@Spiked Punch @Spiked Punch @YetAnotherBrony  
“We need to encourage him to take a nap somewhere else. Princess Celestia has given us this mission, and we must not fail. If we do, Equestria will be covered in smoke for the next one hundred years.”  
They don’t specifically say that he’ll be sleeping for 100 years, but it doesn’t say that it won’t happen either. It’s ambiguous.

@YetAnotherBrony  
Well Celestia could have simply found that egg abandoned or lost or whatever, and then realized it was ideal for a magic test due to being magic resistant or something like that.
 
And maybe dragon eggs are that rare? If we assume they really don’t lay eggs very frequently, and that even then its not that common, then it doesn’t really change much. The adult dragons we’ve seen could’ve all been tens of thousands of years old, and Garble & the other teens just being from later generations.

@Spiked Punch
 
Well, if it really was “just a nap” and really did last “100 years”, then dragons would have a life span in the tens of thousands of years, possibly hundreds of thousands of years. Either dragon eggs are ridiculously rare (then why would Celestia use it for an entrance exam?) or dragons are suffering from extreme overpopulation.

@YetAnotherBrony  
I can buy dragons having one 100-year sleep during their 1000-year life…but they called it a nap. I dunno, the way it was presented it seemed as if it was truly just a nap, and that it would’ve lasted 100 years if they didn’t stop him. But it can be either way I guess.
 
Im curious though, why do you hope it was an exageration?

@Spiked Punch
 
And humans spend about 1/3 of their lives sleeping, just not all at once. Maybe dragons are the opposite?

@Spiked Punch  
Might have been an exaggeration. At least, I hope it was.

The 100-year nap thing makes it seem like even 1,000 years is a short time for a dragon.  
I honestly doubt they use up 1/10 of their lives everytime they stop for a nap.

@SingleCrystal
 
I’ve already said that the “never-extinguishing fire” is a stupid idea.

@YetAnotherBrony  
Hungry and desperate enough for learning, because the whole library will be a fire cave that never goes out, knowledge inscribed on fireproof paper that is always on fire…

Well, this is an interesting reversal of the trend. Depression through aging too slowly.

@YetAnotherBrony  

>Someone started visiting lately  
>No, not Gummy, he’s under my bed  
>The other young dragons  
>Apparently, someone beat the jerk out of them  
>They want to be friends now.  
>And all this thanks to the wisest in their bunch.  
>Thank you, Crackle.

@YetAnotherBrony mah nigga

This is why my headcanon says there’s other ways to grow.

@Indro
 
Which is why I have a personal headcanon that Spike will build Equestria’s version of the Great Library of Alexandria or the Library of Wan Shi Tong, a big-fucking-huge building/cave/whatever of all the world’s knowledge, inscribed on fire-proof paper, free for any who are hungry for learning.

look, it must suck to be a species that matures so slowly and lives so long relative to the species that raised it. It must suck. But think of all the love and friendship you could experience during a thousand years. Of how much of a difference you could make in the lives of people, no matter if their existence will end sooner than yours. You could shape generations and be there creating societies and watch as they grow and change and learn. So much could be accomplished in a thousand years, precisely because your grasp on time is longer.

Unsure about the “fire never going out” thing. That seems kind of tacked-on just to dump even more angst on Spike.
 
I agree with the lifespan thing, though.

The show and the fandom both steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the fact that Spike’s life is assured to be nothing but an unending series of tragedies.

Man, what the hell.