I think spike imprinted on her- but twilight was a kid- so her parents raised them both- but I honestly think THEY don’t even know where they stand on this. It’s a confusing situation!
One of the early comics showed that one of Twilight's duties at Celestia's school was to take care of him, something no one else had to worry about. Probably because Celestia saw a lot of potential in her, given the implication that no one else could actually hatch the egg.
I mean, couldn't it be both? A result of circumstances forcing older siblings to step up as caretakers can be that the relationship they have with their siblings change, it's no longer just a sibling relationship because the responsabilities and duties have increased, but it also isn't a parents / child relationship because the starting point set them as siblings, the relationship becomes chimaeric in nature.
I think it's like a sibling-parental relationship. Twilight hatched spike as a child, which i guess imprinted him to her- but at the same time her parents were the adults in this and would have helped care for spike. So, to me, it's like one of those situations where your older sibling acts and feels more like a parent than your should be parents do.
@Markus2E5I6 ...without having a long enough conversation with him to even explain what a bachelor party even is 😅 Feels more like it was just a cute throwaway gag for Spike rather than a serious brother/brother interaction.
I think it interesting in G5, they established hard and fast that Hitch is Sparky's foster father. It's almost an apology to fans who were upset at the idea of Spike and Twilight as siblings. (Twilight who hatched Spike's egg and changed his dirty diapers.)
I think Spike's relationship with the Sparkle's is more complicated than "twilight's son or brother" remember, he was adopted into the family, and even in real life this can often make things quite a bit strange between family members. It might be that we can't get a definitive answer because spike himself has to question his *own* role in the family. Regardless he's a member of the Sparkle Clan rather that be as a distant relative, or a tightly knit one and not merely just a family friend. P.S. I also don't think maturity works the same way it does in our world which further muddies the waters.
Celestia barely interacts with Spike...if ever... and she only took care of him for like...MAYBE a week before Celestia handed him off to Twilight. The only thing Celestia did was enchant his dragon fire to send messages.
I feel like they are similar to chosen family. Some people have friends they are so close with, they call them family, but not in a sense where they have a traditional family role for each other. Twilight and Spike are friends, siblings, cousins, mother/son, aunt/nephew, owner/pet, scholar/assistant, and anything else they can be to each other. They love each other and that's really all that matters.
I personally see them as an older sister and younger brother where the older sister had to take care of her sibling ever since she was a kid due to adultification
I mean, let's be real, for the longest time Twilight kinda treated Spike as her own personal servant. It was only after she made friends that she seemed to bother connecting with him at all. It's like one day she went, "Ah shoot, maybe I should treat this dragon that's been a part of my family in some way since I was a filly as more than just a servant... oops..." So honestly, I don't think they had much of a familial relationship until after that point, at which point it was too convoluted and messy to put any kind of real label on it. It was Twilight, her parents, her brother, and their pet/servant.... That's gonna be a long therapy session to hash that one out, methinks
I really just chalk it up to the writers having no clue how to handle Spike. I'd believe your interpretation...up until they revealed Shining Armor's character. Season 1 Twi kept feeding to us that she's never really had a personal connection with anyone except Princess Celestia (which wasn't her friend, but her idol/mentor) and Spike...who, yeah, she had a weird relationship with. But then season 2 happens and now she has a BBBFF (emphasis on BEST FRIEND) that she never ever spoke about to any of her Ponyville friends...ever? So Twilight was capable of friendly relationships with other ponies/people growing up...and seeing as how Spike was APPARENTLY present for those pleasant bonding moments (per the awkward retcon in Season 9), and ESPECIALLY with the season 8 confirmation that Twilight RAISED Spike, then it's weird that she didn't always have more on-screen warmth towards Spike in the beginning. Unless she considered him more as a pet growing up and not so much an equal, then I suppose that would explain some stuff. Or if there was some event that made her more cold/distant towards him while growing up. ...the inconsistency is weird lol In any case, your interpretation is completely valid! Like I said, the stuff with Spike wasn't planned, so any interpretation is a good one lol
A good way I like to explain away the weirdness with who gets turned human and who doesn’t in Equestria Girls is that it’s based off the overall species societal infrastructure. Basically that, since dragons as a species tend to live in cave and overall very animalistic with building much in terms of infrastructure, the society and species as a whole is viewed as animals in the eyes of the Equestria Girls portal. Whereas the pony races, griffons, yaks, and even diamond dogs are made human because they build infrastructure and use tools like humans (which does kinda imply that changlings would be made into animals too, maybe cats?) But yeah, that’s my head cannon until proven otherwise
#JusticeForSpike I hate to admit it as well, but you're right, the MLP writers were nearly as inconsistent as the Miraculous ones when it came to almost everything regarding Spike 😭 That might have been a huge reason why something always felt off about him. Like, I love Spike, but I can't bring myself to do so as much as I wanted to. 😅 As for his relationship with Twilight, yeah, the 200th episode trying to tell us that they've been siblings all along never sat quite right with me. Honestly, Spike imprinting on Twilight upon birth and them having a mother-and-son-ish relationship is what I always lean towards, despite the problematic implications. 😬 But honestly, I've seen worse. 😅 Though at the end of the day, it's a sweet relationship however way you choose to label it. The writers may have never commited to one specific route with these two, but at least it was always clear how much they cared for each other, and there's no denying they're both super important in each other's lives.
I think a more canon explanation for why they don’t recognize spike as family is the fact they their probably upset that this little baby got put on your kid as a responsibility and didn’t want twi to take it on but twi probably didn’t want to say no to a princess and her parents probably didn’t want to try to say no to the princess either so they just let twi rise him and about them having to take care of him they hired cadence to take care of twilight, so I feel like they wouldn’t really try to take care of a kid that’s not even theirs when they didn’t really even take care of twice 😢
This was really interesting, when I was younger, I usually saw them as friends but after seeing that comic and after growing a bit I more so thought of adopted son than brother and sister.
it's pretty simple i think, she hatched him, kind of like a parent, but being that she's so young, they had more of a sibling status, just an older sister co-raising a younger brother, they're always together ofcourse they're really attached to eachother, they're familly and very close non the less, no label fully fits and it doesn't really need to
I always interpretted him as like a sentient pet lol. "imprinting" is a good word. but there isnt one thing you can label their relationship because "sentient pets" dont exist irl (thankfully). I think retconning him to be technically twilights son (she raised him) but functionally a sibling (her parents would have been doing a lot of the work to support her doing so) works, but they were least confused when making him a talking dog. he is a talking dog with hands basically
I've always liked that verse. Good choice. #JusticeForSpike I never really though to much about Twilights relationship with Spike, but the more I think about it the more confusing it gets in my head! You have left me with much to think about.
I find this relationship quite interesting. Their relationship is similar to that dog-owner, master-student, mother-son and older sister and little brother. It’s kind of a mix bag as the series develops and grows later on as it shows it codependent relationship. In the first season, he’s basically Twilight’s butler who helps her with her studies and cleans up after and she teaches social cues and scolds him when he’s done something wrong. In the later seasons, she’s more of a big sister who hangs out and talks with him bit relies on him more than he does. She needs him as he needs her. So to her, he’s more than a friend, he’s family
I think Twilight and Spike are a SORT OF mother and son bond. However due to Twilight also being a kid at the time(even if a seemingly very mature, reserved one), it wasn’t as maternal as a traditional mother-and-son relationship. So instead of a traditionally maternal dynamic, it’s a very loose, mix of multiple relationship dynamics(sibling, adopted maternal, ward). Or, Spike is twilight’s ward who just imprinted on her from birth due to her hatching his egg.
Your absolutely right they had no idea as to what their relationship was from the shows start and they seem to have went back and forth on what their relationship is it started out master/slave Twilight being master, Spike being her book slave. quickly and wisely realizing how dark and inappropriate that is; by owls well that ends well it switched to best friends/mother and son. finally,, they made it a loving sibling relationship upon realizing how weird that is considering how close in age they are. The last one is my favorite because I can look back on Twilight from her antisocial season pre-first episode 1 of the 1'st season start, and say she always had a non biologically related friend she always loved.
