Big Jim has once again popped up on Twitter and answered a ton of questions about the finale and the show as a whole. He leaves many things to fan interpretation, but a lot of things are fully explained in the end.
Particularly the fate of AJ's parents.
Post is fully updated now! Sorry about the delay. I wasn't expecting to dig through that many. Also I forgot to hit publish :x
Now go! Get some ending lore while we continue to bask in that post-finale glow.
Q: I just...i can't live with Twilight outliving her friends. Didn't Meghan Mccarthy confirm in 2014 Twilight wouldn't outlive them? Why backpedal on that?
A: That was never said on the show. We don’t know how long everyone lives, Twilight included.
Q: Yesterday when I was watching the MLP final on TV.. My mom was watching it with me.. As the episode played out, she kept asking me, "This show IS for little kids, right?" :)
A:It’s for everyone!
Q: is Flurry Heart being in a stain glass window in Twilight's throne room now imply she's the ruler of the Crystal Empire? So what became of Cadence?
A: We didn’t iron out all the details for things like that. We deliberately left it vague for you guys to have fun with.
Q: What happened to the royal sisters, Celestia and Luna after their retirement? Are they visiting Twilight after her coronation? What are they doing in Silver Shoals?
A: It’s not really something that we needed to decide on. It’s left vague so you guys can have fun with fanfics and the like. I have my own personal opinions on stuff, but that doesn’t make it canon.
Q: Was Grogar being Discord in disguise always planned, or was that added in later drafts for the season arc?
A: It was planned from the beginning. You think we were going to let a brand new baddie (new to this Gen, anyway) be the one to take on our girls at the end? We wanted it to be those 3 to have that personal connection.
Q: So was "Grogar" not using the remains of Sombra's horn to resurrect him meant to be a hint towards that?
A: There’s quite a few hints throughout the season.
Q: So are AppleDash, YonaBar, StarlightXsuburst, GallusXSilverstream, and Fluttercord canon?
A: It’s up to the individual viewer to decide what those two are to each other. Gotta leave you with some things to debate!
Q: Did you have any ideas for Scorpan to appear in the final season?
A: No sir. It was already jam packed with characters.
Q: What was the best part about working on My Little Pony?
A: The people I got to work with. Friendship is magic in real life, too!
Q: Question About Future Work
A: Unfortunately, we’ve all moved on to other projects, so the crew is spread out all over. It’s sad, because I love working with all of them.
Q: Who gave Celestia and Luna their wings?
A: It was never decided internally what their official back story was. Fuel for future fanfics?
Q: What's up with the castle in Ponyville? Starlight and co taking it now?
A: We never decided what would happen to it, but I like to imagine it became a tourist attraction, or additional student housing for the school.
Q: Are there any ponies that would like stop motion films and tv shows if they lived in our world?
A: I’m sure there would be! I think Dr. Hooves would be particularly intrigued by them.
Q: When you guys were planning the unreleased Zebra homeland episode, were you thinking that all Zebras would speak in rhyme, or is that just something special about Zecora?
A: It didn’t make it that far to have officially decided, but we did have this very discussion. Some of the writers expressed trepidation at having to write rhymes for a BUNCH of characters, which is understandable!
Q: Was a full backstory ever planned out for Cozy Glow, or was she always just an evil filly by nature?
A: We never really discussed Cozy’s origins. It would have been fun to get in to, but we didn’t really end up having the time.
Q: How old are the Mane Six in The Last Problem, compared to how old they were in the regular series
A: We never set a specific time frame for the future jump.
Q: Luster Dawn looks a lot like Starlight and Sunburst. Any relation?
A: I say no, but Josh Haber says yes. So, you can decide!
Q: You might not have any idea on this one, but are there plans to release any further FiM creations? A complete world map? A video game? I know the comics will continue! Thanks for doing such a great job.
A: All that sort of stuff is entirely up to Hasbro. They wouldn’t be involving any of the series crew with that if they did have plans.
Q: Did you guy decide that Flim and Flam were unredeemable, or was is just a time issue?
A: I don’t think they were ever in need of redemption in the way some of the actual villains were. They’re more misguided than actually evil.
Q: Are Carrot Cake and Cup Cake dead?
A: That was never discussed. But just because a particular character isn’t seen onscreen does that mean they’re deceased.
Q: What About Grannie Smith?
A: No one lives forever...
Q: What happened to Starlight's mom?
