I believe that AB was concieved(Applejack and Big Macs mother that is) during Where The Apples Lie. Who else agrees?

I love theories of underlying messages…

@Lurks-no-More
 
Seems still really don’t get it, maybe they grew up in “perfect”* families, never had any friends with broken families and never thought of it before or something.
 
(no such thing as an actually perfect family, but some would be closer then others.)

your headcanon make my feel

@TexasUberAlles  
For some people, you can never spell things out too clearly.

I’m not sure it was really necessary to put text on this subtext; the episode pretty much already did that.

Exactly.

@amess  
headcanon accepted

Sums up my theory.  
That and she can’t stand to go through the trauma of losing yet another loved one.

@Background Pony #262B  
The writers didn’t have to say a word about the Apple parents. AJ’s behavior in this episode pretty much cements the notion that their parents are dead and she’s raising Apple Bloom like her own daughter. It doesn’t need to be spelled out; it’s right there in front of us.

the fact that AJ’s parents are more or less officially unofficially confirmed dead, aka dead until some writer changes that, puts this episode into a perspective I did not expect

The first part, although not unlikely, is getting a little more into headcanon and speculation territory since we don’t know how much A.B. remembers her mom (although A.J. certainly acts like a mom). The second part however, I think was almost certainly the case, at least to some extent. Even though it’s not talked about in the show, the fact that they lost their parents is by now pretty much that: a fact.
 
Then take that fact and have A.B. run off into a swamp with a filly-eating chimera and tell A.J. that she’s been gone for several hours and it may be too late. Horrible nightmare scenario for A.J. if I’ve ever seen one. If anything was ‘off’ for A.J., it was that she didn’t get even more clingy after all that was over, but her being afraid for AppleBloom, and going overboard with it wasn’t off in any way, IMO.

@Sirius-Face
 
Unbelieveable? ha! You should have seen my sister when I was younger. Before her life went to pot thanks to teen drama and all that shit, she was so over protective of me that I could literally put myself in Applebloom’s position and my sister in AJ’s and it would fit TO THE LETTER!

Actually yeah, I like this synopsis A LOT. It fits the episode quite well and if they were brave enough to tap this subject even more then this episode could have had A LOT more feels to it but as it is, it was a very good “feel good” episode.

@Sirius-Face  
yes, yes I do…she doesnt know about all the stuff the CMC do on a regular basis.

Yep, I thought that to myself like halfway through the episode and had to pause to reflect on how sad, but inspiring that is.

Calling it now - Applejack’s parents died in their sleep, and that’s why AJ was checking on her sister every 5 seconds.
 
But really, this episode was silly. You really think AJ is always this protective after all the shit the CMC get into? I know family is AJ’s thing, but this episode was so heavy handed in just one aspect of her personality that it came off really over done to the point of being unbelievable.

They were killed by A. Firebender.

@Cayne  
they were gunned down by some dirty forks.

@Background Pony #88DB
 
@Krek
 
‘Obviously’ this means Applejack inherited several hats from her parents.

@MeshGearFox  
Judging by her reaction I’d guess her parents were killed by a kitchen accident.

;_; muh feels
 
But seriously I do feel like they missed an opportunity to mention something about their parents.

Yeah, that was pretty much my interpretation. The show never outright said it but…
 
Although I’d take it a step further, hazard a guess that AJ’s parents were killed by a chimera, and think that maybe AJ wasn’t so much worried about losing Applebloom in a freak accident, but having Applebloom lose HER.

oh cmon you know why  

@Krek  
I honestly never saw anything that special about her hat in the first place.
 
That being said, if anyone wants to keep their headcanons, just pretend it was a one-off cartoon joke.