I think that Twilight is both Spike’s mom and big sister. Sure it sounds weird but if you think about it actually makes sense. Twilight was there when he was born and raised him like a mother would. And as he got older they also developed a sibling relationship because of how much Spike was growing into this independent young dragon. But no matter what their relationship is, one thing is certain. They are the best of friends and no one can deny that. #JusticeforSpike
Spike is ironicly one of the most important characters in the franchise. Having some version of him in almost every generation (excluding G2) and always as a major supporting character, unlike the ponies who were often in rotation as main characters until G4.
Tbh, for the longest time I just threw these two under the same category as Sonic and Tails. Sometimes they call each other friends, sometimes siblings, sometimes it's pretty parental, and there's even some question about that with the age (canonically Tails is 8 and Sonic is 15). The final verdict for those two is brothers (with a sort of 'older brother being caretaker' undertone), and that is also kinda the verdict I landed on for Twilight and Spike.
The absolute madness of this. Lauren Faust didn’t have a plan (or rather, her plan was somewhere between abuse and slavery). So then the other writers come in and each have their own take. The result is incoherent.
I always viewed spike as her pet. It doesn't make since for him not to be...She raised him, I raised a lot of my pets....It would make since. Especially with training to make it your assistant.
@@princessqueen6881But Twilight was very accepting of other creatures that weren't ponies, it would be racist of her to just use a dragon for a pet even if they are sapient beings, it wouldn't make sense with her character
I feel her being his mother feels not only the most plausible to me, but it just makes Twilight and Spike so much more admirable. I usually never take the comics into consideration, either, but it really does push one to the conclusion, that she is his mom. Like, it's either her being his mom, or Twilight's Parents and therefore Spike's parents once more proving to be incompetent parents. Who tf forgets their son?
It kind of reminds me of Clementine and Aj from The Walking Dead game. The writers were trying to go with Clem being depicted as Aj's older sister since she was only 11 when he was born but by season 4 she was more like a mother to him
brother and sister, mother and son, pet and owner, employer and employee, mad scientist and obedient assistant - an argument can be made for each, but few proof which reigns supreme. their relationship seems to morph by a third party to form plot of the day.
It honestly feels more like a Master/Servant relationship but with extra care due to Twilight's involvement in his birth, which ends up making them both just naturally treating each other as family members. I mean, Spike's egg wasn't even Twilight's to begin with, the school just stole it.
the only consistent thing about spike the baby dragon is "spike must be left out one way or another". honestly, most unintended tragic character of the show.
First I will admit the "any way is correct" was entertaining with how fervent you wanted mother son to be the pertinent relationship.😜. And to answer authoritative intent, I believe it was purposely vague, for the staff loved the creativity of the fans with stating that "ambiguity is one of the shows greatest strengths." So the two episodes that seem to conflict, actually don't. On to my preference for the relationship... it's a bit of both familiar (sibling) in their heads, while being paternal (mother son) in there heart. Loved the video ❤👍
I don't see why we have to attach one label, relationships can be complicated. Twilight hatched him. They were raised together, but once Twilight became an adult, she started raising Spike on her own. He's 12-16, so it makes sense he'd see Twilight as a guardian and vise versa, but being a guardian isn't the same as being a parent.
In my opinion, Twilight and spike deeply care about each other and the reason why they the dynamic is so special in the show because we see multiple episodes where we see how much they care for each other such as in season 7 episode 22 once upon a Zepplin when spike insist that he’d stay behind and do twilight paperwork but Twilight tells him that he is much as part of her family as any pony showing how much spike means to her and her family but Spike still insists her going on vacation so that she’ll be happy which Twilight thinks him for and in season 8 episode 24 father knows beast we see more and more how much Twilight and Spike really love and care about each other because she acts more of a guardian/mother figure towards him in multiple episodes and especially in season nine episode episode 3 sparkle seven we see more and more of twilight and spike together as a family and twilight and shining armour giving spike the crown and calling him little brother which I thought was absolutely adorable and really wholesome and brought a smile to my face so in all the episodes and seasons of My Little Pony I think Twilight and spikes relationship is both mother and son and siblings and I think that’s what makes the dynamics so special
When I really think about it, and i mean, thinking about it NOW that you've pointed it out-Yeah, what is Spikes relationship? I mean, I think I'm somewhere in the middle where Spike is a part of Twilights family because she was his caretaker. Although sometimes siblings are pushed into a position where they unfortunately do more of the parental work than actual parents. But that didn't seem this way-at least in the earlier seasons and my understanding when I was a little girl. However, while I could say I saw Twi as a mom, I also sorta looked at her relationship with Spike as a sort of mentor ish relationship? I know it doesn't make much sense since Spike never did anything beyond being an assistant and occasionally helping out in the major events throughout the show. Not to mention, I, personally, didn't have any issue with him being a dog in the EQ franchise. It felt like that was acceptable. Until I got older, and it started being addressed by others that this was strange when looking at other characters and the implications of well...racism. I don't think the writers were purposely trying to cause inconsistencies, but when looking at it all, it can get confusing.
The thing with him being a pet is that dragons are a whole other race in this universe making Ember be a dog and that gets pretty problematic when it comes to the racism analogy they have with Neighsay. The only way I can describe their relationship is that it transcends language. I wish they kept the beta backstory they had with him being hired by Celestia to help Twilight in Ponyville and I also wish they took inspiration from g3 Spike for the design instead of g1 Spike because I always found him to be too similar with Twilight in terms of color.
Frankly, I always saw their relationship as mother-son I mean, it would've been forced into sister-brother because they were both young when he hatched But by technicality, she is his mother, she is his parent, she literally hatched him, and helped raise him from birth The show never fully acknowledges this, but it was likely because the characters and the writers weren't really sure, I mean, the situation is a complex one, you can't blame them for being unsure on how and what
Honestly, it seems to me like it's the older sibling parenting situtation, but make it friend instead of sibling, but they also are like siblings, but also not really 😅
#JusticeforSpike I truly and earnestly think that for Twilight and Spike, they have a half and half relationship of being both Mother and Son as well as Older and Younger Siblings respectively. They are mostly written and depicted like that since Twilight not only looks out for Spikes well being and interest like in Dragon Quest and the more Dragon-like centric Spike episodes, but Spike does look out for Twi's best interest and makes sure that not only does she NOT spiral out of control and keeps her sanity in tact, but he CAN and DOES make light jokes and jabs at her expense here and there, like what siblings do, and he also mostly follows here around to wherever she goes if it's pertinent to him. As for how the other Sparkle familial line treats him is a whole different story altogether and everything, but at the end of the day, I do see them both in terms of not only a familial friendship, but also codependent on a much layered and personal level that Twi won't ever really have with the Mane 5 and Starlight, and the show defidently shows that in more ways than 1 ever could even perceive. Also Aloubell, I will await the day you actually make a Spike focused episode in 2025 and I will be armed and focused on seeing just how well you know the original 7th member of the Mane "7" before Sunset and Starlight ever came into the picture. Hope you have a grand start to your 2025 as well as a glorious 2025 in its entirety.
