Some Highly General Thoughts About the Equestria Girls Universe · 7:08am Feb 21st, 2016
Some of my thoughts about the Equestria Girls universe:
(1) They aren't (very strictly speaking) Humans of the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens (ours). They are probably in Genus Homo, but they are dubiously species sapiens and certainly not subspecies sapiens. The obvious reason why this must be so is that they have skin, hair and eye color variation beyond what we see in our own kind. (They almost certainly call themselves by some name best translatable as "human," though).
(2) Given "1", this obviously isn't our worldline. There are other clues to this -- their culture doesn't seem to work precisely like ours (minor children are allowed much more liberty, they're more sexually-conservative regarding promiscuity but more tolerant of homosexuality, they have a monogram-equivalent of Cutie Marks, and clothing and technology styles are notably rather different). This actually frees fanfic writers to make up more details of their world and institutions.
(3) Obviously, they are not speaking in English or writing in the Latin alphabet, any more than are the Equestria Ponies. What we're hearing and seeing is all Translation Covention. Unlike in the case of the Ponies, though, their languages are probably phonemally-similar to real Human ones, since their anatomies are fundamentally Human.
(4) The Equestria Girls worldlines are strangely resonant to both Equestrian Earth (the one which has the Ponies) and to our own. There are many characters who have analogues between the Pony and Equestria Girls worlds; yet many aspects of their culture and society seem more similar to ours than to Equestria's. The similarity with Equestria is unexplained; in my Shadow Wars Story Verse, it is due to the synchronization caused by Avatars of Celestia, Luna, Cadance and Twilight Sparkle existing in both worldlines.
(5) Magic appears to work in the Equestria Girls worldline, but it is usually much weaker than is the case in the Pony world. This is probably for the reason given in the movie trilogy -- the Humanoid world is inherently lower-mana but is becoming more magical as Equestrian magic leaks through the Mirror Portal (it got a big surge from Twilight Sparkle's battle with Sunset Shimmer, and probably an even bigger one when Sci-Twi opened random portals, even though Sunset Shimmer soon sealed them.
I have further detailed thoughts on the Equestria Girls universe, but these are the ones which are not all that specific to the Shadow Wars Story Verse
Interesting thoughts.
Personally I imagine the ponies' adopted so much of human culture in the age of wonders, adopting some of their language habits isn't impossible.
3767865
Probably yes, especially through the Undying Ponies of Paradise Estate (and not just when they revealed themselves, but covertly in the times before that). But of course the language that they're speaking in modern Equestria probably is not mutually-comprehensible to that spoken in the Age of Wonders or even earlier in the Time of Extermination (though a linguist could probably trace the evolution). Millennia have passed; even if the Ponies are more culturally conservative than Humans, there'd be considerable linguistic change. I doubt that a modern Mandarin or Cantonese speaker could understand the Chinese dialects of 1500 BCE, for similar reasons.
3767865 But then, Megan was almost certainly from our worldline, or at least from one much more similar to ours than EqG. And over the millennia between then and the present day, any human linguistic influence would almost certainly have been drowned out by more Equine-native elements intruding. At least, there were almost certainly translation spells in effect both for Megan and Danny, and for Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer.
There also has to be at least some explanation as to why everyone is so chill about EXISTENCE OF MAGIC.
I mean really, it's a pretty big thing but no one in CHS seems to care too much.
3767947
That's an extremely good point. Yes, they're awed by the effects, but they aren't freaking out about it as much as I would imagine they would in our world. It's as if on some level they know magic is possible, but not how to do it or gain power for it.
Which means that I may have overestimated Sunset Shimmer's advantages in that respect in An Equestrian Gentlemare ...
3767875 You don't even have to go back that far. Look at how Old English works. Closest currently living version of it is the way the Amish speak amongst(wtf? That's a fucking word, Firefox.) themselves. Or in an episode of Sleepy Hollow where a lost colony pretty much randomly reappears in the 2010s and Ichabod Crane (who made a study of Old English linguistics) has to translate everything they say. It sounds fucked comparatively to modern English.
I agree with... exactly two of these, though. I don't think they're speaking an entirely different language, given that the countries (and presumably the languages) that gave birth to English and our current alphabet exist in Equestria. Namely France and Germany.
3767965
We don't know that these countries are really called "France" and "Germany," and we don't know how cognate their languages are to French and German. As evidence, the country called "Germany" doesn't exist in our timeline save as an English loan-word from Latin ...
