well the style of hanging….is horrible….instead of the usual hanging where the trapdoor opens and you drop like 4 feet and your neck snaps…this form of hanging just has you writhing as you suffocate for….many minutes…thought it isnt the worst thing to happen…still not gonna be quick

@myszolowy
Hanging is the last part of the punishment. You’re forced to watch every M Night Shyamalan movie ever before being allowed that mercy!

@myszolowy  
I think it’s a “her”, not a “him”.

If death by hanging isn’t the worst thing to happen that day, does this mean that they won’t let him die and will do something worse later?

@Rainbow flame production  
Did you know that the reason behind the Salem witch trials is believed to have been a bunch of chicks tweaking the fuck out on acid-laced bread?

Salem anyone?

@Phantom Rider  
Yeah. Probably First Degree Murder or Attempted Assassination or being Convicted of being a Changeling.

@Background Pony #112C  
I still wanna know what her day has been like so far if getting hanged to death isn’t the worst thing to happen to her today.

Came here Because I clicked on a Link. Wait a sec, I’m the 64th Commenter!!!! Nintendo 64!!!!!!!!!!!

Brutal

You spend so much time dreaming of flight - wondering what it’d be able to be like to lift your hooves off the ground under your own power, and to soar… But you can’t. No matter how much you jump or try to flap with your arms, you just can’t get off flat ground for more than a second no matter how hard you try.
 
Then you spend your last moments, hooves off the ground, floating above the ground, struggling to reach the ground with all your being for just one more precious breath, but no matter how hard you struggle, you can’t reach the ground…
 
@P-Berry  
“I-I’d like t-to be able to keep b-breathing, more!…”

@Phantom Rider  
“Did you know that more than a dozen ponies per year are killed by falling coconuts? At least your death is somewhat dignified.”
 
“Hey, let’s put a smile on that face! Who knows, you might be reborn as a dog! You’ll be able to lick your own genitals! Doesn’t that sound exciting?”

What I want to know is just what kind of a day you’re having if this isn’t the worst part of it.

@Background Pony #2A0F  
“Chin up. Sure it’s going to be a bumpy ride, but… You’re going somewhere much nicer than this place.”
 
“For millenia ponies have wondered if there’s really an afterlife… You’re about to solve the mystery as old as time itself!”

Executioners that cheer up and motivate someone shortly before killing them?
 
I like that idea.

@Background Pony #AB58  
Also, one of the main appeals to this method of execution is that it doesn’t turn the body into a pile of lasagna. If you’re not a fan of mutilation, hanging is a great execution form.

@The CLaUD  
Anywhere from 5 to 15 feet guarantees a break. Could break at shorter depending on health of the victim and their weight and all.
 
Far less than a lethal fall, in any case.

@Background Pony #AB58  
You’re assuming that the height required to break a neck (in hanging) is the same as that of a fall, when, realistically, a neck could be snapped from a drop that’s shorter then you are.

@The CLaUD  
But surely if people were capable of getting high enough for neck snap to be possible, then making victims drop to their death was a valid option too?
 
Unless everyone thought that a neck snap is more satisfying than a loud THUD and lots of blood on the floor.

@The CLaUD  
But it’s not always. It depends on the society and such. The Romans crucified people. The U.S. tends to use lethal injection. Militaries typically use firing squads. Old England used a long enough drop to break the neck - but a lot of hangings throughout history weren’t enough to do that, and just killed by cutting off oxygen to the brain (whether that be by strangulation or stopping blood flow). Go back even further and even England did it that way - they just got more humane in later years and started breaking necks instead of slowly strangling/cutting off blood flow. That’s also how the Salem witches were typically killed.
 
Source 1  
Source 2  
Source 3 [Disturbing real images warning]  
Source 4  
“In the first place, it will cause death by strangulation, which was really the only cause of death in the old method before the long drop was introduced.” under “How Hanging Kills”
 
So Mars’ rendition is perfectly fine.

@Background Pony #AB58  
because buildings were barely a story tall0 in the times when hangings were a legitimate punishment, and having even one person standing on a thatched roof was just asking for trouble?
 
also,  
@Twilights-Secret  
I’m assuming Mars, like most people who are alive in .>current year, doesn’t actually realise this about hanging, and didn’t actually know that these factors would be required in a legitimate hanging, therefore, didn’t draw it 100% accurately. I would suggest suspending your disbelief slightly to allow for the creators lack of understanding to be corrected by your own. also, once again  
>See earlier conversation where we discus how hanging is meant to kill one by snapping their neck, not by asphyxiation, where someone ALREADY linked the table of drops.

@Twilights-Secret  
What I want to know is why even bother with trying to snap a neck if you’d basically get the same result with less effort by just throwing them off a building.

@The CLaUD  
Heh… “snaping” the neck… Severious Snape.
 
You need at least a few feet to snap a healthy neck reliably. You see the hangpony didn’t cut them any slack, so they’ll only drop a few inches. Unless the executee is super, super fragile, weak, old, what-have-you, this won’t break their neck.
 
Here’s the table of drops - how much drop was standard to issue to prisoners to break their neck in a hanging in England. The shortest drop on the table is 4’3.5”, or 131 cm. Looking at how far the bottom of the changeling’s hooves are below the scaffold, and how much slack is in the pony’s rope, this is maybe a foot or two, tops. Definitely not more than half that distance for a reliable snap. Plus, “…in practice, however, the hangmen ignored this table and awarded considerably longer drops…” implies that you’d need an even longer drop for real reliability.
 
And if you notice a lot of values on the chart go pretty darn big. Even up to 10’ in one of them.
 
Sooooo… Some hangings are meant to break necks, others are meant to strangle/blood choke. This one is definitely meant to strangle, and has a very small chance of breaking a neck, if any chance at all.
 
Another thing to consider is tightness of the noose - see how it’s loose and all? That means that as she runs out of rope, it will tighten. The tightening doesn’t stop her all at once, though it does slow her down, thus cushioning her fall. In hangings where you really wanted to break the neck, you’d put the noose right under the chin so there’s no sliding room for it, and pull it so tight you’re almost choking them before they even hang. That way it’s got none of that cushioning and is a sudden, snappy stop (sliding against the neck offers resistance, but not a full stop, thus cushions the fall, as well, so for max chance of neck breaking it’s best as high as it can go. That’s a bit of an assumption, though, I may be wrong and the neck breaks easier lower down or something, but if it breaks just as easily anywhere, this seems to make the most sense - in fact, the vertebrae are smaller higher up, so it seems it’d be even more likely to break higher up because of that).
 
But this loose noose gives a lot of cushioning… Which, incidentally, is a good thing if you’re an innocent pony being hanged on changeling charges, so your neck doesn’t snap and after you stop kicking they might hopefully realize you’re not a changeling and cut you down.

@Twilights-Secret  
>See earlier conversation where we discus how hanging is meant to kill one by snaping their neck, not by asphyxiation.

OH MY GOSH! 4 Months later, because of some odd circumstances, it FINALLY occurs to me!
 
They’re both accused of being changelings! The other one either dropped their disguise, giving up the ruse, or changelings’ disguise drops when they go unconscious or die.
 
Unless she’s been standing there for about 5-20 minutes, it would be unconscious, not dead, though. Which is hopeful. It means that if you hang the wrong pony, then you’d know in a minute or three and be able to cut them down and probably save them. The downside of that is that’d mean they’d be less afraid to hang an innocent pony, since they’d know she’d be able to get out alive…
 
Unless the changeling just dropped their disguise before being hanged, or did it voluntarily before dying, but while hanging.