@@EnigmaPrince101 TBH, I pretty much got my thoughts about Spike out in this video. He wasn't respected much in the grand scheme of the overall story of the show writing-wise, and his relationship with Twilight kind of encapsulates that haha I don't have any other strong opinions about him~
I genuinely don't know since I haven't watched MLP in like months? Years? I can't even remember.(I probably stopped watching because Netflix only has THE FIRST FOUR SEASONS) As long as you don't ship them(if you do. ew.) it's fine to head-canon them as whatever you want. :3
To me Twi being like a mom makes sense since she hatched him from an egg and in that season 1 episode Twi also gets into Tia’s school of magic so ignoring episode 200 I think she kept Spike at school where she probably spent a lot more time as she grew and after Shining left home Everyone ignoring Spike is probably because until that fan episode they probably saw him like a pet since Twi was a kid and not much was known about dragons Not positive but I think the whole Shining Cadence and Glurry thing was to mirror the actual royal family and cash in on their popularity…this would explain why Shining was thrown in out of nowhere and why Cadence is so weak with her backstory mostly being in comics
I guess for me, Twilight sees herself as a mother to Spike and depending on the situation Spike can see Twilight as a mom or sibling. Like if he needs motherly advice and what not, idk if I'm making sense but it depends on what Spike wants Twilight to be
#JusticeForSpike I personally always saw the relationship between Twilight and Spike as siblings, but with the element of the older sibling being the primary caregiver of the younger one (Like Nani and Lilo). Speaking from my own personal experience (while not exactly the same), I'm the middle child but older sibling of a younger one and there are times when I had to be the "third parent" and look after them. And this is also probably just me, but I personally never liked Twilight being Spike's "mom" because...that dynamic doesn't exactly treat them as equals (that's the best way I can explain?). I also really don't like the idea of Spike being Twilight's pet, and that's one thing I can't forgive Equestria Girls for.
It really does feel like he's twilight's son but both of them only consider each other as family withouth that relationship extending to the rest of twilight's family Spike sees twilight as his mother/sister but the rest of her family are just friends and acquaintances that happen to be her family too Twilight sees him as her son/brother but that's separate from the rest of her family And i kinda like it, honestly It's such an unique family dynamic Especially since the show makes it clear they don't mind that the rest of twilight's family doesn't treat him as part of them In fact, it even reframes the rest of her family not treating him as part of them as respectful in an odd way Twilight and spike are family but neither treats the rest of her family as part of that so they in turn respect this unique bond and don't treat him as part of the family either He's twilight's son exclusively and they won't disrupt that Like, twilight and spike would absolutely do stuff as mother and son but if shining armor ever calls him his nephew they would both give him odd looks Or spike would be describing twilight and her family and he would call twilight basically his adoptive mom but shining as a good friend in the same sentence It probably makes their relationship that much more special to them Twilight isn't just spike's mom, she's the only family he has Twilight has her family but she also has her son, her second family Or at least this is the interpretation i'm gonna use if i ever write any mlp fanfiction even if i'm just overthinking it way too much
My personal interpretation is that they’re siblings, but (due to the age gap and responsibilities she had at the school) Twi ended up co-parenting him alongside the other authority figures in their lives. I do admit a lot of this is bias from my own personal experiences as an older sibling with a big age gap with my younger sister, but it feels right to acknowledge how much impact Twilight had on Spikes development without also acknowledging the fact she was also genuinely just a kid as well (she couldn’t have been older than 11-12 at the absolute most when the Rainboom happened) which feels really weird to just dump the role of ‘mother’ onto her
Honestly l've often seen them as both mother/son and brother/sister. Their dynamic and interactions with one another have definitely been able to represent both outcomes. Many times they will have interactions that are very reminiscent to how siblings would be with one another, but other times Twilight has been able to let out a bit of a parental side whenever Spike needs it. Really it’s a situation where Twilight acts as both an older sister and overall parental figure Spike looks up to given how attached he had gotten to her since his birth as well being adopted into her family (whom I believe whole heartedly also had a major part in raising him as well). So yeah, that’s what I’ve seen their relationship as. They have shown to fit both roles perfectly but there’s no denying that they mean so much to one another and they’ll be by each other’s side no matter what they see each other as. They’re inseparable, and to me that’s what makes their relationship so touching to think about. What a duo🥲
It would be messed up they force a child to raise a child; probably just a brief test of responsibility by Celestia, then he is raised as a sibling alongside Twilight by twilights parents ( the writers really did not think thus through )
I remember a tweet on Twitter years ago from a person who works on the show, saying the reasons for the inconsistencies in some characters and stories is that writers, old and new ones coming in and out of the studios don't communicate. This is what I've read. This happens with other shows, too. I don't know why they don't. This doesn't bother me, to be honest. Don't forget Princess Celestia had a hand in Spike's upbringing. Who do you think taught Spike how to use his dragon fire to send messages between her and Twilight?
To me they’re like a stepmother who is trying to be a good parent to a preteen who doesn’t really view her as a mother (more like a friend) but is dependent on her like a child would be ie. Financially and emotionally.
She’s his pet mom. Most people who consider their pets their kids treat them more like a friend. I know dragons count as “people” but like why would one have a kidnapped fetus in a kindergarten 😭. It’s giving a pet turned out to be a sentient being, but since she’s been taking care of him since birth he sees her as his mom, but they act more like friends bécause of the age difference. The family probably doesn’t are much because he’s a pet, and probably spent most of his time at the house when he couldn’t do much yet cause he was a baby and toddler, so the family just views him as a pet. And now that he’s a big kid twilight can treat him more of a friend since she’s like only a couple years older than him.
One of my favorite AUs treats Spike as Twi's adoptive brother (see the Grand Galloping 20s AU)- why I'm against him being a "pet" like we see in Equestria Girls is because of the unfortunate implications this holds for other dragons. #JusticeForSpike
Hm, fair points and opinions, personally I never really thought that deeply about, they could have been Siblings, they could’ve been Parent and Child, either way worked for me, Although to be fair, at first i really did think of them as either just Friends or Siblings, since i tended to have a hard time thinking of the Mane 6 as being actual Adults and thought of them more as some where around Teen Age, Funny enough, it wasn’t until I came across a Ask Blog Webcomic on Tumblr (that was about Twilight being turned into a Genie) that I ever once considered the possibility that Twilight and Spike even could be considered as Mother and Son, truly funny how it can go. Also #JusticeForSpike
Spike is a fascinating character in the context of the show. A male secondary character in the cast of MLP. He's a young dragon, a monster that would otherwise be terrifying. I have a theory that the dragons in MLP represent male behavior as young girls would see it. Often stupid and dangerous, killing stuff in the woods. The Dragon Lord is the loudest and strongest, but also follows rules of ascension. Spike is a young dragon, a young boy. He would be scary, if he's fully grown. But he's not, he's adorable. Even when he acts tough. Spike also prides himself on being Twilight's Number 1 assistant. The title itself is something he wears and goes through great lengths to uphold, in a way boys like feeling important stereotypically-by being needed. It's less about his qualities and more about how he affects the world and others. Which might be a reason why Spike is so attached to Twilight, she provides a purpose and structure to his life. Ofcourse, Spike gets anxiety and questions his draconic nature throughout the show, but not too much. For the most part, Spike is content serving Twilight. Whether she's his sister or mother or whatever, I think that's his greatest desire. Also, I think the parent thing comes from a lack of family cohesion and focus. Let's be real, the parents barely are in the show. So I don't think the writers really thought of the relationship Spike would have with. And the scenes we see both of them in have a different focus. Honestly, Twilight's family and their position in society is kind of interesting.
I think it's a mix of everything and nothing. I wouldn't mind it at all if it was intentional and explicitly said because people's relationships in real life can be really complicated but i agree that it's probably creator's error caused by confusion and being undecided so it's not nicely done. I also want to add that it's a hard situation for everyone that they didn't chose. Spike first was an egg, then a baby and idk if anyone asked him who he wants to be, where he wants to live and if he wants to be a helper. It was all he knew so maybe even he didn't know what he really wants. Twilight was a child that only hatched the egg because it was a test she had to do and then someone told her she should take care of Spike even when she had to study. She didn't wanted to make a child and be a caretaker. Twilight's parents didn't chose to have another child too. They either did it because of Celestia or so their child didn't have to be a caretaker or so Spike could have a caretaker that knows how to take care of kids. Shining Armor was just another kid that randomly had to deal with another child that had nothing to do with him. And finally Celestia that had the most control over this situation. Idk how she got the dragon egg but she chose to keep it, use it as a test, involve a child with hatching it, take care of Spike for a little while but then instead of continuing she chose to give this responsibility to this child that should be either playing or studying. Idk if she chose that Twilight's parents should take care of Spike but it's still bad. She probably chose that Spike should be Twilight's helper and assistant for some reason. It's all really strange for me
I think the situation with Twilight and Spike comes down less to her being his mother or sibling, but more so that Twilight, as a result of raising him feels maternal towards him as well as a sibling bond because they grew up together. But spike as a result of being raised by Twilight would feel incredibly attached to her specifically, especially when you remember that she hatched his egg. She’s his safety and where he feels most comfortable, but just like you would with a parent, his relationship with her changes as he gets older to one more like that of a friend.
