Hearth's Warming Eve

For the titular holiday, see Hearth's Warming.

Hearth's Warming Eve
Season №:	2
Season episode №:	11
Overall episode №:	37
Original airdate:	December 17, 2011
Written by:	Merriwether Williams
Storyboard:	Joel Dickie & Emmett Hall
Featured characters:	Windigos
Song:	The Heart Carol
See also
credits • transcript • gallery • allusions animation errors • statistics • speculation
Episode guide
Previous Secret of My Excess	Next Family Appreciation Day

Hearth's Warming Eve is the eleventh episode of the second season of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic and the thirty-seventh episode overall. In this episode, the Mane Six and Spike star in a pageant about the founding of Equestria.

The Hearth's Warming holiday depicted in this episode is largely analogous to modern-day cultural observances of Christmas.

Production

The episode initially showed up as number thirteen on Zap2it and the iTunes library. One of the show's layout artists suggested in an online forum that the episode might have been number thirteen in the season's production order, which would account for it being listed as the thirteenth episode in Zap2it's TV guide.

The plot of the Hearth's Warming Eve play partly overlaps with the story in the iOS storybook application My Little Pony: Twilight Sparkle, Teacher for a Day. The storybook application came out three months before the episode. The episode was #9 in the We Heart Ponies Fan Favorite Mare-a-thon, in the lead up to Hearts and Hooves Day.

The scene before the play starts when Fluttershy reveals her stage fright reappears in Memnagerie.

Summary

The Canterlot pageant

Choo, Choo! Canterlot, here we come!

Snow falls across Equestria as the Mane Six take the Friendship Express to Canterlot. They arrive to find the city festooned with holiday lights, giant candy canes, wreaths, and decorated fir trees.

Later, while ponies file into a theater in the Canterlot palace, the Mane Six put on costumes and makeup backstage as they prepare to star in a pageant about the founding of Equestria. Applejack remarks how the pageant is about harmony and friendship, though when a nearby window blows open, the ponies find themselves disputing over who should shut it. In the packed theater, the lights dim and the curtain draws to reveal Spike in medieval garb as he begins narrating the story.

The mysterious blizzard

"It was a strange and dark time. A time when ponies were torn apart... by hatred!"

— Spike

Long before Princess Celestia's rule, the three pony tribes lived together in a tenuous agreement to supply each others' needs: Earth ponies produced food, Pegasi regulated the weather, and unicorns magically brought forth day and night. Their misgivings toward each other reach a breaking point when an unrelenting blizzard results in food shortages, prompting the tribe leaders to convene a summit to address the matter.

The meeting of all meetings.

Princess Platinum (Rarity), Commander Hurricane (Rainbow Dash), and Chancellor Puddinghead (Pinkie Pie) meet to discuss the blizzard, though they end up taking offense at each other's distrust and return to their advisors without a solution. Commander Hurricane tells Private Pansy (Fluttershy) that the warrior-like Pegasi should "break ranks" with the other ponies. Princess Platinum complains to Clover the Clever (Twilight Sparkle) about having to live near the "lowly creatures" of the other tribes, while Chancellor Puddinghead, upon learning from Smart Cookie (Applejack) that the Earth ponies have run out of food, proposes that they leave in search of fresh fertile ground. At the end of the debriefs, the three leaders determine to find a new land for their tribe.

Finding a new land

The three tribes find their new land... at the same time.

Commander Hurricane and Private Pansy fly together through the snow clouds until they reach a sunny mountainous region that they call Pegasopolis. Princess Platinum and Clover the Clever travel from their castle until they come across jewel-encrusted slopes that they name Unicornia. Chancellor Puddinghead and Smart Cookie head out from their homeland and eventually find a lush clearing with fertile soil that they settle on calling Earth.

Just as the leaders plant their flag, they suddenly notice that the three tribes are attempting to claim the same territory. They become belligerent even as their advisors call for calm, though when Chancellor Puddinghead starts throwing snowballs at Commander Hurricane and Princess Platinum, the group realize that the blizzard has followed them to the new land.