... the country you're thinking of is Deutschland, in its own tongue!
3767970
"French" haute-couture, Fleur dis Lee, "Sacre bleu! Je parle Francais! [(exclamation that's essentially meaningless) I'm speaking French!" "Sister's speaking fancy" "Actually it's French."
And the whole Commander Hurricane = Alexander the Great thing.
3767965
I do think the Ponies are more linguistically conservative. Luna's original dialect is a thousand years out of date, but what she's speaking is being rendered as Early Modern English, not Old English. Early Modern English was spoken around 300-500 years ago -- it's what we think of as "Shakespearean" English. If she were speaking Old English, it would sound like "German" to us.
3767976
Yes, but the fact that they use the word "French" is meaningless. IMO their actual tongue would sound like complex whinnying; we couldn't render it well into any human language or alphabet. In other words, it's a Translation Convention: say "France" or "French" for [unpronounceable or semi-pronouncable noise].
Ironically, this issue first comes up in the very first clear work of science fiction in the English language, and in the exact same context -- sapient talking horses. One of the few words from it Jonathan Swift rendered has become famous in English, though it means two entirely different things now ...
... an ignorant barbarian, and
www.yahoo.com.
3767977 I agree with this point. To a point.
Linguistically to a point.
The point where I break is where your comment has very little if anything to do with what I said.
3767979 ... Ignoring their physiology as shown in canon. Nice.
3767980
I may have missed your point then -- on what specific issue do you disagree?
3767981
Physiology?
I'm saying that what we're seeing should be considered as dubbed into English. The scenes where they have them make horse noises is probably closer to their normal speech.
Look, if you watch a movie set in the Roman Empire, and everyone is speaking English, do you believe that the characters are supposed to be speaking English -- a language which hasn't even evolved yet? If they occasionally use some direct Latin words, but mostly speak English, are the characters really transitioning between English and Latin? Or is the movie shot in English because we wouldn't understand it if it was shot in Latin?
The term for this is a Translation Convention.
Now, the Humanoids of the Equestria Girls world could be speaking English. But they probably aren't, because they're not even our subspecies. They are probably speaking some language that would be easier for Humans to pronounce than any tongue of the Ponies, but it's almost certainly not English.
Consider this. If you watch the Show in France or Japan, would the characters be speaking English? No, they would be speaking French or Japanese. Why is English more "special" than French or Japanese in this regard.
It's not our Earth. Neither Equestria, nor Equestria Girls. It's some parallel world, very obviously.
3767985 No, because that would be ridiculous.
In order for English to exist, you need to take French and German and stew them together, then throw the result at the Anglo-Saxons to bake for a few centuries. The Earth ponies of the old country certainly seem Germanic enough, and the Unicorns very French. And their troubles could be caused by the lack of a shared language.
And then of particular interest is the choice of wreath given to Luna at the end of the series premiere. Any colors could have been chosen and the significance of the gift would be upheld and the implications would go away. What colors get chosen? Red and White. Roses.
Also as I glance aside I notice another jarring miscue. Luna's guilt has nothing to do with Celestia. She didn't betray Celestia. She's well aware of that fact. Her sole sin was allowing the Nightmare to inhabit and rule her.
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3767991
It would be an utterly-astonishing coincidence, to the point of absurdity, for the Equestrians or Humanoids to be speaking English. Hence, if they are, it can't be a coincidence.
Yes, I get the roses thing. Historical in-joke. On the other hand, that might coincidentally refer to something that also happened in their own history, rather than to the English War of the Roses with
Starks and LannistersYorks and Lancasters.Well, I assume in the SWSV that a long period of slow corruption and descent into madness preceded Luna's summoning a Night Shadow into herself. That's not the sort of thing you do because your sister borrowed your socks one time too many without asking, or something of that sort.
3767977 Is it though? Is it her original dialect?
Direct quotes doesn't seem to agree with it. She does speak. Repeatedly and at length, in the series premiere, and then again as her real self.
Methinks that Luna is having trouble containing her boisterous personality after 1,000 years in seclusion, and either Celestia's having fun at her or she's done studying on how she should comport herself in modern society. Leaning closer to Celestia having fun. 1,000 years ago, Canterlot didn't exist.