I would say l always leaned more towards a them being siblings (although that might just be due to personal experiences) l feel like the most obvious thing was that different writers were also disagreeing on this so some episodes showed them more as mother and son and others more as siblings which explains why we see them calling eachother both parent and sibling just 6 episodes apart. It's very likely both episodes were already in production and the different writers of those episodes just had different headcanons. So ultimately this would always remain up to headcanon. Either way they have a very sweet relationship especially in the later seasons
i always saw spike as an assistent to twilight and her friends since he only wrote twilights letters since one of the first scenes of the show... nothing else
Honestly I've always seen it as both, Twilight sees Spike as her child since she did hatch his egg, but due to the closer age of the two, both being very young when it happened, Spike sees Twilight more as his sister then a mother. Also gotta remember that one time Spike was dreaming about his mother and it was implied not to be Twilight so yeah.
#JusticeForSpike I think Twilight is an older sister to Spike and sometimes,older siblings act like parental figures while also being on an equal(ish) level with the younger sibling Kinda like Applejack and Applebloom. Bottom line, I think the relationship between Twilight and Spike is a mix of both sibling-like and parent and child
I find it funny that writers for little girls show can't write something for this relationship giving it's fantasy setting. Hell, animals in real world even adopt another species because of "Mother instinct" or just because one helps the other
I had kinda always thought that Twilight saw Spike as a pet at first, when she was younger, but then as she got older and more mature, she started seeing him as her son. And since Twilight was the first one Spike saw after he was hatched and she had raised him, I think he's always thought of her as his mom. The 200th episode is really the only one where I think Twi, Shining, and Spike seem to have more of a sibling dynamic, and there are far more episode that give Twilight and Spike a more mother/son vibe. One thing that really gets me tho is that in "Secret of my Excess" Spike is absolutely baffled when the main six get him gifts for his birthday, claiming "I usually only get one present, from Twilight, a book." This is really sad no matter how you perceive Twilight and Spike's relationship, but if Twi's parents saw Spike as their son, or even just if Shining saw Spike as his brother, surely they'd have gotten him something for his birthday's in the past.
I DIDN'T EVEN CONSIDER THE GIFT THING! You're so right! That IS messed up. ...the writers really had no idea what to do with Spike and didn't think things through X'D
I always saw Spike as sort of a talking pet or a Pokemon to Twilight Sparkle. Spike is literally a talking dog in Equestria Girls. As a child, she hatched him from an egg and took care of him the same way a kid might be given a puppy or a kitten to raise. If you have a pet that's bonded to you as a child, your parents might help out when you get overwhelmed but otherwise not get involved. Owlowicious was clearly Twilight's pet and Spike was jealous that the owl was replacing him. In earlier seasons, dragons were portrayed as more animalistic than ponies. When the writers backpedaled in later seasons and made dragons into people with their own culture, they had to also revise Twilight and Spike's relationship. They couldn't have Twilight and Spike being like Ash and Pikachu if dragons and ponies are just different kinds of people.
Yeah no show is perfect and the writers clearly weren’t communicating but it did run for so long I bet the creators weren’t expecting this show to go so long
Personally, I view them as siblings, too bad the show ultimately screwed up their dynamic in a long run. Spike is definitely the most mistreated character in the show and it's especially depressing when he had all the potential.
Celestia is Spike's surrogate mother making him technically a prince. And of course now spike is 20 times the size he was in the show and is now a dragon lord And twilight sparkle is his older surrogate sister
Probably the issue is that Spike is stuck in a paradox of being a main and tertiary character at the same time. He is important enough to almost always be present but only matters to the plot as an actor on rare occasions. He was being used as a plot device often and not as a character so his relationships become twisted as they only really exist when his is a focus character so places where these relationships should have been explored were ignored because he wasn’t in focus and that built a web of convoluted nonsense
I've always thought of Spike and Twilight having a mother son relationship. and the Father knows Beast episode is literally proof that Twilight at least views herself as his caretaker or mother! I mean, I don't think she raised him back when she was living with her parents, because I think her parents helped her or just cared for him while Twilight went off to school and maybe then viewed him as her little brother. but another thing I realized, isn't Spike still just a kid? I mean I think he's 8 or 9 in season 1 and he was living with Twilight. I don't see many people moving in with their older siblings, I ean I'd understand if Twilight's parents weren't around, but they were! so maybe, deep down, Spike does view Twilight as a mother, since she hatched him, loved and cared for him and let him move in with her. and that look we saw on Spike's face when he thought Twilight didn't love him anymore, that wasn't a look of a little brother or made his older sister mad, that face was like a child feeling like his own mother hated him! there's a ton more evidence I have but I don't want my comment to be too long. and who knows? maybe I'm wrong, lol.
First of all #JusticeForSpike Personally, I subscribe to the notion of a kind of mixture regarding all three options. Early Twilight treats him only like an assistant or friend because she's still too self-centralized. Later, we get the sibling level between them as Twilight likely wouldn't want to think of herself as a mother figure (she's still rather young, even by her Princess years). Finally, she accepts reality and herself as his mother figure. It doesn't explain the writing issues, but the show's always had issues with familial relationships that probably shouldn't have come up sooner.
![Twilight and Spike being Siblings 💖[MLP FiM compilation]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1HcT6LBwSt8/mqdefault.jpg)
I think spike imprinted on her- but twilight was a kid- so her parents raised them both- but I honestly think THEY don’t even know where they stand on this. It’s a confusing situation!
One of the early comics showed that one of Twilight's duties at Celestia's school was to take care of him, something no one else had to worry about. Probably because Celestia saw a lot of potential in her, given the implication that no one else could actually hatch the egg.
Of course, the video immediately mentioned it after I unpaused.
@@Jamseth_Ingramious😂
I mean, couldn't it be both? A result of circumstances forcing older siblings to step up as caretakers can be that the relationship they have with their siblings change, it's no longer just a sibling relationship because the responsabilities and duties have increased, but it also isn't a parents / child relationship because the starting point set them as siblings, the relationship becomes chimaeric in nature.
Kinda like Applejack and Applebloom
@DragonGoddess18 Exactly
That description kinda makes me think of Nani and Lilo's relationship a bit.
"Chimaeric" - that's a good word for it!
I think it's like a sibling-parental relationship. Twilight hatched spike as a child, which i guess imprinted him to her- but at the same time her parents were the adults in this and would have helped care for spike. So, to me, it's like one of those situations where your older sibling acts and feels more like a parent than your should be parents do.
For shining armour and spike, Shining Armour did ask him to throw him a bachelor party which is normally a role given to a close male friend/brother.
It was an off-screen interaction, but I getcha lol
@@TheArtisticAloubell Better than nothing, does show that Spike is of some importance to him as he made him part of the festivities.
@Markus2E5I6 ...without having a long enough conversation with him to even explain what a bachelor party even is 😅
Feels more like it was just a cute throwaway gag for Spike rather than a serious brother/brother interaction.
@TheArtisticAloubell I mean that's a very "little brother" of Spike because he knows it's important but doesn't know what exactly it is 😅
I think it interesting in G5, they established hard and fast that Hitch is Sparky's foster father. It's almost an apology to fans who were upset at the idea of Spike and Twilight as siblings. (Twilight who hatched Spike's egg and changed his dirty diapers.)
Least this"kids show"had enough sense for realising that romance was off the table, given they grew togather("flash")! Right Aloubell?
I think Spike's relationship with the Sparkle's is more complicated than "twilight's son or brother" remember, he was adopted into the family, and even in real life this can often make things quite a bit strange between family members. It might be that we can't get a definitive answer because spike himself has to question his *own* role in the family. Regardless he's a member of the Sparkle Clan rather that be as a distant relative, or a tightly knit one and not merely just a family friend.