A: Honestly, we never come up with stories for characters that aren’t in the show. We have enough work coming up with all the details you DO see!
Q: Cozy Glow could be an interesting villain with a possible tragic backstory which shape the character if explored in G5. Could it happen or any of character won’t continue to the next incarnation of the franchise.
A: I have no idea what Hasbro plans on doing with the next generation. But as far as I know, none of the G4 folks will be involved.
Q: Do you think Equestria is on a planet ? Or is on an endless flat world ?
A: We spent a lot of time having this debate while working on the show! We tried for a long time to avoid showing if it was truly a planet or not!
Q: Since Grogar's bell is proof of his existence, what happened to the real Grogar?
A: I guess he’s still out there somewhere!
Q: What is the name of Pinkie Pie’s kid?
A: He was just referred to as Little Cheese in the script, but I personally like Cheese Slice.
Q: Who are the parents of Luster Dawn?
A: My opinion was that she was a random kid, not related to anyone we knew from the show. That way she can be a cypher for anyone coming to the show for the first time.
Q: Not related to ponies, but what do you say to those who want to achieve their dream (and focusing on things they're passionate about) but struggling with life and depression and anxiety?
A: A lot of artists working in the business struggle with depression and anxiety, myself included. It seems to come as a side effect of being creative...
Q: How long is "Many Moons"?
A: I always thought of “a moon” being one lunar cycle. On earth, that’s roughly a month. But we never worked out Equestria’s lunar physics to know if that time frame is analogous.
Q: What happened to Lightning Dust? She didn’t appear during the final fight or future and was last seen blasting off. I just hope she’s at least still alive.
A: I’m assuming she’s still alive. She’s probably still to angry with RD to care to help!
Q: Want to get into digital art and storyboarding. Any tips?
A: Draw, draw, draw! If you can draw well, you can always learn any program that’s thrown at you. Don’t become so you can only draw in a single program.
Q: What made you guys think of discord being behind grogar
A: There was no way we were not going to let those 3 baddies be the ones in the end battle. Besides, the fake out made sense to us given Discord’s demented logic.
Q: Throughout the series, what was your favorite "I can't believe we got away with this one" moment?
A: For me, it was Pinkie’s dynamite plunger in ep. 704. I’m sure there’s others, but that one popped in my head.
Q: What was the deal with the Well of Shade introduced in the S7 finale? Seemed like it was gonna come back as a bigger deal later & I honestly expected it to somehow be featured at some point, but it never happened. Were there any further plans for it?
A: No further plans, unfortunately. I’m sure if we’d had more seasons, we would have gotten back to it eventually.
Q: What exactly happened to Bright Mac and Pear Butter?
A: For AJ’s parents, specifying how they died would diminish that episode’s ability to let the viwere imprint their own tragedies on to the story and lessen the personal connection.
Q: Are Sunburst and Sunset Shimmer brother and sister?
A: It was never discussed. And in my personal opinion, they aren’t. But fans can decide for themselves!
Q: Who’s your favorite character in My Little Pony?
A: Discord
Q: Sorry if I asked this before and forgot about asking it but was there anything in the lifespan of the show that you may have wanted to do but never got a chance to do?
A: I think there were lots of opportunities left for more stories. I think it would have been nice to do more with the Young 6, but we did the best we could with the time we had.
Q: What is Rarity doing in Yakyakistan? Did she changed places with Yona?
A: My opinion is that dhe runs a bustling empire of fashion shops around Equestria and the surrounding lands and was coming from the Yakyakistan location that particular day.
Q: By fusing the crowns, did Tia/Luna give Twi the full measure of their power over the sun/moon?
A: That was our intent.
Q: During the epilogue we haven’t seen ponies like Mr and Mrs Cake, Shining Armor and Princess Cadance. Are they just living their life away from their foal/fillies or are they gone like Granny Smith ??
A: We already had so many characters to show, so we weren’t able to fit in everyone, or design and build older versions. Just because some aren’t on screen doesn’t mean they’re dead.
Q: I'm curious if the end fate of the 3 baddies was a sort of compromise for all of the varying fan desires for their conclusion? As we saw with Discord, stone isn't permanent, so anything could happen (left up to the fans)
A: More or less. It was a way to have some symmetry with Celestia and Luna’s battle with Discord.
Q: What were some things you and the team wanted to explore the most but didn't get to?
