriters show me Twilight's grave) and my personal inclindation is that their has to be some other appearance factor in play. I know the animators gave us Celestia Twilight (and dislike it) but I just feel that needs to be ignored because if Twiligth grew to that in such a short time then Luna should have grown to look like Celestia a long time before the end of the run rather than her consistent post nightmare-moon look or Cadence looking like that as well.

[Jane 123]

On 11/17/2019 at 2:44 AM, StitchandMLPlover said:

My sincere apologies if similar topics have been posted bnd still has a young face. When I look at Twilight's taller form from "The Last Problem" 

Twilight's design is simply horrible, in itself, before it was, but now I can't help but hate her.

[Jane 123]

On 11/17/2019 at 4:20 AM, Samurai Equine said:

 

• Has Twilight's status changed after the finale? I remember someone on the writing staff once confirmed that Twilight was the exception. Celestia and Luna are immortal, Twilight is not. Has that changed some how, or was I misinformed from the get-go?
• "Celestia and Luna had to go to a retirement home" I've got better proof they aged. Once upon a time, Celestia and Luna were young; Celestia had a regular pink mane and Luna had a regular blue mane. As they got older, they got taller with magical, ethereal manes

And if is actually growing up, the way of aging of the alicorns?

Edited November 20, 2019 by frida

[Jane 123]

I keep wondering how Celestia never found anyone to replace her in 1000 years.

[Quinch 1,120]

On 11/20/2019 at 1:13 PM, frida said:

I keep wondering how Celestia never found anyone to replace her in 1000 years. 

It could be she only started pursuing the idea in recent years.

[Jane 123]

Let us keep in mind that the aging and life of alicorns is variant and can be from having a normal life like the other ponies to 1000 years like Celestia, suppose that at the beginning Celestia and Luna were / seemed normal ponies, that is, no more tall than others and with normal hair, like Twilight, and over the years, they grew old and ended up like this. 

 

I mean, every alicorn has a unique life expectancy, since Celestia and Luna lived more than 1000 years, Twilight and Cadence just a normal life. So, if the form of aging is growing in height, this would explain why Twilight grew so fast and is now the same size as a 1000-year-old princess, and not for the reason that many think, that it was due to the transition of power. from the crowns of the two Twilight sisters, which is practically inaccurate or non-existent, since the magic is in their cutiemarks (Twilight's Kingdom) and in that same episode the three princesses give the magic to Twilight, but Twilight couldn't even SHE could bear neither grew from nothing, nor did his hair move all the time.

In conclusion, Twilight ages at the same time as her friends but not in the same way.

Edited November 25, 2019 by frida