P.S. I also don't think maturity works the same way it does in our world which further muddies the waters.
I always saw them as siblings, with Celestia acting as Spike's mother.
Same
@oilking-bo3gt Celestia IS Spike's mother
Celestia barely interacts with Spike...if ever... and she only took care of him for like...MAYBE a week before Celestia handed him off to Twilight.
The only thing Celestia did was enchant his dragon fire to send messages.
@@TheArtisticAloubell i mean because in the MLP origins Celestia found and adopted spike but then twilight had spike live with her instead
@@TheArtisticAloubell That's the comics. I still see her as Spike;s mom.
I feel like they are similar to chosen family. Some people have friends they are so close with, they call them family, but not in a sense where they have a traditional family role for each other. Twilight and Spike are friends, siblings, cousins, mother/son, aunt/nephew, owner/pet, scholar/assistant, and anything else they can be to each other. They love each other and that's really all that matters.
master/slave /hj
I personally see them as an older sister and younger brother where the older sister had to take care of her sibling ever since she was a kid due to adultification
I mean, let's be real, for the longest time Twilight kinda treated Spike as her own personal servant. It was only after she made friends that she seemed to bother connecting with him at all. It's like one day she went, "Ah shoot, maybe I should treat this dragon that's been a part of my family in some way since I was a filly as more than just a servant... oops..."
So honestly, I don't think they had much of a familial relationship until after that point, at which point it was too convoluted and messy to put any kind of real label on it. It was Twilight, her parents, her brother, and their pet/servant....
That's gonna be a long therapy session to hash that one out, methinks
I really just chalk it up to the writers having no clue how to handle Spike.
I'd believe your interpretation...up until they revealed Shining Armor's character.
Season 1 Twi kept feeding to us that she's never really had a personal connection with anyone except Princess Celestia (which wasn't her friend, but her idol/mentor) and Spike...who, yeah, she had a weird relationship with.
But then season 2 happens and now she has a BBBFF (emphasis on BEST FRIEND) that she never ever spoke about to any of her Ponyville friends...ever? So Twilight was capable of friendly relationships with other ponies/people growing up...and seeing as how Spike was APPARENTLY present for those pleasant bonding moments (per the awkward retcon in Season 9), and ESPECIALLY with the season 8 confirmation that Twilight RAISED Spike, then it's weird that she didn't always have more on-screen warmth towards Spike in the beginning.
Unless she considered him more as a pet growing up and not so much an equal, then I suppose that would explain some stuff. Or if there was some event that made her more cold/distant towards him while growing up.
...the inconsistency is weird lol
In any case, your interpretation is completely valid! Like I said, the stuff with Spike wasn't planned, so any interpretation is a good one lol
A good way I like to explain away the weirdness with who gets turned human and who doesn’t in Equestria Girls is that it’s based off the overall species societal infrastructure.
Basically that, since dragons as a species tend to live in cave and overall very animalistic with building much in terms of infrastructure, the society and species as a whole is viewed as animals in the eyes of the Equestria Girls portal. Whereas the pony races, griffons, yaks, and even diamond dogs are made human because they build infrastructure and use tools like humans (which does kinda imply that changlings would be made into animals too, maybe cats?)
But yeah, that’s my head cannon until proven otherwise
#JusticeForSpike I hate to admit it as well, but you're right, the MLP writers were nearly as inconsistent as the Miraculous ones when it came to almost everything regarding Spike 😭 That might have been a huge reason why something always felt off about him. Like, I love Spike, but I can't bring myself to do so as much as I wanted to. 😅
As for his relationship with Twilight, yeah, the 200th episode trying to tell us that they've been siblings all along never sat quite right with me. Honestly, Spike imprinting on Twilight upon birth and them having a mother-and-son-ish relationship is what I always lean towards, despite the problematic implications. 😬 But honestly, I've seen worse. 😅
Though at the end of the day, it's a sweet relationship however way you choose to label it. The writers may have never commited to one specific route with these two, but at least it was always clear how much they cared for each other, and there's no denying they're both super important in each other's lives.
That's a great point you made at the end: no matter how you label their relationship, they both still care about each other SO much ^0^
I just prefer calling them family :3
I allways thought since twilight hatched his egg, she is his mom.
I think a more canon explanation for why they don’t recognize spike as family is the fact they their probably upset that this little baby got put on your kid as a responsibility and didn’t want twi to take it on but twi probably didn’t want to say no to a princess and her parents probably didn’t want to try to say no to the princess either so they just let twi rise him and about them having to take care of him they hired cadence to take care of twilight, so I feel like they wouldn’t really try to take care of a kid that’s not even theirs when they didn’t really even take care of twice 😢
This was really interesting, when I was younger, I usually saw them as friends but after seeing that comic and after growing a bit I more so thought of adopted son than brother and sister.
"Maybe you just don't like that I have a real parents now"
Half-siblings 🐲
I've mostly thought of Twilight as Spike's mom, I mean she basically helped hatch him in the first place
💯
it's pretty simple i think, she hatched him, kind of like a parent, but being that she's so young, they had more of a sibling status, just an older sister co-raising a younger brother, they're always together ofcourse they're really attached to eachother, they're familly and very close non the less, no label fully fits and it doesn't really need to
I always interpretted him as like a sentient pet lol. "imprinting" is a good word. but there isnt one thing you can label their relationship because "sentient pets" dont exist irl (thankfully). I think retconning him to be technically twilights son (she raised him) but functionally a sibling (her parents would have been doing a lot of the work to support her doing so) works, but they were least confused when making him a talking dog. he is a talking dog with hands basically
I've always liked that verse. Good choice. #JusticeForSpike I never really though to much about Twilights relationship with Spike, but the more I think about it the more confusing it gets in my head! You have left me with much to think about.
I find this relationship quite interesting. Their relationship is similar to that dog-owner, master-student, mother-son and older sister and little brother. It’s kind of a mix bag as the series develops and grows later on as it shows it codependent relationship. In the first season, he’s basically Twilight’s butler who helps her with her studies and cleans up after and she teaches social cues and scolds him when he’s done something wrong. In the later seasons, she’s more of a big sister who hangs out and talks with him bit relies on him more than he does. She needs him as he needs her. So to her, he’s more than a friend, he’s family
I think Twilight and Spike are a SORT OF mother and son bond.
However due to Twilight also being a kid at the time(even if a seemingly very mature, reserved one), it wasn’t as maternal as a traditional mother-and-son relationship.
So instead of a traditionally maternal dynamic, it’s a very loose, mix of multiple relationship dynamics(sibling, adopted maternal, ward).
Or, Spike is twilight’s ward who just imprinted on her from birth due to her hatching his egg.
Your absolutely right they had no idea as to what their relationship was from the shows start and they seem to have went back and forth on what their relationship is it started out master/slave Twilight being master, Spike being her book slave. quickly and wisely realizing how dark and inappropriate that is; by owls well that ends well it switched to best friends/mother and son. finally,, they made it a loving sibling relationship upon realizing how weird that is considering how close in age they are. The last one is my favorite because I can look back on Twilight from her antisocial season pre-first episode 1 of the 1'st season start, and say she always had a non biologically related friend she always loved.
I think that Twilight is both Spike’s mom and big sister. Sure it sounds weird but if you think about it actually makes sense. Twilight was there when he was born and raised him like a mother would. And as he got older they also developed a sibling relationship because of how much Spike was growing into this independent young dragon. But no matter what their relationship is, one thing is certain. They are the best of friends and no one can deny that. #JusticeforSpike
Spike is ironicly one of the most important characters in the franchise. Having some version of him in almost every generation (excluding G2) and always as a major supporting character, unlike the ponies who were often in rotation as main characters until G4.
Tbh, for the longest time I just threw these two under the same category as Sonic and Tails. Sometimes they call each other friends, sometimes siblings, sometimes it's pretty parental, and there's even some question about that with the age (canonically Tails is 8 and Sonic is 15). The final verdict for those two is brothers (with a sort of 'older brother being caretaker' undertone), and that is also kinda the verdict I landed on for Twilight and Spike.