A: Zebras
Q: Did you always plan to have these final villains not be redeemed (and instead turned to stone, which was a perfect touch)?
A: Yep. That was discussed very early on when planning out the season.
Q: How far back did you guys decide that Pinkie and Cheese were going to end up together and start a family?
A: It was something that came out of the writing of the final episode.
Q: What's the name of Sugar Belle's and Big Mac's son?
A: We never came up with one. Big Sugar? Fans will come up with something much better than that!
Q: Do *you* feel satisfied with how it all wrapped-up?
A: For the most part, yes. There was a proper ending. That was important to me.
Q: Did hasbro give you a reason why they cancelled the show or were you just given an end date?
A: Hasbro didn’t give us a reason, nor were they obliged to. We got to go a LOT longer than we ever imagined.
Q: What's Discord's origin & is he the only one of his kind?
A: It was never discussed. But i think they’re touching on it in the comics in some way.
Q: The Crystal Empire ponies. When they debuted, they all had that crystal shine about their coats. In later seasons, they looked like average ponies. Is there a reason for that change?
A: It was incredibly work intensive to pull off. So we had to scale it back and pick our moments.
Q: Which character were you most excited to see older? And was there one you wished to see but didn’t have enough time in the episode for?
A: It was cool to see them all older! And I wish we’d had time and resources to show everyone.
Q: I noticed a "6" on that boneless toy that "Little Cheese" was carrying around. Is it safe to assume that she has 3 other older siblings hanging around Ponyville or beyond?
A: Or that there’s just been 6 iterations of Boneless.
Q: I'm pleasantly surprised you guys went out of your way to include the Movie characters, since you'd have to make new models. When was that decided?
A: During production. We couldn’t include them all, but we wanted to acknowledge that story being a part of their personal history in some way.
Q: What ever happened to Celestia’s pet pheonix Philomena? She only had one appearance all the way back in season 1.
A: She never came up again, sadly.
Q: Can you tell us why 5/6 of the Young Six stayed in Ponyville? Does Gallus live in Canterlot, or does he live with them and commute to Royal Guard duty?
A: Those sorts of details were never ironed out. Open for fanfics!
Q: Were there any plans to have Spike's actual parents in the series, or was it a plot/time constraint or always meant to be ambiguous?
A: After Father Knows Beast, we knew we weren’t going to go there.
Q: In the epilogue was there any deleted scenes? I'm curious if Discord originally have a line or not. Thanks for the amazing ride!
A: He did not. No cut stuff there.
Q: Gallus: already Captain of the guard, or just a potential one in the future?
A: Our interpretation is he was captain.
Q: Were there any other ideas for how the finale could have gone, or was this the plan all along?
A: This concept came together very early in the S9 planning. And we were building to it.
Q: Was there ever plans to try to work Sunset in somehow?
A: Nope. She was created for EQG, and that crew did the best with her. We always wanted her to be dealt with by that crew since they were in charge of her story.
Q: Did you guys cry during making the final? Or watching it after it was done?
A: Some folks did. But it’s hard to get emotional making it since you know what’s coming!
Q: Why did you decide for Pinkie to be the one to get married and have a kid?
A: That was decided at the writing stage.
Q: Will the comic series of Season 10 answer some open questions left inbetween the ending and Epilogue? Like for example, what happened with Flurry Heart and the Student Six?
A: I honestly don’t know what’s happening in the comic. We were never looped in as to what was happening over there.
Q: We're they any plans during the final fight to have Cadence and Chrysalis to go toe to toe?
A: Nope. It was always about Chrysalis and Starlight.
Q: Going by Dash's attire, I have to assume she became Captain of the Wonderbolts eventually. Did Spitfire die, or merely retire?
A: That’s up to fans to decide!
Q: Even if my time with the show has been relatively brief, I watched the finale and was intrigued by Discord mentioning Tirek's father (I forget the name). Does this mean Discord, Sorpan and Tirek were all related at some point?
A: I don’t think Discord is related in any way. He just knows who their dad is/was.
Q: I'm curious what it was like for the production crew when they realized the series was finished. Was it just as hard as for you to say goodbye as it was for us?
A: Yeah, but we’ve known it was ending since summer of 2017.
Q: One thing I was wondering after the finale was about Applejack. Is she still involved with Sweet Apple Acres at all or are Big Mac and Sugar Belle running it?
A: That’s for fans to decide now!
