I know many species will kill young males because it means less competition later in life. Even if dragons are sentient, it could persist culturally, like how the Buffalo still stampede and practice headbutting. Mother dragons might give up their young to care, so they have a better chance of survival.

Celestia did it

I'm making a statement. I'm betting that EVERYTHING in this series was planned out by Celestia for some as-of-now unknown reason. Whether evil, good or somewhere in between, I reckon she's pulling everyone's strings

edited 11th Jul '11 2:53:42 PM by gingerninja666

Also she know Doctor Whoof. So she can know some parts of future.

That some dragons might be monsters and some nice people and some in between is not strange at all: thats after all how it works with ponies, so why not with dragons? (And from a create-nice-stories and not worldbuilding-via-dissection view, it is more practical to have both, to make different things with dragons)

The thing that interests me, and above you have come up with some good explanations, is why and how dragons give up eggs for adoption like that. That is odd, especially if dragon assistants are more common than we have seen. (Someone who, for a lark, assigned D&D classes to the main cast said that one reason Twilight is a wizard is "she has a baby dragon as a familiar. That could be one way of describing their relationship...) I dont think all unicorns engage in dragonhatching, and it doesn't seem all the pupils at Celestia's School for Gifted Mutants - erh, Unicorns do it either.

I have seen some fanworks in which Dragons are ancient beings outside of ponykind and maybe older than them, so that oldest dragons are on a more equal footing with Celestia and Luna. That sounds fun and somewhat appropriate.

Truthfully, regardless of genre, dragons are very impractical at the sizes portrayed. But there are numerous potential explanations for the eggs, including a lot of eggs being laid, but few hatching, if any, without intervention, or perhaps it's very rare for a unicorn to actually succeed with the magic, it being a Kobayashi Maru type test, and the rare exception becoming Celestia's special pupil.

A really twisted interpretation would involve the unicorns feeding on the dragons to gain their power, but that's a bit dark for this show. It would be nice to see some time at the academy though.

edited 11th Jul '11 3:06:21 PM by blueharp

I don't think that dragon asistants are common. Twilight is special unicorn after all.

edited 11th Jul '11 3:06:21 PM by DeathCloud

But we didn't know that until she went Dark Pheniox thanks to the Sonic Rainboom, before that it was a (presumably) normal unicorn test

I like to imagine that every unicorn (at least the ones who go to Celestia's school) are given a dragon egg to practise on. If they can't hatch it, someone else will (if no one can a teacher does)

Maybe dragons hand their young over to Celestia, because to them it's like giving their child a better life. While not evil, the wild dragons we've seen don't do much, and they don't seem to be very bright. Spike seems well educated and has a lot of friends (other pony-raised dragons are probably similar)

edited 11th Jul '11 3:10:15 PM by gingerninja666

True. Dragon hatching being hard... it could be that the egg they hand over are egg that wouldn't hatch unless a unicorn magicated at it. So, its like saving a stillborn baby, and dragon custom says that the mother of an egg is the hatcher. So they are not handing out their eggs (if we have to be sciency, big beings like dragons have many fewer kids than other animals), they are taking a last chance on it.

edited 11th Jul '11 3:11:17 PM by ErikS

Dragons give eggs to ponies so they can train them buld army what can defend world against united forces of Tirac, Grogar, Lavan, Krastos and Apocalypse Ponies.

I like that idea, ragons handing over Sillborns for a chance to save them! Nice

You'd think something as important as hatching an egg that won't hatch would be handled by a fully realized unicorn in control of her magic, not some random filly whose abilities are yet to be developed.

Well it's not like a filly could hurt the dragon in any way. The worst they could do is NOT open it.

and why are people implying that cracking open a dragon egg is hard? When Twilight's magic went out of control, breaking open the egg was by far the most minor thing she did. It's probably just a Beef Gate for filly unicorns who are just grasping the basics of magic

I certainly wouldn't envy the baby dragon that had to endure the burning pile of hay that the examinee managed to set on fire.

And that's just straight off the top of my head. So many things could go wrong, when you're talking about magic.

If it had been the Fanon Twilight Sparkle, she would have reversed time or dried out the sea or something. There should be a moratorium or something on fanfic which begins with "Twilight miscast a spell"... *grumble*

Sorry!

Maybe Spike's mom just teaches at the unicorn school for some reason. He did mention his mother briefly in Winter Wrap Up.

Dragons are VERY resilient, (at least as far as I've seen) A burning pile of hay might be like a nice blanket for him. Twilight had potential that was 1 in a billion, other fillies would probably have just enough power to break it, if that.

edited 11th Jul '11 3:29:38 PM by gingerninja666

The more I think about it, the more I just can't wrap my head around the idea of dragon egg hatching being a big significant thing. If some creature's life depends on it, it's the kind of thing you would entrust to a responsible adult, not a prop you use for some test.

Personally, I think it's closer to the egg already about to hatch anyway, with the test being more about helping the baby dragon hatch faster (as opposed to, you know, hatching at all, which would be what I was rambling about in the other paragraph).

That seems like a reasonable assumption. As I said before, the eggs seem to have been given to Celestia for more reaosns other than to be used as test apparatus

CELESTIA MADE THE EGG

Maybe hatching dragon egg is easy but TS magical potencial was locked ?

Whatever they're making them do, it has to be (relatively) easy. Considering it's a test for little fillies. Granted, they're supposed to be gifted, but still...

They say dragons are magical creatures, maybe their magic nature resonates with whatever inate magical abilities are present within the unicorn. A filly with no magic won't create a reaction while anyone capable of using magic will.

^Well, it can't just be a test for magical potential. All unicorns can use magic to some extent, after all. Helping the dragon hatch earlier seems like the most likely solution to me.

but ALL unicorns are capable of magic, so it should resonate with all of them.

edit: NINJA'D

edited 11th Jul '11 3:56:49 PM by gingerninja666