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Background Pony #9B4B
Spike is a baby dragon. Its not a difficult concept.  
Hypothetically, if 100 years later he still looked the same way and was biologically still a baby dragon despite obviously having the mental and emotional maturity of a 100-year old pony, would he still be considered underage for pony standards?
albert19
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice

Maxila
This doesn’t make you look any better, Rarity. You seduced a ‘child’ out of his birthday gift to himself, the only gift he was expecting outside of the book Twilight gives him (I bet he doesn’t even read them).
 
It makes you look like a bitch.
Ping_chan
Wallet After Summer Sale -
Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

Pretty soft for a Sony.
Pretty close to needing a adventure in the comments tag…  
My own take on this is that, I wish that the shows writers and producers would more clearly define Spike as a character, like his age, what type of dragon he is, and other dragon specifics…
Background Pony #9B4B
Different aging speeds, baby dragon can be as old as an adult pony, blah blah blah.  
We know almost nothing about how he ages, we know he’s not much younger than the Mane6, we know he sometimes acts more mature than some of them, yada yada yada.
 
The age thing isn’t a valid argument when talking about a species that ages for millenia.
albert19
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice

Maxila
Rarity, Spike will probably be a ‘baby’ when Sweetie’s grandkids are dead.
 
Give him some booty before ya go~ ;)
ArmadilloEater

French Taunter
@candrew  
It’s fun to discuss, especially when you find yourself to be wrong.  
Wouldn’t call anyone “pedo” for shipping two characters in a cartoon show though, sounds crazy.
candrew
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@armadiloeater  
I rather like Spike’s characterization so far. Certainly, he’s being a butt monkey a lot, but this is the season where they’re starting to drive home the fact that Spike is a part of the group and not some tag-a-long.
 
Twilight suggests that she and Spike go back to ‘our friends’ in the first episode. The entirety of Power Ponies was about how Spike is important. Rarity takes Manehattan had him carrying heavy luggage (most likely on his own insistence mind you) and his carrot dog stolen, but he is invited on both this trip and to the musical at the end. Simple Ways had him help Rarity attempt to woo Trenderhoof without reservation despite still having feelings for her, showing a level of maturity Rarity lacks in that episode.
 
He screwed up the Breezie migration, and he does comment on him not having actually done anything in Bats, but on the whole I think this season has been pretty positive to the little guy, though I know that’s not exactly a popular opinion.
 
And with that I think I’ve clogged up enough of this image of a long dead tumblr, especially since further discussion about Spike should go to the forum thread. Thanks for the interesting discussion though, always good to talk to someone where it doesn’t devolve to them calling me a pedo for shipping two cartoon characters.
ArmadilloEater

French Taunter
@candrew  
You know what, more than anything it’s the secret of my excess episode that makes me doubt my position.  
Like you said from what was said it seems that a dragon size is linked to the volume of their horde, but I always though that it was an unnatural growth, like a curse for his species. But that’s a head canon. If we take things at face value from the show, then you are right.  
What’s more the fact that ponies call him a baby could be explained by the fact that they know fuck all about dragons, from what Twilight said dragon quest…  
Those two episodes make everything tilt in that direction, but they are the rare ones that center around the lil’ guy…  
Okay fuck it, I can’t deny that last post, you’re right, I concede that spike can’t be considered like a child. I may have to revise the way I look at him.  
But that only makes me sadder at the way he is treated in season 4.
candrew
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@armadiloeater  
Really? he’s clearly younger? Based on what exactly? His size is canonically based, at least partially, on possessions, and his first growth spurt during SoME is roughly similar to size and shape of the teen dragons we later see. That was also the stage where we was still fairly intelligent by the way, if prone to being less concerned with others. Spike is most likely a teenager in terms of ‘dragon’ ages as well, regardless of him choosing generosity ove rgreed.
 
He has no male friends that we have ever seen, and most likely has never even been to a wedding before. Not knowing what a bachelor party is not proof of anything.
 
Yes, Spike the dragon, a species known for its poor impulse control, will eat a lot of ice cream if given the chance. Gluttony is also a teenage cliche by the way, along with being lazy and snarky. All of which describe Spike.
 
The problem is they do treat him like an adult though. Or rather, they certainly never treat him like a child. He’s trusted to be left alone overnight on multiple occasions (The last episode considered it a big deal that Applebloom was going to be left alone for an afternoon by the way). He goes with them to the Crystal Empire to help face an evil king. he goes on a journey of self discovery in ‘Dragon Quest’ and while they were worried for his safety since these are dragons, it was very clear it was not a ‘too young’ type deal. Rarity flips out about her crush, Spike is calm that his has feelings for another.
 