I haven't watched the video yet, but i always saw twilight as Spike's older sister that ended up having to raise him like a parent
The absolute madness of this. Lauren Faust didn’t have a plan (or rather, her plan was somewhere between abuse and slavery). So then the other writers come in and each have their own take. The result is incoherent.
The writers who came after hadn't watched the show, that's why there are so many inconsistencies.
I think he’s like an equal combination between a little brother and a pet.
Spike being a pet is the most reasonable option. Having a pet is basically having a child, sibling, friend and even an assistant at the time
It's the most fd up option
@@stopgont7360
Howcome?
I always viewed spike as her pet. It doesn't make since for him not to be...She raised him, I raised a lot of my pets....It would make since. Especially with training to make it your assistant.
@@princessqueen6881But Twilight was very accepting of other creatures that weren't ponies, it would be racist of her to just use a dragon for a pet even if they are sapient beings, it wouldn't make sense with her character
Exactly. Especially because Equestria Girls lets us know this
I feel her being his mother feels not only the most plausible to me, but it just makes Twilight and Spike so much more admirable. I usually never take the comics into consideration, either, but it really does push one to the conclusion, that she is his mom. Like, it's either her being his mom, or Twilight's Parents and therefore Spike's parents once more proving to be incompetent parents. Who tf forgets their son?
It kind of reminds me of Clementine and Aj from The Walking Dead game. The writers were trying to go with Clem being depicted as Aj's older sister since she was only 11 when he was born but by season 4 she was more like a mother to him
brother and sister, mother and son, pet and owner, employer and employee, mad scientist and obedient assistant - an argument can be made for each, but few proof which reigns supreme.
their relationship seems to morph by a third party to form plot of the day.
It honestly feels more like a Master/Servant relationship but with extra care due to Twilight's involvement in his birth, which ends up making them both just naturally treating each other as family members. I mean, Spike's egg wasn't even Twilight's to begin with, the school just stole it.
The implications that magic school took dragon eggs for their students to have servants is horrible (the show seems to drop that really fast).
the only consistent thing about spike the baby dragon is "spike must be left out one way or another". honestly, most unintended tragic character of the show.
First I will admit the "any way is correct" was entertaining with how fervent you wanted mother son to be the pertinent relationship.😜. And to answer authoritative intent, I believe it was purposely vague, for the staff loved the creativity of the fans with stating that "ambiguity is one of the shows greatest strengths." So the two episodes that seem to conflict, actually don't.
On to my preference for the relationship... it's a bit of both familiar (sibling) in their heads, while being paternal (mother son) in there heart.
Loved the video ❤👍
I don't see why we have to attach one label, relationships can be complicated. Twilight hatched him. They were raised together, but once Twilight became an adult, she started raising Spike on her own. He's 12-16, so it makes sense he'd see Twilight as a guardian and vise versa, but being a guardian isn't the same as being a parent.
For me I’d say siblings cause they give sibling energy
In my opinion, Twilight and spike deeply care about each other and the reason why they the dynamic is so special in the show because we see multiple episodes where we see how much they care for each other such as in season 7 episode 22 once upon a Zepplin when spike insist that he’d stay behind and do twilight paperwork but Twilight tells him that he is much as part of her family as any pony showing how much spike means to her and her family but Spike still insists her going on vacation so that she’ll be happy which Twilight thinks him for and in season 8 episode 24 father knows beast we see more and more how much Twilight and Spike really love and care about each other because she acts more of a guardian/mother figure towards him in multiple episodes and especially in season nine episode episode 3 sparkle seven we see more and more of twilight and spike together as a family and twilight and shining armour giving spike the crown and calling him little brother which I thought was absolutely adorable and really wholesome and brought a smile to my face so in all the episodes and seasons of My Little Pony I think Twilight and spikes relationship is both mother and son and siblings and I think that’s what makes the dynamics so special
Spike was my fav character back when I watched this show a million years ago
Twilight is Spike's guardian, period.
When I really think about it, and i mean, thinking about it NOW that you've pointed it out-Yeah, what is Spikes relationship? I mean, I think I'm somewhere in the middle where Spike is a part of Twilights family because she was his caretaker. Although sometimes siblings are pushed into a position where they unfortunately do more of the parental work than actual parents. But that didn't seem this way-at least in the earlier seasons and my understanding when I was a little girl.
However, while I could say I saw Twi as a mom, I also sorta looked at her relationship with Spike as a sort of mentor ish relationship? I know it doesn't make much sense since Spike never did anything beyond being an assistant and occasionally helping out in the major events throughout the show.
Not to mention, I, personally, didn't have any issue with him being a dog in the EQ franchise. It felt like that was acceptable. Until I got older, and it started being addressed by others that this was strange when looking at other characters and the implications of well...racism.
I don't think the writers were purposely trying to cause inconsistencies, but when looking at it all, it can get confusing.
I feel like they are childhood friends, but twilight raised him as an older sister. Because they met each other when they were both kids/a baby
The thing with him being a pet is that dragons are a whole other race in this universe making Ember be a dog and that gets pretty problematic when it comes to the racism analogy they have with Neighsay. The only way I can describe their relationship is that it transcends language. I wish they kept the beta backstory they had with him being hired by Celestia to help Twilight in Ponyville and I also wish they took inspiration from g3 Spike for the design instead of g1 Spike because I always found him to be too similar with Twilight in terms of color.
Mother/son? Siblings? Friends? Master/servant? Twilight & Spike are a little bit of all of the above.
Frankly, I always saw their relationship as mother-son
I mean, it would've been forced into sister-brother because they were both young when he hatched
But by technicality, she is his mother, she is his parent, she literally hatched him, and helped raise him from birth
The show never fully acknowledges this, but it was likely because the characters and the writers weren't really sure, I mean, the situation is a complex one, you can't blame them for being unsure on how and what
Honestly, it seems to me like it's the older sibling parenting situtation, but make it friend instead of sibling, but they also are like siblings, but also not really 😅
#JusticeforSpike
I truly and earnestly think that for Twilight and Spike, they have a half and half relationship of being both Mother and Son as well as Older and Younger Siblings respectively. They are mostly written and depicted like that since Twilight not only looks out for Spikes well being and interest like in Dragon Quest and the more Dragon-like centric Spike episodes, but Spike does look out for Twi's best interest and makes sure that not only does she NOT spiral out of control and keeps her sanity in tact, but he CAN and DOES make light jokes and jabs at her expense here and there, like what siblings do, and he also mostly follows here around to wherever she goes if it's pertinent to him. As for how the other Sparkle familial line treats him is a whole different story altogether and everything, but at the end of the day, I do see them both in terms of not only a familial friendship, but also codependent on a much layered and personal level that Twi won't ever really have with the Mane 5 and Starlight, and the show defidently shows that in more ways than 1 ever could even perceive.
Also Aloubell, I will await the day you actually make a Spike focused episode in 2025 and I will be armed and focused on seeing just how well you know the original 7th member of the Mane "7" before Sunset and Starlight ever came into the picture. Hope you have a grand start to your 2025 as well as a glorious 2025 in its entirety.
I really liked your idea of Twilight and Spike being both mom and son as well as being siblings, I feel like that makes the most sense to me
@@EnigmaPrince101 TBH, I pretty much got my thoughts about Spike out in this video. He wasn't respected much in the grand scheme of the overall story of the show writing-wise, and his relationship with Twilight kind of encapsulates that haha
I don't have any other strong opinions about him~
I could never see Twi as spikes mom, cuz she hatched him, when she was a tiny child herself. It would be so weird!!!!
Weird, yes, but not unrealistic! Like I said, it does unfortunately happen irl.
