How did Tirek know about Princess Cadence?

[Argumedies 1,748]

Yep, someone goofed again... and I'm not going to worry about it.... he could have just looked it up on the internet... who knows *shrugs*

[Silverwisp the Bard 2,354]

 

 

This is still a plothole. GIANT PLOTHOLE!

If it can easily be explained away (Cadence being far more high profile than Twilight, Tirek presumably living in hiding), its not a "giant plothole".

[The Coffee Pony 1,390]

And yet, he didn't even know Discord was free, or that there was a fourth princess. And seriously, there is nothing saying that he knew anything about Princess Cadance before he burst in through those doors to steal her magic. He was probably all, "Oh, hey, a third alicorn. Imma steal her magic too," in his head during that scene.

 

Simple answer: When he first broke out of Tartarus, he stayed far away from civilization until he was strong enough to start sucking up unicorn magic and pose a serious threat.

 

 

Then he should have heard about Discord too as well as Twilight being a princess. This is still a plothole. GIANT PLOTHOLE!

 

This may be more excusable. Discord's reformation was probably kept low-profile and for the most part he stuck around Ponyville, which compared to cities like Canterlot, Manehatten, Fillydelphia, Cloudsdale, Vanhoover and Los Pegasus could be considered an insignificant backwater town where he's less likely to draw too much attention to himself.

[immblueversion 331]

This may be more excusable. Discord's reformation was probably kept low-profile and for the most part he stuck around Ponyville, which compared to cities like Canterlot, Manehatten, Fillydelphia, Cloudsdale, Vanhoover and Los Pegasus could be considered an insignificant backwater town where he's less likely to draw too much attention to himself.

 

Far, far away from pony civilization. Just imagine the things you can miss.

[Scootadress 361]

Well-it might not be a plothole if you think about it in this light:

 

Taking Kim's (a YouTube mlp analyzer)idea of how alicorns work makes this easier to understand. She suggests that they retreat to their more pony like forms when they are in a state of weakness (I.e:Luna in season one vs season 2) and that theory is not proven wrong because in Luna Eclipse, her mane does turn back a bit. Whether emotional or physical.

 

Now-what if Cadence hasn't reached the stage that Luna or Celestia has yet, buut she's as old as Celestia or Luna? They never specified age and while everything was happening, she could have been there. Maybe the Empire fell after Tirek because its the same general area. Thus Princess Cadence is known (I think she came from the Empire and raised by Earth ponies.)

 

I dunno really. Speculation

[Scootalove 10,689]

I think Tirek knew about Cadence from her high profile status in Canterlot. I think that she was around when Tirek was attempting to escape from Tartarus.

[pony.colin 156]

Something to remedy this plot hole (aka my guess).

 

 

When did Tirek escape Tartarus ? According to that short backstory - it was when during the episode 'It's abut time' - when Cerberus left his guard post.

 

Well that was episode 46 - from early of Season 2. (44 episodes ago)  Canterlot royal wedding happens at the end of Season 2. That's a long time from when we get to the s4 finale.  News of a third alicorn princess would have spread around Equestria by this time.  It wouldn't have been much of a secret.  Tirek might have possibly heard information from maybe local newspapers or something like that.  Afterall, don't you spread a lot of news and information about a royal wedding to others before and after it's announcement?  

 

There's plenty of time for Tirek to know about Cadance's wedding and later her existence.  Possible as well, when she inherited the Crystal Empire kingdom that maybe more news of a third alicorn princess was spread about.

 

So it's not impossible for Tirek to not have known about Cadance.

[SBaby 660]

Still doesn't explain why Cadence stayed behind with Celestia and Luna. In fact, you could have it where just Luna and Celestia gave their power to Twilight and Cadence went into hiding with her as a magic mentor. Once Tirek comes, you can have Cadence say "Even Celestia's and Luna's magic within you might not be enough...here take mine as well. I'll go distract him! RUN TWILIGHT!"

 

Yeah, they could have.  And therein lies the problem with only having two parts to work with.  If they had a third part, I could see that.  But with only two parts, there's no way they would have enough time for that.

 

 

 

If Celestia was hinging on this plan so much, it would have made sense to at least send a teacher with Twilight to help her learn to control the magic.

 

My best guess on this one is that Celestia and Luna didn't want Cadence to worry that the power could be too much for Twilight.  After all, she's like a younger sister to her, so if she had any indication that Twilight might not be able to handle all the power (or worse yet, could be destroyed by it), she might have been less inclined to give Twilight her portion of the magic.

 

Again, this is why episodes like this would benefit greatly from having a third part.  With a third part, there would be time to explore this in more detail, and we would probably get more answers as to why things happen the way they do (reference Canterlot Wedding).

Edited May 13, 2014 by SBaby

[Carbon Maestro 1,003]

Man there's so much inconsistencies I kind of feel like 1000 years is simply a term for a very, VERY long time.

 

When you think about it there's WAY too much stuff happened in the same year. It seems like that happens over a long time.

[MLPFanatic34 3,241]

I wonder that myself how Tirek knew about Cadance, it's obvious he knows about Luna and Celestia, but Cadance, that part confuses me. My guess is that Tirek may have escaped during season 2 and in the finale when Cadance and Shining Armor get married, he probably knew about Cadance from that, also not really smart of Celestia to have that stained glass portrait of Twilight in the castle was it? Lol. 

Edited May 16, 2014 by MLPFanatic34

[immblueversion 331]

I'm still don't get the basis of this argument. Is it because Celestia specifically said she believes Tirek doesn't know a "fourth princess" exists? Because that's Celestia talking, not him. She likely said that to keep the episode's focus on Twilight, especially when Cadance argues Twilight is the most suited alicorn for the job of holding onto their magic. If Tirek explicitly demonstrated his knowledge of Cadance before he learned of Twilight, then we would have a major plot hole on our hands.

[LZRD WZRD 1,929]

Well it's possible he heard while imprisoned. Or since he's been our since season 2, he probably would have heard. Idk there's a lot of possible answers

[Nature's Spell 526]

It has less to do with Cadence and is more of a plot device that put an exclamation point on Twilight's princesses-ship not equating to much.

[Genepool 224]

Four alicorn magics in one pony is STILL a lot of power. It would have been a lot safer to split the burden.

 

...still doesn't change the plothole.

 

Part of me is still eyeing Twilight's little friendship journal, along with the fact Twilight's mane + tail went all wavy/sparkly.  I'm quite curious if in S5 Twilight will "assume her true destiny" where she becomes Celestia's successor by growing into a true alicorn. 

 

The writers missed their big chance to knock off Celestia, Luna, and Cadence by saying the power transfer was irreversible and have Twilight become the sole alicorn of Equestria and its ruler.  With that said however, the three combined powers of the other alicorns could act as a catalyst to accelerate Twilight's growth.  She's already taller than the other mane6, Rainbow Dash making fun of it in Testing Testing 1 2 3, and her horn appears to be growing into something similar to Cadence's horn.  The only thing I'm perplexed about is the flashback in A Canterlot Wedding with Cadence.  She looked the same as Twilight, and I don't know if she grew into a "regal" form, if she was destined to look like that (alicorn or not), or how long ago that took place.

 

 

As for the topic of the thread, it's hard to say how long Tirek had been roaming around.  He could have heard about the royal wedding between Princess Cadence and Shining Armor, or heard a rumor about her taking over the crystal empire.  Cerberus escaped from Tartarus during It's About Time, so who knows how long he had been free.  I'm curious if Cerberus escaped by himself or a plan was hatched between Tirek and some other denziens of the underworld.