Does Spike act childish? Yes, yes he does, but not anymore than any of the other characters.
ArmadilloEater

French Taunter
@candrew  
It’s true that Skipe’s main occupation seems to be assisting Twilight, I guess we can’t agree on the interpretation of that task.  
About his maturity, it’s clear that he is more responsible that the CMC, if you forget some rare occasions where the show needs a fall man. So he has some grown up qualities, I agree.  
On the other end he doesn’t know what a bachelor party is, will eat every icecream on sight if Twilight doesn’t stop him (a children cliché) and he generally can be childish in his responses.  
About the teenage dragons I don’t really see your point I am afraid: he is, in fact, minuscule when you compare him to the teenage group, so yes he is picked on because he is smaller but also very clearly younger. So if he is younger than the teenage dragons…  
And you may be right when you say that they don’t treat him like the CMC, but they still don’t treat him like an adult. It’s a matter of trust I would think: Spike can be trusted with a library while the CMC can’t be trusted with a bucket of water unless you want them to find a way to set fire to Ponyville with it.
Rotul7
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

That Spike being a child logic is pretty much a terrible excuse if anything. He hatched when they the Mane 6 were little foals themselves, so he can’t be that far. He has full time job assisting royalty, doesn’t go to school like the others foals do, and at times, he’s more mature and level headed than the Mane 6, especially Twilight and Rarity.
 
We don’t even know the ages of the ponies in question he get shipped with, let alone a dragon who’s growth pattern is more ambiguous than any pony. Only their maturity levels, which is out of whack at times.
candrew
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@armadiloeater  
Excpet there is absolutely no evidence of either of them teaching him anything. The more obvious solution would be that he has already graduated from whatever schooling Equestria has.
 
Yes, we don’t know the mane 6 ages, but a lot of people argue that they are in their early to mid twenties. That would put him more to mid to late teenager than child, and that’s assuming six years, which is frankly old for someone like Twilight to start schooling, and is more likely four or five.
candrew
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@armadiloeater  
Except they don’t treat him like a child. They treat the CMC like a children, because they are, and their treatment has always been radically different than Spike’s. No one is saying that kid’s don’t do chores, just that it makes no sense to refer to what Spike does as chores since it is always treated like an actual job and not him helping around the house. There’s a reason people tend to joke about Twilight being unable to do anything, like use her telekinesis to grab a piece of paper in season one, without Spike.
 
Also, the dragons didn’t treat him like a child, they treated him like someone smaller than them, and that was because they’re bullies. Like I said, it was never a question of him being old enough to hang with them, it was about him proving he was cool enough to do so.
 
And he doesn’t act like a child anymore than the mane 6 do, and all of that is easily explained by this being a kid’s show. Most of the time he’s as mature, if not more so, than his group of friends, which includes Rarity and Twilight.
Background Pony #CEC1
Then don’t have him carry all your stuff or have him dig up gems for you.
ArmadilloEater

French Taunter
@candrew  
The fact that he doesn’t go to school would be a good point, if you overlooked the fact that he lives in a library and was raised by Celestia and Twilight(?), don’t know what school could do better.  
And a six years difference would still make him under-aged. I think? We don’t even know the mane six ages for fuck sake.
ArmadilloEater

French Taunter
@Sjogre
 
@candrew  
Kids growing up in a bakery will help to bake.  
Kids growinh up in a shop will help to organize items.  
So how is a kid growing up in a library being a scribe and shelving books so hard to understand?  
I grew up in a farm, and helping whenever you could was a given, and it was not easy. I guess for people living in the big city without any family businesses it must be hard to understand but it is a reality. Or it could be a difference in customs, I don’t know what country you come from.  
As for the one time he was away on “royal duty” or something? We don’t know what he was doing. For all we know Celestia missed him and wanted to snuggle him, as I said Spike is very undeveloped as a character.  
But what we do know is this: ponies treat him like a child, dragons treat him like a child, he acts like a child.  
Most of the time. Again his character is all over the place.
candrew
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@armadiloeater  
Indeed, all children work full time for their parents, not going to school at all, being called out of town to work for the Princess of the realm (Look Before You Sleep), and getting so little time off that they have no idea what to do with when it arrives. I mean, I know my mother made me do all the cooking and cleaning on top of shelving, fetching, and basic scribe work.
 
Yeah, I’m sorry but trying to call Spike’s job just him doing chores was moronic three years ago, and it still is now.
 
Nope, didn’t call him a hatchling, though they did call him a baby. Because they were generic bullies and he’s smaller than they are, plus he was the new guy. Also didn’t have any complaints about him hanging out with them in the end.
 
There’s also the fact that Twilight hatched Spike at the start of her schooling, which implies maybe six years of age difference between them if we’re being generous.
Sjogre
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@armadiloeater  
By full time job you mean him being an assistant, helping his sister/mother? Any child that lives where their parents work will do that. Don’t make them adults.
 
Really? When you were a kid, you worked so hard that you didn’t have weekends off? You went on business trips separate from the rest of your family?
 
Spike is well beyond just doing some chores around the house.
ArmadilloEater

French Taunter
@candrew  
By full time job you mean him being an assistant, helping his sister/mother? Any child that lives where their parents work will do that. Don’t make them adults.  
The only time he was given a real job was when he was asked to watch over the pets.  
And if ponies treating him like a baby is no proof, how about the way the other dragons treated him? What did they call him, hatchling or something?  
The growth thing due to greed does bring some questions about how dragons age, but the fact that he turned into a mindless beast seems to say that it was not the natural way. But that’s not very clear, Spike is not the most in depth character, especially in the last few episodes.