To be fair, because of the cast's proximity to the royal family, we've only ever seen the upper quarter. The rest of Canterlot is much more reasonable as far as cities go, and the bottom quarter is basically farmland

@Seraph: Good luck. Hope it works out.

RE: Canterlot quarantine. Interesting theory, although I feel like Celestia would be more inclined to boot them out to learn survival skills then to just let them languish.

Also this. It's highly probable that most of Canterlot consists of totally friendly ponies, it's just that since the cast is only in Canterlot to deal with the princesses, so they generally only deal with the upper crust. If they ever had an episode about Twilight's parents, we might get to see what the middle class Canterlot ponies are like.

edited 30th Jul '13 8:42:21 AM by JapaneseTeeth

I assumed that Twilight's family was upper class.

I always figured they were fairly affluent, but not aristocratic(Although Shining Armour's position might defy that, depending on how they structure it. They may very well be lesser nobles). Like, maybe their Dad is a big banker or accountant or something. The theory of Twilight's mom being a bestselling novelist is also fun.

Either way, they're probably like, upper-middle or lower-upper class, not properly rich.

I figure they're pretty high up on the aristocratic totem pole. Since Twilight got a try out for Celestia's school despite at that point being terrible at magic and Shining Armour was able to marry a princess and all.

I've always seen them as upper-middle class, myself. Well off, but not rich to the point where money is no object.

My personal headcanon is that Twilight's Dad is an astronomer who studies magical phenomena like the Secretariat comet from the comics. Although I do like the idea of Twilight's mom being the Daring Do author, but she just donates most of the money because she's Doing It for the Art.

I think that has to do more with Shining working his way up the latter to the Captain of the Guard position. That and in general Celestia doesn't strike me as the type to really put much emphasis on status when considering stuff; I doubt she'd give an aristocrat a bump up. That and most schools let anybody apply so long as they pay any application fees.

The only really weird thing is Cadance being Twilight's foalsitter.

edited 30th Jul '13 8:58:40 AM by JapaneseTeeth

I wonder how big Manehatten is relative to Canterlot. Since it has at least two different accents associated with it, I imagine that it most be quite a bit larger.

Twilight also had a princess as a foal-sitter.

Oh yeah that as well, forgot that one.

They're definitely upper class in my mind. Not royalty, but rich enough to mingle with royalty.

I quite like the idea of Twilight's parents being philanthropists. Kinda like Batman's parents.

@Kuroi: Yeah, that is a bit odd. Maybe Shining served as her bodyguard at some point, and as a result she got to know his family.

We've never seen them mingle with Royalty, though. Their kids, yes, but the fact that Shining Armor and Twilight are successful doesn't really imply that their parents are particularly high class.

edited 30th Jul '13 9:00:42 AM by JapaneseTeeth

Maybe she was her babysitter before she became an Alicorn? How young was Cadance when that happened again?

Twilight and Shining probably wouldn't have been allowed to mingle with the royals if their parents weren't influential.

Am I still the only one here who believes Cadance wasn't even part of the royal family back then? They don't even give you any canon info that she's Celestia's niece!

@ CDRW: We saw she had wings in the flashback.

Oh yeah.

Edit: It still could have happened after cadance started babysitting her though. We don't know how long she did that, but it sounded like quite a while.

edited 30th Jul '13 9:06:26 AM by CDRW

She could have become the babysitter before she had the wings, but I think The Crystal Heart Spell contradicts that.

@King: Twilight Sparkle And The Crystal Heart Spell goes into her backstory a bit; she was originally a pegasus who asceneded to alicorn-hood like Twilight did. I haven't read it, but I don't think she knew Celestia and Luna before that. Of course, that's only if you take the book as canon.

@Purple: Like I said, Shining is a member of the Royal Guard, so it makes sense that he would have been able to interact with them. If Cadance took a liking to him, it makes sense that she'd get to know the rest of the family. There's no indication that any of them interacted with Celestia at all until after Twilight became her student.

edited 30th Jul '13 9:10:34 AM by JapaneseTeeth

So, basically, anypony can be an alicorn. And We're just getting this as canon in Season 4?! WTF, DHX?

@ CDRW: I don't think she even lived in Canterlot before getting wings.

@ JT: He seems like he'd be pretty young to be a Royal Guard at that age, I always figured she met Shining Armour because she was Twilight's baby sitter rather than becoming Twilight's babysitter because she knew Shining Armour.

Teeth: The Crystal Heart implies that she ascended when she was fairly young. Cadance was off in some village and used her power to defeat a witch. This is what attracted Celestia's attention and ended in her adoption. So there's no possibility of her being Twi's foal-sitter prior to ascension. However, it's very possible that Celestia sent her out into Canterlot to make friends in a similar way to sending Twi off to Ponyville. And it's entirely possible that Twi's family happened to be among the friends Cadance made.

Cadance just probably got the babysitting job by being friends with Shining. They could have met as kids (or pre-teens) somehow.

@Kix: Well, at this point, it's only ever happened twice in the known history of Equestria. Not exactly a common occurrence.

@Kuroi: Yeah, that makes sense.

edited 30th Jul '13 9:14:45 AM by JapaneseTeeth

@King: Well, the creative staff has always taken the approach of, "were not going to come up with how something works until it's relevant", something left over from Faust tenure.

@ Kuroi: I like that theory. It seems to fit the evidence pretty well.l

edited 30th Jul '13 9:14:50 AM by CDRW