But! Like I said, it's up to your interpretation~
I genuinely don't know since I haven't watched MLP in like months? Years? I can't even remember.(I probably stopped watching because Netflix only has THE FIRST FOUR SEASONS) As long as you don't ship them(if you do. ew.) it's fine to head-canon them as whatever you want. :3
To me Twi being like a mom makes sense since she hatched him from an egg and in that season 1 episode Twi also gets into Tia’s school of magic so ignoring episode 200 I think she kept Spike at school where she probably spent a lot more time as she grew and after Shining left home
Everyone ignoring Spike is probably because until that fan episode they probably saw him like a pet since Twi was a kid and not much was known about dragons
Not positive but I think the whole Shining Cadence and Glurry thing was to mirror the actual royal family and cash in on their popularity…this would explain why Shining was thrown in out of nowhere and why Cadence is so weak with her backstory mostly being in comics
#justiceforspike
I honestly see them as siblings
And yeah they have done him dirty often
Agreed
Me too
Yeah!
@jonelrobinson7432 eyyyy amphibia
@lorelaimorace-kk1xz yeah I love that show!
I guess for me, Twilight sees herself as a mother to Spike and depending on the situation Spike can see Twilight as a mom or sibling.
Like if he needs motherly advice and what not, idk if I'm making sense but it depends on what Spike wants Twilight to be
#JusticeForSpike
I personally always saw the relationship between Twilight and Spike as siblings, but with the element of the older sibling being the primary caregiver of the younger one (Like Nani and Lilo). Speaking from my own personal experience (while not exactly the same), I'm the middle child but older sibling of a younger one and there are times when I had to be the "third parent" and look after them. And this is also probably just me, but I personally never liked Twilight being Spike's "mom" because...that dynamic doesn't exactly treat them as equals (that's the best way I can explain?).
I also really don't like the idea of Spike being Twilight's pet, and that's one thing I can't forgive Equestria Girls for.
I have this admittedly weird headcannon that spike's egg was fertilized by twilights magic. Making her his biological father.
She’s his caretaker! Boom confusion over
It really does feel like he's twilight's son but both of them only consider each other as family withouth that relationship extending to the rest of twilight's family
Spike sees twilight as his mother/sister but the rest of her family are just friends and acquaintances that happen to be her family too
Twilight sees him as her son/brother but that's separate from the rest of her family
And i kinda like it, honestly
It's such an unique family dynamic
Especially since the show makes it clear they don't mind that the rest of twilight's family doesn't treat him as part of them
In fact, it even reframes the rest of her family not treating him as part of them as respectful in an odd way
Twilight and spike are family but neither treats the rest of her family as part of that so they in turn respect this unique bond and don't treat him as part of the family either
He's twilight's son exclusively and they won't disrupt that
Like, twilight and spike would absolutely do stuff as mother and son but if shining armor ever calls him his nephew they would both give him odd looks
Or spike would be describing twilight and her family and he would call twilight basically his adoptive mom but shining as a good friend in the same sentence
It probably makes their relationship that much more special to them
Twilight isn't just spike's mom, she's the only family he has
Twilight has her family but she also has her son, her second family
Or at least this is the interpretation i'm gonna use if i ever write any mlp fanfiction even if i'm just overthinking it way too much
Spike's situation always appeared strange to me, he is clearly a child but he has to work and don't know any other dragons
My personal interpretation is that they’re siblings, but (due to the age gap and responsibilities she had at the school) Twi ended up co-parenting him alongside the other authority figures in their lives.
I do admit a lot of this is bias from my own personal experiences as an older sibling with a big age gap with my younger sister, but it feels right to acknowledge how much impact Twilight had on Spikes development without also acknowledging the fact she was also genuinely just a kid as well (she couldn’t have been older than 11-12 at the absolute most when the Rainboom happened) which feels really weird to just dump the role of ‘mother’ onto her
Honestly l've often seen them as both mother/son and brother/sister. Their dynamic and interactions with one another have definitely been able to represent both outcomes. Many times they will have interactions that are very reminiscent to how siblings would be with one another, but other times Twilight has been able to let out a bit of a parental side whenever Spike needs it. Really it’s a situation where Twilight acts as both an older sister and overall parental figure Spike looks up to given how attached he had gotten to her since his birth as well being adopted into her family (whom I believe whole heartedly also had a major part in raising him as well). So yeah, that’s what I’ve seen their relationship as. They have shown to fit both roles perfectly but there’s no denying that they mean so much to one another and they’ll be by each other’s side no matter what they see each other as. They’re inseparable, and to me that’s what makes their relationship so touching to think about.
What a duo🥲
It would be messed up they force a child to raise a child; probably just a brief test of responsibility by Celestia, then he is raised as a sibling alongside Twilight by twilights parents ( the writers really did not think thus through )
I remember a tweet on Twitter years ago from a person who works on the show, saying the reasons for the inconsistencies in some characters and stories is that writers, old and new ones coming in and out of the studios don't communicate. This is what I've read. This happens with other shows, too. I don't know why they don't. This doesn't bother me, to be honest. Don't forget Princess Celestia had a hand in Spike's upbringing. Who do you think taught Spike how to use his dragon fire to send messages between her and Twilight?
To me they’re like a stepmother who is trying to be a good parent to a preteen who doesn’t really view her as a mother (more like a friend) but is dependent on her like a child would be ie. Financially and emotionally.
She’s his pet mom. Most people who consider their pets their kids treat them more like a friend. I know dragons count as “people” but like why would one have a kidnapped fetus in a kindergarten 😭. It’s giving a pet turned out to be a sentient being, but since she’s been taking care of him since birth he sees her as his mom, but they act more like friends bécause of the age difference. The family probably doesn’t are much because he’s a pet, and probably spent most of his time at the house when he couldn’t do much yet cause he was a baby and toddler, so the family just views him as a pet. And now that he’s a big kid twilight can treat him more of a friend since she’s like only a couple years older than him.
My computer froze right as you said your outro "That's all there is, there's nothing more." and it was hilariously horrifying.
xD
One of my favorite AUs treats Spike as Twi's adoptive brother (see the Grand Galloping 20s AU)- why I'm against him being a "pet" like we see in Equestria Girls is because of the unfortunate implications this holds for other dragons. #JusticeForSpike
Hm, fair points and opinions, personally I never really thought that deeply about, they could have been Siblings, they could’ve been Parent and Child, either way worked for me,
Although to be fair, at first i really did think of them as either just Friends or Siblings, since i tended to have a hard time thinking of the Mane 6 as being actual Adults and thought of them more as some where around Teen Age,
Funny enough, it wasn’t until I came across a Ask Blog Webcomic on Tumblr (that was about Twilight being turned into a Genie) that I ever once considered the possibility that Twilight and Spike even could be considered as Mother and Son, truly funny how it can go.
Also #JusticeForSpike
In my opinion I'd say they are more Brother and Sister
Spike is a fascinating character in the context of the show. A male secondary character in the cast of MLP. He's a young dragon, a monster that would otherwise be terrifying.
I have a theory that the dragons in MLP represent male behavior as young girls would see it. Often stupid and dangerous, killing stuff in the woods. The Dragon Lord is the loudest and strongest, but also follows rules of ascension.
Spike is a young dragon, a young boy. He would be scary, if he's fully grown. But he's not, he's adorable. Even when he acts tough. Spike also prides himself on being Twilight's Number 1 assistant. The title itself is something he wears and goes through great lengths to uphold, in a way boys like feeling important stereotypically-by being needed. It's less about his qualities and more about how he affects the world and others. Which might be a reason why Spike is so attached to Twilight, she provides a purpose and structure to his life.
Ofcourse, Spike gets anxiety and questions his draconic nature throughout the show, but not too much. For the most part, Spike is content serving Twilight. Whether she's his sister or mother or whatever, I think that's his greatest desire.
Also, I think the parent thing comes from a lack of family cohesion and focus. Let's be real, the parents barely are in the show. So I don't think the writers really thought of the relationship Spike would have with. And the scenes we see both of them in have a different focus. Honestly, Twilight's family and their position in society is kind of interesting.
i always saw them as mother and child tbh
We're in agreement ^0^
I think it's a mix of everything and nothing. I wouldn't mind it at all if it was intentional and explicitly said because people's relationships in real life can be really complicated but i agree that it's probably creator's error caused by confusion and being undecided so it's not nicely done.
