How old is Granny Smith, if she was there at Ponyville's founding?

[Jokuc 8,172]

I think she is actully that old. Maybe these ponies live longer or their years are shorter.

[FinalGamer 192]

This!... The Equestrian Calendar thread debates the time span in Equestria vs IRL and establishes that the drawn calendar has less days per month than the one IRL does. Now this doesn't necessarily mean that it’s official, but based on past topics, Id run with this idea.

 

I'm gonna say this too, if they can have 16-hour days, why not have say, centuries only half as long as ours?

A friend of mine did a good calculation of this but I can't quite remember now.

 

But I'm gonna say that, if we take into account the average lifespan of a pony is 45 years (at least in the real world) then maaaaaaybe Granny Smith is like...60 or something? Like REALLY old for them.

 

It's the jam, it keeps her live and kickin'.

 

 

I made a comment adressing this in my episode review, so have some sort of "copy and paste" without it being copy pasting.

 

Maybe, time span in Equestria works different than on Earth. We know their clocks are of 8 hours, as we saw in Episode 22 of season 1 "A bird in the hoof". Their days last sisxteen hours, which makes the year shorter. I have my sister giving me a hand with these calculations, as she is the brainiac of the family, and he developed a very easy way to figure numbers out.

 

To every amount of time that's said in the show, multiply it by 1,5 and you'll get the equivalent in Earth time. That said, 100 years in Equestria can last for 150 years on Earth, So when Granny Smith says she was there when Ponyville was founded she might actually be saying the truth, and she can easily be over a hundred years old.

 

If I venture to be more specific, she might be around 125, 130 years old, which is almost two centuries.

 

Thaaaaaat was it, that's the calculation I was talking about.

Edited January 14, 2012 by FinalGamer

[James Corck 12]

The problem with that is that you don't know how long an Equestrian hour is. Technically, you don't even know that an Equestrian day is 16 Equestrian hours, or that the clock in "A Bird in the Hoof" was showing hours.

 

That's true. Maybe we can estrapolate that and figure out some sort of equivalent, if we ever find out the size and mass of Equestria, if we can call it a planet of course.

[muffinsangria 1]

I think the episode "Apple Family Reiunion"  add some more to the equasion.  It should that there are other ponies still alive who are just as old as her.  Kinda disproves the theory that she's some sort of immortal obomination.

[Breeze 85]

None of the ponies mentioned that you live to a certain age. So maybe you stay alive forever, and just age a lot over time. That's just my guess.

[Anneal 2,194]

I think the episode "Apple Family Reiunion"  add some more to the equation.  It should that there are other ponies still alive who are just as old as her.  Kinda disproves the theory that she's some sort of immortal obomination.

Then again, it's very unlikely their solar system is the same as ours, having the same revolution and rotation cycle. Granny Smith can be younger than you think because their calendar is different and shorter than ours. The number of hours in a day and the number of days in a month can be changed.

[Scootalove 10,684]

She is pretty old. My guess is, that she is younger than Celestia and Luna but she was around during Ponyville's founding. I could be wrong, there are many theories on her age.

[caramba2654 601]

Granny Smith is an Apple Lord. She harnesses the vital energy of apples and converts it to a small amount of life. But because she's been doing that for so long, she stopped rejuvenating.

[FNGRpony 655]

I found this chart

http://equestria.fadri.org/026-ages-chart

It dates her back as 300 years old.  dr hooves is 900.

The timing on discord is some weird math equation I don't quite understand.

[a Pegasus Pony 134]

If I can input my opinion then maybe Ponyville wasn't founded that long ago but maybe the Equestrian Province as or if so then she may just be old enough to logically be there since the beginning but then that means the mane 6 is incredibly Young still.

[Cwanky 17,445]

That's part of the problem here: we're relying an awful lot upon Twilight's claims, which may very well be true, but she's proven on numerous occasions to be wrong before, including in Lesson Zero and Bridle Gossip. She's also a newcomer to Ponyville which means despite any book smarts she may have, still makes her lacking as an expert on the town compared to older residents. Assuming though she's accurate in what she says, "hundreds of years" can mean anything from 1000 years to just 200-300 years.

