I think it’s safe to say it’s official. >>190778

Back in call of the Cutie, we see that every room of the house has a picture of a blue stallion, a purple mare, or both.
 
The “American Gothic”-style they both appear in picture was very noticeable in this episode, looking over the Apples as they went through the family albumns.
 
From a design perspective, it makes sense since they’d have every color in the spectrum in their family.
 
Faust said the dead parents angle was her take. I just think the animation staff alludes to it as much as Hasbro allows, and having them seen in the album pictures would have required time taken away from the plot.
 
I’m convinced the ponies in the pictures all over their house are their dead parents.

Yes. End of argument.

If I see their gravestones, I’ll accept it. I am forever in denial.

they are pirates

My headcanon is thet their mother died from childbirth when she had Apple Bloom. I’m not sure about their father.

3 options.
 

But of course nigga! XD

Them being dead is actually most likely canon. Why else would they add those 2 shooting stars “watching” over the barn?

Their mother is Berry Punch. She wound up with a different fruit for her cutie mark, so like the Oranges in Manehattan, she doesn’t really have any interactions with the mane part of the family any more.
 
Also, she got her cutie mark for getting so drunk she doesn’t even know who the father is.

Combine PaskaNaakka and Trickquestion’s answers, and I think you have a winner.

Nope.  
>>190506

They’re not dead. They never even showed up in the photographs of past reunions. They’ve been made unpersons for horrible crimes against Equestria.

 
…and?

They ate Celestias cake.  
Then they slipped and accidentally hit their heads on the floor twenty times in a row. It was a tragic accident and Princess Celestia is in no way responsible for their fate.

At this point it seems like they’re just going to leave it ambiguous. If they don’t tell us about it in an episode purely about family, then chances are the subject may not be brought up at all.

I think Applebloom killed them. She keeps their bones in a chest in her closet and only takes them out for ritual purposes that have stunted her growth and kept her from getting her cutie mark. However it keeps her from murdering more ponies.
 
She forgets she ever does the ritual every time she sleeps. But keeps doing it out of demonic possession.
 
Headcannon’d.

The real question now is how did they die?
 
My bet is on crushed by an Apple tree. The reason this section of the Apple Family is so good at Apple Bucking is they focus their hatred for the trees that killed their parents in order to tap into the Dark Side.

They’re with Derpy now.

Invitations got lost in the mail.

Until it’s confirmed, I’m gonna say they’re Missing In Action.  
Not that I’m going “Guyz we havent seen dem yet soo they could still be live kk”, I just feel something might happen…

Trixie thinks the problem here is that the writers just didn’t have the balls to outright state that they were dead.
 
Which is disappointing. They’re usually so… mmm, ballsy.

Grieffen, its a night time scene and they was added to make it look better, decoration, some meaning in a later episode OR it means the parents are dead, i am not saying one of my ideas is the right one, i am saying that there is a ton of other ideas.

They WERE astronauts.  
Those shooting stars? Killed in reentry.

@gittonsvx  
AUNTIE AND UNCLE ORANGE ARE FAMILY BUT NEVER TURNED UP
 
Sure did. Or was this sarcasm. I can never tell.