I also want to add that it's a hard situation for everyone that they didn't chose.
Spike first was an egg, then a baby and idk if anyone asked him who he wants to be, where he wants to live and if he wants to be a helper. It was all he knew so maybe even he didn't know what he really wants.
Twilight was a child that only hatched the egg because it was a test she had to do and then someone told her she should take care of Spike even when she had to study. She didn't wanted to make a child and be a caretaker.
Twilight's parents didn't chose to have another child too. They either did it because of Celestia or so their child didn't have to be a caretaker or so Spike could have a caretaker that knows how to take care of kids.
Shining Armor was just another kid that randomly had to deal with another child that had nothing to do with him.
And finally Celestia that had the most control over this situation. Idk how she got the dragon egg but she chose to keep it, use it as a test, involve a child with hatching it, take care of Spike for a little while but then instead of continuing she chose to give this responsibility to this child that should be either playing or studying. Idk if she chose that Twilight's parents should take care of Spike but it's still bad. She probably chose that Spike should be Twilight's helper and assistant for some reason. It's all really strange for me
#JusticetoSpike I think Twilight and Spike’s relationship is both being friends
I think he has an adopted sibling relationship. She was a kid, so her parents did most of the raising.
I don't think Twi's parents really raised Spike. 1.) Spike himself said that Twilight raised him, and 2.) The parents NEVER acknowledge Spike.
@@TheArtisticAloubellperhaps just conveniently offscreen
He beening a familiar kind makes sense
I think the situation with Twilight and Spike comes down less to her being his mother or sibling, but more so that Twilight, as a result of raising him feels maternal towards him as well as a sibling bond because they grew up together. But spike as a result of being raised by Twilight would feel incredibly attached to her specifically, especially when you remember that she hatched his egg. She’s his safety and where he feels most comfortable, but just like you would with a parent, his relationship with her changes as he gets older to one more like that of a friend.
I would say l always leaned more towards a them being siblings (although that might just be due to personal experiences) l feel like the most obvious thing was that different writers were also disagreeing on this so some episodes showed them more as mother and son and others more as siblings which explains why we see them calling eachother both parent and sibling just 6 episodes apart. It's very likely both episodes were already in production and the different writers of those episodes just had different headcanons. So ultimately this would always remain up to headcanon. Either way they have a very sweet relationship especially in the later seasons
Or you know in the case of the 200th episode the VA's had a different headcanon lol
i always saw spike as an assistent to twilight and her friends since he only wrote twilights letters since one of the first scenes of the show... nothing else
Honestly I've always seen it as both, Twilight sees Spike as her child since she did hatch his egg, but due to the closer age of the two, both being very young when it happened, Spike sees Twilight more as his sister then a mother.
Also gotta remember that one time Spike was dreaming about his mother and it was implied not to be Twilight so yeah.
#JusticeForSpike
I think Twilight is an older sister to Spike and sometimes,older siblings act like parental figures while also being on an equal(ish) level with the younger sibling
Kinda like Applejack and Applebloom. Bottom line, I think the relationship between Twilight and Spike is a mix of both sibling-like and parent and child
I think Twilight raised him, but he see her more as a sister than a mother, :)
You wanna know what I think? He’s cute and marketable. It really seems to me the show runners didn’t care enough beyond that.
I find it funny that writers for little girls show can't write something for this relationship giving it's fantasy setting.
Hell, animals in real world even adopt another species because of "Mother instinct" or just because one helps the other
I had kinda always thought that Twilight saw Spike as a pet at first, when she was younger, but then as she got older and more mature, she started seeing him as her son. And since Twilight was the first one Spike saw after he was hatched and she had raised him, I think he's always thought of her as his mom. The 200th episode is really the only one where I think Twi, Shining, and Spike seem to have more of a sibling dynamic, and there are far more episode that give Twilight and Spike a more mother/son vibe. One thing that really gets me tho is that in "Secret of my Excess" Spike is absolutely baffled when the main six get him gifts for his birthday, claiming "I usually only get one present, from Twilight, a book." This is really sad no matter how you perceive Twilight and Spike's relationship, but if Twi's parents saw Spike as their son, or even just if Shining saw Spike as his brother, surely they'd have gotten him something for his birthday's in the past.
I DIDN'T EVEN CONSIDER THE GIFT THING! You're so right! That IS messed up.
...the writers really had no idea what to do with Spike and didn't think things through X'D
You know the saying alou;"dogs are men's best friend". The"portal"understood their dynamics!
I always saw Spike as sort of a talking pet or a Pokemon to Twilight Sparkle. Spike is literally a talking dog in Equestria Girls. As a child, she hatched him from an egg and took care of him the same way a kid might be given a puppy or a kitten to raise. If you have a pet that's bonded to you as a child, your parents might help out when you get overwhelmed but otherwise not get involved. Owlowicious was clearly Twilight's pet and Spike was jealous that the owl was replacing him. In earlier seasons, dragons were portrayed as more animalistic than ponies.
When the writers backpedaled in later seasons and made dragons into people with their own culture, they had to also revise Twilight and Spike's relationship. They couldn't have Twilight and Spike being like Ash and Pikachu if dragons and ponies are just different kinds of people.
Yeah no show is perfect and the writers clearly weren’t communicating but it did run for so long I bet the creators weren’t expecting this show to go so long
What's If They Step Sister Or Step Brother
Personally, I view them as siblings, too bad the show ultimately screwed up their dynamic in a long run. Spike is definitely the most mistreated character in the show and it's especially depressing when he had all the potential.
Celestia is Spike's surrogate mother making him technically a prince.
And of course now spike is 20 times the size he was in the show and is now a dragon lord
And twilight sparkle is his older surrogate sister
8:57 because if spike was there he would’ve made sure twilight would get to do what she wants, that’s episode was kinda hit or miss
Yeah that confused be a lot throughout the series
Probably the issue is that Spike is stuck in a paradox of being a main and tertiary character at the same time. He is important enough to almost always be present but only matters to the plot as an actor on rare occasions. He was being used as a plot device often and not as a character so his relationships become twisted as they only really exist when his is a focus character so places where these relationships should have been explored were ignored because he wasn’t in focus and that built a web of convoluted nonsense
I think it's a bit of mom/son and a bit of big sister/little brother and a bit of friends
I've always thought of Spike and Twilight having a mother son relationship. and the Father knows Beast episode is literally proof that Twilight at least views herself as his caretaker or mother! I mean, I don't think she raised him back when she was living with her parents, because I think her parents helped her or just cared for him while Twilight went off to school and maybe then viewed him as her little brother. but another thing I realized, isn't Spike still just a kid? I mean I think he's 8 or 9 in season 1 and he was living with Twilight. I don't see many people moving in with their older siblings, I ean I'd understand if Twilight's parents weren't around, but they were! so maybe, deep down, Spike does view Twilight as a mother, since she hatched him, loved and cared for him and let him move in with her. and that look we saw on Spike's face when he thought Twilight didn't love him anymore, that wasn't a look of a little brother or made his older sister mad, that face was like a child feeling like his own mother hated him!
there's a ton more evidence I have but I don't want my comment to be too long. and who knows? maybe I'm wrong, lol.
First of all #JusticeForSpike
Personally, I subscribe to the notion of a kind of mixture regarding all three options. Early Twilight treats him only like an assistant or friend because she's still too self-centralized. Later, we get the sibling level between them as Twilight likely wouldn't want to think of herself as a mother figure (she's still rather young, even by her Princess years). Finally, she accepts reality and herself as his mother figure.
It doesn't explain the writing issues, but the show's always had issues with familial relationships that probably shouldn't have come up sooner.
I still don't like that they made him a dog in EG, he obviously imprinted on her and were raised together but still are family either way
The dog thing was REALLY messed up X'D They really had no idea what to do with poor Spike!
@@TheArtisticAloubell i remember a lot of fans redrawing him because of that everyone felt betrayed
Spike was twilights younger brother figure
You know it’s like Gordon from Thomas and friends he’s a older brother figure to Thomas and the others