 

Also I don't mean to sound rude, but Granny Smith doesn't always provide the most reliable info. I mean look at her:

 

Her mind isn't as nearly sharp and crisp as it used to be anymore. She could very well be over 100 years old no doubt, but "founding" is actually a pretty vague and loose term. For example you could look at the United States, people say our nation was founded when the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were written, but others will suggest that it was already founded with the 13 Colonies that were "founded" well before in the early to late 17th century, so nearly a century before the declaration came about.

 

Its very well possible that Granny Smith was the grand daughter or great granddaughter of the founding people of Ponyville and she grew up in the era that Equestria was founded.

 

I think what needs to be asked is where's Grandpa Apple? We haven't even heard about him yet through any dialogue or flashbacks. 

[Winona the Dog 1,981]

I think Granny Smith is just at the edge of her years which is about a century. We can conclude that Ponyville itself is no more than a century old.

[Forlong 1,725]

Well, Diamond Tiara's great grandfather, Stinkin' Rich was one of Ponyville's founders; so that gives us an idea of her age.  If Stinkin' had his kid around the time of Ponyville's founding, it would be 15-20 years before that guy had his kid, Filthy Rich.  Filthy has his own child, so add another 15-20 years to that.  Diamond Tiara is about 10, so that means Ponyville was founded 40-50 years ago (hundreds of years my flank).  This would put Granny in her 60s, which seems rather reasonable considering pony growth and her social status.  Now if you don't mind, I'm just going to sit here and be awesome.

[LordRainbowtron 1]

I found this chart

http://equestria.fadri.org/026-ages-chart

It dates her back as 300 years old.  dr hooves is 900.

The timing on discord is some weird math equation I don't quite understand.

The timing for discord includes the square root of -1, which is an imaginary number. The creator of the chart was just making a joke. Half of the ages seem as if they are there simply for humor, not to be taken seriously. Obviously Celestia and Luna are much older than 1000 as well, since Luna was banished for 1000 years and she certainly was banished the same year she was born.

My best guess is that years in Equestria are significantly shorter than years in the real world. My reason for saying this is that in season 3 episode 8 (the 60th episode) Granny smith says "I can't believe it's been almost 100 moons since the last family reunion." The last episode that even resembles a family reunion is episode 1, when Twilight first meets the entire apple family. Those ponies don't really seem to show up at the apple farm during any other episode, which leads me to believe that it may have been a family reunion. So that means that over the course of AT LEAST 60 episodes less than 100 days pass. Now if we do the math on it 100 days divided up into 60 episodes means that each episode is approximately 1.67 days. only 6 more episodes pass until Twilight has been in Ponyville for 1 year. This means only another 10 days (approximately) have passed. Which means 1 year in Equestria would only be somewhere around 110 days, making it less than 1/3 the length of a human year (approximately 30% actually). So when it says Ponyville was founded 100's of years ago it would be safe to assume that for every 100 equestrian years that have passed, 30 human years passed. So Granny could very well only be 60 or 90. Maybe even 120. It all depends on how many "hundreds of years ago" it was created. My best bet is that she's close to 90.

 

Another logical conclusion that can be drawn from Granny Smith saying "almost 100 moons" is that, a lot of family's have a family reunion once a year, around the same time every year. So her saying it's been almost 100 moons could be her saying it's almost been a whole year, which would mean there are about 100 days in the equestrian year. This wouldn't change the math a whole lot, the percentage would only drop down to 27%. Which would make her age be approximately 81 if 3 centuries had passed since the founding of Ponyville.

 

I posted this on facebook recently when Equestrian Mental Institution posted a picture concerning this problem.

This would also mean Luna was only banished to the Moon for roughly 300 of our years.

I made a comment adressing this in my episode review, so have some sort of "copy and paste" without it being copy pasting.

 

Maybe, time span in Equestria works different than on Earth. We know their clocks are of 8 hours, as we saw in Episode 22 of season 1 "A bird in the hoof". Their days last sisxteen hours, which makes the year shorter. I have my sister giving me a hand with these calculations, as she is the brainiac of the family, and he developed a very easy way to figure numbers out.