The blizzard returns

Fighting over the cave.

The ponies take shelter in a desolate cave, though when the leaders start arguing over ownership of the space, a layer of ice creeps inside and freezes them solid. As Clover the Clever, Private Pansy, and Smart Cookie huddle together in the center of the cave, they notice several windigos flying above them and realize that hatred between the tribes empowered them to create the blizzard. The three remark how they don't hate each other and recognize their shared identity as ponies moments before their bodies become encased in ice.

"No matter what our differences, we're all ponies."

— Smart Cookie (Applejack)

Seconds later, Clover the Clever's horn surges with magic, cracking the advisors out of the ice and creating a large heart-shaped flame that vanquishes the windigos. The three ponies keep the fire going by telling stories and singing songs until it eventually melts the rest of the ice and frees the leaders. With the blizzard gone, the tribes set aside their differences and agree to share the land, which they name Equestria.

The flame still burns on...

The pageant ends, and the Mane Six join the audience in singing a closing carol. Backstage, Twilight concludes that Princess Celestia chose them to perform the play because they exemplify what good friends are, though a gust of wind through the still-open window causes them to break into argument over who should close it. The sudden sound of a roaring windigo prompts Rainbow Dash to volunteer, and as the ponies laugh together, a large heart-shaped flame appears floating above the theater.

Quotes

For more quotes, see the episode's transcript.

Fluttershy: I'm so excited, I— I feel like shouting! (softly) Woo hoo!

Twilight Sparkle: I have an idea, let's play 'I spy with my little eye' as we walk! I'll go first. I spy... an eight foot candy cane.

Rainbow Dash: I spy a snowpony!

Pinkie Pie: I spy somepony eating a gingerbread house... and it's me!

Applejack: It's a reenactment of the founding of Equestria. It's not the Rainbow Dash Show.

Rainbow Dash: Well it should be the Rainbow Dash Show! I'm the star!

Spike: Perhaps the three tribes could finally settle their differences and agree on a way to get through this disaster.

Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity: [arguing]

Pinkie Pie: Oh my gosh. Hold on to your hooves... I am just about to be brilliant!

Applejack: That'd be a first.

Rarity: Oh, this is simply taking forever. My hooves are killing me! How long have we been walking for?

Twilight Sparkle: About five minutes, your highness.

Fluttershy: I can see my future house from here.

Pinkie Pie: In the name of Earth ponies, I think I'm gonna call this place... uh... 'Dirtville'!

Applejack: How about 'Earth'?

Pinkie Pie: Earth! Congratulations to me for thinking of it.

Spike: Instead of beautiful, it was blizzardy. Instead of wonderful, it was wintry! Instead of spectacular, it was snow-tacular! Instead of—

Shoeshine: We get it! Move on!

Fluttershy: Well, I don't hate you... I actually hate Commander Hurricane a lot more than I hate you guys.

Applejack and Twilight Sparkle: [giggling]

Fluttershy: Actually, I don't really hate her, I just really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really dislike her.

Gallery

Hearth's Warming Eve image gallery

References

v • e Episodes, films, and animated shorts

Make Your Mark
Episode 1 Izzy Does It	Episode 2 Growing Pains	Episode 3 Portrait of a Princess	Episode 4 Ali-Conned
Episode 5 The Cutie Mark Mix-Up	Episode 6 The Traditional Unicorn Sleep-Over	Episode 7 Hoof Done It?	Episode 8 Have You Seen This Dragon?
Episode 9 Top Remodel	Episode 10 The Jinxie Games	Episode 11 Sunny Side Up	Episode 12 The Manesquerade Ball
Episode 13 A Little Horse	Episode 14 Missing the Mark	Episode 15 Cutie Blossom Bash	Episode 16 Family Trees Pt. 1
Episode 17 Family Trees Pt. 2	Episode 18 Father of the Bridlewood	Episode 19 Mane Smelody	Episode 20 Nightmare on Mane Street
Episode 21 The Isle of Scaly‎‎	Episode 22 Roots of All Evil Pt. 1‎	Episode 23 Roots of All Evil Pt. 2