Pinning for the fjords!?  

>Pining for the Fjords
 
…which Slartibartfast won an award for Norway, with his use of Fjords; they give a lovely… baroque feel to a continent.

@Sjogre  
oh

@d715  
Yeah, I was agreeing with you.

@Sjogre  
That’s what I’m saying
 
Luna took the persona of Nightmare Moon to terrorized ponies into staying up at night with Nightmare

@Background Pony #EA8F  
Yes, maybe it is like an nativity play. It is more or less based on things out of the bible. But there is no rel historical proof about it, and a lot of it has probably changed about the centuries to take some liberties.  
Or like a lot of the Shakespear Plays, like Henry IV, V and Richard II are historical plays, but take their own little liberties.

Ignoring all the stuff about Nightmare Moon, I’m just going to suggest that the Hearth’s Warming Eve play isn’t actually Equestrian history (or not necessarily accurate) and is more equivalent to a folktale, with only the general themes and plotpoints remaining the same from play to play, exact scripts being written by the actors themselves.  
Twilight Sparkle just mentioned Starswirl ’cause Twilight Sparkle.

@Prof.NightJack  
@Masem  
@Background Pony #FAC1  
@Miss Shy  
@Background Pony #FAC1  
@Background Pony #B1AE  
@FanOfMostEverything  
@Background Pony #FAC1  
@Background Pony #FAC1  

that wouldn’t have happened with a Dragon. so it could have been worse.
 
But anyway. What is wrong with those two???

“Oh that’s right, hydras like food don’t they?”

@Background Pony #A2D8  
the vision of the past was imperfect to begin with.
 
Are you sure about that first part? Or, rather, do you mean that it was visually inaccurate? The show hasn’t given us any reason to believe that it was an abstraction, and the comic uses an art style that’s different enough that everything is off-model compared to the show.
 
Not that the show is completely consistent about things like scale.
 
likely we had the servants of the castle running off but the vision did not let twilight see it.
 
In other words, the servants ran off before Luna transformed, leaving all of them unaware of what Nightmare Moon looked like.
 
The issue is that ponies knew what Nightmare Moon looked like. That wouldn’t be possible if the only time that Luna transformed was when she was alone with her sister.

@Background Pony #03B4  
Maybe it was a divorce.

@Background Pony #A2D8  
For that matter, you never hear anyone talk about Grandpa Smith either. Seems odd that we ruminate on the fate of AJ’s parents when his absense is far more obvious and telling.

@Vree  
death was already canon dude. I don’t hear about granny’s mom now do we?

@Sjogre  
well let us consider two things. the vision of the past was imperfect to begin with. it is clear that she completely missed celestia part of the conversation. not to mention she saw celestia as she remembers her, and the comic here seems to indicate that luna and herself were, in fact, closer to the same age. in other words celestia would be much smaller than ightmare moon.
 
likely we had the servants of the castle running off but the vision did not let twilight see it.

DEATH IS CANON

NEW THEORY! The hydra is dead because either The Avengers or Nick Fury found it.

@LuminoZero  
Maybe they saw her when she was FLYING AROUND THE CASTLE AND BLOWING IT UP?
 
In the middle of the night? From a distance? Not easy to get detail like that.
 
There are servants and guards in the Canterlot Castle, why would there be none in the Everfree one?
 
Actually, in the scene we saw, the castle was pretty well deserted, which actually makes Luna having assuming the Nightmare Moon identity previously more likely. Celestia would have known to evacuate the place beforehand.
 
Also, pretty sure Celestia would have to explain why Princess Luna is gone, so a statue of Nightmare Moon would be pretty easy to come up with.
 
Given Celestia’s tendencies towards doling out history, I wouldn’t expect Celestia to say more than the bare minimum. I certainly wouldn’t expect her to describe Luna’s transformed appearance.
 
Heck, given that Twilight didn’t know that Celestia was the sister from the story, I wouldn’t be surprised if Celestia dropped out of the public eye entirely at that point.
 
Something that you’re forgetting is that the confrontation between Luna and Celestia wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. Luna had been doing something to cause Celestia to take her to task. While that doesn’t have to mean that Luna had been running around as Nightmare Moon, that would certainly make more sense than only transforming the one time.

@Sjogre
 
Maybe they saw her when she was FLYING AROUND THE CASTLE AND BLOWING IT UP?
 
There are servants and guards in the Canterlot Castle, why would there be none in the Everfree one? Also, pretty sure Celestia would have to explain why Princess Luna is gone, so a statue of Nightmare Moon would be pretty easy to come up with.
 
-Lumino

@Fenrixer  
Well go on then! I say go to Manehatten, then you go there instead. Then you say “Is this Manehatten?”… go on.

@d715  
Well Granny Smith is a few hundred years old.
 
Hmmmn? Given that the show has retconned things before, what makes you sure about that?
 
Especially since season four had Twilight as unaware that Granny Smith was a founder.
 
For as lot longer than we think and that the shows fight was when she was outed
 
Aside from the question of just what Luna did to force the confrontation that we saw, Nightmare Moon was a legend. She had to have been seen by a pony other than Princess Celestia at some point, and seen clearly enough for someone to make a statue of her.
 
So, while that was definitely the last time that Luna turned into Nightmare Moon before being banished, I can’t believe that it was the first.

@LuminoZero  
She does it in show
 
Nightmare isn’t some evil spilt personality its just Luna

@d715
 
The show actively shows her transformation and banishment and everything that happens between them. Do you think NMM is something Luna could turn on and off at will?
 
-Lumino

@Background Pony #FAC1  
Oh please keep this up. This is my all time favorite sketch from Monty Python!

@candrew  
Well Granny Smith is a few hundred years old. So Starswirl could live long enough. @LuminoZero  
I got the impression that Luna was nightmare. For as lot longer than we think and that the shows fight was when she was outed