 

To every amount of time that's said in the show, multiply it by 1,5 and you'll get the equivalent in Earth time. That said, 100 years in Equestria can last for 150 years on Earth, So when Granny Smith says she was there when Ponyville was founded she might actually be saying the truth, and she can easily be over a hundred years old.

 

If I venture to be more specific, she might be around 125, 130 years old, which is almost two centuries.

 

While this is a very good point, the math is done wrong. If the days are 16 hours long, that means they are 2/3 the length of an Earth year. That being said, an Equestrian year (assuming it would have the same number of days, which I don't think it does) would be 2/3 the length of an Earth year. This means 1.5 Equestrian years equals 1 Earth year, not the other way around. So 150 years in Equestria would only be 100 years on Earth, not the other way around. Also, 125 and 130 years aren't even close to 2 centuries. Just sayin'...

[Fhaolan 4,468]

This would also mean Luna was only banished to the Moon for roughly 300 of our years.

I came to this conclusion through a different route. Based on cultural and linguistic change within Equestria, it is likely that the Equestrian year is about a third of our year. If Luna had been banished for a thousand of our years, and Equestrian culture changes at the same rate as ours, the dialect she would be speaking would be closer to true Old English, as in the Anglo-Saxon language that Beowulf was written in:

 

Hwæt! Wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum

þēod-cyninga þrym gefrūnon

hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon

Oft Scyld Scēfing sceaþena þrēatum

monegum mægþum meodo-setla oftēah

egsian Eorl syððan ǣrest weorþan

 

That's still English, just English from before one thousand years of linguistic drift. Basically, Luna would be unintelligible. Instead she's speaking something like Early Modern English, similar in many respects to Shakespeare. Who was only 300 years or so ago. So either their years are shorter, or their rate of cultural change is much slower by a factor of 3.

 

More detail here: It's a Matter of Scale: A Stitch in Time (Part 2)

[LordRainbowtron 1]

If we take James' information and combine it with mine (I didn't fact check his statement of how many hours are in a day, I'll just take his word for it) we get there are about 100 days in an Equestrian year, with approximately 16 hours in each day. this means there are 1600 hours each Equestrian year. There are 365.25 days in an Earth year, and 24 hours each day. This means there are 8766 hours in an Earth year. So an Equestrian year is approximately 18.25% of an Earth year. This is about 66-67 Earth days in case anyone is curious. This means that for every hundred years that pass in Equestria, only 18 and a quarter years pass on Earth. So if Ponyville was founded 300 Equestrian years ago, Granny Smith would be 54.75 Earth years. If it was founded 400 Equestrian years ago, Granny Smith would be 73 Earth years. This makes the stories much more believable.

I came to this conclusion through a different route. Based on cultural and linguistic change within Equestria, it is likely that the Equestrian year is about a third of our year. If Luna had been banished for a thousand of our years, and Equestrian culture changes at the same rate as ours, the dialect she would be speaking would be closer to true Old English, as in the Anglo-Saxon language that Beowulf was written in:

Hwæt! Wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum
þēod-cyninga þrym gefrūnon
hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon
Oft Scyld Scēfing sceaþena þrēatum
monegum mægþum meodo-setla oftēah
egsian Eorl syððan ǣrest weorþan

That's still English, just English from before one thousand years of linguistic drift. Basically, Luna would be unintelligible. Instead she's speaking something like Early Modern English, similar in many respects to Shakespeare. Who was only 300 years or so ago. So either their years are shorter, or their rate of cultural change is much slower by a factor of 3.

More detail here: It's a Matter of Scale: A Stitch in Time (Part 2)

 

I really like the cultural observations you made that easily make just as much sense as Math (probably more sense to other people). It's amazing how our minds can work so differently even though they are created of the same elements.