3767997
I know. I'm saying that Equestrian has probably changed slower than English, but the gulfs of time are analogous to ... well, actually, in the SWSV, Megan came to their world six THOUSAND years ago. That's the same period of time separating us from the Early Sumerians. And there have been at least four intervening Dark Ages -- the one between the Age of Reclamation and the Age of Wonders, the one caused by the Cataclysm, the one caused by the Coming of the Ice, and the one caused by Discord.
In vanilla canon, there's no Megan to teach anypony any English. Also, probably a less-catastrophic history.
How would you say that EqG Humanoids differ behaviorally from us red humans? Humans here act similarly to wolves and... wait a minute Dog!Spike is purple how did two divergent species develop such unusual coloration anyway.,. hmm, were the Humanoids and tamed, uh, Wolfoids simultaneously infected by some sort of benign virus that injected genetic code causing technicolour fur? Hooray for overthinking it!
3767970 As an aside, "French" could be more properly rendered as "Frankish"
3767998 Except it was jealousy that when standing too close to a sun like Celestia, your own light isn't easily seen. Bottled up, of course, because she loves her darling sister and didn't want to trouble her with her sorrow.
And then the comics showed in the Nightmare Rarity arc that such feelings create a nice place for the Nightmare to make its home.
3768000 And really, imagine how easily that troll could be pulled off.
"Is this really necessary, sibling?"
"Why yes! It's tradition!"
[TRADITIOOOON!]
etc etc
3768001 I dunno. Maybe I'm a different breed of overthinker. Instead of quibbling over useless details, just assume "There's probably a reason if I thought far enough back why it sounds remarkably similar to English." And then gloss over all that boring shit to stare at a civil defense siren and ask myself the implications of that device being a requirement in a farming town like Ponyville. (they're unpleasant.)
3768000
Well actually, no. Luna's original dialect was probably something utterly incomprehensible to most modern Equestrians, because Luna was probably already centuries or millennia old when she was banished.
In the SWSV, Luna's original dialect is a combination of Dream Valley Ponylandish, Amareican, and Tri-Tribal influenced Crystal-Imperial. The late dialect of Paradise Estate, and spoken nowhere else on Earth. Nowhere on Earth, after Discord destroyed Paradise Estate. Fortuantely, Luna also knew how to speak straight Crystal Imperial and Tri-Tribal.
Crystal Imperial gets rendered into my stories as a mish-mosh of Vulgar Latin and Greek Koine, as fits the role of the Crystal City as the Byzantium of its continent. Tri-Tribal, if I rendered it, would be something like Old English.
In between her fillyhood and her banishment, Luna listened to Tri-Tribal fission into local dialects during the Age of Discord, then evolve into Old Equestrian, which is the dialect she actually speaks when she forgets herself. She lapses into it a lot with Twilight Sparkle, because she trusts Twilight a lot, and she knows in any case that Twilight finds it fascinating. She also sometimes slips back into Tri-Tribal, such as when she says "leofling" ("beloved") to Twilight in Post-Traumatic
Note that in Twelfth Equestriad Interview, she speaks contemporary Equestrian. Except when she gets angry. Then she slips into Old Equestrian usages, such as "ward ye" for "protect you all." Of course, by this time, Luna has spent almost five decades in the modern world.
3768014 And that's all Babel to me.
3768010
It's easier to assume that the Show is a translation.
Oh, the civil defense siren? The town is right on the outskirts of a hell-forest. It's a settlement like the Israeli ones on the West Bank -- a firebreak in case of attack. I thought that was pretty obvious.
3768003
Well yes, I think that jealousy was a big part of it. But I also think that something else broke her, which is why her jealousy went from occasionally-annoyed-with-Celestia to I-must-overthrow-her! There is a hint in vanilla canon that the something else may have been Sombra; I run with it in the SWSV.
3768002
They're gentler, more independent as youths, and apparently less promiscuous. For starters.
3768029 I'd have to review my lore again, but I know there's nothing supporting this. Sombra showed up, went bad, Celestia and Luna were called in, ZAP, end of fucking story.
Canon itself just says "Yeah we have no idea how any part of the Crystal Empire works or who the hell Sombra is past 'He's a bad'" right in the season 3 premier.
Upon a short review, Rarity became vulnerable when Nightmare attacked her generosity, and the tipping point was her friends exclaiming that they didn't need her and never would. So for her it was simple Fear, and then it's the Nightmare that's responsible for everything following. You can always be Kind, Loyal, and Honest. Ponies will always Laugh. The Magic of friendship will always be a unison force. But Generosity? Not always needed or appreciated.