Q: Did the VA's have any influence in deciding the future for their characters?
A: Unfortunately, no.
Q: Did you have a good time? :)
A: I wouldn’t have stayed on the show as long as I did if I hadn’t!
Q: Did Marble Pie ever find that special somepony ?
A: I'm sure she did. Shes a nice girl.
Q: Now that FiM is done what project will you be working on now?
A: It hasn’t been announced yet, so I can’t say.
Q: A lot of people, myself included, thought that the show could only end with a song, and I'm glad you did it. I'm wondering if the staff had the same idea from the beginning, even in the very early planning stages of s9, or did the idea of ending with a song come later?
A: It always had to end with a song and the book.
Q: Was there any thought ever given to at least revealing the origins of Celestia and Luna, Nightmare Moon, and Discord?
A: Nope.
Q: Whatever happened to the Diamond Dogs? Why didn’t we ever see them again?
A: No one ever pitched a story with them that Hasbro chose to do.
Q: I kind of thought she might have at least been in early drafts of "The Parent Map". Not to mention Sunburst's dad is conspicuously absent from that episode despite having appeared in flashbacks.
A: She was, but there was no backstory. Never made it that far.
Q: Will Cozy Glow be ok?
A: Cozy’s fine. Just in suspended animation.
Q: Will you have any involvement with the production of the 5th Gen of MLP?
A: I will not be involved in G5.
Q: Who all came up with the idea to add the "Pinky and The Brain" reference to the dialog between Twilight and Pinkie?
A: That was in the script, so thank Mike Vogel!
Q: Was Gallus's acceptance into the royal guard a first for gryphons?
A: Seems like it!
Q: have a quick question. It was said that Luna and Celestia were going to Silver Shoals. What exactly is Silver Shoals?
A: It’s a retirement community near Silver Shores.
Q: Was there a specific reason we never saw much more of the buffalo beyond their S1 episode?
A: No specific reason. They just never came up in story pitches.
Q: What was your favorite episode to work on?
A: All of them!
Q: Do you think maybe 10 years from now it would be possible to get the old crew together from all 9 seasons and make a documentary about MLP FIMs creation and everything that went on? Focusing only on the positive aspects because all the bad things that went on have been dealt with
A: I dunno! I can’t predict the future, but anything is possible.
Q: Going back to the Grogar twist: Is there a reason you decided to use him instead of make up a new villain for Discord to pretend to be?
A: Cause he was cool!
Q: What was the thought process behind the ships you chose to give a little less ambiguity than others? The fandom ships a lot of characters, so I was curious why you decided to make some particular ones a very clear debate on whether or not those are canon.
A: It’s just fun messing with you all!
Q: How come you guys never really fiddled with low angles when it came to the ponies? Like with a tiny perspective looking up to one of the main ponies?
A: Because extreme perspectives would require new designs/builds of the characters. Hard to justify unless very specifically needed.
Q: Is Cozy Glow Actually a Little Kid?
A: [Insert Shrug Emoji Here]
Q: I wouldn't be surprised if Hasbro keeps this epilogue and universe in their back pocket if/when MLP needs a boost. If Hasbro were to come to you in 20 years asking you to help with a new show set back in Equestria with Luster Dawn, would you do it?
A: Who knows?
Q: When you had @pattonoswalt , @alyankovic , and @WilliamShatner as VAs. Was everyone calm cool and collected at the office?
A: All those folks were recorded in LA, so only a few of us were present.
Q: I noticed that Tempest makes a cameo in the final battle, and she's wearing a dress/scarf/cloak thing which obscures her cutie mark, just like her armor. Was one ever designed for her/does she have one?
A: I can’t speak for what happened on the movie, but we never decided on one.
Q: If a Spin Off Series for the Student/Young 6 was announced would you guys all come back and handle it or would new crews come in? Same question but if G5 Ponies got announced too.
A: We’ve all moved on to new projects, so getting everyone back would be nigh impossible.
Q: Have you think of skipping that short intro in the finale and the epilogue to gain some more seconds to add something? Or the Hasbro wouldn't approve it at all?
A: Things are approved at the script stage first. That was always in there.
Q: I take it you didn't kill off any of the main characters, especially because of the backlash from the 1986 Transformers Movie.
A: No. This show was never about killing off characters.
Q: Was Luster Dawn a reference to Dusk's Dawn?
A: Nope.