[Pixel Stick 927]

Okay, I have a new facet to this question that I'm dying to figure out:

 

In Twilight's flashbacks to when Discord was sowing the dark seeds that were supposed to capture Celestia and Luna, Discord is seen in a chaos land that's extremely similar to the one he builds in Ponyville in Return of Harmony Part 2.  That event would have happened more than 1,000 years ago, since it was also before Luna turned into Nightmare Moon and had to be banished, and since some time had passed between NMM's return and now.  So my question is, was that Ponyville in the flashback?  If so, then Ponyville would have to be more than 1,000 years old and that would seem to contradict Granny Smith's story even more than Winter Warp Up did.

 

Now, it's also possible that you could explain these things as follows:

* Twilight's flashback may have been colored somewhat, or may it be completely accurate.  If the latter, it would be the canonical source of info.

* Granny Smith, being a "kooky old lady", may have misremembered some things, may have made up a few, etc. while telling her story.  That would undermine that particular episode, but it would be somewhat in character for her.

* The line in Winter Wrap Up could be either an exaggeration or a generality that exists for artistic value and nothing more.

[Pixel Stick 927]

(Following day) Okay, so I'm less convinced now that Discord was actually in Ponyville at the time of his first defeat - it stands to reason that his "chaos land" would look similar no matter where he was, so there's no direct evidence of Ponyville existing at that time.

 

Also, I realized another way of interpreting Twilight's line at the start of Winter Wrap Up: She said "Ponyville was started by Earth Ponies, so for hundreds of years..." - you could read this as "Earth Ponies have been doing this for hundreds of years (and carried the tradition forward into Ponyville)" or, "Earth Ponies have been doing this IN PONYVILLE for hundreds of years".  The former would not necessitate Ponyville itself having been around for hundreds of years - just that it's been the Earth Pony way for hundreds of years.

 

In which case Granny Smith need not be hundreds of years old herself.

 

(Of course, it could also just be that Twilight made a sweeping generalization/exaggeration about the length of time - it could just as well have been "dozens" of years instead.)

[Jammo 986]

Granny Smith is an Elder God tentacle monster, roughly 4.76 billion years old named Gin'thulp Smit'nyarth sent from the unholiest place in space to see the seeds of destruction in Equestria. When she eats apples in private her wrinkly skin bubbles and skull opens up revealing a mass of eyes and tentacles with saw like mandibles that eviscerate and consume the apple.

[Misterian 118]

Considering Equestria is a world habiting by fully sentient ponies with access to magic, I have my own personal head-canon that Equestrian Ponies have considerably longer lifespans than humans and overall age differently.

 

Sure, the Earth Ponies never use magic for Winter Wrap-up, but that doesn't mean they don't let magic be used for other things, heck, we clearly see unicorn doctors in Ponyville, and there's nothing to indicate that ponies don't use magic for medical reasons, AND we're given no info on medical costs, which could mean citizens of Equestria get free healthcare regardless of financial status.

 

I know that might be a stretch, but hey, given the world those ponies live in, it's the best logical explanation I can think of.

[Koelath 442]

Granny Smith paid Celestia's way into power with her endless zap apple jam profits in exchange for eternal life.

 

It is really quite obvious, is it not?

[Pixel Stick 927]

Granny Smith is an Elder God tentacle monster, roughly 4.76 billion years old named Gin'thulp Smit'nyarth sent from the unholiest place in space to see the seeds of destruction in Equestria. When she eats apples in private her wrinkly skin bubbles and skull opens up revealing a mass of eyes and tentacles with saw like mandibles that eviscerate and consume the apple.

 

LOL!  Well, that sure explains a lot.   Thanks for the laugh.

[Doctor Blueberry 18]

in mlp s4 ep 13

they mentioned founding of Ponyville and that Granny Smith was right there o_O

Does anyone have any new information about how long a pony-year is? and other new info bout Granny Smith

[Fhaolan 4,468]

in mlp s4 ep 13

 

they mentioned founding of Ponyville and that Granny Smith was right there o_O

Does anyone have any new information about how long a pony-year is? and other new info bout Granny Smith

Nope, nothing new. There's been nothing in Season 4 so far that actually fixes the time span since Ponyville's founding.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Fhaolan

[DryGuy84 (Inactive) 927]

Ponies are immortal CONFIRMED!!!! 26,000,000,000/10!!!!!

 

But seriously, it's probably just an oversight by the writers.