It's also explicitly stated in canon that it was simple Jealousy that she was not appreciated and revered to the standard that her sister was that made her vulnerable to the whispers of the Nightmare, until further snubs and the growing power fractured their friendship and allowed for a full takeover. Then Loony Moony was all about some hostile takeover action.
3768028 That nothing comes out of, everything being happily and safely contained by the Cervines.
3768038
No, canon says that Equestrians, even educated ones, don't know much about the Crystal Empire. Celestia and Luna know things that aren't in the general histories. A lot of things.
Part of this is that the Ponies have less initiative than do Humans, which is the downside of their greater cooperativeness and sociability.
3768043 No. It doesn't. Celestia divulges everything she knows about the Crystal Empire in the premiere. It takes zero time at all.
And I really wonder where you get the "ponies have less initiative than humans" from. It makes zero sense.
3768049
On Pony initiative:
(1) Twilight Sparkle has to research the existence of Princess Luna and Nightmare Moon, and she doesn't realize they're the same Pony. In a mere thousand years, their civilization has managed to forget about an immortal and super-powerful Alicorn who launched a terrifying rebellion which ruined their former capital.
(2) Celestia and Luna don't know much about the state of the Crystal Empire after a millennium in Limbo under Sombra. Obviously, they would have known a lot about it before Sombra took over. They would not know what specific knowledge might be relevant to Twilight on her quest, though, and they didn't have a lot of time to brief her.
(3) All through the series there is a lot of weird and dangerous stuff going on right beyond the zone into which Ponies venture. What this means is that most Ponies don't venture. They as a species and culture have less initiative than do humans. The Mane Six are very atypical in their initiative -- which is why they are heroes.
3768058
1. Propaganda and guidance by our illustrious leaders has lead our greater society to forget shit that happened fifty years ago. Nightmare Moon seems like prime "Shit society can safely forget about".
Spike: Mare in the Moon? But that's just an old ponies' tale. i.e. common knowledge.
Twilight Sparkle: Mare, mare... aha! The Mare in the Moon, myth from olden pony times. A powerful pony who wanted to rule Equestria, defeated by the Elements of Harmony and imprisoned in the moon. Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal!
2. Princess Celestia: There wouldn't be. Few remember it ever existed at all. Even my knowledge of the Empire is limited. But what I do know is that it contains a powerful magic. One thousand years ago, King Sombra, a unicorn whose heart was black as night, took over the Crystal Empire.
3. What? The Everfree Forest? The forest full of monsters that nobody who ever enters ever leaves, according to legend? Why the fuck would anyone in their right mind go in there at all? Humans in general don't venture very frequently either. My family hit North America in the 1600s, found the Pioneer Valley, set down stakes and never pulled 'em up.
3767977
This is because Celestia is immortal, and the ponies would ofc look to her as the living Rosetta Stone of their language. Celestia has no need to change the way she speaks, and as long as the ponies use her accent as their golden standard their language will not drift.
Hmmm. I wonder if the portal serves as a sort of translator. While she isn't speaking English on four hooves any more than she's speaking it as what's pretty much a micronized Zentradi, the not-English Twilight is speaking differs depending on location.
Bit of headcanon I haven't been able to divulge in-story: The humans seen in the movies speak a language they call Wranglish, whose name derives from the Wrangles, a tribe on the Bittish Isles who culturally merged with the natives of the Saxoneigh region to form the Wranglo-Saxons.
To this day, anthropologists of that world have debated why horse puns seem to permeate so many societies' place naming conventions.
I know, you go with something different. Still, if it's Canterlot High, it logically follows that the town is named Canterlot. Thus other place names would also be the same, or at least quite similar.
I like to thing it just cause the equestria girls is set in the same universe as doug.
3768000 Canterlot existed before the royal sisters arrived and were crowned, if the comics and The Journal of the Two Sisters are considered canon, and since the comics have been mentioned already in a context akin to canon, I think it's a safe bet.
3768648 The comics are non-canon.
3769067 While reading these comments, I got the impression that the comics are considered the same canon by the commenters on this blog post, otherwise why else would they have been mentioned?
There's also zero evidence from the show itself that suggests that Canterlot did not exist 1000 years ago, much like there is zero evidence that suggests that it did. Any interpretation other than that is a result of differing canons and headcanons.
3769067
If the comics are non-canon then everything you've said about the Nightmare is irrelevant. In show canon, there is no evidence that Nightmare Moon isn't Luna gone mad, and certainly Luna blames herself for everything Nightmare did. The only evidence that there's even such a thing as Nightmare Forces is from the comics, and frankly, the Nightmare Rarity arc, though an awesome idea, was a terrible, terrible comic. They pull the moon to Equestria? Really? Nightmare Forces sound amongst themselves like the "stupid, stupid rat-creatures" from Bone? All it takes to make Rarity crack is being upset that her friends don't seem to appreciate her?
No. Nightmare Rarity was an awesome idea with a truly terrible execution. If you're going to ignore parts of the comic canon, that's a great one to ignore, or adapt to one's own purposes.
As far as I'm concerned, personally, Luna opened the door and let the vampires in, and Nightmare Moon is not a separate entity but a separate personality. That is, she is Luna, but Luna with a set of emotional states and beliefs that are not rational and are heavily influenced by the Nightmare. There is no separate Nightmare running around trying to infect ponies; there are forces that dark magic invokes, which corrupt your mind and alter your perceptions so that doing things like making the night last forever sound like good ideas, and those forces may even be intelligent and deliberately seek to cause corruption. But it's not like being possessed by a demon; it's more like being corrupted by a demon. It's still you, just the worst you that you can be. And since in canon Luna blames herself, I think it's pretty clear that the intent of the show is not to say that Luna was completely innocent of everything that Nightmare Moon did.
3769717 I believe this is the first time I've been properly cowed. Yes mom, I'll be nice and stop snapping at people. I'll admit to floundering a little bit in my hubris.
3768058
Don't forget Luna's still on the flag the entire time!
It's like if the US somehow lost contact with 25 states for a millennium, and then was all surprised that there were 50, even though the flag did not change at all.
3768332 Mind blown! That totally fits! (I mean, other than the names, but translation convention, and we could be influenced by seeing the movies through an Equestrian POV, so someone named "Justin" would be like "Upright" because that's how it translates to Sunset and Twilight.)
3768071
That's an insightful point, and I agree with you that Celestia provides a lot of social leadership and hence renders their society more conservative in some ways. I also think that she deliberately encouraged forgetting about Luna and Discord, and in both cases for the same reason: they were beings whom she had loved and who had loved her, who had turned on her, and she found it really painful to talk about them.
Celestia is an anchor of morality and sanity in vanilla canon and to some extent in the SWSV as well, but my Celestia is often under a lot of emotional and psychological strain, and this sometimes shows. Thus the ill-considered Seraglio, and thus her tendency to sweep unpleasant history under the rug, where it may fester and need the efforts of future heroes to remedy.
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Professor Ashen Smirk has some points to make about that, though his blog doesn't update enough. I don't dare have him directly appear as a character in the SWSV because the writer's been very cagey about Smirk's true opinions and objectives, but he's shown enough that I have referred to him as a writer of controversial books -- for instance, in Twelfth Equestriad Interview he's famous enough that Moon Dancer realizes that Cutting Question probably read one of his books, IIRC.
In particular, what I am not sure is whether or not Smirk is a full-on Discordian rebel or a reformer who believes very strongly in intellectual honesty. In either case, he's a fascinating fellow.
3789450 Thanks for sharing the link.
Wouldn't it be simpler to simply invoke the Literary Agent Hypothesis/Recursive Canon? It's entirely possible that, if we treat the Equestria Girl movies as film adaptations of Twilight's human world adaptation as done by the ponies in Equestria themselves, it would easily explain the biological/cultural similarities Canterlot High verse share with Equestria and the differences with the real world as simply the ponies editing actual events as are required by the practicalities of the medium and censorship (I.E. "This Human world with its Human inhabitants and their weird bodies and culture are so confusing! Let's change it in the films to make it look more familiar to the pony audience and less disturbing to our sensibilities!").
Alternatively, the Canterlot High Human World was similar to RL Earth once, but Sunset Shimmer's prolonged presence induced the Paradox Effect mentioned in the IDW MLP comics, causing retroactive alterations to reality no one noticed that made that world much more similar to Equestria.
3801075
Those are both interesting ideas, but it's both easier and more liberating from a world-building POV to simply assume it's not our world to begin with.